Emo Boi Finds Love
Chapter Nine
by Terrance MacDonald
The airport's announcing system finally called Tyler's flight at 3:45 that afternoon. It was over half an hour past the scheduled departure time.
"Air Canada is happy to announce boarding for flight 8538 from Thunder Bay to Toronto at gate three. All passengers for flight 8538 are requested to proceed to gate three at this time for immediate boarding." Tyler turned to look out the window of the lounge where he had been waiting and saw that a small airplane had arrived on the tarmac outside the gate. It wasn't even a regular Air Canada plane, but rather a small turbo-prop model that belonged to a contract carrier. Tyler was nervous. He hadn't ever flown before. He had heard of people getting air sick, and he hoped he wouldn't embarrass himself by becoming nauseous when the plane was in the air.
He got up and joined the short line of people waiting to board the flight. This was his last chance to back out, and he was definitely having some reservations about flying 1100 miles to meet someone he only knew from the internet. Still, he felt that he knew Thomas so well, he'd always been able to trust the advice he'd gotten from the older man. His flight from Toronto to Atlanta was supposed to be in at quarter to eleven that evening, and even with this delay he would have plenty of time to catch his connection. He wondered if Thomas would be on his way from Savannah to Atlanta to meet him by now. He didn't have any idea how long the drive would take. 'I should have looked it up on Mapquest,' he thought.
Tyler's thoughts were interrupted by an elderly lady behind him asking if he was in line to board. He hadn't been paying attention, and the line had moved forward several feet. Tyler excused himself for his daydreaming and moved forward. He was next in line for boarding. It was now or never - he could chicken out and stay here in Thunder Bay, or he could take this giant leap of faith and board the plane.
The gate attendant reached out to take Tyler's boarding pass. Tyler handed it to her almost in a daze, and moved forward to the steps that led down to the tarmac, he was fully committed now. There was no turning back. As he climbed the stairs leading up into the plane, Tyler said a silent prayer that everything would work out; that Thomas would be there to meet him when he got to Atlanta and that Thomas would indeed like him when they finally met in person. Once again, his self-doubt bothered him. Thomas had told him time and again not to doubt himself, but Tyler often found he couldn't help it.
Drake was trying to be as inconspicuous as possible as he followed the boy down the sidewalk, not that it was easy to do in a van that had a company logo emblazoned on the side. Still, he was certain that he hadn't been noticed. And indeed he hadn't been.
'What a cute ass that boy has!' he thought. 'He's got to be an exhibitionist. There couldn't be any other explanation for the way he's wearing those pants so far down on his butt.'
Drake's thoughts were definitely running away with him. He wanted to find out more about this boy. Somewhere inside he even felt that he needed to. He was hoping that he would be able to follow him home, to find out where he lived. They'd gotten into a congested area, so Drake began thinking about finding a place to park the van so he could follow the boy on foot.
Then suddenly his target turned and doubled back. Drake was concerned at first - afraid that he had been spotted, but after watching for a moment he realized that wasn't it. This kid was nervous about something. He wasn't really doubling back; he was simply pacing back and forth.
Drake took the van around the block, and after a few minutes finally found a place to park. When he finally made it back to where the kid had been pacing, he was nowhere to be seen. Drake looked around and considered his options. There was a beauty supply store, a hardware store, a barber shop and - that had to be it - an arcade. That had to be where the kid was headed. Drake wasn't going to chance going inside; he didn't want to risk being recognized from earlier in the park. He pretended to be interested in some of the wares a street vendor was attempting to sell while he watched the front door of the arcade.
Drake ended up buying a cheap pair of over-priced sunglasses from the vendor as he watched the arcade waiting for the boy to come out. When he finally did, his pants had been pulled back up. They still rode low on the boy's hips, but Drake could tell that was how they had been designed. The way they hugged the boy's ass, it almost seemed as if they were painted on.
Drake watched for a moment, and then followed as he walked away from the arcade. The kid's course was still a little unsteady as he walked, but seemed to be improving, as if he were starting to sober. Drake just trailed along and watched. He wondered what had happened in the arcade that caused the adjustment in the level of the boy's pants.
Tyler was in a daze as he walked along the streets, but even though he had taken another pill just a very short time before he felt himself starting to come down from the high he had been feeling. He didn't realize it, but his tolerance to the drugs was building up. He was weaving a bit as he walked, but he wasn't aware of it. Others that he passed were. And there were a couple who did recognize him. Thunder Bay wasn't that large a city and a couple of the people who saw him knew him, and also knew his parents.
It was those people that Tyler needed to worry about, but his mind was too clouded at the moment. They might mention seeing him in his "altered state" to his parents. But he wasn't really able to see them, even though he knew they were there. However, there were seeds planted in the canyons of his mind that would remind him later that such people had seen him while he was wasted, and this would come back to haunt him.
He didn't care about that now. What he needed most at this moment was to get more pain killers, something to keep his mind numbed. Tyler let his instinct guide him to the arcade. When he made it there, he wasn't sure he wanted to go inside. He didn't have the money that Bryan would want for more drugs. He didn't want to suck Bryan off again, or even worse - Bryan had suggested that he wasn't going to continue to be satisfied by just being blown, he was going to want something more. Tyler really didn't want to go there. In the back of his mind though, he knew that eventually he probably would.
Tyler paced back and forth in front of the arcade for about ten minutes, working up the nerve to go inside. He looked all over for Bryan, but didn't see him anywhere. Maybe he was in the back room conducting some 'business' with someone else... Tyler waited nervously, fidgeting the entire time. He had shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, resulting in them being pushed just a little lower. The top of Tyler's small pubic patch was now just becoming visible at the waistband of his jeans.
A lady of about thirty five years old was ushering her children out of the arcade. She passed close by, and noticing Tyler, approached him. "Young man, I have never seen anything so disgusting!" she exclaimed. "Pull your pants up this instant! You should be ashamed of yourself; I wish your mother could see what you look like right now!" Tyler was quite taken aback by the lady's comments, but he did as she told him, and pulled his pants back up to the position on his hips that they were designed for.
It was a few minutes later that Bryan came out of the arcade's back room. He was accompanied by an older man, somewhere around forty years old. Tyler recognized him as the man who owned the arcade. Tyler approached Bryan, but was warned off. "No business tonight. The boss is gonna be here until closing time."
"Dude," Tyler persisted, "I really need something bad."
"Sorry, I really can't help you tonight. Try me tomorrow kid." Then Bryan turned and walked behind the counter and sat down.
Defeated, Tyler left he arcade and headed toward home. He stopped in a small park and sat on a swing, lighting his last remaining joint. It was all he had to numb his mind before he headed home, and he felt he needed something. Tyler smoked the weed slowly, savoring its flavor as its effects wrapped around his brain. Tyler glanced around continually, feeling somehow that he was being watched. The sun was going down, and the twilight cast eerie shadows around the park. He couldn't see anyone watching him, and chalked the feeling up to the paranoia that he'd been told marijuana would cause.
Once he'd completely finished the joint, using an alligator clip so he didn't waste any at all, Tyler resumed his walk toward home. He walked purposefully, even if he weaved a bit on the way. He knew he was going to be late getting home and was pretty sure his parents weren't going to be pleased.
When Tyler got to his house, his parents were both waiting for him. And they weren't happy at all. He'd missed dinner, and when his mother had called around to some of his friends' homes looking for him, she had learned that he hadn't been in school that day. His mother had started in on him as soon as he walked through the door, and was joined by his father in what seemed like only seconds later. They spent about ten minutes screaming at each other before Tyler fled, running up the stairs to his room, slamming the door shut behind him and locking it.
His father followed him upstairs, and beat on the door for several minutes, telling Tyler to open it before finally giving up. For his part, Tyler lay on his bed and cried. His life had become so fucked up so quickly. How had this happened to him? He simply couldn't fathom it.
Finally, he sat at his computer and wrote a message to Thomas: "Can I please come to stay with you?"
Much to his chagrin, Thomas' reply was "Yes, but not now. You need to turn eighteen first, and you need to finish school. That's what's more important than anything." That was still over two years away, Tyler didn't feel that he could wait that long. He was going to have to do something well before then. He had to get away, change his life, change everything. But how was he going to do that? He really didn't have a clue.
Drake was able to hear the argument the boy was having with his parents all the way out on the street in front of the house. He'd stopped, and was standing, staring at the house trying to make out the words when an elderly lady walking her dog stopped next to him. "It's just terrible isn't it?" she said to him.
Drake turned to look at her, startled. "What?" he said back to her. He really hadn't heard what she said to him.
"The way they fight," she explained. "It's horrible, isn't it?"
"Yes, it certainly is," he said, then turned and walked away down the street. He hadn't wanted to be noticed, but now that he had been, matters were more complicated. Still, he now knew where the boy lived.
Drake circled the block, and was making his way back to where he left his van when he passed back by the boy's house. He couldn't believe his luck. The kid had climbed out his window, and was making his way down a drainpipe. Drake hung back in the bushes and watched. Then he followed when the boy walked off, leaving his neighborhood.
Authors deserve your feedback. It's the only payment they get. If you go to the top of the page you will find the author's name. Click that and you can email the author easily.* Please take a few moments, if you liked the story, to say so.
[For those who use webmail, or whose regular email client opens when they want to use webmail instead: Please right click the author's name. A menu will open in which you can copy the email address (it goes directly to your clipboard without having the courtesy of mentioning that to you) to paste into your webmail system (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo etc). Each browser is subtly different, each Webmail system is different, or we'd give fuller instructions here. We trust you to know how to use your own system. Note: If the email address pastes or arrives with %40 in the middle, replace that weird set of characters with an @ sign.]
* Some browsers may require a right click instead
