Men on Men

by George Stambolian (ed)

  He struck it over the head with his flashlight. It hit the floor. He staggered into the hall yelling, “I’ve killed it. Bobby? Jill?” They huddled down in a comer. “Come on, I’ll show you,” their hero said. “No way,” Jill gasped, clutching Bobby’s hand. But the brave boy ran ahead, gesturing into the death chamber. “See?” he grinned.

  A very hairy arm dragged him away. I heard a scream, several yelps, then a gurgling noise. “That must be the air wheezing out of his chopped-open lungs,” Alex mumbled. “Let’s hope,” I joked, the stunned couple eased through the hall and peered into the dark. Their handsome pal was face down with an ax sticking out of his haircut. “That’s it?” Alex groaned. “What a rip-off?”

  I knew what was coming next. “You know,” he said, “I always say this but it’s very true. If someone’s cute and they have to die”—his eyes were almost emotional—“it’s simple logic that someone who’s beautiful is more important than some ugly guy. I mean, that actor”—he pointed at the TV—“he’s cute. That’s all he is. That’s why he’s in the film. Nobody cares if he’s dead. All they know is his looks. If I were directing that scene I’d have totaled him.”

  I think he thought he could freak me out, but I was daydreaming. I saw the glare on a windowpane and, framed inside, a slightly sexier version of the shot we’d just been glued to. A pretty boy was face down in a living room. A man with leathery skin was pretending to finish him off. I was transfixed until one of the actors did something so realistic I jerked my head to the left.

  My favorite pom stars were slim, pale teenagers with shoulder-length hair, preferably black. Take the boy sandwiched in between two musclemen in the magazine Alex had shoved at me. He had drab skin, shapely legs, a dated haircut and oversized eyes. Best of all he had one of those asses that opens unusually wide.

  “Check out this page,” Alex said. The star had shoved his ass right in the camera lens. What I’d thought pert at a distance was spooky close-up. “No matter how many times I see one of these,” Alex leered, “it’s still a shock. I mean, as hard as I try I can’t look at this thing and recall the boy’s face, even though I just told you how hot he is.”

  True enough, I also couldn’t remember its owner. It seemed to have a hypnotic effect. I thought of aliens in sci-fi films who, catching humans’ eyes, could wipe our memories clear. This boy’s backside wasn’t too far removed in appearance from one of those cheaply made monster masks. “Weird, Alex. You’re right, as always.”

  “Let’s jerk off,” he whispered. We did that sometimes, each holding one end of a magazine, handling our cocks with the other. I didn’t like it as much as my friend, but I did feel a certain thrill knowing how badly he wanted to turn on his side and have sex with me. “Let’s share a joint first,” I stalled. While he fixed us a fat one I scanned the small world in front of me.

  Page eight: The two musclemen kiss; the porn star kneeling in front of them, both cocks between his teeth. Page twenty-two: Come dribbling down the star’s chin. Page three: The men sixty-nine. Page eighteen: Two cocks inside the star’s ass; his face grimacing. I was admiring the narrative when Alex entered my line of sight.

  “Does he remind you of George?” he said. “I ask because I can see the resemblance, but I think this kid’s really hot whereas I’m not attracted to George at all. Here.” I took the joint. I was surprised, not that he’d claimed to be wild for George. I just assumed my friend’s beauty was one of the earth’s universals. “Yeah?”

  “Sure. I mean, I’ll admit George is cute although cutesy’s more like it. He reminds me of a cartoon character. You know, the ‘real boy’ Pinocchio’s forced to become in the old Disney film? Ugh. That’s why I still can’t imagine the scene you described last night. George’s, uh, shit is supposed to be heavy I guess but to me the concept is incredibly lightweight.”

  Maybe it was the grass but I didn’t know what he was talking about. I knew George wasn’t the star’s spitting image. This face was hot, whereas George’s was so cute it seemed the work of a great plastic surgeon. Maybe it gave away too much too soon, but my friend’s saving grace was his strange combination of idealized looks and whatever they bottled up.

  I explained this to Alex. “Look,” he sighed wearily, “you can’t be objective. You’re backstage. I’m talking about presentation because, Cliff, our world is a stage. If you buy that old metaphor, George is a character actor at best, not a sex symbol. Knowing you’re hot for him is semi-interesting but, you’ll admit this, they’ll never base Gone With the Wind Part II on it.”

  “Well, even so, it’s a monument to old-world values in other ways,” 1 said, sounding as vague as I could. I was embarrassed to use the word lust around Alex, even ironically. He’d just guffaw. “Oh, believe me, I know,” he smirked, stubbing the joint out. “Just make sure to keep Winnie the Pooh on your side of the bed.” I slugged his arm and we settled down, magazine propped on our chests.

  We agreed on a page where the star’s upper half was in soft focus. Ass filled up most of the frame. The co-stars each held a big, creamy check. They grinned happily from either side of the page, as if they’d just won a loving cup. I liked the mixture of thoughts in their matching eyes: lust, greed, pride, boredom and maybe two or three others that didn’t matter as much.

  Alex unzipped his jeans which made the usual sputtering noise. I heard a crack as his head turned. Two short snorts rustled my sideburn. I smiled and met his eyes. I just assumed he had noticed how much we resembled the men in the picture. Instead his face looked extremely confused, about to burst into tears or bawl me out.

  It made me think of the story an old girlfriend told me. When Joyce was young her family lived in a run-down apartment. Their landlord bragged that his collie could talk. One day it trotted in at the man’s heels and when its master barked, “Greet the Benairs, Maxwell,” it tried to mimic his voice. But its mouth wasn’t built for speech so it took the dog an agonizingly long time to say in a strangled voice, “I … love … you.”

  Alex was like that. I couldn’t imagine him mouthing the obvious: “I want to fuck with you, Cliff,” or however he might have rephrased that. I realized it was up to me and, looking down at my hard-on I thought, Why not see what it means to be hot for a night? I closed my eyes and unfastened the front of my towel. The porn star’s ass clattered onto the floor and flipped shut.

  The result was too clumsy for my taste. We recreated a few poses we d seen in magazines and spent far more time giggling than moaning each other’s names. I thought of it as a sort of misplacement, kept George in mind and went right through the motions. I even gave my friend’s ass a few superficially passionate strokes to make him think I hadn’t tried to forget him.

  We came and sat a few feet apart. “Well, Cliff,” he said between breaths, “don’t you think we’ve confirmed our big theory that sex is a blueprint for porn? I mean, we look at a photograph and get aroused yet we still have our wits. But just now I became so distracted by what you were doing I lost my perspective. You turned into someone I’d much rather see from a distance.”

  DRIVING HOME I DEBATED FOR three seconds and made a sharp turn. George’s house was lit up like a storefront so I rang the bell. His dad, a more wasted George on a much grander scale, pointed down a short corridor. “I think you’ll find what you’re seeking behind that locked door.” We shared a nervous smile, then he went back to his coffee cup.

  The hall was lined with family portraits that chronicled the enlargement of George. The storyline was okay but the pictures were blurry. The older their dates the cuter George grew. In ’72 he’d looked girlish. In one snapped when he couldn’t walk I’d have sworn his dad was kissing a doll’s cheek.

  “Oh, it’s just you,” George said. “Quick, come in.” He double-bolted the door. The room was crammed to the ceiling with memorabilia, mostly from Disneyland. Everywhere I looked I saw a goofy sketch grinning at me. George dashed from wall to wall pointing out characters he liked the best. “Then over here’s wh
ere I keep the attractions,” he said, indicating a handmade altar which must have once been a desk.

  He’d stapled photos of each of the famous amusement park’s rides on its sides and filled the shelves with scale models of his particular favorites. “… The Haunted Mansion, Enchanted Tiki Room, Peter Pan, Space Mountain …” Finally he came to the centerpiece, a battered Mickey Mouse cap. He raised the lid ceremoniously. “Here,” he said, “is where I keep my LSD. Want some?”

  I shook my head. “Well, then …” He grabbed what I guessed was his diary and a small silver key about the size of a teardrop. “… Mind if I finish this?” I found a sittable spot on the floor and watched him write away. His eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them. His room was so dazzling it made the rest of the world seem as dull as a vacant lot.

  I thought of my own bedroom. It was extremely plain: table, chairs, twin bed, and sometimes a poster of someone cute. The closest I’d come to creating a world for myself was a dusty storeroom in our basement. Dad kept it locked but one day years ago, I’d broken in. Every few months I’d crept down, stretched myself on the cold cement floor and jerked off.

  Maybe that explained why, though surrounded by innocent icons, my mind was filled with pornographic ideas. I imagined George floating face down in the billows of his double bed. I felt my throat clogging up. I never would have believed I’d think of Alex at an emotional moment but, as tears threatened, I calmed myself by upgrading our time in the sack. At least I’d touched human flesh, even if my aim was off.

  “I’m all yours,” George said, clicking shut the tiny lock on his red leather booklet. He saw me eyeing it curiously. “Oh, this is where I hide my feelings. In here they don’t get in anyone’s way.” While he buried it under his mattress I wondered how many times my name appeared in the scribbles. “Being articulate wears me out,” he yawned, slapping himself in the face.

  No kidding. Shortly thereafter his sentences shortened, then I was left asking dumb questions to which he’d shrug, nod or shake his head. During one particularly silent stretch I suggested a walk. “Huh? Oh, right,” he shrugged. I followed him out a window. We walked a few blocks very slowly. When we reached a house with a huge front lawn, he stopped and stared at it. “Let’s sit.”

  We perched side by side gazing out at the street. Once a big truck roared by, carrying some sort of carnival ride on its bed. I’d just decided to ask his opinion when … “So,” he said softly, “the other night.” I coughed, then blathered nonstop about how overcome I’d been. First he nodded along but his eyes grew so glazed that I stopped mid-apology, raising my eyebrows to mean, What’s wrong?

  Look at him, I thought. He’s so fucked up, so far away from

  the way I’ve felt. I’m sick of treating his moods with kid gloves. I want to figure his body out and get him over with if it comes down to that. He won’t know the difference and whatever happens at least I’ll stop feeling this weird.

  “Let’s go back.” There was a flicker of warmth in his eyes. I helped him up to his feet. In the dark between streetlights my thoughts raced. When a yellowy glow made him visible, I reaffirmed what I already knew. The walk was lined with magnolia trees. Their strong, ambiguous odor had always repulsed me. Tonight they smelled like my come and I shared that perception with George. “How would I know,” he whispered.

  “Just stretch out here,” I said, gesturing down at his unmade bed. I didn’t have to say, “Face down.” He naturally landed that way. As I undressed I glanced around at the walls completely covered with mice, ducks, dogs, crickets, etcetera. When I squinted they looked like the crowd at a strip joint. If life were a sketch I was sure I’d be deafened by high-pitched yells of encouragement.

  I carefully recreated what I had seen through Philippe’s window, up to the point when I’d felt nauseous. I was a little too tentative, but George’s lack of response made it seem we’d rehearsed our parts hundreds of times. I left my come somewhere deep in his back. I was surprised by how coldly he watched me get dressed, but I figured I’d wait until we were a few miles apart.

  The further I drove the more our sex mattered. George was a slight worry but, as I started to think how amused friends would be by the more bizarre aspects, he took a back seat. By the time I’d reached my house and dialed the only phone number I knew by heart, he was less of an issue. I thought the ringing would never stop. Then I heard a familiar voice. “Alex,” I said, “get this.”

  SEPTEMBER

  Kevin Killian

  SEPTEMBER, AND HARRY HAD DECIDED NOT to go to school anymore. What was the point, tell me? The thing was whether you knew how to read or write, or not, and he didn’t, so he was stuck. Kids laughed at him, and who needs that shit? Harry stood in the doorway of Gunther’s apartment and watched passersby strolling along on their way to the beach, dressed in robes and towels and looking drugged, happy, in the Long Island summer heat. Every one of them probably knew how to read or write. Harry knew his letters and was good at remembering license plates. Listlessly he withdrew deeper into the house, away from the happy strangers, away from nature, and began to sharpen a pencil with his teeth.

  He made up a list of all the license numbers he could remember back to earliest childhood.

  Who needed jokers like those kids in school, sneering? Tell me. Harry raised his suddenly heavy head and was confronted with Gunther’s tall shelves of books. He had to laugh. Books, books, books. What the hell good were they anyhow, to Gunther or to anyone else? Harry grabbed one and flipped it open to find out what kind of book it was. He knew the format of all kinds of books. Cookbooks, for example, have pictures of delicious food and square box shapes with ingredients listed down them. But this was no cookbook. Okay then, spell it out. The.

  One time a guy who lived in the same building in Boston brought him up to his place in the daytime, popped open some brandy, and lifted out some books from a plastic satchel, the kind you throw away trash in. “Like to read, kid?”

  Old. The Old. All books are old, big deal.

  “Yeah, I like to read but I like reading better when someone reads to me.” A pampered perfumed cat went wiggling from room to room flipping her tail in a bossy way like she owned the place. The guy said, “Ever have a cat as a pet? She’s my baby.”

  The Old. Wives. Gunther had a lot of books about husbands and wives.

  “Read to me a little. What do you call this shit? Brandy you say? I’m drunk.” “Want to lie down?” They smiled at each other filled with knowledge, the kind books don’t teach you. Harry agreed; his head, he said, was spinning with planets and stars. “Read me some of those books you got there in that sack. Do some educating, mister.” The pillow was dusty with perfumed cat hairs. The man pulled a hard wooden chair to one side of the bed and dragged the garbage bag over, and the bottle of brandy. “You must be new in this building, kid. Haven’t seen you around.” “I got here about two weeks ago,” Harry said. “Everyone in Boston talks funny. Except for you: you talk fine. My head is spinning, clouds around the universe.”

  The Old Wives’ Tale.

  “How’s your tail?” the guy said. Harry frowned. “It’s okay. Hey man, you said you were gonna read, so read already.” “Sure. I’ll be right back, Kitty’s calling for Daddy. Don’t go away.” So there he was already in some big mother bed acting drunk and the guy’s falling for it. How’s your tail? What a giveaway.

  Harry tore up his list of license plate numbers and put the pieces inside Gunther’s book, replaced it on the shelf. He’d like to burn all Gunther’s books. The shit would hit the fan then, wouldn’t it? He lit a match in his hand and peered at the books through the flame. The gold and silver on their bindings bobbed up and down like dancing lights in an acid hallucination. Yeah, burn all those fucking novels. He blew out the match. He’d been seduced many times by a combination of books and liquor or so, at any rate. had all those jerks believed. There must be something to books and booze that he, Harry, couldn’t see. Gunther seemed to live his life through them
, blinded by them, hypnotized by them. Harry’s head was clear. He never fell for books or liquor, only let other people think so, in this way keeping an advantage over everyone, Gunther included. The Old Wives’ Tale. What a name!

  “I’ll read you a nice fairy tale,” the guy said. “Fairy?” “How old are you, kid?” “Old enough. I don’t need no fairy tales.” “Thirteen or fourteen?” “I am so drunk. How’s Kitty? You get rid of Kitty?” “Did I tell you my name?” said the guy. “I forget.” “Oh, so you don’t even know my name.” “What does Kitty call you? Oh yeah—Daddy.” “Call me Sam. You like that name?” Sam’s bedroom, curtained and musty, had too much perfume, too much talc. Big mother bed though. A cat’s hair stuck in Harry’s mouth. He took another sip of brandy and dribbled it down his check to make himself look prettier. Sam’s chair squeaked as he drew it closer to the bed. “This fairy tale’s called Cadet Capers, okay?” said Sam, drawing out a small book from the garbage bag. The heavy black plastic rustled as his hand withdrew, then collapsed in a heap on the carpet. “Takes place in a military school.” “Go ahead,” said Harry, struggling to sit up. But Sam wasn’t having any of that. He hushed and sedated him. “Relax, kid. Settle that tail of yours into bed. Calm yourself. Relax.” Booze and books.

  Books and booze. Harry wondered which they’d invented first. “ They” were the people who couldn’t admit to themselves what they wanted. “Thirteen or fourteen’s pretty close,” he admitted. “How wise of you,” Sam remarked. “Chapter One, A Day in the Barracks.”