by Rager, Bob
“You seem pretty interested,” the suit said swinging around in his bar stool to again face the mirror.
The other man ripped his eyes away. “He looks like someone I know,” he said in genuine bewilderment. “But of course, I don’t know such people!” He insisted on his pose as a stranger stumbling around a strange country. He seemed desperate now clutching at his throat in fear that his carefully cultivated boyishness, his lacquered veneer of innocence was really just that, a clinging to something long gone.
He was probably better looking in his youth, perhaps even good looking in the by water of the town where he grew up. His nose is retroussé, ‘cute as a little button,’ his grandmother or his aunts would say, not knowing they were planting the seed of a self-regard that would ultimately as it does for everyone fail with the passage of time. He certainly wasn’t even in a fraternity, not recently enough to matter anyway. Like Peter Pan was suspended somewhere in limbo between a boyhood of ugly scenes as the boys at school taunted him calling him a sissy, or perhaps even more painful, ignoring him, leaving him out of their games, and later their parties, suspended between the nightmare of a small town and the onslaught of life’s ultimate humiliation, old age, and for the men in the Nickel old age came come sooner than for others.
In this place, for now he can escape his twilight existence. Here he can gesture and giggle safe from his childhood bullies; he can smile at strange men without fear, stare at beauty without beauty threatening to hurt him for looking. And he can entertain fantasies that he might just accidentally, by some act of Fate, look out on the room and see one of his tormenters, one of the bullies standing against a wall and then he will let go of a searing scar in his heart, and forgive himself for having a crush on one of the cruel boys in middle school. And when he can forgive himself, he can then in his fantasy forgive the bully who hurt him, hurt his body and hurt his heart.
And so like a pilgrim he came to the Nickel again and again hoping for the impossible to happen yet unwilling or unable to admit that the youth of his sacred search had beat him up out of sheer, pointless cruelty, in an act of blind pointless violence, and accident, a mere whim of Fate forgotten and meaningless.
With each shadow that blocked the red light at the entrance he turned again in a twinge of hope. Not him; well maybe the next one; not tonight, well then the next.
His brow furrowed he scanned the hustlers across the room. He looked for the man who had looked back, a gesture of interest that stirred up hope again.
“You think you know him, huh?” the suit said intruding in the other’s deep thoughts.
“Maybe you had him before and you couldn’t place the… face!” the suit said with a smirk. “You guys and your games of hide and seek,” he said, tension in his voice.
For a man like him his subterfuge was a magic spell that wears off too soon so he must act quickly. Now he is a Prince, with money, and willingness to spend but as the night wears on he, his eagerness is tainted by desperation. When the spell wears off he will turn back into a married man, children too, driving across the 14th Street Bridge to one of the countless tract houses that stretch west all the way to West Virginia.
He glared at the visitor, perhaps he’s reminded again of what had frightened him into marriage and the apparent normalcy of a life in the suburbs, afraid he might become a caricature of youth wearing clothes too young for him and looking silly in front of strangers.
“Well, what’s keeping you?” the object of his scorn hurled back. “I see you’re still sitting here.”
“I’m not in a hurry,” he said almost believing it himself.
“He’s back,” the suit said glancing at the wall across the room.
“Who?” the visitor asked.
“Oh, c’mon,” the suit bellowed. “That body builder you’ve been cruising all night.”
The visitor glanced across the room. The big man with black hair has returned. He held a bottle of beer by the neck.
“I have not been cruising him all night,” the visitor said coyly. He’s beginning to enjoy his talk about the other men in the Nickel saying the words out loud without fear.
“Oh now we have technicalities,” the suit sneered.
There was a pause then both men break out laughing enjoying their little conspiracy, suddenly relieved that anyone, everyone who heard them is thinking the same thing.
After they stop laughing, the visitor said “Well maybe I looked at him once or twice.” He admits.
“He’s very… big,” he added. And he identifies what sets this hustler apart from his competition. While the others are athletic they are boy like in their proportions; kids in high school or college. This hustler is a clearly fully developed man: tall, thick in the chest and thighs. It’s his small mouth and something sad and fragile about his eyes that suggest vulnerability.
“What would we talk about?” the visitor asked. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“Yeah,” the suits said rolling his eyes, “there’s an awful lot there to cover. I bet you’ll think of something.” He smirked again, a twist of his incongruously thin lips. “Anyway he’ll know what to say and what to do.”
The visitor looked momentarily alarmed. His coy mirth failed him and solemnly he said, “What if he tries to hurt me?”
The suit reared back.
“Not that one; he’s a bit old that mellows them out; it’s the young ones, the really young ones that you have to watch for. And they know if they get a bad rep on the street the word goes out here and anywhere. The management finds out and they can’t come in here. It’s the ones in the Park, in the rest areas and restrooms that ya gotta watch out for. That and those personal ads,” the suit sounded concerned. “You’re better off… coming here or going to the baths where they sort out the weirdos,” he said.
The visitor’s eyes light up. He has been watching the Big Hustler for a while now and a quickening of his expression and his hands has come over him. If he had been wearing a necktie he would have reached up and smoothed it out and pinched the knot at his neck. Instead he brushed his palms across both temples and behind his ears to push down a few stray hairs. A transformation overcame him changing even his posture. Whereas before he had hunched over shoulders and held his arms as if protecting himself from attack, he now stood straight up and squares his shoulders.
He strode over towards the wall where the Big Hustler posed. The hustler’s arm bulged when he holds the beer bottle up and to his lips, emptied the bottle, then looked at it and put it down on a narrow shelf underneath neon signs that spells out Nickel Beer. When he turns around the visitor, now standing next to him, said something with a curt nod of his head. The hustler man nodded in return. The visitor walked to another end of the bar. When he returned he hands the big hustler another beer.
There was again a brief exchange and now both men nod to each other. They each drank from their bottles and then they were on the move. The visitor with a quiet step led the way while the Big Hustler followed in an idle saunter. He walked with a deliberate nonchalance, saying that he’s in no hurry that nothing’s gonna happen until he gets there which is true. They both disappeared into the smoky distant end of the roof bar. There a stair goes down to an alley that on warm nights is crowded by men who can’t or won’t wait to find a room or drive to an apartment. The suit watched them through narrowed eyes.
“Huh!” he grunted to the other man at his elbow at the bar. “Go figure. The country mouse grew balls,” he says. He waved at the bartender.
“Two more, one for my friend here.” He bellowed, before he looked at the murky far end of the far.
“His sure gonna get a lot for his money.” He nodded to no one in particular.
“What’s his name…” he snapped his thumb and fingers together a couple times. “Drake, no, no call boy calls himself Drake. Not a piece of beef like that. It’s aw,” his voice trailed off.
“Anyway I was kinda surprised to see him still working. I even saw him on the st
reets still doing that thing he does with his shoulders.” He does a twist of his shoulders and turns his head “You know what I mean, it makes his chest and neck pop out. Used to wow ‘em down on the farm I guess.”
“He’s getting a little shopworn, you know what I mean? Everybody in town’s had him by now. He mighta been able to snag a sugar daddy when he was younger, when he was still fresh, some retired admiral in Georgetown, a judge but…” the suit looked out at the smoky air, the shimmering shards of orange and blue and yellow neon. He searched the air as if the answer to the hustler’s questionable life was floating just out of reach.
“Yeah I know him alright. He’d go with me a couple times, kinda regular thing like. But he started drinking too much and he’s moody, snapping his fingers to the music, dancing to the music at Blue Moon. He was something to see, a big guy like that shaking his butt like a girl, then the next minute he’d be all sad staring at his drinks not saying anything. He’d start telling stories about when he was in California, San Francisco for a while. You know how everybody goes to San Francisco sooner or later. But that didn’t work out, too cold or too uptight. So he goes to Los Angeles. It’s sunny there and he liked the beaches. He meets some kinda agent. Says he can get you in the picture and the kid takes the bait hook line and sinker,” the suit said with arched eyebrows.
“Then right away he’s living in some glass walled box in the hills with this agent guy and going to parties in other glass houses up in one canyon or another. He’s getting into it, seeing the stars, the celebrities. Funny thing though the agent guy doesn’t actually introduce him to anyone, he just takes the big kid around with him, walks in with him then goes off shaking everybody’s hand and repeating ‘Sweetie Baby’ over and over again… but it’s okay, he’s going to parties hanging out at the pool, everything going on by the pool.
But the thing about following the agent around like a big-boned puppy bugged him… he doesn’t get it yet. You know ‘cause you don’t introduce your pet dog to everybody.
So one day the agent said ‘you need head shots.’ He means photos to send around town to agencies and directors. So the kid, he was still young then goes to a warehouse in the valley past the big studios in the city and up over the hills until he comes to the address, this warehouse with a door and a sign that says Gallo Canyon Studios, only there’s no canyon around just these flat streets and warehouses and strip malls.
So he rings a buzzer and the door opens and he’s all excited because he thinks he’s going somewhere on his way to becoming Somebody.
He sees that he’s inside like an airplane hangar; there’s people carrying around lights and pushing furniture around on dollies, even plumbing like whole bathrooms and jail cells. Somebody with a clipboard comes up to him.
‘And you are?’ says this weasly skinny guy with really pale skin.
When he tells that his agent had sent him, the clipboard guy rolls his eyes and runs a pencil down his clipboard.
‘Yeah yeah,’ he says. ‘Yeah here you are,’ and he makes a check mark on some kinda list. The guy looks him over like he’s measuring him.
‘Right’ says the clipboard. All around them are people running back and forth shouting at each other. But off in another part of this dark giant cave, he sees the white hot glow of bright lights and he’s excited again for the first time in a long while; he’s right here getting closer to that big ball of light glowing up there, a star shining gold on everyone, and everyone around him is rushing closer and closer to the light as if caught in a whirlpool drawing everything into its swirling vortex.
And he feels the same impulse and he feels pulled along by these men pushing carts and dollies step by step towards the great ball of… fire hanging in the air, in great swaths and flashes above their heads. As he gets closer he feels the air grow warmer and he sees a strange silhouette and the outline of one of those bucket cranes and the strange outline becomes the figure of a man carrying a camera on his shoulders, the light casting a shadow of one of those whaddyamacallets -- a praying mantis, a giant bug, the one that eats its men. He’s spooked at first until he makes out the cameraman and his camera gliding in the air over the white hot dome.
‘Hey whaddya doing over here?’ the cupboard guy is at his shoulder waving the clipboard of authority in the wonderland of this warehouse.
‘You’re supposed to be in wardrobe and makeup… I’ll take you by your paw-- I mean hand, and take you there.’
And the guy grabs his hand, his fingers squeezing. Only couple fingers because that’s all he can grip and pulls him to a door in a wall but there is no ceiling, it’s just walls and above him is the faint glow with a flash here and there like embers flying off a bonfire. He feels like he’s high; everything clear and sharp, mirrors line one wall surrounded by light bulbs.
‘Well, come on’ the clipboard guy says and he rolls his eyes. ‘Do I have to do everything!?’ he says almost shrieking the words.
“Get your clothes off.”
He hears the words but doesn’t move.
“You gotta get into costume. Oh com’on.” The skinny guy says. “You must be really straight off the farm.
“Here, try this on,” he says and holds up jeans cut off to the crotch.
In silence he peels off his jeans, to reveal his white discount store shorts, and then he pulls his t-shirt over his head. He stands, his arms hanging loose.
“Okay,” drawls the clipboard. He nods his head several times.
“You won’t need those either,” clipboard says.
The dressing room lights warm his skin, it feels almost like the sun at the beach.
“Finally,” the clipboard says.
He stands completely bare, his skin is finely textured, unblemished and glints of light flicker in the dark hair across his groin.
“Now put this on,” the clipboard says and hands him a jar of dark goo.
“It’s tan number 5 or whatever but I call it Roughneck Rouge,” the clipboard says laughing at his own joke.
The big kid takes the pot of colored cream and a little sponge. He gestures helplessly, losing his train of thought so fast is everything coming at him. The clipboard, rooms without ceilings, the shapeless dark as if he’s on a planet in black outer space.
“No put the base on, that’s what it’s called first, and then the costume.”
The kid is numb he hears but he can’t do anything.
The clipboard guy looks at him for a moment.
“Well, maybe you didn’t need it; that tan line is pretty hot,” the clipboard says. Then he reaches up and grips the Big Kid’s jaw and turns his face this way and then that way like his look over beef cattle at an auction, and he searches the face looking closely at his eyes and his nose and his mouth.
“Okay, you’ll do,” the clipboard says and releases his grip. “Gayla doesn’t like pimples, they show too red on camera.”
“Who?” he manages to ask.
“Gayla, Gayla, the director, that’s who. C’mon you’re in the next scene-- put on the costume.”
He looks at the cutoff jeans, his eyebrows bunched his eyes squinting. They’re like any other pair of cut offs, if shorter than any he has ever found in his own closet. The kind of cut offs seen everywhere during summer, frapped edges and faded creases, girls and boys wear them; children, adults; he’s seen them somewhere he can’t remember but the limp folds of denim seem almost sinister. He hears the clipboard say something, his voice echoing from a faraway place and he rouses himself.
Though the so-called costume is hardly more than a scrap of blue cloth in his big hands, he pulls them up around the calves and thighs and over his butt until he can’t pull them up higher, the waist band rides just above the base of his cock, inches below his belly button. He pulls hard to get the metal button into the button hole, but his stomach is flat and hard and his free of any soft fat so the waist just presses against muscle without anything spilling over.
He looks up, drops his arms to hang at his side
, his big chest standing up and proud, his cock an outlined curve in the jeans and a hairbreadth away from slipping out into full view.
“Yeah, that’s right,” the clipboard says nodding his head.
And again he is back in the wall-less cave, the white hat corona of light even brighter now and he thinks he hears it whispering to him.
After a few steps he feels an unfamiliar draft as he has now fallen out of his costume and he has to stop to push his cock back into the cutoff jeans. This happens again and again and so busy is he making these adjustments that before he knows it he is standing looking up at the giant insect that sports a single black glass eye.
Again he feels heat coming from the great white sun, he sees the outlines of figures that block his view and the great arch-- a rainbow arch but pure white, so strong it makes him squint.
Everyone is standing around someone who, sitting in a chair, is gesturing wildly. There is more shouting then complete silence as the camera insect snakes slowly through the air towards the blazing whiteness; it moves slowly and with great deliberation, almost with tenderness; gently, hypnotizing the prey before it.
Chapter 28
Madame X has walked hours here, within walking distance to the Capitol and the FBI. A weedy parking lot, picket fence, new construction, thanks to the bankers, bankers who would never ever set foot on this block day or night. As though Madame X is on safari, she wore a tight mini skirt in a leopard print that stopped at mid-thigh and black boots with tower-like heels. Her figure was voluptuously full in the breasts and hips and narrow at the waist. Her makeup of huge fire alarm red lips and iridescent eye shadow broadcast clear across the four lanes of traffic.
In competition with her for the Johns are the street whores. Madame X prefers to call herself an escort, thank you; then come prostitutes charging the same hourly rate as an associate in a downtown law firm, and at the bottom, the homeless addicts who come and go, one day showing up from nowhere worth remembering and disappearing into a John’s car. Sometimes never to be seen again.