Where the Boys Are, page 10
He’ll put it in some Coke.
In my class in the city, we were reading The Ravishing of Lol Stein. (“She says that in school—and she wasn’t the only person to think so—there was already something lacking in Lol, something which kept her from being, in Tatiana’s words, ‘there.’”) I was taking out loans from the government, ostensibly for school, and I’d defer until I couldn’t any longer, I figured. Who cares if you die in debt?
In a small town, you needed to move, so you didn’t keep coming across whomever, when it hadn’t worked out. When I walked out of the building in Bay Ridge, I walked along a sidewalk that ran along road on one side, park on the other, a highway on the other side of the park.
A year and a half since I’d known where I could try to go at night when I just didn’t want to go home, that long since I’d been with someone I didn’t feel I had to protect myself from in subtle ways in sex. Then two years, three even, when I’m doing what you could call just fucking around. Or you could call it trying to see if the only thing I’d lost was a release. The city was full of alternatives.
I’d read the words wrong, sometimes in class, or mispronounce, like slips of tongue, though not quite, exactly. Things like reading “unwordly” in place of “unworldly.” Maybe not a pointless juxtaposition.
Make it feel good, make it feel good for yourself, he kept saying to me, when he wanted me to control the way, the speed at which, I was going in and out of his opening.
JUNIPER HOUSE
Alana Noel Voth
for TJL
When I started my job at Juniper House everyone was happy, my parents, all the weirdos at AA, as if going to work every day should provide a person with this incredible happiness.
Juniper House was an institution for autistic kids. I cleaned rooms. The kids at Juniper would blow anyone’s mind with their messes. They liked to disassemble stuff and often pulled their beds apart: blankets, sheets, and then the mattress. One kid dug a hole through his box spring, deep enough to accommodate his arm, and then stuffed food inside so it became a weird minefield of springs, stuffing and pancakes. Other kids arranged the furniture in their rooms into straight lines. The bathroom was another story. Lots of kids missed the toilet entirely, and one boy, Devon, created a display on the wall with his own shit I’d call nothing less than artistic. I stood there flabbergasted, not by the smell but by what I saw: a defined, sophisticated face. I hated cleaning it up, like I was ruining it or something, this tiny gorgeous underappreciated flex of genius.
The landscape around Juniper House was like an oasis on the edge of downtown: maple trees, wildflowers, and grass. In some ways, the landscape made me think of home. The building itself was masonry, just a building. Once in a while, I took one of the kids for a walk outside. Louie, a redhead, counted backward from one million. Lily with the shining black hair spoke Russian to daisies. Then there was Robbie, who quizzed me on math equations but never waited for my answers. Anyway, I didn’t know the square root of five hundred-and-eighty-five.
The kids at Juniper weren’t “high functioning,” so they couldn’t be allowed in school with other people’s normal kids or even in the general public. Some had disappointed their families: I knew because some of them never had visitors. When I was in rehab, I didn’t want visitors. When Mom showed up, I refused to see her. I wasn’t sure whether these kids minded not having visitors. Once I overheard a nurse tell another nurse: “Parents need time to mourn the loss of the child they didn’t have.” Then I heard Mom in my head all over again crying as she came down a row of jail cells to bail me out.
One kid, Bruce, hadn’t had a visitor the whole time I’d worked at Juniper House. Last Tuesday, I was in Bruce’s room to clean it. I made the bed, then emptied the trash, which was when I noticed a suspicious but silky nest of hair tucked in with the snotty tissues. Was Bruce pulling hair out of his own head? Should I report this to the nurse’s station? From a few feet away, I couldn’t see any bald spots on Bruce’s head and so decided to keep his secret. In the bathroom, I started on the toilet. That’s when I heard him say, “Hi.”
I stepped from the bathroom. The TV was on. Bruce sat on his newly made bed staring at the flickering screen. “Hey Bruce. You watching MTV?”
I looked at the screen. 50 Cent or somebody rapped at a barely audible volume surrounded by a bunch of slutty looking girls. I looked at Bruce again, and for a second, he squinted his eyes at me, and I actually expected him to answer. Then he dropped his eyes and began separating marbles from a pile on his bed. “Hi. Hi. Hi.”
Bruce was fifteen and looked like a young Rob Lowe. He was never going to get laid. I didn’t know if that mattered to him or not. We’d only had one-way conversations.
“I haven’t had cock in two months, Bruce, and it’s killing me. When you’re a small-town hick in the big city who can’t keep a job, you don’t appeal to a lot of people.” The boy didn’t look up. “Last time I got any action was a blow job from a guy I met in AA who invited me to a dry party, which means there wasn’t any alcohol there, and seeing as I’m not drinking right now but kind of wanted to get out and stuff, I went to the party with this guy Eugene.”
Bruce continued to separate marbles from the pile.
“Yeah, it’s a boring story.” I went back to the toilet and got a nose full of ammonia.
A minute later, Bruce appeared in the bathroom. “Do you like pie?”
“What?” I looked at him. This guy could keep me guessing, that was for sure.
Bruce leaned back and forth on his feet and smiled at me; well, not at me exactly, maybe toward me. Then Bruce turned to a mirror and gazed at himself as he swayed back and forth, and I thought, Wonder if he understands how gorgeous he is? Except, what good would that do him since he has no interest in people or any desire to please them?
“I envy you, man.”
“I like pie,” Bruce said.
I scrubbed his toilet until it shone like a pearl you’d find in an oyster.
The guy I mentioned, Eugene: he might have weighed a hundred-thirty pounds, and he had these big ears he’d pierced four times down each side, which only brought attention to how big his ears were, and he also had acne; more like cysts on his neck and chin. Other than that, he was probably attractive. Night of the party, he’d gelled his hair, gone all out. Everyone there was a recovering alcoholic, and that was all they talked about. Recovery. Dragging a cart of sins behind them. Wanting to feel normal. Eugene started to talk in my ear about a GLBT support group.
“Would you be interested in doing a newsletter?” he asked.
“What newsletter?”
“For the GLBT group.”
“Why would you ask me?”
“You write.”
“Who told you that?”
“Jeremy Johnson.”
“Who’s that?”
“Member of the GLBT support group.”
“I’ve no idea who that is.”
“He said you could write.”
“I’ve no idea why he’d say that.”
We stood there several minutes, during which time it struck me how sober I was, because I was uncomfortable, and a lame silence hung between Eugene and me while I debated admitting I did, actually, write a little but probably not well enough for a newsletter. Besides a support group meant getting socially active, hoping against hope to get involved in life, and there was this other guy at the party I found extremely cute but who was a million miles away, like out of my reach, my league; and in the middle of the last AA meeting this same guy had stood up from his seat looking glorious and golden and said: “I’m going to be that guy, you know, the one on the other side of the window we’ve all looked in on before, whose life is healthy and normal, you know, cut and dried, and I’m going to be that happy.” Then he gave everyone this big glowing smile, which was hokey enough I could have vomited, but he was extremely cute, which led me to realize that night at the party that I was turned on, like my cock had moved, and the longer I looked at this cute guy whose life would become cut and dried, and therefore happy, the more I became convinced he looked like Leonardo DiCaprio. Incredible!
Pretty soon, Eugene and I were alone in a dark room. I had a serious boner and reached into the dark in front of me, around me, until I made contact with a solid mass, Eugene’s chest. I felt under his shirt for his nipples. Already I was pretending he was Leonardo DiCaprio huffing cola breath in my face and trying to kiss me. Yeah, Leonardo DiCaprio interested in me, turned on by me. I grabbed his head and kissed him. My nose tickled from the smell of all the gel in his hair. Leo was an enthusiastic kisser. A vacuum. As he sucked my tongue he went for my fly, then latched on to my cock with a sweaty palm and rubber fingers before he got on his knees and worked me into his mouth. You would have thought he was stuffing a sub sandwich in there. Holy shit! Leo slobbered all over my cock, which made me remember how much I liked blow jobs. And when I came, I groaned so hard I didn’t recognize the sound of myself.
I grew up in a wooded area that smelled like pasture and tree bark and animals. Ripe, sweet, a little pungent. Mom and Dad had a farmhouse. I went to a small school. Small-town boy, country, gay, and seriously bent on getting away to the big city because I’d believed in the visions of glamourous living running amuck in my head. I arrived with nothing but a backpack and a head full of urgency: Let’s live!
Soon enough, I was crowded by masses of possibility, more like expectation, and then just a ton of failure. I lost my first job because, as the boss had put it, I was too slow, and he’d said it like I was retarded. Then I lost my second job too. And ended up in a bar. When I came out, weaving a little, blinking, the city smelled like cold dead sex. The smell had something to do with leaves pinned motionless to sidewalks by rain two hundred and fifty days out of the year. And the way everyone walked past me, right over me really, was like I was down there on the sidewalk with those poor damned leaves.
Once I created a MySpace account out of boredom and because I wanted to meet a guy in theory. I posted a picture of an actor nobody had heard of at the time but who was cute, and then I wrote a profile. Small-town boy longs for the experience of a hot, interesting, city guy. In huge need of survival tips. Then I got drunk for three months and forgot to check my new MySpace account. When I did, I had seventy-five new “friends.” So many city guys offering to help me survive. But I chickened out; didn’t believe it; something.
Because I had a job again and went to AA, my parents agreed to pay first and last months’ rent on an apartment plus a move-in deposit. The apartment was nothing special. It had three rooms: a living room/kitchen, a bedroom and a barely existing bathroom. The tub, toilet and sink were crammed in like cans into a tight cupboard, and the toilet was right behind the door, which meant if there was any possibility I’d ever live with someone, he’d smash my kneecaps or at least dislocate them opening that door; or if I stood at the toilet to take a piss, this nonexistent man could easily take out my back and cripple me forever. Something like this would add injury to insult far as my parents went. An alcoholic son who was now also a cripple. Where would they put me? A place like Juniper but for cripples? Or a place where the residents developed bedsores because a person could lie there forever like the place was a goddamned morgue?
The apartment, at least, was better than rehab. Better than jail. At least nobody was looking at me and shaking his head, disappointed. I discovered, though, I could look in on my neighbors whose apartment window faced mine. There was only a short distance between us, a walkway and four feet of grass. Two guys lived in the other apartment. They looked like Eric Bana and Brad Pitt. Older guys: early thirties? Mostly, I saw them at night. I’d watch the one who looked like Brad Pitt cook dinner. He stood over a stove stirring a boiling pot of something, and the steam of that something would drift above his eyebrows, and he wore no shirt, the waist of his jeans was visible. He had an incredible stomach and chest and lean athletic arms. I’d watched them eat too. They had impeccable table manners. Their dining room table was circular. They sat by each other, like they probably bumped knees under the table, and sometimes the Eric Bana guy would laugh with such open-mouthed heartiness I wanted to cry at his tremendous display of joy.
Dinner was usually chicken or fish. I ate takeout or whatever was left over from takeout the night before and got into a habit of setting my chair in front of my window, then watching my neighbors eat while I sucked up greasy noodles from a Styrofoam container. After they finished eating, the guy who looked like Brad Pitt smoked a cigarette while his boyfriend did the dishes. I smoked with him. Everyone in AA smoked. What else could we do? After the Eric Bana guy finished the dishes, he leaned down to hug the other guy in his seat. One night they locked lips in an intense kiss. I was sure I saw tongue. Truthfully, I’d never seen anything like their kiss before. It began rough then softened then increased in intensity again, lips mashed and noses bumping, and they each grabbed hold of the other’s head, and the Brad Pitt guy licked a circle around his boyfriend’s mouth while the Eric Bana guy curled his fingers around his lover’s ear. They let go. Exchanged a few words. Disappeared from my view. And I couldn’t stand up from my chair for five minutes.
I kept every kid’s room in Juniper House clean. At least for an hour after I left, their rooms were in order and no longer smelled of piss or rotting food stuffed in corners. I straightened pillows. Retrieved teddy bears. Opened curtains to let the sun in.
One day, this boy Ricky sat in a corner of his room looking at his hands. I went over, crouched beside him, and then tried to see around to his face. He stared at his hands without blinking and muttered while he wriggled and bent his fingers.
“Hey Ricky, you conjuring a magical spell?” To make him normal enough he could live in the real world with his parents.
I put my hands in his hair. His scalp felt hot. His hair was the softest thing I’d ever touched. Ricky began to scream and flail his arms around until they ended up wound up his thin opaque body like tether ball rope around a pole. I fell backward on my hands, then crab-walked away from him. A nurse rushed into the room.
“What did you do? Did you touch Ricky? Don’t ever touch Ricky.”
I sat in a chair in front of my window and jerked off. No lights, no curtains, just me shrouded in secrecy, my cock in my hand, and my neighbors over there visible through their living room window. They weren’t doing anything special; they sat on their couch, side by side, and watched TV. Once in a while, the one who looked like Eric Bana scratched the side of his head. What if I went over there, what if I went over there right now? My dick hurt. My dick hurt so bad it killed me, looking at the two of them like that. I closed my eyes, focusing on my cock in my hands, and then when I opened them for one more look before I shot off, they weren’t there. And I panicked. They’d gotten up, killed the lights, maybe gone to bed. I let go of my cock, which was still hard, and my balls felt incredibly swollen. I pulled on a jacket and went out. I felt like I walked funny, hunched over, in pain. I stood on the walkway a minute, then crossed into the grass visibly green in the moonlight. No light from their apartment. Seriously, my gut hurt. I crossed the grass, hands in my jacket pockets. When I reached the window, I lifted my hands, then pressed them to the glass. I sucked in a breath then exhaled. Hi, hi, hi. Where were they? Just a glimpse: that was all I needed. I felt desperate. Locked out. On edge. What if I broke in while they weren’t home and stood in the middle of their kitchen, then went to the stove and turned on a burner, held my hand to the heat, close as I could, then opened the fridge and drank from a carton of milk? Drank all of their milk? Maybe I’d find some hair in a bathroom drain, pinch a few strands between my fingers, and then push the strands into my pocket. I could go through their drawers, their laundry basket, the garbage cans, make treasure from trash. I could lie on their bed and jerk off. What if I took a Polaroid of myself on their bed jerking off?
All of a sudden, it felt important to at least hear them fuck in there: heavy breathing, bedsprings, maybe a headboard hitting a wall. I crept to what I knew was a bedroom window and then pressed the side of my face to the glass and strained my ear. Nothing. Wait, maybe a bedspring. I pretended I saw the one who looked like Brad Pitt getting behind the one who looked like Eric Bana. A huff of breath. Another squeaking bedspring. I wanted to see their male bodies naked and marblelike, slippery and sliding off each other in a glow from a single light. I wanted them to turn a light on. Please! I wanted to see one with his ass in the air. The other gripping him by the hips. I wanted to experience their fucking. I pushed my hand to my crotch. My boner flinched. Pre-come in my pants. I peered into the bedroom window. Not even a shift of shadow.
Soon as I stepped away from their window, I couldn’t go home. I walked to Eugene’s apartment. He’d told me where he lived; less than eight blocks away. Soon as I got there, I pushed my way into the apartment. Eugene said, “Whoa,” and then smiled. His ears appeared to wave at me in an eerie splash of light from his TV.
I bit one of his earlobes and tasted salt before cool metal. Eugene shuddered against me, then put his hands on my hips, moving around to my back and moving them up and down, squeezing my ass. His TV sent surreal echoes of silver light into the room, across his face, distorting—even disguising—his cysts.
“Will you suck me off?” I said.
Behind me I felt for a wall, then leaned against it. Eugene went to his knees. I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. Eugene yanked my button-fly open, dug his hands into my pants, and then came up with my cock. His palm felt sticky as an asshole around me, and I moved my hips to push my cock thorough his fist.
I pretended I was fucking the Brad Pitt guy, then his boyfriend.
“I didn’t think I’d see you like this again,” I heard Eugene say. His breath washed over the head of my cock. “This is a terrific surprise.”
I was glad the TV was on; the sound drowned his voice out a little.
I took Bruce for a walk the next day. Outside Juniper House there was a circular walk lined by benches and grass and trees. We were supposed to direct the kids in one direction, never against the flow of traffic. Bruce walked ahead of me saying, “Hi, hi, hi.” Above us in a tree, a bird flapped its wings then whistled. Bruce stopped. I stopped behind him, keeping my hands in my pockets, watching sunlight hit the back of his head.
