Boys of Life (33 page)

.ill those i: u N s |

BOYSOFLIFE D

was out on the streets every night looking tor like mv life depended on it. It was like all that nevei existed.

Except tor this one time. There was a Halloween party we went

• Lisa's house. 1 hadn't wanted to go, but Monica pointed out how

we never went much o( anywhere, so 1 said oLiv. It was another way oi buying her flowers. 1 wasn't tOO keen on getting dressed up. From

making all those movies with Carlos, I'd ended up in enough different

imes to last me mv whole lite. But Monica really got into it. We went around to the Salvation Army, where she found herself this fur coat some moths had had a field day with and a pillbox hat with peacock feathers on it. "I wouldn't even think about putting those things on my body," I told her. "You'll get worms or something." But she lipping into that coat like no tomorrow.

"They dry clean them, silly," she said. "Before they hang them on the rack."

"I'm not getting into any oi this stuff," I told her, and I folded mv arms to show her I was firm ahout it. Which of course never worked tor a second with Monica. She grahhed me by the elhow and took me over to the men's rack where all these suits were hanging. Hideous stuff—one oi those suits was made out of this hright green cloth that was shinv like some insect wing. A bunch oi them were sky blue or lemon yellow. There was one the color of mustard that's been in the refrigerator too long, and that was the one Monica took a liking to. "Yecch," I told her. There was a jacket, and pants, and a vest, all the same mustard color.

"Yes," she said.

"No," I told her tlar out. "Do you want me to go around looking like some Chelsea Avenue pimp or wh.it.'"

"It's dress-up. Nobody's supposed to know who you are."

I didn't like it, hut the whole suit only cost eight dollars, and

ica'd made her mind up. "And .i hat," she said, taking one off the shelt and squeezing it down on mv he.id. She looked at it, and son squinted, and screwed up her nose she said, lifting it off by

the brim and sticking another one on there, and then another, till finally she found the one -he liked.

"You look so cute in hats. Tone. You should wear them all the time."

"Verv tunnv," I said.

We looked like two total tramps in all that uet-up. "I just I

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we don't get picked up by the cops," I told her when we were driving over to Lisa's. "It'll be the slammer tor sure."

"It's Halloween," she said. "Everybody's wearing a costume tonight. Just look at the drivers of all the other cars."

I did, but so far as I could see, they all looked completely normal. But I didn't say that to Monica.

At the party, some people were in costume, but lots weren't. It sort of annoyed me that I'd had to come in one when other people weren't going to. Lisa was dolled up to look like a whore, though when I mentioned that to Monica she told me, no, Lisa was supposed to be Sleeping Beauty. I wanted to say I'd seen a lot oi drag queens do a better Sleeping Beauty, and with no sleep either. But I didn't.

There were a couple of witches in the room, and somebody with a sheet over his head was trying to be a ghost. One guy had a Lone Ranger costume on, complete with two six-shooters. Somebody else was decked out in a tabby-cat mask with big whiskers and B silver spandex body suit that fit him like a glove. His body had great definition—you had to give him that. He definitely worked out in .» gym somewhere.

The doorbell rang, and some jerk outfitted to look like a computer walked in. He'd fixed a cardboard box around his waist to look like a disk drive, and .mother one OVCt his head, which was supposed to be the screen, and he was holding B keyboard m one hand. l:\er\hod\ seemed to think it was the greatest costume they'd ever seen.

"Tony and me. we're Bohemians," Monica was explaining to I bunch of people. "Bohofl ll what the\ call them in New York. That's where T<>n\ and I met. New York Cats, and 1 can tell \ou there were

Bohoi everywhere you turned.' 1

I could tell she w.is impressing everybody with hei talk It son oi

i me. though, s*. I went outside Oil the deck whete the night air was COol I here's something I ftlwayi like about tall, the le.<

I COuldl lUSe it was iii

Und the) made when the\ tell horn inside

I heai mush on the stereo, and people talking, but e leaves falling I could heai loudei than anything leaves falling In the dark a/here nobod) could sac them it . | heard this voice saj behind me. I tun

thrilled.

"Just I

ill that li In calkin

have .« p lei his sil

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B O Y S O F L I F E □

"You know," he said, "I think we know one another."

I looked at the cat mask.

"I'm pretty sure I'd remember," I said.

He pushed the mask up over the x^p ot his head and grinned at

me.

I did know him. I didn't know his name, hut I knew he owned some outfit that built fences around swimming pools. He was in Mad Joe's a fair amount to buy stuff. I guess I'd always sort of noticed him— he was about forty, this wiry frame and gray hair cut real short. He didn't remind me oi Carlos—nobody I ever met ever reminded me of Carlos. But I have to say, whenever he came into Mad Joe's, I got this whiff of something, some itch of electric current I used to know back when I was living the lite I lived in New York. The Boho life, Monica was probably calling it inside at that very instant.

I guett that's why I'd look at him the way I did whenever he was in the store. And he must've noticed it. I didn't think I was being too obvious about it, but I guess I was—because before I knew what was happening he was touching me. It was this brazen thing—he just reached OUt and grabbed my crotch. It took me totally off-guard. I backed up against the deck railing.

"Whoa there," I told him. "You're pretty off-limits."

He didn't take his hand off me. He just looked at me.

I guess I should've thrown a punch at him just then, or something like that—but I didn't. I've always respected people who knew exactly wh.it they wanted.

"I could just tell about you," he said.

"There's not anything to tell," I told him.

He'd moved in against me and put his arms around my waist. It was all sort of sudden, and before I knew it he was pressing his crotch up against mine. He was getting a hard-on, and I guess I was too.

i ve got me all wrong," I said. "You're barking up the wrong tree."

"I'm a cat," he said. "I don't bark. You know you want ir, don't youi

"No, I don't know rh.ir." I told him.

He'd worked his hand down the back o( my pants, and his hnuer was creepinu up on mv asshole.

"I really don't want this," I laid.

"I've always thought I ik louder than words," he told me.

ling himself against me so I knew he could feel mv hard-on there.

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His middle finger had wormed its way up mv asshole, and now he started sliding it in and out of me, like he was fucking me. 1 think I leaned my head against his shoulder and just let him go on with it. I couldn't do anything else. I didn't want to. It brought back too many memories, and I knew what I'd always know— how mv body didn't really belong to me sometimes, it was just something I was inside of. Meanwhile the cat man was humping himself against me, and I was humping back. He put his tongue inside my ear and that did it— I went crazy shooting off inside my mustard-colored Boho trousers. I bit Kifl shoulder to keep from crying out, and he bit my ear. I don't know whether he came too or not, because at that instant Mr. Computer came out the back door with a beer in one hand and that stupid keyboard in the other. The cat man and I broke apart like nothing had happened, and I'm sure Mr. Computer didn't notice a thing.

"Aren't you guys chilly?" he asked. "Anyway, you're wasting your time out here. All the hot chicks are indoon

"We'll be in in a sec," the cat man laid. "We're out here looking for shooting stars. And I think maybe we found one."

When Mr. Computer had squeezed his way back indoors, the cat man said in this tot.illy normal voice, like we were talking swimming pool fences, "You should stop by my place sometime. We COuld ha\e

something pretty hot going on."

I shook my head. "I don't think SO." I was still tingling where his finger'd been up my asshole. To tell the truth, 1 wanted to bend ri^ht there and gel tucked like I hadn't gotten tucked in tWO \eais but I also telf Itlddenl) empty and terrible inside. "I'm a mamed man."

I told him. "I've u«>t these responsibilitie

He shrugged. "I'm married too. Everybody Kai to live theii own

An h true. We walked back Into the party and headed tor

m and stayed like thai the test oi the nighi

And even though he i SUM inn- M.id |oes'l tboul like

his \s.i\ I cuess \ u tint With that little hn OJ tril

me si I i Ided mm to settle t>>t that

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On our way out oi Memphis we drove past Graceland. I'd never

been by there before —I didn't even know it was there. Don couldn't

believe it. "They've got billboards from here to the North Carolina border advertising Graceland," he said. "First thing you see when you

Come into the state's a billboard in the shape of a pink cadillac. COME HOME TO GRACELAND, It sj\

"I never noticed them," I had to tell him.

Along Elvis Presley Boulevard, there were billboards everywhere—

liquor, plane flights to Mexico. Thev were selling everything. At

Jock on a Saturday morning, the street was totally deserted except

tor those big Litrup signs. There was this huge cut-out ot Elvis playing

the guitar, about fifty feet tall. It was probably the only billboard in town Don hadn't put up, and he was jealous. "Does that make some kind ot statement or what.'" he said. He craned Ins head around to keep his eye on that sign as long as he could while we drove past. He didn't want to let it go. I turned around too—but from behind, it wasn't Elvis anymore. It was just some scaffolding and you couldn't tell what

h supposed to be.

Once we crossed over into Mississippi, Memphis sort o( trailed off, like it lost interest in being a city anymore. We went driving through this country ot sharecropper shacks half-falling down, and tacky little country stores with rusty gas pumps in front—hut mostly just cotton fields as far as you could see. It was about dawn when we turned down a dirt road that headed back into some woods, and after a while we came to the lake. There was a tarpapered cabin there, up on stilts— a ladder led up to the door, and a sign that was tacked there said shangri-la. Signs were posted up everywhere, pieces of plywood with big lettering, like SOmebody'd

NO TRESPASSING BY ORDER OF THE ROYAL TISHOMINGO HUNTING 6k FISHING

club, said one sir;n. Another said, keep on dumping trash here &

THERE WONT BE NO MORE FISHING.

There was trash all around the cabin—tin cans, newspapers, tires. It was a pretty unappealing place. Cypress trees we: kg out in

the lake; their knobby brown knees stuck up out of the water the way the stubs ot all those <»ld piers do al. fflg the f ItldsOfl River in New York.

Inside the cabin a big C Confederate tlau with burn holes in it draped

along one wall. Two men table drinking. When

came in, they jumped up and slapped Don <>n the back and bugged him

with bearhugs. "How's it going, buddy'" they i

talking but shouting, whooping it up. They must've been drinku

Z PAULRUSSELL

while—coffee mugs lull ot whisky. Their feces were all re J, and thev moved around the cahin in these big sloppy motions, pulling out a couple of folding chairs tor us trom under a pile ot tarps, getting out some more coffee mugs from a cabinet that hung on the wall.

"This is my girl, Monica," Don told them. One ot the men pulled out a bottle and splashed a little whisky in each ot the nu

"You was wee-high last time I saw you," the man said. Me patted her on the head. "You remember nu

"Sure I remember you," Monica told him. She picked up her coffee mug and swirled the whisky around in it. Then she gulped it right down. What I always Loved about Monica was. nothing ever tared her. She just entered right into things. "You're Sonny,' 1 she told the man. "You have that soybean farm. And you're Ross, right? You were the restaurant man. You ran for the senate that time. You're famous."

"Used ti-> be," Ross said, "used to be. Not famous anymore.' 1

I could tell she impressed him, though. "Your girl's got her head screwed on," Ross told Hon.

"Like her old man," Don Said. "And this here's m\ girl's husband, Tony." He grabbed me by the arm like I was s^me tropin he was

showing off. Which I uuess I was.

nnv both looked me up And down, but thev didn't s.»\

anything.

en out vet.'" Don asked them.

"Too fucking cold," ^>i\d R>.ss. "h you'll pardon nu French." "Y fine accent there," Don said. Me held out his mu

more. I'd m. him drink whisky, only beer It flushed his |

right up. "I'd t.ikc you foi i native with an accent like chat," he t<>ld

Ross.

'Tin King man," Ross said. "I'm .1 hunting man

. said. "1 le Hist came down hi m the a tfe and kids " "A i do what 1 man's id Ross 1 le wis .1

him running fbi the sen 11 I ■ ■ Both 1

in't like But the)

>it usually in Memj

I hi like

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Monica'd been this net the South threw up to pull me hack where I