CHAPTER 15: THE CROW

ERIC DRAVEN (BRANDON LEE) FILM RELEASED  MAY 13, 1994

Part 1: The Crow
The Crow, the one with Brandon Lee, had just opened and I wanted to see it.  It was the last month of my junior year in high school, and I had ridden my bike to the theatre where it was showing, and had made it about two thirds of the way before it started to rain.  I knew everything about it, and I was a huge fan of the graphic novel.  I absolutely idolized the undead antihero, Eric Draven, a master of revenge, an Angel of Death, a being I aspired to become in my teen fantasies.  In fact the whole story was about his return from the grave to pay vengeance on those who had wronged him.

I was glad to get inside under a roof and went into the restroom first to dry myself off as best I could.  I actually wrung out my t-shirt and hoodie into a sink, flattened them out and put them back on, still damp but no longer dripping

As I walked in the previews  were already showing.  The theater was huge, from before the days of multiplexes.   And still wet, I was cold too in the air conditioning.  I started down the aisle straight ahead toward the front where I usually sit, but then I saw Ray sitting in shadows near the back on the far side.  I could barely see him in the shadows, but his features were unmistakable.  I smiled to myself and crossed over the main section to the side where he was sitting alone.

It wasn't until I was right by his side I noticed in the darkness that it wasn't Ray. 

This was Billy. 

My heart sunk down about 8 inches in my chest and I could hear my blood pounding in my ears.  Billy and I had gotten close, too close, and his father and brother had let into him with a homophobic rage.  Needless to say he had steered clear of me since that time, but my feelings for him had never gone away, not really.  You can bury love, but it is ever ready to be resurrected.

"Oh," I sputtered, "um, sorry.  I thought you were Ray, um, your cousin." 

Ray looked so much like Billy, who was at least two years older, and it was sort of easy to understand how I might mistake them, though there were some differences.  Their faces were so similar, they could easily be brothers instead of cousins.  Billy had more beard to shave, a cool tattoo, and his dick was bigger, though twin to his cousin's except for size.  Ray admitted to being at least bisexual, but Billy was deeply in the closet.  Of course, back then, we all were if we wanted to survive through graduation in a small town in Texas.  In some ways Ray was the more handsome, but they were clearly struck from the same mould.  Ray and I had become friends after I had walked in on him and Mark, my brother, in the shower once. 

Billy's started out guarded, serious, but then broke into a careful smile.  

"It's okay," he said, then, "sit down" and looked down at the seat next to him, telling me to sit down with his eyes.  It had been a long, long, time since we had actually spoken.  Every time I saw Billy, even at a distance, all my old feelings for him crawled back up into my throat, and made it hard to breath, or to think.  An every time he saw me, he had reacted, changed his course, turned around, or just avoided eye contact when there was no way to just avoid me physically.

I didn't hold it against him.

I know his brother Jimmy, and probably his dad too, had beat the shit out of him when they discovered he and I had been having sex.  Ray had told me as much.   In the Jacob's clan there could be no family members who were "gay" on "queer" or "fag" or "homosexual".  Even Ray told me that his own father, who was Billy's uncle, never had anything to do with that part of the family because he thought of the as "poor white trash" in the worst sense of the word.

But I had let myself fall in love with Billy before I understood all that.  And once it happens, it's hard to ever undo it.

Billy pulled his hoodie up over his head, even in the dark of the theatre, and I knew it was to keep him from being recognized sitting next to me. 

Billy was on my left.

I expected more people to be there, but there was only  smattering of people, scattered around.  Maybe twenty percent of the theatre was full.

I looked over at him and he was staring at the screen in the darkness between previews. I could hear him breathing, feel the tension irradiating off of him.   We sat next to each other and the discomfort between us was palpable.  We had gone from friends with benefits, to lovers, to strangers, and not just strangers--people to be avoided.

I had stolen glanced but he just kept his eyes on the screen, until finally after a while when I peeped over at him he was looking at me.

"I'm sorry," he mouthed the words, and the look in eyes told me he meant them, even if the words went unspoken. 

I felt his fingers find my left hand and grasp it in his own.  His grip tightened and before I even stopped to think about what I was doing, I was kissing him. I felt my inverted penis roll out of its sheath in my pants into full erection, sliding along the material and then pushing against my jeans into a pup tent.  My erection almost hurt, and I could feel it throbbing hard against my jeans.  It was a perfect moment.  If there could be a heaven, it would be that moment stretched out across eternity.  All my doubts were gone.  I knew how he felt, that he loved me just like I loved him, and that everything, I mean everything, that had gone wrong was about his family's homophobia, not about his feelings for me.  We kissed, our mouths met and merged and I stopped being  There was only the moment.  We kissed.

Deeply.

Passionately.

Fervently.

It was like the last time we had been together had been just seconds before not over a year. 

He started to draw back then gave in to whatever damn was breaking to release his own imprisoned feelings, and I felt his tongue penetrate my mouth.  He let go of my hand and reached over to  grip my erection through my pants with his damn unerring aim.  Without warning my body suddenly convulsed and I popped load after load of teen spirit, felt the sticky liquid heat flooding into my shorts while his fingers played my diminutive but rock hard erection. 

Billy broke our kiss to chortle our a half suppressed laugh.  Billy pretended to turned his attention back to the movie, though every now and then he would suddenly snort, exploding into laughter at the most inappropriate times. 

"Nothing has changed," he chuckled, and I remembered the nickname he had given me, Two Strokes, because of my tendency to cum prematurely, and then another seizure took me, forcing another gasp, as a more of my teen spirit surged into my soaked and dripping shorts. I could smell the odor of my own semen, and my dick felt just like it had the first time he had made me cum in my pants in the theatre, like a little wet weasel, nestled between a sodden tangle of pubes and boxers gone uncomfortably sticky and damp. 

Billy continued to chortle in amusement.  But he didn't let go of my sodden weasel, instead he gripped it firmly and kept massaging my rod.  His face was close to mine so he could watch my expression as he quickened his pace.  I was still mostly hard, and now growing back to full hard, then rock hard.

A few facial tics and ever more rapid breathing gave warning to the building pressure in my groin as his fingers did their work.  I was throbbing hard when I leaned closer to kiss him, but he pulled his face back and said, "No, I want to watch you."  And that was just about the time I popped again.  I tried to stifle any sounds, but a gasp came out way louder than I meant it to when I came again, and it made both of us look around to see if anyone had noticed, if any heads were turned out way instead of focusing on the screen.

He withdrew his hand from my crotch and thumbed in the direction of the rear exit.

When I reached over to put my hand on the bulge between his legs  he nudged me away and said, "we have to be careful," and he got up and started toward the exit.  I followed him back too his Camaro through the rain, which had not let up.  Her motioned to my bike and helped me put it in the rack on his Camaro.

I got in, and was greeted by the strong smell of candy.  There was a sticky mess of candy melted on the floorboard.  I watched as he got in too.  He was a fine specimen, sexy as hell and my cock got rock hard all over again just at the sight of him, his wet blond hair, baseball cap to the side, blue eyes, torn jeans and boots--hot.  Once in, he leaned the seat back, and put his hands behind his head. A signal to me that it was his turn.

I lean over and flicked my tongue on the place his dick head was straining so hard against the material of his jeans.  His cock twitched and I started to suck on the head of his penis through his shorts, sucking out all his taste from the fabric, I reached up and pulled down the waistband of his jeans a bit, exposing the tip of his cock, everything I remembered, big mushroom head, nice and pink with a ridge, and a pee hole that was leaking precum, I flicked my tongue and took in another drop of cum that was forming, then  swirled my tongue around the head and licked under the mushroom ridge, tasting a faint musk, smell of sweat, nothing dirty, just the smell and taste of a guy.

I licked up his stomach, and ran my hand over his blondish treasure trail, I started to lick down his side, since it was exposed.  His wet shirt was unbuttoned and off him in a single move.  I made my way up his side, up his arm, to his arm pit.  He lifted his arm up and I took a nice whiff of him, and I was lost in memory, lost in the scent of him, lost in my desire for him.  I licked at his wet arm pit.  Then he grabbed my head, pulled me away from his arm pit and kissed me, hard and deep, and I wondered if he could taste his own scent on my tongue as we swapped spit. 

He finally broke our kiss and said, "I want to fuck you," looked back at the backseat, "but we have to do it in here, in the car."  He looked deep into my soul and said, "You understand we can't go back to my house, and I can't go to yours either."  I nodded my understanding, and he added, "my backseat is a bit small to fuck, we can make it work here, okay?"

I looked around, and as usual, when my cock is doing the thinking, its pretty much hard to go the logical route and I just nodded, and turned contortionist to move myself into a better position to be fucked.   He helped turn me around, and started kissing my neck from behind while he grabbed my ass, and I could feel him biting on my neck, and in the heat of the moment it felt so good, he slid his hand down the back of my shorts and started circling his finger over my hole, I felt him pull his finger out as he continued making out with me from behind, he stuck his finger in my mouth, and then went back to working on my hole.  The tip of his finger slid in, and I exhaled.  He slowly started to work it around in a circle, getting me used to it.  He then pushed me forward, the side of my face was pressed against the passenger window, and pulled my pants down, he parted my ass cheeks and I felt his wet tongue take over his finger.

He slowly circled his tongue around my sphincter and then started to tongue fuck me.  His tongue was darting in and out of my hole, I tried to adjust my legs to give him better access, but we were in cramped quarters.  He then spit on my hole, giving it one last lube I guess, and got up on his knees behind me.  I turned to look back at him , his pants down, his cock sticking out, and I realized he had grown as a man during the time we had been parted by his family's homophobic beliefs.  After some more contortions that required opening and reclosing the passenger car door, I turned around and took it in my mouth, licking up all the precum that had been leaking out, I ran my tongue from the base of his shaft to the tip, circled my tongue around the head and then dove in, taking his cock all the way down till his pubes were in my face.  His cock was even more massive them before,  I gulped, trying to make my throat muscles squeeze his cock and cause it to release more cum.  He pulled me off, after a while, and with some effort once again got myself into position to be fucked  He wanted to get down to business, I understood it, after all a theatre parking lot, even in the rain is a pretty public place in a small town.

As it turned out late, that thought was prophetically true.

I had my arms against the door panel and my face in the window, which was steamed over, and he lined up his cock with my hole and slid the head in.  I gasped out in pain, and I know my ass tensed up involuntarily.  He held his dick in place there for a minute, and when I relaxed he pushed further in.  With every inch of penetration I could feel how much he had grown, even if I hadn't turned to see it.  I was trying to get over the first shock of pain, when he started to slide his cock in and out of my ass, not slow and loving like I remembered him when he had been inside me before, but hard, hard and fast.  Billy had changed.  The way he made love had changed and I wondered what experiences he had had since we last had sex that had changed him so much, or if it was just me, just the changes in the way he felt about me.

I was like one of those bottoms in a porn video, moaning in pain, crying out, asking him to stop--or slow down, please, even shedding tears. I felt him push himself forward an over me and start kissing my neck, biting my shoulders as his cock thrust painfully in and out of my ass, I could feel my ass walls gripping his humongous  cock as it slid in and out, and with his arm on my waist he pulled me back further onto his dick to get as deep as he could get.  After a few minutes of him fucking me like this he whispered in my ear to turn around face up, so I did, my upper body catching rain again as I had to open the passenger door again to change my position.  He lined up his cock with my fuck hole. Since I was already nice and wet from spit and precum and rain he slid right in, despite his massive girth,  with ease.

I wrapped my legs around his waist as he was slamming hard into my hole.  He had his hand, hard, over my mouth, and I realize I must have been crying out too loud as wave after wave of penetrative pain and deep pressure ripped into me.  He held my legs up and looked down at his cock sliding in and out, he would pulled his cock all the way out and then plunge in, it hurt like hell but this was Billy and I loved him, realized I had never stopped, but had just locked away my feelings until he broke down the door with his battering ram and came inside  He told me he was getting ready to cum, and he started pumping faster, I felt his cock expand even more inside me, which seemed impossible, and he pushed one last thrust deep in me, emptying his own teen spirit deep into my ass.  I could feel it.  Could feel him filling me with his seed.

He came like a fucking geyser.  Then leaned over, kissed me, as he pulled his cock out. 

We got back into seated positions and got dressed.  I was about as wet from the rain ripping into the open door as I was when I first got in.  But now the car smelt strong of sex and candy. 

He drove me most of the way home and pulled over on the side of the road under a canopy of trees and told me to get out.  "I can't take you any farther," he said to me, "You understand, right?"

He hesitated, once I was out of the car, and leaned way over to grab the passenger door handle.  "This is a onetime thing," He said it deeply in a serious voice.  "Nothing can change, I see you or you see me you just keep walking."  His eyes met mine.  They were serious, maybe even angry, "see..." but he never finished the sentence.

I nodded again to him.  I started to say good bye to Billy but he pulled the door shut and gun the engine before any words came out. 

--

David, Billy and Mark (1993)

Part 2: Wracked

Without warning, and to this day I don't know where they came from, just that suddenly there was  firearm across my neck and I was barely able to breathe.  Jimmy had me in a head lock and was pulling ma toward the restroom just a few feet down the walkway outside a row of classrooms.  George held open the door as Jimmy hauled me through and dumped me unceremoniously on the cracked cement floor.

"Take his clothes off," Jimmy ordered.  My blushed and tears formed in his eyes. I was still trying to get my breath and my throat hurt. 

Then they grabbed me again and started to strip me.  But I put up more of a fight than they were expecting.  They grabbed hold of me arms and legs and pinned me to the ground ignoring my pleas to stop.

My shoes and socks came off first.  Then George and Jimmy started pulling down my pants.  George shifted his hold on my legs as Jimmy worked my jeans down his thighs. I struggled harder, and even tried kicking, as I felt my pants sliding down my legs, George already had my left leg free, and Jimmy now had my pants gathered down at my right ankle.  I tried to kick them hoping somehow to get free before they had my pants all the way off.  George ducked my flailing left foot, but my right foot managed to successfully connect with Jimmy's mouth.  Jimmy fell back against the tile wall, still holding on to my jeans.  I felt my pants jerk and give as Jimmy fell backward, ripping them.  Jimmy landed next to the sinks and rubbed his jaw.  His lip was bleeding, and from the look on his face he was deeply pissed.

I expected them to assault my shirt next, but they left it on me.

Three other boys, two of them I recognized had already graduated, grabbed me and picked me up, restraining my arms while another boy got him into a headlock.  It was an uncomfortable position.

The whole time Jimmy kept staring at me. Anger radiated from his stare. I was arched backward, off balance with his pelvis forward and my shoulder pulled back. One of the boys grabbed hold of my shirt and ripped it down the middle.  Buttons flew.

Jimmy stepped forward.  "I warned you," his eyes narrowed, "you just fucked up big time.  You just made this get physical."

The boys holding me listened and watched intently as Jimmy stood up.  I could feel my heart hammering against my chest. Jimmy wiped blood off his chin and looked down at his hand.  When he looked up at My his look was cold, almost feral as he stepped in close, right in front of me.  Before I even saw him move he landed a blow hard into my stomach, followed by a second.    

"Jimmy," I was trying not to vomit, chocking down the pain, "What do you want?"

"I want to kick you in the balls." Jimmy didn't say anything else, just stared at me.

"No!" My mind screamed, and my assaulted stomach knotted up even tighter and I realized that this was no game.  I groaned again without thinking, said, "God, this can't be happening" as my heart pounded harder against the inside of his chest. But I doubted that God was going to do anything to help me out.  God was the one who had cursed me in the first place, if he existed at all.  And I knew that there was no one in the room who was going to help him out.  Two of the boys holding me were not laughing, but I could tell they wanted Jimmy to hurt me.  Probably had volunteered to help him out.

Then in that same cool and steady voice Jimmy said, "Spread his legs and keep him standing."  I felt someone kick my ankles hard to the outside, and pull my legs apart.  I struggled hard against them, I knew my survival depended on it, and the whole group of us almost tumbled over onto the ground.

Then Jimmy punched me hard in the stomach again, and I strained to get my breath. I had never been hit that hard before, and I realized that underneath my fear, was the fact that I absolutely believed in my heart that I wouldn't stand a chance against them even if I tried to defend himself.  These boys stood at the threshold of manhood, and I was just a dickless wonder, barely a boy, never a man.  Worse, Jimmy was my older brother's best friend he had bullied me for years, even when Chuck was there watching. 

But Jimmy wasn't just fucking around, now he was genuinely angry, wanted to hurt me, hurt me bad.  I wasn't just afraid that Jimmy was going to make my balls suffer, I was afraid Jimmy was actually going to break them.

When Jimmy's foot connected with my exposed ball sack a cascade of pain surged through me, leaving my legs trembling and causing my knees to buckle.  Not even pants to provide  modicum of protection.  There was no way I could have braced myself for what was coming.  The ache rushed up out of my tenderized testicles up into my abdomen. My penis felt like someone had driven a sharp spike through it.  I tried to curl up, but the boys holding me pulled me back upright and it felt like chords in his groin and stomach stretched and snapped.  I wanted to grab my own balls, to protect them, cradle them gently, but the boys had my arms pulled back, and there was nothing I could do but stand there trying to breathe and let the pain and cramping recede.

"Do it again, Jimmy."  George said, and Jimmy gave my another feral look that told me he wasn't holding back.

"No!" I wailed, and Jason, who had been helping to pin my left arm, shifted his position and clamped a hand over my mouth. "It hurts," I screamed between the boy's fingers, "Don't, please don't--"

But Jimmy landed a second kick to my balls interrupting my helpless pleas.  I writhed in their grasp, winded, and moaned out loud. The pain carried me beyond tears, I could not get my breath.  I though he might pass out.  Even wished I could.  I tried to draw in a breath, but the Jason still had his hand clamped over his mouth. My body wanted to curl up, desperately needed to curl up into a fetal position, but these boys were keeping me upright, and I knew that somehow that made this hurt even worse.  I looked down at my balls, expecting them to be ruptured, bleeding or crushed.  My scrotum had drawn up, holding them tight against my body.  Tears and snot were streaming down my face.

"I told you to leave Billy alone.  I warned you to stay away from my brother!"  Jimmy said, and

the third time Jimmy drove his foot even harder straight into my swollen ball-sack, squashing my sore testicles that were being held so tightly in place by my scrotum!  The pain was amazing.  Nothing could have prepared me for it, somehow this one connected more fully, more accurately, more powerfully.  My world darkened and I saw stars, whole constellations of them.  I fell to the floor, grasping my wounded balls in pain as they released my arms.  My penis felt like someone had driven hot needle into it.  My chest was heaving in dense efforts to breathe between my hoarse attempts to scream, certain that my smashed testicles were broken like eggshells.  I crumpled forward, laying with my face against the tile floor, protecting the front of my body and then curled up into the comfort of a fetal position, defeated, gasping and moaning.

I was sure I was going to throw up and then die.

I did throw up, but I didn't die.

Jimmy ground the soul of one shoe viciously into my shoulder and shove-kicked me.  I cried openly and struggled even harder into my fetal position still clutching my balls.  Jimmy hocked up a gob of snot and spat in my face, "Pendejo, next time you come within ten feet of my brother I will cut your dick off and shove scissors up your ass!" He kicked me in the ribs twice.

"You're just not worth it," Jimmy said and I looked over and saw he was addressing Billy, who was emerging from a restroom stall where he had been watching.  He was crying and his steps were ginger and careful.  And his face looked like he had been the loser in a boxing match last night.   

"I saw you two in the theatre, and I followed you into the parking lot."  George said. 

I wiped Jimmy's bloody spit off my lips and chin.  My face was still streaked with  my own tears and snot.  I started to stand up, holding my sore ribs, and managed to get up onto my knees before I threw up again.

Billy (1993)

I never saw Billy again.

Ray told me that Billy went to live with some of his dad's relatives in another town.  Later I heard he came back to the area, got a girl pregnant, and  got married.  According to Ray they have several kids now, and he has stayed married to the same girl,  He has a job as a mechanic in the Rio Grande Valley.  That's the last I ever know of him.   I have never tried to call or contact him.  It just didn't seem like the right thing to do.  I wish him all the best with his new life.  I hope he finally managed to please his father.

Jimmy's Inmate Photo (circa 1998)

Jimmy made the news in the late 90's when he ended up convicted for murder.  I believe the jealous sonnofabitch  killed his wife's ex-husband.  He's doing 99 years, or something like that.

I must confess I have taken comfort from my dark fantasies about what may have happened to him there.  He is where he needs to be.  Right where he needs to be. I may have ninety nine problems, but that bitch ain't one.  Ray, who has remained life-long friends with Mark tells us that he has not done well inside, fights, injuries, lots of solitary, hospitalization, etc.  I'm sure he has added to his tattoo collection.  When I asked Ray what was causing Jimmy's problems, cocky attitude, aggressive nature, what?  Ray said, "I guess he's just a little too pretty, " which made my day.  Actually it made my fucking year! May he suffer in hell.

The Dobie Theatre in Austin closed in 2010,

The last weeks of my junior year were horrible.  I was badly bruised after being assaulted by Jimmy and his cronies.  I could barely walk.  Getting my bruised and blackened testicles examined by the physician was a whole new chapter in embarrassment .  Even worse, everyone seemed to take his side, meaning all the sudents at school. 

Except for the police.  

When I told the physician what had happened he called the police.  My mom filed charges.  Jimmy said that I had solicited sex from him in the restroom.  His cronies backed up his story, but ultimately nothing came of it,  In the process, Billy's battered condition also got noticed, and the similarity of our injuries caught the attention of the police investigating the case.  Billy of course did not file any charges and neither would their father.  I think all the attention only made things worse for him.  Jimmy got 8 months, but was out in 3.  He had a fine of $1000.  I did not have to testify.  My Mom's reaction made the whole thing worse.  She believed what Jimmy had said, and repeated to me that my injuries were a warning from God to change my wicked ways.  I can't make this shit up.  Mark really came through.  If it weren't' for him, things would have been bad.  But my relationship never recovered with my mom, so it should be pretty obvious why, when I left home to go too school, I never returned once I graduated.  

But the summer after it happened, was nerve wracking.  I got several hate calls, and promises of retaliation from some of Jimmy's cronies.  I spent my time at home, with my brother, Mark, Ray and Ken,  I visited Hector, but the visit was strained.  He had a new girlfriend, and something had changed between us.  I ended up taking a bus back home early.  I also spent some time with Charlie, a new friend I made that summer.

Women cry at movies all the time, but society tells us that boys don’t cry. Men are supposed to be strong and never show the emotions that make them look weak, but I came to pieces when I tried to watch The Crow.  It happened in college when I finally got to watch the movie.   I saw it at Dobie Theatre while I was going to The University Of Texas.  It tore me up watching that movie.  It wasn't just knowing that Brandon Lee gave his life while they were still shooting footage for the film.  It wasn't just being reminded of all the pain when Jimmy beat the crap out of Billy and me afterward.  It wasn't even the passionate kisses Billy and I exchanged during the early part of the movie before we left the theatre.  

It was what might have been.  

The loss.  

How it changed me, and how it changed Billy, probably in ways I cannot even imagine.  The loss of love.  A stolen future.  Love crushed like broken testicles.  

It’s not ok.  

Some part of me that believed, or even hoped, that there was someone watching over me died.  Now I know there isn't.  Now I know if we don't stand up for myself no one else will.  The world is a harder, colder, meaner place.   Most tearful scenes involve the death of a loved one, a sacrifice for the betterment of others  or having to say good bye.

In my case, it's just the sense of loss.

And there is no supernatural antihero to avenge me against the villainy of it all.