JiminQueens2's blog

The reception hall was crowded and dimly lit. Some two hundred middle-aged men and women were milling around, drinking, talking, reminiscing. It was Charlie Simpson Memorial High School’s Class of 1986 thirty-year reunion, and the party was in full swing. Shrill screams of “Donna!” and “Judy!” and lower-pitched calls of “Tom, you old son of a gun!” and “Keith! Buddy!” were echoing back and forth around the hall. Old friendships that somehow had fallen by the wayside were being rekindled, and a good time was being had by all—aided, of course, by the open bar.

Over by a wall of ceiling to floor windows that, during the day, would provide a fantastic view of the beach beyond the terrace, two men didn’t share in their peers’ boisterous revelry. Both men were well-built and trim, with obviously solid muscle visible even under the well-tailored suits they wore. They were looking hard at each other, as if trying to reconcile the face in front of them with a face they had known thirty years before.

Finally, one of them spoke up. “Johnny Lopez?”

“Ryan Spagnola?”

Identification had been achieved; the two men relaxed. Smiling, they stepped forward and exchanged a firm handshake. “It’s good to see you again, man,” Johnny said. He had dark hair liberally streaked with white, dark eyes, high cheekbones, and a strong chin. “I haven’t seen you since we graduated—at least, I think I haven’t. You didn’t make it to the last couple of reunions, right?”

Ryan shook his head. If there was any gray in his flaxen hair, the contrast wasn’t enough to see it in the dim light. His features, thirty years before, could have been described as “boy next door”. “No,” he said sourly. “My wife didn’t want to. She absolutely hated her high school experience and she didn’t or wouldn’t understand why anyone would even tolerate theirs, much less like it. But since she’s now my ex-wife, thank God, I thought ‘what the hell’ this time around.”

“Good for you,” Johnny smiled. “And I hope I’m not out of line, but congratulations on losing the dead weight.”

“Not out of line at all,” Ryan smiled back. “And thank you. What about you? Is your wife here?”

The smile faded from Johnny’s face. Mutely, he held up his left hand. Even in the dimly lit room, Ryan could see that the band around his ring finger was solid black. “Oh, man…I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you,” Johnny said. “It was a while ago. It still hurts, but it doesn’t hurt as badly as losing her did.”

“Let’s grab a beer,” Ryan suggested, “then go out to the terrace and catch up.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

The two men made their way to the bar, where the harried bartender quickly poured them two drafts on tap and didn’t even wait for a tip. They made their way to the terrace exit. It was a little chilly outside, being so close to the water, and only a handful of people were braving the cold. But neither man showed any signs of discomfort, and soon they were leaning over the railing, sipping their beers.

“So what have you been up to the last thirty years?” Ryan asked.

“Construction,” Johnny answered. “Started with a company right out of high school, and I’ve been with them ever since. The old man finally made me his partner about ten-twelve years ago. You?”

“Congratulations! I’m in sales, so I travel a lot. It’s more a pain in the ass than it used to be, though – loved it when I was in my twenties and thirties, and even a few years ago. Don’t know what’s changed.”

“Maybe because up until a few years ago, I’m guessing, your ex wasn’t your ex?” Johnny said slyly.

Ryan stared at him, then began to laugh. “Dude. That’s it. That’s got to be it. You are a fucking genius.” He paused, then continued, “But then, you were always one of the smart kids. Straight-As, honor roll, all of it. What made you go into construction instead of going to college?”

“Money”, Johnny said bluntly. “And not money as in ‘I’m making more than I would have if I’d become a lawyer or an investment banker or some shit like that’. Money as in, ‘I was absolutely broke and completely on my own and I needed to find a job fast if I didn’t want to be homeless’.”

“What do you mean, ‘on your own’ and ‘homeless’? What happened to your parents? Did they kick you out or something?”

“Nothing happened to them, and they didn’t kick me out, I left.” Johnny took a long swig of his beer and stared out at the darkened beach for a long minute, while Ryan forced himself not to push. Finally, Johnny decided to tell all. “When I was eighteen, some money that my grandfather had left for me in trust came to me outright. It was just enough to pay the first three months rent on a basement apartment on the other end of town from where my parents and I lived. So at my birthday party, I announced that I was moving out and that I would never speak to them again.”

Ryan choked and gagged as the beer went down the wrong pipe; he started coughing and spluttering. When he finally gained control of himself, he asked, “But…why? What did they do to you?”

“Religion,” Johnny said bitterly. “And not the ‘do unto others’ type of religion. Not even the ‘go to church on Sunday and keep your nose clean the rest of the week’ kind of religion. The ‘pray every day, have as little contact with the outside world as possible, and turn the other cheek because yours is the Kingdom of Heaven’ type of bullshit. If it weren’t for the fact that there were nine of us and my dad didn’t make anywhere near enough money to send us to religious school—because God forbid Mama should work outside the home—we wouldn’t have gone to public school.”

“Was that why you never tried out for any of the teams?” Ryan asked. “None of the clubs, either, now that I think about it?”

“Exactly,” Johnny said. “My parents wouldn’t let me. I had to come straight home from school, every day, without fail, and forget having any friends over. I was never allowed to have friends, even though I got along with pretty much everybody.” He smirked, and added, “Except you, of course.”

Ryan grinned ruefully. “Yeah, I did kind of give you a lot of shit, didn’t I?”

“You certainly did. Almost every day for the better part of three years.”

“And you just took it. That was what I couldn’t understand. I would say shit to you, even shoved you once or twice, but you just took it and didn’t respond.”

“Like I said, religion.” Ryan winced at the level of bitterness in Johnny’s voice. “All that ‘turn the other cheek’ bullshit. My parents drilled that into me nonstop from the time I was five years old, and it made me literally incapable of standing up for myself. And I hated your guts, not only because you kept picking at me every damn day, but because it was for something I didn’t even do.”

“I don’t even remember what it was,” Ryan said.

“You came up to me one day in ninth grade and said if I called you ‘Fag-nola” again, you’d beat the shit out of me,” Johnny told him. “I had absolutely no idea what you were talking about. Not only wouldn’t I have said something like that about you, but I didn’t even know what a ‘fag’ was at that point. But Jesus fucking said turn the other cheek, so for almost three years, ninth grade, tenth grade, most of eleventh, with you picking at me the whole time, I kept turning it and turning it.”

“Oh shit, now I remember,” Ryan gasped. “It was in the second floor boys’ room. I’d gone in to take a piss and splash some water on my face because I wasn’t feeling so hot, and you were already in there. And we just stood there, staring at each other.”

“And before I could remember my parents or Jesus or any of that religious shit, I challenged you to a fight after school,” Johnny said.

“And I immediately told you that you were going to lose real fast,” Ryan smirked.

“And I told you that I was going to make you cry in front of the whole school,” Johnny smirked back.

“And then fucking Old Man Hartigan had to come into the bathroom and we had to pretend nothing was happening.”

“I literally could have killed him for that, I remember.”

The two men were laughing, but there was an odd undercurrent to their laughter now. It was as if they both realized that something important was unresolved between them that needed to be set to rights.