Westpoint Tales

by Kiwi

Entangled Tales - 59 - Tony

The phone rang beside him and, without even thinking about it, he snatched it up.

"Hello."

"Hey Tones, it's me, Daniel. We got cut off."

"We didn't get cut off, O'Brien, I hung up on you."

"But, what did you do that for? We weren't finished." (Fateful word.)

"Well we are now. As a matter of fact, I think we're finished for good, you and I."

"Tones! Don't say that. Don't ever say that. I love you, Tones."

"Maybe I don't love you. We're over, Danny. You've got your life and it's about time I got a life of my own. There's someone I haven't told you about - a new kid in school. His name's Jesse Taylor, he's 14, blond and gorgeous. He's gay and he's looking for a friend and I know that he's interested in me too. You're not here anymore, and you never will be. Go play with your new friends and I'm going to play with mine. Goodbye Danny, it was nice knowing you."

"Tones. Tony, don't. Don't do this to me! Don't hang up. I need you, I love you Tones. Please!'

"Goodbye Daniel."

He hung up then left the phone off the hook and sat on the floor and cried. There was no such person as Jesse Taylor, of course there wasn't. It was just a name he'd read on an internet story. Even if there was, he wouldn't be interested.

He did love Danny, but the long-distance relationship just couldn't work. It was too bloody hard! He needed to let him go - his oldest friend, his only friend, he deserved better. Danny needed to live his new life in his new town. Tony was just someone from his past.

Danny would never know, but he did love him. Always had, always would. For now, he was going to take some of his mother's pills - not to top himself, just enough to knock him out so that he could get some sleep.

In the next room, sitting on his bed, Brian turned off the mobile phone and sat looking at it in disgust.

"Fuck it! If those dirty little pricks have finished, I'll have nothing to hold over him and I'll have done all this work for nothing! Well, you're not getting away with it, Tony Duncan, no way. I'm the one who's going to finish this and you're going to pay - you're going pay big-time. You think you're miserable now? You ain't seen nothing yet."

The alarm went off at six in the morning. Tony slapped it off and lay glaring at it while he got his head together.

'Ah, to hell with it! I'm not running anymore, it's too hard. What does it matter anyway? No-one's going to look at me. No-one will care if I'm as fat as a pig or not.'

He lay there for a while, stewing and feeling sorry for himself. Then he got up anyway - there was no way that he was going to go back to sleep. Not wanting to face anyone, he went down to the café and got himself some breakfast, and then quietly slipped out and went for a walk.

He went to school and sat through the first two periods, but then decided, "Ah, screw it. I can't be bothered. Who's going to notice if I'm not here anyway?'

He took his bag and walked out at the recess. Nobody noticed. No-one cared. He went and sat down by the river, out of sight, under the trees.

'I've never seen a truancy officer around, but it would be just my luck. There's plenty of busy-bodies around who'd drop me in it anyway.'

He sat there in the shade, watching the muddy river make its lazy way past him and he couldn't help remembering all the times, the good times that he'd spent here down by the river. Happy days, playing with friends. Playing pirates and explorers, acting out movies and just lazing around in the sun.

Days spent with friends, lots of friends, but mostly Danny - always Danny. What sort of a life was he going to have without Danny in it? He'd been here before, when Danny left to go and live in a new town, he'd been here. He'd cried for days.

But, this time it was worse, it was over now. He'd finished it and it was all gone for good.

'Oh Danny! Why did I have to fall in love with you, you bastard! You beautiful, beautiful, bastard.'

He sat and waited on the riverbank for the rest of the school day to pass. He missed lunch - hadn't intended to, but he had no food with him, so he missed it anyway. When he finally heard the school bell ringing in the distance, he got up, brushed himself off, and headed for home.

He'd decided that he was wrong. He was stupid and he was wrong. He couldn't finish with Danny. He just couldn't! He was going to go and apologise and beg Daniel to take him back.

Shortly after he got home the roof fell in on him and his world collapsed.

He went in by the side-door and went upstairs, stooped and dropped his bag and turned the computer on. He went into his room and got changed, and then back to the computer. It was not connected to the internet. He tried to connect and it didn't work. He tried again and it didn't work again.

The screen kept flashing some weird message that he didn't understand. Damm! He tried a third time, and then pulled the desk out from the wall. He was down on his hands and knees testing all the cables, when he heard the door open.

"What do you think you're doing down there?"

Tony looked up from behind the desk. "Dad! I'm just checking the cables. The bloody computer won't connect to the internet."

"No, it won't. It won't ever connect to the internet again. I've had the service cut off - no more bloody internet around here."

"You've what?" Tony rose to his feet. "What would you do that for? We need it! We need the internet, you can't cut it off."

"I can and I have."

"But why would you do that?"

"Why would I do that?" John Duncan roared. "This is why!"

He thrust a handful of papers at Tony who took them and looked at them. His stomach lurched and his face went deathly pale when he realised what they were - printouts of the emails that he'd been sending to, receiving from, Danny.

"Yes! So you should be scared. How dare you? How dare you carry on with that filth in my house? I shudder to think what all those late-night telephone calls were about."

"This is private. These are our own personal, private letters. Where did you get them?"

"Never you mind where I got them - that's none of your business!"

(Outside the door, Brian chortled with glee at all the trouble that he'd got his brother into. "Payback!" But then even he got scared as their father completely lost it.

"What matters is what you've been doing behind our backs. Filthy little perverts!"

"I don't care!" Tony yelled, rage giving him the courage to face his father's fury. "I don't care. You've got no right. We're not little kids anymore. I love Danny and he loves me and it's none of your business."

"None of my business?" John Duncan roared, practically foaming at the mouth now.

"It is my business!" He punched the boy in the stomach, and then pulled him upright and punched him again.

"What you do in my house is totally my business!" He punched him in the face.

Tony staggered and he hit him again. He flew back, hit the wall and slid down to the floor.

"Get up! Get up and take it like a man!"

Tony got to his knees, then fell down again when his father kicked him. He stood over the boy, roaring and punctuating his words with kicks.

"Dirty. Filthy. Fucking Faggot. Shirt-lifting. Cock-sucking. Arse-bandit!"

Brian came running in and tried to stop him.

"Dad! Dad, don't! You're killing him!"

"No more than he fucking deserves!" He threw Brian off, and then picked Tony up by his shirt and flung him at the open doorway.

"Get out! Go on, get out and don't you ever come back in here again!" He picked him up again and threw him down the stairs.

Tony slid, and rolled, and banged and crashed down the stairs to land in an aching, bloody pile on the landing.

"I said, get out! Get out of my house or I'll fucking kill you!"

Tony got to his feet. ('No bones broken.') He slowly limped down the rest of the stairs. His younger brother, white-faced and shocked, burst into tears at the foot of the stairs.

"Tony! Tony, you're hurt."

Tony stopped and looked at him, blood and tears running down his face. He made a painful little grimace. "You think? Go away, Alex. Stay out of it."

He staggered out through the café, past the shocked faces of the customers there, and walked out into the street. He went a few sections down the hill and into the small park where the town's war memorial stood.

Over to the side, out of sight of the road, he sank to the grass beneath the pohutukawa trees, puked on the ground, and lay curled-up, aching and crying in the dirt.

Eventually, he calmed down, got up and hobbled across to the water tap in the small garden. He turned it on and washed his face in the cold, stinging water. He drank a few handfuls to settle his stomach , and then retreated to hide in the shrubs underneath the trees.

He sat in there, huddled over with his arms around his knees, and waited, miserably, for - nothing. Soon, he toppled over and lay curled around his aching guts and cried himself to sleep.