KC, at Bat

The Beginning

Hello, Mary Lou

The first lesson he'd learned was that he would be spending the entire summer after graduating high school answering to the name Buddy. His birth certificate, Social Security card, driver's license, all the official documentation of his existence, still confirmed his identity as Charles Beresford. But no one on the crew wasted any time or effort trying to remember if he went by Charlie or Chuck or Chad. Or Bill or Mike or Dave, for that matter. He was beneath contempt, the lowest of the low, the worst possible brand of sausage, their name for the high school and college kids who swelled their ranks during the peak moving season for a restless nation in search of better opportunities and friendlier climates. Meat, that's all they were. Dead meat, if they slowed down the job or otherwise screwed up.

"Buddy, what the fuck am I supposed to do with you?" the dispatcher sputtered when Charlie appeared at his desk at precisely six in the morning the first Monday of June. An emergency phone call was placed to Mr. Ryan of Ryan Allied Van Lines, who immediately put to rest any doubts about young Mr. Beresford's suitability to spend the summer on the crew of one of his moving vans.

"I don't give a fuck if he wipes your ass and holds your dick while you take a piss, just find something for him to do,'' he shouted at his dispatcher, not knowing, or caring, that his bellowing voice could be heard by anyone in reasonable proximity to the dispatcher's speakerphone, including one Charlie Beresford.

"Wait till he gets the fucking bill for your worker's comp claim," the dispatcher grumbled, resigned to carrying out the boss's orders. "He'll be singing a different tune then."

"What worker's comp claim?" Charlie meekly inquired.

"The one you'll be filing after two hours on the fucking job."

The dispatcher's reluctance to assign Charlie to a crew was nothing compared to the open revolt by the drivers, who balked at any attempt to saddle them with a hundred-fiftyfive- pound scarecrow constructed of toothpicks and rubber bands. They threatened an uprising, objecting to being forced to carry human deadweight, but the dispatcher quickly laid down the law, crushing the revolt by six forty-five a.m.

"The next one of you assholes who bitches about the kid gets the methadone clinic job in Arbor Hill. So do I got any volunteers who want him for your crew?"

Apparently even a day with Charlie Beresford was preferable to hauling filing cabinets out of dingy clinic offices, listening to verbal abuse from the clients, and needing to put a full-time guard on the truck to ensure that everything that couldn't be locked down wasn't pilfered. Four drivers swallowed their pride and offered Charlie a place on their crews. The dispatcher pulled him aside for one last word of advice before sending him on his way.

"I'm putting you with Bruno. He's a mean, dumb Polack, but he won't let you break your back your first day out. You'll put on some muscle by July if you live that long. Until then, stick to packing and cleaning the shit out of the basements and attics. Think you can handle that, buddy?" he asked, grinding a Marlboro Red between his teeth.

It had been nearly four months since the night Larry Coleman, Charlie's best friend since sophomore year, overcame his skittish nerves, his courage fortified by a half bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill, and asked Charlie if he would think he was some kind of freak if he admitted that he liked Charlie more than as just a friend. When Charlie didn't respond by punching him in the face, Larry confessed he thought Charlie was the handsomest boy he'd ever seen, as good looking as that dude from The Strokes, and that it was getting harder and harder to resist the urge to grab him by the shoulders and kiss him so hard their teeth would rattle, just like Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain.

Sweet, fruity wine and adolescent libidos being a deadly combination, Charlie had willingly succumbed to Larry's physical advances, though their frenzied, awkward gropes and grunts (Charlie actually caught the skin of his own scrotum in the teeth of his zipper) seemed more like the antics of the suburban nerds in Superbad than the epic legend of soul crushing passion between a pair of exquisitely beautiful Wyoming cowboys. Still, it was reassuring for Charlie to discover there was at least one person who thought he was attractive, that, indeed, at least Larry Coleman found him worthy of being loved. And even if Larry, with his thirty eight- inch waistband and benzyl peroxide–resistant back acne, wasn't the type of boy that Charlie fantasized about when he reached for his pecker to wank himself to sleep, he was the only other upperclassman at the Augustinian Academy for Boys whose favorite new band was The National and who appreciated the unparalleled genius of Thurston Moore and Sonic Youth.

Larry Coleman, despite his physical shortcomings, happened to be a great kisser with a natural instinct for poking his tongue into the deepest recesses of Charlie's mouth. Larry was learning how to give a decent blow job, too, after gagging the first few times when Charlie, despite his best intentions, was unable to hold back until Larry could take it out of his mouth. Charlie was less enthusiastic about satisfying Larry's physical longings and would roll on his back and doze off the minute he climaxed, not even offering a helping hand as Larry beat off. Once he even yelled at Larry for coming on Charlie's belly instead of on the bedsheets. But Larry didn't seem bothered by the distance Charlie insisted on maintaining, assuming that whatever they had together was meant to last forever. He'd even MapQuested the shortest route between Syracuse University, where they'd both been accepted for early admission, and Hanover, New Hampshire, the site of Dartmouth College, which had recently notified Charlie he'd jumped from the wait list to the rolls of the incoming freshman class.

Charlie's good fortune meant Larry would need to find a new roommate at Syracuse come fall. But they still had all of June and July and a few weeks of August sharing a tent as counselors at Algonquin Peak Summer Camp, a rustic sanctuary costing the parents of the Upper East Side and Westchester County a hefty ten thousand dollars a season to provide their privileged sons and daughters opportunities to, according to the brochure, "strengthen athletic abilities, cultivate artistic talents, and learn important character-building lessons while building self-esteem." Larry, a gifted doubles tennis player despite his girth, had been on the staff since he was fifteen; he'd gotten Charlie a gig when the guitar instructor unexpectedly notified the owners he wouldn't be available to return this summer, the rumor being he'd been busted for selling pot to the underclassmen at his New England boarding school. But Larry's best-laid plans for their unforgettable passage to manhood were swiftly derailed after Charlie's mother finally consulted the family doctor when the lump she'd been ignoring under her right armpit finally left her unable to lift her arm above her head. She'd insisted the family sit down to pork chops and mashed potatoes that evening, that grace be said, and Charlie keep his elbows off the table. But even his precocious little sister, Madeline, sensed something was different, off-kilter, a pall settling over the table despite their mother's best efforts at business-as-usual.

"Madeline's asking you a question, Paul," Charlie's mother informed her distracted husband, her voice more snappish than she had intended.

The berry pie was store-bought, not homemade, final confirmation that all was not right in the Beresford household. Charlie's mother told her children to sit up and pay attention. She had something to tell them. She had to go into the hospital. Her sister had offered to come stay at the house, but she thought they could make do on their own for a couple of days. Charlie could look after Madeline; neither of them were babies, after all.

"Now I want both of you to listen to me," she announced as they pushed the blueberry filling around their plates. "Your father is a worrywart, but I promise you that everything is going to be fine."

More to come...

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