Country Boys, page 17
Getting back to his house a couple of hours before dawn, Perry crawled into bed with his wife to steal what sleep he could before he had to get up and drive to Ocala for work. Thom passed out, slumped and snoring, in the backseat of his car, parked beside Perry’s truck. By the time Perry climbed into his pickup, the rain had stopped and Thom’s Ford was gone, leaving nothing but a dry patch on the blacktop.
The years, as they always do, passed. The Grammy-nominated country-rock outfit Thom worked for dissolved in a thicket of lawsuits and recriminations, but he, by that time a known quantity on the roadie circuit, soon found employment with a heavy metal band whose fans tended to wear T-shirts with satanic symbols. They toured quite a lot, so Thom and Perry saw each other an average of two or three times a year. Usually they were just alone for an hour or two, though a couple of times Perry was able to go off on weekend trips with his buddy, camping trips that turned into outdoor sex once the sun went down. Thom invited his friend out to L.A., but Perry couldn’t figure out a graceful excuse to give both his job and his wife, and besides, as he wrote Thom, I’m just a good old boy who hasn’t even visited Disney, much less the other coast. Eventually, that changed; he took his growing daughter and thickening wife on a trip to the Magic Kingdom, and Thom flew in from Georgia for the occasion, the two men sharing a couple of torrid hours in a hotel on International Drive.
That night in Orlando was the first time Perry had fucked Thom, instead of vice versa. Perry had long ago gotten over any squeamishness he’d had over sex that involved the butthole. That evening, sliding his cock into his buddy’s hairy crack, he realized how much tighter ass was than pussy, and was glad for the pleasure he’d provided Thom all those times when Thom had been the one doing the screwing. Perry fucked Thom every which way, including some he’d never tried with Carrie. Standing up. From behind, like a bitch. Face-to-face, like they were lovers. Thom had more trouble staying hard while he got fucked, but he managed to whip a load out of himself while Perry was still inside him. Only after he saw Thom’s belly drenched in sperm did Perry let go and come himself. And they parted with an unusually deep kiss.
But after that, Thom’s communications—mostly emailed by then—became more emotional and insistent. He was asking for something, Perry knew, that was damn near impossible. In order to sort out his own feelings, Perry started doing what he hadn’t done in years: he wrote a story. The characters had other names, but they were clearly him and Thom. It was only when he had to come up with an ending that he laid the story aside, carefully hiding the unfinished manuscript.
The next time Thom let him know he’d be in Florida, Perry sent a transparently shaky reason why they wouldn’t be able to meet.
Perry, Thom emailed back, there’s a movie I think you should see. It’s called Brokeback Mountain.
Perry didn’t want to tell Thom that he’d already seen it. Encroaching suburban sprawl had thrown up a mall with multiplex about twenty miles away, and one Saturday night he and Carrie had left Lisa Marie with a sitter and gone for a rare night out. On the way, Carrie had talked him into seeing Brokeback Mountain. “You ain’t prejudiced, are you?” she’d semi-taunted, adding that the film was up for an Oscar, unlike the action-picture crap that was also showing at the theater.
Perry couldn’t figure out how to get out of seeing the movie without arousing suspicion. And besides, he’d wanted to see it—by himself. He’d thought it was a good movie, real good, though he’d just grunted when Carrie, her face still flushed from tears, asked how he’d liked it. Truth to tell, he wasn’t sure why Thom had told him to see it. Sure, it was beautiful—it took place in the country, but it was magnificent country, not flat and boring like shit-ass Florida. And sure, there was the sexual thrill of seeing two improbably handsome cowboys going at it onscreen. But its conventionally downbeat view of the consequences of homosexual lust was hardly an inducement for Perry to leave his increasingly shaky marriage and move out to the City of Angels and shack up with Thom.
He did try to write an ending to his story, though, working on it when Carrie wasn’t around. But afterward, instead of hiding the scrawled pages well, he just left them sitting under the socks in his drawer. Not altogether surprisingly, Carrie ran across the story and later confronted her husband, crying, telling him she’d suspected for years. She hadn’t, apparently, suggested that they see the movie together just because she liked good tearjerkers.
Perry had phoned Thom to tell him that he and Carrie were calling it quits, and Thom had said he could make it to Florida in a couple of weeks. Having flown all the way from California, Thom was jet-lagged and cranky by the time he maneuvered his rental car into Perry’s driveway.
“Carrie?” Thom asked, after they’d shared a joint.
“Moved back with her parents.”
“Jesus, I’m sorry.”
“Shit happens,” Perry said.
“Still.”
“So what now?”
“Well, my fucking job is shaky. Looks like the guy who owns the stable is going to sell it. His marriage broke up, too. He needs the money for child support.”
“Fuck. Child support.”
“Yeah, tell me. But I figured this might be a good opportunity to finally go out to the West Coast.”
“Perry…”
“Yeah?”
“I’m living with someone now. A session guitarist. He’s a good guy. I’d think you’d like him.”
Perry’s voice sounded only slightly strained. “Just my fucking luck. How long this been going on?”
“He moved in about a year ago.”
“Since before I fucked you?”
“No, after.”
“Well.”
“Well what?” Thom had cut his hair real short. He looked suddenly middle-aged.
“Can I fuck you again?”
“Don’t think so. How’s about we go back to the regular?”
That night was the first time Perry ever got rimmed, Thom’s tongue licking, teasing, and coaxing open his hole. Maybe it was something his new boyfriend had taught him.
After eating his ass, Thom fucked Perry a good long time, pulling his cock out at the last minute, tearing off the condom, and shooting all over Perry’s face. After they wiped up, they fell heavily asleep in each other’s arms, both of them knowing this would be final, that something had decisively ended.
In the morning, seeing Thom off on his way to a motel, Perry reached into his desk and pulled out the story he had written, finished at last. Thom started to read it.
“Not now,” Perry said. “Not till you get on the plane.”
The stable indeed got sold. But Perry’s boss put in a good word with some folks he knew, and Perry got hired by Walt Disney World to take care of the horses in Frontierland, and, when he wasn’t doing that, to dispatch the trains on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride.
Soon enough, he fell in love with one of the young cast members, a handsome, nicely hung guy who paraded around Fantasyland all day wearing an oversized animal-head mask. Though Perry was maybe happier, in some ways, than he’d ever been, he still missed the open country, flat as it was. He’d drive back north, but the place he grew up in was being transformed into strip malls and retirement communities. There was even a sushi joint one town over. First chance they got, he and Gary took a vacation in the Rockies, the first real mountains Perry had ever seen. On that trip, Perry truthfully didn’t think of Thom once.
Carrie found another husband, a bank clerk, so Perry stopped paying child support. He was able to buy a little condo with Gary, and they ended up on the outskirts of Orlando, not far from I-95. They bought the DVD of Brokeback Mountain at Wal-Mart, but they never did watch it very much.
RIVER BOY
Tom Cardamone
The town was small and dead and as withered and dry and unwanted as the skeletal, sun-cooked roadkill rattled by the tourists in huge cars who blithely sped by. Armadillos shuffled down Main Street. Main Street was really just the highway that bridged Florida’s glittering coasts, spanning mostly farm-land and swamp. Arcadia was a few empty storefronts and a courthouse slowly being consumed by dark oaks weary with Spanish moss.
The few citizens of Arcadia lived far from town and far from each other. Everyone was fine with that.
River Boy lived in his grandpa’s shack even further from town, close to the river. His grandpa was the forgotten grounds-keeper of a forgotten cemetery and had left one morning to hunt deer for their weekly venison stew and never returned. River Boy was fine with that. Not that he didn’t love Grandpa—he did, but the man was very old and better to die in the woods and be eaten by foxes than in a hospital in a strange city, life siphoned away by tubes and a wall-mounted television. That had been his grandpa’s often-expressed fear.
River Boy had different fears.
He did not tend the graveyard in his grandpa’s stead. And so the swamp slowly, methodically absorbed sacred ground with creeping vine and blinking lizard. Some graves were so old that they were marked with nothing more than a pile of resilient shells. This was not a mark of poverty; these oceanic totems possessed the constant hungry whisper of life, to be heard by anyone who happened to pick one up and listen. There was no one to listen. Their white whorls yawned a permanent, stately mourning. This was a graveyard of mostly young men. The town had practically thrown their young at the wars of the world; tall gritty marble obelisks marked the Civil War dead. Smaller, rounded tombstones continued down until the Korean War—not that the town wised up in time for Vietnam, simply they had more or less run out of boys by then. River Boy’s father was the only young man to fight and die in Vietnam and he was buried far away. His grandpa did not bring his body home. He said, “He wanted to see the world, so let ’im.”
And that was that.
The water of the river was the color of weak tea. Tannin from the decomposing oak leaves strained their moribund blood into the river. The water flowed without hurry. Time between the two coasts slowed, weighed down by the unattended monolithic tombstones of Civil War veterans. Time stalled in the isles of abandoned gas stations, time knotted in leafy coils of kudzu across the pews of empty churches. Time collected in small towns like the brown silt slowly steeping in every bend of the river, rendering River Boy eternally young.
River Boy made his living catching crawdads and selling them to the few families who lived along the river, often trading his catch for fresh milk and eggs and bacon fat. Always shirtless and barefoot, suntanned and lean, his hair a blond bird’s nest of tangle and twig, he lived beside the river, near the river, in the river, respectful of the river and its many denizens. He untied sun-drunk coral snakes from atop hot rocks, combed cobwebs from fern and fraternally hugged the sandy clutches of alligator eggs that punctuated the riverbanks. Grandpa had explained that when alligator eggs hatched they were all the same sex, depending upon the temperature during their incubation period. River Boy knew his nurturing embrace rendered the clutch male, and in appreciation the grown gators would allow him to skip across their scaly backs.
And he hid. Hid well. Among the palm fronds and black, heaving roots of ancient cypress; behind waxen walls of rhododendron, River Boy hid. He was always on the lookout, always on guard, against Skink. Skink was mean and Skink was hungry and Skink was forever trying to catch River Boy and force him to the ground and tickle him, the rake of his dirty nails leaving red trails across River Boy’s ribs for days afterward. Skink was an older boy; his red hair flamed, angry freckles burrowed into his full cheeks. With his upturned nose River Boy thought he looked like a haughty skunk. Skink was so named because of his freakish ability to scurry up any tree, like the black, rainbow-striped lizard of the same name. Lightning fast, Skink could outrun a wild boar. He liked to drop from a branch onto an unsuspecting River Boy, tickling him until tears ran down his face. He tickled, though lately his hands had begun to claim more from River Boy than he was willing to give.
So River Boy moved quietly through the swamp, deftly lifting stones to catch crawdads. Hoisting them by their red tails to avoid their claws, he dropped them into his battered bait bucket. The swamp was a hot place and the river a ribbon of coolness winding within; River Boy waded the water in threadbare cut-offs, held together by patches and sweat and a rope belt tied tight against a broken zipper gnawing on a wonderful, flaxen weave of pubic hair.
As he rounded a bend he saw Skink. Skink was standing on a huge oak log carpeted with vivid moss, filthy black overalls at his ankles, hands behind his head as he triumphantly pissed a golden arch. River Boy watched as the strong liquid thread hit the water and dissolved into a yellow current wrapping around his knees.
Skink smirked. Looking at River Boy, he licked his white, crooked teeth and flexed his ample biceps, humorously humongous muscles inflated by constant farmwork. The rank hair burning his armpits was matted to his flesh like tree bark by sweat. Concentrating on the arc of his urine, he looked into River Boy’s eyes.
“Take a drink.”
River Boy knew to obey. To disobey meant being tickled. Wicked fingers would torture his ribs until he lost breath, nearly lost consciousness, and the next day every movement would reverberate throughout his bruised midriff. He approached the liquid rainbow, fearful mouth open. Skink twisted his hips to meet River Boy, his taut stomach flexing as piss flowed through the noose of foreskin at the end of his long prick; curls of orange pubic hair protected furious testicles ready to burst. River Boy stepped into the sun shower; acidic urine washed his lips and burned his gums. He surrendered to the warmth spiraling down his throat and held his arms out in supplication. Skink grinned wickedly and pulled on his rising cock, breaking his stream of piss into rude splashes, painting River Boy’s cheeks and stinging his eyes. River Boy plunged into the cleansing water of the river, replacing one baptism with another. He rose and shook the hair out of his face.
Skink kicked off his overalls and crouched on the log, dirty knees far apart. The shadow of his erection wavered like a bird of prey upon the water’s surface. He smiled a silent command. River Boy approached, moist lips parted. Suddenly Skink leapt acrobatically from his roost and in a quick midair somersault presented his rear instead. He leaned forward and stretched his arms toward shore, cracking his ass wide open, its dull pink coil harassed by a mass of wiry crimson. River Boy hesitated. Cool water lapped at the sinewy knot of his belly button; the current tugged at his soaked cut-offs, heavy in the water. He’d forgotten about the bait bucket; it had drifted free of his grip and overturned on a spread of sand on the other side of the river. Relieved crawdads shambled into the water, looking for new rocks to crawl under.
He put two wet hands on Skink’s asscheeks and spread them further apart. Skink groaned in anticipation, the pucker of his ass quivering. River Boy sniffed and momentarily turned away from the raw mammalian stench, the compost of sweat and muscle, similar to the scent of decay that pervaded the swamp, minus the secret sweetness of far-off, never-glimpsed gardenias. He cupped his hand into the river, then let the coolness cascade slowly onto Skink’s exposed rear. Skink shivered impatiently as River Boy leaned in, his tongue cleaving Skink’s opening. Skink bucked and pushed his backside roughly into River Boy’s face, gripping the boy’s tongue with a mean suction. River Boy steadied himself, hands against grimy log, feet hard on silky sand. He sucked and lapped at the welcoming hole. Pleasure widened and internal mucus relaxed the opening as the boy’s tongue probed and Skink growled approval.
Skink pushed River Boy away roughly with the bottom of his foot and then twisted his body back around. Feet now in the air, saliva-soaked buttocks skinned black grime off the log, spreading muck onto his thighs, spackling his rolling testicles. Skink handled his cock. He pulled back pink foreskin to reveal a strong, polished walnut, hard and shiny. River Boy eagerly lapped at the head and gripped the vein-ridden shaft, eyes wide and clear, hoping to penetrate Skink’s lustful, commanding stare. Skink positioned himself low, to River Boy’s disadvantage. Rather than catching Skink’s cock and funneling the shaft down his throat, River Boy found it rocketing against the roof of his mouth, eliciting tears. Skink’s eyes narrowed. He pumped his hips with a laconic rhythm and surveyed the river as if he were a satiated alligator, River Boy’s open mouth his private grotto. Skink slowed his motion; his saliva-slicked cock popped out from between his servant’s full lips. River Boy used the lull to work his way out of his damp cut-offs and toss them up into the grass. He ran his hands over his cold, emancipated buttocks; his nipples were hard and begged for attention but he knew enough not to make any requests, to remain silent until the older boy had had his way and to be grateful if he were then, and only then, allowed to orgasm.
Skink stood suddenly. His fists slung like scythes as he planted his feet wide apart. He caught his wagging cock with one hand and began to pump.
“Suck my balls, River Boy.”
He obeyed, crawling across the log and onto the patch of sand and grass Skink had commandeered. River Boy curled his legs at Skink’s feet and placed his head reverentially beneath his sac and lapped away. Lips parted, he tried to catch the furry apples in his mouth as they bobbed up and down in rhythm with Skink’s forceful jacking. He toyed discreetly with his own burgeoning cock. Tears of milky semen bubbled at the tip. Skink stopped all motion and stepped back with one foot.
River Boy rolled onto his chest and stomach and pulled his knees up under him. One cheek smooth against the sun-warmed sand, he looked out at the calm flow of the river; cattails waved politely upstream. He relinquished all control and Skink, stomping behind him, spat furiously at his upraised ass. And Skink swore, he said horrible things that River Boy knew were curse words, but they didn’t connect together, didn’t make sense. Gobs of spit hit the back of his neck, landed between his shoulder blades and slid slowly down. With each bullet of spit Skink swore. His voice grew deeper and when he started quoting the Bible he roared like a black bear.
