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| Part 1 by Richie Rich used by permission from Men On The Net |
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| Sitting in the first period math class this Monday morning, I was intently taking in the images of my fellow class mates, summing each and every one up in a lustful eye. To my left was Louis, a cute Italian boy, in front of him was Pete, who also had Italian blood, but not to the extent that Louie had. I noted that Butch was not in his seat this crisp November morning. A pity as Butch was the one boy that I enjoyed undressing with my eyes the most. A tall, thin blonde, Butch was German and Irish decent. "Oh well" I thought as the teacher started his lecture on the finer points of algebra. I split my attention between the teacher and the other hot studs in the class. Before I realized it, class was dismissed, and I stuffed my books into my canvas backpack and headed outside to the smoking area to draw a Marlboro before my next class. "Hey Rich!" I turned to see Pete heading my way. "Did you hear what happened to Butch?" He asked with a serious look on his face. "No, what happened?" I questioned him back, not liking the words of Pete's question. "A group of us were playing Frisbee on Saturday over at Paul's house." Pete dragged on his cigarette, blew the smoke into the air and continued with a serious demeanor. "Well, Johnny Watkins threw the Frisbee really high, and Butch started chasing it without watching where he was going. Before he knew it, the disk was on the ground and Butch was airborne, got smacked square by a Ford pick up truck moving at about 40." "Geeze, Pete, is it serious?" I asked with a huge knot forming in the pit of my stomach. "Well, he's over in Memorial Hospital for the time being. He'll be all right, but he fractured both arms--one at the wrist, the other half way up to the elbow." Pete continued to fill me in on the gruesome details as we headed back into the school for our next round of Senior tutorial torture. "That really sucks" was all I could muster out of myself without allowing my true, hurting feelings being brought to the surface. Guys are expected to be emotionless, or so I thought at the time. Inside, however I was wracked with sympathy for the one boy in school that I wanted to taste more than all of the others combined. "I'm not doing anything after school, Pete, do you want to ride over to Memorial to see him?" I asked. "Gee, I really wish I could, but my mom wants me home right from school this afternoon, we have to drive up to my aunt's place for dinner" was Pete's reply. "That's cool man, I think I can manage on my own" I said. At this point we headed to our respective class rooms and bid each other a good day. My day was anything but good from that point on, worrying about poor Butch and his predicament. Walking into a hospital always gave me the creeps. I don't know whether it is the smell, the sight of all the equipment in the hallway, the constant PA announcements, or a combination of all of these factors. Making my way to the visitor's service desk, I found out that my buddy, and lust object, was in room 302-A. The elevator ride seemed to take forever, but finally the doors swished open to reveal the third floor, Orthopedics wing. Taking a deep breath, I screwed on the best smile I could manage to fake, and stepped confidently into room 302-A. There was Butch, laying in the hospital bed, both arms in casts, and an IV tube running under the covers, obviously tapped into his leg. His face brightened when he spotted me coming through the door. "Rich!" He exclaimed, "How white of you to come over here!" Well, at least his sense of humor was not too far away I thought. "How are you feeling, Crash?" I asked, feeling relieved already with the knowledge that he was awake, and wise cracking. "I feel pretty good compared to the last two days." Butch replied with a growing smile "But I am at quite a loss without my arms" he said, gesturing to the encapsulated arms that lay on his chest. "I can see that!" I exclaimed with a hint of pity in my voice. "How long do you suppose you will be stuck in the hospital?" I asked. "The doctors are pretty sure that I don't have any internal injuries, and no concussion." "They say if all goes well, I can be out of here by Thursday" Butch retorted. I took a seat next to the bed and visited with my broken buddy for about 45 minutes when his dinner tray arrived. "This should be interesting." I thought to myself, "How on earth can this poor guy feed himself?" I got my answer as a nurse's aide entered the room and proceeded to feed Butch his meal as he was an infant. At this juncture I felt it was time for me to take my leave. Bidding a farewell, and a promise to visit him at home over the weekend, I took my leave of the hospital. "What a way to have to spend a long time of ones life." I thought as I started the motor of my Mustang and wheeled out of the parking lot for the 10 minute drive home. Saturday morning I stepped out of the house into a warm, sunny fall day. I debated whether to take my car or just walk the three blocks to Butchie's house. I decided that since the weather was so nice, and knowing that it wasn't to last much longer, I strode down the driveway and turned left for the short stroll to the Farmer home. Almost all of the leaves have fallen from the trees, and the unusually warm day seemed so odd without them. Before I realized it I was standing at the door to the Farmer residence. I rang the door bell and in prompt fashion the door swung open reviling Mrs. Farmer's smiling face. "Good morning ma'am." I smiled to the mother of my buddy "I'm here to see how Butch is coming along." "Rich, I am glad you stopped by" Mrs. Farmer replied, "It seems that few of the neighborhood kids have any time for my son since his accident, I can't imagine that." The brown hairdo lady of 40 or so mused as she closed the door behind me. "He's up in his room brooding, I am sure that you will be quite welcome." I walked up the stairs to Butchie's room and tapped lightly on the door. "It's not locked" Butch's voice rang through the door. I twisted the knob and looked to see my pal sitting in a bean bag chair, with a college football game on the tube. "How are you feeling, buddy?" I asked, as I took the chair from his desk and sat next to the blond boy. "I am sure glad to be home, but it seems as if every hour I discover that there is something that I can't do." Butch reported. He went on to tell me all about the hospital stay and the fella they put into the bed next to him a couple of hours after I left last Monday. The conversation would die down every ten minutes or so, and the football game became the focus of attention for a few minutes. After about an hour and a half Mrs. Farmer tapped on the door and entered the room. "Boys, I have to run out to the store and the bank and a few other places. Rich, would you mind staying until I get home, maybe three hours or so?" She asked "I do not yet feel comfortable leaving Butch home alone in this condition." I agreed to stay as long as it took, and encouraged Mrs. Farmer to take her time, and maybe stop somewhere and treat herself to lunch. After all, this past week had been extremely hard on the lady. "That's so very thoughtful of you, I think that I may just do that" She replied as she headed back into the hall and into her room to get her things. Mrs. Farmer, I thought, had to be a strong lady having all of this going on less than a year after her husband passed away from a heart attack. Yes, quite a strong lady I thought as I watched her from the window as she climbed into her Chevy wagon and backed out of the drive way and made her way around the corner. "Finally!" Butch exclaimed, "Mom is a great friend and has been quite attentive of all of my needs and wants, but she has been hovering over me all week." I snickered at this statement and could imagine what he was feeling. "So, while the cat's away, the mice should play" I said with a sly grin, "What would you like to do first during your first few hours of mom-less-ness?" "Well, for starters you can give me a cigarette!" Butch said, his eyes lighting up. I pulled out two cigarettes from my pack and lit them both, taking one and placing it between the pink lips of this fella that couldn't even light a smoke on his own. "There is an ashtray in the bottom drawer of my desk" Butch advised with one eye half closed, protecting itself from the blue smoke rising across his smooth face. I retrieved the ashtray from the desk, and while doing so, noticed that this drawer must be Butch's stash area. I noticed that there were a few pieces of teen contraband in there. In addition to the ash tray there was a pack of E-Z wider rolling papers, a few beat up copies of Penthouse magazine, a small pot pipe, and what I thought was a tin of Vaseline. I couldn't be sure because the ash tray was on top of the magazines, and all of the other stuff was below the magazines, as to be hidden from view. I certainly didn't want to snoop in the drawer with him sitting just a few feet away. The casts on Butch's arms were of the plaster type, and were molded to hold his arms at a 90¡ angle at the elbow. When he attempted to reach for the cigarette in his lips, his fingers landed on his cheek, just a few inches from the mark. I positioned the ash tray below his chin, and lightly tapped on the cigarette allowing the ashes to fall neatly into the proper container. Butch asked for a second cigarette immediately after finishing the first, witch I provided gladly. I have gone a week without a cigarette myself, and though we had been smokers for a short period of time, I knew how nice they tasted after a long absence. We sat there content to smoke and enjoy each other's company, chatting about current events in the news and me bringing him up to speed on the happenings at school. Butch looked over at the clock and stated that it was one o'clock and his mom had been gone a half an hour. "Rich" he said with a cautious lilt to his voice "I have some money in my wallet, if you take my car to the liquor store, I'll spring for a couple of six packs." Since I love my beer, I readily agreed, but refused to take his cash. The beer that day was on me. Butch did persuade me to take a dollar fifty for another pack of Marlboro reds. Upon my return from the only liquor store that I knew that I could get served without being carded, I pulled Butch's cherry red Cougar into the garage with the care of an air line pilot storing a multi million dollar 747 in it's hanger. He had really lucked into this automobile, as he got it from a recent widow. I got out of the car and thinking about it, opened the trunk and stuck one of the six packs in. Walking into Butch's room, he immediately saw the sack in my hands and commented that he thought we were going to get two six packs. I laughed and told him that I stashed the other one in the trunk of the car so that in the off chance we were caught by his mom, we'd still have a six pack left for later. He got a kick out of this and said that even though she was not crazy about the idea, she has known that he drank beers in his room with friends every now and again. As for the smell of cigarette smoke, everyone but him smoked in his room. (I'll bet she swallowed that one.) I pulled two of the Budweiser's out of the cardboard carrier, and snapped the caps off of the bottles. By this time Butch was sitting at his desk, leaving the bean bag for me, "Uhhh, Butch," I said with a puzzled look on my face. I didn't have to finish the question before he nodded in the direction of the desk top and to one of those clear, plastic toy - straws that had all sorts of loops and turns in it. "Ahh, I see" I said picking up the device and planting it in the brown bottle that I set down on the desk in front of my buddy. "What more could a cripple ask for?" Butch said with a smile " A cold brew, a fresh pack of smokes, a decent football game, and the company of a good friend." A good friend...... That made me feel good as I hadn't thought of myself as particularly close to Butch, but wanting to be. We sat there and sipped the beers, watching the footballers on the boob tube do their thing. It took about 45 minutes for the football game to be finished, with Tennessee wiping up the field with the team from Kansas. At the same time we were just slurping up the last of our three beers each. Butch let out a long, low burp that must have lasted 20 seconds, causing us to both roar with laughter. I let out one that was rather loud and fast. It was at this time that something that I hadn't considered came up. |
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