Carpool

by R. W. Clinger

  Perrin does.

  They leave.

  * * * *

  Some chocolate-covered Rock-look-alike cop stands by Luke’s Leaf. He wears too much cologne, a pair of sunglasses, and a mandatory handgun on his right hip. His pearly whites shine as he tells Luke, “You’re parked in a no parking zone. You’re too close to the fire hydrant. This is going to be a hefty fine.”

  “Shit,” Luke whispers to Perrin at his left side. “This is bad. I don’t need a ticket. Who does?”

  Surprisingly, Perrin tells Luke, “I’ve got this. Keep quiet and let me handle it.” He steps up to the high rise-tall cop and says his name, “Murdock.” He gives the cop a man-hug, bumping their chests together. “How the hell are you?”

  The black cop kisses his cheek. “Where the hell have you been? You helped me out of the closet. You set me up with Vinnie. Then you vanish from sight. I haven’t seen you since. What’s the deal with that?”

  Perrin squeezes one of the cop’s nipples through his uniform, playing. “I’m not hiding from you. You know where to find me when you need me. I’m just letting you live your life out of the closet. Every cub needs to turn into a lion. Now’s your time to roar and be a lion.”

  Truth be told, Luke doesn’t receive a parking ticket. Instead, Perrin sets up a lunch date later in the week with the hot black cop. The two plan to talk about Murdock’s love life with Vinnie, his adventures as a gay man, and how it feels to be free from his ex-wife and the lies Murdock has kept from her.

  Driving away, heading to Bound Street to pick up Dr. Billy “Box” Boxford in front of his townhouse, Perrin sits in the Leaf’s front passenger seat. He rambles to Luke, “I’ve known Dean Murdock for three years. We go to the same gym. Somehow, someway, we’ve become friends.

  “Last summer, he was married to Tina Lewis-Murdock. Twenty-two years of marriage. They have two girls together. Both are in college now. Stunning creatures with dark skin and violet-blue eyes. Anyway, last spring, Murdock came out of the closet to me. He told me he liked men over women. He admitted he was living a life of continuous lies, both to his wife and himself. Yes, he loved his wife. But no, he didn’t want to sleep with her anymore. No surprise, since he wouldn’t stop ogling my biceps, thighs, and chest when we worked out together and showered.

  “I helped him slowly take ownership of a new life. First, he told his wife he was gay. She wasn’t surprised. Not in the least. She told him she always thought that he liked men, having a strange affection to them. Then he told his daughters he was gay. They didn’t care, going through their own pre-college bullshit. After that, he and Tina divorced. She and the girls kept the house, and Murdock moved into an apartment on Snide Street on the North Side. Six months later, I introduced him to Vinnie Melf. The two are boyfriends today. I’ll find out at lunch with Murdock if the relationship is working. Should be interesting.”

  Luke tells him, “You’re a good man to help him like that.”

  “Part life coach and part matchmaker. Everyone has a title. It makes the world go round, and the bullshit easier to handle.”

  “You sound excited to see him again.”

  “I am. He’s a nice guy. Smart. Fun. Enjoyable to be around. I’m sure he has a ton of queer-related tales to share with me. Murdock likes to talk. Nothing can keep him quiet.”

  “Sounds interesting. We all need a talker in our lives to make it interesting.”

  * * * *

  Luke makes a left on Birmingham Street. He sees Box on the sidewalk, next to the bus stop. Patiently waiting. Box is six-four, and his massive frame drips with sweat. His sky blue dress shirt is soaked and clings to his hulking chest.

  Luke tells Perrin, “Box looks pissed. Check out that sneer. His teeth are clenched, and he’s squinting. That man is on fire. He’s ready to attack us.”

  Box has a Kenneth Cole knapsack strapped to his back. The tight straps cause his pumped biceps and chest to puff, and he resembles a superhero, or a super villain. He slips a pair of sunglasses over his eyes as soon as he spots Luke’s Leaf. His orange hair glows like the sun, as well as his bushy eyebrows and the orange-brown freckles splotching both cheeks.

  Once the Leaf pulls up to the curb and stops in front of him, he hollers with raised arms, “Where the fuck have you two fags been? You’re going to make me late.”

  “Nice language,” Perrin says through his closed window. “Who cares if he’s late? He only listens to queers all day, anyway.”

  Luke sighs. “I’m sure he works more than I do.”

  Box is a therapist. Ten years he has operated his own practice in the Ulmer Building, three floors beneath Luke’s floor. He specializes in gay marriage/couples. If asked for a definition of his job, he will tell you, “I get men to have sex with each other, balancing their marriage or relationships. My job is to discover love and boners again in failing relationships.”

  Luke and Perrin never ask about Box’s job, although Box talks about it all the time. Never fails. Dicks. Coming. Rectums. Toys. Lubes. All Box discusses is his clients. So and so with a limp penis that won’t get hard anymore. Mr. Uptight and Uninterested in his husband. Daddies who can’t look at each other after fifteen years of marriage, but still want to stay married. Boyfriends who only have sex in common. Rough sex between lovers. Too much biting. Not enough biting. Luke and Perrin have heard everything about men in love or hate, and stories of sex in gay relationships from Box. Everything.

  Box steps off the curb and walks around the front of the Leaf. He yells at Luke, “If we’re going to make it to work on time, I’m driving!” He opens the driver’s door, and Luke puts the vehicle in park and steps out. Box adds, “Sit in the back.”

  Luke listens. Always docile. Always liking to be talked down to by men. Always submissive. Always. He can’t ever recall being the one in charge of any relationship. Never.

  Box removes the pack from his back and tosses it on Perrin’s lap. “Hold this, Lerue.” He climbs inside the Leaf and settles behind its wheel. Within seconds, he straps himself in the seatbelt and pulls away from the curb, zooming down Birmingham Street and heading toward the city, its skyscrapers, and their jobs.

  * * * *

  Trapped in morning traffic, sitting behind a Ford Focus on Second Avenue, approximately three-fourths a mile away from the Ulmer Building, Box tells Perrin, “Open my sack. I need help from you two queens.”

  Perrin unzips the sack.

  Box instructs, “Pull out the DVD on top.”

  Perrin does. “What the hell is this?”

  From the backseat, Luke sees the DVD’s title, Daddies Unleashed: Four Hours of Hot Daddies and their Creamy Loads. On the front of the plastic sleeve is a picture of two naked and beefy men in their late thirties. They stand in a shower together with erections. The daddies semi-hug and kiss. Both are wet and hairy. White ooze drips out of their erect flags.

  Luke says, “What’s the movie for?”

  Box rattles off, “My client Mitch works too hard and can’t get it up for his husband, Richard. They’ve been married for six years. I’m introducing the movie to them. They both like hairy men over thirty. Do you two think this movie will do the trick?”

  Perrin flips the DVD over and looks at its back cover.

  Luke hunches forward, looking between the Leaf’s two front seats. His mouth opens as he sees an orgy of naked men on the back cover: couples sucking each other’s cocks, dicks inside hairy assholes, some actor’s chest being drizzled with pounded-out come, a blindfolded daddy, and other men over thirty, kissing.

  He admits, “It would work for me.”

  “Me, too,” Perrin says. “I like my daddies.”

  “Good to know,” Box says. “I’ll put that in my notebook and profile about you.”

  “You keep notes on me?” Perrin slips the DVD back into the pack and zips it closed.

  Box chuckles. “I don’t. Just kidding. What kind of friend do you think I am?”

  Luke laughs in the back seat.

  Som
e asshole beeps his horn behind the Leaf. Box holds his composure together. He’s never been one to have road rage, finding it pointless. Instead, he ignores the shithead driver and his horn, and tells his passengers, “I think the adult movie will work for my clients. Something tells me it will turn them both on, and they’ll have great sex together and…”

  Luke’s mind drifts. He thinks about having sex with Perrin again. This time inside the Leaf: naked bodies meshed together; legs awkwardly entwined; Perrin inside his bottom; both men huffing and puffing. Another erection builds between his legs. He pushes it away, unable to deflate its mass.

  Perrin looks over his left shoulder and sees Luke’s busy hand on his chino-covered dick. He winks at Luke, grinning.

  Luke immediately pulls his hand away, deflating between his legs. Caught.

  * * * *

  Morning traffic loosens like mucus in the back of one’s throat. Box makes a right on Smithfield, a left on Third Street, and comes to stop at a pedestrian crossing zone. Box sees a bearded bear in a tight pair of jeans, tan work boots, and a Led Zeppelin T-shirt. He stands at six-two and probably weighs one-eighty. All muscle with steel-hard nipples. Crotch the size of a front-end loader. Big pink lips. No older than forty. His hair is a dark brown curl on its right side, an edgy undercut style that is half-shaven down the middle on its left side. The man holds a white hardhat in his left hand and an aluminum lunch pal in his right. His arms are decorated in tattooed sleeves: smiling devils, smoking pistols, a winking leprechaun, a bloody heart, skulls, and other dark-themed etchings. No unicorns pooping out rainbows. No smiling suns or Care Bears. Nothing girlie, sweet, or happy.

  “The electrician. My soul mate. My future husband,” Box chirps behind the car’s wheel, sounding like a little girl. He becomes transfixed on the man and watches the bear walk to the crosswalk, prepared to pass in front of the Leaf.

  Box is a fucking nut bag, out of his mind. He knows everything about the bear, who is now in the crosswalk. His name: David Wolfe. His city address: 3292 Hemming Way in Southton. His house: a three-bedroom Tudor. His age: thirty-nine. His career: lead foreman/electrician in the Ulmer Building, total blue-collar all the way. His religion: non-denominational. His gym: Bobby’s Biceps on Poland Street in Southton. His relationship status: single. His sexual preference: men. Never married. No kids. His mother: Luellen Wolfe. His father: deceased. His last boyfriend: Henry Daye, an artist; Henry cheated on him, and David broke up with him. His…

  Box has done his lengthy homework on David. All of it. It’s taken him over three months to collect the information and details. According to Box, “It’s worth every second. I need to know the man I’m going to marry and spend the rest of my life with.”

  Luke hears Box pant. So animalistic. Gritty. Grainy. The ginger’s chest rises and falls behind the steering wheel.

  “I’m going to do something crazy,” Box tells his riders. He begins to edge the Leaf’s front bumper forward, into the crosswalk as David walks across Third Street.

  “Jesus Christ, don’t hit him!” Perrin yells, demanding.

  “I’m going to tap his hardhat with the car,” Box explains. “I want to get his attention. It’s about time we meet face to face.”

  “No! This is a bad idea!” Luke screams between the two seats, into Box’s right ear. “Don’t fucking hit him! This is a very bad idea.”

  It’s too late. The unsettling scene of a lifetime is about to go down. Pure entertainment that is shocking and unbelievable and illegal. Box’s right foot lifts from the brake pedal, and the Leaf slowly drifts forward. The Leaf’s hood taps against David’s hardhat.

  By the look on David’s handsome face—blazing eyes, semi-opened mouth—he realizes that contact has been made with his hardhat by the car’s hood. He stops and looks into the Leaf and quickly pulls up the hardhat, mostly by instinct. His face turns red, and his eyes flare even wider. Is he growling? Luke thinks so. Obviously, the man is infuriated. Ready to flip out. Explode.

  “Fuck. This is a lawsuit in the making,” Luke says as he watches Box shift the Leaf in park and climb out of the vehicle. “David is pissed. Shit is going to hit the fan.”

  “Oh my God,” Perrin whispers in the front, passenger seat. “What’s going on? Do we have to call the police?”

  Luke ignores Perrin’s two questions. His heart falls. His throat tightens and immediately dries. He says, “David’s going to smash him to the ground. Box is going to become orange juice pulp.”

  “I’m calling the police. Right now!” Perrin says, finding his phone.

  What Luke Masterson sees:

  It’s not a fistfight on Third Street. But it is shocking. Something that only happens at the end of a movie.

  Box walks up to David and says, “You hit my car with your hardhat.”

  David Wolfe steps up to Box. Their chests almost touch. Their lips are only two inches apart. He says, “You hit me with your car. I could have been killed.”

  Morning onlookers stop, freezing in positions, and gawk at the unfolding scene.

  “I didn’t hit you, buddy. You’re mistaken. Your hardhat tapped the hood of my car.”

  David touches the tip of his nose against Box’s. “You did hit me, guy. If I didn’t have the hardhat to block the blow, you would have nailed me in my right leg. I could be disfigured for life.”

  More passersby stop and gawk at the scene. Morning commuters stand nearby, watching the incident unfold between the two men. Traffic stops. The earth stops spinning on its axis. All hell is about to break lose between the beefy guys.

  Box instigates the drama with, “No chance I did that, man. You’re hallucinating. What kind of drug are you on?”

  “I don’t do drugs,” David replies, growling. Huffs and snorts like a rodeo bull.

  Perrin whispers in the front seat, frozen with his cellphone in his right hand, perhaps unable to press 911. He narrates, “David’s going postal. His jaw is tightening hard. The veins in his neck are going to pop. He’s going to murder Box. It’s going to be a blood bath on Third Street.”

  “I see that,” Luke says, keeping his view on the action at the front of the Leaf’s hood. “Maybe you should call the police.”

  Change occurs. Strangeness. Fiction that only one of Melner’s writers can create.

  A fight doesn’t break out between the white-collar and blue-collar workers in the center of Third Street.

  David hunches and places both his hardhat and lunch pal on the asphalt. Then he stands and takes Box inside his hulking arms. As he pulls Box towards him, he says, “I know who you are. I know you’ve been watching me. I know you like me and…”

  “Jesus,” Perrin whispers. “They’re kissing. What’s going on? What did I miss? Where’s the blood and punching? Where’s the Fight Club shit?”

  Luke notes it’s not a gentle kiss either. There’s lots of forced tongue, heavy breathing, and their faces meld together. There’s arms wrap around each other, and their middles touch. He says to Perrin, “It’s sexy as fuck. The best kiss ever.”

  The crowd goes wild. Onlookers share an applause, hoot, and holler. Loud whistles echo among the stalled traffic and morning people. A roar of excitement unravels.

  “David’s practically eating Box’s face. The kiss is intense,” Perrin admits.

  Perrin’s right. David Wolfe becomes a sucking and kissing animal in the middle of the crosswalk. In fact, he lifts Box up, and Box swings his legs around the electrician. And their kiss continues, resembling a queer and romantic movie with a happy ending. Pure romance. Maybe love. Something.

  Box and David eventually take their kissing to the right side of the crosswalk and end up on the sidewalk where they continue to kiss. Luke climbs behind the wheel of the Leaf, and Box waves them on while still kissing the man of his dreams. The kiss stops, but only temporary.

  Box yells, “I’ll catch up with you guys later! Don’t worry about me! Something tells me I’m in good hands!”

  Luke opens his door,
drops Box’s sack, and says to Perrin, “This show is over. It’s time to get to work.” He moves the Leaf forward, smiling and happy for his psychiatrist friend. The summer day continues.

  * * * *

  After Luke parks his vehicle under the Ulmer Building, the two men separate. It’s now 9:16, and they’re running a touch late. Perrin escapes to the accounting firm where he works, and Luke ends up at Melner Publishing. They most likely won’t see each other for the next eight hours, diligent at work and each busy with his day.

  The morning spins for Luke. Nothing seems to turn out right for his best interest. He loses Penny Spills’s cell phone number, a new photographer Melner will be using in the near future to take authors’ pictures for the backs of book covers. He spills coffee on his white shirt; the rich and dark stain will never wash out. The shirt is ruined, and he might as well toss it away. The stain just happens to look like a drooping penis with balls—embarrassing!

  The worst thing that happens brings blueness to Luke’s day. The horror writer, Mike Tungsten, cancels their morning meeting. He complains of a migraine and can’t make it. “I feel as if a nuclear war is going on inside my skull. It’s North Korea against America. Plus, I’m throwing up every half hour.”

  Luke politely tells him it’s no big deal and they can reschedule a new day and time to meet, via email. He wishes Tungsten the best recovery from illness and ends the call.

  At approximately 10:40, Perrin contacts him via text message.

  I need to speak with you. Something’s on my mind. We’ll talk on the way home.

  Luke reads the message three more times, and his heart falls. Maybe Perrin’s done with the carpool and wants to take the train to work. Maybe he’s quitting his accounting job, accepting a position with a different company, higher pay, and better benefits. Or maybe he’s pissed that Luke entered his apartment this morning, waking him up. Not that Luke blames him if he is, since a man needs his privacy. Honestly, Luke is unsure what the something is that just happens to be on Perrin’s mind. Could be anything. In approximately six hours, he’ll find out. Whether he wants to, or not.