Where the Boys Are, page 15
On one occasion, during the second visit, we were lying naked in a hollow under the oldest oak tree on our land. I’d had sex, as I mentioned, in all kinds of places in London—on trains, in City side streets abandoned by their worker occupants at night, in the tiniest of parks; even, once, in the classic toilet setting—but I hadn’t so far had the opportunity to fulfill one of my ambitions since childhood: to have someone join me in exposing myself to my most familiar piece of sky. It was early summer and surprisingly warm. At that instant in time, we seemed blessed.
Jenner loved to be in charge most of the time, though, for me, he made exceptions. I guess that was another of the attractions for me; he wasn’t easy. Very often, I let him take the lead because I enjoyed it. But that time, in my domain, on my ancestral lands, he laid himself out like a platter full of goodies. It had happened before but, touched by the breeze and the filtered sunshine as we were that day, it was as though a precedent were being set. I thought I was bringing my lover home….
For once not fussing about his surroundings, he looked more dashing to me than ever—if completely incongruous—on his carpet of crisp dead leaves. I lay on my side next to him and traced his dark, arched eyebrows with my ring finger, staring into his eyes all the while. He was trying to close them, but couldn’t. It had been his idea to get naked yet, somehow, he seemed cowed by our environment, as though it stirred memories of boyhood trysts and humiliation. He never spoke about them, but I knew they’d happened. What made me think I could overcome their legacy, I’m not sure. Blind optimism? Yes, that’s it. As for my more literal vision, it was so perfect that afternoon that the images will probably stay with me forever.
He finally looked at me, simultaneously stroking his fingers along my side, over my waist and hips, then down. He flicked me one of his careless smiles, though I knew he felt anything but that, and pulled me into his space. He never tasted of smoke when I kissed him, oddly—always fresh. I took him over, pushing my tongue inside him like the definitive act of possession. He responded with arms around my back, finally succumbing to the present over the past. Does that sound too Mills and Boon? Never mind; it’s how it happened (though perhaps my old secret reading habits will always creep into my reporting style).
Sometimes I felt that kissing Jenner was the only way we ever managed to profoundly bond—which doesn’t say much for our mutual communication skills; it was the only way to ensure we neither spoke to nor looked at each other. But no, it was more than that; it really was special—like positive meditation. I’ve never found it with anyone else, hard as I’ve tried, and I know it was as much me as it was him; the chemistry, rather. That particular kiss was the best I remember; it went on and on, deepening with each tightening of our hold on one another, with every investigative touch. Maybe I was more relaxed than Jenner, knowing that we were far from any footpaths crossing the land and that Mother was likely to stay in the village with friends until the evening. He knew these things but didn’t trust them as I could. Initially, this danger seemed to intensify his excitement, but he was no exhibitionist; after several minutes, as the hypnosis of the kiss began to fade, his excitement turned to urgency. I think I could have carried on for days….
Afterward, I felt his reluctance to lie there like that with me for much longer. He lit a cigarette and glanced around us, that dizzy expression echoing my own return to the everyday plane. I brushed his come across his belly, feeling dampness amongst the hairs on my chest where the rest of it had landed. He looked at me suddenly, drawing hard on his fag.
“You know, I could never live here. All this green makes me feel conspicuous.” Echoing my earlier observation, he dropped his little bombshell with barely a flinch. Obviously it had occurred to him that our time together would be limited if that didn’t happen…but maybe he just expected my love for him to make me change my soul and live in the city for good.
“We could always compromise—do fifty-fifty.” He nodded slightly, uncertainly. How could I manage the farm part-time? I’d only been able to get my head around it because I felt it was important to finish my qualification and things had been ticking along okay; once I took the reins, that would be it. What’s more, I didn’t want it any other way.
Picking our way through fresh nettles on the little path back to the big path, I tripped over a hidden bramble and almost fell flat on my face. Jenner stopped behind me and took my elbow. A green woodpecker piped up at that point, cackling its tiny red head off. “They always seem to do that at opportune moments…”
“What do?”
I explained.
“Green woodpecker…” he mused out loud. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, fine.” To Jenner, falling over a bramble was simply something that had never happened to him; or if it had, he’d stashed it away along with the rest of his unwanted memories. He couldn’t help it by that stage; it was an alien landscape to him. It was during those last few months that I began to realize another truth: Jenner had forced himself to fall in love with the city and the effort had been so gargantuan that any other love had to take second place. At that point, in my condition, I hadn’t the wisdom or clarity of mind to put it all together. There was still hope. I felt that my real love for my favorite place must be strong enough to counter his fabricated one.
And I called him arrogant…?
We tried, we really did. We made it through eight months and Jenner was getting sick enough of his horrible job to think about jacking it in. I dreamt of a time when he might be a relaxed person in the evenings—when our social life wouldn’t have to be a drunken distraction from his days. And his unemployment coincided nicely with the end of my studies. I’d had long discussions with Mother about his moving into the farmhouse. She’d go along with it, putting in little remarks about her remaining “queen,” et cetera. “Jenner’s not a queen!” I protested. To which she somberly replied, “He’s the type to turn into one, given half the chance.” But behind her comparatively compliant act, I knew there was complete faith in the fact that it wouldn’t work out anyway—that Jenner really wasn’t going to last more than a few weeks here, at best. She didn’t want to say as much. I had to make my own mistakes, of course.
We even tried the fifty-fifty thing, after a fashion. I still had the two guys on the farm whom I could trust implicitly—well, one of them, at least, and the other did what he was told efficiently. But it seemed more like five days in the city, two on the farm, and every night away became more and more painful for me. I was torn. Darren couldn’t keep on much longer without money; both his social life and his fashion sense demanded it and, in turn, his job search demanded that he not stray too far from town. I held out hope that, once he’d found something, he wouldn’t mind commuting every day. Crazy. Finally, I persuaded him to take a break from it for a week with me.
I tried to prevent him from his attempt to pack his entire life into two suitcases. He was adamant. “There has to be a decent place to go out down there, surely? If there is, I’ll find it….” As if I wouldn’t know. I tried to picture him, all dressed up, in one of the provincial straight clubs I’d been to on odd, unfortunate occasions.
“We can come back here for that any time we want to,” I offered, hopefully.
“…Between sheep dips. Okay.”
“Well, you can be preening yourself while I’m dipping the sheep. The timing should work out about right, and I won’t look any different from what I normally do. Might smell a bit, but whatever.” He laughed. We always laughed easily. I took that for a good sign, right until the end.
August. In England, not even August is reliably gorgeous, but that year it was. I felt full of optimism as we drove down, Red Hot Chili Peppers blaring, in Jenner’s soon-to-be relinquished Audi A4. As with many aspects of our lives, in that short time together, we’d already shared so much; I was listening to obscure house and he’d developed a tentative taste for all things rock and indie. I think he was secretly relieved just to be getting away from the pressures he was putting on himself at home. I had more hopeful visions of a U-turn on his part and maybe he was thinking the same. In any case, it was a joyful ride….
The first night of our little holiday, once he’d got over his slight pique about my spending two hours checking things over on the farm, was probably the most passionate we’d had—aside from those when there’d been an all-out argument beforehand, in which case the sex was usually more like violence. With the window open to the cool, night air and the moonlight breaking through the sparse clouds, the good old romance novels came into my mind again. And Jenner could pass for one of those heroes in that light. All my fantasies seemed fulfilled…and under the right roof.
But I was fooling myself. And Mother, as usual, was right—except for the fact that it didn’t take weeks; it took days. As he squeezed his two cases into the boot of the car and turned to me to say good-bye, a familiar cackle drowned out the ambient birdsong. I smiled at him, hoping to elicit some kind of positive last word…but he’d forgotten. Perhaps he never took it in for more than a few minutes—long enough to comment at the time. My face fell. He took my hand briefly and said, “See you when you get back.”
Get back? I was back.
He left, skidding out of the drive on the summer dust, careless of which of our unsuspecting cats or dogs might run under his wheels. I turned to Mother, who was staring anywhere but at me.
I saw him only twice after that. I’d moved into his flat, so things were less complicated than they could have been if he’d moved into mine. The sum total of my possessions fitted into roughly the same volume of luggage as he’d brought on that last trip. It didn’t take long; two hours to remove almost all traces of a relationship we’d kidded ourselves was for a lifetime. But neither of us was in doubt anymore. His words had been decisive. In my local pub, some drunken mechanic I’d known since I was five started aggressively questioning my choice of friend: “He’s a fucking shirtlifter—look at him.” When Jenner turned and walked out, I assumed it was in disgust. But when, after shaking my head at the culprit, I’d followed him into the car park, I recognized the expression all too well: fear. And how could I blame him? As he pointed out repeatedly over the next couple of hours, the threat wasn’t directed at me—oh no: “You’re the perfect closet case.” And effectively, he was right….
It wasn’t the biggest row of our time together—not at all. It was as though we both knew, all of a sudden, like a spotlight on the truth this ignorant man had inadvertently turned on. It was bigger than both of us. The solace I find in the country is the equal and the opposite to that which he found in the city. Maybe he’s not lonely like me; part of me hopes not—part of me hopes he found a job that was good for his self-respect and a partner who really fit. But part of me is fiendishly jealous of his possibilities as I imagine them. There is where guys like me should go; it’s one of those undeniable truths in life. All the one-night stands I’ve had over the years have been city boys who happen to pass through or those in potential; they never stick around.
As the melancholy sound of a tawny owl warming up for the evening greets the darkness outside, I contemplate, for about the thousandth time, going up to London for just one night—just to see if a miracle happens. I’ve never done it. And one answer I might be starting to accept, after all this time, is that I’ve never gone because I really did love him; I can’t imagine anyone to compare. If a broken heart is the best the city can offer me to make up for its coldness, I’m better off alone….
GOD HATES TECHNO
Zeke Mangold
There he was, pushing a cart of ice down a carpeted hallway in search of Room 177. Bored, he paused in front of a mirror near the guest elevator to reenact a scene from Taxi Driver: “You lookin’ at me?” Dell plopped into a chair, lit a Marlboro, and listened to the Killers’ “Somebody Told Me” via the ceiling’s tinny speakers. He thought yanking a fire alarm might cut short his shift, but couldn’t recall where the cameras were. Probably they’d already captured him ashing in a potted plant.
“The iceman hateth,” he said to no one.
Summer had burned its way to an end, and Dell’s pool lifeguard position at Baja Palace Hotel & Gambling Oasis evaporated. He transferred to food and beverage, working five nights a week as a barback in a motorcycle-themed nightclub called Throttle that infringed heavily upon Harley-Davidson Café. What did he care? He wasn’t toiling in a Boulder Highway casino for its originality. He worked as a barback because he wanted to make money and maybe get his dick sucked by one of the chiseled flair bartenders who specialized in slinging liquor bottles à la Tom Cruise in Cocktail.
Truth be told, Dell wasn’t that experienced. Sure, for a few weeks he tussled with Gus, a security guard who went on to accept a better, higher-paying position at a lavish casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Gus aside, Dell hadn’t enjoyed much action since coming out the previous year, just before high school graduation. Spending his teenage years on the edge of the valley in the conservative suburbia of Summerlin had only intensified the dirty downtown sex hunger driving his fantasies. Now, he longed to drill a hole in the wall of the gay bookstore inside Commercial Center and take on all cummers.
For the moment, however, he was busy transporting ice to a private party as a favor to the F&B director. Seemingly out of nowhere, a new Nevada health law required all personnel—in other words, Mexicans—to get their hepatitis shots before dealing with ice. Dell had been inoculated at the university, so he was asked to deliver the cold stuff to the VIP suite, where, more than likely, a bunch of sales-industry hags were rinsing and powdering their dried-up labia for a night in front of the slot machines.
So he was surprised to hear reverberating bass emanating from Room 177. He had to pound the door viciously before his arrival registered over the chaos.
The music stopped. A slender, good-looking blond wearing sunglasses opened the door. He said nothing, looking confused.
“You order ice?” said Dell.
“Ah. Yes.” The man stepped out of the doorway so Dell could wheel in the cart.
A turntable and speakers were set up in the room. Empty pizza boxes and drained beer bottles littered the surfaces of things.
“Partying solo tonight, huh?”
The man shook his head. “Nah, my friends are already at the club. I’m spinning later tonight.” He picked at something stuck to his tight black T-shirt, while Dell admired the taut muscles of the man’s arms.
“At Throttle? Hey, I work there.”
“Bartender?”
“Barback,” Dell said with a shrug. “Where do you want the ice?”
“Leave it there,” said the DJ, making his way to the turntables. “I need to figure out something first.”
Not wanting to return to the club and slice lemons, Dell asked, “What do you spin?”
The DJ had already donned his padded earphones, but heard the question. “Mash-ups,” he said, arms crossed, staring intently at his mixing board. Stymied, he turned to Dell, looking him up and down. “Got this a cappella thing—the Carpenters’ ‘On Top of the World’? But I can’t make it work with anything.”
Dell thought. “Well, you know, the Geto Boys had this nasty track back in the day called ‘The World Is a Ghetto’…”
The DJ snapped his fingers. “That’s good.” He began typing on his MacBook Pro, no doubt downloading the song from the Internet. He smiled at Dell, extended his hand, and said,
“Name’s Bugsy.”
“Oh, DJ Bugsy!” said Dell, reaching forward to shake. “I was reading about you in the weekly paper the other day.”
“Yeah, um, Throttle isn’t the snazziest club in Vegas, as you probably know. But at least they pay me to spin what I like. Do you have to work right now? Grab a seat, man.”
Dell did indeed have to work, but instead reclined on the couch and flipped through an issue of DJMag while Bugsy remixed the wildly divergent songs, fusing them into something unique and slamming. When it was ready, he removed his headphones and blasted the unholy coupling through giant speakers, Karen Carpenter’s voice sounding unusually sexy as it mounted the wild rhythms of Scarface and Bushwick Bill.
“Evil,” said Dell.
Bugsy nodded with complete satisfaction. “Lethal.”
Bugsy saved “On Top of the Ghetto” for the end of his set at Throttle. Dell was carting a tub of glasses to the dishwasher when he heard Karen’s voice (“Such a feeling’s coming over me”) followed by the explosive Geto Boys beat. He looked over at Bugsy, who reciprocated with some kind of gangsta sign that meant nothing to Dell.
Whatever. Bugsy was still super-hot. Forget the Throttle bartenders.
Wrapping up his set at five AM, Bugsy invited Dell to a downtown diner. They ate cheeseburgers and discussed hip-hop until nearly noon, though the younger barback didn’t listen to much of the genre other than Public Enemy, N.W.A. and, of course, the Geto Boys. Somehow they got on the subject of the gay nightlife scene in Vegas, and he remembered the article he’d read in the paper: Bugsy spun at the major gay clubs in town. Clearly, Dell had a shot at fucking the shit out of this adorable DJ.
“The city is where the action is,” Bugsy said at one point.
“Since my mom and I moved here three years ago,” said Dell, “we’ve lived exclusively in the ’burbs. What’s it like downtown?”
“It’s amazing. You’ll see.”
Dell and his friend London spent Sunday afternoon at Lock N’ Load, where you could shoot a real machine gun in a concrete, air-conditioned range. London was developing an obsession with firearms, and Dell thought it suited her. They had lifeguarded together at Baja last summer, but now she worked as a stripper, making three thousand a night at Garden of Eden Gentlemen’s Club. She loved the money but hated the clientele. A dude had spooked her in the parking lot as she was getting into her car, which led to buying a Glock. Which led to her joining a gun range. Which led to Dell being here, donning safety glasses and ear protectors and pointing a Thompson M1A1 at a paper target of Osama.
