The Crash

Mark remembered waiting at a red light. He had kept a careful distance between himself and the school bus ahead, not only so that he could see the traffic light around its bulk, but so he could avoid the inevitable cloud of diesel fumes when the light eventually turned green.

"Addison Grammar School" and a fancy crest were painted on its back. Mark knew the place. One of those elite private boarding schools for the children of the very wealthy. The school was only a couple of blocks from his apartment building and very near the university where he studied.

A high school boy in the back seat of the bus turned around and looked out at him through the rear window. He nudged his friend who turned to look as well. Mark's heart almost stopped when he saw the astonishingly handsome young man smiling back at him. The boy gave Mark a thumbs up, then gestured as if gunning a motorbike. Though Mark could not hear it, he could see that the boy was imitating the sound of a motorcycle.

"Oh wow!" he said to himself, but then Mark reminded himself that he had to get over this obsession with barely legal beautiful high school boys. He was less than three years out of high school himself, but he had found himself entangled with two extremes.

One was the young romantics who had found the love of their lives in Mark. They sent and expected flowers and cards and chatted constantly in WhatsApp, even while Mark was trying to study. They were intensely jealous if Mark even glanced at another guy or didn't reply to their messages within thirty seconds, and were thrown into chasms of heartbreak and despair when inevitably, Mark had had enough of them.

The other extreme were the virile young jocks who fucked like tornados and were ready for another go after ten minutes. They had not yet learned that half the pleasure of sex was the giving of pleasure to your partner. The sex was great, but they wouldn't even return his glance if he passed them in the street.

Mark remembered looking at the beautiful boy looking back at him from the back seat of the bus in front, trying to get him to gun his motorbike, and shaking his head.

"No Mark! No!" He said to himself.

Moments later, he was hurtling towards that bus back window. He remembered seeing the boys expressions change to horror and them jump out of the way.

He even remembered in slow motion colliding with the back of the bus, the window feeling soft as the laminated safety glass absorbed him but then repelled him. Then the seemingly endless fall to the ground accompanied by excruciating pain as inexplicably, his motorbike crashed down on top of him.

A women was kneeling beside him.

"Stay still, don't try to move. An ambulance is on its way."

A man's voice shouting,

"Stay on the bus! Stay on the bus!"

The women kneeling beside him giving instructions to a group of men who were wanting to lift the bike off of him, and she saying,

"Carefully, make sure it doesn't move him."

Another woman screaming hysterically

"I didn't see him!"

And someone reassuring her,

"It was an accident. These things happen."

Mark could hear the ambulance siren impossibly loud but never seeming to arrive or even come any closer.

"Are the boys OK?" He asked.

"What boys?" Asked the women.

"Bus!"

"They are shaken up a little but they are not hurt. Don't worry about them."

He felt suddenly that he was going to vomit. He tried to lift his arms to take his helmet off and nothing happened except intense pain. He vomited inside his helmet and passed out.

"One-two-three."

He was lifted by many hands onto a hard board and his head still inside his helmet, taped so he couldn't move it.

"I want to take my helmet off!"

"We can't risk moving you until we have checked out your neck and spine at the hospital."

"But I'm suffocating!"

"If you can speak, you are not suffocating."

"Arsehole!"

Mark didn't know if he had really called the ambulance paramedic an arsehole or he had just wished to.

"I've given you some morphine to help with the pain."

There was a reflection somewhere above him that was filled with flashing blue and red lights of ambulance and police cars and the red tail lights of cars in a traffic jam. The flashing colours swirled together and he passed out again.

He next regained consciousness inside a CT scanner. His helmet was gone. Medical Engineering was his major at university and he had studied a scanner identical to the one that was now slowly consuming him only a week before. He hadn't imagined that he would soon be inside one.

"You are lucky," said some moron purporting to be an ED doctor. "There is no sign of a head or spinal injury. Other than bruising, grazes and a few lacerations, your arms are your most serious injury. They are both badly broken and you will be going to surgery in a few minutes."

The foam blocks immobilising his head and neck were removed and he was able to sit up a little to look at his arms. They were both swathed in gauze and bandages but bright red blood was seeping through everywhere. He had broken his left arm twice and his right arm once in the past while playing rugby at school. After the third breakage a doctor had told him that he had delicate bones in his wrists and arms and that he was to avoid contact sports. He hadn't thought about the risks of riding a motorcycle.

He was wheeled into the operating theatre where he was questioned by the anaesthetist while two surgeons studied X-rays. Mark caught a glimpse of one of the images. He could see several breaks and major dislocations of the bones. As the anaesthetic took effect, he heard the younger of the doctors ask, "Can we save the left?"

The question must have been burnt into his consciousness because as soon as he woke in recovery, he looked down terrified that he might have lost one or both of his arms. All he could see was plaster from his armpits to his wrists on both arms. The plaster on his left arm nearly completely encased his hand, but he could see his fingers and he could move them. Weirdly, the fact that he could see and move both of his hands didn't immediately reassure him that his arms were still there. Each forearm was also surrounded by a stainless steel frame of rods oddly screwed together. He saw that several of the rods disappeared into his plaster casts, where he realised that they would be screwed to the bones in his arms.

A doctor appeared and squeezed each of his hands in turn.

"Do you feel that?"

"Yes."

"Much pain?"

"No, not really."

"There will be," said the doctor, imitating the voice of Yoda from _Return of the Jedi_. Mark didn't find it funny.

His bed was wheeled into a lift and then into the orthopaedics ward. There were three other beds in his room, but they were unoccupied. A nurse connected a machine to his drip pole, plugged it in and put a plastic bulb with a button on it into Mark's right hand.

"You are connected up to PCA machine. That is patient controlled analgesia. Don't wait for the pain to get too bad before you press the button. It will give you a shot of painkiller but it takes time to work and longer if you are already in pain. Don't worry, it won't let you overdose."

The drip line was connected to a needle in his foot and the nurse took his blood pressure by putting the cuff around his leg.

Another control was dangled from above within reach of his right hand. The nurse gave a long and unnecessary explanation for what each button was, nurse buzzer, bed controls, tv controls and then left. Only moments later, he had to press the button to call her back. He needed to pee. Only now did he realised he magnitude of his predicament.

She returned looking annoyed a moment later.

"I'm sorry, how can I urinate?" He said, using "urinate" to sound more formal. The nurse left without a word and returned with a bottle. She then used the control to lift his bed onto a sitting position. Mark's face was as red as a tomato. She pulled down his bed coverings and shoved the bottle under his robe. Mark was amazed that she had managed to position it perfectly without apparently looking at his cock and balls. Then she walked out saying "buzz when you are finished" as she left.

"How am I going to shit? How am I going to eat? I can't even wank!" He despaired to himself as the bottle filled.

Over the next week, he got used to it. A succession of young female nurses spoon fed him, lifted him on and off a bed pan, even washed him. They did it as discretely as possible. When they washed him they covered his genitals with a wash cloth and then lifted it all around the edges to clean what was underneath. They gave Mark the comfort that even though they had washed every part of him, he hadn't actually ever been seen naked.

Masturbating was something they could not help him with. Several times he had dozed off during the day and it had seemed like only a minute before he had had a highly sexual dream and cum. After a week there, he was over worrying about whatever the nurses thought of him.

He had visitors every day. Friends from uni, friends from the cafe he usually worked at on the weekends, his neighbours at his apartment building. His parents flew in from the country and were staying with his sister. They visited nearly every day.

He was able to get out of bed with the help of the bed tilting and bending controls, look out the window and sit in a chair, but he needed the help of the nurses to get up from the chair.

He was surprised by a visit by a group of students who had been in the bus. He immediately recognised among them the beautiful boy who had been in the back seat and who had been looking back at him. An older man, apparently a staff member of their school, stood near the door watching but not speaking.

They mainly spoke about the accident. When the light had gone green, a woman driving a large four wheel drive with a bull bar, and who had been waiting next behind Mark's motorbike, had moved forward too quickly. The bull bar had somehow caught the back wheel of Mark's bike as he accelerated and catapulted him into the back of the bus.

Mark explained all his injuries and which bones had been broken in his arms and wrists. The beautiful boy seemed shy and worried and didn't say much. His friend did most of the talking, though Mark could hardly keep his eyes off the boy.

He had black hair cut short around the sides but with beautiful long bangs at the front the fell across his astonishing dark green eyes. Mark could not remember seeing eyes so beautiful. He was lean and muscular and wore a green T-shirt that hugged his body and matched his eyes. He had a mouth-watering bulge in his faded blue jeans and a nice tight arse.

The conversation died and the man at the door suggested that they leave. They all filed out, but a moment later the boy came back alone.

"Sir," he said, "I am really sorry about what happened. I wish I had not played around with you like I did."

Mark could tell from his voice that he was a country boy. He spoke slowly with a slight drawl. His voice was much deeper than Mark had expected from a boy his age but still had its sexy young timbre.

"Hey, don't call me "sir", I'm Mark. What's your name?"

"Evan."

"Well Evan, don't worry about it. It wasn't anything to do with you."

"Thanks Mark. I still feel bad about it."

It seemed to Mark that Evan was about to leave.

"God your eyes are amazing! You are not wearing contacts are you?" he asked a little desperately.

Evan blushed.

"No. People say my eyes are my best feature."

"Well I haven't seen all of your features, so I can't judge," flirted Mark outrageously while glancing at Evan's bulge.

Evan blushed again and looked at the floor but he couldn't hide a smile.

"So how old are you Evan?"

Evan looked back directly into Mark's eyes.

"I'm eighteen, my birthday was last week." He smiled and winked at him then turned for the door.

"I have to go. They are waiting for me. See you later Mark."

He walked out, glancing back just as he went out of sight, smiling wickedly.

Mark was shocked and delighted into silence. It had been a long time since he had been out-flirted. Of course the legal age in Australia, even for gay sex, had long been sixteen, but due probably to the influence of American popular culture, eighteen still had a certain symbolism.

He found himself speculating about what kind of boy Evan might be. A romantic or a tornado. He had a nice athletic body but didn't seem like a gym junky. He had a deep masculine voice and a hint of dark stubble at his sideburns where he had inexpertly shaved. He had perfect country boy manners and seemed a little shy, but in his current state, Mark came down on the side of wishing for a tornado.

Mark had had a number of X-rays on his arms. He was booked for surgery twice but then it was cancelled as the doctors believed his bones were not healing as fast as what they would have liked.

Finally and unexpectedly he was taken to surgery early one morning before he had had breakfast. He returned hours later. His arms were newly plastered but the stainless steel pins and bolts were gone. The plaster on his right arm was only up to the elbow and he could bend it a bit.

A nurse came in to take his blood pressure.

"Your parents and your friend Evan were here. I told them you were in surgery."

"Oh. Was he alone?"

"Evan? No, I said he was with your parents."

The nurse was one of those easily annoyed, impatient and apparently very busy but Mark could often hear her voice gossiping with the other nurses for hours out at the nurse's station.

Even though he was not long back from surgery, Mark was hungry and restless and his mind was suddenly filled with thoughts of Evan. He painstakingly got out of bed and walked to the window. He could see nearby the sandstone towers of his university. The hospital he was in was actually attached to it. Just beyond it, he identified the clock tower of Addison Grammar.

"What day is it?" He asked the nurse who was now returning with his belated breakfast.

"Tuesday," she said, as if Mark was an imbecile. He wondered how Evan had managed to get out of school on a Tuesday morning. He sat in the chair beside the bed but the nurse left the breakfast tray on the table and left, forgetting that he needed help eating. Mark however found that with the new flexibility in his right arm, he could get the scrambled egg onto his fork and move his head down to eat from it. It was awkward but he was very happy that he could feed himself again.

In the afternoon his mother was back alone. Mark was still in the chair and had been reading.

"Your father had to fly back home to meet with one of his clients. By the way, we didn't know you are friends with Evan, it's a small world isn't it?"

"Oh! Yes! Isn't it. Um..., how do you know him?"

"Gary Lewis introduced us to his sons at a party last summer at his house. He is one of your father's biggest clients. You should have seen Evan when he walked in here earlier. He looked like a rabbit caught in headlights he was so surprised to see us. Anyway he kindly offered to buy us coffee and we sat in the cafeteria until a nurse came to tell us that you wouldn't be back from surgery for hours. Evan said he had to be back at school so he left."

Mark had never met Gary Lewis but he certainly knew of him. Lewis was one of the biggest wine producers in the country and so Lewis Wines was a household name. He had pioneered the mechanisation of grape harvesting. Mark's father owned a business that sold and leased heavy agricultural machinery to the farmers in the central tablelands. It was a business he had inherited from Mark's grandfather, but the import and supply of the computer controlled, laser guided grape harvesters and other types of high tech machinery had boosted the family business from a marginal tractor sales business to great successes.

"How do you know Evan?" Asked his mother.

Mark was suddenly confused. For a moment he felt as if he needed to say something to protect Evan's reputation but then he decided the truth was best, however he saw that his momentary hesitation had affected his mother. Her expression had become serious, if not stern.

"It was purely by chance. Bad luck actually. Oh I don't mean him. I mean it was the bus. The bus I was pushed into was a bus from his school, Addison Grammar School over there," Mark gestured towards the window, but his mother didn't change her serious expression or glance away.

"A group of students from the bus came to visit me a few days ago. I suppose it must have been Saturday. It is so easy to lose track of time in here. Anyway, Evan was one of them and that is when I met him."

Mark had been out as gay since he was thirteen. He had told his parents and his friends as a matter of simple fact, not expecting or even caring about what reaction the news might have. Initially, his parents had not believed him but it slowly soaked in. His mother and father had accepted him, but he knew that they didn't really understand or accept "it". He had heard his father at a party lie about him when talking with a small group of his clients, even though just about everyone at Mark's school knew that he was gay, so it was hard to imagine in a place like Mudgee that the news hadn't spread widely.

The teachers and eventually the principal at his high school heard about it and he was called into the principal's office. Mark went to a State high school in the large country town, however it was very progressive, mainly because of the work of Mr. Andrews, the principal. The school was the top performing non-selective State school in the state. Andrews became ecstatic when his students were ranked more highly in year twelve final exams than students from the selective wealthy private schools.

"Take a seat please Mark."

"Thank you Mister Andrews."

"There is a rumour floating around the school that you are gay. Is it true?"

"Yes."

"What has been the reaction from your friends, the other pupils or teachers here?"

"Oh... I don't know."

"What do you mean? Has anyone teased you or bullied you because of it?"

"No. I don't think so."

"Well I want to know about it the moment anyone does. I know you don't like bearing tales but I want everyone at this school to feel accepted and comfortable here. Don't let anyone tell you that there is anything wrong with being gay. This school supports and accepts you without reservation."

"Ah.. Thanks Sir."

"You may go."

Mark had been a little stunned by the principal's reaction. He hadn't noticed much of a reaction when he had told his friends or even his parents. A week later, everyone in the school had to watch an anti-bullying movie that had a strong emphasis on LGBT youth. Mark remembered seeing the same movie in the previous year and wondered what had triggered its showing last time.

But not long after Mark had moved to an apartment in the city when he started university, his mother had visited unexpectedly. The lift doors had opened just as Mark was kissing a guy goodbye at the door of his apartment. His mother had been clearly shocked. Later she said,

"He is a bit young isn't he?"

"No, he's legal," Mark had replied without thinking, making things infinitely worse.

Now at the hospital, Mark could see his mother putting two and two together about Mark and Evan and coming up with well over four.

"Be very careful with Evan Lewis. You know if you put Gary off side, he could ruin your father's business."

"Really mum! I hardly know Evan. I've only met him that one time!"

"I'm just telling you to be careful and don't rush around like a bull in a china shop as you always do, oblivious of other people's feelings. And by the way, we had a long chat with Evan over coffee, so don't try to pull the wool over my eyes."