I grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado. By high school I had several friends, but I grew up with two friends, Tyler and Brent, who lived close by. We were dorks. We got good grades, liked studying science and technology, and played a certain fantasy sword and sorcery role-playing game popular in the eighties.
I figured out I was gay by fourteen. Those junior high showers... wow. It put me in a funk for a few months, off and on, but I dealt with it by fifteen and eighth grade. I learned how to take peeks during the showers and while changing. Most of my friends were developing, as was I, and those views were all the sources of naked entertainment I had. There was no internet or online porn yet, and magazines weren't easy to find, let alone get your hands on. Fort Collins was a pretty religious little city, and those magazine were not available except in one or two places where guys under 21 weren't allowed.
So I watched my friends and many other guys grow. Man, the crushes I had. But one continued the entire time - my friend Tyler. Yeah, he was a dork and all, but a damned hot dork. To me anyway. His blond hair was all curly and wavy and sort of long, he had a long, narrow face with generous blue eyes and red lips. Great smile, great laugh, and so smart and kind and considerate. His body was nice, too. Taller than most of us, he was lean and narrow, but not so skinny you could see his ribs or hips. He had such nice big pink nipples. And, man, he was developed! Even in junior high he had one of the longest dicks in the showers. And he wasn't circumcised, hiding his head entirely, except the very, very tip. It was always long and full, never shrunken. He had nice balls, too. They were big and heavy and hung, and they swung and swayed as he walked.
Other guys were hotter, in some ways or many ways, but I always liked Tyler the most. Maybe because he was a friend, not just a guy in the showers. I knew him, and I knew he was a great guy. Whatever it was, my crush for Tyler was constant from the start of puberty. I wouldn't hesitate to say "Yes" if asked if I was in love with him. Not that anyone would dare ask me that. Or that I'd dare answer it, either. Not in the eighties as a teen. Nope.
So, when we were 16 and had just gotten our licenses and cars, my life changed forever.
One Saturday we were going to a role-playing gaming meet at one of the other area high schools. Brent was going to pick up Tyler, hit the gaming store, then pick me up after I got home from music lessons, and then drive us to the gaming meet. Well, they never showed up. I was so pissed. When I called Brent's house, his mom said he'd left on time. I called Tyler's house and he'd been picked up on time. It wasn't like one of us to not be on time or not let someone know why. In a couple of hours, Tyler's dad called me to say they'd been in an accident and were at the hospital. Brent was still unconscious and headed to surgery with head trauma. Tyler was awake with two broken arms and some bruises on his face and neck and back pain, and was getting x-rays done.
I drove to the hospital almost in tears. Okay, honestly, I was wiping my eyes a lot on the way there. When you're a dork, you have the best friends. We all know what it's like to be treated cruelly, so we don't to that to each other. We trust each other, and we'll do almost anything for each other. Dork friends are very close friends.
I had to wait for hours with their parents. Brent got out of surgery but only his parents could see him, and he probably wouldn't be awake or allowed other visitors for at least a day or two. He was in really bad shape. Tyler, though, I got to see him with his parents. He looked scary as hell. His face was swollen and bruised and he had a couple cuts. Both arms were in casts from biceps to wrists, several fingers on both hands were wrapped and splinted, and he was so drugged up he hardly said anything.
When I got home, I though how lucky I was that I'd had lessons that morning and was to be picked up later. But then, if they'd picked me up instead of going to the gaming store first, we'd not had been there that moment the cement truck had swerved. If I hadn't had the lessons, they would have picked me up later anyway, we didn't want to get to the gaming meet that early. So after thinking about it, I realized how unlucky Brent and Tyler were. It was the exact timing between my lesson and the registration opening time that decided it. So it was at least half my fault, or so I saw it. Which made me feel pretty guilty.
