Between Men

by Richard Canning

  Markos contacts me again in January.

  “Don’t worry, it’s safe,” he says. “I’m calling you from the pay phone in the library. I got your number from 411. How are you?”

  “OK,” I say. “Kind of sad.”

  “Oh, why?”

  “It’s about Jake. I don’t know. I fell for him last summer, hard.”

  “Why, what did he do?”

  “He’s not calling me back. He’s at school. He gets like that.”

  “It seems like he is the kind of dude that likes a quickie and then just goes,” Markos tells me. Then again, I think, Markos’s dad might have had something to do with those particular escapes. His parents seem to view their progeny as a sort of faulty but vaguely important appliance that keeps breaking down, like a wood-burning stove that’s never used for cooking but looks great in the kitchen and can provide warmth if properly stoked. Problem is, they hired the wrong people to do the job: a priest and a PI might poke around a little, but you can’t keep the home fires burning when you don’t let the wood taste the air. “I really knew inside that I didn’t like him because of his personality or anything,” he continues. “Sure, he was nice, but my initial attraction was based on the fact that I could get a piece from him.”

  “I don’t think he liked that thing with your pops.”

  “I wondered what happened to him,” Markos drawls.

  He quiets for a moment, long enough to hear the electric fuzz of our connection, the black crush of his thoughts. When he picks back up, he garbles, like he’s chewing the inside of his cheek. “I guess he doesn’t want to get in trouble.”

  I change the subject. “What did you get for Christmas?”

  “A lump of coal. What about you?”

  “A bottle of absinthe.”

  He is quiet again, and then hoarse: “If I tell you something, promise me you won’t think differently of me?”

  “Of course not,” I say.

  “I thought about you when I beat it the other night,” he laughs, and hangs up.

  Markos soon sends me a letter and a picture and a CD he burned for me. In the picture, he is grinning, a curly young Hermes standing next to a happy clown. He is wearing a birthday cone hat that reads, “17.” In the letter he writes, “You better like this CD, son, because I ran six blocks in the snow to send it.” The CD’s first cut is “Here Comes My Man.”

  “You’re my dream man,” Markos says on my machine. “I just get high and listen to Radiohead and think about you after school. I’ll buy an MG this summer and every day I’ll come over and we’ll smoke and walk around and you’ll feel like a teenager again. Then we can go to the desert and ride horses and have campfires and sing songs and play guitar and live under the stars. And we’ll have a cactus farm and grow peyote.” His voice drops to a death rattle. “Listen. My dad found out about you. But it’s OK because we never did anything. I’m going to write you from a safe address next time.” Now a whisper: “My friend is having a party this weekend.” He gives her address fast and soft. “She knows about you and she’s cool. We’ll hide you upstairs if we have to. I’ll be so stoked if you come.” The only noise from the machine is the whir of the tape wheels. Then, one last breath: “Will you be my valentine?”

  The Ballad of Jimmy Pie

  Ethan Mordden

  If you run out of Sparktown on the north road doing 80 like Daddy and me did, hot from a scam, you get nowhere pronto, and that’s where we picked up Jimmy.

  I saw the kid was going to be one God’s ass piece of mischief right off, and I begged Daddy to let him be. But Daddy slowed the car as we approached and looked the kid over with pleasure.

  “He’s a fairskin boy, Otis,” Daddy told me as we braked about twenty feet past the kid. “You know your Daddy’s partial.”

  The kid ran up and leaned against the door. He didn’t give me so much as a fuckyou glance, just smiled at Daddy all slow and boylike, the kind of smile you have to practice in a mirror fore you get it right.

  “How far you goin?” Daddy asked.

  “Fairly.” The kid pushed up his shirt to rub his stomach, give Daddy a good look. “See, I’m so young yet I don’t know where I’d rightfully be headin.”

  “We like em young,” said Daddy. “This here’s my son Otis. He’s twenty and big for his size.”

  “He’s big enough, I’d say,” the kid replied, finally giving me the favor of his pretty glances and such.

  “We’re on the move just now,” said Daddy, “having lost Otis’ brother Luke this morning.”

  The kid nodded pensively. “Cops got him?”

  “Somethin like that. Whyn’t you fetch your bag and Otis here’ll swing into the back, won’t you, Otis, and give this boy some room up front where his pale skin can take some sun.”

  “Aw, Daddy—”

  “Scoot, now, I say.”

  “Thought we was goin to be just us two from now on,” I said.

  “Takes three for scams, you know that, Otis.”

  I didn’t move fast enough, so Daddy’s hand caught me sharp on the ear, fierce to match his eyes.

  “Why you always testin me, boy?” Daddy cried, looking straight ahead. When he turned, I’d jumped over the seat into the back and the kid was makin himself to home. “Sure am obliged,” he said, shakin his head to give his cute hair a show and, like, rubbin his forearms while he smiled at Daddy. Flirt! I thought. Whyn’t you go down on him right here in the car?

  “Throw your gear in the back with Otis there and get yourself comfortable. We’re fixin to make it to Pentecost by late moon. Got a big deal waitin there.” As we shipped out, Daddy added, “What do they call you, son?”

  “They all agree that I’m Jimmy Pie, it seems. Cause I’m so fresh and tasty.”

  “Now, you hold your noise, Otis,” said Daddy, eyeing me in the rearview. “Where are your manners with your new brother? Such a fairskin boy means all parties better mind their ways, or Daddy’ll have to wade in with discipline and a sermonette.” He got into the rearview again with “Hear me, Otis?”

  I didn’t say nothin back there, just locked eyes with Daddy till the kid asked, “Expectin someone? Cause I see you’re lookin behind us at the road at times.”

  “Don’t you worry, Jimmy Pie. Your Daddy’s got it all figured. Take care of business in Pentecost, then who knows what we’ll do?” Daddy shot a confident grin at the kid. I might as well not have been there at all with those two touching eyes and such. “Ride the skies, make our fortune. Got a thought to putting Otis into wrestling school, where they train you for tee vee. Know about it?”

  “My fortune is my face,” says the kid. Him feelin so dandy there, we’ll just see about that. “S’what they tell me, anyway.”

  “Your fortune is your white, white skin,” says Daddy. “Cause that is the most beautiful thing of all on a beautiful young boy. You want to get ahead in the world, you need an angle.”

  “I got five or six angles, I believe.”

  “Can’t wait to know em all, Jimmy Pie,” says Daddy, flooring it.

  We got to Pentecost real late that night, but that’s how Daddy likes it. He claims to work real good in the dark. The place was a fine ol two story job with a porch all round, hidden among many trees and bushes way the far side of town. A storybook house, you might say, right distant from fakes and jokers who snoop around and butt in at cries for help.

  “Moonshine land,” Daddy calls it.

  We approached real quiet, and Daddy went to work on a window after checking for alarms. You have to watch the stairs for booby traps, too.

  We was here before, maybe a year ago, so the guy must have taken some steps for security. Not to mention whatever else wants in on him in the neighborhood. He should of at least got a dog. But some guys don’t notice anythin, so they don’t learn. They’re not listenin to what it is is how I see it, not ever there when it’s happenin. These guys in their own world? I got not the slightest sympathy for em. Say there’s a guy crossing the road wit
h a gun in hand and a racy look in his eye at you. You don’t take cover? Die fucked, asshole.

  We got upstairs without a problem. He was sleeping face up, and Daddy was content to pull the covers off him real slow, so we could take him in like a stripjoint tease.

  He was in real cute shape for a dealer. Most of those guys don’t notice how they go around, but this one’s real proud of hisself. Daddy shook his head a little, smilin in his thoughts. Jimmy just stood there.

  The guy woke up when Daddy stroked his hair. He sure likes them carrottops. I don’t get this color thing Daddy has, about skin and eyes and such. Seems to me a guy is pleasin to you or he isn’t. It’s like a scam, right? It works or it doesn’t. You don’t have a luscious scam or a beautiful scam or those other ways Daddy has of goin on and on about a guy’s looks and his colors and his parts. It’s like he’s tryin to hypnotize hisself, like talkin about it will magic it up from somewhere as got no name, and then it’ll be real and you’ll know what to call it.

  The guy’s just lyin there lookin up at Daddy. He’s scared, yeah, but mostly he’s just waitin to see what it’ll be. Daddy’s like at a party, introducin us all and sayin how rough the trip was, though he doesn’t mention Luke. Then he gets down to it, sayin how he’d like to dip into the guy’s cashbox and if he’d just tell us the combination he won’t get hurt and we’ll be on our way and everyone’ll be glad.

  It’s just talk, of course. You don’t put Daddy in a room with a cute little naked carrottop all so late at night without somethin comin down. At the very least, the guy’s goin to be panwhacked. Anyways, he sure isn’t givin up no combination, so Daddy says, “Fetch the bag, Otis,” and I get it while Daddy pulls the guy out of bed and holds him from behind, just runnin his hands over him and rubbin their cheeks together like it’s Valentine’s Day. You know Daddy’s happy cause he’s hummin as I get out the matches and the ol big ox candle of the sort Daddy likes to use at such moments and the rope and the pan, a copper number you’d cook your dinner in. The guy’s doin nothin. He doesn’t struggle, he doesn’t go with it, and he still hasn’t said a word, even when Daddy moves his cute little mop of hair around in different designs.

  “He’s like a model,” said Jimmy, a joke on his face.

  I was pulling the bed away from the wall, more into the room to give us maneuvering space. Then I set the candle up in its plate and stripped down like always. So now it’s my turn to hold the guy while Daddy strips down, too. Jimmy was looking from him to me and back, but he finally smartened up and moved out of the way, settling down on a chair in the corner while Daddy gets the guy facedown on the bed, ties his wrists behind him, and turns him over.

  I’m set to go, but Daddy’s really into lookin at a thing when he likes it. He was hummin again and he said, “Man, oh man,” all quiet and appreciative.

  Finally, he does his head at me to get up there, and the guy’s eyes follow me as I move to the head of the bed. Daddy pulls the guy up to place his head so lovingly between my thighs, wedged in there so he can’t shout or nothin. Daddy lets out a sigh as he upends the guy’s legs, which I hold by the calves. Daddy takes up the pan, hefts it a bit, then starts in quick and heavy, no warmup.

  The guy’s fightin it now, as they are always bound to, but somehow his struggles and the blows to his backside are merged and comin up through me like some of his soul is evaporatin. I know Daddy feels so, too, because when we switch positions his head goes up and his teeth look out of his mouth like he’s comin.

  When we let him go, the guy still won’t give it up, though he’s gasping real hard as we stand there waitin and lookin at him.

  “Man, you better part with the information we require,” Jimmy quietly calls out from his corner.

  Well, the guy finally does talk, but it’s just beggin for us to stop and such, no combination to a cashbox.

  So Daddy says, “Fetch the candle, Otis,” as he gets on the bed to straddle the guy and hum to him. As he bends over close, the guy flinches, but Daddy isn’t going to hit him, only deepmouth him and run his hands up and down the sides of the guy.

  “Dinnertime,” says Jimmy.

  Daddy continues to do the guy while goin into his talk thing, repeatin phrases over and over about the worship of beauty and takin your love to the highest level. Everyone’s hard, Jimmy’s beatin off, and Daddy suddenly takes the candle from me and gets off the guy, tellin me to hold his legs down while Daddy fires up the guy’s tits and dick. Jimmy comes close to watch, but before anythin happens the guy gives up the combination and in seconds the candle’s back in its plate and we’re all at the little cashbox while the guy tells me, “15 ... right to 40 ...” and all the rest. Sometimes he loses his place because Daddy’s all over him still. But we got the cash, anyway.

  “We crank the guy now?” asks Jimmy.

  “What for?” Daddy replies, rubbin the back of the guy’s neck and smoothin his sides and ticklin his ear like brisking him up after a massage or somethin.

  “He’ll call the cops on us is what,” Jimmy says.

  “A drug dealer?” Daddy grins. “He even winks at a cop hereabouts and it’s twenty years mandatory. Sides, him and us got a ongoing business process, ain’t we?”

  Daddy pats the guy’s shoulder. “Right?” says Daddy.

  The guy nods.

  Daddy holds out a hand and I give him the money to count. “Otis, where are your manners with our host? Don’t he need a rest after his exertions? Escort him into the other room for a little R and R.”

  That means tie him up in a chair so we don’t have to think about him anymore tonight. Or ever.

  When I come back, Daddy has Jimmy down to the skin and Daddy’s at it again, talkin to me like I’m not there as he moves around Jimmy.

  “Smooth all over and twice as pretty as who, that’s a fairskin boy, now. The curves here. My. The little patch of hair, feel the sex crackle.”

  “Ooch,” says Jimmy, real low.

  “Or touch the Jimmy nipples . . . careful! They’re pale, like all Jimmy everywhere. The Jimmy smile, so puzzling to me at times. Never know what a Jimmy boy is thinkin. Step around behind, watch. The vee shape here, so wide at the top. Whisper to Jimmy, see what he’ll do.”

  Leanin forward, Daddy whispered so close to Jimmy’s ear he was lickin it. “Can I look inside you, Jimmy Pie?”

  Jimmy nodded.

  “Thank you kindly. Yes. Now. Oh, my gracious Jimmy, to part the golden globes and gaze upon the eternal ring. That’s rare, indeed. That’s genius. That’s the true Jimmy boy, so fair and kissful. Otis, fetch the tape measure.”

  I got it out of the bag and handed it to Daddy, who busied himself takin the sizes of Jimmy’s parts, hummin and occasionally murmurin in awe at the numbers like they was holy revelation.

  “Thing about a beautiful, beautiful fairskin boy,” said Daddy as he dropped the tape measure on the bed, “is his secret taste, which is the sugar slick that flows out of him when he’s brought to the highest power.”

  Getting behind Jimmy, Daddy reached around and began tummyrubbin him real slow.

  “Sure would love to hear a little sigh from you, Jimmy Pie.”

  Jimmy obeyed.

  “It’s the taste of the Jimmy slick where his true self lies, for a man can get high on it. If you kiss a fairskin boy deeply enough, it livens the vein of him and stirs up the slick. Then you fuck Jimmy with a sturdy rhythm and take the slick hot and new as it flies out to you, a beseechin taste and a convertin one.”

  Daddy turned Jimmy to face him.

  “That’s the Jimmy high. Come true, now.”

  Daddy began, his hand heavy on the back of Jimmy’s neck as he reeled him in tight for lip suction.

  “You sure can smooch,” said Jimmy, when he got a chance.

  “Oh, the taste of fair skin,” said Daddy, completely into it. “Tempt me, Satan, you win again!”

  “More,” said Jimmy.

  “High on you.”

  “More, Daddy, please!”


  “High on my Jimmy’s slick!”

  Pausing to admire Jimmy, tenderly rifflin his hair, Daddy said, “I declare I’d just about kill any fairskin boy who withheld his slick from me, or gave it away to others.”

  “Never,” Jimmy promised.

  “You can leave us now, Otis,” said Daddy.

  So of course it was backseat Otis from then on, just like when Luke joined us. You know, it wasn’t the cops killed Luke, it was me. A scam backfired, and we were runnin, and I shouted “Go, Luke!” to pinpoint him and he took fire. Cops? It was Otis with a shotgun is all.

  Anyway, I sure didn’t take to the new arrangement, Daddy ravin about his Jimmy boy and Jimmy just so enjoyin that. Daddy even let Jimmy drive us from time to time. And Jimmy adored to drive, it seems. Cars were his candy.

  I never got to drive. What I got was swats to the ear and Fetch it, Otis, and there was no chance to get rid of Jimmy the way I got rid of Luke.

  I was so frustrated that once I threatened to beat Jimmy up if he ddn’t scram.

  “Daddy won’t like that,” was all Jimmy said, not even looking up from his X-Men comic.

  “How about money, then?” I went on. “I got some.”

  “How much?”

  “Or I could just crank you,” I said, and he finally looked at me, showin that smile I surely do not admire.

  “Whyn’t you like me, Otis?” he asked. “I like you.”

  “Maybe I’d like you plenty if Daddy wasn’t around.”

  Thinkin it over, Jimmy said, “Like how?”

  “Like we could crank Daddy and ride off in a car by ourselves. I know a few scams myself by now. Or ain’t we tired almighty of scammin? Soon’s we pull one off we got to reckon the next one. It’s endless, see, Jimmy?”

  “Crank Daddy?” asked Jimmy, still grinnin. “Like if you sneak up behind while he’s on me and cut his throat while he’s comin?”

  “Bet you’d look pretty watchin that, Jimmy Pie.”

  “Now you’re talkin nice to me. Wondered how long it’d take. So what’re you standin way over there for?”