Boys of Life (39 page)

which meant I wanted vou to learn that you wanted to go awav. Which I think vou did learn, because vou went."

"You're ri^hr," I said. "I fucking went and not the hell out. 1 got married, Carlos. I moved to Memphis and 1 work in a lumberyard and

I love my wife."

"And look what happened," Carlos said in this quiet voice. We both sort of stopped there on the street and I just looked at him. We'd reached that point we both knew we had to reach.

I took this breath, and felt all queasy inside. "How did it happen.'" I asked him.

"You've got a ri^ht to know," he told me. We were walking again—it was just this brief pause where we couldn't move.

"I have to know," I told him, "one way or .mother." "It happened,' 1 he said, "like some bad movie. It happened like a Story out oi the Bible. There was a knock on the door— literally. One day there was a knock on the door and I opened it and there vou were, only it wasn't vou, it was Ted. He'd come looking tor vou. Or I should say, he'd come to New York and he had a postcard he said you'd sent

him once, with the address ot the apartment on it, and so he thought

he should come look tor vou. And vou have to admit, he came to the right place.

"Me was a little down on his luck, you might sav. I don't think Owen, Kentucky, quite prepared either oi the Blair brothers tor New York. He had that same dazed look vou did when vou tirst came here."

That dazed look was news to me.

"You have to understand, Tony—1 was good." He s.nd it almost like a cry. 'I lent yOU away, 1 let vou urow up. 1 did that, and ir hard, bur we both got through it, we were both tine. And then vou lust left me. One day vou just weren't there .invmore."

I didn't remind him how he was the one who dumped me. He seemed I

"And then there's rhis kivck on the door." he went on, "and

□ PAUL RUSSELL

here you are all over again. Standing there looking like an angel, and I thought, My God, if this is a test I'm lost. I can't do it. I fail."

"So let me guess," I accused him. "You offered to let him crash at your place for a while. Till he got on his feet. Then you put the moves on him, didn't you? You put the same moves on him you put on me."

"It takes two to fuck, Tony. Even you know that." It was a tone I remembered him taking with me now and again—sounding like he was disappointed in me for not figuring something out that was obvious to everybody else. I wasn't letting him get away with it this time.

"It takes two people for a rape too," I said. "Or a murder. You had all the cards. Ted was just a kid."

"He was nearly twenty years old when he came to New York, Tony. You forget, in this country, you reach the magic age of eighteen and suddenly you're an adult. Just one day, even one minute past the age of eighteen and you're not a child anymore. And if you want to talk cards—we've all got cards, Tony. We've got different cards, and we put our different cards on the table. Haven't you learned that yet? We put our different cards on the table and whatever comes up comei up."

"I'm not going to believe that," I told him. We wore both raising our voices. It was the kind of conversation you walk past in Neu York and wonder what's goin^ on. "I'm just not going to believe somebody

like you who's smart and famous and titr\ yean old and some kid who—

maybe he's twenty but he's still a kid doesn't know anything about ng to have equal cards. You can m to >jet out d it all

you want, but I'm not going to believe that one."

Carlos was raising hi You want to know who held all

the e shouted at me. "The one thing you're scared to death

You did, that's who. Ted did. I nevei had anything. Io be

eighi ' whatever, to In- young and prettj and have i

in this that's to have everything

the wa\ the whole thii set u| . erything else &> its la

! "You're i (rax) fu< king lun.nu ■ illed mi\ bn *hei i I,. it, ( alios shoved me against the wall oi the

inn > m\ f.u e, 'I' D 296

B O Y S O F L I F E □

hissing, "nobody killed your brother. There's nobody to blame ir on. c ret that through youi head 01 you're not going to understand anything.

It was just Something that happened, and he knew it could happen but that didn't stop him from doing it. Your brother was a wise kid, Tony-he was the wisest, bravest person I ever knew. He took alter you that

way. He had this fantastic courage to live inside his body, and that's

what he did. right to the very end. I spent nn whole lite looking, hut

I ne\er met anybody who let himself go so tar with everything. He was a genius, Tony."

All this talk sounded totally crazy to me. It sounded like Carlos talking about Carlos and not about Ted. I couldn't recognize my little brother in any ot the stuff Carlos was saying.

He went on, though.

'"You know what all my work was about—you were part ot ir, you even started to show me the way. But Ted—Ted just knew it from the inside out."

I had this sick feeling all at once—I remembered me and Scott in that warehouse in Brooklyn, and those kids in the abandoned church in the Bronx, and suddenly I thought I knew what Carlos was talking about. Carlos wouldn't have known Ted without me. He wouldn't've known what to do with him.

"Are you trying to say I'm the one who killed him. 7 " Ir was something I had to say, it was where everything was leading.

Carlos went limp—he let go ot me where he'd grabbed the neck of my T-shirt with both hands.

"I'm sorry about Ted," he said in this exhausted voice. "What happened to Ted was a terrible thin.

"What did happen, out there in the desert

We were walking again—I miess because there wasn't any use in just standing there, and Carlos seemed to have some deep energy that night fh.it was moving him on, not letting him stop to reconsider. In Times Squan | the movies and plays were letting OUt. Milling

all aiOUnd us were tourist, Japanese businessmen, and the hustlers and

•irutes hanging out in doorways, xxx all male burlesque said the marquees on the movie the, iters we'd go to whenever we went on what

s used to joke were OUT dai

"Tell me where you la* Where'd it finally track you

down.'"

I had this insight. "YOU wanted it I mi.'"

□ PAUL RUSSELL

"That was the only reason," Carlos said. "Otherwise I would've burned it."

A pretty kid in bright red sweatpants and a black T-shirt was leaning against a mailbox, saying in this quiet voice to everybody who was walking by, "Hundred bucks for the night, hundred bucks for the night." He said it to us as we walked by, and I saw Carlos look him over out of the corner of his eye.

"Memphis," I said. "It tracked me down all the wa\ to this little movie house in Memphis. And I had no idea—I just got to the end and everything blew up in my face."

"I'm sorry," Carlos touched my arm. "I had to let you know, whatever the price was."

I didn't tell him about the river. I didn't think that was something he needed to know.

"Everything I've ever done," he went on, "it's been tor Love, "ton understand that, don't you? Wanting, having, giving up—it's all been love.' 1

"Don't get off the point. Talk about Ted," I commanded him

But all he said was, "Remember when you fist-fucked Scon r-amv Do you remember that. 7 "

I think I said earlier how Carlos never mentioned Scott after we finished rhar movie, like it was something we were both ashamed of. "1 remember it," I had to tell him.

"Then tell me I'm not making this up, Tell me there wasn't this

:iit when sou had your tist up inside him and suddenly you realized there was nothing to sr,,p \ou from going all the way on up, there was nothing I "i from touching his heart, and pushing yourself all

the- way up Inside him till you disappeared into him, and then you'd be hun, his skm would be your ^km and his insides would be youi insides u'd hi- lookup out .it tlu- world through the eyes In his skull." lr toud kind oi memory m ,m ' thai made me nervous.

i told him, "you're Insane I h.it's |usi Insane t.»lk " "Thinl I hmk ho* fiu you could retlly go with

that

rh.it mattering anymore Ihmk about finding somebody who •

in talking about l with pletely d< >uld

il limitations I'm I

BOYSOFLIFE D

ing about things we did in that desert nobody's even Imagined being able to do. A kind of trust, Tony, that's like a white light.

"Imagine this." His voice was quivering, he was so caught up in what he was saying. "Imagine being buried alive. Building .1 coffin out of wood—you cut the trees down, you saw the boards, you nail the thing together. Then you take your shovel, and you dig a hole. Just for yourself. When you've got your hole dug, you gather your friends and you have a big feast. You eat all your favorite foods. You drink some wine. Then you lie down inside that coffin you made tor yourself, and your friends nail the lid shut, and they lower von down into that hole and shovel dirt in on top of you. And you trust them to dig you back up in time. That kind of trust is absolute discipline. With that kind of trust, it you focused it enough, if you practiced—you could do anything. You could tlv."

He looked at me with this look that killed me, this look of complete happiness. He said, "And we did, Tony. We flew. Out there in the desert, at night—we actually flew through the air."

I thought about what Verbena had said once about Carlos—so much belief, she'd said—and it was true. He could believe anything, almost enough to make those things he believed come true. It was frightening, it was wonderful—it was what completely took me about him the first time I met him, and I have to admit it almost took me now. I remembered that first day in the laundromat—how he stared at me, like he knew if he wanted me bad enough, and just focused on that want, then he'd get me. And he did. And that was the way he'd been living his life ever since.

"That's not the Ted who was my little brother," I told Carlos flat out.

Carlos sounded tired. "I knew Ted a lot better than you ever did," he told me. "Maybe that hurts, but it's true."

And it did hurt—because I knew when he said it how it was completely true. He'd taken Ted away from me. I'd shown him how he could do that, and he went and he did it.

"We went and we went," Carlos was saying. "Ever) d.w it was a little farther. I would've stopped—but Ted wanted to keep going. He had what you could call this cosmic sense , >t adventure. And so we just went. I guess we went so far we couldn't find our wv\ back. He wanted to die. Tony. He was ready to find out what it was like. Rut he happy—your brother was very happv. There was this special li^ht in

□ PAULRUSSELL

him that went on shining to the very end, even there in that little hospital."

We'd reached the edge of Central Park. We plunged on ahead, and suddenly, that wonderful thing about Central Park—all the city just fell away. We were wandering in these big dark woods in the middle of the city, but the city was miles from us, another planet. Around us, in the bushes, I knew men were cruising for each other, hungry tor something even AIDS wasn't scaring them away from.

A lot of things still didn't make sense.

"But why did you tell them you killed him down in Mexico, it now you're saying you didn't do it?"

It wasn't that I thought he was lying to me—I just plain didn't understand.

"I can't help you," he told me. "Some things you can't explain. It was just what I had to do," he said. "I lost somebody I loved a lot."

We'd come to this open space, and now I knew exactly where we were. Carlos loved to come here—it was where we used to play KX

"Tony, Tony," he said. He stopped walking and looked at me. "I lost you," he said. "You were the one I lost."

Suddenly he was holding me—this bearhug so tight I was night' ened. But it felt great for him to smother me like rh.a. We just stood there, sort o\ rocking back and forth and holding onto each other m the dark. His hands were moving Up and down mv hack, my butt, and

I was pressing up against him like 1 used to do. It we could just hug

each other hard enough, we could squeeze out everything that WM en us there. There'd be nothing left except JUSI us.

I wai getting a hard-on. 1 didn't want it to happen or 1 guesi I

did want it to happen, because then- it was. And Carlos knew It I

He wai alwa • with his hands, leading me exactly when he

i go, no matter where that wai and that was exactly what

he was doing. He kissed d i un race, and then his tongue wai

m 11 , I I just lost if .ill this peni Up stutf inside me letting

hed un hip nst his, 10 he could feel me there, and then

• me he wai unxippin nts,

l i at this and |< iboul It 10 man) tirru

mid alwayi think oi that would make i

( arlos, who'd always hail nu ex* tl\ wl [ hen I • 'his hi.,.

rlos'i

B O Y S O F L I F E □

head in both my hands and tried to push him away. But it didn't work. He'd managed to pull my dick out oi my pants, and just when he

touched his tongue tO it 1 reeled back like some electric shock.

I hated this man. I hated how he stepped into m\ lite and ruined everything he touched and then just walked out without ever looking

hack. I hated every single thing that'd happened to me in my lite lince

I met Carlos in the Nu-W'av Laundromat.

Carlos was still on his knees, crawling toward me even while 1 was Stepping hack trom him. It was ridiculous. Behind us there was this

fence—one o\ those snaking things, pickers wired together, that they

unroll across the lawns in Central Park, I tjucss tor some kind ot crowd Control. Anyway, 1 didn't see it in the dark—I sort ot stepped hack on it. One ot the pickets snapped under my toot, and then I went crashing