An Officer And His Gentleman

by Ryan Field

  "It's cool,” Chance said. His face felt dry and tight. He could still smell the sweet, bleach-like aroma of Brody's come. “But I'd better get that tank filled before I get into trouble with the boss."

  "Ah, thanks,” Brody said. The thank-you sounded awkward, as if he wanted to say more but held back.

  Chance shrugged and started filling the tank with propane. When he leaned forward, he had a feeling that Brody was staring at every move he made. He was terrified to look up, but from the corner of his eye he could see that Brody's head wasn't moving at all. When the tank was filled, he had to use both hands to lift it off the ground.

  But Brody jumped forward and said, “Hey, man. I'll take that. It's heavy.” He effortlessly lifted the tank with one hand, and didn't even blink his eyes.

  This offended Chance slightly, for some reason. He knew Brody meant to help out, but he couldn't stop wondering if Brody thought he was too weak to carry a tank of propane. “I do this all the time, though,” he said. “Carry all kinds of heavy things around here, and I make out just fine on my own. As a matter of fact, I do almost everything around here, from deli work to operating the heaviest machinery.” He straightened his shoulders and used a firm, hoarse tone of voice. If he'd been the type to grab his crotch and spit on the ground, he would have.

  A voice rang out from the front of the market. “You! Inside, I need you now! Is a line of people waiting for meat, and for what? The meat slicer is-a jammed!” Dan never called Chance by his name. He just pointed and referred to him in pronouns: He can do it. You, go clean-a that bathroom on your hands and knees.

  Chance raised his hands in the air and shrugged. “See what I mean? He can't even slice his own deli meats without me.” He kept smiling, but by now he realized that Dan was a noisy little troll of a man who had never quite learned how to manage his own business. After all, that was his meat slicing machine, with the rickety blade that kept faltering and causing backups in the deli line on the busiest weekends of the year. If he hadn't been so mechanically inept and had taken the time to check the back of the blade to see if anything was stuck, it would have saved a great deal of time in the long run. But Chance knew he'd never do it, and that made him seem even more pathetic and doomed.

  "I should go back inside and pay for the cold cuts and the propane,” Brody said.

  But neither one of them moved away from the propane tank. They were both caught in that awkward, endless moment when you either take the next step toward getting to know someone, or just abandon the idea and move on with your life. Brody just stood there grinning, with his legs spread wide, rocking on the balls of his feet. Chance pressed his lips together and smiled. At one point he reached toward the propane tank and brushed a twig off with his palm.

  "Ah, well...” Chance said. He knew that if he didn't get back to the store, Dan would make his life miserable for the rest of the day.

  "Ah, you wanna hang out later?” Brody asked. His voice grew softer, the words tongue-tied and disconnected. “I haven't been back here in a long time, maybe ten years, and I don't really know anyone anymore. I'm a naval officer on extended leave for personal reasons. I thought maybe we could just go over to The Island and hang out for a while. That is, if The Island is still there.” The Island was a small, broken-down amusement park on the other side of the lake. It was a local joke, but weekenders found it quaint and kitschy.

  "It's still there,” Chance said, “broken-down roller coaster and all.” He didn't actually say yes, but he smiled. He'd always fantasized about sucking off a Navy guy, and here he'd gone and blown a naval officer and he hadn't even known it. He glanced at Brody's tattoo again and raised his eyebrows. He'd planned to stay home and do what he did every night: read cookbooks and watch the Food Network when the old man went to bed. The only thing he ever thought about was going to cooking school and becoming a famous celebrity chef one day.

  Brody looked at his watch and asked, “Where do you live?"

  He found it interesting that Brody simply assumed he could take complete control, or maybe he just figured since he'd been the one to ask, he should at least offer to pick him up.

  "I live here, but I'll meet you there at eight, at the front gate.” It's not that he was offended by Brody's assertiveness. He just knew the old man would go ballistic if Brody came knocking on the door for him. If a guy even so much as smiled at Chance in the store—and plenty did—and the old man saw it happen, there would be pots and pans banging around the kitchen all day long.

  Brody nodded. “That's cool, man."

  Chance reached out to shake his hand. He didn't know what else to do, and he couldn't stand there talking all day. It was an out-of-place, formal gesture for someone who had just sucked a guy off, but he did it fast, and then started to jog back to the front of the store. He was already planning a good excuse for being out back for so long, a superior one so the old man wouldn't question him. When he reached the middle of the alley, he turned back and said, “See you later, and don't worry about the gas and the deli stuff. It's on me.” Then he turned and jogged back to the store. He didn't want Brody walking back inside to pay—the old man would become suspicious.

  As soon as Chance reached the entrance door, he crossed back to the deli and started working on the slicing machine. There were no customers waiting, just the old man leaning against the sink, his arms folded across his sunken chest, tapping his right foot. Chance reached down and yanked on a huge chunk of plastic that had somehow become jammed in the blade, looking sideways toward the old man and wondering how the plastic had gotten jammed there in the first place. He knew he hadn't done that.

  "And where were you?” Dan asked.

  Chance stared at the blade, wiping bits and pieces of dried deli meat onto the counter. “The valve got stuck while I was filling a tank. I had to work it slowly until it loosened up.” He hoped his lips weren't still red and swollen from sucking dick. He stepped back so Dan couldn't smell Brody's come on his face.

  Dan stared down at his ass for a moment, and then licked his lips. “I'm going to the market. I'll be back in a coupla hours.” Dan went to the wholesale fruit and produce market down in Newark on Monday and Thursday mornings, but today he meant the supermarket. He shopped all the supermarkets within a fifty-mile radius for bargains on anything from canned soda to jars of mayonnaise. Then he'd stock his shelves and mark the prices up three or four times what he'd paid. Locals only bought fruit, produce or deli takeout there. It was the weekenders who didn't mind paying extra for the other groceries.

  "Is it okay if I go to The Island later tonight with Sarah?” Chance asked. He had to use Sarah as his excuse. He'd ask her to go after he asked for Dan's permission. His voice had a fake lilt, as if he were a teenager asking for permission to go out on his first date. He didn't want to piss the old bastard off. But he wondered how much longer he'd be able to endure working and living with him.

  "I have poker tonight. Just get back before midnight,” he said, then headed toward the front door. When he walked behind Chance, he looked around to see if anyone was watching them, then he reached down, slipped his hand into the back of Chance's pants, and grabbed a handful of his ass right there in the deli. He squeezed hard and bit his bottom lip, and then he whispered, “This ass-a belongs to me, so don't fuck around, you."

  Chance's entire body tightened; he closed his eyes and held his breath. The old man didn't touch him often, and when he did it was only to cop a cheap feel either on his ass or between his legs. He began to wipe the counter with fast, round circular motions, spraying with a mixture of water and bleach, and he tried not to gag out loud as the old man's hand moved around inside his pants.

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  Chapter Two

  The market closed at seven on Friday nights, but that night, Dan made him scrub all the floors, even behind the deli counter, before he went out. This was unusual, because Monday was normally floor-scrubbing day, and Chance suspected that Dan was mad at him for wanting
to go to The Island with Sarah. He didn't like Chance to have any fun. So to put the old man in a better mood before he left for his poker game, the minute the last customer left and the shades were pulled down, Chance grabbed the mop, filled a bucket with soapy water and removed all his clothes. Dan was clearing out the cash register, and Chance knew he was watching every move he made. When he leaned forward to wet the mop with soapy water, he purposely arched his back and wiggled his pretty ass in Dan's direction. When he came to a corner where the mop wouldn't reach, he went down on his hands and knees with his legs spread wide and scrubbed with a wet rag. He even stood and scratched his balls a few times with soapy fingers.

  By the time he was ready to leave, the old man smiled and said, “Don't you be late tonight.” His dentures were yellow and didn't fit correctly. When he used words that began with T, his teeth tended to slip forward and he'd press his crooked fingertips to his lips to adjust them.

  Chance turned quickly and swung his hips so his penis bounced off his thigh with a loud smack. “I won't. You have fun."

  The old man left the market, staring down at Chance's bouncing genitals as he went.

  Chance grabbed his clothes and ran upstairs to the living area. It was a narrow staircase covered with olive-green shag carpet that had been installed years before he'd been born. It was a little past seven-thirty. He took two steps at a time.

  When he reached the small back bedroom where he slept, he pulled a black polo shirt and a faded pair of jeans from metal wardrobe and threw them onto a twin bed neatly covered with a plain white spread. He didn't have many clothes, but the few he did have were all hung neatly on wooden hangers. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a small wooden nightstand to the left of the bed. He removed his watch and placed it there. He grabbed a bath towel from a hook behind his door and pulled down the window shade for privacy. Though the paint around the window was chipped and the dingy shade frayed at the edges, the glass sparkled and shined just like the windows in his old car.

  He jumped into a cold shower because he didn't have time to wait for the hot water to come up from the basement. It was the only bathroom in the house and he shared it with the old man. He always made sure he cleaned the cracked floor tiles and the toilet seat with straight bleach, and he never looked at the beige, plastic false teeth container on the edge of the sink longer than a second. The old man drank prune juice daily, and Chance kept a can of air freshener, a long, sturdy toilet brush and a pair of latex gloves handy at all times. The only thing he didn't do for the old man was his laundry, and there was always a dingy white towel and a crusty pair of socks hanging over the shower curtain that smelled like spoiled fish.

  He washed quickly, brushed his teeth until his gums tingled, and ran back to the bedroom to put on his clothes. The faded jeans were low rise, with a three-inch zipper that made his penis pop forward, but he left the black polo shirt outside his pants to cover the bulge so it wouldn't be obnoxious. He nearly fell over when he put his socks on, and he was almost halfway down the stairs when he turned and ran back to retrieve his watch from the nightstand. He told Sarah he'd pick her up on the way to The Island, and she lived ten minutes out of the way.

  He drove a pale blue, ‘90 LeBaron convertible, with a roof that leaked when the rain hit the passenger side and a broken air conditioner. But it was spotlessly clean, from the white canvas top to the white leather seats, although there was a small tear in the back seat that drove him to distraction. He'd purchased the old car with money he'd saved the first year he worked at Dan Pratta's market. It wasn't much of a car, but it was his one source of independence: If he finally decided he couldn't take any more of Dan, he could always live in the car for a while.

  The drive to Sarah's house only took him a few miles off the main road, but it felt like he was driving to Alaska. He made a left onto Cove Road and passed rows of small, unkempt cottages, most of them converted into haphazard year-round homes to where working-class New Yorkers had retired. Small kitchens had been extended by adding slant-roofed lean-to additions. There were plastic gnomes and windmills in some front yards, plastic birdbaths and statues of the Virgin Mary in others; a few people had spray-painted old truck tires white and filled them with dirt and orange marigolds. He veered right onto Bucknell Trail, and then down a steep hill that led to a small cluster of simple white clapboards with more expensive lakefront property. At the edge of the driveway near the last house on the right, a plump young woman with big red hair and a yellow halter top clutched her brown pocketbook and walked toward the street. She opened the door with long red fingernails and slid into the passenger side.

  "You're late,” she said, “It's almost seven o'clock."

  Chance knew Sarah wasn't mad at him. He gripped the steering wheel and sighed. Then he made a U-turn and headed back to the main road. “The old man made me scrub all the floors after we closed. He said he wanted the place clean for the weekend, but he only wanted to torture me.” He didn't mention that he'd been naked when he'd mopped the floors, or that he'd wiggled his ass to put Dan in a good mood. No one knew about that part of his life.

  She smiled and rubbed her palms together as if she were expecting something wonderful to happen. “Well, I always think it's better to be late anyway. You don't want to look too anxious if you're gonna snag this guy. Play hard to get, is what I always say.” She shook her finger at him. Her voice was overly animated and she was speaking even faster than she usually did.

  "I'm not trying to ‘snag’ anyone,” he said. He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “I'm just meeting a friend at an amusement park is all.” But his palms were starting to sweat and his mouth felt a little dry. This may have been a huge mistake. He could have been home watching the Food Network and planning his next recipe.

  He turned back onto the main road that circled the massive lake and they rode in silence, passing cute little cafes and pizza shops with red, white and green awnings next to small mom-and-pop gift shops that sold T-shirts and postcards and beach accessories. As they rounded a curve that led to the other side of the lake, the landscape grew darker—woody and leafy, with more expensive homes at the end of long driveways. It always made Chance smile, though, that the woodlands around the lake had not yet been replaced by newer sub-divisions that seemed to be popping up everywhere. He passed a natural stone wall on the right, where a sign read, “Caution: Falling Rocks.” On the left there was a white brick, flat-roofed school with large black letters that spelled out, “Richard M. Nixon Elementary". He'd always wondered if they'd chosen that name before or after Nixon had resigned.

  He drove a few more miles, then put on his left turning signal and came to a full stop. When it was safe to turn, he drove down the gravelly tree-lined road where a faded red sign with white letters read, “Bartrum's Island.” The old car bumped and jerked; he drove very slowly to avoid large potholes. He passed a deer that was waiting to cross. It stood there frozen in its tracks, eyes popping and heart probably racing. The road widened into a large gravel parking lot. It was still early and there weren't many cars. He pulled into a space at the end of the second row.

  Bartrum's Island wasn't a real island at all—the moniker was meant to make it sound more festive. He'd been going there since he was a small child and it hadn't changed in all those years, which wasn't necessarily a good thing. Each summer the place seemed more dilapidated and worn than the year before. A cluster of rickety amusement park rides included the most unkempt roller coaster in the East, and a ferris wheel barely turned a full circle in an hour. There were rows of carnival wheels where they gave out dusty stuffed animals for prizes, and a fortune teller would guess your height and weight for five dollars. The locals, though, mainly went there to either walk around or hang out at a bar called The Island Pier.

  Chance pulled his keys from the ignition and opened the door. His hands felt shaky and his right eyelid started to twitch. “Maybe this wasn't such a good idea,” he said.

  But Sarah was
already out of the car and halfway down the parking lot. She put her hands on her hips and called, “C'mon. Let's go! It'll be fun."

  He noticed she was wearing high heels and brand-new jeans. She looked overdressed for a casual walk around The Island, as if she were the one meeting a stranger that night. He jogged up to her side and shook his head. “I'm having major second thoughts about this. I mean, seriously, this guy is older. I don't know anything about him.” He didn't bother to mention that he'd sucked him off earlier that day.

  She waved her arm in the air, and said, “Okay, then we'll have a safe word."

  "Safe word?"

  "If you're not interested in him, you don't say anything and we'll just leave,” she said, “But if you are interested, and you want me to get lost, say the word fishhook, and I'll disappear."

  "Fishhook?"

  "Yes. But I have to know by nine o'clock so I can meet my brother and he can take me home by boat,” she said. Her older brother worked at the Haunted House ride, and he always went to work by boat. She grabbed his arm and shook it, and he realized he was staring at his shoes. “You got it, kiddo?"

  He nodded, then repeated, “Fishhook."

  When they reached the entrance gate where it cost $2.50 to be admitted to the park, he pulled a five-dollar bill from his back pocket. He handed it to the old man in the booth and he and Sarah crossed through a metal turnstile. The entire park was surrounded by a tall, dark green fence so people couldn't just walk around for free. You had to pay for a roll of tickets at another booth inside the park if you wanted to go on the rides. Sarah insisted on paying for her own admission, but he refused to let her.

  Inside the fence, the dusty walkway and the hot smell of popcorn and cotton candy mingled above the distant sound of carnival organ music. A man dressed up as a clown stood near the ticket kiosk holding a handful of Mylar balloons in every color. “How’ bout a balloon for your girlfriend?” he bellowed to Chance. His accent was thick New York.