Dreamspinner Press Year Nine Greatest Hits

by Michael Murphy

  “I need to get it cut.”

  “Don’t. I like it like this. It’s soft. Christ, I can’t wait to be able to touch it again with both hands.”

  Jimmy looked forward to that too. He loved Shane’s hands. Of course, he loved other parts of Shane too, like his so-blue eyes and his crooked nose, and the point of his chin, and his collarbones and bony shoulders, and his peaked nipples, and every one of his ribs, and his scars, and the deep divot of his navel, and….

  Fuck. Jimmy loved Shane.

  He didn’t want to. Love was the very worst hope of all, and he knew he was setting himself up for a long, hard fall. But he couldn’t stop himself, not anymore.

  What was Icarus thinking as he plummeted toward the sea? Had those short minutes of soaring flight been worth it?

  Jimmy chased these thoughts from his head with the taste of Shane’s skin. Soon Shane was writhing beneath him—sometimes accidentally bonking Jimmy with his splint—moaning a litany of expletives and pleas. What a gift to know a man well enough to reduce him to desperation so quickly! And what a gift to have him know you just as well.

  After an eternity licking and sucking on Shane’s balls and rigid cock, Jimmy reached for the lube and a rubber. He slowly rolled the condom onto Shane, watching Shane bite his lip at the contact.

  “Wish we could bareback,” Shane said breathlessly. “Don’t like anything between us.”

  Jimmy wished it too, but he hadn’t always played safe, especially in his younger days. The last time he’d been tested, the results were all negative, but it had been a while. He was willing to take risks on his own behalf, but no way in hell would he chance passing something nasty to Shane.

  “Just watch,” Jimmy said. Because he’d realized recently that Shane truly liked to look at him too. It was a heady thing, knowing his partner wanted him specifically. Jimmy Dorsett, who’d never been especially wanted before.

  He poured some lube onto his fingers and, still straddling Shane, began to stretch himself. Shane’s eyes went wide—the blue almost obscured by shining black pupils—and his fingers rhythmically extended and contracted. “I could come just watching you,” he rumbled.

  “Then I’d be disappointed, because I really, really want to ride you.”

  “Oh, fuuuck!”

  Jimmy was more than ready for him but chose to draw things out a few minutes longer just to see the raw need on his lover’s face. But then Shane began to stroke Jimmy’s cock. A bit awkwardly due to the off hand, but no less effectively. Jimmy couldn’t wait any longer. He positioned himself carefully, guided Shane to his ass, and then slowly impaled himself.

  “Oh, fuck,” Shane repeated. No, that was Jimmy this time, keening with pleasure as he flexed his thighs.

  What Shane said was “Ride ’em, cowboy,” and that made Jimmy laugh even as Shane’s dick sent happy little sparklers through his body and his hand milked him roughly. Jimmy stuffed his hand in his mouth to stop from howling like a wolf. He did not want to disturb the guests and incur the wrath of Belinda. But with a surprisingly deft twist of his wrist, Shane brought him to a roaring, shuddering climax. He retained just enough awareness to watch as Shane arched his neck and gasped through his own orgasm.

  Eventually they cleaned up a little, switched off the light, and settled into each other’s arms.

  ALTHOUGH JIMMY woke up early, Shane got to sleep in. Jimmy didn’t bother to shower since tilework was messy. Shane smiled at him from bed as Jimmy dressed in his grungiest T-shirt and his older pair of jeans. “Wear the wool shirt,” Shane said with yawn. “You’ll be cold when you open the window for ventilation.”

  “It’ll get dirty.”

  “So we’ll get it cleaned. Besides, I have two more.” It had become sort of a running joke between them.

  Jimmy laced up his boots and walked to the bed to give Shane a kiss and a quick grope. “Need help with anything before I go?”

  “Nah. I can handle it.” Even with the splint on, he could move his fingers just enough to get his jeans on and button them. Boots were a bigger challenge, so he’d regretfully opted for slip-on shoes for the time being.

  “Okay. Call if you need me.” One more kiss and Jimmy left.

  Belinda informed him that the guests in 203 had checked out early, so Jimmy began by replacing the bulb. While he was in the room, he noticed that the crown molding had come loose from the wall in one corner, so he quickly fetched a ladder, hammer, and nails for a repair. By the time he finished, the tile was arriving. The delivery guys took it off the truck, but he had to haul it to 105 on his own. He considered checking in on Shane but decided against it. Shane was probably back to sleep, and Jimmy didn’t want to disturb him.

  The previous week Belinda had bought him a tile saw. He kept it in the basement because it was too noisy to use near the guests. He carefully measured the bathroom, marked the tiles that needed cutting, and took them downstairs. He knew Belinda would be pissed off if he wasted any, so he cut carefully. It took longer than he had planned. He dragged them back upstairs and started spreading the thinset. It was a good long time before he placed all the tiles; thank heavens Belinda hadn’t opted for a complicated pattern.

  As he set the last tile, his stomach growled angrily. He stood, groaned at the ache in his knees, and peeked at the bedroom alarm clock. It was one fifteen—over two hours past his usual brunch time. Where the hell was Shane?

  Oh fuck. What if he’d had another seizure? It wouldn’t be too awful if he was in bed at the time, but what if he’d been in the bathroom or the living room? He could have hit his head on any number of things. He could have refractured his arm, or busted a leg, or….

  With as much dignity as he could manage, Jimmy rushed to the apartment.

  But when he opened the door, Shane was sitting on the couch. Just sitting there, a piece of paper held in his good hand. His head was bowed, making his expression hard to read.

  “Shane? Is everything all right?”

  Shane didn’t look up. “I was cleaning up the place. A surprise for you. I even did the laundry. And when I went to put your clothes in your drawer, I found this. It had my name on it, so I opened it. Took me a long time to make sense of the writing.”

  Authors write about hearts dropping, and Jimmy always thought that was a load of literary bullshit. But now his heart really did drop, and it sat like a stone in the pit of his belly. His knees went weak too, but he managed to walk to the armchair and sit down. He waited.

  Now Shane looked up at him and licked his lips. His eyes were bleak. “How did you get this, Jimmy?”

  All sorts of stories came to mind. He found it in a room at the inn, or in the basement. He wrote it himself as some kind of exercise in… he didn’t know what. George “Rattlesnake” Murray appeared in the middle of the bar and handed it over.

  “I was in the desert going nowhere in particular. I picked up a hitchhiker because he looked cold. His name was Tom Reynolds. He told me… he told me he had a son, and he had regrets, and he was going to Rattlesnake to deliver a letter.” He spoke quietly, without meeting Shane’s gaze. “And he died in his sleep while I was driving. Peacefully. I didn’t even notice until I stopped the car in Fresno. I called the cops and they investigated, but after I got my car back, I found the letter. I guess I could’ve handed it over to the police, but I decided to deliver it myself. So I drove here and I came looking for you.”

  “But you didn’t give it to me.” Shane spoke barely above a whisper.

  “No. It’s just… once I gave you the letter, I knew you’d want me gone. And the Snake was nice. Peaceful. A good place to rest for a bit. I kept meaning to leave, to keep from hurting you. But you were so goddamn handsome and you treated me kindly and….” He trailed off miserably.

  “You said you were just passing through, and it was a lie. Another fucking lie, just like all the stories you tell. And every minute we’ve been together since, that’s been a lie too.”

  No, Jimmy wanted to say. That’s been tr
ue. But he didn’t. He just hung his head.

  “Is there anything about you that’s not a lie, Jimmy?”

  Jimmy lifted his head and finally looked at him. “No. You know what I am? I’m a ghost. I know I told you I don’t believe in ghosts, but that’s a lie too. I believe because I am one. Tom was too, even when he was still alive. People like us—there’s a lot of us, but nobody sees us. We work a nothing gig for a few days or a few weeks and we move on. We live in crap motels and crap apartments if we’re lucky, under bridges and in empty buildings if we’re not. And when we die, nobody misses us. Nobody claims our ashes.”

  Shane flinched as if he’d been slapped. “How can you say that? How can you think that? You think you had a hard life and that makes it okay? Well, look at me.” He stood and spread his arms, one of them splinted. “You think I meant to end up like this? I was strong, goddammit. And smart. Did I tell you I graduated second in my class? And now I’m a skinny-ass bartender who can’t fucking read a newspaper, who can’t drive a car, who can’t even pull on his own fucking boots!” He was shouting by the end, red spots of anger on his cheeks. Jimmy hoped it wouldn’t trigger a seizure, but he didn’t say so.

  Jimmy stood—very slowly—and started for the door.

  “You’re gonna run, aren’t you?” Shane yelled. “’Cause that’s what you do. I told you before—you’re not running to anything. You’re running away. Always running away. Why can’t you fucking stand your ground just for once?”

  Jimmy stopped and turned slightly toward him. “It’s easy to stand your ground when you have an army at your back.”

  “Bullshit,” Shane growled.

  “Look, I’m not saying your burdens are easy ones. I’d never say that. But you have a mother who’d wade into a den of rabid lions to save you. My mama regretted having me and never let me forget it. She never once told me she loved me, not even when she knew she was dying. You have a huge family ready to do anything for you. I had three brothers who liked to remind me I was only their half brother, who beat me up when I was little and turned away when I was older. You have Adam, a good man who loves you fiercely. I had a string of my mother’s boyfriends who ignored me at best, hit me at worst. And then there was Robert, who ra—who was the biggest bastard of them all. You had a ranch to live on, practically heaven on earth, and an inn after that. I had a series of roach-infested shacks and apartments, and then when I was fourteen, I didn’t even have that. Your first job was as a cowboy. Mine was as a whore. And goddammit, you even had Tom, and for a few years there he loved you, he sang you to sleep and sat on the porch with you. He thought about you even when he was deep in the bottle. I don’t even have a father’s name on my birth certificate.”

  His heart was no longer a stone; it was a heavy pill that spilled acid, spilled poison. And really, it had always been that—he’d just pretended otherwise.

  “I’m sorry, Shane. And that’s not a lie. But I can’t be what you need, what you deserve. You can call me a coward and you’d be dead right. I’m… it’s like some stupid country song… I’m just an empty old wrapper blowing in the breeze, and that’s all I’ll ever be.”

  When Shane answered, his voice dropped to hardly above a whisper. “You’re lying to yourself too.”

  “I liked it here. If anyplace could have been my home…. Well, no point dwelling on it. Take good care, Shane. Can’t ask you to forgive me, but forgive yourself, and think about forgiving Tom. You know, if there’s any justice in the world, a man like you has got some good things coming to him.”

  And before Shane could say anything else, Jimmy walked out the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  JIMMY DORSETT left the Rattlesnake Inn with only his good work boots and the dirty clothes he wore. But his wallet was in his pocket, and it contained several hundred dollars—enough to tide him over for some time. The only item he regretted leaving was his coat, but he had Shane’s Pendleton shirt, and anyway the weather was growing warm.

  That was a good thing about owning so little: wanting nothing. When you left things behind, it didn’t hurt.

  That burning in his throat? Tile dust. That emptiness inside? Well, he hadn’t eaten all day.

  Belinda didn’t say anything when he walked through the lobby. He was sorry about the unfinished bathroom, but she hadn’t yet paid him for the previous week. That ought to help balance things out.

  Head bowed, he walked down Main Street. He passed the high school, the two churches, the little strip mall, Hank’s gas and garage. He stood at the edge of the highway with his thumb out and waited for a ride.

  He didn’t have to wait long. A pickup truck turned from Main Street onto the highway, slowed, and pulled to the shoulder almost right away. Jimmy groaned when he recognized the driver—a jug-eared man named Brandon who came into the Snake once or twice a week for a couple of beers. He’d gone to high school with Shane. “You need a ride, Jimmy?” he asked after rolling down the window.

  “Yeah. Where are you heading?”

  “Stockton. My mother-in-law lives there and bought a set of dishes for us—I don’t know why, ’cause we already have plenty of dishes—and for some reason she wants us to have them now, only she hates driving and my wife’s gotta work, so—”

  “Stockton is great.” Jimmy hopped into the passenger seat.

  As it turned out, Brandon was a talker. Fortunately he wasn’t much of a listener and seemed satisfied when Jimmy responded with occasional grunts or uh-huhs. And Jimmy paid little attention to Brandon’s long, involved stories about his mother-in-law, his wife, his boss at the lumberyard, his house that needed new gutters, his neighbor with the dog that barked all night, and so on. Jimmy was trying to keep his mind blank and empty. Hoping for nothing, wanting nothing, feeling nothing. Once, in a bus station in Nevada, he’d found an abandoned book on nirvana—the Buddhist kind, not the band—and he’d always imagined that he was attempting a state akin to that. A release of desires that would lead to freedom from suffering. Of course, he never truly reached nirvana, but he continued with his poor substitute. It passed the time.

  “Jimmy?”

  Jimmy came to awareness with a start. “Huh?”

  “I asked where you wanted me to drop you off.”

  “Uh, sorry.” They were on a freeway. He could see a water tower, a tall-spired church, and a small collection of multistoried buildings. “Downtown would be great.”

  “Why the hell do you want to go to downtown Stockton?”

  “I, uh, have an appointment.” What was one more lie in his long history of them?

  Brandon looked dubious, but he took the next exit. “Where downtown?”

  “Uh, in front of that building.” Jimmy pointed.

  When Brandon pulled to the curb, Jimmy jumped out of the truck. “Thanks for the lift.”

  “Want a ride home? I should be back this way in about an hour.”

  Jimmy’s throat tightened. “No, thanks,” he rasped. He shut the door. Still not appearing pleased with the situation, Brandon gave him a little wave before pulling away.

  Downtown Stockton was not promising. A lot of the businesses were boarded up, and the remaining ones looked as though they’d just about given up as well. A few people passed him, but they looked neither happy nor friendly. He found a dingy café, and although he wasn’t hungry, he went inside. Starving himself would only make him sick. He ordered soup and a sandwich, then sat at the window to eat. The proprietor stared at him the entire time, as if she expected him to steal handfuls of mustard packets. He thought fondly of Mae’s and the omelet he missed eating today and the strawberries Shane had promised him.

  He wandered after his meal, but there was nothing much to see, apart from a lot of ghosts like him. When he passed a liquor store, he very nearly went in. Not because he truly craved booze but because he knew he had enough money to drink himself to death—a fate that seemed simpler than any of his other choices. God, he was tired. Only forty-three years old, but he felt eighty.
>
  He’d never questioned the point of his life because he knew there was no point. He worked, he rested, he survived, he moved on. Oh, he’d happened on small moments of grace every now and then. A warm bed somewhere safe. A good book. A stunning sunrise or unexpected vista. That was enough, he’d told himself.

  Now he knew that was a lie.

  He was still rambling aimlessly when he came to the Nomad Inn, a two-story L-shaped structure with scabrous white paint. Young men in the parking lot eyed him with hostility from perches atop their cars, but he ignored them and entered the little lobby, where a greasy-haired clerk stood behind a glass partition. “How much for a room?” Jimmy asked.

  “Fifty.”

  Jimmy put two twenties and a ten into the money slot and, when the clerk opened the glass slightly, signed his name in the old-fashioned ledger book. The clerk gave him a key on a white plastic fob.

  His room was upstairs. It wasn’t the worst place he’d ever stayed, but it was probably in the top ten. It made the Comet look like a luxury hotel. The door had gaps at the top and bottom, and the chain lock was busted as if someone had kicked the door open. Cockroaches crawled fearlessly, and spiders watched him from the ceiling. The mattress dipped so deeply that it was almost V-shaped. A condom floated in the toilet, which lacked a lid. The telephone was missing most of its buttons, a large hole gaped over the bed, and he really did not want to know what fluids had stained the walls and bedding. The Rattlesnake Inn was at least a century older than the Nomad, but the Snake was well cared for, well loved. Nobody had ever loved the Nomad.

  He wasn’t planning a long-term stay anyway. In the morning he’d find the bus station and buy a ticket for the next ride out of town. He’d have tried this afternoon, but even the Nomad was better than sleeping on a Greyhound.

  The curtains didn’t quite cover the window, so he watched the light dim. As night fell, the parking lot grew more active. He heard gunning engines, shouting voices, wailing sirens. Once, gunshots rang out. And twice people pounded on his door—once looking to buy drugs and once offering to sell them.