You've Never Seen the Sea

by Grayson Sydney

  "How much did you snort?" he asks again. "I saw you earlier, with Benji and Grace. They're not into that shit."

  "They're fucking pussy cowards. Don’t know how to have fun."

  Hapstader rolls his eyes. "Did you expect any different? Hard stuff around here is pot, man. Come on. Let's get you cleaned up, yeah?”

  Then Hapstader is tugging him away from the wall and then it's only Hapstader that exists. All that laser hyper focus trained on him, on his back, on the muscles shifting as he moves them through the crowd to the nearest bathroom. On the way his forearm flexes. He's not skinny. He's got some meat on him where it counts.

  “How’d you get here? You were at school. Then you weren’t.”

  Johnny tests his hold. Gets a squeeze in reply. The bathroom door shuts and locks somewhere above him, through the haze and the lasers and the brightness.

  “I went home, yeah. Saw your note.” He says it like it hasn’t rocked his whole world, his very foundation. “Got a call from Mel you left her stranded. I gave her a ride home. Your dad’s not mad. She was worried about that.”

  Then Hapstader’s got his hands on his cheeks, and he feels squished. And he doesn’t want to be fucking squished. He’s impenetrable.

  “Don’t touch me,” he grunts, not moving away. He’s somehow ended up sitting on the floor, back against the tub. Hapstader frowns. “I’ll punch a fucking bullet, asshole.”

  Shock crosses his face. Then a laugh. Little and loud all at once and it makes his coke seized thoughts freeze, makes the lasers point and pull at his mouth. Makes him smile because Hapstader doesn’t look like he hates him for a moment.

  “Where’d you even get coke anyway?” Hapstader’s asking him, moving away. He swims on the outer rim of Johnny’s vision and then he’s back again, a warm washcloth pressed to his lips. His nose. He kisses at the cloth. Hapstader doesn’t notice.

  “In town.” He kisses again. The rag is wet and scratchy. Betty needs better hand towels. Better rags. Better better better. “I fucked Betty.”

  Hapstader nods, like he’s appeasing a child. “Uh huh. You and literally everybody else.”

  “Even you?”

  “Freshman year,” Hapstader says, and it’s missing tone. Lacking any meaningful inflection and it pisses Johnny off more. “It was awkward.”

  “Hate you.”

  A snorted sigh. Funny and missing beats. The rag presses hard against his nose and it burns some more. Burns in a different way. Johnny catches his wrist. His small for a guy wrist, his nice and solid and sturdy and grabbable wrist. Johnny wants to eat him. Nip into soft and strong skin and bruise muscle. Make him sore. Make him whine and croon and cry and beg and say his name, over and over again. Wants to see what dawn light looks like catching Hapstader’s insane hair as he rolls over to cuddle back into warmth in the morning. He looks like a Bowie impersonation, that’s how pretty he is.

  He almost says it, his traitorous mouth, wagging tongue.

  “I’m not a—”

  “Well, I don’t hate you,” Hapstader interrupts him. Dabs gentler. Johnny catches red out of the corner of his eye. “So shut up and maybe don’t hate the only guy who’s bothering to give a shit about you tonight.”

  How long has he been here? Been high?

  Johnny holds tight. Doesn’t want to let him go. Let him leave. Hapstader might run. Bolt right back out the door and leave him to die here, alone and bleeding and unhappy and so fucking pissed off right here in Betty’s bathroom.

  The beating is still there, in Hapstader’s face. In the cautious hold to his gaze. The way he lingers. Johnny’s caught it at school, in class, in the halls, especially during gym and the showers. No more bruises, but Johnny can see them all the same lingering just under the surface. His own personal ghost.

  Johnny lets him go.

  Then Connor’s gone and Johnny’s gonna die.

  Then he’s back and the rag is wetter, warmer, softer as it wipes and paints Johnny’s face in sweeps.

  Hapstader’s got a hand on his neck, the back of his head. His fingers are in his hair and Johnny closes his eyes. Sighs. Lets the bright be overtaken by dark. He wants to sink back into the porcelain. Wants to see what Hapstader looks like in a bath instead of the showers. Wants to get his hands on his narrow hips and pump him until he’s coming and grabbing at Johnny because Johnny knows he’d do him good. Make him want more.

  Maybe he is one. Maybe.

  Jeran’s gonna bury him six feet deep.

  It’s the fucking icing.

  Yeah.

  “You do this a lot?”

  “Sometimes.” Then, “You read my note?”

  The rag stills. There’s hot breath rushing over his face. Wind in a storm. Turbine fast. Johnny cracks his eyes open and Hapstader is frowning, mouth hanging open. Johnny wants to lick his teeth. Wants to know what Hapstader biting him feels like. Maybe Hapstader would want to sink into his flesh, feel him shake open and break.

  Another swipe. More red. His sinuses sting a little less. The brightness fades a little.

  Hapstader feels more real in front of him. Hapstader’s been touching him a while now.

  Hapstader sighs. “Yeah. I read it. Don’t know what you’re sorry for though. And you shouldn’t do drugs, dumbass.”

  Johnny pokes a finger at Hapstader’s too close waist. Misses his shirt. Gets in the space where it rides up a little over the sliver of his underwear over his jeans. He keeps his finger there since Hapstader isn’t moving away. Isn’t socking him in the jaw. Isn’t pinching his nose until his blood vessels burst all over again.

  Hapstader’s got nice skin. Gives a little over muscle Johnny’s only seen on rin the locker room. He’s warm and Johnny keeps his touch constant and unwavering.

  “You gonna give a shit next time if I don’t listen to you?” Johnny asks on a mutter.

  Hapstader keeps swiping. Keeps frowning. Doesn’t move away.

  March 5th, 1982.

  He's been doing last minute chem homework for three hours, begging the universe to send a distraction his way while he suffers through theories and hypothetical research studies on things he doesn't get and so far it hasn't been delivering. Until now.

  Something smashes into his bedroom window. He almost falls out of his chair.

  “What the hell.” He goes and, after confirming his window isn’t actually broken, gets a shock.

  One, it’s Johnny Burns. Weird on its own, because they aren't friends. They don't really even talk. Ever. Not since the whole party thing. With the cocaine. And the bleeding. And the little roundabout puzzle of notes. On Valentine’s.

  Two, Johnny’s on the roof directly opposite his window. It’s a good three foot gap, yet there he is, eight feet off the ground and on his roof. Johnny’s never—wait. He has been here, once. Just the once, when they’d fought and gotten high and—

  Almost kissed, his brain supplies.

  It hadn’t just been his imagination. A thought that’s been plaguing him since Johnny all but confessed outright that he wants him.

  So yeah, weird that it's Johnny just, here. On his roof. Waving at him like an absolute buffoon and obviously drunk. Very drunk. But it's not the weirdest thing by far.

  “I’m gay as shit,” Johnny calls, loud enough to be heard through the shut window. And Connor nearly loses it.

  “Well, there’s one confession I guess,” he says to himself as he pushes his window open.

  It's not like it's two in the morning when bad decisions seem easy from tired delirium or anything. Not like he’s spend a lot of sleepless nights worried Johnny was snorting things he shouldn’t be and bleeding out in bathrooms he had no right being in in the first place.

  Nope.

  “I have homework,” he says, mindful of the time of night.

  Johnny smiles. His cheeks are flushed. He’s in just a shirt, a hole ripped at the collar. He’s missing a boot.

  “I miss you, Connor,” he whines, way too loud. And that’s a new one.
<
br />   “Johnny, what the fuck?”

  “Let me in?” His chin wobbles the longer Connor doesn’t answer him.

  Then he sniffles and a tear falls and, Jesus.

  Connor seriously considers closing his window and curtains just to not have to deal with whatever nervous breakdown Johnny seems to be having.

  It's not like Johnny's being serious. He's drunk.

  “C’mon,” he slurs. “Don’t be a dick. I’m gay and I’m so gay for you, because I maybe like you a little, and your dick is so long, Connor. Like, have you even seen it? You could chain a dog with that thing.”

  He can’t help but laugh. “Burns!”

  Connor goes to close his window and draw his curtain tight.

  “Your light's still on I can see it through your curtain. Open up asshole, I wanna talk,” Johnny’s saying, loudly. So, so loudly.

  He’ll wake up the whole neighborhood at this rate. Connor opens everything again and gets a gushing smile in return.

  “Hold on.”

  Connor leans out his window and catches a chill. Johnny must be freezing under all that booze.

  Then he straightens, looking very put together. “About fuckin’ time,” he says, completely level.

  "You sobered up quick," Connor comments, crossing his arms against the cold.

  Johnny's staring at him hard, contemplative. He grunts, mugging him as he lowers into a stance like he’s about to jump.

  "Hey, hey!" Connor calls, surprised and more than a tick worried because it's a long drop to the ground below and Johnny is balancing at the edge of the gap like he's about to jump—

  And he just fucking does! Connor's sill is wide, but not so much that he doesn’t think Johnny won’t miss. Johnny's arms fly out as he lands half in the window, half out, legs kicking. Connor manages to get his hands on his belt and pull him the rest of the way inside. Johnny lands on his stomach, laughing and swearing, cradling his crotch like he hit it on the way down.

  He rolls his hips into the air when he catches Connor looking.

  He regrets it immediately. Should have let him fall. It would have been a good lesson.

  "Are you insane!" he hisses.

  Johnny rolls onto his back, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he grins at Connor from the floor.

  "You left me out in the cold, Conny-Con,” he drawls and maybe the cold hadn’t shocked the liquor out of his system so much after all.

  “How much did you drink?” Connor asks, sitting at the edge of his bed, heart still pounding for the panic of almost not catching Johnny. "All this because you wanted to tell you’re, what, really gay?”

  "Stupid," he echoes. His smiling features fall away into a frown. "And I smoked a few joints."

  “Honestly, what is wrong with you.”

  "I'm fine." One of Johnny's ring covered hands slaps his right pocket before pushing two fingers in to pull out a dimebag. "Brought some more if you wanna share with me. Please share with me. And I am. I so am.”

  “You’re what?”

  “Gay,” he says, drawing the word out very slowly. “I had a revelation.”

  Connor shakes his head, in disbelief at Johnny's utter gall. But then he remembers he has homework. He gets C's anyway. What does it matter?

  "Show me, then. You have papers?”

  Johnny's grin returns, full force pretty and dangerous and Connor shoves the familiar thought away. Doesn't matter.

  Johnny fingers his other pocket and while a stick of gum, a lighter, a crumpled receipt, a cigarette, and six—six—condoms fall out, rolling papers seem to be the one item he doesn't have on him.

  "Shoot." Johnny pouts.

  "You really are high," Connor says, sighing. "It's fine. You can crash here tonight. We can go to school together, I guess.”

  Johnny's blinking lazy at him. Is breathing deeply. Connor wonders if Johnny can fall asleep with his eyes open.

  "You don't mind?"

  “It’s no problem.”

  "The note,” he whispers and the way he's blinking slows to something closer to a stare. “The fight. The—me. Tonight. Me telling you. You don't mind?"

  Connor can hear something curious, cautious in the words. He swallows and tries not to let anything show of the way his heart's not slowed a beat since Johnny leaped.

  "That you're gay? You’re really serious about all that?”

  Johnny hums an affirmative and Connor hears his throat click. “Am about everything.”

  Connor’s palms sweat. “Why would I care about that, man?"

  "You used to call Baler queer in high school. Used to give him hell."

  The memory of it stings, worse for the way Connor has standing plans with Roy and Missy almost every weekend these days.

  "I was a dumb fucking kid. Pissed off and dumb."

  "Ignorance killed the cat," Johnny tells him.

  "That's not the saying."

  "But it's more true," he breathes and Connor feels his skin go tight. "I like you."

  "What—”

  "You're hot and you're kind, now. Most of the time. Not to me, though. You give me hell and I love it. Love how you push me like I push you. I wanna touch your hair and see if it's greasy with all that hair spray. I used to hang back after gym to smell your towel after the showers.”

  Connor's cheeks burn. He buries his face in both hands, his eyes still free to hook, stunned, on Johnny's.

  "I get chatty when I smoke and drink."

  "Yeah, kinda got that."

  Johnny smiles slow and languid. Then it seems to hit him what's just happened. He sits up, squints at the floor.

  "I'm gonna—gonna go."

  Connor reaches out and palms his shoulder. Takes his hand away when Johnny shifts to see the touch.

  "You, uh, you gonna be able to sleep after all this?" Connor asks, heart behind his teeth.

  "No. God, I fucked up. I fucked up big time. I should really go, Connor. Sorry—just forget it. Forget I said anything."

  And Johnny is standing and so Connor stands too. Stops him from jumping back out the window with a hand wrapped around Johnny's wrist.

  "Stay."

  Johnny's lips purse a little.

  "What are you—”

  Connor’s hand slips a little, fingers falling into Johnny’s palm. He holds his hand.

  “Stay. Help me with my chem homework? You get this stuff more than I do, right?”

  Johnny looks at their joined hands. Squeezes.

  “I want to touch you,” Johnny tells him. “Can we keep holding hands?”

  “Sure.” Connor squeezes his fingers. “Come over here and help me study.”

  Johnny does.

  March 7th, 1982.

  The chain attaches to the metal rod above the window. It’s six feet long. A lot of links that get stuck between the wall and his sheet if he tosses and turns too much in the night. Sometimes it makes too much noise; when it’s too hot and he needs to open the window, or he’s looking for an excuse. Because while Jeran’s reasons are few, if indeed there at all, then Johnny’s reasons match. He could scratch his fork a little too far to the left while going at his steak if Jeran looked particularly annoyed one night.

  It doesn’t take much.

  Johnny used to surf as a kid. Sailed once or twice. He hasn’t been in over a decade, but it was often enough to stick once Jeran got back from the war. He had ten peaceful years living with his mother, and then Jeran got back. Jeran was angry. Johnny doesn’t remember having a father who wasn’t angry because, as his mother once explained, they got pregnant before he left. She gave birth while he was gone.

  He can’t even use the excuse he’s got violence in his blood. That he’s predisposed. That there’s no helping it. Because before ‘Nam, Jeran was supposedly a peach. Used to buy his mom shakes, take her to flicks, used to sit her out under the stars and promise the world.

  So where’d his violence come from then? If it didn’t spill out, splat, from Jeran?

  He used to go sailing.
/>   Had some rich friends back in California. Rich, meaning the parents of the kid Johnny befriended in second grade had a boat and house in Malibu. So he learned how to pull the rutter. How to tie knots. How to cut slack and believe he was contributing when they shouted to pull, pull, tie her down.

  Pull, he thinks and twists the chain.

  Pull, he thinks as the metal links rub and burn the skin on his neck. Sensitive. Weak, thin skin. It’ll bruise black and red and he’ll be swollen.

  His California friend, that guy. Johnny beat him so bad he ended up needing a tube to eat. They were fourteen. Twenty-four hours earlier, he’d been Johnny’s first kiss.

  Fifteen and Johnny’d got a forty-year old man’s cock shoved down his throat because he found that bar down in WeHo. Nice place. The toilet seats were covered in piss. The holes cut rough into the sides of stalls covered in worse. Johnny bruised his knees and felt sick after swallowing. Gagged himself until he puked on the sidewalk outside. Went home at two in the morning, woke Jeran up on purpose, and got his right knee twisted for it. His face got it worse.

  Just shy of seventeen, Jeran moves them to Hartford.

  Johnny’s got eyes for the king, for Happy Hapstader. Johnny knows he’s in trouble. Throws himself into overdrive to prove himself better, better, better. He knows how to pull rope tight, knows how to lock in a promise, knows how to lie through his teeth and get pissed when he sees others do the same to him. Royalty lies. It’s what they do.

  He beat Connor bloody and Johnny’s wanted to die ever since Connor didn’t.

  Because Connor was good. Is good. Isn’t dead, but barely. He thinks about tying knots for days after, skips class. Skips staying at home.

  He comes home while Jeran and Angela aren’t. While Mel is in class. When he know he won’t be bothered. He hides it from everyone.

  And he pulls and he pulls and he doesn’t think it’s working, the metal around his raw neck. He’s gasping and glaring up at the stupid fucking thing because he’s blacked out before and knows he’s nowhere close enough to do it now. His vision tunnels, fuzzy and blurred. He thinks about how he almost killed another one. Almosts, a lot of them, dot his worst moments in life.