for this.” His face was lit with joy.
“And that’s a good thing?”
“Sure is. Watching Yvonne today, I realized just
how miserable I am working for her. There has to be
something better I can do with my life than work for
that nightmare.” He turned to my mother. “Thanks,
Mrs. C. I owe you.”
“Darling.” My mother threw her arms around him.
“I’m so sorry if I got you into trouble with that terrible
woman.”
“No, really,” Andrew said, “it’s a good thing. I need
to move on.”
“Such a good boy,” my mother said, still pressing
Andrew against her ample bosom. “If Kevin wasn’t
so hung up on his conflicted bisexual boyfriend,
you’d be perfect for him.”
“Hmmm,” Andrew replied to my mother, but
smirked at me over her head, “Kevin didn’t give me
all that detail when he said he was involved with
someone.”
“Well, Kevin’s like that,” my mother answered.
“Always afraid to show his vulnerability. Even when
he was a little boy, when he’d wet the bed, he’d take
the sheets and . . .”
“Maybe we could save the humiliating walks down
memory lane for another time,” I suggested. “See?” my mother said to Andrew.
Andrew disentangled himself from my mother.
“Sorry it didn’t work out for you being on the show.” “Oh.” My mother sounded surprised. “You don’t
think they’re going to air this?”
“Uh, no,” Andrew said. “Of course not.”
“Huh,” my mother said. “I think it would make for a
very exciting episode. I could see it playing to a
broad range of demographics across a wide
spectrum of households sampled by the Nielsen
ratings.”
I looked at her with a WTF expression.
“What?” my mother asked, as if she always talked
like that. “I took a book out of the library about
television programming. I thought if I was going to be
getting into the business, as it were, I might as well
learn a little about it.”
I considered telling her that one appearance on
Yvonnedidn’t exactly put her on a level with Brandon
Tartikoff, but I knew I’d be wasting my breath. I turned
to Andrew instead. “So, you’re going to be OK?” “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll find something. Or maybe
even start my own thing.”
He gave me a hug and whispered in my ear,
“Listen, if things don’t work out with Ambivalent Man,
give me a call, OK?” He took one of his business
cards out of his pocket and pressed it into my palm. I
put it in my wallet.
“I will,” I said.
Just then, Yvonne’s screaming voice cried out
“Andrew!” only spread out over several seconds, so
it was more like “Annnnndddrewwwwww!!!” “Sounds like they’re playing my song,” he said
cheerily.
“Maybe Yvonne’s song should be ‘I’m Gonna
Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair,’” my mother
suggested. “Oh, I guess she can’t really sing that
anymore, can she?” My mother laughed at her own
joke.
Andrew chuckled and walked away.
I took my mother’s hand and we headed for the
door.
“You know,” my mother said, “I hope I did the right
thing. Do you think I went too far?”
It was reassuring to hear her ask. Till that moment,
my mother had never shown any sign that she even
understood the concept of “too far.” Or, at least, that
it could apply to her.
“You kidding? She’s probably needed someone to
tell her off for years. I was proud of you! But making
her bald? That took courage.”
“Oh, that? Please. Her hair had been treated,
colored, and straightened so many times that it was
two or three blow-dries away from falling out on its
own. I just hurried the process along a little. Trust me,
I’ve cooked spaghetti that was in better shape than
her hair.”
Behind us, we heard Yvonne continuing to scream,
Andrew raising his voice to be heard above the roar,
and the director making calming noises while more
than a few staffers whispered and snickered among
themselves.
“They really don’t like her very much, do they?” my
mother asked.
“Apparently not.”
“I can’t imagine what that must be like,” my mother
said. “Everyone at Sophie’s Choice Tresses loves
me, you know.”
“I know, Mom.”
“I’m a very good boss.”
“The best.”
We’d reached the front door. My mother warily regarded the crowd that had gathered outside to watch the taping through the window. They were still there but stood stock-silent, the “We Love Yvonne”
signs hanging limply by their sides.
“Would you describe them,” my mother asked, “as
an angry mob? Because, if so, maybe we should
wait awhile before going out.”
“They look more stunned than angry,” I said. “Yvonne is quite beloved,” my mother observed.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have depilatorized her. That could
have been a mistake, ratings-wise.”
“You don’t have any ratings,” I reminded her.
“Yvonne is the one with a show, not you.”
My mother continued to study the crowd. “We all
have ratings, dearheart. In one way or another.” “In that case, let’s go face your critics.” I put my
hand on the door handle.
“I don’t know about this. Do people still get
lynched? I have a very sensitive neck.”
“I don’t know,” I said, opening the door and
pushing my mother outside, “let’s see.”
The crowd stepped back a bit as we emerged.
They surrounded us in a half circle and openly
gawked at us, as if waiting to see what horrors my
mother might commit next. We were like twin
Frankenstein monsters being eyed by torch-bearing
villagers.
Then, from somewhere to the left, I heard
someone slapping something, then the same sound
to my right, then from everywhere, the noise swelling
and rising until I realized it wasn’t slapping but
clapping.
“Way to go, Sophie!” someone called.
“You got her!”
“That bald bitch better not show her face around
here again!” That was from Mrs. P., the doughnut
lady.
My mother brought her hands to her bosom.
“You’re not all mad at me?”
“Mad at you?” a gray-haired woman with one of
my mother’s signature beehives asked. “Why would
we be mad at you? That stuck-up Hollywood cooze
thinks she can come here to Hauppauge and insult
one of our own? You gave her what she deserved!” “You could hear us?” my mother asked.
“We didn’t have to,” Mrs. P. said, coming over to
put an arm around my mother. “We could see
everything through the window. We know you,
Sophie. For you to do a thing like that, that
woman
must have . . .” She finished her sentence in a long
string of Yiddish that meant nothing to me but got half
the crowd laughing.
“You’re good people,” another woman offered. “We love you, Sophie,” one of the young girls with
the “We Love You, Yvonne” sign shouted, proving
just how fickle a teenage girl’s affection can be. My mother was choking up. “You’re all so kind to
me,” she croaked. Mrs. P. wrapped her up in a
comforting hug.
“You know what I’m going to do?” Mrs. P. asked.
“Tonight, when I close the store, I’m going to stop by
your house with a chocolate layer cake. You know,
that one you love with the red and pink roses on top?
I make those by hand, you know, not from a mold. It’s
an art.”
My mother nodded into Mrs. P.’s fleshy shoulder. “You deserve a treat tonight, after what that
woman did to you,” Mrs. P. told her.
I had to say the whole thing made me see my old
neighborhood in a new light. Everyone there had
seen what my mother had done to Yvonne. None of
them had the slightest idea what, if anything, Yvonne
did to deserve such a fate. But they all stood behind
my mother and supported her, for no other reason
than she was one of their own.
It was pretty cool.
Soon, almost everyone in the crowd was lined up
behind Mrs. P., waiting to give my mother a hug, a
handshake, or just their best wishes.
My mother, who spent her entire life believing she
was a star even when no one else was paying
attention, lapped up the attention like a kitten
devouring a saucer of milk.
It was kind of touching to see my mother finally
enjoying in real life the applause she previously only
heard in her head.
Mrs. P. came over to give me a hug, too. “You’re a
good boy, Kevin.”
“Thanks.”
She pressed her cheek against mine and her lips
to my ear. “That’ll be twenty-two fifty for the cake. I’ll
take it now if you don’t mind, sweetheart.”
17
All I Ask of You “Bald?” Tony asked me for the thirty-third time. “Completely bald?” It was almost midnight. After a day spent with my mother deforesting one of America’s most beloved personalities and a dinner in which she alternately compared herself with Golda Meir and Martin Luther King Jr. (“Someone had to take a stand for those who have no voice,” my mother congratulated herself, to which my father responded, “Why couldn’t it be your mother who has no voice?”), I was glad that Tony came over as promised.
“Total cue ball,” I said. “Professor X with fake boobs and overinflated lips.”
We were lying in bed, which was pretty much our favorite place. Truth to tell, it was pretty much the onlyplace we spent any time together. Being with a guy in the closet made it easy to plan your dates.
“Wow.” Tony whistled. “Remind me not to piss off your mother anytime soon.” He ran his fingers through his own thick locks. “I’ve kind of gotten attached to this.”
I put my hand between his legs. “She’s not the one you need to worry about,” I said. I squeezed his balls. “Screw with me and you’ll lose a lot worse than your hair.”
“Oh, a tough guy, huh?”
I squeezed him again. “Scared yet?”
“Mmmm,” Tony moaned. “Terrified.”
A stirring tower under the sheet made it clear fear wasn’t the only thing he was feeling. “You like it rough, Rinaldi?” I pulled his balls tighter. He moaned again. I pulled harder.
“Fuck,” he hissed.
I took my other hand and wrapped it around his cock, tugging in the other direction.Like a taffy pull,I thought.
Precome leaked onto my hand and I used it to slick my palm’s slide to the base of his cock, getting it slippery and wet. I worked my hands in synchronicity, sliding up his shaft with one while pulling his balls with the other. The sweet slithery sensation on his dick competed with the aching pressure from his overstretched sac. I tormented him, up and down, back and forth, pain and pleasure, teasing and torture. He arched his back and threw back his head.
“What are you doing to me?” he rasped.
“Everything,” I said, throwing a leg over his pelvis and straddling his waist. I bent over and took a nipple into my mouth. Bit it with a bit more vigor than usual. “I’m going to do everything to you.”
I sucked his nipple hard, and when it was at its most distended, bit down again.
Tony grabbed my head and groaned. “I don’t like pain,” he croaked. His achingly hard cock told me he didn’t mind a little discomfort, though.
“It’s not pain,” I said. “It’s love.”
Tony bucked into my hands. “How do I know the difference?”
I looked at this man who was always so willing to join me in bed but so unready to be anywhere else with me. He looked so hot like this, his eyes rolled back in pleasure, the well-defined muscles of his chest and arms straining with the pressure of holding back and letting me run the show. He was so perfect
in so many ways. me?But was he perfect for
“I don’t know,” I said. There was a catch in my
voice that probably sounded like passion to him.
“Maybe there is none.” Then I bent over to kiss him
and tried not to think so much.
“Come on,” I said, “please?”
“No,” Tony said, his tone resolute.
“Pretty please,” I pleaded.
“No way.”
“Pretty please with sugar on top and the dessert
topping of your choice spread over your body and licked off by yours truly.”
Tony tilted his head. “Tempting. But no.”
We were sitting on the leather couch in my living room. Unusually, our lovemaking left us restless rather than wiped out, and we were eating leftover ordered-in Chinese food out of its paper cartons.
I’m not exactly the domestic type.
I was trying to talk him into seeingSuper Rangers, the new movie based on a superhero cartoon popular when I was eight years old. I always loved the Super Rangers, a team of five intrepid teenage boys who, one day, came across a mysterious glowing meteor in the woods. They touched it to see what it was made of, and were enveloped in a cocoon of brightly shining green energy. Even as an eight-year-old, I thought they were pretty stupid to be touching a strangely luminescent space rock. Had they never heard of radioactivity?
Luckily, instead of radiation poisoning, the light gave them the powers of the Super Rangers. Each of the boys received different powers and abilities, as well as his own totally styling costume. In what must have been a bit of foreshadowing, my favorite Ranger was Rainbow Lad, whose colored beams each had a different effect: red for heat rays, blue for cold, yellow for concussive shots, and amazingly, pink for healing.
Rainbow Lad was the gayest hero ever, and I loved him with all my prepubescent heart.
While Rainbow Lad might have been my favorite, I worshipped all the Super Rangers. I watched the show every day and amassed a ridiculously large collection of their action figures, comic books, and lunch boxes.
To this day, I can’t walk in the woods, not even Central Park, without keeping an eye out for brightly glowing meteors. You never know.
Now, after a year of leaked photos and teaser a d s,Super Rangers: The Motion Picture was playing at a screen near me, and I’d be damned if I was going to miss it. It had already been out for three weeks, and I was desperate to go.
“All right,” I said, “what do I have to do to get you to see this movie with me?”
“Try getting a time machine and sending me bac
k twenty years,” Tony mumbled through a mouthful of moo shu pork. “It’s a kid’s movie. I’m a little old for it.”
“Come on,” I said. “It’ll be fun.”
Tony looked unmoved.
“Tell you what,” I pleaded. “You seeSuper Rangers with me and I’ll . . . watch football or something.”
Tony kissed my forehead. “I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself. Get Freddy to see it with you.”
“Freddy’s already seen it. Twice.”
“I’m sure you could find someone. Maybe you could take your mom. She could fantasize about shaving their heads.”
“Did I mention dessert toppings?” I asked. “Because that includes syrups, and those can take forever to lick off.”
“Forget it.” Tony finished off his beer.
I wished I could change his mind, but I could see it was a lost cause.
“Why did I have to fall for an old man like you?”
Tony looked over at my bedroom, where the disheveled, stained sheets provided evidence of the most obvious reason. “For my sparkling personality, clearly.”
“Uh, that would be no.”
“Well, if it’s my fortune you’re after, I have bad news for you.”
“That story you told me about being Donald Trump’s secret love child isn’t true?”
“Sorry.”
I climbed into his lap. “I’m sure there’s something I like about you, but I just can’t put my finger on it.” Instead, I rested my whole hand there.
Tony put his hand on my head. “Maybe there’s something else you can put on it.”
I felt him coming to life beneath me. Tony had recuperative powers Wolverine would envy. “Hmmm, any ideas?”
The pressure on my head increased. “That depends. Have you had enough to eat?”
“I could probably go for a little something more.”
“Alittlesomething? I’m insulted.”
“Tell you what,” I said. “You swallow your pride . . .”
“And you’ll swallow something else?”
“Deal.”
He pushed a little more and my head wound up where it would do him the most good.
“OK,” I admitted, mouthing him through his sweatpants, “maybe notthatlittle.”
“That’s my boy,” Tony said. “You like that, huh?”
I would have answered him, but it’s rude to talk with your mouth full.
Later, back in bed, I asked Tony if he’d do me a favor. “What’s that?” he asked.
“I got a dinner invitation and I’d like you to come with me.”
“It’s not at your parents’, is it? Because I may be a tough-guy cop, but you know your mother scares the shit out of me, right?”
Second You Sin - Sherman, Scott Page 13