Dilly and Boz

by John Inman

  Boz could see that Dilly’s blush had finally receded, and he was hoping with all his heart that his own had receded too.

  “I’ve seen you in the neighborhood,” Boz said quietly.

  Dilly looked up. “Really?”

  “Yeah. You live across from me.” And then, before he could stop himself, Boz reached out and carefully laid a fingertip to the scratch over Dilly’s left eyebrow. “I saw you fall yesterday.” He studied the clump of Gorilla Tape holding Dilly’s glasses together. “Sorry about your glasses,” he added as an afterthought.

  For a brief moment, Dilly’s eyes trailed around the store. Then, just as quickly, his gaze came back to rest on Boz’s face. “Thanks. I was so embarrassed,” he said softly, touching his glasses as if reminding himself they were still there and checking to make sure the Gorilla Tape was still holding them together.

  A heavy sadness settled over Dilly’s cutely elfin face, and Boz was instantly appalled that he had made Dilly feel bad. “But you shouldn’t! It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Everybody falls down. Hell, I do it once a day. At least!”

  Dilly almost smiled. “You do not.”

  Boz couldn’t take his eyes off that “almost” smile. “I assure you, it’s true. I’m even clumsier than you are.”

  “Who says I’m clumsy?” Dilly asked, eyes wide and innocent.

  Boz looked so appalled for the second time in a matter of two minutes that Dilly exploded into laughter. In the distance Boz heard Puffer giggling too. He seemed to be hanging on to every word they were saying, the prying old fuck.

  “Your boss is a little nosy,” Boz said.

  Dilly shot Puffer an exasperated glance. “My boss is a little stoned.”

  Boz waved an imaginary cloud of smoke from in front of his face. He crossed his eyes for emphasis. “I hadn’t noticed.” They chortled in unison.

  “I think he likes you,” Boz said around a smile.

  Dilly gave a nod, and at the same time he cast an affectionate glance across the shop floor to his boss, who at the moment was trying to look busy back by the register, whistling idly and scratching a paint chip off the wall with a fingernail, not fooling anybody. Boz knew he was eavesdropping on every single word the two of them were uttering.

  “He takes care of me,” Dilly said almost proudly.

  And Boz smiled. “That’s nice.”

  By this time, the spilled albums were neatly gathered together once again. Under their weight, Dilly grunted his way to his feet and started putting them back in their proper places on the shelf. Boz stood by, watching. At the last minute, he took an album from Dilly’s hand and slipped it under his arm as if claiming it for his own. Dilly didn’t object.

  Boz glanced at his watch and shuffled his feet. “Well, I guess I’d better be going. I have to work too.”

  Dilly stopped sorting record albums. He looked up. “Where do you work?”

  “Leoni’s. The Italian restaurant on Adams.”

  “I hear it’s fancy.”

  Boz gave a shrug. “Just overpriced noodles and canned Italian music. Nothing fancy about that.”

  That topic depleted, Boz did a little more foot shuffling, then waved the album he was holding in the air. “I’d better go pay for this and be on my way.”

  “Okay,” Dilly said.

  Was it Boz’s imagination, or did he actually sound unhappy that Boz was leaving? “Maybe I’ll see you around,” Boz ventured.

  Dilly’s mouth formed a sweetly shy smile. “And maybe I’ll see you back.”

  Reluctantly Boz stepped away and headed toward the tall, stoned geek at the back of the store, who was still failing miserably at acting like he wasn’t eavesdropping.

  Boz paid for the album with the last of the cash he had on hand, truly sorry he hadn’t checked the price tag before he did.

  As Puffer Moran stuffed the LP in a Retro Record Shoppe shopping bag and passed it across the counter, he leaned in close and whispered for Boz’s ears alone.

  “Stop by any time. Dilly would love to see you again.”

  Boz blinked in surprise, but mumbled something about seeing what he could do, and the next thing he knew, he was strolling out the door and onto the street, purchase in hand, without catching a further glimpse of the young man he had stepped into the shop to meet in the first place.

  Boz walked away all businesslike, hopefully giving off the vibe that he had places to go and people to see and no time to dilly-dally around while he did it. Secretly, behind his heaving chest, his heart was going a mile a minute and his pulse was pounding in his ears like one of those thumpers in the movie Dune that attracted worms.

  When he knew he could no longer be seen from the record shop window, Boz collapsed on a bus bench like someone had just yanked the sidewalk out from under his feet. He shook the LP for which he had paid Dilly Jones’s marijuana-laden boss twenty-three of his hard-earned dollars and stared at it morosely. He eyed the big-haired artist on the cover with the daisy-splattered miniskirt and clunky white go-go boots and wondered idly who the heck she was. He shook the black plastic disk, as big as a pizza, from the record sleeve and stared at the little grooves in the sunlight. He brought it to his face and stared at the world through the tiny hole in the middle. He was unable to remember even remotely the last time he’d seen an old vinyl LP, let alone peered through one.

  And then, for the very first time, it dawned on him to wonder why he had bought it in the first place since he didn’t even own a record player.

  Chapter Five

  DILLY SUFFERED through his weekly hug from Puffer at the end of the workday on Friday night. He listened patiently while Puffer pompously tossed out nuggets of wisdom relating to Dilly eating healthy and staying away from drugs, with the lone exception of marijuana, of course, which Puffer considered a major food group. Puffer imparted this motherly advice while smoking a humongous joint—so big it looked like it had been wrapped in a sheet of typing paper. He was also gnawing his way through a box of miniature donuts. Apparently sugar wasn’t high on his list of no-no’s either.

  Accepting his pay, which Puffer doled out in cash as always so he could cheat on his taxes, Dilly carried it home safely tucked away in a trouser pocket. Back at the apartment, he locked his front door behind him and pulled a coffee can from the pantry. From the can he shook out a pile of loose change and small bills onto the kitchen table. With Grace kneading his lap with her sharp little nails in a show of comradeship, Dilly sat at the kitchen table and carefully counted the money. Then he sat there a while longer, his fingers ruffling Grace’s silky coat, considering the total. If he shopped around, it might be enough to buy new frames for his broken glasses. It would mean tightening his belt. No more fast food for a while. No buses to and from work. He’d have to walk the two miles each way instead. There would be no special treats for Grace from the pet shop on the corner either.

  He stared down at the tiny cat in his lap and smiled. “Just kidding,” he said. “You’ll get your treats. I promise.”

  Grace thanked him by rising up onto her hind legs and head butting his chin. A two-minute belly rub ensued, and by the time Dilly was finished rolling around on the kitchen floor with Grace, each taking turns tickling the other, both animal and master were in a far better mood.

  Figuring there was no better time to start being frugal, Dilly opened a can of sardines for dinner. After laying one fish aside for Grace, he positioned the remaining little fishies neatly side by side between two slices of Wonder Bread. After smearing a generous glob of mayonnaise over all, he wrapped the sandwich in Saran Wrap, and along with the extra sardine and a couple of cat treats, dropped the lot in a paper bag.

  By this time Grace was getting excited, so Leon slipped her into her harness, hooked the harness to her leash, pocketed his apartment key, and headed out the door. A boy and his cat.

  Grace loved the park. She didn’t even mind the countless curious dogs who came up to give her a sniff. Well, she didn’t mind them if they we
re nice about it. If they got too feisty, Grace would whap them upside the head and stalk regally off like the Queen of England.

  On this perfect Friday evening, with sunset still hours away, Balboa Park was domed by a beautiful expanse of Windex-blue sky. Honeysuckle-laden breezes wafted up from the canyons where Grace and Dilly sometimes explored along the shadowy trails. Always in the distance they could hear the cries of wild beasts, and these weren’t citified wild beasts either. These were the real things. Lions, tigers, elephants, wolves, baboons, hyenas, you name it. After all, the greatest zoo in the world, containing an astonishing collection of the planet’s wild animals, was only a stone’s throw away. And even though Dilly could rarely afford the price of a ticket, it didn’t mean he and Grace couldn’t absorb the zoo experience from a distance.

  On this day, they chose to stroll along a hiking trail that carried them ever downward into a mass of evergreen trees where squirrels abounded and the warm summer air lay coolly scented with pine. After a while, Grace grew tired of walking. She clambered up the back of Dilly’s pant leg and onto his shoulder, where she sat perched like a parrot, surveying the woods around them. Dilly strolled on with Grace purring in his ear, and lovingly kneading his shoulder with her tiny front paws.

  Twice Dilly tripped over tree roots, and each time he did, Grace dug her sharp little claws into his shoulder until he righted himself. She was used to his clumsiness, after all. The second time he tripped, he went down completely, landing hard, digging his knees and palms into the dirt. Grace went flying, but hurried back quickly enough to see if Dilly was okay. Without too much fuss, she scrambled back onto Dilly’s shoulder, and they proceeded along the trail, each in their own way brushing themselves off and trying to pretend nothing had happened.

  At a turn in the trail, Dilly stumbled to a stop at the sight of two young men in the bushes at the edge of the path. One young man was on his knees in front of the other. With his pants down around his ankles and his cock buried deep in the other man’s mouth, the standing man stared at Dilly with a lecherous grin on his face. Unembarrassed. Unashamed. To Dilly’s horror, the man motioned Dilly over to join the fun.

  Reaching up to clutch Grace’s harness and keep her safe, Dilly turned and jogged down the hillside to get as far away from the two as he could. He didn’t really care that the guy was getting a blow job in the woods, but he thought it would have been nice if the two had concealed themselves a little deeper among the trees to do it. Good Lord, he might have been a kid strolling by. Or a nun. Dilly wasn’t a prude, but he did believe in such a thing as decorum.

  He jogged all the way to the footbridge at the base of the hillside where the path crossed the freeway. From there, the winding path began to ascend the other side. In that direction, far above, lay the zoo and the museums and most of the tourist haunts. But on this day, Dilly had no interest in such things. He preferred to stay on the secluded trail where he and Grace could enjoy the solitude together.

  Dilly had to admit he found what he had witnessed with the two men titillating. It turned him on. Of course it did. But it also disgusted him a little bit. Especially the fact that the standing man was more than eager to let Dilly, a total stranger, share a taste in what he offered the other man, who was probably a stranger as well. Somehow the wantonness of it all saddened Dilly.

  “They’re gone now, Grace,” Dilly cooed to the cat on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. We won’t see them again.” Grace purred and offered Dilly another friendly head butt, as if she understood what Dilly said.

  Twenty or thirty yards past the freeway bridge as they slogged up one of the steepest parts of the trail, Dilly came across a park bench sawn from pine logs and situated at the side of the path for weary hikers. Since there was no one else in sight, Dilly commandeered the bench, shifted Grace to his lap, and spread out their dinner beside them.

  While birds chittered in the boughs over his head and squirrels chased each other through the undergrowth, Dilly munched on his sardine sandwich and hummed a quiet song deep in his throat. Beside him, Grace went at her sardine like she was battling a Great White, shaking it, rending it, merrily growling away like one of the lions in the zoo ripping into a wildebeest. Dilly smiled watching her.

  He closed his eyes, enjoying the coolness of the breezes as they wafted through the trees. He thought of Boz, the guy who visited the record shop the day before. For the briefest of uncomfortable moments, he imagined himself and Boz replacing the two guys in the bushes. He took the time to play the image both ways. One with Dilly on his knees in front of Boz, and the other with Boz on his knees in front of Dilly. Dilly’s cock stirred at the pictures in his mind, but he quickly gave his head a guilty shake, pushing the thoughts away.

  At his side, Grace gulped down the last of her sardine and flopped over onto her back alongside Dilly’s thigh. Absentmindedly, Dilly rubbed her belly while he finished his sandwich. His thoughts still touched on Boz now and then—the blueness of his eyes, the way his sun-streaked hair caught the light shining through the record shop window, how strong and graceful his hands were when they shuffled through the pile of records he was holding. More salacious images tried to burst in now and then as well, but Dilly continued to fight against them. In truth, those images of him and Boz doing sexy things in the bushes only made Dilly lonelier and unhappier.

  Dilly wondered if Boz had entered the store for the sole purpose of meeting him, like Puffer said. Dilly certainly couldn’t imagine why he would. Someone who looked like Boz—what was his last name? Oh yes, Jenkins—someone who looked like Boz Jenkins would have no trouble meeting anyone he wanted. And if it was romance he sought, he could certainly do a lot better than Dilly Jones.

  Dilly sighed when that thought hit him. He sighed because he knew it was true. There was nothing about Dilly that would lure someone like Boz. Boz could probably have his pick of all the gay men he wanted. Guys that were bigger and butcher and richer and didn’t wear dorkyass glasses that were held together with Gorilla Tape. Guys who could walk down the street without falling on their face every five minutes.

  Guys who weren’t ashamed of who they were and what little they had to offer.

  Suddenly inundated with sadness, Dilly sat there on the park bench, all alone among the pines but for his beloved cat, and watched the darkness slowly descend around them.

  He wondered what Boz was doing at that moment. And he wondered if Boz ever thought about him.

  Gazing down the length of himself, he saw for the first time a small tear in the knee of his jeans where he had fallen earlier. He spread his hands in front of his face and studied the scratches in his palms where he had hit the trail when he went down. As if all that wasn’t bad enough, there was a mayonnaise stain down by the hem of his T-shirt, and he was covered in cat hair.

  Dilly gave himself a sympathetic cluck and answered his own question.

  No. Boz most certainly was not thinking about him. Why the hell would he?

  Chapter Six

  BOZ LAID out his equipment under the light of the streetlamp that stood directly in front of Dilbert Allan Jones’s apartment building. He figured he didn’t need to worry about running into Dilly because it was three o’clock in the morning on Saturday morning. He had purposely waited until three so he could avoid the drunks tripping home after the bars closed down for the night. Not that Dilly was apt to be one of those. In fact, thinking back on the few minutes he had spent with Dilly at the record store that afternoon, and remembering Dilly’s gorgeous dark eyes set in the middle of a snowscape of sclera so white as to be almost blue, Boz wondered if Dilly had ever tasted alcohol in his life.

  With a last look up and down the street to make sure he was alone, Boz went to work. He hefted a five-pound package of Quikrete, instant concrete mix and dumped half of it into a bright orange plastic bucket he had brought along for the purpose. Over the gray powder he poured a generous dollop of water from a gallon jug. With a large cooking spoon, which would probably be worthless after
tonight, he mixed the two ingredients thoroughly. When he had a consistency that looked about right, he started ladling it out of the bucket with his favorite spatula, which probably wouldn’t be worth anything after tonight either.

  Working diligently on his hands and knees, he at long last managed to apply enough quick-dry cement to smooth out the deadly bump on the sidewalk that Dilly inevitable tripped over. He scraped and smoothed and leveled the mixture out until, sitting back on his haunches, he studied his craftsmanship and decided it was as good as it was ever going to get. He wasn’t a mason after all; he was a waiter. A lovesick waiter, maybe, but a waiter nevertheless.

  With the repair work completed to his satisfaction, he applied the last bit of equipment to the sidewalk—an orange cone that he had swiped from a construction site up the street. Boz set the cone precisely over the now-repaired ridge in the sidewalk so no one would step on it before the concrete dried, and gathering all his equipment together, he headed home. As he walked along, swinging his bucket with the ruined kitchen utensils clattering around inside, he whistled a merry song, content in the knowledge that he had done a selfless deed for the man he had the hots for.

  He stopped in front of a dumpster in the alley behind the row of cottages where he lived and threw all his concrete-encrusted implements into it: cooking spoon, spatula, bright orange bucket and all.

  Lowering the dumpster lid quietly so he wouldn’t wake the neighbors, he turned and walked directly into a man standing two feet behind him. The man’s broad chest stopped him like a brick wall.

  Boz went “Oof!”, and almost passed out from fright. A moment later, when the light from a full moon slipped from behind a cloud to show him who the person was, Boz immediately skipped past fear and zoomed right into anger.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded, catching a whiff of booze. And boy did that bring back memories!