The Wild Boys (11 page)

Next day he says it didn’t happen and slaps me when I try to do it but a few nights later he gets out of bed to put out a cigarette leaning forward on the table and I stand up behind him spit on my finger and slide it up his ass all the way and he just sighs and falls forward with his elbows on the table and looks at me over his shoulder and says …
“Qué me haces Johnny
?” … I get the Vaseline and rub it in standing behind him hitch my arms around his hips and shove it in we are standing in front of the mirror I can see my white rump pumping and he had his head down on his hands biting his knuckles and whimpering. I reach around and play with his eggs and pull his foreskin back gently he gasps and I am feeling the scratchy pressure all the way up pumping him inside we are both coming. I can feel
goose pimples on my back and then suddenly an electric shiver and my hair stands up straight and I can see my eyes light up inside like a cat.

Johnny stands in front of Mark tight pants slow finger reaches up and unbuttons his fly parting pubic hairs points to a red mark … “You got crabs Johnny. Come in the bathroom” … Mark locks the door … “All right Johnny. Strip down” … Awkwardly Johnny takes off his shirt and hangs it on the bathroom door. Mark spreads a yellow towel on the toilet seat … “Take off your pants and shorts and sit there” … Johnny swallows feeling cold in the stomach … “All right” … Mouth dry heart pounding he sits down naked on the toilet seat. Mark selects a bottle of Campho-Phenique from the medicine cabinet. He squats in front of Johnny. Their knees touch … “Spread your legs apart so I can see what I’m doing” … He opens the bottle and tips it against his finger. He lifts Johnny’s penis by the tip moving it around as he rubs the camphorated oil in pubic hairs at the root. The oil leaves a cold burn. Johnny licks his lips and blushes … “Christ Mark” … Mark rests his hands on Johnny’s and looks up at Johnny who blushes to his bare feet as his cock floats up throbbing … “Relax Johnny. It happens” … He rubs the oil around Johnny’s tight nuts. Johnny’s embarrassment changes to excitement. He squirms and a drop of lubricant squeezes slowly out the end of his phallus and glitters in the afternoon sun … “You take off
your
shorts” … “Sure Johnny” … Mark squirms his shorts off … “Like I say it happens” … The two boys look at each other. “You probably got them in your ass too. Come over here” … He points to the bath mat … “Lie down on your back” … He shoves Johnny’s knees
up … “Hold them there against your chest” … He squats with the bottle of Campho-Phenique … “Spread your legs apart so I can see what I’m doing … That’s right” … He rubs the oil in Johnny’s ass hairs and lightly around the rectum. Johnny sighs feeling the cold burn and looks down at his throbbing cock … “Like that Johnny?” … Mark takes a jar of mentholated Vaseline from the medicine cabinet. He rubs the Vaseline around Johnny’s ass parting the soft pink flesh and shoves the middle finger all the way up vibrating the finger. Burning inside Johnny squirms and whimpers. His body pulls up his ass contracts spasmodically hot white spurts cover his thin stomach.

Feet twitching in the air shred to dust and memories pieces of legs and cocks and assholes drifting fragments falling softly through penny arcades and basement toilets playground finger stained with grass points to a red mark … “And there’s another. Spread your legs” … Oh! Christ! it is happening a little whimper brings his finger up in three jerks blushes to his pounding heart looks down pointing naked boy on yellow toilet seat and later in Mexico City trying to remember who the stranger was in front of him ruffled brown hair blue eyes pants open far pale sun colored photo unbuttoned his shirt.

He looked at his young cousin just in from the country wondering if the boy would let him. They shared a room on the roof. They went to a movie that night and afterward in the roof room he got his cousin to smoke marijuana for the first time the boy laughing and rolling on the floor until he pissed in his pants sharp smell of urine in the Mexican night …
“Desnudate chico
” … The boy peeled off his wet pants and shorts and stood
there naked and suddenly embarrassed under Kiki’s knowing eyes. Then Kiki pulled him down on the bed tickling him in the ribs the boy laughing out of control
… “Por favor Kiki … Por favor
” … Trying to hide his hard-on turned over on his stomach Kiki straddled him and spread his ass cheeks and felt the body go limp under him and the boy said …
“Bueno, Kiki, haz’ lo
” … Kiki put a pillow under the boy’s crotch to get his ass up and spread the legs and greased the boy’s ass panting and squirming as Kiki slid it in ten strokes and they came together in a red pull teeth bared cocks crowing in the summer night musky smell of the boy’s greased ass.

Unexpected rising of the curtain can begin with the apartment building lonely young face in the hall standing under a dusty name … “Abrupt question brought me Mister” … Princes Arcade closing the lost past hung in his eyes boys and workshops pointing down the pale skies … “Through the dead I trust you” … The stairs stretched out a shadow. It was 6:40
P.M.
Young face looking for a name hand holding the door open memory noises dim sky the lonely 1920 afternoon jerky bed twisted I remember the other straddles rectum palpable odor fills the room the past hangs in the air rubbish and weeds drift of time a child laughing blurred faces the dying sun through a bathroom window.

“Come over here Johnny. Down on your hands and knees. That’s right. Spread your legs apart” … Cold burn on his rectum nuts aching Johnny sighs and looks down at his throbbing cock … “Like that Johnny?” … Mark gets a jar of mentholated Vaseline from the medicine cabinet rubbing it around pulling Johnny’s ass open
two greased fingers all the way up twisting burning Johnny spurts across the bath mat.

Buttocks dim trying to focus Johnny’s ass the cold burn blankness a hotel on the outskirts of East St Louis. Johnny has just taken a shower. Flesh steaming he walks across the room to his suitcase. He takes out a package of Band-Aids and bends down to put one on a blister. Bending down like that it begins to get stiff between his legs. Mark is in an adjoining room and Johnny hopes he won’t come in now but suddenly he knows that Mark is standing in the doorway and then he hears Mark’s voice right behind him … “You look like a statue of Mercury Johnny. Why don’t you stand up?” … Johnny blushes it is all the way up between his legs. Now Mark is in front of him. Johnny closes his knees looking up at Mark helplessly. Mark shoves him and he falls on his back legs in the air. Laughing Mark pries his legs apart naked boy hugging his knees sunlight in pubic hairs the two boys have been swimming they were standing naked arms around each other’s shoulders looking at a redheaded woodpecker drumming on a persimmon tree sixty feet up in the summer sky. Suddenly Johnny began to feel uncomfortable with the other’s arm around his shoulder. He shifted and glanced down Oh! Christ! it was happening he blushed bright red and the other boy smiled … “Your pecker’s getting hard” … the woodpecker drumming frogs croaking the two boys were cousins but they had just met they were riding donkeys across the plateau and came to a stream under the bridge of an abandoned railroad the politicos stole all the money and then the railroad was built somewhere else rusty tracks overgrown with weeds and vines the older boy slid off his
donkey …
“Nadamos
” … The younger boy had a hard-on from riding the donkey. Very slowly he took off his shirt and shoved his pants down it was still half-up he turned away to hide it. The older boy was already naked …
“Qué te pasa chico
?” … The older boy turned him around and laughed …
“Tú te empalmas
” … In water up to the knees the older boy was washing his back slid the bar of soap down across his ass something melted in his stomach and the other boy was inside him. The sky dimmed out of focus as he came hearing an ass bray from a great distance music across the golf course the boy had been swimming in the pond he sat on the concrete dam dangling his feet in the water he got up dried himself and caught a gleam of white in the summer twilight a golf ball he picked it up and soon found another bending over to pick up the ball he felt someone behind him he turned and an older boy was standing there he recognized one of the townies who hung out in front of Jake’s Pool Hall the boy smiled and walked toward him he stood there feeling his nakedness under the knowing eyes the boy stopped just in front of him … “What’s your name?” … “John” … the boy reached forward and cupped his crotch … “Hello! Johnny” … the boy took a deep breath and let’s see you’re sure the townie stripped slowly turned him around with a quick knee dropped him forward on hands and knees in the wet grass finger rubbing something on his ass rectum spread frogs croaking he was coming in a red pull through a labyrinth of pink eggs sobbing gasps frogs in his head the two bodies stuck together twitching feeling the soft night air on his naked body two white balls in wet grass I remember a thin pale boy last sad smile dust of dead hope in his hands the proposition bleakly clear pointed
to the bed I remember hope of strange flesh the mouth dim room pants rip quick and silent coming another scene in the shed rubbish and weeds the drift of time a child’s room pieces of a blurred face the dark city dying sun naked boy hugging his knees sunlight in pubic hairs sad muscle magazines over the florist shop corduroy pants down green snakes under rusty iron in the vacant lot the old family soap opera phosphorescent clock hands tick away to basement walls back yards and ash pits a silver crescent moon cuts the film sky machinegun noises as he came one of the boys looks up hands mocking me off an old book with gilt edges the drawer stuck his distant hand there it is just to my shoulder twilight boy with violet eyes shredded to dust and memories paper fingers peanuts 1920 movie the old film stops A SILVER SMILE.

Front Street Nome Alaska 1898. Across the street is RESTAURANT. I walk through a path in waist-high drifts past a dog team dog’s breath in the air and open the door of the restaurant smell of chop suey and chili wood tables Chinese waiter. Order a bowl of chili and coffee. There are several miners at the tables. I am eating my chili when the door opens behind me and icy air touches the back of my neck. Some one comes in and sits down at my table. It is a young man about twenty-three with very pale eyes. He says “Howdy” and orders chop suey. There is talk from the other tables of dogs and strikes and custom duties. I have finished the chili. I am drinking coffee from a heavy white mug with a chipped handle. The curtain between the kitchen and the restaurant stirs as the waiter walks
back and forth. I get a whiff of opium. The Chinese railroad workers are smoking in a room behind the kitchen. The young man opposite me eats his chop suey.

He leans back in his chair and looks at me.

“Didn’t I see you someplace?”

“Maybe. Where you from?”

“Frisco.”

“I’ve been there once.”

I offered him a cigarette. He took it fished a match out of his pocket and lit it with a dirty fingernail. We both inhaled deeply. The waiter set his coffee on the table. The party of miners paid and left. We were alone in the restaurant. I jerked a thumb toward the kitchen.

“Smoking. It keeps out the cold.”

He just nodded looking at my face the eyes very pale like I could see through them and out the back of his head.

“They call me the Frisco Kid” he said.

“I’m Fred Flash from St Louis. Photographer.”

“You got a place to stay?”

“No just got here.”

“You can bunk with me then.”

“All right.”

He lived in a boarding house on a side street run by Mrs Murphy.

“That will be two dollars extra per week” she said when the Frisco Kid told her I would be sharing the room. Room 18 on the third floor. He lit a kerosene lamp. The room was lined with green-painted metal in patterns of scrolls and flowers. There was a copper-luster wash basin, a tarnished mirror, a double brass bed, two chairs, a sea chest by the bed. The window was narrow the cracks stuffed with quilting and covered
by a frayed red curtain. We sat down on the bed and lit cigarettes.

I get a whiff of me then I see room 18 wardrobe a tarnished mirror the window him a cigarette quilting red curtains his fingernail the bed my face drifts out of the back of his head he nodded coffee eating my chili there was a door we went through and some one comes in and sits down pale eyes chop suey Mrs Murphy the room kerosene light his smile through cigarette smoke. It was the first time I had seen him smile. I lay back on the bed blowing smoke toward the ceiling looking at the scrolls. Here and there a white crust had formed streaked with rust. I yawned.

“I’d like to turn in if it’s all right with you.”

“Sure” he said. “Why waste money on some sucker trap.”

He stood up unbuttoning his shirt. He pulled off his trousers. He turned back the bed and whiff of stale flesh came off the blankets. We got in and lay there side by side. He leaned over and blew out the lamp and the smell of the wick hung in damp cold air of the room. Outside angry voices from some saloon a distant pistol shot. Then I was looking up at the ceiling and the room was full of grey light, my breath hanging in the air. I looked around at the lamp on the table the curtains the window. It was very quiet outside muffled by snow. I took in the clothes on pegs the wash stand the mirror. I was lying on my back the Frisco Kid close beside me one leg sprawled across my crotch. Under the leg my cock was stiff and standing out of my shorts. I turned and looked at him. His eyes were open in the grey milky light and I felt a shiver down the spine. He wasn’t there really. Pale the picture was pale. I could see through
him. He smiled slow and rubbed his leg back and forth. I sighed and moved with it. He brought his hands up under the covers where I could see and made a fist and shoved a finger in and out. I nodded. He put his hands down and shoved his shorts off. I did the same. We lay there side by side our breath hanging in the air. He hitched an arm under my shoulders. With the other hand he turned me on my side. He spit into his hand and rubbed it on himself. Slow pressure I took a deep breath and it slid all the way in. Ten strokes and we came together shuddering gasps his breath on my back. Where from? Frisco. A kid he never returns. In life used young pale eyes. Lungs out and finished. Tarnished air sunlight through the curtains red curtains his fingernail smiled then and rubbed his leg.