By the end of the month, I have a new room mate.  Michael is certainly easier to live with than my brother.  He's much quieter, doesn't bitch about Hallie crying at night, and best of all, once Hallie got over the chicken pox, he started taking her to the day care at his school.  It's great, my grandma gets her life back and with Michael that close to where she's being watched, I didn't have to be quite so paranoid about getting a call at work saying that she got into the Draino or something.

And yeah, it takes a little getting used to, but we manage.  We're from different backgrounds, different societies, but oddly, we adapt to each other really well.  I learn that he's only a year younger than me.  And we're happy.  We laugh a lot, we share stories and jokes and slowly but surely, we become friends.

And as our friendship grows, we start learning things about each other.  I tell him about high school football games and how my grandma pretty much raised me because my parents were working all the time, and about that drunken night after commencement when Hallie was conceived.  Michael in turn tells me about graduating a year early becuase of how much he hated his high school, and all about his friend, Kevin.  Apparently, Kevin was Michael's only friend at college, and once Michael had gotten settled in here, the two of them would go out on Friday nights.  Kevin seemed like an alright guy, a bit cold to me, but Michael liked him, so what could I do?

It's one of those Friday nights that everything changes.

I'm sitting on the floor, trying to get Hallie to end her fascination with gumming at the couch, when Kevin knocks on the door.  Michael waves goodbye to me and leaves.  For hours, everything goes as usual.  I wash the dishes, give Hallie her bath, put her to bed, watch TV...and then the phone rings.   I pick up the receiver.  "Hello?"

"Pete...I...I need to ask you a favor."  Michael's voice sounds shaken, almost afraid.

I straighten up, concerned.  "What's going on?"

"Can you come and get me?"  Now I can definitely hear fear in his voice.

"Sure, I can do that.  Where are you at?"

He gives me the name of a bar, one I've never been to, but I know Michael likes.  I hang up, lift Hallie out of her crib, and as gently as I can, take her out to the car and snap her into her car seat.  I start the car and proceed to find out what the hell is going on.

When I get to the bar, Michael walks quickly into the car and shuts the door before I even have a chance to think about parking.  "Thanks for coming," he mutter.

I start to head home.  "No problem.  But what's going on?  Where's Kevin?"

"It's a long story."  It's dark and he's turned away from me, but I can see something's wrong with his face.  I keep my mouth shut, deciding to wait until we got home.

Once we get there, Michael heads for the apartment, leaving me to get Hallie out of the car seat.  It's odd, usually he waits for me.  Nevertheless, I get Hallie out from the straps, carry her to the apartment, put her back to bed, and start my new hobby of leaning outside the bathroom door, seeing as Michael has locked himself inside.  "Can I help you with anything?" I ask.

I hear a quiet curse, then he says "No, I'm just fine, just getting cleaned up."

From what? I ask myself.  "Something happen?"

"No, nothing at all, I'm fine."

"Bullshit."

He's quiet for a moment.  "Huh?"

I smile at his confusion.  "I said that's bullshit.  Something happened and you're trying to hide in there.  You gotta come out sometime, you know."

He laughs nervously.  "You're being paranoid.  Nothing happened."

I start drumming my fingers on the door, know it'll drive him nuts.  "You keep telling yourself that.  Let me know if you can make the argument a little more convincing."

Abruptly, the door opens, but it blocks my view of him.  "Fine.  Have it your way."

I walk inside.  Michael is leaning on the sink, facing the mirror, and as I walk behind him, I can see his reflection, and then my own face in the mirror twists in surprise.  "Holy shit, what happened?"

His face is bruised, scraped, cut, his eyes are dull, and he's trembling.  He turns around to face me, still leaning on the sink for support.  "I'm guessing 'I fell down the stairs' won't work."

"No, I'd believe it.  Of course, somebody would have had to help you fall, but I'd believe it."  I sigh.  "You got in a fight.  I've been in enough of them to know that right off the bat.  I just can't figure out why."

He looks down, staring at the floor.  "It was less of a fight, more of an attack."  He crosses his arms over his stomach as if he's hugging himself, and it dawns on me that this is totally new for him, that he's never been in a fight before and probably has no idea what to do.

Well, I guess this is good parenting practice.  "Sit down."  I gestured to the edge of the bathtub.

He sits, eyeing me warily.  "Why?"

I grab band-aides, peroxide, and cotton balls.  "Because you look like shit and those beautiful cuts are gonna get infected if you don't clean them, and it's awful hard to clean cuts on your own face.  So you're gonna sit here, trust my greater experience in this area, and tell me why you got beat down, and I'm gonna work on making you look human again."

He winces as the first peroxide-soaked cotton ball touches a cut on his face.  "You have experience with cleaning people up?"

I shake my head.  "I have experience getting my ass kicked.  Stop changing the topic."

"Well, it's a funny story..."  I place a band-aide over the cut and wait for him to continue.  "Me and Kevin were walking towards the bar you picked me up at, because we were parked down the street.  And these three guys came up to us and they...uhm...they attacked us."

"Tilt your head back," I instruct him.  He stares at me, confused, and I take my fingers and tilt his head for him.  "I have to clean your forehead, and I don't want the peroxide to get in your eyes," I explain.  I start cleaning the scrape on his forehead.  "So, you mean to tell me these three guys attacked you for no reason?"

Michael fidgets a bit.  "Uhm...no, they had a reason.  I guess."

Christ, this is like pulling teeth.  "And what would that reason be?"

"They...they were gay-bashers, Pete."  Michael lets out a tiny sigh.

Well.  This isn't good.  "And they attacked you just because you were two guys walking together?"

His voice comes out as a whisper.  "No.  They attacked us because we were kissing."