Bobby and the Chicken Hawk
By: James Finn
Tags: Homeless, Family, Teens, Fiction, LGBTQ

I don’t wanna talk about it.

I don’t have to, right? I mean I gotta right to remain silent. I know that from Law and Order. Mom’s favorite one is SVU. She wouldn’t miss it for nuthin’. I ain’t old enough to watch it. That’s what she says.

I bet she never thought I’d be layin’ in a hospital talking to two lady detectives from Special Victims. I kinda wish I could call her and tell her. Only she don’t wanna know.

You kinda always think that a mom’s love is special, huh? Extra strong. Nuthin’ can break it. That’s what I used to think.

I ain’t surprised my step dad used to beat me up. He shouldn’t a done it so much, you know, but that’s what happens to kids like me in Texas. We get beat up if we don’t keep our secrets.

What surprised me is she didn’t stop him. Didn’t even try. Like, sometimes she seen him comin’ and she just walked outta the room?

Everything changed when she found out about me for sure. It’s like she was more afraid of what the people at church would say than she was afraid about what was gonna happen to me.

Bobby’s a faggot.

She couldn’t stand that. She couldn’t stand people knowing her own son was like that. When everybody started talking about it, she didn’t even nag me to go to church anymore. She was ashamed to have me there with her.

That’s what I think.

Or maybe it’s cause I told em to go fuck themselves.

Like for real. My sex life is none of my Sunday school teacher’s business. That’s what I told him too, right to his face. I got beat up pretty bad that night. I guess sometimes I ain’t too smart.

Then there was the time I was supposed to come straight home from school so I could go to this counseling thing at church where they were gonna help me not be gay anymore.

Supposed to. Didn’t. Got beat up again.

It’s when he knocked out a tooth that I finally said fuck and took off. I could tell he was starting to like it too much. It was too much like he was getting off on pounding the shit outta some teenage kid half his size.

I knew this one kid who ran away to Dallas for pretty much the same reason. Said Dallas was cool. He got caught in less than a week. Cops put him in this school that’s really a jail. So, I said fuck Dallas. Fuck Texas.

I had birthday and Christmas money saved up. I had summer job money. And the money I’d been getting outta mom’s purse she didn’t know about. I thought about San Francisco. Almost went, but then I’d a had to wait a day and half for a bus.

So, I went east instead.

Everybody says New York is the best place for a gay kid to …

You know.

Anyway, here I am. LT, he’s my friend. You gotta understand that. He ain’t never done nothing but help me. Everybody else? They want something from me.

Like, you know. Sex. Or money. But usually sex.

So, I go into this bar one night. Everybody says if you wear nice clothes and talk nice you can meet rich guys there. You can make a lotta money. I needed it. I was almost broke. I’d spent everything I brought. It was getting too cold to sleep outside at night.

I figured I could eat from blow job money, I could clean up at the bus station, but no way could I pay for a room.

So these kids at the station where I’d been hanging out, they told me about the bar. When I walked in, I seen all this dark wood and a piano, and people singing. Weird but nice.

And it was warm. Mostly I remember I was shivering, and it was warm inside.