Back in the Game

by R. W. Clinger

  * * * *

  His streets:

  He carried out his hustling on Palm Street near Dolphin Beach in Turtle Bay Reef. He told me guys picked him up at the pier, purchasing his ass for a night or an entire weekend. The pay was good, he proclaimed.

  “I could buy food. I buried a lot of cash on the beach, using it like a bank. Some of my money is still there in a Mason jar. Who needs a bank when there’s a beach?”

  He had a number of clients: Bill, Alan, Tenner, Marcus, Landon, Joshua, Peter, and Samuel. They were all middle-aged men who either were lonely or had affairs on their lovers/spouses. Most of them were bald or on the heavy side, not that Tommy minded.

  He admitted, “I always tried to be safe with them, but sometimes I wasn’t. Men like Coffler come along and drug guys like me and have their way with them. It’s a nasty game that some guys enjoy playing, but it’s hurtful.”

  “Did Coffler pay you for sex?”

  “Yes. All the time. Plus, he tipped me well.”

  “How long has he been your client?”

  “A year. Maybe a little longer.”

  “And you call that dating, right?”

  “Right.”

  I was surprised to hear Tommy’s details of Coffler, but I shouldn’t have been.

  * * * *

  His addictions:

  He told me that drug use was his education, and random sex with strange men was his income. I learned that he sometimes fucked guys just to get an upper from them. Sex for dope. Sex for a rush. Sex for a high. He also liked to drink.

  “Strangers also give me alcohol so I will suck their cocks. I’ve never minded. Maybe I should, but I really don’t. A man has to get his alcohol from somewhere. We all have vices, right? Every single one of us.” He mentioned using cocaine, meth, and a number of pills. Rarely did he pass up a joint when he was offered one, which was usually from one of his clients. “The pot always takes the edge off. I sometimes have a few really strange cocks in my mouth and need to feel relaxed. You get what I’m saying.”

  I didn’t get what he was saying, but lied to him anyway and told him that I did.

  * * * *

  His singlehood.

  Tommy couldn’t remember when he had a boyfriend last. Nor could he recall the name of the boyfriend: Tyler? Timmons? Tank?

  He told me, “I’ve always wanted to settle down with a guy, but the right one hasn’t come along. It’s not that I want to be a player. I don’t intend to be a hustler for the rest of my life. I believe in partnership, gay marriage, and a monogamous relationship. I do have ethics and morals, even if some people don’t seem to understand that or see it in me.”

  “You’re like anyone else who has a job. You make money. You pay your bills to survive. It’s all about the survival of the fittest.”

  He chuckled. “You mean the survival of the sexiest when it comes to my labor and the streets.”

  “I do. Yes. The survival of the sexiest.”

  * * * *

  His sister:

  Evangeline Sue was three years older than Tommy. A pastor at the Second United Methodist Church of Sedona. She threatened to murder Tommy a number of times in the last two years, if someone else on the streets didn’t kill him first. Evy, as she liked to be called, searched him out on the city’s streets along the Gulf and confronted him about his wicked and tyrannical ways. She told him how he was God’s scum and that the devil had control over his soul.

  Tommy confessed to me, “She says that God wants her to watch over me so she can someday transform me into a Christian. She calls herself one of God’s apostles, a ‘chosen one’ to steer me on the right path in life.

  “I’m not sure I understand what Evy’s mission really is. Think about this. If there is a God, wouldn’t I be rich and living on a beach in Mexico, which is my ultimate dream?”

  “God makes you think of God, which tells me He exists,” I said.

  “The miracles that we believe happen in everyday life are just figments of our imagination.” Tommy’s voice became a whisper.

  “God plans it that way. It’s all His unfolding. I tend to just go along with it. Why question questioning?”

  Tommy replied, “Maybe your God does, but mine isn’t there. He can’t help me.”

  * * * *

  His safety:

  Tommy was honest with me and prattled, “I want to stay here for as long as I can. You can ask me to leave anytime you feel it’s necessary. I’ll try not to be in the way. I’ll try to clean up after myself. I know how to clean, and I can tidy up a place. I can run errands for you. And I promise not to bring any of my clients home. In fact, I want to stop that shit and find a real job. I want to stop selling my ass on the streets. I want something better, and staying here with you can help me do that.”

  “Good to know you have goals.”

  “Even hustlers have goals. Whether they pan out or not is the question of importance.”

  “Is anything really important at all, Tommy?”

  He shook his head.

  I shook my head.

  Sometimes we could have the most interesting conversations together that were short but poignant.

  * * * *

  His whisper:

  August 7. We sat across from each other at the small kitchen table in my apartment. The windows were open, and the city was alive with chaos. The smell of black tar mixed with urine. The day was overtly warm and unpleasant. Thick humidity hung from the buildings, melting us. We were drinking non-alcoholic iced teas.

  He leaned across the table and said, “I want to find Coffler. I want to hurt him for his wicked play in bars with queer men my age. Would you think badly of me if I did that?”

  I shook my head.

  “Would you hurt him if you were me?”

  I didn’t have to think about my answer and blurted, “Yes, I would. Sometimes revenge is the only option. It’s not the godly way to think or act, but it’s reality.”

  “And so it shall be done,” he whispered. “I don’t know when. I don’t even know how. But it will be done. I can promise you that, honestly.”

  I believed him. How couldn’t I believe Tommy Rawe when he looked me square in the eyes, unblinking, and nodded his head? He grinned from ear to ear, and his expression of madness told me he was serious. He set out on a future mission of discontent and down a conceivable, yet dangerous, pathway of revenge, a hole of unlawfulness. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend it, but eventually would.

  Chapter 16: How Tommy Rawe Played with Others

  Palm Field

  August 15, 20—

  8:04 A.M.

  I didn’t believe Tommy when he told me wanted to go to morning football practice with me at Palm Field. In truth, he was a night owl, staying up for the longest hours, sometimes even until dawn, working the streets and making money. What he did during the post-midnight hours was not a secret. He usually read, watched television, or talked to his friends. Sometimes he went to a queer bar for a few drinks or dancing. The guy could go on just a few hours of sleep, if that. In fact, he had told me that if he overslept, he suffered from a headache; something like a migraine, but not as potent and minus the vomiting.

  He did his hustling thing at night, which he didn’t keep from me or anyone else when confronted about the job. Almost every night, he was out and about, leaving after dark. He had to make money somehow and some way. I wasn’t a fool to believe that he didn’t hook up with a queer at one of his post-midnight bar visits, or found a client in a back alley. I wasn’t naïve to believe that Tommy had a beer with one or two of those men, a joint, and some heavy sex for payment, of course. Tommy knew how to work the streets and his clients. Sex could be performed anywhere in the city, even right in the bar he was visiting, or in the back alleys up and down the Floridian coast. He knew perfectly well how to make quick money, and did; a fair businessman by trade, one of the oldest forms of living since the beginning of time.

  * * * *

  Tommy stood on the side
line, watching me next to Luther Coffler as I learned a new job. The August sun and morning heat brushed against the man’s face and eyes. Perhaps intrigued, he studied the Eagles as they carried out a number of practice drills on the field: pat and line, scrimmage, half line, footwork, interception, and six-point stance. Tommy had never seen a professional practice and became wide-eyed with interest. Not once did he shift his gaze off the field. He remained glued to the exercises and arrangement of football players.

  My attention withdrew from Tommy and concentrated on my labors at hand. Positioned twenty yards deep in the defensive backfield, I stood by Luther. Again, he spouted my duties as a side judge, drilling them into me, ready to test me at any moment.

  “Always make sure the defensive team has no more than eleven players on the field. You have to watch all eligible receivers on his side of the field. And you have to watch the area between the main official and field judge. You’ll rule on the legality of catches and pass interference penalties when necessary. It’s a must that you watch for clipping on kick returns.”

  Luther knew his job and well. The guy was a top-notch professional in his field, and someday I would be just like him: looked upon as a league leader, the epitome of a side judge, and one with unlimited experience. Until then, I was his apprentice, unskilled and wet behind my ears, fresh on the job and life off the yard lines.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t concentrate on what Luther said. My mind drifted to his grandson and James’s drugging antics with Tommy and other men like Tommy. How could James Coffler have committed those horrible things? What the fuck was the guy thinking? Tommy was a nice man, all smiles, even if he was a hustler by trade, which didn’t make him a bad person. Tommy seemed caring, positive, and was quite pleasant to be around. Why did Coffler think he had the right to mess with Tommy, drugging him, among other men on the streets and in bars? What kind of problem did Luther’s grandson suffer from? And could he be cured?

  Tommy’s cure for James Coffler seemed obvious to me: a good beating with a wrench; punches to his face; a gun pointed at his forehead, which would inevitably produce fear in the football player; two fist-swings to Coffler’s gut; and whatever else Tommy could dish out, just to get revenge on the lug and bully. Nothing was going to prevent my apartment guest from carrying out that devious and wicked plan. Tommy had it in his mind to hurt the football player. And when a thought like that failed to dissipate, it only grew in size, larger and larger, until it exploded with fury and became overpowering.

  * * * *

  Turtle Bay Reef Apartments

  Apartment 3-B

  10:14 P.M.

  The beating to James Coffler happened that night. I knew it was going down prior to its occurrence. My intuition set in; an unyielding vibration along every curve of my torso and temples. Those physical actions attested that Tommy was on a mission of harmful destruction. He wasn’t going to kill Coffler, but he did want to hurt the man severely.

  Tommy left my apartment without saying goodbye, which was not uncommon. Nor did he tell me where he was going, not that I really wanted him to since his life was his business. Although he was staying with me, I didn’t follow his whereabouts at all times, respecting the man. But I just knew and felt that he went to get revenge on Coffler that night. Something in my stomach screamed at me. Tommy wanted to kick some ass, and that was the night he was going to carry the feat out, with or without help.

  I listened to his footsteps in the hallway. Leaving the apartment, he quietly pulled the door closed behind him.

  Once he was gone, lying awake, wide-eyed, and fearing for the kid’s life, I whispered to myself, “Shit is about to hit the fan.”

  * * * *

  Turtle Bay Reef Apartments

  August 16, 20—

  12:51 A.M.

  As I slept on the sofa, the apartment door opened and Tommy walked inside. The sweet smell of blood lingered about the room. As he passed in front of me, I opened my eyes and saw his blood-smeared fists. The man’s shirt was ripped in a few places, and burgundy drops of blood stained his khaki shorts. He went to my bedroom, undressed, and escaped to the bathroom. After a long shower, he returned to my bedroom and climbed in its cozy sheets.

  I got up, walked to my bedroom, and slid into the bed next to him.

  * * * *

  We didn’t discuss his episode of revenge that night, and wouldn’t for weeks to come. Maybe both of us thought it best to keep quiet about his hateful tactics until further notice.

  Eventually, I learned what Tommy had allegedly done to Coffler by reading the local newspapers, watching the news, and carrying out light conversations with neighborhood queers. The details of that August night were actually easy to piece together.

  Tommy left my apartment at ten in the evening and took a city bus to Landon Way, where Coffler played poker with three goon buddies, antagonistic drug dealers. Tommy waited for the poker game to end. Once it did, he followed the athlete home. Coffler liked to make the six-block walk back to his place. Why take a bus or a taxi when he was physically fit, capable of walking, even when he had a little too much drink?

  Coffler never made it home in one piece, though. Tommy bashed him in the back of his neck with a wrench on Estar Street, dragged the football player off the sidewalk and between the Mermaid Laundromat building and Rice’s Tea Corner; a short distance of thirty feet at the most. Then Tommy had his way with the man. He bloodied Coffler’s eyes and lips, broke Coffler’s right arm with the wrench, and stripped Coffler out of his clothes, leaving him naked and unconscious in the alleyway for someone to find.

  Two Turtle Bay Reef cops discovered Coffler later that morning while walking their beat. One saw Coffler next to the laundromat, naked and unconscious. Coffler was then taken to the hospital, bandaged up, and sent home. A police report was written up by Officer Carl Dunne, but Tommy Rawe’s name never came up.

  Revenge was sweet sometimes, wasn’t it? Tommy thought so. How couldn’t he when he kicked Coffler’s ass and got away with it?

  Maybe there was a God in Tommy’s life. Maybe. Neither of us were really sure.

  Chapter 17: If You Change Your Mind

  August 18–22, 20—

  Tommy attempted to woo me. Every time I looked at him, he wore a rather boyish smile: U-shaped, wrinkleless, and plumpish red lips. A certain twinkle in his dirty-blue eyes told me that he thought me attractive as he tried to seduce me, which I thought juvenile, sweet, and attractive.

  Strange but heartwarming events had happened in those few days after his Coffler bashing. I woke to a hot breakfast almost every morning. The apartment was spotless, and nothing was out of place. My dirty laundry was washed, and the floors were freshly waxed. The mail was brought in, and the windows were vinegar-fresh. Tommy did the grocery shopping, paid a few bills (with money that he had probably earned from his hustling), and purchased me the new Jacqueline Druga zombie best-seller that I had been meaning to read.

  Tommy also complimented me regularly: I like your hair short like that, it makes you look sexy; your ass is perfect in those shorts, I have no complaints; you smell great, like peaches, I like that; your smile today reminds me of—

  There were fresh flowers in the apartment: long-stem roses, peach-colored carnations, and a variety of orchids. Their aroma combined in my nostrils and warmed my senses. Fresh towels decorated the small bathroom: aqua-colored fluff that felt sensually tender following my ten-minute showers.

  Tommy’s seduction was potent and relentless, although he had never touched me. The man wore very few clothes around the apartment. Sometimes he was clothed in a pair of white boxer-briefs that were snug against his inner thighs and outlined every curve on his lower region. I found myself drawn there, despite him being a hustler. He kept teasing me with his skin by leaving the bathroom door open while he showered or by sleeping naked in my bed, showcasing his limp cock and its bristly patch of blond pubic triangle. His physical regiment in the mornings afore breakfast included push-ups on the living r
oom floor, which he executed with much precision. He did them naked from head to toe, flaunting his good looks, knowing that I didn’t have a boyfriend at the time. He teased me for all the wrong reasons.

  I declared that Tommy had wanted me in the worst way near the last days of August. Any fool could have determined that detail. He pretty much made it clear to me that he didn’t want me to be one of his street clients; someone he collected money from for sexual favors. Rather, he wanted me as his lover, a certain bed-partner that was not asked to pay him for an hour in the sack or against a wall.

  Sober, wide-eyed, and nervous, he explained to me, “I could never request cash from you, Shane. Your affection to me has grown into much more than that. What I want from you is romance. No games. You’d make the best boyfriend.”

  Tommy pined for me in the worst way, but he seemed very indirect with his sexual advancements, almost confused. He appeared too shy to put the moves on me, which I thought ironic since he pleasured men for a living on the streets. Tommy acted backwards, timid around me, respectful of my private parts, never crossing that line between platonic and intimate. Not once had he acted on his sexual ache for me. He valued my space and our living arrangement, even when we slept together in the same bed, which seemed unbelievable, but true.

  I wasn’t going to fall for his alluring antics, even if I thought him sexy, unpredictable, and a positive in my life. I wouldn’t collapse under his naked pressure and teasing, and I had no intention of ending up in a compromised position with him. Regularly, on a minute-by-minute basis, I kept telling myself that he was a hustler and had slept with a number of men, but was now living with me for an uncountable string of days, sometimes paying his way, sometimes not. I never wanted to be a part of his bare-bottomed challenge by agreeing to his sexual invitation to become one of hundreds of cocks he had played with. He was a dangerous man, untouchable, and I couldn’t possibly find myself involved with him—ever.