by Jim Grimsley
“I told you he would call,” she said.
“I know.”
“He misses his nana.”
“You’ll be all on your high horse, now.”
“Oh, shut up. Give me one of them cigarettes.”
“It’s not a cigarette,” Jesse explained patiently, but she waved her hand at him and took it by the holder and lit it. She realized Newell hadn’t asked about his mother for a change and, oddly, was happier still.
“I think these things is for women,” Flora said, inhaling the fragrant tobacco.
“Oh, shit.”
“I mean it. This looks to me like it was made for a woman.”
Jesse, patient, began his explanation again, that a cigarillo was different from a cigarette due to the quality of the tobacco and the fact that it was rolled in tobacco, like a cigar. He had already told her several times since he bought the first pack last week, a pretty good explanation, he thought, though he had no idea whether it was true or not and had made it up, in fact; and he knew he would have to say the whole paragraph again, probably for as long as he smoked the things. So he pulled another one of the little faggot sticks, as Flora had termed them, out of the pack and lit it and sat there grinning at Flora, and thought—as he often did when he was grinning at her and she was giving him that look, her head lowered some, her bedroom eyes, she called this look, one of her front teeth darkening, giving her a sinister edge—she’s a handsome woman, he thought, I’m lucky to have something that nice, son of a bitch that I am, and with this much gut hanging over my belt.
Even after Newell called Flora, even after he stood in the bathroom to calm his nerves, all he could think of was Jack in the courtyard, the words he had said.
After work Newell met Henry in the Circle K and had something to eat. This happened by chance; usually they met in the Corral after the bookstore closed, but tonight Newell happened to walk past the restaurant, maybe because he had thought about Curtis earlier, and there was Henry in the window, eating, and he waved to Newell, and Newell went inside to join him.
In the restaurant was Alan and in the door to the kitchen, Umberto. But they were busy talking, and Newell slid into his seat without their noticing. Henry grinned at him and said, “I had to get something to eat after that bitch wet my pants.”
“Miss Sophia is not a bitch. She just doesn’t like you.”
“Well, I’m not exactly feeling like her best friend right now, either.”
“You do hang around there a lot.”
Henry made a gesture with his chin that meant he would ignore the remark. “I hadn’t ordered yet,” Henry said, examining the laminated menu. “I just got here.” He turned to signal the waiter to get another menu, and the waiter who responded turned out to be Alan.
Imagine Alan’s surprise to see Newell at the table with that tired old man. Alan had helped to get this cute thing fired, and look at him now in that leather collar and those leather bracelets, that black T-shirt, oh my. Had he gotten bigger? Alan laid down silverware in front of Newell and their eyes met and Alan acted as if he had just that second recognized Newell, slapped Newell’s shoulder then squeezed it some, what a nice springy texture the flesh had. “Hello,” Alan said. “How are you? We’ve missed you around here.” He acted as if he and Newell had always been the best of friends, and the performance drew Umberto’s attention and he recognized Newell, too, and came out to say hello.
“What are you two doing on the night shift?” Newell asked.
“We got tired of those bitches on the day shift. That’s all.”
“How’s Curtis?”
“Oh, honey.” Alan’s hand on his hip, feeling Newell’s eyes slide toward the motion. “Curtis moved to Toronto with Stuart. Thank God. Now we have this nice sane dyke for a boss.”
“Luana,” Umberto agreed.
“Honey, she weighs two hundred pounds, and she’s shaped like a block of ice, I am not lying.” Alan raised his brows. “Umberto is supervisor on the night shift. Do you believe it?”
“No,” Newell said, and one of Alan’s tables beckoned him, and so he tapped Newell on the shoulder and said, “I’ll be back in a minute to take your order, sweetie, I have to see what these queens over here want. Yoo-hoo!” and he slashed through the dining room, hips like blades.
Newell said to Umberto, “God, he sure is different. He hated me when I worked here.”
“Oh I know, honey. Don’t you remember he tried to get me fired, too? I think it’s the new medication.” Umberto rolled his eyes and they laughed, and Umberto introduced himself to Henry and stood there talking to Henry about how to get a state job like Henry had, more relaxed and assured than Newell remembered him. Alan so different, and Curtis gone for good. Newell asked about the others, learned that Felix was still cooking breakfast every morning, and Frank had gotten sick, stayed in the hospital for a while, and disappeared, nobody knew quite what had happened.
Pleasant to sit there as a customer, even pleasant to pretend with Alan that they had been buddies when Newell worked here, that everything had been wonderful, when Newell had been terrified most of the time, wondering if he would make enough money to stay in New Orleans, never dreaming people who hardly knew you could hate you so much, and now, tonight, with all that in the past, to have the face to sit here and pretend it had all been all right, or maybe that it had all been Curtis’s fault, since he was more the villain and was conveniently out of the picture. Newell even found himself liking Alan by the end of the meal, liking his flair for bitchy gestures and comments, at least.
Afterward he and Henry went to the Corral, where they sat in the loud music without talking, shoulder to shoulder but scanning the room in opposite directions. Newell thought maybe tonight he wanted to find somebody to go home with. The taste of the margarita cloying, he licked some of the salt from the rim. He drank it down, then, around midnight, leaned into Henry’s ear and said, “I’ll see you later. I’m going home.”
“But it’s early.”
“I know. I’m tired.”
“I bet you’re really going to see Mark.”
Newell flushed. “I might.”
Henry turned away, took his drink in hand, a dramatic movement like something he had seen in a movie. “I knew it.”
“Give it up, Henry. What difference does it make to you?” He walked away.
In the street, he headed to Prilla’s house, ringing the bell to get into the gate, Prilla coming out on the porch to see who it was, Prilla in one of those full-length African dresses with a wrap of fabric on her head, probably entertaining this evening, but she smiled at Newell, her voice warm and pleasant as she said how nice it was to see him again and was he looking for Mark? Because she knew Mark was upstairs. Could he go around the back, because she had some sisters in the house for a card reading? Newell answered, conscious of his own lilt and drawl, that she looked awfully nice this evening, so he figured she was having company, and sure, he’d go around back, he didn’t mean to disturb her by going through the house anyway, and they chatted for a few moments as easy as if neither had anything else in the world to do, as if it were early in the evening and they both had plenty of time.
The door to Mark’s room was open, Mark sitting at the desk with his vein tied off, probing it, a flame burner on the desk, cooking something for his arm. He glanced at Newell, gestured him to come in. “I’ll be done in a minute.”
“I’ll wait out here.”
“No. Come and watch.”
Something of a dare in the tone, to which Newell had to respond.
“You want some?”
Newell shook his head. “No.” It made him afraid, shooting up, though he pretended it made no difference.
Now Mark was filling the syringe with the slightly cloudy fluid, now touching the needle against one of his veins, now shooting, opening the tourniquet, a cloud of pleasure rising visibly through his body, his lips flushed as if he were kissing, letting the syringe and needle with the drop of blood rest on the
desk, Newell watching, the moment too intimate, as if he were watching Mark have sex with someone else. Mark sighed. “What did you want? After you told me off today?”
Newell shrugged. “Just to see you. But I guess I’ll come back.”
“You can stay if you want.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did you decide to go the party?” Mark took a deep breath. “Is that why you came.”
“No,” Newell said. “I came by to see you.”
Mark closed his eyes, leaning back in the chair so far it seemed certain he should fall.
Newell wondered why he had come. What had he expected? He walked up the passageway, past Prilla’s open front door, through which he could hear gentle laughter. He opened the gate and stepped onto the street, facing the direction of his apartment. Too restless to go home, he landed in the Golden Lantern where he sat for a long time, drinking margaritas. He had not been thinking about anybody, let alone the man he had met months ago, the blow job in the bar; but someone was leaning against him, and Newell gradually noticed the steady pressure, the solid mass of the body, and when he turned, there was Jerry again, the same thick shoulders and neck, the same smooth brown skin. Jerry was breathing on his neck the whole time, leaned close to Newell’s ear. “I can’t believe it’s you.”
“Well, I guess it is,” Newell said.
“I been looking for you.”
“Have you?”
“I went back to the place down the street a million times but you wasn’t there.”
“I don’t go there much.”
There was a feeling of quiet between them even in the noisy bar. Nice to have Jerry stand near like this, but why was his heart pounding so? Almost visible beneath his shirt, so that Newell wanted to lay a hand there. “You want to have some more fun?” Jerry pressed himself gently against Newell, but his question rang with urgency. “Not in here, I mean. We could go somewhere.”
The noise and confusion pressed close, closer even than Jerry, whose breath ran along the tips of Newell’s ears. A shiver passed through him, as he thought of the first time, the way Jerry’s body felt, under his hands, beneath the clothes, the smooth brown upper arms, the round hard shoulders. Before, Newell had felt detached, but now he was not so sure of himself. He wanted something, and his own heart was beginning to echo in his chest. “We can go to my room,” he whispered, but Jerry was already leading him toward the door.
In the room he fought a rush of panic, because Jerry was there, because his smell would linger long afterward. But Jerry took off his shirt and his body drew Newell to it, and after that he was only thinking about the way it felt to touch this man, the soft gray-black hair cropped close to his skull, the firm corded neck, his mouth, the etched sun-lines of his face relaxing as he drew pleasure out of Newell, and Newell, as he could feel himself giving this pleasure, felt himself inside it, not like the first time, for in here there was no movie, there was only this man pressed close, this man’s harsh breath, the noises that came out of his mouth, the look of softness washing over his eyes, the pleasure of it, to be held like this, undressed with such rough hands moving so gently. Without the movie in his head Newell wondered what to do, for a while, till they were on the bed together, and then everything seemed simple, at least at first. Jerry hungry for something, understanding what it was to have Jerry over him, pressing inside him, not at all the way it had looked in the movies, the indignity then the pleasure of it.
But in the aftermath came the sour, beery smell of Jerry’s breath, the shit smell from Newell’s own ass, and the clammy dampness along their joined skins, a feeling of pleasant heat and unpleasant stickiness. He felt a need to sit on the toilet for a while in case anything might fall out, after all that banging and rattling. The sheets were wet in spots and stained in spots. Jerry sat up on the edge of the bed. He reached for his drawers, then stopped. “You don’t want me to stay, do you?”
“No,” Newell said, and Jerry put his feet through the drawers, found the rest of his clothes in the dark.
“Did you like it?”
“What? Sure.” He knew he ought to say more, so he added, “It was great. I don’t remember when I had better.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
Jerry grinned then. He was sliding the sleeveless shirt across his shoulders, but he stopped to grin, so big Newell could see it, and he wondered why Jerry would believe such obvious flattery; but the smile made him like Jerry again, anyway, so Newell stood up, naked, and put his arms around Jerry and kissed him on the mouth. For a moment the movie had come back, and Newell could see himself, the languid movement up from the bed, his pale skin, pretty body, shapely arms, tender mouth. Jerry had stopped dressing and waited, so Newell stepped away.
After a moment, cautiously, Jerry said, “I better go, I guess. My wife is probably at home waiting up for me.”
“You think she is? You think you’re all that special?”
“I’m all she has.”
“Then she has a problem.” Newell stood, angry now. He walked to the bathroom. “Get dressed and go, please. So she won’t have to wait anymore.”
“I’m sorry I said anything.” Jerry waited a moment, spread across the bed big and square. He was wanting Newell to change his mind, but Newell closed the door and sat on the toilet. In a moment he could hear Jerry moving, and came out.
So satisfying to stand there, to have Jerry’s eyes pore over him like this. Jerry buckled the silver belt buckle. He looked so helpless, standing there. Jerry walked to the door and turned back. “I’ll see you sometime, okay.”
Newell shrugged. “Sure.”
When he was gone, Newell stripped the bed. He lay on the bare mattress under the blanket. For a long time he could only lie there thinking about the way it had felt when Jerry was here, when they were touching each other, the strange cloud that had suffused Newell. He was seeing Jerry’s broad back, the warmth of the body, the smells, sweat and pepper and earth. Different from Mark.
Bigger than Mark. It had felt nice, to be under a man so big. A man the size of Jack, he thought, and lay still.
THE NIGHT WOULD LINGER afterward, for many people who would remember it when Newell had vanished, as the last time they saw him; they would remember specifically, because a few days later when he disappeared the rumor circulated that Newell had been murdered. By then he had become, in his small way, notorious, as a cute boy prone to wear leather was apt to become notorious in the French Quarter in 1978. People at the bookstore talked about him, people at the Circle K talked about him, answered a few questions from the police, traded suspicions. He had vanished, taking nothing out of his room. Mac suspected Newell had gotten mixed up in something ugly. Dixie knew something of what really happened, but kept quiet about it for the rest of her life. Louise had her own troubles by then; Henry cleaned Newell’s room out, had Newell’s phone turned off, drank himself silly afterward, never saying much about what he thought, and soon sickened and died of Kaposi’s sarcoma, one of the earliest deaths from that disease in New Orleans.
When Jack came home that night, which is to say, when Jack came to Leigh’s apartment, which she had come to think of as his home, she could see something had piqued his interest, but she knew better than to ask. He had been to Mac’s, bought the quaaludes she wanted, gave her a couple, and she took them, waiting to feel languid, looking at Jack and thinking she was, maybe, tired of him, now that she had become so accustomed to him. Maybe she was nearly through with him, she was thinking, and he was watching her, hardly seeing her, probably himself already seeing somebody else in his mind, like that friend of Mark’s he wanted. Tedious, the presence of anyone, after a certain point, to Leigh. But Jack eventually put his arms around her and his callused hands felt nice on her creamy skin. “Do you ever think you’ll get tired of me, Daddy?” she asked.
He laughed. “Of course not.”
She laughed, too. But the next morning he was gone and stayed out the whole day and n
ight, the first time in a while he’d been away so long. So later, when she heard about Mark’s friend, that he had disappeared the same day, she wondered what had happened, but never asked whether Jack knew. She canceled the Halloween party, to let Jack sweat a little. Pretty soon she decided she really was tired of him, anyway, and told him so, and moved on.
Reason to Live
I am Jack. I have made Newell an offer and I have waited for an answer. I have been as patient as I could.
He has taken some days to come round. I have had to stand in front of him for a long time, show myself for a long time, and even to undress myself a bit and allow him to touch me. His excitement has led him forward, and I have brought him to the very center of the old brewery, near the end that faces the river, all broken glass and corroded iron; I have brought him here because I love him so, tonight. I am glistening when he enters, his face masked and his body still clothed, that slim white body that I ache to hurt, his face sheathed in leather, his hands bound behind him, and the feeling rushes over me, that I have been doing this for such a long time, that it will always continue, that someone like Newell will appear time after time, fresh and well-prepared by some force already within him.
I take off the mask and the face becomes lost as I watch it, as he runs his hands under my leather vest; but it is he I am watching, cotton underwear against his pale skin, the dark denim bunched around his knees, shirt torn in half, moving as his hands move over the handsome man in front of him, me; sudden roughness when I shove him to the floor, and slam his face into the handsome man’s crotch, mine, and I know from these first moments that I am in the presence of something consummate, I slap him hard across the face and he continues to pursue the body with his hands, our body, the scene we have imagined and yet he recreates it so easily, with such simple gestures.
I am greedy to see him struck with the lash, first the one that makes the popping sound, red stripes flushing across his delicate skin. I am greedy to slap his bottom, to see the flesh tremble and the handprints appear, as he lies in the light from this lantern, flickering, in this desolate room, being beaten for me, to make me happy.