by Daryl Banner
Where would they land?
“We never had any dessert,” I pointed out after swallowing down my overflowing anxieties, then nodded at the clerk to our side. “I could go for an ice cream, if you want to join me.”
He squinted at the parlor uncertainly, then eyed me. “Nah.”
“What’s the problem? Money?” I shook my head. “Just don’t think about it. I’m treating you. It’s my treat. I expect nothing in return. You owe me nothing. My treat.”
“But why?”
“Do I really need a reason? Chocolate or vanilla? ... Oh, wow.” I peered through the curved glass at all the different ice creams this tiny place offered. “Okay, they have sixteen flavors.”
He was by my side, his eyes scanning the vibrant colors, rich textures, and fancy names. His face was beautifully lit by the light from the display case, giving him an angelic glow. It was touching.
Then he grunted, “Weird ass names.”
“One Night Stand-nana Split.” I let out a chuckle through my nostrils. “They sure have a sense of humor.”
“If that’s what you call it.”
I watched his face. He was still uncertain, but I could tell what his eyes wanted. “Go ahead,” I encouraged him. “Pick one. I’ll get you a cone of it.”
He grunted, then tapped a finger on the glass. “That one.”
“Me too.”
A few minutes later, we were seated across from each other at a tiny table where our knees could almost touch underneath, his backpack nestled by his leg. We each ate a waffle cone with a big scoop of triple raspberry fudge ice cream on top—which was crudely named “Choco-berry Road Kill”. The employee misheard me at first and scooped half a helping of “Squeeze My Lemons” into my cone before I was able to correct him. He also pressed my ice cream into the cone a touch too vigorously, cracking the side, but I didn’t mind. It fit my mindset: cracked along the edges and shamelessly letting all my cold, flavorful insides spill out.
I watched his lips work as he slowly, carefully, meticulously, bite-by-bite ate his ice cream. Sometimes, his eyes would close as he took a bite, savoring it. Then, coming up for air from the world he got lost in, he finally glanced my way as if surprised by my presence. “So what got you into banking?” he asked randomly.
I couldn’t say what made his brain go from relishing in triple raspberry fudge to my career choice, but I didn’t care; I loved to engage in any kind of conversation with him. “I pretty much fell into the job after college. I was always good with numbers.”
“Goes with the gambling.” He went for another bite.
I lowered my cone. “What do you mean?”
“Money. Being good with numbers. Do you count cards?” He licked his lips. When he saw the blank expression on my face, he squinted. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what counting cards is.”
“Of course I know what counting cards is.”
“You’re good with numbers, right? Do you study probability? Watch slot machines? Calculate when they pay out?”
“You can’t …” I scoffed and shook my head. “You can’t just do all of that with math. Otherwise I’d be a billionaire by now.”
“So you’re not a billionaire?”
His tongue darted out, dragging its length across his scoop. I watched every second of it until his mouth closed, a tiny smear of chocolate on his lip—which he licked away ever so slowly.
When my gaze met his, I didn’t realize he was watching me watching him the whole time.
I cast my gaze down to my own ice cream. “No,” I said quickly, going for a lick. This ice cream is the very last thing I want to be licking right now, I thought to myself.
“You’re the real deal, huh?”
I flicked my eyes back up to him. “What?”
“You really just wanted to buy me dinner and ice cream. Out of the ‘kindness of your heart’.” He made air quotes with his free hand. “You really are Mister Good Samaritan.”
I stared at him. “Have people seriously propositioned you to … to have sex with them after doing something nice for you?”
“Always.” He took another quick lick off the top. “And I’m not talking about someone who throws coffee change in my cup. I’m talking about the old lonely men who want to buy me clothes. Or invite me to their hotel rooms to get out of the cold. They never just do it out of kindness. Always … always … they want something out of it. Even if they say they don’t. Then they get resentful when I resist them, like I owe them, like I should’ve known. And maybe I should have known. Maybe I was naïve to think …” He sighed at his ice cream, then shook his head. “Never mind. I’ve learned the hard way that no one gives anything for free. Not truly.”
Nothing he said came as a surprise, yet I felt guilty. Despite all my declarations, was I really doing all of this with no expectations? When he finished with that cone in his hand and got bored with me, would I feel the same pinch of resentment that those greasy old men felt? Am I expecting something more?
“So I’m a greasy old man, huh?” I asked with a touch of humor in my voice, trying to lighten the mood.
Lucky shook his head once, cold and short. “Nah. Like I just said. You seem like the real deal.”
That made me smile. “Thanks.”
He eyed me. “And … for the record … there sure isn’t anything old or greasy about you at all.”
That made my smile falter.
It was statements like those that confused me. Was that his way of hitting on me? Or was that just a compliment? Or was I the one being played this whole night, Lucky keeping me baited long enough to get as much out of me as he could?
What if this is his game?
I felt an instant jolt of mistrust. It gave me an uncharacteristic surge of courage that straightened up my spine and made me say: “I’m gay.”
Without missing a beat, mid-bite, he mumbled, “I know.”
My forehead wrinkled up. “So … you’re fully aware that a gay man just treated you to dinner and ice cream.”
“Yeah.” He lapped at his cone like a dog to a water bowl. I saw the smears of ice cream on his tongue and in his opened mouth. “So what’s your point?”
I stared at him as he ate. Quite suddenly, I wasn’t sure what my point was at all. That he was flattering me too much? That he made my insides squirm by calling me strong, and solid, and good-framed, and then not old and greasy?
“I … guess I don’t have a point,” I mumbled back.
He lowered his cone, staring back at me. After a brief moment of apparent thought, he parted his lips. Nothing came out. Then he squinted and said, “It doesn’t matter where I’m from.”
I didn’t follow. “What do you mean?”
“You kept prodding me earlier. Asking where I’m from. Twice. Then asking if I rented a room or some shit.” He shrugged. “Really doesn’t matter where I’m from. Doesn’t matter where you’re from, either. We’re both here right now. Sharing ice cream. Getting to know one another as people, not as people from a certain … place.”
“Well, maybe that’s my point.” I straightened my back. “You know I’m a banker from Little Water. You know I like to gamble and usually come here with friends, but not this time. You know I’m gay.” I tilt my head. “And I know that you prefer to be called … Lucky. And you’re from … somewhere. And old pervy men like to take advantage of you. Beyond that? I don’t know the first thing.”
“So ask.”
“I asked already. Where do you live?”
“Nowhere.”
For an instant, I thought he was being evasive again. Then I stared at his tightened expression a touch longer and realized he wasn’t. “So you’re homeless.”
He shrugged, his hardened eyes still locked on mine.
“I’m not judging you,” I insisted quickly, lifting my eyebrows. “I just … I just wanted to know.”
“Sure. Whatever. No home.” He shrugged again.
“For …” I took a short, private breath. I alrea
dy figured he was homeless, but apparently I had needed it confirmed. I still wanted to know more about him, but only if he was willing to open up. I swore to myself I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t, if he preferred to keep it all to himself. My tone softened. “For how long?”
“Dunno.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t know. Year, maybe. Two.” He was staring at me over his cone, which had lowered nearly to the table, all his interest in it lost. The look in his eyes was a detached, miserable one.
Maybe I was going about this all wrong. “I’m sorry,” I finally said. “For prying. Really. It’s not my business. It’s just—”
“Nah, I get it.” He glanced down at his ice cream. A bead of melted chocolate was slowly crawling down the cone, making its long journey to the table. “I’ve not been very open.”
“It’s hard for you.” I was trying to put myself in his frame of mind. It was impossible. I couldn’t fathom what he faced on a day-to-day basis. “Trust can’t come easy, I imagine.”
“Got that right.” He was speaking to the ice cream.
“How have you gotten by all this time?” I couldn’t help the questions. Now that the gate had been opened, a swirling flood of curiosity charged through, and its waters were greedy.
“The help of strangers. Keeping my guard up. And casinos.” He lifted his gaze, scanning his surroundings. “No one seems to care much who walks in or out. Free bathrooms. Water. There’s even a free coffee machine at the Crystal Dragon, if you get it on a day when it’s not out of service.”
“I know that machine,” I murmured, recalling. “Quinton said the coffee sucked.”
Lucky turned to me. “Huh? Who?”
I shook my head. “Never mind. A friend of mine. He owns a coffee shop in Little Water. He’s … super critical. No coffee ever lives up to his own homebrew.”
“He’s one of your friends you normally come with?”
“Yep.”
“Hmm.” He nodded slowly, then shrugged. “Yeah, I’ve tasted better coffee, too. But shit, when your options are limited and you find yourself taking the time to actually … taste everything … fuck, just about anything can be heaven on your tongue.”
With that, he lifted his cone again and dragged his tongue along its length. I could visibly see him tasting the subtle vanilla of the wafer cone, the spots of chocolate that had run down the side, and a bead of raspberry stuck to its edge. He closed his eyes as he tasted it, then brought out his tongue again, helping himself to more. The way he worked his tongue, I was reminded far too much of the intimate way in which he might handle a lover. His tongue was skillful and excruciatingly slow. He took his time. He savored.
I swallowed hard, watching him.
Then I crossed my legs for absolutely no reason at all. Tightly.
He popped open his eyes and lifted his chin. “So what about you, huh? You live in some big old condo in Little Water on that banker salary?”
I chortled dryly at that. “Hardly. Well …” Was I still going for half disclosure here? “I mean, I do live in a house. It was handed down to me.”
“You inherited a house?”
“It’s … a decent size.” Large. Too large. “But seeing as I’m not really the family type, I don’t have anyone to fill it. So most of the space goes to waste.”
He studied my face awhile before responding. “Don’t you have a husband or a special man or someone?”
I shook my head. “It’s been years.”
“Since a husband? Or a special man?”
“Either. Never been married. And I’ve been single longer than I care to admit.” Suddenly, I didn’t want to sound like the total loser I just described myself as. “I mean, sure, I go on dates. Now and then. Just … haven’t really found my guy, you could say.”
“So what’s your type?”
Goodness, this boy knows how to dig. Then again, objectively, his questions really weren’t any more invasive than Quinton when he would interrogate me about a hot chick he saw walk into my bank from his coffee shop across the street. “My type …” I sought an answer from the chocolate chips in my ice cream. “It’s a man who’s compassionate. Deep down. Who respects me. Who has honor. An honest man. Someone forthcoming with their feelings.” I swallowed and tilted my head. “Someone intelligent. Preferably creative, to contrast with my, uh …” I wiggled my fingers for some reason—maybe to represent myself typing or punching numbers into a calculator. Or maybe I was having a hand seizure. Those probably exist. “I think I’d need a guy who’s funnier than me.”
“No sense of humor?”
“Hmm?” I looked up from the trance I was in. My eyes went to his chest automatically. I kicked them up to his face. “H-Humor?”
“Yeah.” He pointed what remained of his cone my way. “You saying you don’t have any sense of humor?”
“I didn’t say that. I just …” I searched for the words. “My life might be better with a guy who could … lighten things up.”
At that, he shrugged. “If you want to laugh, just look around at how shitty and upside-down everything is. Like, literally, you could turn in any direction and laugh your ass off if you look at something the right way.”
“Hmm.” My eyes drifted down to his chest again. Stop staring. “You mean … laughing at life’s ironies?”
“Sure. Whatever. I saw this one old man looking all snazzy on a Friday, dressed head to toe in a fancy suit complete with top hat. No joke. This motherfucker had a woman on either arm. I watched him strut through the casinos like his dick was made of gold. This proud fucker.” Lucky snorted and shook his head. “Come Sunday, I found him—same damned man—in sweats and a cheap gift shop t-shirt with a black eye, and he’s on the phone in the corner of the lobby sobbing to his wife to take him back. ‘I’m so sorry, I’ll never do it again, please, I’m begging you.’ I can’t make that shit up. This fool who looked like an A-list celebrity on Friday went home with his tail tucked, probably after burning up ten grand on hookers and rigged blackjack tables, crawling back to a life he was probably escaping in the first place.”
I didn’t quite know what to say in response to his dark little anecdote. “That’s … pretty shitty.”
“No.” Lucky leaned forward. “It’s hilarious.”
I frowned, then shook my head. “You have an interesting idea of what’s funny.”
Lucky studied me awhile. He snorted. “You know what I find interesting about your little list of qualities in your ideal guy?”
“What?”
“You never mentioned what he looks like.”
I was about to argue, then realized he was right. “Well, I guess he’s good-looking. I’m attracted to him. Maybe that was sort of a given. That we’d have physical chemistry.”
Lucky bit his lip as he nodded slowly. His eyes dragged down my face and came to a rest at my neck. He looked contemplative.
The way he stared at my neck made me a bit fidgety. It’s the exact sort of hungry look I’d imagine him giving someone as they undressed for him. That look made me imagine too much.
I was decidedly done with my ice cream, even if I had some left. “You wanna get out of here?”
Lucky flinched. “Out of here? Where?”
“We could try another casino. Or …” I reached with my mind, desperate to give us any excuse to prolong this night. I didn’t want it to end already. It was still far too soon.
“I got an idea.”
I looked up. “You do?”
He nodded, then rose from the table abruptly and started off. After a few steps, he threw over his shoulder, “You coming?”
I was on my feet in seconds, and what remained of my cone scored my trash-basketball-team three points as I tossed it at the nearest receptacle without paying any attention and made it in.
* * *
Lucky’s idea was a simple and brilliant one.
“This one’s the best,” he grunted. “You gotta hit it really hard, though. Like th
is.”
He showed me. I observed.
He looked over his shoulder at me. “Just like that. See?”
I mimicked his move on the one next to him, thrusting my hips as I gripped it with both my hands. “Like that?”
“Almost. Like this.” He performed again, sending his big balls flying and filling the room with jingles and chimes. Every time he thrust his hips, the machine responded with a crescendo of noise.
We’re talking about pinball here.
Get your mind out of the gutter.
“You’re an expert,” I announced over the noise as I watched his score skyrocket. “You play this a lot? Or …?”
“If you get your sleepy ass into the arcade between the hours of three and four in the morning—sometimes five—most nights of the week,” Lucky explained as he continued to (almost literally) fuck the big pinball machine with his powerful hips and thrusts, “you’ll discover that half the arcade is free to play.”
“Free? Really?”
“Yep. Which means …” He lifted his gaze off the game for a second to note the time on a nearby clock on the wall. “If we’re still around in two and a half hours, this whole place is ours.”
“Wow. The more you know …” I chuckled. “I almost sang that in the G. I. Joe melody.”
“What melody?” He shoved his hips into the machine again. A chorus of clangs and bells rang back at him.
“Never mind.”
“So I play these games all the time, but it’s always at three in the morning when it’s free and there’s almost no one here …”
I knew I was supposed to be watching the game and listening to him as he went on telling me all the ins and outs, but I couldn’t manage to peel my eyes away from his hips every time he thrust forward powerfully. I actually felt equal parts sorry for and jealous of that pinball machine.
“There are some old as fuck games in this arcade, dude. You see Mortal Kombat 2 over there on our way in?” Lucky snorts and shakes his head. “Place I grew up in, they had arcades that would slay this place.”