Mysterious Skin (8 page)

Once I stole a bicycle. It was as simple as swiping a gingerbread man from our kitchen’s beehive-shaped cookie jar. But the thrill I got from the bike was more profound. I searched the evening street for snooping pedestrians, lifted my leg over the seat, and pedaled down the block. The icy breeze stung my face. I ended up on Seventeenth Street, at Wendy’s house. “My new set of wheels,” I told her when she opened her front door. I’d grown too tall for my old bike years ago.

Her mouth formed a precise O. She said, “That’s a White Bicycle,” as if each word took an exclamation point. Then her amazement faded, and she got the same idea as me. “Let’s find the spray paint.”

The bicycle metamorphosed from white to black. I furthered its makeover by covering the handlebars and back wheel guards with stickers that Wendy had taken from her favorite punk bands’ LPs. On one, Charles Manson’s eyes peered out. I stuck it on the seat.

I laughed just considering the scandal. One year before, the Hutchinson community had started a program called the “White Bicycles.” Volunteers had bought ten white Fujis, then placed them at various spots around the city. Residents could ride whenever the need arose—when their legs tired,
when they were tipsy, when a knife-wielding attacker chased them, whatever. The rider parked the bike for the next person.

I considered the program a big joke, but it didn’t concern me until the day I committed my crime. That morning’s Hutchinson newspaper headline had announced the one-year anniversary of the White Bicycles. In a gigantic photo, teenagers stood grinning beside the bikes, their hands on the seats. I recognized so-and-so and his girlfriend from school. They were just the sort of people I hated—the kind who regarded life as a hunky-dory trip in a helium balloon.

“Tonight I get the last laugh,” I said. The spray paint sizzled from its can. The balls of my fingers had turned as black as olives, and I jabbed them into Wendy’s ribs.

Wendy borrowed her little brother’s Schwinn. The night was cold, lacerated by wind, so we donned scarves and stocking caps and raced toward Monroe Street. On the way there, we passed a stretch of road construction. A chunky female traffic cop waved an orange, diamond-shaped sign at us. “Slow down, goddammit, slow down!” Wendy hated being lectured as much as I did. She lifted her fist from her handlebars and shook it at the cop.

We parked in my garage. Mom had left the porch light on for me. Tiny icicles hung from our roofs edge, gleaming like fangs. Inside, Mom was sliding a tuna-noodle casserole into the oven. She had crumbled barbecue potato chips across the top layer of noodles. It was her third week off booze, and she’d been concocting new dishes every night. Wendy rubbed Mom’s shoulder. “Smells delicious, Mom,” she lied.

Mom kissed her cheek. “Weatherman says tonight will be the first snowfall,” she said. “It might be a white Christmas. You can stay for casserole, Wendy.” We hadn’t dined with a guest since Mom’s last boyfriend.

I turned on the stereo. The annoying deejay began introducing the next song in his top-forty countdown, so I quickly switched it off. TV was better. On screen, a “Gilligan’s Island” rerun played in black and white. The girls wanted something from Gilligan. Ginger fluttered her eyelids and massaged his neck while Maryanne displayed a just-baked coconut cream pie. Nonexistent humans giggled and guffawed on the laugh track. Wendy asked me how much I’d take to screw the Skipper. “A hundred,” I said. The Professor? “He’s not bad. Fifty.”

When I said that word, Wendy looked at me and arched an eyebrow. For weeks we’d been discussing the easiest ways to make money, namely prostitution. I’d been reading about the concept for years in my stash of porno magazines. Wendy called me obsessed. I’d even written my freshman term paper on the topic. I’d given it the predictable title “World’s Oldest Profession,” but I was content with my B minus. During my research, I’d found a dusty hardback in Hutchinson’s library that listed cities where older men pay hustlers top dollar for a fuck, a blow job, whatever.

Recently I’d discovered hustling even went on in Hutchinson. Christopher Ortega, a not-bad-looking kid in Wendys sophomore class, claimed he did it on the side. He lingered around the playgrounds of our city’s Carey Park on weekends, thumbs in pockets, watching as lonely middle-agers circled the roadway. “Fifty bucks is my charge,” Christopher had said, and I believed him for the simple fact that he hadn’t lied to us about these sorts of things before—i.e., he supplied us a bag of pot when I didn’t believe he sold drugs, and once, when I accused him of faking being a queer, he’d rammed his tongue into my mouth on the spot.

“I’ve been thinking about hanging out in the park,” I told Wendy. It was the third time I’d mentioned it that week.

Wendy leaned to peek into the kitchen, then turned back
to me. “I’d rather see you make a buck some other way.” A wave of fishy odor floated into the living room. Wendy pinched her nose and continued in an altered voice. “But fucking’s perpetually on your mind anyway, so you might as well get paid for it.”

I watched the woman on the TV commercial choose the less-expensive detergent over the most popular brand. “Old guys will pay anything to get off with someone else. Anything different than their own hands,” I said. “It’s that feeling of a young guy’s skin touching theirs. Think of it as a service. They could get something from me, and I could get something from them.”

“True.” Pause. “But be careful. I know that sounds dumb, but even Hutchinson has its freaks. You’re only fifteen. You could trick with the wrong guy. I’d find pieces of you scattered everywhere.”

“You’ve been reading too many books,” I said. I could sense Wendy’s eyes drilling into my face, so I looked down. Paint smudges blackened my sweater sleeve. “Besides, it’s not that I haven’t done it already. For a little money, I mean.”

She’d known this was coming. “Coach?” she said. She was the only one I’d told about what happened that summer. I’d confessed everything to her, again and again. Wendy could practically hear Coach’s voice herself, could smell his breath, could feel the texture of his skin.

She repeated the word, this time without the question mark. “Coach.”

The stolen bike propelled me from poverty to affluence. The following Saturday afternoon, I slipped on an extra pair of socks, downed a plateful of leftover casserole, yelled good-bye to Mom as she headed to work, and rode toward Carey Park. The idea of money for sex thrilled me like nothing before.

A thin layer of ice sheeted the pair of ponds that flanked the park. The golf course and basketball courts were empty. I lowered the stocking cap around my ears.

The johns didn’t take long to spot. Four or five different men drove back and forth, around and around, circling the park in outdated cars. The guy in the Toyota Corolla and the guy in the Impala—it was almost identical to Mom’s car, its color a shade darker—tapped their brakes when they passed my bicycle. I trudged alongside the park road, pretending not to notice. But I did notice. The idea of their wanting to pay for me rendered me breathless, thrilled, delirious, flustered…. I glanced into their windows, searching for any scrap of attractiveness, any absorbing or aberrant facial feature that might lead to me enjoying the actual sex.

I lapped Carey Park for thirty minutes, then stopped the bike at a playground. I tried to remember everything Christopher had told me. “Look innocent, yet old enough to be legal.” “Empty the emotion from your face.” “Smile crooked-mouthed; you look cuter.”

I walked toward the brightly painted circus animals, the ones hooked to concrete blocks by heavy springs. I sat on an elephant, and the cold metal stung my ass. I watched clouds curl through the sky, and in seconds the Corolla parked. I squinted at the driver; saw his dark curly hair and mustache. A finger poked from a crack in the passenger seat window and motioned me over.

Bingo.

Already I’d scored. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I opted for the direct. “You’ve got cash?”

“I’ve paid fifty before, and I’ll go no higher,” he said. I must have looked like a pro. I nodded and opened the car door.

He said his name was Charlie. He’d been married, divorced, and had married again. Three kids—a boy and
two girls. “I’m in Hutchinson on business,” he said in a gruff monotone, “and my business is marketing snack foods.” I took a good whiff of his car, and it smelled like those orange cheese crackers with the peanut butter filling. He must have predicted my thoughts, because he offered me a package. I grabbed it and chowed down, then looked Charlie over. He wore a green suit, a name tag, a Santa Claus tie. His hands fidgeted at his face, the fingers returning again and again to touch his chin, as if it might crumble. I slid closer to him, and he patted my knee and massaged it. He shifted into drive and watched the road like the eye of a needle.

“Cops patrol this place,” Charlie said. “Even when it’s freezing outside, they’ve got brains enough to know what’s up.” His hands were shaking. “Let’s get a room somewhere.”

That “somewhere” was the Sunflower Inn. Room 102’s welcome mat spelled
hospitality
with two
ls.
The bed was comfortable, but the room was creepy. An orange bedspread showed a fist-sized black stain; the TV hadn’t been dusted in what seemed decades. A draft from the window sucked the corner of an orange curtain in and out of the room like a massive lung.

I unlaced my shoes. “Go slow,” Charlie said, “we’ve got all hour.” I thought, one hour equals sixty minutes. Sixty divided into fifty equals about eighty-five cents per minute. I couldn’t help grinning at that, which Charlie no doubt took to mean sensual pleasure. He started massaging my back.

He set the pace. I hardly touched him until he unzipped my pants and wormed three fingers inside. Then I pinched at his nipples, tickled the hair over his belly, rubbed his crotch through his slacks.
I’m good at this,
I thought. He pushed me onto the bed. He knelt beside me and shoved his head in my lap, his head bobbing and zigzagging as if filled
with fizz. His tongue darted around my balls. It felt as flat and cold as a Popsicle.

I naturally thought of Coach. Charlie paled in comparison. That summer was six years past. I’d fucked around with a few guys since, but they’d been in my age group, hadn’t enraptured me much. I traced the outline of Charlie’s ribs and wondered where Coach was now. I knew he’d moved from Hutchinson. At school, I’d heard a grapevine story about someone’s parents being suspicious, causing Coach to quit Little League. At that precise moment, he might have been lying on a bed in some other state with another kid like me. For all I knew, he could have been dead. That idea seemed incredibly romantic. If I’d been alone and high, my imagination would have roamed—me dressed in black, lumbering toward Coach’s open coffin, a tear on my cheek, to center a single white lily on his motionless and impeccable chest…. Charlie’s grunt made my fantasy evaporate.

While Coach’s fingers had “caressed” me, Charlie’s merely “touched.” My mind drifted, and Charlie stopped blowing me. He lifted his head and stared at my dick. “Come on, kid, you’re losing your hard-on.” I apologized. His head plunged back in.

Charlie sucked, and I fidgeted on the bed. My watch’s minute hand moved from nine to ten to eleven. Coach’s mouth had felt so much warmer than this. He had massaged the backs of my legs, his entire hands fitting over the muscles in my thighs. My dick and both balls could disappear into his mouth, and I would feel the clamp of his lips around my entire sex, trails of saliva streaming to the knees I’d scuffed from sliding into home plate.

“I’m ready,” I told Charlie. He didn’t pull away. I said it again. This time, I shuddered. He sucked harder, scraping his teeth over the head of my dick. In those seconds, I couldn’t tell pleasure from pain. I tried to extricate myself,
but he cupped his hands over my ass’s curves. I came, and he swallowed.

Charlie stood and cleared his throat. “I know what your expression’s saying,” he said. “That wasn’t safe. But this is Kansas, not some city full of disease. And you’re just a kid.” It was the first time I’d heard a man say that, but it wouldn’t be the last.

I lay back, already wanting to leave.

Charlie tiptoed to the bathroom and fastened the lock. He started whistling “Strangers in the Night.” I felt like slugging him, taping his mouth shut, anything. Water needled from the showerhead, and I leaped from the bed. I dressed, then ransacked his suitcase. His clothes were nicely folded. Every sock was white. I uncovered packages of snack crackers, bubble gum, plastic trash cans full of candy, and chewable wax “lips.” I found Vitamin Cs, magnesium tablets, and aspirin. I grabbed my coat and filled its pockets.

During the drive back to the park, we barely said a word. He stopped beside my bike. “Maybe I’ll see you sometime.” He didn’t look at me. His eyes focused on the kid’s toy that hung by a string from the rearview mirror. It was a stuffed bear, the expression on its face vaguely tragic, an expression I’d seen on kids on milk cartons. Its red shirt read
DADDY
.

He handed me two twenties and a ten. “Thanks,” I said. “It was nice.”

The temperature was dropping, so I dashed home. Mom had left a note: “Early Shift Tomorrow.” In the living room, she lay napping in a chair, the alarm clock at her elbow. For some reason, I wanted to hear her voice. The house was too quiet. I almost woke her, then decided against it. I shuffled to the bathroom and shelved the vitamins. The dusty mirror showed me as always: same bushy eyebrows, same square
jaw, same zit on the same neck I needed to smear with alcohol. I walked out; locked myself in my room. My algebra homework remained on the bed, where I’d tossed it. The candy and the money fit perfectly in the bottom dresser drawer, next to the bag of pot I’d bought from Christopher. I wedged one of the twenties into my wallet, pocketed the weed and the trash can candy, then picked up the phone. Wendy answered. When I opened my mouth to speak, I tasted peanut butter. “You’ll never guess what I finally did.”

I met Wendy on her porch. She had screwed a glowing taillight into the back end of her brother’s bike, and I spotted her from two blocks away. She stood in the light’s flashing red, waiting for me, bundled in her coat and scarf. She looked beautiful. “It’s freezing,” she yelled as I skidded to a halt. “And you’re conning me into following you to your new whorehouse.”