You Can Never Spit It All Out

by Moore, Ralph Robert

  She had great calves.

  And Kebab no longer wanted to kill himself. That happens.

  A beautiful day.

  Light breeze ruffling the tops of the palm trees, green and blue Caribbean cove filled with sail boats, azure sky above, not a speck, the flats and sharps of briny shrimp, conch, clams bubbling in spiced butter rippling along the seaside street, happy tourists wandering like children, beggars in bright colors dancing barefoot for quarters.

  Down on the beach, a volleyball game.

  Bikinis and bathing trunks choosing up sides.

  Kebab had been thinking about Genevieve a lot, like you think about a favorite Christmas carol, the kinder world it promises. Seeing her everywhere but, getting closer, it turned out it wasn't her. And now he saw her again, on one side of the volleyball net, nodding her head, extending those long arms forward, shaking hands with her selected teammates.

  Except…

  He put down the book he had been reading. Thumb as bookmark. Stared at the girl, waiting for her to speak.

  When she did, he immediately recognized, carried by the breeze, the high, tentative voice.

  It was her. Actually was her, this time.

  Swinging around The One on the Right, The One on the Left, The Other One on the Left, which required strong leg muscles, he steered them all towards the far edge of the street, where it met the beach.

  The four of them walked lopsidedly across the sand, like a centipede moving sideways, steel bar that joined them tilting up, down, towards the others watching the game. He stood next to Francoise, whose long black hair, slicked with gray, was pulled behind his ears.

  She looked great in her red bikini, taller than the other girls on her team. Slapping her hands over her head at the ball, diving sideways, landing on one lovely knee in the sand, laughing good-naturedly at her clumsiness.

  "You are noticing her, I see. Quite a bit."

  "I spoke to her the other night. She seems really nice."

  Francoise said nothing. Prominent bags under his eyes, pond reflections of his eyebrows.

  Kebab noticed Pedro was on her team. Grinning and pointing at her every time he scored a point.

  Slap on Kebab's back. He twisted his neck around.

  Bernard.

  "How's the chorus line doing?"

  Bernard and Kebab were friends.

  Big, big man. Local legend was he once beat an octopus to death. Beak snapping up at him while he bit down into the octopus's brain, then pulled off, suckers popping, the long, dead tentacles draped around his shoulders, ears.

  "Still want you to be in my freak show." Part of Bernard's nightclub act at The Wet Club.

  Kebab stared off, watching Genevieve stalk across the sand, retrieving the ball. "I'm not a freak."

  "Shish, come on. You're four guys stuck to each other!"

  "Well, they may be freaks, but I'm not."

  "What you looking at?"

  "The game."

  "That missy in the red bikini, right? You got good taste."

  Kebab said nothing.

  "Watch and learn. You don't moon from a distance. This is what you do."

  Bernard made his way down the beach to Genevieve's side of the net. In a loud, cheerful voice, "Hey, anyway this guy can get in the game?"

  The players, thrown off their momentum, rebalanced their bare feet in the sand, looked at each other.

  "You in the red bikini, think you can sit out a few volleys so ol' Bernard can get his circulation going?"

  Genevieve looked at Pedro, who ducked his head in indecision.

  "Oh, you're looking at him? Okay. Whaddaya say, Mister? Want to have this on your team?"

  Pedro, holding the ball, which he had been about to punch over the net, shrugged. "Sure."

  "Well, all right then."

  Elbows lifting, Bernard pulled his green and blue palm trees shirt up over his head. From the shirt's yanked-off neck hole, a Popeye grin. Roll of the massive, sunburned shoulders. Curly hair on his chest. Beer and bratwurst stomach that could absorb a lot of bouncing fists.

  He stepped into Genevieve's spot. While she drifted away uncertainly, sat down in the sand.

  Kebab got his crew moving forward, headed towards where she sat, alone.

  Once the game restarted, Bernard was actually kind of not that good. Couldn't move too fast. But by the big smile on his face, he didn't seem to mind. Kebab noticed he kept moving closer and closer to where Pedro stood.

  Kebab, reaching her, smiled. "Hi!"

  She looked up from the sand. "Oh, yeah!"

  "You did really good!" He'd love to sit in the sand next to her, but it'd be too complicated a maneuver. Steel pole and multiple knees?

  Those eyes looking up at his. Friendly. "Really? Gee." Guilty look. "I'm kinda awkward."

  "Not too much."

  Drifting yells and screams of kids farther down the beach.

  Sitting on her red bikini bottom in the sand, ankles drawn up, crossed, knees out. In her private funk. "I'm thinking that big guy asked me to sit out, because he probably thought I was the weakest player. I didn't score any points. I tried, but. " Lowered her head. "I've always been a klutz."

  "Me too! My name's Bob, by the way. We didn't get a chance to properly introduce ourselves the other night."

  "Pedro's kind of impatient. Listen, I really appreciate what you did." Sincere look up at him. Quavering smile.

  Kebab blushed. "I saw you at the bar, and…"

  "It's so hard with guys." She shot him a troubled look. "Do you know what I mean? I just want a guy who makes me feel good about myself. I'm starting to think, maybe I won't ever find that?"

  On Pedro's side of the net, Bernard had by now successfully worked his way over to where he was standing next to her boyfriend.

  The ball sailed over the net towards them.

  Pedro, conscious of being crowded, reached up his arms.

  Bernard slammed sideways into Pedro, knocking him over, hitting the volley ball himself. Not successfully. It arced sideways.

  Pedro, sprawled on the sand, got back to his feet. "Hey, we're on the same team, right? Let's have some manners."

  Befuddled look from Bernard, hands spreading out from his hips.

  A new volley over the net.

  Bernard got in front of Pedro.

  When the ball touched Bernard's outstretched hands, he slid sideways, allowing a bounce off his palms, big thigh slapping against Pedro's left knee. Hard.

  Pedro went down. Ball dribbling behind them across the sand.

  Again, the game stopped.

  Pedro lying on the sand, on his side. Face scrunched up in pain. Trying to extend his left leg. Couldn't.

  A blonde-haired guy on the other side of the net. White sunblock on his nose. "Is he okay?"

  Bernard looked down at Pedro writhing in the sand. Looked across at the blonde-haired guy. Shook his big head.

  Exasperation on both sides.

  "Hey missy, why don't you come back in the game? So we can keep playing."

  Genevieve scrunched her eyebrows at Kebab. "I don't know?"

  "Why don't you let me take you to the Conch Hut and buy you a drink?"

  "Missy! Come on! Can't play if we're one short."

  "I guess I kind of owe it to the team?" As she raised up in her awkward loveliness. Trotted over to Pedro's former position in the sand.

  The game continued.

  And is there a word for the agony that follows? Watching someone you're smitten with getting crowded by a rival? Casual at first, so it's defensible. Bernard's squeeze on her bare shoulder when she misses a shot. Then, getting her more used to his hands on her body, giving her a five-second sideways hug, arm around that thin waist, withdrawing before she can object. And as Kebab watched from the sidelines, helpless, conjoined, the slide of those big fingers up and down the sweat of her bare spine, consoling. The final move, unthinkable ten minutes before, when he hadn't yet started grabbing her, getting her used to it, slapping her ass when th
ey started a new volley. Her surprise at his liberty, but not objecting. By then. At the end of the game, he hugged her face to face, crotch to crotch, too big for her to get free, but she didn't really try to, her mouth opening in confusion. A bird, caught by a cat.

  While Kebab watched from within his curtain of hair, Bernard let her go from his surrounding arms.

  She stood motionless in the sand, blinking. He lifted her elbow, lowered his broad face, bit her on her upper arm.

  She winced at the pain, but then willingly let him slide his arm around her waist. Eyes rolling to Heaven.

  Pedro, still on the sand, working his outstretched leg with his fingers, stared with dark eyes. But did nothing.

  Kebab did nothing.

  On the far side of the net, Bernard, tilting down his lion's face, asked Genevieve something.

  After a moment, toes of her right foot trailing backwards in the sand, she nodded.

  Kebab just stood there, sunlight in his hair, watching the two of them walk away.

  Watched until they were so tiny, they were just dots. Disappearing down a distant side street.

  As the sun threw into relief the thatched roofs of the tourist traps, Kebab steered his men down the main street, narrow as it was, to Five Hole Park.

  Made his way past trees and water drinking fountains to his favorite bush, a large one, sprinkled with small yellow blossoms, growing at the brown bank of a large pond.

  Turning everyone sideways, they stepped into the bush, feet tromping, branches bending back from their thighs.

  Deep within, a small clearing where a section of the bush had died.

  "Okay, everyone on their knees."

  The One on His Right started kneeling, The One on His Left, The Other One on His Left, and Kebab himself.

  Once all eight knees were on the ground, he had them fall back, so they were all lying on their spines.

  "Get some sleep, everyone."

  Of course, he never knew if the other three actually were asleep each time he visited the bush, or if they were just pretending to be asleep. So he'd wait even longer, because someone imitating being asleep usually eventually actually falls asleep.

  Once all three breathing patterns had changed, getting slower, louder, Kebab unzipped his fly. Undid his belt. Raised his hips off the ground. Pulled down his pants. Underpants.

  Nearly erect cock exposed to the cool park air, the moonlight.

  The banana smell of the branches they had broken, getting to this spot.

  Kebab stared up at the stars. Reached his right hand down. Started running his thumb and forefinger up and down the loose length of his cock. He rarely got fully hard, even when he got close, spurted. Fear one of the others would wake (or stop pretending) before he was through. But he got hard enough.

  As he pulled on his cock, he began thinking of his father.

  Those steely blue eyes. That black hair. Strong limbs. Considerate hands.

  But then, he switched to thinking about Genevieve. Her long face, her big teeth, the light in her eyes.

  He kept getting closer, but not to where he ever felt, at the bottom of his cock, the beginnings of an orgasm. He had the gun, but no bullet.

  Heart beating faster and faster in his chest, jerking off furiously, he reached that terrible point where he could feel the circumference and length of his cock between his fingers start to shrink.

  Took his hand off his cock. Stared up.

  Sleepy, Dopey and Grumpy still snoring on either side.

  He hated this. Hated the frustration, hated having three other people with him at all times.

  Hated his despair.

  Try again.

  Genevieve. Naked. Spreading her long, thin legs. He could probably put his hand all around the skinny warmth of thigh just above her bony knee, thumb on one side touching four fingers on the other. Her eyes.

  But no.

  Once again, women were too foreign for him. Having never been with one. Their weird bodies, the way they smelled, though he loved that smell, the way they moved their eyes sideways. Their internal genitals, which he had seen in magazines. He realized again he was not ready, even in his imagination, to slide through the flaps of that mysterious tent.

  When Kebab was a boy (long before he ever became Kebab, and was just known as Bob), when he'd run out of his family's home, escaping, he'd usually wind up in the field of tall grass across the road.

  Wading through that field, grasshoppers on the bent tops of those blades twitching their six legs sideways and forwards, balancing their gray-green weight, he'd carefully cup one in his hands. Carry it with him through the grass, like a pet. Feeling all those jointed legs scrabble, tickling his palms. After it would calm down, or resign itself, he'd continue with it in one palm, stumbling along, looking down at it. Such a fascinating animal. So much larger than other insects. Looking at its big green face, jerking black eyes, he could sometimes figure out what it was thinking. And he'd talk to it. About all the bad things in his young life. And I don't know. Maybe it listened?

  When he'd get ready to leave the field, he'd use a child's care to reattach the grasshopper to the top of a blade, where its weight would cause the tip to dip. Sometimes, afterwards, there'd be black lines in his palm. Had it defecated, scared while he held it? But the soil was easy to brush off with his opposite palm. And then one day, when he was a little older, he was carrying a grasshopper, happy, and the way the insect felt in his palm, its bigness, the way it moved, made him uneasy. It reminded him of when he first got scared climbing a tree, after he had climbed so many previously. Another joy closing off from him, because he was thinking too much, and could no longer stop thinking so much. He never again held a grasshopper.

  He missed his grasshoppers. Like he would have missed a childhood friend, if he had any. The way their front legs would brace themselves forward, like a bull dog. The disproportionately fat girth of their hindmost legs, like chicken drumsticks. Those black oval eyes higher up on the sides of their head than you would expect.

  Hips lifting, lips parting, grunting, he came on his stomach.

  Kebab back at the Cracked Coconut nightclub. In his booth against the wall, in the shadows, with his crew. Where he first saw her, and there she was again, this time with Bernard, at the bar.

  She didn't look happy. Kind of bored. Even her long arms. Lining up peanuts next to her drink. Bernard didn't seem to notice. Big grin to everyone passing by.

  Kebab ordered a hot dog. When it arrived, with its paper napkin, he held it up. "Thank you, Bruckhouser!" Gulp, gulp, gulp. Whiteness of the napkin wiped across his lips.

  Bernard slid off his stool. Headed towards the bathroom.

  Genevieve, looking down at the grain of the bar top.

  "This is for you."

  She looked at the bouquet of yellow flowers he had pulled up at Five Hole Park on his way to the bar. Reared her head back. Flustered, like a woman who doesn't get flowers too often. "Well. My goodness! Thank you."

  Kebab grinned. "I thought of you when I saw them. 'Flowers are the earth's laughter'."

  "Oh!"

  "Ralph Waldo Emerson said that. Or something like that. I've been thinking about you a lot. How have you been?"

  The other three attached to Kebab stood silent. Looking at the walls, the ceiling, the floor.

  "You hitting on my girl?"

  Bernard, coming back, swinging his arms, right hand motioning to the bartender for another beer. Mock-angry, like anyone could really fear competition from Kebab Bob.

  "Maybe."

  The other three tried to distance themselves on their steel pole from Kebab. Not too easy.

  "He's a nice guy, Bernard. He protected me."

  "Listen, I can't take you to the festival tomorrow. Business. I just closed a deal with the guy in the toilet stall next to me."

  Genevieve's obvious disappointment.

  Kebab didn't leave his place next to Genevieve's stool. Even during this private conversation between Genevieve and Bernard
. Hung around like a third, fourth, fifth and sixth thumb. "I could take you."

  Bernard from his standing height, Genevieve from her sitting height, both looking at him.

  Bernard, of course, smirking. "Really."

  Genevieve sat up on her stool. "Yeah! Why not? He's my protector."

  Bernard stood next to the chorus line, arms by his sides. Nodded as the bartender set down his latest beer. Thought about it. "Okay. How much you want?"

  Kebab shook his head. "I'll do it for free."

  The Death by Lightning Festival took place each year on the first weekend in May, in Overlook Park. Before it got too hot. Peaceful green of the park improved with colorful buntings and banners, ribbon-wrapped palm trees, red and yellow balloons, people wandering around in piebald costumes.

  Kebab had cleaned up for his date with Genevieve. Standing under one of the public showers at the beach, naked. Head bowed. Fingers rubbing a hotel packet of shampoo into his long black hair, shut eyes appreciating its perfume. A new white shirt. Set him back. Pants washed in a side street Laundromat. Cost some quarters.

  She was standing by herself, by a cart selling candied apples on a stick. Wearing a fairy tale blue dress. Hands held together at the front of her dress, a good girl waiting to be asked if she wanted to dance. But sunglasses. Hiding?

  "You look beautiful."

  Jerk of her shoulders. She turned around. Okay. Smiled behind her sunglasses at him. Right hand going up, removing the glasses.

  Kebab beaming. "Can I buy you a frankfurter?"

  Her shy smile. "I'd love that."

  By long-standing arrangement, if Kebab bought food for himself, or this first time, for himself and a guest, it was up to the others to decide if they also wanted to buy food, out of their own pockets.

  A few steps away from the frankfurter cart, a park bench.

  Of course, with his chorus line, it was impossible for Kebab to sit "next" to Genevieve. If they sat on the same bench, he'd always be one or two persons away from her. Have to lean across their laps to talk to her. Not too intimate, and another man would have his hip resting on the bench next to her hip. Never before did he so resent, and feel so frustrated by, the other men hanging on him.

  He directed the others over to a bench on the other side of the concrete path. Seized the park bench there, by its back, dragging it noisily across the concrete. Interrupting the strolls of tourists, to maneuver that bench in front of Genevieve's bench. So that he at least sat facing her.