Close to Home - chapter 6
Saturday
The funeral was kind of awful, like funerals always are. Kon felt stiff and uncomfortable in Clark's old suit, and the church was hot and stuffy, its ancient AC not up to the heat of the crowd and the sunny Kansas morning. Most of the women had square paper fans on wooden sticks, and those who didn't were lazily waving their programs in front of their faces. Martha had a hand-painted bamboo folding-fan from China in her handbag - Clark had brought it back to her after his first trip there, and it was always the envy of the Ladies' Auxiliary.
Today, those ladies were all sitting in a row near the front of the church, and Martha patted him on the bicep and left his arm to go join them. It wasn't until she slid into the pew that Kon realized exactly what seemed so strange about the scene. The ladies' group was oddly decimated, a lot of the more prominent members conspicuous in their absence. The women who were there mostly overlapped with Martha's book club, and were the ones that came by the farm most often for coffee and cake.
Kon looked around and frowned at the apparent pattern. The church was full, yes - you couldn't bury a teenager in a small town without filling the church - but not as full as it could have been. Not as full as it had been six months ago when Lacey Pruitt had gotten drunk out of her mind and wrapped her father's car around a tree.
Cross was there - he probably always came to student funerals - and Dalton too, down near the front, with a little redheaded girl in pigtails in his lap. Pretty much everyone from the club was there, though he didn’t see Chase, and except for Clarence and Delilah, who were sitting with Rebecca and the Moores, they were all spread out. Jake and his dad were sitting together two rows back from Martha, with a young, dark-haired young woman who was probably Nell, and Hamilton was sitting three rows from the back with a few guys from the football team and - Kon blinked - Baumhauer, the jerk from his bio class.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kon saw Patrick Stephens slip quietly in through the big double doors. Kon hurried around the end of the last row and took a seat there, far from the door and out of sight.
*
When the service was over, Kon waited until Stephens was gone before he slipped out the doors into the sunshine, He stepped off the path, out of the way of the crowd, and leaned back against one of the old beech trees that shaded the walk. It always took Martha at least ten or fifteen minutes to get out the door at any kind of social thing, and he figured a funeral would probably take even longer than usual to escape. Still, it was a nice day, and the sun felt good. He wished he wasn’t stuck in a crappy suit, though.
It would be a nice flight out to the tower. He’d checked the weather, and the only rain on the map had been over Colorado. He could skim south a little and avoid that completely, and still get to San Francisco before they were expecting him. There wasn’t going to be a graveside - Matt had apparently wanted to be cremated - so they were done a lot earlier than Kon had expected.
The crowd milled around a little on the lawn. Most people were drifting toward the cars that lined both sides of the narrow street, but a few clumps were standing around chatting, or maybe just enjoying the day.
The sun felt really good, actually. Kon had been feeling kind of drained all week. He turned his face up and closed his eyes, just basking, trying not to eavesdrop on the conversations around him and soaking up the sun like a plant.
Every now and then, Martha would joke that she ought to stick him in the ground and water him. Sometimes Kon thought that sounded like a pretty good idea.
“Hey,” someone said. Kon opened his eyes to find Jake standing at the edge of the path, his hands in his pockets and his eyes apparently locked on something just over Kon’s left shoulder.
“Hey,” Kon said.
“You hungry?”
Kon glanced up at the sun. It was probably about half past ten, and he’d told the others he’d be there around noon.
“Or, uh, want some coffee, or something? Nell’s talking to your aunt about the eggs, but I’ve got her keys, and…” he trailed off. After a few seconds, he met Kon’s eyes with obvious effort. “I’d like to talk to you.”
Kon smiled. “Sure.” The Titans were used to him being late by now, anyway.
They walked together in silence, down the street and around the corner, to the little shop front diner that had opened some time during Kon’s absence. The sign over the window read ‘Whoa Nellie’s All-Natural Eatery’ in bold green letters.
Jake waved at someone on the street as he unlocked the door and opened it wide. “Come on back to the kitchen,” he said. “If I turn the lights on up front people will think we’re open.”
Kon followed him through the darkened restaurant. The booths and the stools at the counter were all the same cheery green as the sign, and there were paintings near most of the tables that used a lot of the same color. The pictures were bold, semi-abstract portraits of vegetables, mostly, though they passed a wall on the way to the kitchen that was covered in unframed canvases that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, with narrow spaces between them for little paper tags. “You do all these?” Kon asked, stopping to look.
“Oh. Yeah.”
“Wow.”
Jake pushed open a swinging door. “I get bored,” he said, and disappeared into the dark kitchen.
The lights sputtered on, cold florescent, and Kon followed him. He’d been in a few restaurant kitchens before, mostly while chasing bad guys or fighting giant cockroach monsters. This one was pretty clean, and obviously kind of new. The steel fixtures shone like chrome and there wasn’t much in the way of ground-in grime. “I don’t see how. You work here, too? And the store?”
“I help get things ready before school, for the breakfast rush. And sometimes I wait tables a little for tips if it’s not busy at the store.” He shrugged. “I…haven’t got much of a social life, actually.”
Kon felt a rush of fellow-feeling. “Like me.”
“Exactly.” Jake looked up for a moment, his blue eyes suddenly intense, and then he turned away to fiddle with the giant fancy coffee machine. “I’ve never had anybody I could talk to. I - I mean, Nell would be cool, I think, but I can’t ask her to lie to dad, and I’ve got no idea how he’d react.”
Oh. Kon’s eyes widened. Oh, but Jake was busy spooning coffee into the machine and couldn’t see his face, which Kon figured was probably a good thing.
“He’s kind of old fashioned about funny things…” Jake continued, and then sighed.
Kon shuffled his feet uselessly. “I could…maybe ask Ma to feel him out?”
Jake stopped messing with the machine and turned to look at Kon, slightly panicked.
“Or not. Um.” Apparently this was one of those conversations where the other party was meant to offer sympathetic noises and not advice.
The machine stopped steaming, and Jake turned back to pull a lever. Kon could smell the coffee all of a sudden, rich and dark and good, and he maybe made a little noise of want. It smelled like Alfred’s coffee, which was like the best coffee ever, and which he hadn’t had in entirely too long because Tim’s family couldn’t keep its shit together.
“I keep thinking,” Jake went on,” I’ll go off to school next year and I’ll be in another town, and I won’t feel like the whole world’s looking over my shoulder. Dad wants me at State, but I was maybe hoping - it’s dumb.”
Kon made what he hoped was the right sympathetic noise. It seemed to help, because Jake turned and smiled at him over his shoulder before pulling a couple of mugs from a rack. They were mismatched, and one was chipped, and Kon didn’t think they were meant for the customers.
“My grades are pretty good. If I can get some money from an art program, maybe in a big city…”
“I bet you can.”
Jake shook his head. “I think maybe I’ve got it all built up in my head… 'Small town queer runs away to big city!’ But I’ve never really been out of Lowell County.” The machine stopped steaming, and he flipped the lever back up and filled both mugs with steaming black coffee from a steel pitcher. “You lived in Metropolis, right? With your cousin?””
That was the story they’d been giving people, so Kon nodded as he took the mug Jake held out to him. It had a picture of a cartoon cat on it.
“Are there a lot of…I mean, do you think I’d fit in there? Better, anyway?”
Kon took a deep breath of coffee smell and gave the question the consideration it deserved. It wasn’t so far off the one he’d asked himself before returning to Smallville. “There are all kinds of people in a big city. It’s easier not to stand out, and to find other people you have stuff in common with. But there are all kinds of people, everywhere. Just look at how many people were at the library, yesterday.”
“Right,” Jake said, somewhat bitterly. “But it took somebody being beaten to death before any of us had the guts to say a word. Hell, I still haven’t. You’re the only one-“ he stopped himself and took a sip of coffee, which was Kon’s cue that it was cool enough for human consumption. He took a long, slow draw, breathing out through his nose and rolling the liquid across his tongue. “Oh,” Jake said suddenly. “Do you want some milk or-“
Kon shook his head and swallowed. “God, don’t wreck it!”
Jake laughed. “Yeah. The stuff Dad buys, I need milk to cut it. This is some kind of fancy blend, fair-trade, hand roasted…I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Nell. It’s good, though.” He took another small sip of his own coffee, and didn’t look back up, focusing instead on the badly chipped Superman mug in his hands, his voice quiet and tentative. “She might know.”
It didn’t take Kon more than the space of a blink to realize they weren’t talking about coffee anymore. “Well. If she does, then she probably doesn’t mind? If she hasn’t said anything or started treating you different, I mean.”
“What if she tells my dad?” Jake asked, and the tight edge in his voice made Kon think of the Stephenss and his stomach clenched. “Or - or hints, even? He’s not dumb, and everyone’s talking about Matt and Clarence. It’ll be on his mind…”
“Hey,” Kon cut in before Jake could work himself up any worse. Tim had used to get like that, sometimes, back before he’d done his best to shut himself down. Some people could ‘what if’ themselves to death, and the only way to save them from themselves was to head them off. “You know…There's a guest room up at the farmhouse, if you ever need it.”
Jake finally looked up, startled.
“And Ma’s got kind of a thing about lost boys.”
“I - I don’t think he’d throw me out,” Jake protested. “He’s just going to be so disappointed. He wants me to take over the store and marry somebody like Gina Brown and make him a bunch of blue-eyed grandchildren-“
Kon coughed quietly. He didn’t know Gina well, but she was very attractive. He could see how a man could want that for his son. But… “He’d be disappointed either way, then.”
Jake didn’t laugh.
“You didn’t see her,” Kon guessed.
“What?”
“In the back row. Holding hands with Lisa Stillwell.”
Jake’s mouth dropped open and his mug hit the counter, splashing coffee over his hand. “No!”
Kon just grinned.
Jake started to laugh, and he kept laughing even as he cleaned up the mess he’d made. “Oh, man,” he said. “There’s going to be some disappointed fellas when they show up at that dance…”
Personally, Kon didn’t think 'disappointed' was quite the right word, but he wasn’t about to say anything.
“Man, I needed that laugh. I feel about ten pounds lighter.” Jake rinsed out the rag he’d used to sop up the coffee and wiped his face with it. “Jesus, I haven’t let you get a word in.”
“No, man,” Kon said, “you needed to talk. I get that.”
“I really, did. I really, really - I’ve never had a single conversation with someone who knew I- “ Jake broke off and ducked his head. “Until Matt and Clarence came out, I kind of thought I had to be the only guy in school. I know that’s stupid - I’ve read the statistics, and everything. But nobody ever says anything. Until them, I’d never met anyone who was, you know, open. And I - I barely knew them. They were a year down, and all, and I was kind of scared everybody would - would know, if I talked to them. It really helped, knowing I wasn’t the only one. The meeting helped, too. I really wish I’d said something, joined in…” He sighed. “It’s a moot point now, though.”
“Cross is an ass,” Kon said.
“Yeah,” Jake said. He turned suddenly and lashed out, sending his empty mug flying into the sink to shatter, a ragged crack cutting through the faded Superman crest. “It’s not fair!”
*
“It’s not fair,” Kon groaned as he flopped down on the couch. He covered his face with his black-stained palms and rubbed his eyes a little. "They really need someone, you know? They're lonely, and isolated, and the jocks and the Jesus freaks are picking them apart like vultures."
It had been a long day, and there had been giant squid-monsters, but they were back in the tower's rec room for chill time, waiting on the pizzas. They'd gotten most of the ink off, aside from a few splatters, but the smell had kind of lingered, even after three showers. They all stank equally, though, so that was okay.
Cassie sank down beside him and patted his hand. "You're sweet to worry."
Tim was doing something fiddly the innards of one of his gadgets while Bart watched over his shoulder. "His concern is valid," he said, without looking up. "There's a very good chance the murder was a hate crime."
"They hung a dead chicken in one boy's locker," Kon told them. Cassie frowned, and Bart made a face. Tim didn't look up, but he'd already seen the photos. "I know at least one kid's been hiding out all week while he's supposed to be in gym. And the teachers aren't doing anything! My bio teacher's the only one I've heard speak up about it."
"Okay," Cassie muttered, "that's a lawsuit waiting to happen."
"Sure," Bart said. He zipped over to the couch and settled on Kon's other side. "There's plenty of precedent for it. Teachers and administrators who are aware of bullying or harassment but don't take action are legally liable."
"The whole school's so fucking hostile. I can't figure it out! Why does anyone care who these kids are dating anyway? Most of them aren't dating. Jake's never even been on a date - not a real one."
"Poor guy," Cassie said, with great sympathy.
"They're just trying to find a place to fit in, people to talk to, some kind of protection in numbers, and Principal Cross shut them down without a thought."
Bart sat up, suddenly, thrumming like a plucked string. "He can't do that!"
"I know!"
"No," Bart said, "I mean that's illegal!" Everyone, including Tim, turned to look at him, and Kon felt the couch start to buzz as he went on, "Under the Federal Equal Access Act of 1984, US Code Title twenty, chapter fifty-two, subchapter-"
"We get it," Cassie interrupted.
"’It shall be unlawful for any public secondary school which receives federal financial assistance and which has a limited open forum to deny equal access or a fair opportunity to, or discriminate against, any students who wish to conduct a meeting within that limited open forum on the basis of religious, political, philosophical or other content of the speech at such meetings’," Bart recited. "Which means if there are any non-academic groups on campus - and that includes sports teams - your group has to be granted the same rights and privileges."
Kon blinked. "There wasn't anything in that about gay clubs." There was a spark of hope growing in his belly, though.
"Well, no," Bart said, "no, see, what's funny is the law was enacted by conservatives, to allow religious groups to meet on campus, but the courts have decided it applies to student-initiated LGBT organizations like gay-straight alliances. There are a couple of rules - you can't have non-students participating regularly, and the school doesn't have to give you money or anything it doesn't give, say, the Joy Club. And you can't hurt anybody or advocate hurting anybody or disrupt school function. But," he smiled, "legally, the only way they can shut you down is to close all the clubs. It's been done before, but it never lasts very long before the students and parents demand Math League and band and all the sports back."
Kon turned and grabbed Bart by the shoulders, using his strength and his aura to stop the vibrations before he shook the couch apart. For a split second, his teeth clattered against each other, and then Bart went still.
"You need a lawyer!" he exclaimed. "Your principal probably doesn't even know he's breaking the law."
Kon's hopes fell a little. "They're just a bunch of kids! Where are they going to get a lawyer?"
Cassie put her hand on his arm, and he let Bart go to turn and look down at her. He'd floated up about a foot without realizing it, while pushing Bart down. "You used to have an agent. Did you have a lawyer?"
Kon blinked. "Who sues superheroes?"
"Well, in 1952, the city of-"
"Hypothetical!" Kon dropped back onto the cough with a thump and frowned. "I don't even know any lawyers."
Bart made a noise of frustration and crossed his arms over his chest. "Only because they wouldn't let me take the bar exam." He paused - long enough for Kon to register it as a pause - and then he was gone.
"Huh," Cassie said. "I guess he thought of-"
Bart was back, sitting at the table opposite Tim and surrounded by books and stacks of papers which fluttered in his wake. He was bent over a yellow legal pad and writing furiously, clutching a bunch of spare pencils in his other hand. "I've never written a Letter of Demand, before. This is kind of fun!"
Kon saw Tim sniff, and tested the air himself. He smelled smoke, and looked around in alarm until he tracked the scent to Bart's pencil sharpener and the growing pile of shavings under his chair. When he concentrated, he could hear brief bursts of wood-chipper whine whenever Bart turned a page. "You're not a lawyer!" He protested.
"Don't have to be to write a letter," Bart said, without looking up. "I'm just letting him know how badly he'd lose a lawsuit. Here -" he pushed a stack of pamphlets and printouts across the table in Kon's direction. "You'll want to review these if you're going to be defending it."
"I - " Kon blinked, "what?"
"The group has to be student initiated. And you're going to need a faculty sponsor. And you're going to have to be convincing, because I can't actually bring a suit or represent you in court."
Kon heard a click, and turned to see Tim reattach his gadget to his shoulder belt before he leaned across the table and picked up a stack of papers. He smiled a hard little smile and looked up at Kon, and Kon couldn't help but return it, because he knew that smile, and it meant vengeance from on fucking high. "We do know a few lawyers. If there's as much precedent as you say, he won't need one," he told Bart without looking away from Kon, "but if he does... Oracle just volunteered herself and Manhunter for the job."
Kon's smile widened into a grin.
Index | 7
The funeral was kind of awful, like funerals always are. Kon felt stiff and uncomfortable in Clark's old suit, and the church was hot and stuffy, its ancient AC not up to the heat of the crowd and the sunny Kansas morning. Most of the women had square paper fans on wooden sticks, and those who didn't were lazily waving their programs in front of their faces. Martha had a hand-painted bamboo folding-fan from China in her handbag - Clark had brought it back to her after his first trip there, and it was always the envy of the Ladies' Auxiliary.
Today, those ladies were all sitting in a row near the front of the church, and Martha patted him on the bicep and left his arm to go join them. It wasn't until she slid into the pew that Kon realized exactly what seemed so strange about the scene. The ladies' group was oddly decimated, a lot of the more prominent members conspicuous in their absence. The women who were there mostly overlapped with Martha's book club, and were the ones that came by the farm most often for coffee and cake.
Kon looked around and frowned at the apparent pattern. The church was full, yes - you couldn't bury a teenager in a small town without filling the church - but not as full as it could have been. Not as full as it had been six months ago when Lacey Pruitt had gotten drunk out of her mind and wrapped her father's car around a tree.
Cross was there - he probably always came to student funerals - and Dalton too, down near the front, with a little redheaded girl in pigtails in his lap. Pretty much everyone from the club was there, though he didn’t see Chase, and except for Clarence and Delilah, who were sitting with Rebecca and the Moores, they were all spread out. Jake and his dad were sitting together two rows back from Martha, with a young, dark-haired young woman who was probably Nell, and Hamilton was sitting three rows from the back with a few guys from the football team and - Kon blinked - Baumhauer, the jerk from his bio class.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kon saw Patrick Stephens slip quietly in through the big double doors. Kon hurried around the end of the last row and took a seat there, far from the door and out of sight.
*
When the service was over, Kon waited until Stephens was gone before he slipped out the doors into the sunshine, He stepped off the path, out of the way of the crowd, and leaned back against one of the old beech trees that shaded the walk. It always took Martha at least ten or fifteen minutes to get out the door at any kind of social thing, and he figured a funeral would probably take even longer than usual to escape. Still, it was a nice day, and the sun felt good. He wished he wasn’t stuck in a crappy suit, though.
It would be a nice flight out to the tower. He’d checked the weather, and the only rain on the map had been over Colorado. He could skim south a little and avoid that completely, and still get to San Francisco before they were expecting him. There wasn’t going to be a graveside - Matt had apparently wanted to be cremated - so they were done a lot earlier than Kon had expected.
The crowd milled around a little on the lawn. Most people were drifting toward the cars that lined both sides of the narrow street, but a few clumps were standing around chatting, or maybe just enjoying the day.
The sun felt really good, actually. Kon had been feeling kind of drained all week. He turned his face up and closed his eyes, just basking, trying not to eavesdrop on the conversations around him and soaking up the sun like a plant.
Every now and then, Martha would joke that she ought to stick him in the ground and water him. Sometimes Kon thought that sounded like a pretty good idea.
“Hey,” someone said. Kon opened his eyes to find Jake standing at the edge of the path, his hands in his pockets and his eyes apparently locked on something just over Kon’s left shoulder.
“Hey,” Kon said.
“You hungry?”
Kon glanced up at the sun. It was probably about half past ten, and he’d told the others he’d be there around noon.
“Or, uh, want some coffee, or something? Nell’s talking to your aunt about the eggs, but I’ve got her keys, and…” he trailed off. After a few seconds, he met Kon’s eyes with obvious effort. “I’d like to talk to you.”
Kon smiled. “Sure.” The Titans were used to him being late by now, anyway.
They walked together in silence, down the street and around the corner, to the little shop front diner that had opened some time during Kon’s absence. The sign over the window read ‘Whoa Nellie’s All-Natural Eatery’ in bold green letters.
Jake waved at someone on the street as he unlocked the door and opened it wide. “Come on back to the kitchen,” he said. “If I turn the lights on up front people will think we’re open.”
Kon followed him through the darkened restaurant. The booths and the stools at the counter were all the same cheery green as the sign, and there were paintings near most of the tables that used a lot of the same color. The pictures were bold, semi-abstract portraits of vegetables, mostly, though they passed a wall on the way to the kitchen that was covered in unframed canvases that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, with narrow spaces between them for little paper tags. “You do all these?” Kon asked, stopping to look.
“Oh. Yeah.”
“Wow.”
Jake pushed open a swinging door. “I get bored,” he said, and disappeared into the dark kitchen.
The lights sputtered on, cold florescent, and Kon followed him. He’d been in a few restaurant kitchens before, mostly while chasing bad guys or fighting giant cockroach monsters. This one was pretty clean, and obviously kind of new. The steel fixtures shone like chrome and there wasn’t much in the way of ground-in grime. “I don’t see how. You work here, too? And the store?”
“I help get things ready before school, for the breakfast rush. And sometimes I wait tables a little for tips if it’s not busy at the store.” He shrugged. “I…haven’t got much of a social life, actually.”
Kon felt a rush of fellow-feeling. “Like me.”
“Exactly.” Jake looked up for a moment, his blue eyes suddenly intense, and then he turned away to fiddle with the giant fancy coffee machine. “I’ve never had anybody I could talk to. I - I mean, Nell would be cool, I think, but I can’t ask her to lie to dad, and I’ve got no idea how he’d react.”
Oh. Kon’s eyes widened. Oh, but Jake was busy spooning coffee into the machine and couldn’t see his face, which Kon figured was probably a good thing.
“He’s kind of old fashioned about funny things…” Jake continued, and then sighed.
Kon shuffled his feet uselessly. “I could…maybe ask Ma to feel him out?”
Jake stopped messing with the machine and turned to look at Kon, slightly panicked.
“Or not. Um.” Apparently this was one of those conversations where the other party was meant to offer sympathetic noises and not advice.
The machine stopped steaming, and Jake turned back to pull a lever. Kon could smell the coffee all of a sudden, rich and dark and good, and he maybe made a little noise of want. It smelled like Alfred’s coffee, which was like the best coffee ever, and which he hadn’t had in entirely too long because Tim’s family couldn’t keep its shit together.
“I keep thinking,” Jake went on,” I’ll go off to school next year and I’ll be in another town, and I won’t feel like the whole world’s looking over my shoulder. Dad wants me at State, but I was maybe hoping - it’s dumb.”
Kon made what he hoped was the right sympathetic noise. It seemed to help, because Jake turned and smiled at him over his shoulder before pulling a couple of mugs from a rack. They were mismatched, and one was chipped, and Kon didn’t think they were meant for the customers.
“My grades are pretty good. If I can get some money from an art program, maybe in a big city…”
“I bet you can.”
Jake shook his head. “I think maybe I’ve got it all built up in my head… 'Small town queer runs away to big city!’ But I’ve never really been out of Lowell County.” The machine stopped steaming, and he flipped the lever back up and filled both mugs with steaming black coffee from a steel pitcher. “You lived in Metropolis, right? With your cousin?””
That was the story they’d been giving people, so Kon nodded as he took the mug Jake held out to him. It had a picture of a cartoon cat on it.
“Are there a lot of…I mean, do you think I’d fit in there? Better, anyway?”
Kon took a deep breath of coffee smell and gave the question the consideration it deserved. It wasn’t so far off the one he’d asked himself before returning to Smallville. “There are all kinds of people in a big city. It’s easier not to stand out, and to find other people you have stuff in common with. But there are all kinds of people, everywhere. Just look at how many people were at the library, yesterday.”
“Right,” Jake said, somewhat bitterly. “But it took somebody being beaten to death before any of us had the guts to say a word. Hell, I still haven’t. You’re the only one-“ he stopped himself and took a sip of coffee, which was Kon’s cue that it was cool enough for human consumption. He took a long, slow draw, breathing out through his nose and rolling the liquid across his tongue. “Oh,” Jake said suddenly. “Do you want some milk or-“
Kon shook his head and swallowed. “God, don’t wreck it!”
Jake laughed. “Yeah. The stuff Dad buys, I need milk to cut it. This is some kind of fancy blend, fair-trade, hand roasted…I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Nell. It’s good, though.” He took another small sip of his own coffee, and didn’t look back up, focusing instead on the badly chipped Superman mug in his hands, his voice quiet and tentative. “She might know.”
It didn’t take Kon more than the space of a blink to realize they weren’t talking about coffee anymore. “Well. If she does, then she probably doesn’t mind? If she hasn’t said anything or started treating you different, I mean.”
“What if she tells my dad?” Jake asked, and the tight edge in his voice made Kon think of the Stephenss and his stomach clenched. “Or - or hints, even? He’s not dumb, and everyone’s talking about Matt and Clarence. It’ll be on his mind…”
“Hey,” Kon cut in before Jake could work himself up any worse. Tim had used to get like that, sometimes, back before he’d done his best to shut himself down. Some people could ‘what if’ themselves to death, and the only way to save them from themselves was to head them off. “You know…There's a guest room up at the farmhouse, if you ever need it.”
Jake finally looked up, startled.
“And Ma’s got kind of a thing about lost boys.”
“I - I don’t think he’d throw me out,” Jake protested. “He’s just going to be so disappointed. He wants me to take over the store and marry somebody like Gina Brown and make him a bunch of blue-eyed grandchildren-“
Kon coughed quietly. He didn’t know Gina well, but she was very attractive. He could see how a man could want that for his son. But… “He’d be disappointed either way, then.”
Jake didn’t laugh.
“You didn’t see her,” Kon guessed.
“What?”
“In the back row. Holding hands with Lisa Stillwell.”
Jake’s mouth dropped open and his mug hit the counter, splashing coffee over his hand. “No!”
Kon just grinned.
Jake started to laugh, and he kept laughing even as he cleaned up the mess he’d made. “Oh, man,” he said. “There’s going to be some disappointed fellas when they show up at that dance…”
Personally, Kon didn’t think 'disappointed' was quite the right word, but he wasn’t about to say anything.
“Man, I needed that laugh. I feel about ten pounds lighter.” Jake rinsed out the rag he’d used to sop up the coffee and wiped his face with it. “Jesus, I haven’t let you get a word in.”
“No, man,” Kon said, “you needed to talk. I get that.”
“I really, did. I really, really - I’ve never had a single conversation with someone who knew I- “ Jake broke off and ducked his head. “Until Matt and Clarence came out, I kind of thought I had to be the only guy in school. I know that’s stupid - I’ve read the statistics, and everything. But nobody ever says anything. Until them, I’d never met anyone who was, you know, open. And I - I barely knew them. They were a year down, and all, and I was kind of scared everybody would - would know, if I talked to them. It really helped, knowing I wasn’t the only one. The meeting helped, too. I really wish I’d said something, joined in…” He sighed. “It’s a moot point now, though.”
“Cross is an ass,” Kon said.
“Yeah,” Jake said. He turned suddenly and lashed out, sending his empty mug flying into the sink to shatter, a ragged crack cutting through the faded Superman crest. “It’s not fair!”
*
“It’s not fair,” Kon groaned as he flopped down on the couch. He covered his face with his black-stained palms and rubbed his eyes a little. "They really need someone, you know? They're lonely, and isolated, and the jocks and the Jesus freaks are picking them apart like vultures."
It had been a long day, and there had been giant squid-monsters, but they were back in the tower's rec room for chill time, waiting on the pizzas. They'd gotten most of the ink off, aside from a few splatters, but the smell had kind of lingered, even after three showers. They all stank equally, though, so that was okay.
Cassie sank down beside him and patted his hand. "You're sweet to worry."
Tim was doing something fiddly the innards of one of his gadgets while Bart watched over his shoulder. "His concern is valid," he said, without looking up. "There's a very good chance the murder was a hate crime."
"They hung a dead chicken in one boy's locker," Kon told them. Cassie frowned, and Bart made a face. Tim didn't look up, but he'd already seen the photos. "I know at least one kid's been hiding out all week while he's supposed to be in gym. And the teachers aren't doing anything! My bio teacher's the only one I've heard speak up about it."
"Okay," Cassie muttered, "that's a lawsuit waiting to happen."
"Sure," Bart said. He zipped over to the couch and settled on Kon's other side. "There's plenty of precedent for it. Teachers and administrators who are aware of bullying or harassment but don't take action are legally liable."
"The whole school's so fucking hostile. I can't figure it out! Why does anyone care who these kids are dating anyway? Most of them aren't dating. Jake's never even been on a date - not a real one."
"Poor guy," Cassie said, with great sympathy.
"They're just trying to find a place to fit in, people to talk to, some kind of protection in numbers, and Principal Cross shut them down without a thought."
Bart sat up, suddenly, thrumming like a plucked string. "He can't do that!"
"I know!"
"No," Bart said, "I mean that's illegal!" Everyone, including Tim, turned to look at him, and Kon felt the couch start to buzz as he went on, "Under the Federal Equal Access Act of 1984, US Code Title twenty, chapter fifty-two, subchapter-"
"We get it," Cassie interrupted.
"’It shall be unlawful for any public secondary school which receives federal financial assistance and which has a limited open forum to deny equal access or a fair opportunity to, or discriminate against, any students who wish to conduct a meeting within that limited open forum on the basis of religious, political, philosophical or other content of the speech at such meetings’," Bart recited. "Which means if there are any non-academic groups on campus - and that includes sports teams - your group has to be granted the same rights and privileges."
Kon blinked. "There wasn't anything in that about gay clubs." There was a spark of hope growing in his belly, though.
"Well, no," Bart said, "no, see, what's funny is the law was enacted by conservatives, to allow religious groups to meet on campus, but the courts have decided it applies to student-initiated LGBT organizations like gay-straight alliances. There are a couple of rules - you can't have non-students participating regularly, and the school doesn't have to give you money or anything it doesn't give, say, the Joy Club. And you can't hurt anybody or advocate hurting anybody or disrupt school function. But," he smiled, "legally, the only way they can shut you down is to close all the clubs. It's been done before, but it never lasts very long before the students and parents demand Math League and band and all the sports back."
Kon turned and grabbed Bart by the shoulders, using his strength and his aura to stop the vibrations before he shook the couch apart. For a split second, his teeth clattered against each other, and then Bart went still.
"You need a lawyer!" he exclaimed. "Your principal probably doesn't even know he's breaking the law."
Kon's hopes fell a little. "They're just a bunch of kids! Where are they going to get a lawyer?"
Cassie put her hand on his arm, and he let Bart go to turn and look down at her. He'd floated up about a foot without realizing it, while pushing Bart down. "You used to have an agent. Did you have a lawyer?"
Kon blinked. "Who sues superheroes?"
"Well, in 1952, the city of-"
"Hypothetical!" Kon dropped back onto the cough with a thump and frowned. "I don't even know any lawyers."
Bart made a noise of frustration and crossed his arms over his chest. "Only because they wouldn't let me take the bar exam." He paused - long enough for Kon to register it as a pause - and then he was gone.
"Huh," Cassie said. "I guess he thought of-"
Bart was back, sitting at the table opposite Tim and surrounded by books and stacks of papers which fluttered in his wake. He was bent over a yellow legal pad and writing furiously, clutching a bunch of spare pencils in his other hand. "I've never written a Letter of Demand, before. This is kind of fun!"
Kon saw Tim sniff, and tested the air himself. He smelled smoke, and looked around in alarm until he tracked the scent to Bart's pencil sharpener and the growing pile of shavings under his chair. When he concentrated, he could hear brief bursts of wood-chipper whine whenever Bart turned a page. "You're not a lawyer!" He protested.
"Don't have to be to write a letter," Bart said, without looking up. "I'm just letting him know how badly he'd lose a lawsuit. Here -" he pushed a stack of pamphlets and printouts across the table in Kon's direction. "You'll want to review these if you're going to be defending it."
"I - " Kon blinked, "what?"
"The group has to be student initiated. And you're going to need a faculty sponsor. And you're going to have to be convincing, because I can't actually bring a suit or represent you in court."
Kon heard a click, and turned to see Tim reattach his gadget to his shoulder belt before he leaned across the table and picked up a stack of papers. He smiled a hard little smile and looked up at Kon, and Kon couldn't help but return it, because he knew that smile, and it meant vengeance from on fucking high. "We do know a few lawyers. If there's as much precedent as you say, he won't need one," he told Bart without looking away from Kon, "but if he does... Oracle just volunteered herself and Manhunter for the job."
Kon's smile widened into a grin.
Index | 7