Yellow Wood
Arthur Fonzarelli divided his life, mentally, into two different compartments; pre-Cunninghams and post-Cunninghams.
Before he had met Richie Cunningham, he had been a street tough; the king of his high school, the king of his gang. THE stud, in all manner and matter, to everyone around him.
That had changed when he targeted Richard Cunningham.
Richie, the perfect, pure little kid with a Howdy Doody head and a milk-carton smile. Only the Lord knew why Fonzie had decided to start spending time with the little loser. Maybe because his own life, post-high-school, had hit a major skid. Maybe because he had no real family of his own.
Maybe that string of one-night-stands was just grating on his skin.
It was the kid's fault; he was an encourager, a doer, an enabler. Fonzie awed him, but Richie was the one who made Fonzie feel like his life was meant for more than hanging out in back allies and drive-ins, or polishing his motorcycle.
He was a real friend. Fonzie understood that the day Howard Cunningham turned the top floor of his garage over to him. The day the Cunninghams had become his own family.
They had been close. Almost too close. So Fonzie didn't feel that it was his fault that he was occasionally stricken by the urge to take Richie's hand, or press a kiss to his cheek. Hey, it was the kid's fault, right?
Only the visions in Fonzie's fantasies had gotten more and more explicit. He refused to yield to them, refused to panic. Fonzie had never had a real friend in his life, and he wasn't going to scare Richie off with what was undoubtedly some sort of freakish malfunction in his mind.
It was almost a relief when he shipped out, married Laurie Beth. Fonzie had stood in for Richie in the delivery room, and reported back to him so proudly that his son was strong and kicking.
It was that night that Fonzie realized something very important; that Richie had introduced him to something more powerful than anything he'd ever experienced in his short life. Richie had taught Fonzie how to love.
With that, his fate had been sealed. He would never hurt Richie by trying to further his attraction, nor could he hurt the Cunningham family by wrecking Richie's happy life. There wasn't any way he could reconcile his attraction to his faith, or to what he believed himself to be; Fonzie, the king of the neighborhood. Fonzie, the stud of Milwaukee.
Neither of those men dwelling in his skin could allow him to experience his greatest temptation.
Fonzie shook off the thoughts haunting his brain. What was he doing thinking about that? Heather and Ashley were waiting for him. And the lesson plan, unlike everything else in his life, would not write itself.
He scratched out the note he'd scribbled in his lesson planner. No one needed to know that he knew Robert Frost. Know that he had chosen the safest street possible to a life of respect.
The yellow wood of his mind was divided, but it was covered in snow.