Published: 2 Jan 2020

Gangs of Chicago: Kenny and Victor

Gary

Nemesis needed a lot of cuddling before he would tell me what had happened in Georgia. I heard the pain in his words and in his voice. He hurt for the boys who had been raped (even the older one); he hurt for himself because he had killed a man; and he hurt for the boys who had killed themselves. Nemesis told me that somewhere and somewhen Mark and Kevin had died when their bodies crashed onto the rocks. Later, that had been erased not only from reality, but also from their memories. Still, it had happened. Nemesis had been there. He remembered.

“How is Bobby?” I asked. “Did he…?”

“Bobby’s human,” Nemesis said. “I told him it wouldn’t be real … even though it was. He trusted me; he believed me; and he forgot about it seconds after it happened, when reality changed. I didn’t let him see me kill the boys’ father.

“He saw everything else, though. He wasn’t upset. He saw evil, but he also saw justice and … in the end … he saw the good thing, Mark and Kevin’s happiness. He saw balance, and he knows that is good.

“If the evil had not happened, then Mark and Kevin would not have had the courage to make the good happen.”

Nemesis

The next afternoon, I was watching Gary work on his computer when I heard it. The call was strong, and full of pain. My tummy felt like it was on fire. I switched to chiton, touched my sword to make sure it was there, kissed Gary’s cheek, and popped.

I was in an alley littered with garbage. Half-hidden by stacks of pallets and overflowing dumpsters, two young boys were slumped against a wall. The littler one was holding his stomach with both hands. Blood flowed freely between his fingers. The other was bleeding from cuts on his arms.

Facing them were four older boys, mid-to-late-teens, wearing phony ghetto clothes. Gangsta’ wannabes, I thought.

One held a knife. He slashed at the boy holding his stomach. The other boy tried to block the knife, and took another cut to his arm. This one was deep; he gasped, and fainted from shock. The boy with the knife moved in.

I popped between the guy with the knife and the two boys on the ground. I held my sword to block the boy’s knife.

“That’s not a knife,” I said. “This is a knife.” I didn’t know where those words came from, but they seemed appropriate. I swung the sword and smacked the boy’s knife, sending only enough power to force him to drop it.

“What the fuck?” That came from one of the boys in the back. “Where the fuck you from? Another fuckin’ fag?” His vocabulary seemed quite limited. I had to admire his alliteration, though.

“What the hell is he wearin’?” Another asked. At least he had a different adjective.

“He’s just a little kid … get him!” The third said. Ah, he would be the stupid one, the one who didn’t understand that a kid with a sword that glowed in the dim light of the alley was a formidable foe.

I smacked the boy who had been wielding the knife with the flat of my sword, and sent enough power through it for him to feel the shock. He fell on his butt. A bright flash of power arced between him and the sword. He scrambled to his feet. Then, the four boys kicked, pushed, and shoved one another in their haste to run away through the obstacle course of garbage, pallets, and dumpsters. I put away the sword and turned to the two boys on the ground.

I saw that the younger of the two boys had been hurt too badly to live. His tummy was split open and full of blood. He was trying to breathe, but each breath was littler than the one before it. I looked at him the way Death had taught me, and I saw the light that was his soul flicker and dim. I was crying so hard I didn’t see the hand that touched the boy’s forehead, but I didn’t need my eyes to see the glow that came from the hand and went into the boy.

I blinked the tears away. There was another boy. He was about my age, and was wearing a tunic, belted at the waist. He bent over the injured boy. The tunic didn’t cover his butt any better than my chiton covered mine.

Then, this boy spoke to me. “He’ll be okay.” His voice was a husky tenor that belied his apparent age. I stared at him. His hair was a mass of black curls. They tumbled over his forehead and wrapped around his ears. He was cute.

“Who are you?” I stuttered.

“Apollo, sometimes god of healing, at your service” he said.

“You’re a god? You don’t look like a … ” I said, and then realized how stupid that sounded, coming from a 12-year-old god wearing a chiton and a sword. This guy didn’t have a sword. At least, if he did, I couldn’t see it. He was a god, though. The boy on the ground? He was healed. Still covered with blood, still unconscious, but healed.

“Why … ?” I asked.

“It wasn’t his time,” the boy-god said. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.” Then, he stood up and morphed into an older boy: an 18-year old kouros – the naked, smooth, athletic ideal of Grecian male beauty. I’d stared at a lot of those when I was looking in museums and on the internet for Dike. His tunic had disappeared. He kept his sandals, though. That was probably a good idea: the alley was nasty.

“Is this better? You’re Nemesis, right?”

I managed not to act like a bobble-head.

“Which is the real you?” I asked.

He morphed again into an old man wearing a long robe. His hair was white. So was his beard. He had a long walking stick with a live snake wrapped around it. I’d seen that, too, on the computer.

He laughed. “This is the most real me,” he said.

Apollo touched the boy with the cuts on his arms. Then, he disappeared.

The two boys started to stir. One opened his eyes and saw me before I could change into school clothes or hide my sword.

Viktor

I woke up. Kenny! Where’s Kenny! I looked around.

I saw Kenny, lying in the street beside me. I had seen the boy with the knife open up Kenny’s tummy, and I knew he was dead. Until he opened his eyes and sat up.

“What … ? What happened?” Kenny asked. He seemed dazed; his eyes were wobbly.

I tried to remember what had happened. Leroy’s gang had chased Kenny and me into the alley. They’d called us names. Leroy had a knife. He cut Kenny! He cut me, too.

How come I don’t hurt? I wondered. They had cut me … and I’d fainted … but my arms didn’t hurt. I rubbed the blood, looking for cuts. There weren’t any.

I looked up and saw the little kid with the sword. I blinked my eyes, but he was still there. He was half-naked. Actually, he was mostly naked. Whatever he was wearing didn’t cover much of him. And he still had his sword.

“Who are you?” I asked the boy.

“Um, my name’s Nemesis,” the boy said. “I heard you calling for help, so I came … are you okay?”

“I saw that kid stick his knife in Kenny’s tummy! I know he cut me … but Kenny’s okay … my cuts are gone … what …?

“Oh, shit,” I said. “We’re dead, and you’re an angel!” And I just said ‘shit’ to an angel, I thought. I’m in so much trouble!

Nemesis

The boy covered his face with his hands, and cried.

I shook his shoulder, gently. “Look at me, please?” I said

When he took his hands from his face, I looked into his eyes. “You’re not dead. Kenny’s not dead. Trust me. I would know.”

It didn’t do any good. And now, the other one, Kenny, was crying. They grabbed each other, and hugged.

I didn’t know what to do, so I popped back home.

Gary

Nemesis popped into my office. He had blood all over his chest and arms. I panicked, until I realized that Nemesis was not hurt, but was upset, and needed me.

“What?” was all I got out before he grabbed me. “Two boys … they think they’re dead and I’m an angel! You’ve got to help!”

We popped into an alley where two boys sat, propped against the wall, holding one another and crying. Like Nemesis, they were covered with blood. Still, there seemed to be no wounds. I didn’t have time to think about that before Nemesis lifted one of the boys to his feet.

“He needs a hug,” Nemesis said, and thrust the boy toward me.

I grabbed him – I’d worry about blood, later – and hugged him.

“What happened? Why are you crying?” I asked.

“Kenny and me, we got cut up by Leroy and his gang. We’re dead, and I don’t want to be dead!”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Viktor Tchekov,” the boy said.

“Victor, my name is Gary Walters. And you’re not dead.”

Nemesis had pulled the other boy to his feet, and was offering the same reassurances. The two boys broke away from Nemesis and me, and grabbed one another. They hugged, and cried.

Nemesis

I heard a scuffling down the alley.

“There he is!” a tenor voice called. “And there’s a big guy, too! And the two fags.”

I turned to see a dozen boys and young men walking toward us.

“Nemesis? Can you get us out of here?” Gary asked.

I had popped too many times. “Not all of us,” I said. I drew my sword and stepped toward the gang.

“Fuck! The little kid’s got a sword!” one of the young men said.

Another drew a pistol from his waistband. “And I’ve got this.” He raised the pistol …

I did something Death had taught me. I morphed. I pulled the image of Phidippides from my mind, and morphed.

“What little kid?” I said. I was a 20-year-old in full Grecian armor. Actually, I was more than that. I added about three feet to Phidippides’ height. My voice boomed in the confines of the alley. “I don’t see any little kid.”

Once again, the gang pushed and shoved one another to get away. I remembered a beach vacation with my parents. We’d gone crabbing on the inland waterway. I remember watching crabs in a bucket, clawing one another in an attempt to escape, dragging one another down in order to lift themselves.

Gary

Once again, Nemesis surprised me. I watched him become a giant Greek warrior. I watched the gang members scamper away. I watched Nemesis become my boy. Then, I looked at the two boys Nemesis had rescued; they were still holding one another tightly, heads buried in each other’s shoulders. They were still crying. With luck, they hadn’t seen.

Nemesis switched to school clothes. We tried to calm the two boys. Eventually, they cried themselves out; their sobs changed to ragged breathing. When at last they looked up, they saw what I hoped was a normal scene: a guy, and a kid their age wearing regular clothes.

The older one – Viktor – stared at me, and then said. “You’re Gary Walters.”

“Yep, that’s me.”

“But I’ve got your rookie card!” Viktor said. “Not with me, I mean. At home. But you’re not dead!”

“No, Victor, I’m not dead and neither are you or Kenny. Something happened. Something wonderful happened. You got help from some pretty special people.

“Um, this is Nemesis. He’s one of those special people. Can you … will you keep his secret?”

Victor and Kenny thought for a minute. It was long enough that I believed they had considered my question seriously.

“Yes,” Viktor said. “Um, I don’t suppose there’s any chance … I mean … would you sign the card?”

I laughed. “Sure, Victor. But first, we have to get you and Kenny cleaned up and home.”

Nemesis

I was exhausted and starving by the time I popped Viktor, Kenny, and Gary – one at a time and resting in between – to Erewhon. Bobby and Benji helped get the two boys cleaned of blood, and washed their clothes. By that time, I’d taken a nap and eaten enough I could pop them outside the apartment building where they lived.

I did something else Death showed me: I shifted time a little, like about four hours, so they wouldn’t get in trouble for getting home from school so late. By then, their heads were so mixed up with healing and popping and getting bathed by Bobby and Benji that I figured, what the heck. A little time travel couldn’t hurt.

I was getting ready to pop back to Erewhon when Viktor grabbed me, and hugged me.

“Thank you, Nemesis,” he said. Before I could react, he kissed me—on the lips. Then, he took Kenny’s hand and led him into the building.

Kenny

Viktor was two years older than me, but we were in the same grade. He had been born after October, and started first grade with kids mostly younger than he was. He was always the oldest boy in the class. I had skipped the second grade, and was always the youngest boy in the class. Viktor was a lot bigger than me, too. We both knew that we were out of place and different. We lived in the same apartment building, just close enough to Lakeshore Drive to qualify as middle class but not close enough for good police protection. Viktor and I went to the same school. We barely acknowledged each other until the first day of sixth grade.

I was wearing new clothes: cargo pants, a knit pullover shirt with a collar, athletic shoes. The shoes were seconds, but at least they looked like the ones that were popular. The pants and shirt were seconds, too. Mom was a sharp shopper. I think she knew I had problems in school, being little and all, and tried to make up for it by making sure at least I didn’t look like a geek or something. That took a lot of money and we didn’t have much.

I made sure the door of the apartment building closed behind me. Once, someone had left it open a little, and a bunch of kids had gotten in. They’d surprised Old Mrs. Murdoch in the laundry room, and hurt her pretty bad – for a handful of quarters.

Leroy and his gang of Crips-wannabes were waiting for me at the bottom of the steps. They were always looking for someone littler than them to pick on. They’d gotten worse over the summer. Leroy pulled a switchblade partly out of his pocket.

“Lunch money, sucka,” he said.

“I don’t have any lunch money,” I said. “I brought lunch. Peanut butter sandwich.” I tried to push by. That had worked last year; it didn’t work, now. One of Leroy’s toadies grabbed my backpack and started going through it. Two more grabbed me and pushed their hands into my pockets.

“He ain’t got no money,” one said.

The one with my backpack threw my sandwich on the ground and stomped on it. It squished out from the waxed paper. “Nothin’ here, neither,” he said.

Leroy grabbed me. I heard the apartment building door slam shut, and then a voice. “Leave him alone, Leroy. He doesn’t have any money. Leave him alone!”

I saw Leroy curl his lip. I watched his eyes flicker. Then, he snarled. “Come on, he ain’t got nothin’ we want.”

Leroy and his gang faded from sight. Viktor replaced them.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “No lunch … ” I pointed at the sandwich, smushed over the sidewalk.

“You can eat with me,” Viktor said. “I’ve got more than I need, and a couple of quarters for milk. Come on, we don’t want to be late the first day.”

I ate lunch with Viktor. He bought me chocolate milk, and shared his sandwich with me. And broke in half his cookie. And walked me home. And walked me to school and home again every day until the middle of soccer season.

“Kenny?” Viktor said. We were at lunch. We had split my peanut butter sandwich and Viktor’s bologna and cheese sandwich, like we always did. I tore my sandwich in half, and gave him the bigger half. Viktor tore his sandwich in half, and gave me the bigger half. Neither of us ever cut the sandwiches in half at home; it was part of our ritual. I wondered if Viktor realized it was ritual, and if he knew how much it meant to me.

“Kenny,” he said. “You know I’m on the soccer team. Coach wants to add an after-school practice, every afternoon except Friday. I don’t want you to walk home by yourself. Can you come to practice? Watch? Do homework, or whatever?”

My tummy felt funny. I knew Viktor was worried about me. I knew he cared about me. He did an awful lot for me, and I knew he cared. This was the first time he’d ever said anything, though.

“Sure, Viktor. Mama works a swing shift; she doesn’t know what time I get home. Sure, I’ll wait for you.” I’ll wait for you forever, I thought, and wondered where it came from and what it meant.

From then on, I watched soccer practice from the bleachers in the gym, and then walked home with Viktor.

Viktor

I don’t know what it was about Kenny. He seemed so helpless, so defenseless. I’d seen him being picked on for the past couple of years. I knew who he was, even though I don’t think he ever gave me a second look.

After running off Leroy and his gang, I realized I’d made Kenny a target. I had created a problem for him and I was obligated to protect him. I knew that in my mind. Somehow, I knew it in my heart, too, which made it easy to accept my obligation.

And, I got to spend 30 minutes with him every day, walking to and from school. At first, we didn’t talk, much. Eventually we started talking. I’d opened a faucet. It was like Kenny didn’t have anyone to talk to but me and had saved up everything that had ever happened to him. It didn’t bother me to listen; I was kind of happy that Kenny trusted me enough to tell me what was important to him.

I had my first cum in the summer, and jerked off at least once a day, usually just before I showered. At first, I didn’t think of anything, really, but after rescuing Kenny from Leroy and his hoodlums, I started thinking about Kenny.

At first, I thought about Kenny; then, I thought about what Kenny would look like naked; then, I thought about what it would feel like to touch Kenny, and for him to touch me; and I got scared.

I’m gay, I thought. I don’t think about girls when I jerk off; all I can think about is Kenny. Oh, shit! My father’s gonna have a fit. No, he’s not, ’cause I can’t tell him!

My father never made a secret of his dislike for homosexuals. If he were flipping through the sports channels and accidentally tuned to figure skating or men’s gymnastics, he’d leave the TV on that channel only long enough to say something about guys who pranced around in tight clothes that showed off their dicks. And that was tame compared to what he said if the TV ever landed on a channel showing guys doing ballet.

He read the newspaper out loud at the breakfast table. And, he editorialized. Usually it was about how the president had turned the USA into a dictatorship and destroyed the middle class, and how the bleeding-heart liberals would make it worse. Sometimes, it was more specific.

“Here we go, again,” he said. “School teacher arrested for having sex with one of his students. This time, it’s a boy.”

He looked at me over the top of the paper. “Any of your teachers tried to touch you?” he asked. “That soccer coach of yours … he ever walked in on you in the shower? If he ever touches you, you start yelling and screaming … after you kick him in the nuts, you hear?”

What if he knew I loved Kenny, and wanted to rub him, kiss him, do sex stuff with him? I thought. “No, sir. He doesn’t come in the showers.” was all I could say.

“Well, if he does, you kick him in the nuts, you hear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Kenny

Mr. Mossberg was the coolest teacher we had. He was just out of college. He told us at least once a week how hard it had been to get a job with a degree in history. Then he told us how important history was.

“Those who don’t remember history are not necessarily doomed to repeat it,” he said. “But they are certainly doomed to be taken advantage of by those who do remember history.”

And then, he showed us why this was true. He talked about the causes of the Vietnam War, and how they went way back to the end of World War II, when the USA, in an orgy of “we’re the greatest” plus sympathy for the “noble French” decided to help France rebuild their Indochina empire. So much for encouraging democracy throughout the world. He showed us how Viet Nam, the failed Russian invasion of Afghanistan, and the failed American invasion of Afghanistan were similar – and different – and how if we’d learned the lessons of Viet Nam, we might have kept out of so many wars in the Middle East.

He told us lots of stuff about the depressions of the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries, and how they were like the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s, which had really begun right after World War I. He told us about how they were different, too – and how the lessons of the Great Depression might have kept us out of these greater ones.

On Monday after Thanksgiving, Mr. Mossberg walked up and down the aisles, passing out slips of paper. The first kids to get them groaned, and then started looking around the room. I couldn’t figure out what was going on.

Then, he handed me a slip of paper with my name on it. It read, “The problems facing the United States in 1933 were nearly the same as those facing Germany and Italy at that time. Those two countries became nationalistic, socialistic dictatorships. How was the United States similar and different and why? Viktor Tchekov.”

Huh? was all I could think. Then, I understood. We had to write a research paper. We would have a partner. This was the topic. My partner was going to be Viktor. I got a quivery feeling that ran from my toes to my head, and made my penis hard.

Yes, made my penis hard. I had fallen in love with Viktor a long time ago … probably the first day of school when he rescued me from Leroy and the Kiddy-Crips. It just took me a while to realize it.

I loved walking to and from school with Viktor. I loved eating lunch with him. I loved talking to him. But that was it, for Viktor. To and from school, lunch hour. Almost as if it were a duty. Now, I was going to have to study with him. And he was going to have to study with me!

Oh! Maybe he won’t want to …

Viktor

“Viktor?” Kenny’s voice was soft, but I could hear the tremors. “You don’t have to do this project with me, if you don’t want to. I could tell Mr. Mossberg my mother said I needed someone my own age … for a partner, I mean.”

I felt like Kenny had kicked me in the stomach. As soon as Mr. Mossberg had passed out the assignments, I was walking on air. I wanted a way to spend more time with Kenny, but with school, soccer, and my father, I didn’t know how. Now, I had been ordered to spend time with him.

“Uh, no, Kenny. Uh, I want to be with you … I mean, I want to work on this project with you,” I stuttered.

Then, something seemed to take over my brain and my tongue. “No, what I mean is that I want to be with you. I want to be your friend,” I said.

“We are friends, aren’t we?” Kenny asked. The shaking in his voice told me he was scared. Even though I said I wanted to be friends, Kenny wasn’t sure I meant it.

I blushed. “Yeah, but I don’t mean just friends-friends. I mean, like, best friends?”

It was Kenny’s turn to blush. Best friends? Guys don’t do ‘best friends.’ His smile lit his face. It was a beginning.

I knew I couldn’t bring Kenny home to work on our project. I wasn’t allowed to have friends over, and my father would absolutely freak at a friend who was two years younger than me, and a little … well, put it this way, Kenny didn’t even come close to my father’s idea of what a real man’s friend should be. He wasn’t girlish, but he wasn’t very macho, either. His hair was longish. My father made me get a buzz-cut. Kenny wore cargo pants or Dockers that were tight enough to show off his butt. I had to wear loose blue jeans. Kenny was a little boy. I was … I wasn’t sure what I was, but I knew it wasn’t a little boy. At least, that’s not what my father wanted me to be … not what he had ever wanted me to be. I hadn’t been a little boy in years.

I was happy to agree that we’d work together at the library and at Kenny’s apartment.

Kenny

It was easy to figure out that the biggest difference, the difference that had kept the USA from becoming Nazi or Fascist was the difference between the three charismatic leaders of the era: Roosevelt, Hitler, and Mussolini. It wasn’t the USA constitution, since Roosevelt trampled all over it, and got the Supreme Court and Congress riled up in the process. So, Viktor and I decided to focus on Roosevelt … but agreed that we’d not cut him any slack: we’d point out his excesses as well as his successes.

Viktor was lying on his back, on my bed, reciting from memory some of the words from Roosevelt’s first inaugural address, and pretending Roosevelt’s aristocratic, Yankee accent.

“ ‘First, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear, itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes efforts to convert retreat into advance … ’

“Crap, I forget what comes next. Gimme!” Viktor grabbed for the book I was holding. I swung it out of range. So, Viktor grabbed me.

I tumbled onto the bed, and landed on top of Viktor. He wrapped his arms around me, and pulled me tightly into his chest … and tummy … and crotch.

By now, I had dropped the book. Our faces were only inches apart. I should have been struggling: boys don’t lie on a bed together; they don’t lie on top of one another; they don’t get erections that press against their pants so hard the other one can feel it; they don’t …

They don’t kiss. But, we did.

Viktor pulled my face to his and pressed our lips together. I didn’t resist. I didn’t resist when his tongue pushed between his lips and then between mine. I didn’t resist when he grabbed my bottom and pulled our hips … our dicks … together. I didn’t resist, and I was happy.

“Okay, Kenny?” Viktor finally asked.

“Okay, Viktor,” I said.

Then, I said, “I’m so glad you didn’t say I’m sorry. I’m so glad you knew I wanted that so much that you didn’t have to say you were sorry.”

Viktor

Kenny surprised me with that. For a kid two years younger than me, he was pretty smart. And he had to be smart to understand and to say that. There was only answer.

“Kenny? I love you,” I said. “I can’t tell my father … I can’t let anyone know but you. How … ?” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“I love you, Viktor,” Kenny said. We were lying side by side, now. He turned, put his hand behind my head, and pulled us into a kiss. Not a sexy kiss, a gentle kiss, a brush of the lips across one another.

“I love you, and I know that’s not allowed.”

It was the next day that Leroy and his gang grabbed us, dragged us into that alley, and cut Kenny bad. I really thought we were dead, and that the boy who rescued us – Nemesis – was an angel. He’s not an angel, but he is something different, something magical. I thanked him for healing us, and he said that wasn’t him. So now, there are two magical people who helped us. We promised not to say anything and we don’t, even to each other.

I almost lost Kenny. I was so afraid. And, I was so happy that I did something really stupid. I kissed him in the hallway in front of his apartment door – and heard a click behind me.

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