Chapter 4: Making Friends

Luke Marquette entered the municipal library and approached the front desk where a young woman was date-stamping a stack of books. She saw him approach and greeted him with a pleasant smile. "Good morning. How can I help you?"

He saw her eyes focus on the still-fading bruises on his face, then quickly look away, not to seem rude. "Yeah, um, someone told me you had computers available for public use. Is that right?"

"Well, it's kind of right. You'd need a library card to use the computers." She looked him up and down, assessing his age. Judging him to be a typical teenage male, she added, "And there are some restrictions on their usage. I mean, you can't be accessing adult web sites or anything like that. We try our darnedest to block those, but young people are so computer savvy that they can find ways around that."

"Oh no, I just wanted to send some e-mails and maybe set up an e-mail account, if that was possible."

"I see. Well, like I said, you'd need a library card."

"Okay. Can I do that now?"

"Of course." She pulled a form from under the desk and handed it to him along with a pen. "Just fill this out and bring it back to me. You can use that table right over there."

A few minutes later, a new library card tucked into his new wallet, Luke sat down at the computer to set up an e-mail account on Yahoo, then try to get in touch with Errol. It'd been weeks, and the guy had probably completely forgotten about him. But maybe not; he seemed like a genuinely nice person.

After Errol dropped him off, Luke spent three days in the hospital before the doctor felt comfortable releasing him. Of course, his chest still hurt like hell, and the left side of his face was a purple blob, but he was breathing okay as long as he didn't strain himself. A coughing fit would still bring tears to his eyes.

Since he had no money and no place to go after he was released, the doctor called the pastor of the local Lutheran church and called in a favor. The church ran a halfway house for recovering addicts, and they just happened to have an available room. The price was right, since there was no charge.

Luke stayed there for three weeks, helping out in the kitchen and doing what outside work his recovering body could tolerate. He insisted on working for his bed and board because he hated the idea of being a total charity case. The pastor wasn't inclined to argue.

Then another stroke of luck: The doctor came by the house one day and asked Luke if he'd be interested in working the evening shift at the hospital as an orderly. Seems the last one just up and quit on them. It didn't pay much, just minimum wage, but it was something, and he could take a room in the hospital-owned house across the street at no charge. He took it.

Now, a week later, he sat in the library typing away with two fingers. For some reason, he'd grown to feel a very strong attachment to Errol, almost like he was the brother he never had, and he'd be disappointed if he didn't get an answer to his e-mail. That in itself was unusual, because since he'd left his mom's house in Bedford, PA, he'd learned to avoid any attachments to other people because it just complicated his life. What was the point of making a friend if he was likely to be gone the next day or the next week?

His first message was a short one: Hey, Errol. Bet you though I'd forgotten all about you. I'm still in the same town where you dropped me off. I spent three days in the hospital, then three weeks in a kind of halfway house finishing my recovery. Believe it or not, I now have a job at the hospital as an orderly. I'd sure like to hear from you. I'm using a computer at the public library like you suggested, and they're allowing me to set up my own e-mail account. I'll type the address at the bottom. Please get back to me if you get this. Oh, and thanks so much for your help.

He clicked SEND, then spent another hour exploring a few web pages. On his way out, he stopped at the desk and spoke to the young woman who'd helped him. "Thanks for your help. I'll probably come in about every day or so to check my e-mail, if that's alright."

She had a pretty smile. "Of course it is. Jus let me know if you need any more help. Maybe you'd like to check out some books while you're here, now that you have a card."

"Uh, yeah, sure. Thanks." He wandered up and down the aisles and selected two books; one a sci-fi novel, and the other one a book he'd heard comments about somewhere, "Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry.

When he handed them across to her, she said, "Oh, you're going to love this one by McMurtry. Did you see the "Lonesome Dove" mini-series on TV?"

"No, I don't think I was even born when that came out."

She reached across the desk and put her hand on his. "I wasn't either, but you can stream it or buy it on DVD. I'd recommend you read the book first though, because there's so much more to the story."

Luke felt a little thrill at her touch. Jennette (the name tag had only her first name) wasn't what you'd call a raving beauty, but she was kind of cute in a plain, old-fashioned sort of way, and she went out of her way to be nice to him. "Yeah, maybe I'll do that. Thanks, Jennette." He made a point of looking at her nametag positioned over the swell of her boobs. Nice ones, he guessed.

Walking the seven blocks back to the house, he was wondering if Jennette had a boyfriend. Probably so. But she had touched his hand. Then again, maybe she was just one of those demonstrative types. Anyhow, maybe he'd do a little flirting the next time they met up and see how she reacted. She was tall for a girl, about five-ten, and that put them eye-to-eye. He liked her pageboy hair cut, the way it framed her oval face. He thought she'd look downright foxy with a little makeup and her hair in a sexier style. On the other hand, she had beautiful creamy skin and deep-set, soft brown eyes under impossibly long eyelashes. She had no real need for makeup.

The fact that he was interested in her gave him a little sense of relief. Ever since Errol had said something about there being a better way for a gay man to make a living, Luke had been doing a lot of self-examination. He'd never thought of himself as gay, but maybe he was. Or maybe he really wasn't. He didn't particularly enjoy giving blowjobs to middle age men, but then, he had to admit he didn't find the idea completely repulsive, either, although he rarely grew a boner of his own while he was doing it. He couldn't imagine himself being in love with a guy, and the idea of kissing another man had no appeal at all.