Part 2

Shoe's mom was still at work when we got to his house. He gave me a couple of Rolaids for my heartburn. Then we went down to his basement.

The basement was Alex's room. It had started out as a sort of den with an old couch, a couple of chairs, a TV and a ping pong table. There was also a laundry area under the steps and a bunch of stuff in boxes in a corner. About the time Shoe was 12 he started sleeping on the basement couch. His mom told him to sleep in his room, but Shoe kept sneaking down to the basement after she went to sleep. She finally just let him move down there. Shoe's old room got turned into a sewing room and extra storage space.

"You wanna play some ping pong?" I asked.

"Can't. We broke the last ping pong ball last week," Shoe reminded me. "How 'bout a movie or we could play some DOA?" Shoe's mom had gotten him a used PS2 and some games. Dead or Alive 2 and Tekken Tag were our favorites. We could work together as a tag team in both games.

Shoe would play the tough mystery guy, Ein in DOA2 and Jin Kazama in Tekken. I would play speedy characters, Ryu Hayabusha in DOA2 or Hwoarang in Tekken. Ryu and Ein are best friends and Hwoarang is the closest thing Jin has to a friend, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

"What movie do you want to watch?" I asked.

"I've got a new Armored Company Ronin DVD," Shoe answered with a smile. Shoe collected anime, and he had gotten me started on it. Armored Company Ronin was my favorite of the four anime series I had seen so far. It was a sci fi series about battlesuit wearing soldiers in the future. There was lots of action and comedy, but that's not what I liked the most about it. There were at least three gay characters, 2 of them members of the unit, and an enemy officer.

The enemy officer had started out having contempt and hatred for the ACR, but then the young but talented gay soldier had earned his respect. When the enemy officer finally got to see his respected foe, he had become attracted to the young soldier. I was hoping they would fall for each other. Yeah, I'm a sucker for soap operas.

"Sweet! I been waitin' to see what happens next," I said.

"Me too," Shoe agreed, but I didn't think he meant exactly what I meant. He went to get the movie from his bookcase, and I saw that he had a stone block on the bottom shelf. Alex didn't just keep his movies, games and music on his bookshelf. He also used it to store and display the old artifacts he found. Shoe even used about half of it for books.

"What's that rock?" I asked. Shoe's eyes were empty for a second. Then he looked down at the bottom shelf. While he was looking away, I took the chance to steal a quick look at the bare skin his open shirt left on display.

"Oh, I found this in the back near where I found that bone needle back in May," Shoe said as he turned and crouched to pick the stone up. It was a flat, square block of light colored stone. Shoe held it up to show that a shallow, spiral depression had been carved into the rock.

"It looks like the stones the Barlow house is made from," I said with interest. Shoe could find the coolest things.

"Yeah," Shoe said with a nod and an excited smile. "I read down at the library that some of the first houses on the island were made of these stones, but the Barlow house is the only one left. They used them to pave the roads too."

"So, maybe one of the old houses used to be in your back yard?" I asked.

"Maybe," he shrugged. "Or an old road, or a path, or maybe even just a place where the stones were stored. It's too soon to know. Maybe I'll find more artifacts before mom yells at me for digging up a grid pattern in the back yard."

"Get'em Indiana Jones," I said, and we both laughed.

"With my last name, I'd prob'ly end up bein' one of the bad guys," Shoe said. Then, he continued with a comically fake German accent. "Vhere iss dare headpeeze off dare shtaff off Ra, Herr Jonez?" Shoe was always too good at making me laugh. I was laughing so hard at his German bad guy impersonation that I had to sit down.

Alex put the DVD in his PS2. Then he came and sat down next to me and I managed to stop laughing. Being there, so close to my best friend was wonderful, but being unable to close that small distance and touch him was torture. Part of me wanted Shoe to move to 1 of the chairs, but most of me was happy for any and every chance to be so close to him.

We sat and enjoyed the show. The enemy pilot actually rescued the cute ACR pilot and helped him get to where his friends could pick him up. But when the cute young guy asked the enemy pilot why he had rescued him, the enemy pilot just told the cute young pilot that he was a respected foe. It was so frustrating that the enemy pilot didn't admit to his feelings.

"That was great," I said when the DVD finished. I looked over at Alex, and his shirt had fallen wide open while we had been watching the show. He was leaned back, exposing his chest and giving me a different kind of great show. He turned his head toward me, and I had to hurry to look up at his face.

"Not as much fightin' as on the last DVD but that was pretty kewl when Nanashi saved Akio from those direstriders," Shoe said with a smile. Shoe is better at remembering all the names. I thought maybe if I watched more, I would get better at remembering them.

I had wondered when we first started watching ACR if Shoe watched it because he was gay. Then I remembered that there weren't many anime for him to choose from. He was probably just ignoring the gay stuff to see the kewl mecha and fight scenes. The characters weren't having sex or anything. I had heard of anime with sex in it, but there was none of that kind for sale on or near the island.

"So how do you know for sure that Mr. Malcolm is the new teacher?" I asked while Shoe was putting the movie back and getting the game.

"I met him at the hardware store," Shoe answered. "I was gettin' some more string and dowels for makin' a grid 'round where I found that stone tile and getting a new soft bristle brush. He said hello, and asked if I was plannin' a dig. I was pretty surprised and I asked him how he knew I was diggin' for stuff. He told me his name and that he was the new history teacher. He said he knew a little bit 'bout archeology." Shoe grinned viciously. "Losin' a hundred bucks is gonna hurt Charlie like a punch in the gut. Losin' to 1 of us is gonna hurt even more."

"He didn't have any business sayin' what he did," I replied. Shoe frowned with sadness and anger. He sat his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. Shoe's intense eyes met mine.

"Don't let what that asshole said get to you, Logan," he said. "You're not a welfare case. Everybody knows that."

"Huh?" I said. My great eloquence never fails me. "I was thinkin' 'bout that crack he made at you. You're as much of an islander as any of us, and he's got no business talkin' 'bout your parents like that." Alex shrugged.

"I'm used to that kinda thing," Alex said. "If I let it get to me I woulda gone crazy by now." I felt so bad for Shoe. The people who gossiped about him and his mom didn't care that they were good people. They were just a mystery to be speculated about on slow days. Mysteries didn't have feelings that could get hurt. "But it might be a good idea to steer clear of Charlie from now on," Shoe suggested. "He's never been much of a friend and he just gets worse with time. I thought I was going to have to hit him today when he started twistin' Red's arm." Shoe grinned evilly. "Then you accidentally kicked him, and he let go."

"That wasn't really an accident," I confessed. Alex looked a little surprised, but not too much.

"You deliberately hurt somebody?" he asked. Shoe was trying to sound shocked, but he couldn't stop grinning. "I guess that proves my point about Charlie. If he can make you mad enough to throw the first punch then he needs to go." I shook my head.

"No, if I threw a punch, there woulda been a fight," I said. "If any of us had thrown a punch, there woulda been a fight. Kickin' him like I did was pretty rotten, but it made Charlie let go of Red, and kept a fight from happenin'." Shoe chuckled and shook his head.