Lovesick

by James Driggers

  I can imagine how Sheriff Plummer would respond to that salacious tidbit. Me holding Lonnie’s hard, thick pecker in my hand in the back of my shop three short blocks from Main Street where anyone could have walked in at any time. Plummer would press for details, would love hearing about Lonnie’s dick, how big it gets, would have asked to see it if he could have gotten away with it in the pursuit of evidence. But Plummer’s interest in cock is not necessarily because he is homosexual—I wouldn’t know about that. I’ve had my suspicions, mind you, but until I get the “mother may I” go-ahead, I don’t take that giant step. I once had a good ole boy chase me halfway around the woods at Pine Grove Lake with a tire iron because I offered to finish him off when he was sitting in his truck playing with himself. But that’s another story. My feeling is that Plummer’s curiosity would stem from the fact I doubt the good sheriff has seen his own prick in the last dozen years with that huge corn-fed gut of his hanging down like it does. Besides, big, fat men inevitably have no dick. Like I said, I’ve seen enough to know.

  There is even a rumor afoot that I sucked Lonnie off in an empty baptismal pool of one of the Baptist churches. That salacious chitchat is especially hurtful since there are three Baptist churches in town, and a blow job in the sanctuary would make me seem both degenerate and unrepentant at the very least. However, it does make me smile to myself to imagine Joanne Jackson leading all the good Baptist women of the town and organizing committees to get down on their knees to Clorox those pools clean of the stench of sacrilegious man-on-man sex.

  But the time in the back of the shop wasn’t the first time I met Lonnie. No, the first time was late one Friday afternoon toward the beginning of last spring when the afternoon breeze still carried the promise of a cool evening. I remember I was driving by JB’s garage, having just delivered all the flowers to the Presbyterian church for a wedding there the next day. If I am to be thorough in my accounting of this, I should add, as a footnote, that while deemed acceptable to choose the flowers with the mother of the bride, arrange them, deliver them to the church, I am never asked to the church for the wedding or the funeral or the baptism, never asked to the reception or the receiving for a slice of cake or a glass of fruit punch. That is the way here and I accept it. Once in a great while they might send a picture of the “lovely arrangement” enclosed with the check to let me know I helped to “make their special day truly special.” But like I said, that’s the way it is and I always accepted it—happy to stay on my side of the fence. Solitary confinement, so to speak. Until I met Lonnie.

  The afternoon I met him I was on the way home from the Presbyterian church. Lonnie was changing the gas prices on the metal sign out front of the garage, fumbling with the numbers. He had the prices turned back to front, so that hi-test was two dollars and eighty-three cents instead of thirty-eight. He looked befuddled, innocent like a child putting together an alphabet puzzle where there were too many letters. To be totally truthful (which is my aim here), his T-shirt was torn under his left arm so that when he reached up there was a good glimpse of his armpit, the matted hair on his chest, his nipple, but that is not what struck me. It was not merely carnal lust that drew me to him. There are plenty of men who would have welcomed me and my soft, luscious mouth, anytime, anywhere. So don’t think of me as desperate. What drew me to him was that confusion, that childlike innocence, that helplessness.

  That is the image I would ask that you keep, for it is the image I hold even after all that has happened. It is the one of the Lonnie who existed in some faraway time and place. The ideal Lonnie.

  Do you believe in love at first sight? In fate? In destiny? No, then you will pass all of this off as some ranting of a giddy queen eager for a one-off with a grimy mechanic in a torn T-shirt. But I swear to you when I saw Lonnie, I knew that he was my future. I don’t believe there was any way I could have resisted it—him. Even if I had wanted to. I knew at that instant that he and I were linked in some special, inevitable way.

  I pulled into the garage and saw Joe Boggs, the owner, told him I needed to have a service on the delivery van. This was nothing unusual, though I usually had my mechanical work done midweek since weekends were busy with deliveries. To cover myself, I told him that I thought something was wrong with the fuel line or the carburetor. I told him I heard a dreadful sort of ping-ping when I got to around thirty miles per hour, and I was afraid the engine was just going to blow up and leave me stranded by the side of the road with a van full of flowers. This was, of course, a lie, but I knew Joe wouldn’t test it, would only change the oil, squirt some grease onto the springs and axle as he always did. My experience has shown mechanics hold homosexuals in general contempt, tolerate them even less than they do women in a garage. He would figure I was just being flighty, not knowing a carburetor from a candy bar. But business was business. And Joe Boggs is as greedy as they come.

  I told him I would leave the van in the morning, but had a very busy day at the shop and didn’t think I would get back before he closed. Which posed a real dilemma since I had to deliver the flowers for Sunday service to First Methodist, St. John of God Episcopal, and the Church of God of Prophecy where he was a member. Could he have someone drop it off for me when they closed at two on Saturday afternoon? Joe didn’t want to, didn’t want to be seen as too comfy cozy with me. But in a small town, it is almost impossible to say no to such a request—even a bigot like Joe Boggs would not want to be perceived as rude. So I knew he would say yes, even if he didn’t want to, especially since if he didn’t comply, there would be no flowers for his church on Sunday morning. How would he explain the lack of a mixed bouquet to his wife and fellow church members, not to mention the God of Prophecy. I knew it was a slight he wouldn’t be willing to risk. I also knew he would pawn the task off to someone else.

  “I guess I can have Lon run it over when we close. He’s staying out your way.”

  “That would be so helpful.” I smiled. By this time Lon—Lonnie—had walked back in the small, cluttered office of the garage. His smell—no, not smell, his scent—sweat, mixed with dirt and grease—almost overwhelmed me. But I refused to look at him. Knew that if I did, I would give myself away by some involuntary, trembling glance or smile—that he and Joe Boggs would know the truth about what I felt.

  “Lon, I’m going to have you take Mr. Vale’s van over to him tomorrow when we get done.”

  Lon shrugged a consent as he sized me up. At 5’6”, and a svelte 135 pounds, I am sure he considered me nothing more than a puny runt. And if he noticed them at all, the highlights in my nutmeg-tinted hair, my gold dangle belt, my teal Ralph Lauren Polo shirt would have been similarly dismissed with a single thought—fag. But I didn’t care. I am a butterfly. I am a work of art. I make beauty wherever I am. A flaming scarlet silk purse can never become a sow’s ear, my dears, and I for one have never seen any good reason to try; besides, the stage was set. Lon was coming to my shop.

  The next afternoon, instead of just zipping up and walking out like so many other men would do (and have done!), Lon walked back into the main part of the shop, checking out the lay of the land. Perhaps he felt the connection as well, I told myself. As he strolled casually among my displays I thought how Roman women would pour their tears into tiny urns as their husbands left for battle, to commemorate their love, their loss, their yearning, their suffering. Looking back now, I should have preserved that moment, used a vial to immortalize his milky spunk, his essence—and my love, my loss, my desire, my pain. Instead, I swabbed my hands with a Wet and Wipe, and tossed it into the trash can.

  “This where you stay?” he asked.

  I have learned you can always tell someone’s breeding by the questions they ask—or more to the point, the way they ask questions. Rednecks and white trash always refer to their home as where they’re stayin’, as if we are all a part of a communal caravan.

  “Yes,” I told him. “I have lived here since I was a boy.”

  “And this is yourn?”

  �
��You mean the house—yes, I own it.”

  “Who-ea,” he said. “I don’t think I ever met nobody who owned a house outright. You must be a right rich little fella.”

  “I have no complaints.”

  “And all this from putting flowers together in a jar.”

  “A vase. Or an arrangement. But floral design is a highly respected trade. And I have been nationally certified.”

  If he was impressed by this, he didn’t show it.

  “Where’s your mamma and diddy?”

  “Mother died when I was twenty-seven—my father was never around. What about you?”

  “Ain’t got no kin . . . at least none that will claim me.” His face darkened, and I knew there was more here.

  “Would you like a beer?” I asked. I had stocked my refrigerator with longnecks.

  “Sure. I guess. Whatever’s going.”

  When I brought the beer, I found him out on the back porch, sitting on the steps in the long shadows of the afternoon sun, leaning back against the rail. Male models work frantically to affect the effortlessness of that pose, that off-handed, casual, relaxed masculinity.

  I’ll buy you things, I wanted to tell him. If you will only come and stay here and let me look at you in this light, let me touch your face, your skin. I will worship you like the god that you are. And I will do whatever you ask me to.

  But I didn’t say that—I didn’t have to. Lonnie already knew that I belonged to him.

  If my life is ever made into a movie—and yes, I do imagine that it will be now since the word on the street is producers are already clamoring for the rights—the next few months would be a montage, the part of the movie shot in a golden glow where lovers skip playfully through fields of flowers, pausing only to sip wine from each other’s lips or loll playfully in front of the fire. A conversation that begins on the beach at sunrise in spring dissolves into a candlelit discussion over dinner in autumn. A touch on the hand across the breakfast table concludes with a final caress before the sheets billow in the breeze as a background for their lovemaking. I hope that is the way it is shot. It is the way it should be shot.

  In reality, Lon would come by once every three or four days after he got off from work at the garage. He would appear without warning at my back door, like he stumbled upon my house by accident. Or had been sleepwalking in a dream. We both knew why he was there, of course, even though we always pretended that the sex just happened. It was like when I used to buy weed from Drexel Smith before he burned up his trailer cooking methamphetamine and got sent to prison. I would only see Drexel a few times each year like the change of season, and when I would go to see him, I would always have an excuse for showing up, like we were friends or something. That he was more than just a dope peddler. We would pretend to have a conversation—the drugs would be an afterthought. “Oh, by the way, do you have an ounce you could sell me? Thanks so much. Sorry, I have to run.” If I am to tell it all, I would have to say that Lonnie was like that with me. There were no golden sunsets or claret-filled goblets—and very little talk.

  So to the director and the scriptwriter, if you want to show how it was, write it like this: Lon would show up at my back door like I said, ask if I had anything to drink—he knew, of course, that I kept beer in the fridge for him—then after knocking back a couple he would ask to use the toilet. Generally, he would leave the door open, and when he was finished peeing, I knew he was ready for me to make my move.

  “Looks like you could use some help there,” or “Why don’t you let me take care of that for you.” And so we fell into a rhythm, a pattern—like a real couple. When I got more comfortable, I would push the boundaries: “It’s pretty hot—you’re welcome to take a shower if you want. I think I might have a pair of jeans and a shirt that would fit you”—since I ordered them especially for you. Slowly, slowly, slowly our courtship progressed from me blowing him in the bathroom with his jeans and boxers down around his ankles. Soon, he would arrive, drink his beer (after helping himself), take a shower (without asking), and leave his dirty clothes for me to launder. While he would shower, I would make him a sandwich (bologna and olive loaf with mayonnaise were his favorites) or heat up something I had made for dinner the night before (meatloaf, pot roast, chicken—no casseroles) because I knew he would be hungry later. After covering his plate of food and leaving it on the table in the kitchen, I would stand outside the bathroom—waiting, watching. Soon, he would step out of the shower, naked, glistening like a seal pup, dry off, and comb his hair. Sometimes, he would shave. I will confide that he loved my toiletry products—the lotions, colognes, the hair tonics. He would liberally douse himself with whatever; slick back his blue-black hair so that it shined like wet ink. He would pat the remaining wetness from his chest or along his shoulders and saunter nonchalantly past me into my bedroom where he knew his fresh clothes would be laid out for him. That was my cue. I would find him reclined on the bed, waiting. And I would kneel between his legs, the soft heaviness of his balls beckoning me to the tower of his manhood. And so you do not have to wonder, I will answer the question for you. No, I never once undressed, never once touched myself, never once asked Lonnie to touch me or hold me or regard me in any way beyond what he did. And I would pleasure him, and he would give himself to me, and in those soft, quiet moments, even though there was no golden sunset, or claret-filled goblet, or romantic conversation, it was perfection. It was life like it is in the movies.

  2

  You have undoubtedly formed opinions about me. Certainly enough has been written. And Nancy Grace, good Lord, she has featured stories about us almost every night. You must have seen her—how she gets positively googly-eyed when she recounts some of the more sordid rumors: “We hear from the owner of the Peach Bottom Motel, a Mr. Rex Galloway, that Flowers and Vale never left the room after they bought a chicken bucket from a local drive-through, so are we to assume that they slept in the actual room with the body of the murdered boy—Sammy Hutchens?” True, Nancy, we did not leave the room. Lonnie invited Sammy back to the motel with the promise of money, drugs, sex, and a bucket of fried chicken. Then Lonnie fucked him, broke his neck, and ate the chicken while watching reruns of Cops. And yes, we slept in the room with the body of the murdered boy. Get someone to tell you about the smell sometime. It isn’t something you forget easily. Now, thanks to the free publicity, Mr. Galloway and his wife are giving tours at the motel—the “Death Room,” as they call it, has been cordoned off with red velvet ropes borrowed from the local mini-plex. A real trailer-trash version of an estate tour if you ask me.

  But I am hoping you, dear friend, will keep an open mind. And though this is not an apology, I never did intend for things to turn out like they did, had no inkling that the night in the motel was going to end up like it did. I could only see as far as what Lonnie was asking me to do. Believe that or not—it’s the truth. Good purpose can have the same horrific results as bad. I loved Lonnie. Wanted only to please him. And if we can never know the impact, then should we not be judged solely on our intent? If a blind man, reaching for the light switch, breaks a vase, then is it really his fault? But, you say, why would he need to turn the lights on anyway? So, let me give you an example a little closer to home.

  There was a woman who worked for my mother and me after Mother had her first stroke—a woman very near my mother’s age, but of lesser circumstance. Her name was Lois Bell. She came three days a week and did the chores that I did not have time (or the inclination) for. She vacuumed and dusted, polished silver, washed and ironed. If nothing else, Mrs. Bell was worth every cent we paid her just to iron. She could put a pleat in a trouser leg or a point on a collar like nobody’s business. If truth be told, she wasn’t really very good at much else. She was also addicted to the soap operas on CBS—As the World Turns, Guiding Light, in particular. She had watched them all her life, she said. For her, it was like spending time with friends, and she could recount in great detail the minute miseries of each of the characters. “Now th
at one, Abigail, is a sweet girl, really, though, she has had her share of trouble. She was one of them Amish people and was hard of hearing, so she left so she could have an operation and be normal, but then Roy attacked her and put her in a coma. When she came to, she shot him dead, and even though she didn’t go to jail, I think she still suffers from the incident. Why she ever got involved with that Roy, I just don’t know. He was bad business from the get-go.”

  The other, newer shows like The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful were too brass, too brazen for her—which I interpreted as too sexy—and she would have nothing to do with them or the afternoon talk shows where people sang their perversions and woes to the world. I wonder what Mrs. Bell would have thought about Nancy Grace’s commentary on me. I can see her standing at the ironing board, pressing down on a freshly starched pleat. “Nancy, you have to believe me when I tell you he was a nice boy, really. Devoted to his mamma, and could put flowers together like nobody’s business. About all the other, I wouldn’t know.” She liked to watch her shows while she ironed. She also liked to chew ice and kept a small bowl on the end of the ironing board, cracking ice cube after ice cube with her back teeth, sucking the cold, melted slush down with a slurp. It drove Mother crazy.

  But there was one problem. Mrs. Bell didn’t drive. Which meant that someone always had to fetch or deliver her from where she was coming to where she needed to go. So two years after the stroke, when Mother finally admitted that she would not be driving again, she thought it would be a kind gesture to offer the Rambler to Mrs. Bell. So we did. Mother even paid for Mrs. Bell to go to driving school. Mrs. Bell was overjoyed. A car meant she wouldn’t have to depend on her daughter for rides. And she could go to church on Wednesday evenings without having to wonder if she would have to take the bus home after at night. Then on Christmas Eve, as Mrs. Bell was on her way to church for the Nativity Play and song service, she hit a strip of black ice out on Highway 905. Went sideways smack into a telephone pole and was killed instantly. Mother was distraught, said that if she had not provided her with the means, then Mrs. Bell might not have been killed. I only thought that it was oddly appropriate that Mrs. Bell had been killed by ice, and it was not until later that I understood what Mother had felt.