Stanley

[grubby41]

[COLOR=white]?Stop mooning about, and do your homework. You have only an hour until dinner, and all you have done so far this afternoon ? other than eat - is sit around doing absolutely nothing. I know you?re feeling down again; but for heaven?s sake, you have to do something. Now, get moving before we have words. Alright??[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]And with that his Mum turned around and, sighing, made her way upstairs to the kitchen. Stan knew his Mum was right. His Dad would be home soon, and his Dad always dealt with Stan?s ?moodiness? by trying to get him ?motivated? with meaningful ?pep talks? ? as if Andrew Carnegie and Napoleon Hill together held all the answers to life?s great mysteries and the cure to Stan?s moods. They might not have had the answer to Stan?s other ?peculiarities?, but at least his Dad thought that they could help with the ?root problem?.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]Stan never knew which he dreaded more, his Dad?s positive talks, his Mum?s deeply-held conviction that action was depression?s remedy, or his own sense of the world?s pain. He shuffled his bottom towards the edge of the chesterfield, heaved a sigh, and stood up. Stan picked up the remote, and turned off the TV. Whenever he heard the theme music to his favourite news programme he cried. He would try to hide his tears. He would cough, as if he had a frog in his throat. He would rub his eyes, blink, try to sneeze ? do anything, in fact, but let anyone see him shed tears. But, Oh my God! Bombs going off in Iraq, people dying in Afghanistan, famine in the Sudan, tornadoes in the United States. Even here in Canada, fires in Alberta, floods in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Quebec, and riots in Vancouver! Stan could hardly manage to get through a day without at least one session of tears ? and then everything else that followed what his sister lovingly called a ?jag?.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]And it was only getting worse. It had started just after Stanley had his thirteenth birthday. He had celebrated his birthday down in the States with his parents and his three best friends. His folks had taken them, along with his older brother Theo and younger sister Ursula, down to Disneyland for five days, and they had a great time. Stan loved going to California. He loved how cool everything was whether it was the sunshine, the care-free feeling, or the beauty of the ocean. He also loved seeing all the tanned, muscular guys in their shorts and beaters, with their flip-flops and sunglasses, perfect hair and gleaming teeth. He knew enough about himself to know that girls didn?t do it for him; and he also knew that, to let that slip out, would spell the end of his life. Well, maybe not his home life because, no matter what, he knew his parents would always love him. They always said that it did not matter to them what their children did or felt, they would always love and support them. Stan had an inkling that, maybe, they knew; but he was not about to put that to the test. If nothing else, the embarrassment would simply be too hard to deal with.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]No, it was his school mates and his friends who would do him in. Gay pride or no gay pride, same-sex attraction was not on the menu of acceptable traits at Lord Alexander of Tunis Secondary School. He had might as well tattoo the word ?Fag? on his forehead. It would have amounted to the same thing. Life, as he knew it, would be over. No, he had to hide his feelings, avert his eyes, laugh at all the gay jokes, and pretend to like girls.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]Like girls. That was funny. Stan didn?t just like girls, he actually loved girls. They were funny, and pretty, and they always liked to talk with him. Unfortunately, they also always wanted to kiss him. They would giggle when he walked past them, and not in that mean way that they did when they were in coven-mode and wanted to hurt a boy. They giggled and whispered because they thought that he was ?cute?. They would try to sit next to him, write in his note-books, invite him to sit with them in the library. And he liked that, because he understood them. He didn?t get the bitchiness part, when they would turn mean and plot a cleverly-crafted character assassination against one of their own who had pissed them off or broken their secret code. But he did get it when they cried, or squealed in delight over a rock-star?s new hairstyle, or discussed the deeper meanings of what was said by whom to whom and about whom. And even though he was different from them ? and he was ? and stood outside their circle as all men must, he still understood them, and he loved them. And they loved him in return.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]And, because Stan was not interested in them in the way that they still did not really understand they wanted him to be, there was no rivalry, no jealousy. He was desired and desireable, but he was possessed by none and belonged to all.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]And this marked him as different from the other boys, and made them suspicious of him.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]However, Stanley had other things going for him. First, because he was in with the ?chicks?, as the more worldly-wise adolescents of his sex would put it, he could be useful later on. Secondly, there was the whole ?Stan-thang? that made him stand out from the crowd. What the girls saw, the boys saw too. The very fact that at twelve, Stanley Cheng stood almost six feet tall, had deep brown eyes and straight thick dark brown hair that fell down over his collar, and his mother?s full lips and perfect German teeth, set him apart from all the other boys. Even at the threshold of puberty, he had the wide shoulders and narrow hips of an athlete, and the long sensitive fingers and finely-formed nails of an artist. And in every photograph, Stan was always smiling, the small dimples on either side of his mouth working with the cleft in his chin to make a picture that the renaissance artists would have fought each other to paint. To overstate Stan?s physical beauty would be difficult to do.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]And what was the strangest thing of all, in that self-conscious and often brutally aggressive world of esteem-deprived teenage angst, Stanley was almost completely unaware of his beauty; and had he been aware of it, it would not have meant all that much to him. It might have had, had the tears not come; but they had come, and with them came a selflessness and awareness of others that made his appearance quite unimportant to him ? and just as equally almost painfully attractive to others.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]And so the boys left off their innate need to persecute, and a few even fell in love with Stanley just as much as the girls had done.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]And then Stan?s world changed, almost overnight.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]Sitting with his family and three closest buddies watching television in his parents? hotel room the night before they left California for home, they were looking at the news. The presenter had just come on the screen with a story about a duck which had lost her ducklings down a drain, and how a policeman had been quacked at and harassed by the mother duck as she loudly attempted to draw his attention to her plight. The policeman followed the duck to the drain, and heard her ducklings in the hollow darkness down below the gutter of the rain-soaked street. And having summoned the assistance of a policewoman and two bystanders, they soon had the grating off, and were delivering the ducklings back to their dam ? and that was when Stan?s dam broke. He let out a great, heaving sob, and the tears began to run down his cheeks.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]His three friends looked over at him. His mother looked. His father looked. His brother looked. And his little sister laughed out loud.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]?What is wrong with you??[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]Stan couldn?t say anything, he simply wept ? and quite loudly, too.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]?Oh, sweetheart, what?s wrong, honey??, asked Mum.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]?Stan??, said Dad.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]?Dude??, said Theo.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]Ursula simply stared at him. Then she spoke.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]?Wuss!?[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]Stan got up, and walked to the bathroom. He shut the door, and sat down on the toilet seat with his head in his hands, the hot tears streaming down his face.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]His Dad knocked on the closed bathroom door.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]?Buddy? You okay in there??[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]?Yeah, Dad. I?m fine. Just leave me alone, okay? Just for a bit??[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]?Alright, buddy. But when you?re feeling better, maybe we should talk??[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]?No, Dad, I?m okay. I?ll be out soon.?[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]After a while, the crying stopped. Stan got up, and walked over to the sink. He ran some water in the basin, splashed his face, and patted himself dry with the towel. He looked at himself in the mirror, his eyes a dull red and his highly-set cheeks flushed.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]?That poor mother duck! Imagine how she felt! It must have been like the end of her world!?[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]And then the hunger began. It came up from the very pit of his stomach, it rose to his throat, it almost engulfed him. He had to eat. He had to eat now. He had to have food.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]He rushed out of the bathroom, and into the small kitchen area where his mother had put some powdered-sugar covered doughnuts, orange juice, buns and cheese in the fridge.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]?Mum, I really have to eat. I mean, I really have to eat now!?[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]?Oh, Stan! We just had dinner. Just have a doughnut, and settle down.?[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]?No, Mum, I have to eat.?[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]Stan opened up the fridge, and took out the buns and cheese. He tore open the package, and laid the cheese in the first bun he had pulled out of the brown paper-bag on the shelf. He wolfed down the cheese sandwich, and then made himself another. When the buns and cheese were gone, he started on the doughnuts. And then, finally, the juice.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]He felt better, now. No longer sad, just satisfied. His hunger was gone, and now all he wanted to do was sleep.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]?Sorry, but I have to go lie down. I?m going back to our room. Marcus, Anderson, Kevin? I?ll see you guys later. Please, don?t wake me up - just let me sleep.?[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]After Stan had left, his Dad just looked at his Mum.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]Theo said that was weird.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]Ursula said Stan was stupid.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]The boys looked embarrassed, and not a little concerned.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]?Guys, don?t worry. You guys are teens, and this kind of thing happens.?[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]Yeah, Mr Cheng, all three thought, it happens every day.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]Back in his room, Stan laid down on the bed, and slept like the dead for an hour and a half. His three friends had decided to join Theo down in the lobby of the hotel. Ursula and her mother packed, and Dad sat and watched the American news broadcast, muttering from time to time about how much they wasted south of the border.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]Finally, Stan?s Dad thought that he ought to check in on his son. He walked down the hall to the boys? room, and knocked on the door. There was no answer.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]So Mr Cheng went back to his room, and used the telephone. Stan answered.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]?No, Dad. I?m fine, thanks. I feel okay. I just had to sleep things off. I?m really sorry to have upset you and Mum. I think I?ll just go to bed, and I?ll see you guys in the morning at breakfast. Okay??[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]His Dad agreed, and Stan hung up the phone.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]He got up, and went to the bathroom. As he unzipped his fly, he felt a tightness around his arms and shoulders. He squirmed, moving his shoulders around, and tried to adjust them, almost peeing on the floor as he did so. When he had finished, he zipped himself up, and went to the sink to wash his hands. As he reached for the towel he noticed that his shirt was tight across his chest. He looked at his arm, and noticed on the inside of his elbow that there was a prominent grey-blue vein running down and into his forearm.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]Stan panicked.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]Had he pulled something? Was that episode in his parents? room a haemorrhage? Was he sick? Was he dying?[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]Stan looked at himself in the mirror. He felt fine. In fact, he felt very well. He looked at the vein again, and then decided that it had probably been there all along. Well, of course it had. He had just never noticed it before. But gosh, it was big. Why had he never seen it?[/COLOR]

[COLOR=white]And that was when he was thirteen, almost exactly three years ago. And the vein was only just the beginning. It simply got worse from there. [/COLOR]

[arpeejay]

Oh, that I should have Stanley's problems! :-)

Great start! More, please, and soon!

xoxo

Richard

[2bored]

This is unique! I hope to read more.

[Reeza]

This is very well written. I look forward to it's continuation. Thanks for writing and sharing it with us.

[swatkins]

Growth by weltschmerz. This should be fascinating.

[Mass Driver]

Wow. This looks Good. Real Good.

Keep Writing.

MD

[silvershadow]

Well this is creative and intresting. Gonna keep reading.

[philat99]

Just found this. Wonderful first chapter and am about to read the rest.