by V. L. Locey
“Come on, kid.” Mario appeared out of the crowd, took me by the arm, and pulled me to a set of silver stairs leading to the second floor. “You look like a freaking mouse stuck in a room full of cats.”
I glanced back over my shoulder. Blue Hair Guy was now grinding against a tall black dude in a wild orgy of dance.
“This place is insane,” I yelled as I climbed the stairs in front of Mario, glad to see a large lounge area with fewer people bouncing up and down, although plenty were dancing up here too. We met up with our group, who had gathered on a long paisley-print sofa. I rolled the plastic drink tokens around in my pocket until a server appeared, then I tossed them all onto her empty tray.
“It’s on me,” I told her. I had no idea how drink tokens worked, exactly, but I suspected the different colored chips represented different dollar amounts. It confused me, to be honest, but I was a backwater kid from a town in Manitoba that still had dial-up internet for the five hundred and seventy-eight people who lived there. It seemed like cash would be easier, but what did I know?
I sat down on the end of the couch next to Mike. He and Yvonne were sweaty and smiling widely. Our drinks came a few minutes later. We were in the middle of a good talk about the next Olympic winter games when Vic gave Dan a look that shut us all up. Without a word said, Kalinski stood and extended his hand to his husband. Dan took it and they walked down to the dance floor. Of course, I shot up and ran to the railing to peer over.
Amid the crush of men, Vic had Dan by the hips and they were doing some real dirty dancing to Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It”. It was mesmerizing how they moved in sync, as if they were making love with their clothes on. Victor spun Dan around, threaded his fingers into Arou’s long hair, and pumped his groin into his husband’s ass. It was the hottest thing I’d ever seen two men do while fully dressed. Who knew Victor Kalinski could move like that? Or that he knew all the words to an old 80s rap song?
“Hi!” Someone shouted to my left. I glanced over to see a man who looked to be in his mid-thirties, with glasses and thin blond hair. He was dressed kind of like a teacher, in khaki pants and a green polo shirt. He was a small guy—maybe five foot six with about a hundred and forty pounds on his frame. Totally underwhelming, but he had a friendly smile. “You’re August Miles, right? Starting goalie for the Cayuga Cougars?”
“Yeah, that’s right.” I stood up straight, and it really sank in just how much I towered over the man at my side, both in height and in weight. I put my bottle of Labatt’s in my left hand and offered him my right. It was super important to be friendly to fans. Plus I liked interacting with people who backed us. It was one of the best parts of playing hockey, aside from playing hockey.
“Want to dance?”
“Um, I don’t know. Maybe?” Having all these men wanting to spend time with me was unfamiliar and kind of flattering.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“No, I’m here to dance, so…you know, I should dance.”
We headed down to the dance floor as Vic and Dan returned looking like they needed some time alone. That made me envy them, because I was stuck here talking to some random dude when I really wanted to be home with Sal. When we hit the packed floor I turned to my dance partner.
“Two things,” I shouted to be heard over “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode. “I suck at dancing and I’m sort of seeing someone.”
“I figured someone as good-looking as you would be seeing someone,” he replied, and looked a little embarrassed. It didn’t escape me that I had come out—sort of—to this stranger. Maybe coming here had been a good thing after all.
One song blended into another. We bounced around singing along to “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls and “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell. Arms over my head, white laser lights streaking back and forth, I danced and laughed as if I had always been this out, this free, this me.
“Oh man, we are terrible,” laughed the school teacher whose name I still did not know after what felt like a solid hour on the dance floor. I was panting as if I’d been doing side sprints, so I nodded in reply. “Let me buy you a beer. Labatt’s, right?”
“Yeah, thanks, man. I could use something cold.”
He pushed through the undulating crowd. I tipped my head back to check out the rolling lights. Tone Loc started playing, and I mumbled along to “Wild Thing”.
“Here you go!” Teacher Dude handed me an icy-cold bottle. “They open them for you. I don’t know what harm a damn bottle cap is going to cause.” He rolled his eyes.
“Augie!” I heard someone shout. I turned to see who was calling me and spied Victor coming at me, leading his husband through the undulating crowd. “Dude, no, just no.” He yanked the beer out of my hand and jammed it back into my dance partner’s chest.
“Hey, that’s my beer!” I barked at Kalinski, who seemed to be more interested in glowering at Teacher Dude so long and so hard that the guy crawled off into the mob of dancing men never to be seen again.
“Don’t ever take a drink from someone you don’t know,” Dan shouted beside my ear. I gave him a weird look. “It could be spiked with date rape drugs or who knows what. Always go to the bar to watch and make sure, okay?”
Honestly, I could not have felt more stupid. We never had that kind of worry back at Hank’s Bar in Martens Bay. After I got a fresh beer—which I had opened myself, so Teacher Dude’s claim about his beer did seem kind of suspect—I climbed back to the lounge, flopped down, and drank three beers in rapid succession. When someone poked me in the side, I woke up with a shout. The empty bottle in my hand fell to the floor. I looked up at Mario, then started laughing.
“You have red nose hair,” I pointed out before rolling off the padded bench onto the floor.
“You’re a cheap date, Augie,” I heard Mario grumble while hoisting me up from the floor.
I held on to him tightly to try to counteract the way the second floor of the club was tipping horribly to the left. “Is the world falling over?” I asked.
Someone patted my head as Mario led me down the steps, one at a time, and through the sweaty mob. The cool air outside did little to sober me up. My legs tangled with Mario’s. We fell against a car. Mario said things that made Lila remind him there was a lady present. Mike slid up on my left, and with him there and Mario on the right, we made it to McGarrity’s Highlander or Outlander or Bagpipelander without any further incidents. My face met the back seat. I burped loudly and for a long time.
“That’s quite charming, August,” I heard Lila say. She didn’t sound like she honestly found it charming at all.
“Thanks.” I rolled onto my back then slithered to the floor of the vehicle. “Take me to Sal,” I mumbled, coughed up Sal’s address, and promptly fell back to sleep with my head pillowed on my arms.
The memory of being moved from one place to another, lots of laughter, and someone gently removing my shoes then covering me up lingered the next morning. As did a headache so painful I feared moving my eyes might make me vomit.
The bed shook lightly. The puking part suddenly became real. Sal shouted something at me as I crawled over him, gagging and heaving. Sadly, I never made it further than the corner of his room. On the upside, there was a hamper there that served as a trash can.
“How much did you drink last night?” Sal asked as I hung over the side of the hamper, limp and soggy just like wet spaghetti. Thinking of spaghetti made me hurl again. Sal’s cool hand settled on the back of my neck. “You must have really partied hard.”
“Three or four beers and a pretty pink shot,” I croaked as my bones turned to glop and I slid to the floor and lay there like a big, dumb, goalie puddle. I threw my arm over my eyes. “Are you laughing at me?”
“No, of course not.” He was. I’d punch him in the face if I could move and not puke. “It’s just that three beers is kind of a small amount to get so sick from, especially for a guy of your size.”
“I’m not much of a drinker,” I freely adm
itted as he ran a hand over my damp skull.
“So I see,” he chortled, then slid an arm under me.
The trip to the bathroom was agonizing. Sal propped me up in the shower after peeling off my soiled clothes. The water pounding on my head made me whimper like the puny pup I was.
“Get cleaned up. I’ll get some food around. You have morning skate in an hour.”
“Just kill me now, please.”
Sal patted my naked ass, then pulled the shower curtain shut.
An hour later, I opened the front door of Sal’s apartment to find my ride to the Rader on the other side.
“You look like shit, kid,” Mario said as his gaze rolled from me to Sal, who had come up behind me. McGarrity didn’t look too happy.
“You should have seen him an hour ago,” Sal jokingly said, then pressed a kiss to my neck as his arms slipped around me from behind. “Maybe your coach will go easy on you?”
“Maybe, but it’s doubtful,” I grumbled, my head still pounding.
Sal helped me get my duffel bag up onto my shoulder. “Well, just try to drink plenty of water, and don’t take too many aspirin.”
“Okay.” I ignored the somewhat dark look from Mario and gave Sal a wet kiss goodbye. Mario said nothing until we were on our way to the arena.
“Look, I know it’s not my place to tell you who to date. After all, you’re an adult and can see who you want.” I wanted to roll my eyes toward the roof of the vehicle, but they hurt too much. Some old country singer guy lamented about his dead dog, then yodeled. Really? Yodeling? And people talk about modern music.
“But that’s not going to stop you,” I muttered under my breath, and started rubbing my right temple.
“See, the thing is that a young buck like you should be out rubbing the velvet off your antlers with lots of other young bucks, not just one long-in-the-tooth one.”
“Are we talking about moose? I don’t think moose men are called bucks.”
“What? No, we’re not talking about moose. Why the hell would you think we were talking about moose?” I squeezed my eyes shut, but the pain inside my head was just as bad and growing worse with every word Mario said. He didn’t exactly speak quietly, or listen to yodeling dog lamenters on low volume either.
“My head hurts.” Maybe if I told him I was in pain, he would back off about me and Sal.
“I was using whitetail deer, not moose. See, the point I was trying to make was that you shouldn’t tie yourself down to one guy. You and Sal, you’re cute, and sure, I hear how great a guy he is from everyone, but you’ve known him for what, two weeks?”
“My head still hurts.” Why was this ride taking so long? “Are you telling me I should be sexually promiscuous?”
“Of course not.” He sounded like he was getting peeved. I’d come to learn over the months that Mario had a rather short fuse at times. He claimed it was the Scots blood. Lila said blood had nothing to do with it, he was just a firecracker. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because you’re telling me that being with one guy is wrong but sleeping with a bunch of guys is good. Sounds to me like you’re saying I should be whoring it up. But whoring around is bad, so which is it? I need you to tell me which is good, because my head hurts, my stomach feels like I drank a gallon of vegetable oil, and when I open my eyes, the sun burns them.” I let my head hit the window, then whimpered pitifully.
“You’re mixing up my message, August.” He stomped on the brakes. I jerked forward, and my brain protested loudly. Some sort of primitive growl came out of me as we waited at a traffic light, or maybe a stop sign. Seeing what the holdup was would involve opening my eyes. “I’m not saying to be a whore.”
“Then what are you saying?!” I snapped, each word vibrating inside my already angry head.
“Sweet Mary Madonna, ain’t you in a mood?” The singer was now crooning about his farm horse, or maybe it was a plow horse for his farm? How freaking old was this music? “What I was trying to say was that sleeping around is high risk. I don’t ever want to see you doing high-risk stuff, Augie. You’re like a son to me. “
Now didn’t I feel like crap? “It’s okay. I get it.”
And I did on some other level. I got what he was saying. My folks always told me to date around too, because I tended to give my heart too easy—Mom’s words, not mine. Poor Mom and Dad. They were still waiting for me to bring home some nice girl. They’d fall over with strokes when I pulled up during the summer with Sal at my side. Why did everything have to be so hard?
“Just back off about Sal, okay? He and I are tight and getting tighter all the time.”
“All right, I’ll back off. Just be careful, Augie. This guy might be a real heartbreaker. Lila and me, we don’t want to see you get hurt.”
I cracked an eye open and rolled my head as gently as possible to look at him. “Thanks. I love you guys too.” Mario smiled at me.
Then I puked all over the inside of his spiffy clean Highlander. He wasn’t smiling when we pulled into the Rader parking lot, and neither was I. When Coach Young saw then smelled me, he wasn’t smiling either.
Coming awake with a jolt, my face buried in a fat pillow, I tried to scramble out of the bed, my legs tangling in a peachy coverlet. When I looked around again, I knew where I was. Sal’s bedroom. We had rolled around on his bed quite a few times, enjoying some frottage as part of some heavy make-out sessions. I was fully dressed aside from my suit jacket, tie, and dress shoes. His clock said it was ten minutes after seven. Was that p.m.? Yeah, it had to be. I untangled myself from the covers and padded in sock-covered feet to the window. Lifting the drapes aside, I took a look at the sky. The sun was low in the west, so we were coming up on night. My after-skate nap must have lasted for something like six or seven hours.
My mouth felt sticky, my teeth fuzzy. I watched Sal’s apartment complex settling in for another evening of TV and dinner with the kids. I let the drapes fall back into place and noticed that, for the moment, my head wasn’t spitting open in pain. That was nice. I needed to brush my teeth before I saw Sal. Maybe I would just sit down for a minute first. My legs felt shaky. When he came in a moment later, I was sitting in the middle of his bed, one of his nice fat pillows wedged against my stomach, and my legs folded into a lotus. He smiled at me, then walked into the room carrying a round tray with a sandwich and a bottle of creamy orange soda on it. He looked super sexy in his light-blue scrubs. “I’m glad to see you’re awake. How are you feeling?”
“Better,” I whispered, and eyed the ham on rye hungrily. My stomach grew vocal. Sal’s lips curled up into a smile. He set the tray on the nightstand, then came back to the bed. I could smell the strong aroma of the rye bread, and my mouth started to water.
“Can I sit down beside you?”
I nodded. His coloring and the sky-blue top looked great together.
“I’d like that.” The bed dipped under his weight, and he turned to grab the platter of food.
“You need to eat something and then take the aspirins in that little cup.”
I took the paper plate from him, placed it on the pillow on my lap, and lifted the sandwich. I took a huge bite. I’d never been this hungry. The bread was soft and porous, the mustard sharp, and the ham heavily smoked. When my sight flickered to Sal, he seemed to be miles away. He must have felt me looking at him, for he gave me a wan smile as I chewed noisily.
“You okay?” I asked around my mouthful of food.
“Yeah, just tired,” he replied, then fell back onto his bed. He sighed in pleasure, rested his hands on his chest, then let his eyes drift shut.
“You look like a dead man,” I joked. He made a sound of beleaguered amusement, and then what I’d said hit me. Swallowing my food was nearly impossible. “That was not at all a comment on you being sick. Shit.”
“Augie, it’s okay. You can make jokes about things, really.”
My food tasted terrible now. I placed the sandwich with the lone bite out of it on the nightstand, then let
myself lie beside him, on my side. He moved onto his side as well. Shadows obscured his face. My head lay on my bent arm. I could feel his breath on my face. Warm, moist, and flavored with toothpaste.
“I told Mario that I thought I loved you,” I confessed weakly. “Now I’m pretty sure that I do.” I heard Sal inhale and exhale. “Don’t say that back because you feel guilty or some other not pure reason, okay? I just wanted you to know that.” I flopped onto my back and stared at the ceiling.
“Can I touch you?”
“Please. I really didn’t mean to say you were a dead man. That was super stupid. I still want you to be my first—that won’t ever change.”
He placed his hand on my chest. No other part of him made contact with me.
“Okay, I’m not the best with words,” he said as my heart thumped along under his fingertips. “I was raised in the Catholic Church. I don’t go much anymore because of me being queer and them being them. Don’t tell my abuela if you ever meet her.” His secret was safe with me. “But the thing they say about the body being just a vessel…that’s solid, because I think that’s true. This body, it’s not me, okay?” He tapped his fingers against his chest. I nodded. I got what he was saying. “The soul is the important thing, not the body. Your soul is who you really are—it’s the spirit inside that matters, the heart. So knowing that in your heart you love me and want me to be the first man you take inside you? Wow. That is so special, and I love that so much. And when you’re ready for that to happen, it’s going to be everything to me, because I love you too.”
Talking couldn’t happen right now, so I reached up, cupped his face, and pulled his mouth to mine. It was a sloppy kiss, what with me and Sal whispering endearments as we tongued each other’s lips.