Lean on Me
Copyright© 2025 by Danny January
Chapter 2
Romance Sex Story: Chapter 2 - The continuing chronicles of Jack Pierce. Autumn of 1982. The chronicles, in order are: 1. Feasting with a Silver Spoon 2. Summertime and the Livin' is Easy 3. Something Fishy Going On 4. Centerfield 5. Tourist Season 6. Lean on Me They are progressive and not meant to be stand-alone stories.
Caution: This Romance Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including mt/ft Consensual Heterosexual Fiction
When I picked Kim up the next morning, we rode to school in silence. The weight of our conversation from the previous night was still there. We stood at the door to Mrs. Middleton’s drama class, neither of us ready to go in, but neither of us knowing what to say.
“I have two questions,” I said when the first bell rang. “Who else can give us insight, and what would volunteering do to us?” She nodded, and we went in.
“Let’s talk about plot types for a moment,” she began. “There are a few that are very common. The first is called the hero’s journey. This typically follows an individual through trials and challenges to a transformation. I’m sure you can think of some. The Odyssey, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and so on.
Tragedy focuses on a downfall. Hamlet, Death of a Salesman, or Romeo and Juliet are good examples. Rags to riches is pretty obvious. The Great Gatsby, Great Expectations, or, perhaps, The Fountainhead are examples. The man in a hole plot type follows a character into a difficult situation, where he, hopefully, rises above it. Icarus is essentially the opposite. Cinderella might not be exactly what you think. A Cinderella plot involves a character that rises, falls, then rises again. Oedipus is the opposite, with a fall, rise, and final fall.
“Let’s start with an easy one. Which of these was The Wizard of Oz?”
It was obviously a hero’s journey, along with everything from Huckleberry Finn, to The Odyssey. We identified a dozen different dramas by type, and then she asked, “Which of these plot types describes you and your life? Put your hand down, Cinderella, or I’ll make you clean the fireplace again. That was a rhetorical question.” Her daughter, Mel, had raised her hand. Obviously, her mom was the evil step-mom or whatever.
“Well?” Kim asked in the hallway after class. She waited. “What is your plot type? What’s mine?”
“I’d like to think it hero’s journey.”
“Me too. I think I’m afraid of turning it into Oedipus. Oh, I didn’t tell you the recommendation Fallon made. This is really good. She said that if we decide to offer tutoring, we don’t call it that. We offer help with homework, and we limit it to math or English, maybe science or history. So, you could help with math, and I could help with English. And then she said, the first time we went, we should take Mac. Shy kids might not walk up to us to learn about math, but they’d come to pet a puppy.”
“That’s crazy. I never would have thought of that. I bet there’s a bunch of stuff I never would have thought of. You want to do this, don’t you?” She kissed me and we went to our next class.
When I went out to lunch, Kim was sitting at the other end of the table next to one of the new cheerleaders, Cassidy Bellweather. I sat across from Kim, like I always did.
“My story?” she asked.
“Yup. Ready, go,” I said and took another bite.
“I was born a poor black child,” she said and took a bite of her sandwich. Cassidy was white with red hair, but I knew the movie she pulled the line from.
“For a dollar, I can guess your gender,” I said. It was the only other line I remembered from The Jerk.
“Nope. My mom and dad always said, ‘never trust whitey’ and that be that.” She had a straight face. I didn’t. She was funny.
“Amanda is new. When did you get here? Three years ago? Four?” I asked.
“Five. And then last year, you jumped ahead. Must be nice.”
“We’ve never been in the same class,” Kim said. “What do you do besides school?”
“Ah, gymnastics, chess club, stand-up comedy.”
“You do stand-up comedy?” I asked.
“I guess, technically, it’s sit-down comedy.” I liked her.
“We don’t have gymnastics. Where do you do that?” Kim asked.
“I wish we did. I’m on a team. We meet at the Y five days a week in the mornings and three evenings.”
“Wow. Early, I guess.”
“Five. Not too bad. And then Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for another two hours in the evening.”
“That sounds serious. So, do you compete? Do you do all the events? I don’t even know what they are,” I said.
“Yes, you do. You saw it on the Olympics, right?” Kim said. I shook my head.
“We compete. We’re the Loco Motions, with the accent on loco. I compete in all around, but I specialize in vault, balance beam, and floor.”
“That’s a lot of gymnastics,” I said. “How many hours a week is that, altogether?”
“Not that much, really. Sixteen, plus some weight training, and cheer, I guess, if you want to count that.”
“Yeah, that’s a lot. I bet you have a college picked out, huh?”
“Bama. Aerospace engineering and mechanics.”
“Bama, as in Mrs. Nichols’ Alabama?”
“Roll, Tide,” she said, smiling.
“Okay, we looked at Alabama, but it’s too far away for us. Why are you going there? Marci went to Paris, and Cherry is probably going to Hong Kong, but we don’t want to be that far away. Alabama is eight hours, I think.”
“Lots of reasons. I don’t even know where to start. Bear Bryant switched from being the football head coach to being the Athletic Director, and he named Sarah Patterson as coach of the gymnastics team. She got there in ‘78, and they’ve gotten better each year. So, there’s that. And, Bama has a great aerospace engineering program.”
“There’s something else, though, isn’t there?” Kim asked.
Cassidy smiled and leaned forward. “Daddy went to Auburn.” Were we supposed to know what that meant?
“I don’t know what that means,” I said.
“Alabama, Auburn, you know.”
“No, I really don’t.”
“It’s only like the biggest rivalry in college sports. It will drive Daddy crazy.”
“You don’t want to go to Auburn, I take it.”
“Their gymnastics team sucks, and they don’t have an aerospace engineering program. They say they do, but it’s trash.”
“So, he can’t argue with your choice,” Kim said, and Cassidy shook her head. “You really want to piss him off?”
“Not really, but it’s fun. Have you seen those bumper stickers that say ‘A house divided’ and half of it is Gamecocks and the other half is Clemson Tigers? They don’t have that in Alabama.”
“Everyone in the family is either for Alabama or they’re for Auburn?” I asked.
“No, silly. They take separate cars.” The bell rang. Was she serious?
That afternoon in PE, I got to kick the ball three times. No one cared where it went, as long as it was away from our goal. I kicked it toward the Wappoo Creek, a half mile away. The ball never made it, but not for lack of trying.
We joined Mom for a quiet weightlifting session. We hadn’t talked about orphans or tutoring, and she knew I’d bring it up when I was ready. Kim and I went back to my office and worked on our property plans for a while, marking a couple of possible trails. Then, we tried to make it to Oregon again. I died of dysentery, cholera, and by drowning. I hated to die by drowning. I swore Kim to secrecy.
On Saturday morning, I got some help from Franklin, and we cut a new trail. It was a lot easier with two people working. I couldn’t imagine how much harder it would have been without the Bobcat. We loaded up the front of the Bobcat with wood and drove it down to his house. He planned to split it and let it dry, then use it for firewood. It would be a while before Kim and I needed it.
Karen cleared her nursing books from the kitchen table, and the three of us had an early lunch.
“Last meal on this table,” Karen said. “We’re getting a new table delivered this afternoon.”
“We bought a really nice table from the Amish Furniture Store on Savannah Highway.”
“Enjoying spending some of your inheritance?” I asked.
“We haven’t put a dent in it,” Franklin said. “Honestly, why did Ronnie keep working? Dividends and interest accrue faster than we can spend them. I bought a car, shoes, some clothing, and a new table, and we have more money left at the end of the month than we did at the beginning.”
“It’s a tough problem to have.”
“No kidding. We went to a second investment advisor, and after he looked at everything we had going on, he said we didn’t need to change a thing and he’d feel like a thief if he charged us for saying so.”
“He didn’t even charge you?” I had a hard time wrapping my head around it.
“We paid his fee, and I gave him an extra hundred for being honest.”
“What am I going to do with all the money when I turn eighteen?”
“If you want my advice, first, hire an advisor, or just put your money in the same places we did. It’s about there already, except for precious metals.”
“And a Vette and dining room table,” Karen added, and that was worth a laugh.
“Then, prioritize. Make a list of things you really need, then things Kim really needs, then the things you simply want, then Kim. If the McTighes still owe money on their home, pay it off. Same with their office building. I’m already reaching out to our side of the family, then Karen’s. You can do that for Kim’s family.”
“Sock some money away for your kids’ college fund,” Karen said.
“You’ve done that.”
“Yes. Don’t even ask how many kids this guy thinks were going to have.” I looked at Franklin, and he held up eight fingers, while Karen shook her head. “I don’t think proper psychiatric care would cost too much.”
After lunch, I helped Franklin move a couple of pieces of furniture and went to pick up Kim. At her house, we switched to her truck and drove out to the property. The ground was surprisingly dry, and we drove out to where the trails started.
We walked a hundred yards down one trail to where I had cut a new one. “Did you see the ads for the little ATV?” she asked.
“I guess not. I don’t know what that is.”
“Suzuki makes a little four-wheel drive motorcycle-like thing they call an all-terrain vehicle, ATV. It might be kind of handy to have one. I don’t know what they cost. Probably about the same as a motorcycle.”
We debated going out to either get the horses to bring them back or ride at the Denton’s. Either way, we’d need to go to the Denton’s. We hadn’t driven far before we heard the familiar sound of thunder.
“I thought it wasn’t supposed to rain until the afternoon.”
“It is afternoon, you dufus.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m not in the mood to ride a wet horse in the arena.”
“Let’s go to the Suzuki place and shop for an ATV. We can see what they look like and how much they cost.” It sounded like a good idea to me, and Kim turned right onto Fort Johnson Road and then left on Folley and left again on Savannah Highway. We pulled into the Suzuki dealership and found a parking spot on the side. They were busy.
I was glad that Mom had bought my car for me. It’s not the kind of shopping I enjoy. Fortunately, they were so busy that we were left alone to snoop. They had three ATVs on display. One of them had a rack on the front big enough to strap on a chainsaw or other tools. The other two were for playing around. I liked the big tires and the fact that it was four-wheel drive.
“I don’t think you would get stuck with this thing,” I said.
“Would it be useful?”
“Maybe. It would definitely be fun.”
“The commercials show it off in the fun mode rather than the work mode. But can you see the potential?” Kim asked. I knew what she was thinking. It was small.
“They’re a lot of fun,” a salesman said, joining us.
“We have horses,” I said, but he didn’t understand. “Horses are fun. If we bought one, it would be a tool. I’m not sure how useful, though. The rack on the front isn’t very big, and it doesn’t seem like the engine is big enough to tow trees or branches that I cut.”
“How loud is it?” Kim asked. These weren’t the kind of questions the salesman was used to answering.
“We’ve sold quite a few to hunters and people who just want to trail ride. I’m sure it could tow some branches. It would carry both of you so there’s enough power for that. I guess it makes about the same amount of noise as a small motorcycle. Is that a big issue?”
“We have horses,” I said again, but that didn’t seem to register with him. “How much is it?”
“Twelve-fifty,” he said, with a smile, undoubtedly happy to get a question he could answer.
“How much is it with the rack on the front, taxes, and all of that? Does it come with a useful light? This little thing won’t help much after dusk.”
“Let me check,” he said and hurried away.
“Poor guy,” Kim said. “I bet he feels like we ambushed him.”
“It’s his job to know the answers, though, right?”
“That’s the only light it comes with. With the rack and tax, it’s fourteen-thirty.”
“That seems like a lot of money for a little utility, Baby. I could probably get to most of the same places with the Bobcat as I could with this.” I turned to the salesman. “We’ll think about it.”
He gave me his card and told us to ask for him when we came back. They were a lot of fun, remember. We’d remember.
As loud as the thunder was, I expected it to be pouring. Instead, we each felt a drop once or twice on the way back to Kim’s truck. We drove back to Kim’s house and did homework.
The next morning, it was beautiful. I grabbed a journal I’d started and another blank one, just in case, shoved them in a bag, and rode my bike out to the Wappoo Cut. It wasn’t even a little surprising that there were already a dozen trucks parked, their empty trailers telling the story. A lot of boats were already on the water. Three marinas and another boat launch provided easy access to the Ashley River and Charleston Harbor. The Wappoo Cut was just a small part of it.
I parked next to the picnic table furthest from the ramp and just soaked it in. A couple of guys in a small bass boat were working the shallows, casting a net for bait fish. A pair of dolphins was a little further up the creek, doing the same. On the far side of the creek, a guy was washing his boat while talking to a friend. I could see traffic on the Wappoo Creek Bridge, but it was forty feet above us and not very noisy.
I spotted a peregrine falcon, perched on top of a light post, checking out the breakfast menu. He had a lot to choose from. A light breeze brought the scent of honeysuckle and tea tree. A squadron of fifteen or twenty pelicans flew overhead on their way to one of the marinas. It was a great day to be alive. I settled down to write.
I had a lot of catching up to do. I started with our trip to Hope with Horses. By the time I finished with that, I’d written ten pages, and my hand was ready to cramp. I took a break, just in time to watch the pelicans flying back south.
I decided to tackle our efforts to help Mei’s cousin move. It was hard to write it without thinking about how bad it could have gone. What were we thinking? I’d already written about knife and club defense, so I didn’t need to write about that. I just wrote about, well, how Franklin was a badass. What had Tien called him? Fēngku somethingorother.
I raced through that because I wanted to write down everything we knew about the Carolina Youth Development Center. Why didn’t they just call it the North Charleston Orphanage? That’s what it was, wasn’t it? I guessed the word orphanage didn’t sound very hopeful for the kids that lived there. The altruistic side of me knew that volunteering was the right thing to do. The logical side of me saw the potentially dangerous emotional journey it might take both Kim and me on. If I decided not to do it, I thought Kim would be disappointed. No, I knew she would be disappointed.
What were the worst things that happened on Odysseus’ journey? He grew, but what was the cost, and would he do it again? I didn’t think so.
The more I thought about it, the more I leaned toward giving it a try. I’d rather have Kim be disappointed in some little kid we just met than me. I thought we should set a limit, at least to begin with. Maybe we should just volunteer for the fall semester. Maybe we should limit it to the school year. Maybe we’d discover they didn’t need us at all. Part of me hoped that was it. We could volunteer, and they wouldn’t need us. We’d seem noble and everything, but not have to take a risk. Man, that sounded selfish. If we were on a hero’s journey, we should probably try to be heroes.
I wanted to ask someone else. Mom and Dane had already connected us with the Albrights, so that was her input. Dr. Legare didn’t have kids, and neither did Dr. Calhoun. Mr. and Mrs. McTighe were too close to it, I thought. I thought about Karen and Franklin. They would probably defer to Mom. I knew just the person. I shoved my stuff back in my bag and rode home.
I dropped into my favorite chair and dialed a number by heart. “Hey,” answered the voice on the other end.
“Hey, yourself. This is Jack. Is Vince around?”
“Yeah. We were just getting ready to head out. Hang on.” And then he hollered for Vince without covering the mouthpiece. I’d probably just suffered damage to my inner ear.
“Hey, Jack. What’s up?”
“It sounds like you don’t have time.”
“I have time. Besides, I’m driving. These losers can wait. What’s up?” I heard a couple of guys griping in the background.
I told him my dilemma and finished by asking his advice. I realized that he didn’t know about Kim’s mom or any of that. Probably just as well. It was quiet for a couple of moments while he thought it through and shushed his roommates.
“Okay, here’s my take. It sounds to me like you and Kim both want to do it. It also sounds like this is totally new territory, and it’s scary. It’s probably scary for Kim, too. It also sounds like the knife guy from California, he and his wife, could be a pretty good resource since they’ve done something like this and with the same age kids, right?”
“Yeah, that sounds right.”
“If you take in foster kids, you can pretty much quit doing it whenever you want. Did it seem to you like they wanted to quit?”
“No. Definitely not.”
“Well, then, I think you know what to do. Maybe think about boundaries. Maybe just set it up for one day a week for one semester and see how it goes. These guys are starting to get antsy.”
“Where are you going?”
“Don’t laugh. Golfing. They want to hit the driving range before our tee time. Don’t laugh. I know you’re choking it back. Just don’t.”
“You better hang up then. Thanks, Vince. Enjoy your match, or meet, or game, or whatever you call it.”
“You think you’re funny,” he said and hung up.
“Vince?” Mom asked.
“Yes, ma’am.” I relayed our conversation, told her my thoughts and concerns, and that I’d decided to at least meet with the director.
“Dane and I will support you any way we can. Talk with the director. After you talk with him or her, then decide. It’s a really big deal, you know. I’m proud of you for even considering it.”
At lunch the next day, I asked Kim if she’d heard anything about Key Club. She said they’d voted Alice Littleton in as President. She didn’t think we had much chance of enlisting their help tutoring kids at Carolina Youth Development Center. We sat across from Amanda Sykes. We’d gotten to know Cassidy a bit better the day before. Amanda was new, at least to us.
I pulled out a sandwich, then looked at Amanda. “Kim wants you to tell us your story,” I said, and took a bite. This seemed familiar.
“What do you want to know?”
“You’re new here, right? I don’t remember seeing you last year.”
“We just moved.”
“From?” I asked.