Alter Boys

by Chuck Stepanek

  It was too much. Demon embarked on a convulsing fit of laughter that could not be contained. He blindly swiped at his pants, bobbed his head up and down and finally collapsed back into the seat laughing and moaning, turning his head from side to side and loving every minute of it.

  It was as good a cue as any. The Bird fired the Falcon and they headed toward Valley street.

  Chapter 4

  1

  “Later man!” The Bird deposited Demon and his bike unceremoniously in front of the house, and was gone.

  Demon stood stock still, focusing on the receding tail lights while his peripheral vision spaced out on the silent sleeping neighborhood.

  He licked the inside of his mouth, wishing he had bought more than just the M & M’s, much, much more! Munchies, the Bird had called it. He had the munchies.

  There was nothing on the level of munchies to be found inside his house, this he knew. Still he turned toward away from the curb, and trundled his bike up the walk.

  Approaching the house; his minds-eye previewed what lay inside 621 South Valley street. It made him wince. He feared not of his parents interrogating him about the late hour and where he had been, they were always asleep regardless of how late he got home. But he still held a curious disdain for everything within. It wasn’t just the lack of munchies, it was everything; even the once cherished television.

  Tonight he had discovered that it had all been a lie. He had wasted the first part of his life in a shell. But now, through the magic of pot (‘bob’ - his mind corrected) that shell had been laced with seam-line cracks in a few areas, and outright displacement of the exterior in others.

  He was seeing out, which was enlightening. But at the same time, the world could now see in (Don’t go there! You don’t want to go there!) which was unnerving.

  Having chained his bike, he entered the unlocked house and headed toward the bathroom. The urge to pee, legitimate this time. With his stance he addressed the bowl, his hands unclenched his belt, and his eyes he froze in alarm.

  His fly was open.

  The splatter of peanut fragments and brown spittle had decorated more than his pants, the exposed oval of his underwear had also taken a direct hit.

  Blood rushed up to his neck and face as he mentally retraced his steps seeking the origin of his error.

  Hill 14. He had stood in the weeds staring at the lights, the rotting farm, the stars, all the while with his works undone and his bladder unrelieved. Then the Bird had said something and he… snapped? Buckled? Zipped? He couldn’t remember.

  Based upon what he was now observing, he had been successful with the first two but had omitted the third.

  Leaving his fly open? It was something that had never happened before. Of all of the principle life skills, toileting was about the only one he had ever mastered.

  And now this.

  He mentally scrolled ahead from hill 14. The Bird hadn’t said anything, probably hadn’t noticed in the darkened car, but then they had stopped at 7-11. Demon’s gorge suddenly swelled in his throat. He saw himself standing at the entrance in full view of the clerk. And hadn’t there been something about the way the clerk looked at him?

  The image disturbed him badly. Demon tried to hide it away in that deep dark chamber reserved for such matters, but it refused to budge. The pot made it all too real.

  Anxious to move on to something else, anything else, Demon tugged at his underwear and positioned his penis.

  Again, he couldn’t go. The urge was there, he could feel the pressure of his bladder, but the stream simply refused.

  An odd sensation of being watched crept into Demon’s temples. But no one else was in the bathroom and the door was closed. The only one watching was him. He became conscious of the silence of the room. It unnerved him. The splash of his urine in the bowl would create a sound…the sound of peeing. A sound that he was afraid others (beyond the bathroom) could hear.

  Again, like on hill 14, his mind willed himself to go, his body declined.

  Nothing.

  He finally had to rely on an old option. He turned away from the toilet, lowered his pants fully, and sat down.

  Relief was not immediate, but the sensation that it would eventually arrive was comforting. He turned his mind away from his straining bladder and diverted his attention to his lowered pants.

  A new discovery. The legs and cuffs were covered with foxtail and bramble. Again, hill 14.

  He bent forward to pluck at the weeds but: “Not in here!” Roared the voice of Boone the bone man Merrill.

  Demon snapped back on the toilet, a tiny jet of alarmed urine escaping his urethra.

  He shifted his focus back from pants to penis. It would be best to solve things one at a time and in order of urgency. With the seal now broken he felt he could compel the rest. And that he did. It took a series of starts and stops. Each stop prompted by random images and feelings both recent and long forgotten and hidden. He took extraordinary care to direct his stop-and-go stream to the silent porcelain and not the noisy water.

  Eventually, his bladder signaled his brain, relaying the message that the job was complete. His brain shot back ‘no, feel the pressure, the bladder is never completely relieved.’

  Demon wavered. He coaxed out four more drops, each plinking the water and creating a tiny ripple, and only then did he feel satisfied.

  He rose and re-did his pants, taking special note to zip and cover his candy-coated underwear. He reached for the flush handle, but caught himself. Flushing would signify that he was done in the bathroom. He still had work to do.

  The weed encrusted pants could wait. Right now there was a siren song coming from the bathroom mirror. Being stoned had changed how the world looked, and that would have included him. He had to see himself in the mirror.

  Demon moved into view not knowing what to expect; what he saw was abhorring. Nesting in the corners of his mouth were peanut fragments, and his lower lip and chin displayed speckles of chocolate splatter. An enterprising foxtail had lodged under his right arm. His hair (although not greasy) was a disheveled mess. But most abhorring of all, a clear ring of laughter-induced mucus framed the bottom of one nostril and was threatening precariously to graduate into a runner.

  The magic of the night evaporated and paranoia set in.

  From the mirror came voices. The Bird: ‘Ha! Fuckin’ A. Tricked you Demon didn’t I!’ Had the Bird tricked him, let him make a fool out of himself for his own pleasure? No. The Bird would never do that, at the prospector the Bird had helped him. Still, there was a nagging hint of suspicion. The 7-11 clerk. He had seen the weeds and open barn door and then had smirked at him in a funny way. ‘The munchies are over there.’ He knew. Demon recoiled at the memory and vowed never to set foot in the 7-11 again.

  The siren song of the mirror had become sirens of panic. The panic led to action.

  Demon looked furtively for a washcloth, hand towel, even a rag to scrub his shame from his face. The room was empty. He re-scanned and again found nothing. Finally, while contemplating the momentous task of exiting the bathroom to retrieve a wash cloth from the closet, he spotted a dried up rag on the edge of the sink.

  Had it been there all along?

  He picked it up and turned the hardened mass over and over in his hands trying to puzzle out the disappearing/reappearing act just performed.

  He reached for the hot water handle and stopped short.

  Water makes noise. He had performed all of his bathroom duties tonight in exquisite silence. Turning the tap would mean water splashing in the sink, the whine of water pressure coursing through the pipes, the pipes that ran through the house and could awake his parents and alert them that he was in the bathroom doing god knows what.

  But a dry rag was useless.

  Carefully he eased open the tap. The sound was tame to his ears but cataclysmic to his mind.

  He wet down the rag, bending out the brittle folds, until he had a flattened sopping panel of fabric. Without looking, he sc
rubbed viciously at his face, the warmth of the cloth soothing, the awareness of what he was removing, humiliating.

  Finished, he gently snicked open the medicine cabinet, taking great care not to catch a glimpse of himself in the swinging mirror, and retrieved his comb.

  He dragged the comb through his hair and then dared a look in the mirror.

  Better. But not quite. Some of his hair was just a little out of place. He made the adjustment, but now the other side was off. Another correction. For the next five minutes, he combed and re-combed obsessively to find balance. The fact that, in a few minutes, he would be in bed; his hair again disheveled, went unrecognized.

  As he combed, Demon began to observe dried specks of white on the face of the mirror. Toothpaste; his mind prompted; my toothpaste. One large white bubble in particular peered at him accusatorily.

  He dropped the comb into the sink and retrieved the rag. He took to the white blob in deliberate earnest. Rubbing a little, checking, then rubbing some more. The middle of the bubble was easily erased, but the outlining ring took more work.

  Done.

  Then a second stain, this time a streak the size of an eyelash. Demon set to work. And then he saw another and another. As soon as he finished one dit, dot or dash he would discover more that needed cleaning.

  With a paper towel and a few squirts of Windex he could have done the job in 30 seconds. Or he could have not done it all, the dirty mirror having gone unnoticed for years. But there was something about the minutiae of the task he was performing that felt necessary. He kept at it for 10 minutes, examining each section of the mirror and eliminating the marks one by one. And if not for a rather sudden and loud creak of the house settling, he may have been there all night.

  Startled, he dropped the rag into the sink and listened for footsteps.

  Nothing.

  Still it got him moving. He had been in the bathroom far, far, too long and needed out. Now.

  He gripped the door handle and reached for the light switch. First, the light – off, then the door - open. He stepped into the hallway and groped his way, tracing his hands along the wall like a blind man ambulating down a nursing home corridor. The few steps that he needed to cover seemed especially long, but finally his outstretched fingers nudged the frame. He took another step and was rewarded with partial vision.

  In Demon’s room, the streetlight shined unabated through his anemic window curtains. Here he could, as he had always, prepare for bed without the need of any indoor artificial light.

  Sitting on the edge of his bed, he fumbled hopelessly with his shirt buttons. After undoing only the top two, he conceded by pulling the shirt over his head and dropping it on the floor. A jingle of coins hit the hardwood making him jump.

  Money? Where did that…. He picked up the shirt and looked it over. The breast pocket limped slightly and he felt inside. Two quarters. The lighter stuff, dimes and pennies had spilled across the floor. Demon contorted his brain to think, finally landing upon juggling coins, candy and door handles at the 7-11. He considered the task of picking up the coins, then decided it could wait 'til morning. The shirt went back on the floor.

  He kicked off his shoes without unlacing them, then rose slightly, undid his pants and allowed them to drop on top.

  Undressing for bed and redressing in the morning was still a new practice, trying to perform it on the tail end of being stoned, made it damn near impossible.

  As he reclined in bed and groped for his single disheveled blanket, Demon lapsed into mental lethargy. In this one night alone there had been so much: The Bird taking the blame from the bone man; his own confusion over working too fast/working too slow; the incredible ride, cigarettes, music, the hills, bob. There was the daunting task of making a purchase at 7-11, and then the incredible payoff of discovering munchies. He had been mortified by his open fly, the inability to pee, and the embarrassment of being covered with foxtails, and the mixture of peanuts, chocolate and snot that soiled his face.

  All of these things, indeed any one of these things would normally have occupied his mind for hours.

  But he was stoned.

  Demon lay his head on his withered pillow. And where there should have been a kaleidoscope of images from the nights adventures, good and bad, there was only darkness. Within moments, he was asleep.

  It was the most pure form of sleep he had ever experienced. No dreams, no movement.

  Vacant, void, empty.

  Complete.

  Perfect.

  Until he heard the screams of his mother the next morning.

  Part 4

  Sabbatical

  Chapter 1

  1

  The grandfatherly type sat in his parked car on Pershing Drive wishing for things to hurry up. He glanced at his watch, 7:55, then looked longingly at the store. Hoping; hoping that the hand would appear from behind the glass and switch the sign a few minutes prematurely from ‘closed’ to ‘open.’

  It wasn’t that he needed to be anywhere soon, it was just that he wanted to be done and on his way as quickly and discretely as possible.

  7:57, still no hand, still ‘closed.’

  The car that he was driving was a nondescript rental, as it was each time he visited the twin cities. His trench coat, far too much, even by Minnesota standards; for late May. Throw in the sunglasses and Greek fisherman’s cap and you had all the makings of an east coast gangster.

  But gangster he was not; the easy lines of his face could tell you that. ‘I am a man you can come to, I can listen to your worries and respond with compassion,’ they broadcast to all who gazed upon them.

  7:59

  And he was that man. The man that people turned to for consolation. The man who gave them hope when things looked darkest. The man who christened their births, celebrated their marriages, mourned their dead.

  8:00

  The man who raped their children.

  By necessity Gustavus Milliken took great pains to hide his dirty secret. Ergo the rental sedan for the 70 mile trip from Elmwood, ergo the get-up of coat, hat and shades, and ergo the early morning hour, when he could get in and out of the store with minimal risk of human interaction. Other than the clerk that is; and the slimy weasel behind the counter hardly qualified as human.

  8:02

  “Shit on a shingle!” Gus looked nervously along Pershing Drive; still barren of traffic. But even in this seedy commercial district people would soon be moving about as the day progressed.

  A glint caught his eye and he turned back to the store.

  “Open” he had missed the hand, but only by a moment. The sign swung lazily as the suspension cord settled on the hook.

  Gus checked himself in the rearview. The cap and shades helped, but could not conceal him entirely. He wished for a spot of rain or a cold blustery wind to justify it, but turned up the collar of the trench coat just the same, notching the top button into its socket to seal the deal.

  What was left, was forehead, cheeks and chin. All other identifying elements, save for his hands, concealed. And these he stuffed, after exiting the car, deep into the pockets of the trench.

  He crossed Pershing slowly; just an elderly gentleman who had suffered his share of fantastically cruel winters, and took no chances by overdressing. An old man out for his morning walk, perhaps he was on his way to the corner mart to pick up muffins and dried prunes for breakfast. Or maybe he was headed to the newsstand for the latest issue of The New Yorker and a couple of White Owl cigars.

  Or maybe, for anyone so inclined to watch, he could just be another dirty old man making a beeline for the corporate headquarters and sole location, prominently displayed on the vertical sign, of

  EXtreme

  EXotica

  EXchange

  Gus gripped the door handle through the fabric of the trench. As he stepped in he was awash with feelings of reservation, both for the violation of his sacred vows and for the chance of discovery.

  The clerk merely looked at him and then r
eturned to priming the cash register.

  Gus didn’t need a greeting (didn’t want one). And he didn’t need directions. He headed straight to the back room.

  He browsed for a few moments, not at all interested in the merchandise, but as a method to determine if anyone else was in the store. He wove his way back to the front, glancing down each aisle to ensure privacy, and then approached the clerk.

  “Boys room.” The statement was brief, the meaning immense. This time the clerk took much greater interest in his customer. He didn’t look familiar, but he did know the codeword. Child porn may not be their biggest item, but if fetched a great price and usually a handsome tip for the seller. The fact that it was highly illegal, jail-time illegal, made it a risky proposition.