Head [01] - Hot Head

by Damon Suede

  “Hey, Griff.” Tommy nodded at him and put his foot on the bench so he could tie his running shoes.

  “Dobsky.” Griff made sure he smiled back and kept his face steady. “You just getting off?”

  “Hardly.” Tommy laughed and switched feet.

  Griff realized how that had sounded. Shit. “For the day, I mean.”

  “For sure.” Tommy was just playing along like always. Dirty jokes were a regular deal. He grunted and finished with his shoes. His feet were as stubby and square as the rest of him. He squatted in front of his locker. At the base of his spine, a little patch of sandy fluff peeked over his waistband.

  He’s like a bear cub. Griff realized he was watching Tommy’s body and raised his eyes quickly. Jeez! Get a grip, asshole! He didn’t feel any attraction for the stocky paramedic, but because of what he’d seen, he felt a kind of protective sympathy; they faced the same dragon.

  At least Tommy didn’t seem to notice the attention.

  Oh God.

  Maybe Tommy had noticed; what if he thought Griff was giving him the once over, you know, like that.

  Did Tommy check out guys here in the house? Had he ever looked at Dante like that? Hard not to, Griff imagined. Al of this was so dangerous. Say something normal!

  The silence stretched. Griff couldn’t tel if it was awkward or not.

  Tommy stood to button the bowling shirt over his hard, furry chest. His skin was flushed from the shower. He was real short, but he sure was solid, arms sturdy as a stevedore. “Boring morning. Some fat chick had a coronary on the train, and we spent most of it down in the Carrol station. You do anything this week?”

  How to answer that. Uh yeah, Anastagio and I just spooged all over each other online for a Russian out in Sheepshead Bay. How ’bout you? Get ass-raped in any alleys? He couldn’t control the funny expression on his face.

  Tommy tipped his head, looking at him strangely. “Griff?”

  “Yeah. I went to the Anastagios for dinner.” Griff sat down on the bench and puled his hoodie over his head, then smoothed his bright hair back down.

  Then he noticed the healing scrape on Tommy’s corded forearm and the faint brick-burn on his scruffy face. Griff gulped and blushed, eyes on his locker like a laser scope.

  How many times had Tommy come in with scuffs and bruises that they al assumed he’d gotten on the job? How many times had Tommy lied to his wife, using the job as a cover?

  For a crazy second, Griff wanted to confide in him. Not everything about Dante and the porn and al, but just to ask Tommy what to do about these crazy feelings he had about another guy. To talk to someone who was hiding the same thing, who knew what he was living with here in the station, out in the neighborhood. He wanted to know how he was supposed to hide and survive. Tommy would get it, get him, right?

  Tommy went to peer into a mirror over the sink and combed his damp sandy hair.

  Griff thought about the rough aley sex he’d witnessed a couple weeks back. He could almost see the calm, happy glow that Tommy had carried away with him. He wondered if Tommy had a boyfriend, if that Arab guy meant something to him or if it had just been a random fuck. Maybe Tommy didn’t want to have feelings for the guy. Maybe he didn’t even know his name. He was married and had kids. Jeez. Maybe Tommy wouldn’t understand at al.

  “Catch you later.” Tommy clapped him on the shoulder and pushed through the door, headed home. The handprint stayed hot for a few seconds.

  Griff grunted and was glad he’d held his tongue. That could have been a fucking disaster. If Griff did say anything, he couldn’t take it back. Once he’d poured himself out, that shit wouldn’t go back in the bottle. Heluva risk to take. Could he trust Tommy that much? Could he trust anyone that much? Wel, yeah.

  Dante.

  Wel, maybe that was the real solution. Maybe if Griff didn’t confess his feelings for his friend to his friend. Maybe he could just float the idea that he might like dudes, yes, like-like. But what if that changed things between them? What if Dante laughed and winked and offered to get him a discount on a HotHead membership? What if Dante felt weird around him after that?

  He felt trapped.

  Right. The thing to do was to try and get over Dante. He needed to find another guy and get used to the gay thing and move on. Fairytales were bulshit.

  Happy endings were for suckers. People didn’t love each other forever.

  Maybe what he needed was a hot jock to hump in an aley so he could stop fixating. Yeah. This wasn’t love; this was lust, pure and simple. It wasn’t Dante making him feel these things; Dante was just seductive and they were together al the time.

  There were other Italian guys in the world. Hel, they grew wild on the vine right here in his neighborhood. He needed to get the hel over this demented crush and find someone else who was enough like Dante that maybe his heart, his head, and his cock wouldn’t notice.

  Uh-huh. Good one.

  Griff skinned out of his jeans, stowing them in his locker and putting on his flip-flops. He showered mechanicaly, not touching himself below the belt more than absolutely necessary.

  Ever since he’d started watching the Monte clip at HotHead, his treacherous penis had developed a hair trigger around the firehouse—totaly embarrassing.

  Dante’s porn-formance had made the bunker gear into an impossible fetish for Griff: the boots, the suspenders, even his own turnout pants. These last two weeks, riding back to the house sooty from a fire, he’d crack a fat in his underwear just from the weight of the clothes against his skin, remembering Dante’s dirty talk for the HotHead members. He knew every second of it by heart at this point.

  Two stals down, another shower came on with a hiss. Another of the guys showing up for their tour.

  Just to be safe, Griff rinsed off in freezing water. God, that’s cold. He stayed under it til his bals shriveled to the size of lima beans and his dick was a rubbery stub.

  He reached out of the stal for his threadbare towel. He scraped it roughly over his goose-bumped skin and scalp, then knotted it tight around his hips. When he got back to his locker, he dug out fresh boxer-briefs and a thermal shirt. The cold water had made his nipples into tight pale pebbles. He tugged the towel loose and ran it over his fiery head and pits again. He put one wide foot up on the bench and then the other, bending over to rub his legs down.

  Thunk. The locker room door opened. Griff flinched involuntarily. Behind him, someone gave a low wolf-whistle.

  “Ass!” The familiar voice was husky and joking.

  “Uh, hi.” Griff spun and held the towel over his front.

  Dante stood there chuckling at the modesty. “It’s okay, G. I had a bod like yours, I’d never get dressed.” Griff roled his eyes. “You hardly stay dressed now.”

  Dante sat down on the bench beside Griff’s underwear. His sweet muskiness filed the grungy room. “You gonna lift today? I need to stay pumped for Alek if

  —”

  Griff shook his head and grimaced to shut Dante up. Not here. He jerked his head at the tiled arch. In the other room, the shower switched off with a clank.

  Dante nodded. Griff yanked his underwear over his junk and stepped into his pants before they had an audience.

  “’S’up, hairbags.” Briggs came out drying his beergut with a bleach-stained towel. “You guys gonna lift later? My wife’s busting my bals.” Ugh. Briggs.

  If ever Griff needed proof that he didn’t find most guys attractive…. He jammed his feet into boots.

  Dante looked at Griffin to answer for both of them.

  Griff eyed the door; he didn’t want to watch Dante undress up close right now. “Yeah. No. I gotta”— get the hell away from my best friend—“take it easy on my shoulder. Slept funny.”

  “Ha ha. More like jerked off funny. Repetitive stress.” Dante winked at Briggs and puled open his own locker.

  Jesus. If either of them knew the full story….

  Briggs snorted and made a show of drying his bals. Moron. He plucked a
razor out of his locker and shook it at them. “You know Anastagio, you oughtta try out for basebal again come spring. We could realy use you.”

  After 9/11, Dante had played on the FDNY basebal team for three years, until his renovations started taking up his time and his attention. Dante played it to the hilt, smiling sheepishly with the big dog eyes and tucking his hair behind his ear with an “aw-shucks” sexiness that kept his fans creaming in their thongs. He played the way he did everything, as if his life depended on it: diving for impossible catches, pitching like lightning, cracking bals into the stands so he could amble around the diamond in his own sweet-ass time. His speed and agility and grace were heart-stopping.

  Normaly Griff hated basebal; it al seemed like math and sitting around. Ugh. He was built for hockey and footbal, where his mass could do the most damage. He didn’t want to spend an entire game sitting around watching other guys sit around. What was the point?

  Give him ice and a puck or a set of pads and pigskin, he’d play til his ears bled and his eyelashes froze. It made sense to hit other guys, to fight over something, push toward a goal. No. Basebal was Dante’s game; his long, tight build was perfect for it; he had a kiler arm. “From whacking off so much,” he always said.

  Stil, as much as Griff hated the game, he never missed a chance to see Dante in that uniform for anything. Hel, the straightest guys in the department teased Anastagio about his tight ass in those pants. Girls (and a few brave guys) lined up to thank him and ask for pictures. These days, Dante stil tried to go to a couple games a year.

  Dante shook his head. “Nah. I dunno. With the renovations and everything… I don’t realy have time, Briggs.” Before he’d finished talking, Briggs threw his towel over a shoulder and wandered back toward the sinks, showing a bright green Shamrock tattooed on one cheek.

  Gross.

  Then Dante raised his T-shirt to rol a fresh layer of deodorant into his pits. His abs bunched, and the slim treasure trail leading down them was glossy.

  Griff didn’t actualy lick his lips, but he wanted to. “Hey, uh….” He fished in his bag for an envelope with $1,400 in fifties, tucking it into Dante’s warm caloused hand.

  Across the room, Briggs was whistling at the sink.

  “What is this?” Dante looked at the cash, confused.

  “Money from… that thing. You know. I forgot before and I didn’t want you to have to ask.” Griff nodded, like it was normal. “Look, I gotta talk to the chief.”

  Dante shook his head and held it out. “This is yours, G.”

  But before Dante could hand it back, Griff headed out the door, puling his shirt over his head, trying to think of someplace in the house to hide from his best friend for the next twelve hours.

  THE wail of the alarm woke Griff up where he had hunkered down in one corner of the breakroom to hide.

  “Engine…. Ladder….” The automated voice echoed through the house. “Engine…. Ladder….” Griff could hear the clomp of boots on the stairs as the guys made their way down to the rigs, grumbling at the late hour. Griff shook himself and headed for the door.

  Half the night he’d managed to steer clear of any alone time with Dante. The breakroom was the only place that Dante couldn’t ever get him alone. The constant audience meant that any conversations had to stay strictly pussy- or game-related. Groups were fine, but when it was the two of them, Dante had this way of pushing close to him while Griff went slowly out of his gourd. He knew Dante noticed, but there was no helping it.

  The Anastagios had always been physical and affectionate, but what with everything, the contact was too much for Griff to handle. Dante patting him and pushing him and squeezing his shoulder made him feel like he was going to bust. A few more weeks of watching “Monte” and coming to work, and they were gonna have to clean him off the ceiling and wals.

  “Engine…. Ladder….”

  Down on the floor, guys were puling themselves onto the truck. Dante was inside already; he thumped the seat next to his. “C’mon, gorila. We were worried you might sleep through it.”

  Griff bobbed his head, closing his jacket as he sat down. He could smel Dante, and the pleasure unnerved him. “Yeah. I slept like hel last night.” The rest of the crew piled into the rig. Briggs and Watson, bitching about nothing. Tarlton was chauffeur. Siluski rode shotgun, shouting over his shoulder as they puled out into the street with the sirens blaring and the emergency lights strobing the block with red.

  The truck rocked and jerked over the streets, braking and leaning sharply when they had to navigate parked cars and drunk drivers and coasting taxis.

  Tarlton could thread the ladder through these little streets blindfolded.

  They puled up in front of a large store—appliances, it looked like. The high windows facing the sidewalk were cracked; looters had made off with some swag. Nice. Already a couple of vultures were circling around the whiff of juicy tragedy.

  As the men dropped out of the rig to the asphalt, the acrid stench stung their eyes. Even down here it was hard to breathe. Griff’s lungs burned.

  “Plastic.” Siluski sniffed the air as he shifted his helmet on his head. “A lot of it burning. Jesus. I’d know that smel anywhere.”

  “Totaly fucking carcinogenic.” Watson’s eyes were already raw and tearing.

  They clambered down into the street, staring up at the column of oily smoke above them. The chief was already working out a plan of attack. The engine company was already at the hydrant, and their probie had started puling the hose. Fire was visible in the windows from the third floor up. This thing had gotten awful hot awful fast.

  Griff could almost hear his dad’s voice in his head: “probable arson.” They needed to tread softly in here. Anything could be waiting for them.

  The ambulance puled up and Tommy popped out, hauling his big kit around the back.

  “I know this building. Slick Wilie’s has the ground floor. Showroom and offices. Shipping too.” Briggs groaned. “Electronics chain.”

  “Perfect. I been shopping for a new widescreen for the Super Bowl.” Dante grinned as he closed his jacket over his muscular chest.

  Watson had come around the rig, the emergency lights flickering over his features.

  The heat from the plate-glass windows baked Griff’s face and watering eyes. “What about the higher floors?” Briggs swung the irons onto his back. “I think they rent the uppers as storage. I fel through the floor once. Broke my tibia and my clavicle. Nothing is up to code.”

  Siluski grumbled, “Fucking fantastic. It’s gonna be a flea market in there.”

  “Fire sale!” Dante laughed. “Maybe I can pick up speakers to match.”

  “Masks on, ladies.” Siluski wasn’t joking. “Awful hot from here.”

  “I’l take the loading dock with the probie?” Briggs pointed. There was a driveway along one side of the building, wide enough for a semi. He grabbed the youngest member of the team and hooked around to investigate without waiting for an answer.

  The chief grumbled and turned to the rest of his men. “Muir! You and Siluski take the main floor up to three. I got a hinky feeling about this one.” Griff and Siluski strapped on their irons and masks and helmets.

  “Anastagio!” The chief hooked a finger at Dante. “Take Watson and sweep the fourth and fifth. Deli guy who caled it in says there may be squatters up there.”

  Watson jogged to the door and tugged it open; Dante folowed. The light caught the surnames emblazoned in reflective letters across the tail of their bunker coats.

  “Hope no one was working late.” Siluski slapped Griff’s back as they trudged for the entrance. Griff was watching the day-glow ANASTAGIO letters sink into the stinking smoke ahead of them.

  Up ahead, Dante grinned and cracked his neck like a boxer. “Let’s go make a fucking mess, huh.” SILUSKI and Griff made quick work of the showroom. The ground floor seemed smoky but untouched. Filthy water dripped from spigots overhead. Their boots slapped in a half inch of water pooled on the
uneven linoleum.

  “What’s up with the sprinkler system?” Griff was walking aisle to aisle, scanning rows of stereo bulshit and televisions and display racks. No civilians, no fire.

  Siluski checked in with the chief on the walkie. “First floor and mezz, I got smoke but no bitch. Headed to three.” Griff could hear the fire above them, but the sprinklers were dead throughout the vast store. “What’s with the sprinklers?” They pushed through the emergency doors into the stairwel.

  “Primary search negative on five.” Dante’s voice echoed from three floors up, barking into his walkie, then his voice rumbling to Watson as they clomped down to the fourth floor.

  Siluski was scowling as he climbed. “Maybe someone was playing a prank? Seems like a bulshit cal for al this water.” Up on three it was hot and much smokier; even if they hadn’t found it, something was stil burning. The entire halway was stacked with unused packaging, thousands of large corrugated cardboard boxes in flat stacks. Obstructing al movement and totaly unsafe. At one end of the airless hal they met a locked door, baking to the touch.

  Griff nudged Siluski and looked at the ceiling tiles overhead. “What did Briggs say they use the upper floors for?”

  “Dunno. Empty packaging al the hel over. I’m guessing storage mostly. Or shipping. I gotta pop this.” Siluski wedged the bar in and cracked the frame. Heat roled out, and that godawful greasy smoke—barbecued plastic.

  They stepped into a big space filed with high shelves and deep tables and a thick veil of roling blackness. On the opposite wal, windows faced the street.

  Emergency lights flashed just out of sight below.

  “Uh, Siluski….” Griff squatted and pointed at the ceiling. Above them the pipes were split, and the beams around them showed dents and heavy strokes of a sledgehammer. No way was this an accident. Above the mangled system, the fire was crawling across the ceiling, slow and gold as a pool of spreading oil.

  Siluski already had his radio out. “Chief, I got heat on three sides. It’s in the wals on three. We’re gonna need a line up here pronto. Somebody has sledged the sprinklers.”