Skater Boys

by Neil Plakcy

  That he listened to classical music—Mahler, Schubert and Mozart in particular—was something only his mom knew.

  And the fact he liked men he had so far kept to himself.

  That was about to change.

  Carter swallowed the last of his fourth beer, crushed the can and tossed it. He shifted his buttocks on the concrete. Raising his knees, he rested his forearms upon them. He drew a deep breath and moistened his lips. Then he looked at Douglas and said, “Something happened last week. I want to tell you about it.”

  Douglas swung his gaze to Carter, a puzzled expression on his face.

  Carter spoke of an incident occurring in a public park, well past midnight. While rolling down a sidewalk on his skateboard, Carter had made eye contact with a man who stood in the shadows, smoking a cigarette, and something about the guy kept Carter from looking away. The man beckoned Carter with a jerk of his chin, making Carter’s belly flutter. Pulse pounding, Carter approached the man, his skateboard hanging by a truck from his fingertips. The man’s lips parted, he crinkled the corners of his eyes, then he touched Carter’s crotch before turning on his heel and walking off.

  Carter followed the man and they slipped into a bank of saw palmettos, the fronds reflecting moonlight and making a rustling sound as the man and Carter passed through them. When they reached a clearing—one entirely concealed from public view—the man removed Carter’s T-shirt while Carter trembled. The man dropped to his knees before Carter, lowered Carter’s jeans and briefs to the tops of Carter’s shoes, and Carter’s erection bobbed before him.

  When the man took Carter’s cock into his warm mouth, Carter shuddered while tendrils of pleasure crept through his limbs. The man established a rhythm—slurping and sucking—and things didn’t last long, ten minutes perhaps. Carter’s body jerked when he ejaculated. He clutched the back of the man’s head while his hips bucked and the man guzzled Carter’s semen.

  Now, under the overpass, Douglas burped and shook his head. “That’s some weird shit, DuBose. Why’d you do it?”

  Carter cleared his throat, still looking at Douglas. “’Cause I’m queer, I guess. I like guys; I dream about them at night.”

  Douglas cackled and shook his head. “Dude, you are so fucking funny sometimes.”

  “I’m not kidding.”

  Douglas looked at Carter like Carter was nuts. “There are no gay skaters, man; no fucking way.”

  Carter held Douglas’s gaze, not saying anything.

  Douglas looked away and spat on the concrete. He stared into a nearby patch of weeds, his jaw working from side to side.

  “Tell me you’re joking, DuBose.”

  “I’m not.”

  Douglas folded his legs so he sat in the lotus position. He reached for his skateboard, placed it in his lap, and spun a wheel—once, twice, three times. Minutes passed and neither boy spoke. They only listened to traffic pass.

  Douglas pulled another can of beer from the carton. He cracked open the pop-top, took a swig and swallowed. Then he pointed the can at Carter. “I can’t fucking believe this. Don’t tell anyone else, not if you want me to still be your friend.”

  “Douglas, I only—”

  Douglas pointed a finger. “I am serious, DuBose.”

  Douglas’s response stung Carter. Wasn’t Douglas supposed to be his best pal? They’d met in ninth grade, and ever since they’d been inseparable, always depending on each other. If someone at school bullied Carter, Douglas put a stop to it. If things got out of hand at Douglas’s home, he would sleep at Carter’s house, the two of them sharing Carter’s bed. They skated together, bass fished together, watched movies together on the sofa at Carter’s house. Girlfriends had never been a part of their world.

  So why, Carter asked himself now, couldn’t Douglas accept Carter for what he was? And who said a guy couldn’t suck cock and still be a skater? Carter opened a fresh beer for himself. He studied his sneakers and said nothing more. His eyes itched and he found it hard to swallow.

  Had he made a mistake by confiding in his friend?

  A week passed, and Carter did not see Douglas or speak with him. Douglas did not return Carter’s phone calls. He did not visit Carter’s house as he normally did after his workday ended, and Carter became frustrated. He felt the need for Douglas’s presence.

  On a Saturday afternoon, Carter visited Douglas’s usual haunts: a Baptist church with a smooth, asphalt parking lot; an empty office building with a pair of brass stair rails Douglas liked to slide down on his board; a parking garage with a steep exit ramp. But Douglas wasn’t at any of these places.

  Trundling along a sidewalk on his skateboard, Carter’s pulse pounded in his temples. His thoughts turned to an afternoon, months before, when he’d watched Douglas strip and hose himself on his back patio, after a sweaty skate session. Carter’s knees had turned to jelly as he studied Douglas’s muscled physique. Douglas owned a whopper cock with a crinkly foreskin, low-hanger balls as big as walnuts, and a sexy ass that looked like a pair of porcelain cantaloupes. Carter’s mouth got dry, just looking.

  Now, the memory made Carter’s cock stiffen. He longed for the sound of Douglas’s voice, the scent of his skin. Carter wanted to see Douglas’s biceps, his tattoo and yellow hair. Am I in love with Douglas? he asked himself. He thought of the many times he’d masturbated to visions of Douglas, and now he wondered, How would it feel to kiss him? To have his tongue in my mouth? To suck his cock and swallow his load like the guy did with me in the bushes?

  A neighborhood skate park came to mind. Douglas rarely went there, as he disliked crowds and the place was typically packed with groms in helmets and pads who got in his way and pulled stupid stunts on the half-pipes, their high-pitched voices irritating Douglas to no end. Carter rubbed his chin with a knuckle, thinking, It’s ten minutes away. Go see if he’s there.

  Douglas was.

  He sat on a bench, feet resting on his skateboard deck, watching a twelve-year-old kid do tricks. Scarecrow skinny, the kid wore a beanie, jeans and a flannel shirt. He did an ollie and a snazzy treflip. Getting up speed, he climbed the face of a concrete half-pipe, then he leapt onto the pipe’s rail cap. He traversed its entire length, sliding on the underside of his board deck before descending.

  Carter shook his head in amazement. The kid’s movements were fluid, his turns smooth, almost as though he were weightless. How come I can’t do that?

  Douglas wore skate sneakers and baggy blue jeans with holes in the knees. He wore no shirt. Sunlight reflected off his sweaty chest and shoulders, and the sight made Carter’s belly do flip-flops. It seemed like a month had passed since they’d last spoken.

  Carter hopped off his board and carried it by a truck in his fingertips, the deck slapping his thigh as he strode toward Douglas. Douglas did not notice Carter’s approach, and he only looked up when Carter’s shadow fell upon him.

  Immediately, Douglas’s face clouded.

  “What’s going on?” Carter said.

  Douglas raised a shoulder, then let it drop. He didn’t say anything. He fixed his gaze on a pair of girls who sashayed by the skate park, their hoop earrings reflecting sunlight.

  Carter said, “I called you five times at least; I left messages with your mom. How come you didn’t call back?”

  Douglas squinted, his fingers gripping the edge of the bench he occupied. He still wasn’t looking at Carter when he said, “I have a job, you know; I stay busy. I’m not a fucking schoolboy like you.”

  Carter’s scalp prickled. What was going on? “Look,” he said, “let’s skate the church. I was just there and the place was empty; we’ll have the asphalt to ourselves.”

  Douglas licked his lips. Staring at his shoes, he said, “Not today.”

  “Come on,” Carter said. “Afterward we can go to my place. My mom’ll be at work till nine and we’ll have the house to—”

  Douglas jerked his face toward Carter, eyebrows gathering. His voice grew louder when he spoke. “I just fucking told you,
dick-lick. Not today.”

  Dick-lick?

  Carter felt as if Douglas had punched him in the stomach. Heat rose in his cheeks and the tops of his ears burned as well. His vision clouded while his fingers flexed.

  Douglas rose and looked away. “I’ve got to go,” he said.

  “Where?”

  Douglas didn’t answer. He said. “I’ll see you around,” then he placed a sneaker on his skateboard deck and pushed with his other foot and he rolled away from Carter, hair fluttering, shoulder muscles flexing.

  Carter followed on his skateboard, calling out to Douglas, “Wait up. I’ll come with you.”

  Douglas kept going till they were no longer within earshot of the skate park. He tail-dragged his board and came to a stop, then he turned toward Carter with a frown on his face.

  Carter braked alongside Douglas and brushed his bangs from his eyes. He looked at Douglas and said, “What’s your problem? Why are you avoiding me?”

  Douglas put his hands on his hips. “I want to be alone right now. Can’t you understand that?”

  Carter’s heart hammered. Go on, say it.

  “You’re embarrassed, aren’t you? About the other night when I told you—”

  “Keep your fucking voice down.”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  Douglas spat on the pavement, then he looked at Carter. “I’m trying to forget the whole thing.”

  “Why? I don’t understand?”

  “’Cause I’m not a fucking faggot like you, DuBose.”

  Carter’s knees wobbled. His voice cracked when he spoke. “Douglas, don’t be mad at me. I want us to still be friends.”

  Douglas shoved his hands into his pockets. He kicked the sidewalk with the toe of his skate shoe, gaze focused on the concrete. His jaw worked from side to side, then he looked at Carter and pointed a finger. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “If you’re a cocksucker, that’s your business, but I don’t want to hear about it. And don’t ever fucking touch me. Understand?”

  Carter found it hard to swallow. He felt as if Douglas were ripping his heart out of his chest and chewing on it. Despite this, he knew he couldn’t stand losing Douglas’s companionship, even if it meant stifling his own feelings. He looked at his shoes, then at Douglas. “Okay,” he said. “All right.”

  “Fine,” Douglas said. “Then let’s skate the fucking church.”

  Douglas barely spoke during the hour they spent at the church, then he left for home, and for several days thereafter Carter did not hear from Douglas: no phone calls, no visits, just like before.

  Okay, Carter told himself, maybe our friendship is over and I need to accept it. He can’t handle the fact that I’m queer. Maybe I need to quit skating, find different people to spend time with.

  On a weekday evening, Carter sat at his desk in his bedroom, a calculus text before him. Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B-flat played on his stereo. He chewed his pencil, pondering a calculation, when his cell phone rang. The screen read, Unknown caller.

  Carter pressed the talk button and said hello.

  “DuBose?” Douglas’s voice sounded funny.

  “Where are you?”

  “The county jail.”

  Carter winced. “Why?”

  “I broke into a guy’s house and stole some stuff. When I tried pawning the guy’s jewelry, the broker called the cops.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “I called my mom—to see if she’d make bail for me—but she said no way. She said time in jail might do me some good.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  Douglas voice quivered. “I wish I was.”

  Carter rubbed the tip of his nose, trying to imagine Douglas in a cell. He asked, “What’s it like in there?”

  “DuBose, it’s awful; nothing like juvie. Weird stuff goes on.”

  “Like what?”

  Douglas didn’t answer the question. His voice squeaked when he said, “Will you come see me? I’ve been here five days and I’m lonely and so fucking scared. These guys…”

  Carter chewed his lips. Should he go? After the shitty way Douglas had treated him, maybe not. “I don’t know,” Carter said. “The jail sounds like—”

  “I’ve got no one else but you, DuBose. Please…pay me a visit.”

  Carter let out his breath. “All right,” he said, “but I’ll have to take the bus. What time should I get there?”

  Douglas sat in a windowless room on a folding chair, facing Carter across a Formica table. Douglas wore an orange jumpsuit and canvas slip-on sneakers. One of his eyes was swollen shut, the flesh surrounding it purplish. His hair was disheveled, a few zits dotted his forehead, and his breath smelled bad. Carter looked at Douglas and wondered, Has he lost weight?

  A uniformed guard, big as Frankenstein’s monster, sat behind a desk, reading a newspaper. At other tables, Douglas’s fellow inmates, also in jumpsuits, conversed with visitors—women mostly. People spoke in whispers while overhead a pair of fluorescent ceiling fixtures hummed and flickered. The place stank of ammonia and human sweat. A sense of desperation, of despair, permeated the room, and Carter felt claustrophobic as he squirmed in his chair, fighting an urge to get up and leave.

  He looked around and thought, This is where you end up when you think the law doesn’t apply to you. They bring you here and show you otherwise.

  Carter looked at Douglas, noticing how Douglas’s hand shook when Douglas swept his bangs from his eyes.

  “You look like shit,” Carter said. “Are you sick?”

  Douglas looked at Carter and his upper lip trembled. He dropped his chin and folded his arms across his chest and he didn’t say anything.

  “Who slugged you?” Carter asked.

  Douglas sniffled, then swallowed. When he lifted his gaze and looked at Carter his good eye was red and teary. He glanced left and right, then he leaned toward Carter and spoke in a whisper. “This place is the worst, DuBose. They won’t leave me alone.”

  “Who?”

  “The other inmates. It started the minute I got here. I’m what they call fresh meat.”

  Carter’s jaw dropped. “They want sex?”

  Douglas nodded, sniffling again. “I tried saying no at first, but”—Douglas pointed to his shiner—“all it got me was this.”

  “Have you told the guards?”

  Douglas snorted and shook his head. “They don’t give a shit; they just look in the other direction.”

  Carter rubbed his chin and kept quiet. What was there to say?

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” Douglas said, his voice cracking. He grabbed Carter’s forearm and squeezed so hard it hurt. “I’m going nuts, DuBose; I don’t think I can take much more.”

  “Do you have a lawyer?”

  Douglas nodded. “A public defender. She says I’m screwed; my prints were all over the guy’s house I broke into.”

  Carter rearranged himself in his chair. He tossed his bangs from his eyes and chewed a hangnail.

  Douglas said, “My lawyer says this’ll be treated as my first offense, ’cause my juvie crimes don’t count against me when I’m sentenced as an adult. If I plead guilty I should get probation.”

  Carter patted his chin with his fingertips, thinking.

  “You’re smarter than me,” Douglas said. “Help me decide. Should I do it?”

  Carter thought some more, then he looked at Douglas and bobbed his chin. “I think you’d better.”

  When it came time for Carter to leave, Douglas seized Carter in a bear hug, then Douglas wept like a five-year-old, his chin resting on Carter’s shoulder, his face distorted. Other inmates in the room stared and shook their heads while Carter blushed in embarrassment. He tried quieting Douglas as best he could, patting Douglas’s shoulder and whispering to him.

  “Don’t cry, Douglas; it’ll be okay.”

  Carter had never seen Douglas so distraught.

  He’s not so tough, after all, Carter told himself, while Douglas continued to cry. I guess may
be he needs me as much as I need him.

  On a warm evening a few days after his visit to the county jail, Carter lay in his bed, half asleep, listening to Mahler’s Sixth Symphony in the darkness, when he heard a noise.

  Tap-rap.

  Carter’s body jerked.

  Tap-tap-rap.

  Carter rose onto his elbows and squinted. What was going on?

  Douglas stood outside Carter’s bedroom window. He was shirtless and moonlight bathed his shoulders; it reflected in his straw-colored hair. Carter thought of the last time he’d seen Douglas, in his jumpsuit at the jail.

  Carter rose. Wearing only boxer shorts, he crept to the window. He cranked it open and peered through the screen. “You’re out already?”

  Douglas nodded. When he spoke his voice sounded hoarse, like he’d been shouting. ”I didn’t have bus fare so I had to walk and it took hours. I tried going home, but my stepdad’s on a rampage. Can I sleep here?”

  Carter removed the screen and Douglas crawled over the sill, his sour scent making Carter’s nose crinkle. Douglas shucked off his shoes, then his belt buckle tinkled as he lowered his jeans and kicked them aside. He wore no undershorts and moonlight afforded Carter a clear view of Douglas’s genitals—his cannon dick and low-hanger balls. The sight made Carter’s mouth go sticky, and when he swallowed his spit rumbled in his throat.

  Carter’s bed was a three-quarter—a tight fit for two—and the boys’ shoulders, hips and knees touched. Douglas’s hair smelled like sawdust. His calf pressed against Carter’s and their leg hairs commingled and, already, Carter’s cock twitched inside his boxers. His pulse raced and his heart thumped, but he told himself, Careful, DuBose. You don’t want to get punched in the nose. The covers rustled each time one of the boys moved.

  “So, they gave you probation?”

  “Eighteen months.”

  “That’s good.”

  Neither boy spoke for a while, they only listened to Mahler and breathed. A car passed on the street. Headlights swept the walls of Carter’s room.