The End of Billy Knight

by Ty Jacob

  Later, as Mike hung up the phone, he couldn’t figure out why he’d said yes. He still felt angry with Dale for suggesting that he do bareback, yet at the same time, even after all that, he felt tied to Dale, connected in a way he could not name. It would be terrible to lose him altogether.

  It was Sasha who picked him up that Saturday night. She waited in the car and honked the horn. “Look,” she said as he climbed into the passenger seat, gesturing to her outfit. Her dress was a deep, iridescent blue that shimmered in the overhead light. She had on a large fake sapphire ring. “The color for tonight is blue. We’ll only drink things that match my dress.”

  “Blue drinks?” Mike said.

  “Yes. And just in case the good Mr. Lessing’s bar doesn’t have tonight’s special color, I’ve brought my own.” She reached behind the seat and pulled out a bottle of Blue Curacao. “Blue tropical drinks all night. I even have pineapple juice. You’ll join me with blue drinks, won’t you? As my companion this evening, it would be dreadful if your drinks didn’t match my dress.”

  Mike laughed. “Well then, blue drinks it is.”

  She paused and looked at what he was wearing – black jeans and a black dress shirt, loose at the collar. “You don’t have anything blue to wear, do you?”

  “I’m wearing this.”

  “What about that vivid blue dress shirt that client of yours gave you last year? You know, the one with the silver buttons? That would look fabulous. We’d be a Blue Dream Team.”

  He smiled. She was a fun-loving man in a dress trying to make everything between them feel light and easy with the color blue. He’d considered talking to her tonight about how terrible her bareback request had made him feel, but he decided let that go now. They didn’t need to go over it again. They understood each other, and it was good not to have things feel heavy between them. “You really want me to run back in and change?” he said. “So I can match a bottle of blue booze.” He shook his head and laughed.

  “Oh, would you? Billy, you’re such a dear. We’ll make a fantastic entrance. Besides, that way we can spill our drinks all over ourselves and nobody will know.” She winked.

  He looked at her. This was part of why he loved her – this sense of play, these innocent, ridiculous demands. He opened the car door and went back inside.

  The cars were already parked down the street when they pulled up to Lessing’s front gate a half an hour later, both of them in blue. They parked further on and walked back, Sasha carrying the bottle of Blue Curacao in her hand, Mike carrying the pineapple juice.

  The house was modern and had a flat roof. Mike thought it looked like an office building, all grey and white. Inside there were white tile floors everywhere and high, empty ceilings with windows that ran up to the night sky and looked out over a large pool out back, with the nighttime lights of Los Angeles spreading into the distance. The guests were an odd mix of sophisticated older men and women with grey hair and nice clothes, surrounded by groups of younger gay muscle boys, a few drag queens, and the occasional cluster of pretty straight girls in little dresses. Mike wondered if Lessing had actually called a talent agency to hire young people for the night, so the evening would feel less like a retirement convention and more like a party.

  Lessing himself greeted Sasha and Mike as they came in. “Just look at you two, visions in blue!” He had a lisp and his upper lip was sweaty.

  “Don’t we look fabulous?” Sasha said.

  Lessing gave her a big hug, and then leered at Mike, saying, “This one needs no introduction. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Knight.”

  Mike shook Lessing’s hand, which was frail and clammy.

  They quickly left Lessing behind and moved through the house, then out the back doors. Sasha ran off to arrange their blue drinks and left Mike standing at the edge of the pool. It was lit underwater so that a soft greenish-blue light shone up onto the people and palm trees nearby. Mike walked to the edge of the garden and looked out at the city lights below. In the dark, from a distance, was the only way this city was beautiful.

  When Sasha came back, she was carrying two blue drinks – each with a tiny umbrella propped at the rim. “Blue Hawaiians,” she said, holding one out for Mike. “Drink up.”

  Mike took the drink. It was sweet, tasted of rum and pineapple and banana, and went down easy, like candy. They stood for a moment at the edge of the garden, separate from the party, looking down at the city.

  Sasha said, “With the right person this would almost seem romantic.”

  Mike looked at her. “Let’s join the party.” He turned to walk back toward the other people, but Sasha stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  “Mike, I don’t ever want to lose you.” Her voice had dropped and Mike felt suddenly like he was talking to Dale.

  “You’re not going to lose me,” he said, and then he gave her a small kiss on the cheek and walked back toward the party. She followed.

  They were standing near the pool again when Mike saw a man in tight black dress pants and a black mesh tank top looking their way. It took him a moment before he realized the man was Earl. He felt instantly awkward.

  Earl looked at him and walked over. “Mike, hi. How are you? Sasha, hello.”

  “Earl,” Mike said. “Funny seeing you here.”

  There was an awkward pause. Mike saw Sasha give Earl an expectant look and then tip her head in Mike’s direction.

  “Hey, Mike,” Earl said. “Um, I’m just really sorry.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Yeah. I, uh, I heard something about you, and I thought it was true, and I told Nick, but it’s not true, and I’m sorry.”

  Mike looked at Sasha, then back toward Earl. “It’s okay. I understand.” Then he looked at Sasha again. “Let’s just forget about it.”

  “Cool,” Earl said. “Thanks.”

  “Well, happy, happy!” Sasha said. From her spot between Mike and Earl, she reached out and put an arm around each of them. “Let’s do this. Let’s have a celebratory drink to make amends and move on. Earl, the bartender has a secret bottle of Blue Curacao under the bar. If you go tell him that Sasha sent you for a Blue Hawaiian, he’ll set you up. You can drink blue drinks with us.”

  Earl smiled. “Sure, Sasha. Thanks.” He quickly turned and walked away, glancing back at Mike as he went.

  Mike turned to Sasha. “Sasha, okay, fine. He apologized. That’s nice. I appreciate it.” He looked at her closely. “Really, I do. But why do we have to have a drink with him? That guy totally screwed you over with Appalachian Ass. Totally ruined your movie. You don’t have to act like he’s your best friend.”

  “Billy, dear. When you get to be my age, you realize that holding on to a grudge does you no good at all. Earl struggles. We all struggle. It’s not easy, none of this.” She gestured around into the air. “Cut the poor man some slack. He apologized to you. And as for my movie, Jesus, that was four years ago. And besides, it’s a proven medical fact that grudges are the number one cause of premature aging. Nothing is worth another wrinkle.”

  Earl came back holding a blue drink with an umbrella that matched theirs. He held it up in front of Mike and said, “Cheers.”

  Mike reluctantly raised his drink. They all clinked glasses.

  “Onwards and upwards,” Sasha said, taking a small sip. “After all, if the fucking homos can’t stick together, then nobody can. You might as well blow up the planet and call it a day.”

  As the evening progressed, somehow Earl was always nearby. He was laughing and talking with Sasha, or asking Mike questions about his latest movie, about his dancing gigs. Every once in a while, Earl reached out and touched Mike and said how good he looked. Mike didn’t like Earl, but the more he drank the less he cared.

  When he woke up the next morning, he recognized immediately that he was in Dale’s bed. There was no other room he knew of that had such intense fuchsia walls, or a pink sewing machine in the corner. The bedroom door was open. His head hurt. He reached down and found he was wearing
nothing but his underwear. Dale was in the kitchen, singing.

  It was a struggle to get out of the bed. His body was moving slower than he wanted it to. He felt horribly hung over as he walked down the hallway toward the bathroom and then peed. When he came out he saw that his old bedroom door was closed. He opened it slowly and stepped in. It was still empty. He walked out and went into the kitchen. Dale was mixing pancake batter.

  “Mikey!” Dale said. “Welcome back to the land of the living. How are you feeling? Coffee?”

  “Yes. Terrible. What happened last night?”

  “Oh, I’ve never seen you so drunk. Those Blue Hawaiians pack a wallop, and they go down so easy! Here, drink this.” Dale handed him a mug of hot, black coffee.

  “But did anything happen? I mean…”

  “You mean, between you and me? God no. As always, we slept like sisters. You passed out in a deck chair by the pool and I brought you home.”

  Mike tried to remember a deck chair, but couldn’t. He had vague recollection of sitting in the back seat of Sasha’s car, with Earl and Sasha in front.

  “Was Earl with us? When you brought me home? I remember Earl.”

  “Oh, yes. Well, I gave him a ride home. Pancakes?”

  “I seriously don’t remember last night. I don’t feel so good.”

  Dale was already pouring the batter into his old cast iron skillet. “That’s why you should eat. If you end up puking, you’ll get rid of the toxins. If you don’t, it’ll give you strength!”

  As the batter hit the hot skillet, it sizzled. Dale hummed.

  47. A Lonely Summer

  DURING THE MONTHS that followed the Lessing party, Dale felt that time had begun to move unbearably slowly.

  He didn’t see Mike nearly enough all summer long. He was lucky if he saw him once a week, for a ten-minute chat at Hump Night. In spite of the promises upon moving out, Mike was never available for Porn Star Roast Dinners on Sundays, and Dale refused to host them without Mike. Sometimes Mike would meet Dale at a restaurant for dinner mid-week, or occasionally for lunch, but it always felt like a rushed catch-up with a friend instead of a pleasant visit at home with a loved one, as it should feel.

  Mike was clearly very busy and preoccupied with his own life – arranging another dancing tour to promote his latest film, meeting new clients. Although nobody supported Sasha the first time she wanted to promote a film with a tour, now a promotional tour was practically an industry standard. One afternoon Mike told Dale over lunch that he was taking a course to become a certified gym instructor, and that he was already three weeks into it. Dale was surprised – not by the course or the fact that Mike was taking it, but by the fact that Mike had been doing something for over three weeks entirely unbeknownst to him. There was a time when he knew every single movement Mike made, or intended to make, even things as small as going shopping for a new pair of shoes. Clearly that time had passed. Mike was his own man now.

  Dale had a lot of spare time on his hands, which he’d never had when Mike was living with him. So he began to revisit old haunts. Frustrated that Sasha’s Texas Western still had no backing and was going nowhere, he put on a wig and dress and began visiting Venice Beach again, small video camera in hand. It was almost like the old days.

  All that summer Sasha could be found walking along the Venice Boardwalk most Saturday afternoons. Venice was at its glory on the weekends, when it was most crowded. Even after all those years it was still one of the most fantastic spots in Los Angeles. Sasha loved the cheap jewelry and T-shirt shops, all the people selling sunglasses, the postcards and tourists everywhere. It was like a tacky carnival every day.

  Each weekend she watched a parade of humanity – shirtless muscle men, penniless musicians, and chainsaw-juggling entertainers. There were activists shouting “Meat is murder!” alongside bikini-clad women with fabulously artificial breasts. Cyclists and roller skaters streamed by, wearing almost nothing.

  Occasionally she would retreat from the bedlam of the boardwalk and collect herself over a cup of tea at the Rose Café, where she could look out at the 30-foot transvestite ballerina clown above the entrance to the Venice Renaissance Building across the way. Sasha loved LA.

  Once, as she sat in the Rose Café having tea, she saw two plain-looking men walk in, both with salt-and-pepper hair and plaid shirts. There was nothing remarkable about either of them, but somehow they fascinated her. One wore a baseball cap. The other had a thick beard. They each had a small paunch at their stomachs. Baseball Cap kept absentmindedly touching Beard’s arm. There was an obvious ease between them that suggested they’d been lovers for years.

  The waitress led them to a table nearby, and Sasha watched closely. When Beard actually pulled out the chair for Baseball Cap, Sasha couldn’t help but smile. She wondered for a moment what it would be like to be with somebody for such a long time, as lovers, somebody your own age, who declined and deteriorated as you did. She was, after all, almost fifty years old and not getting younger. No doubt Beard and Baseball Cap knew each other’s bodies well – knew not only every wrinkle, mole, and little flap of sagging skin, but all the special places too, those spots that still, after so many years, liked very much to be touched. She felt herself envying them deeply, in spite of the fact that they were relatively unattractive and decidedly unglamorous. The feeling became so strong that eventually she had to turn away. It was like staring at an eclipse, something that hurt your eyes. She shifted in her seat and looked down into her teacup, concentrating in what she saw there, as though she were reading her own tea leaves, looking for her future. She left shortly after that.

  When her Billy finally left LA for a dancing tour he’d been talking about for months, Sasha began going to Venice even more. Sometimes, to console herself, she bought little trinkets from the beach-side shops – plastic rings and cheap baubles. Other times she would visit the galleries and vintage-clothing stores on Abbot Kinney Boulevard. On one occasion, trying to stop herself from missing Billy so much, she had her aura adjusted by a woman on the boardwalk with purple hair. It didn’t help.

  Every time she visited Venice, she eventually found herself standing at the edge of the outdoor gym near the beach. She would whistle and jeer and the men would laugh, sweating in the afternoon sun. It felt like the old days. Every now and then one of them would walk over to her, and if they were sexy enough she would give them her card, explain that she did video. When one finally agreed to show up at her house to be filmed the next day, she felt a kind of relief. She hadn’t coaxed a bodybuilder home since before Billy. She still had it. She could still catch men.

  But when the musclehead got there on Sunday afternoon, everything went wrong. They got started right away, but it took him forever to come. After he finally shot his load, he said he wanted a hundred bucks – not the fifty they’d agreed on the day before. He got aggressive, so she paid him the money just to get rid of him. Afterward she sat alone on her couch, looking at the walls, and she spotted some cum which had dripped onto the faux leather besides her. The sight of those drops filled her with a terrible sadness. Even after quickly wiping them up, the bad feeling stayed. She began wandering around her apartment trying to find some kind of respite, but everywhere she went, there was that same feeling – a kind of emptiness. She opened up Billy’s bedroom door and looked in but didn’t dare walk inside, afraid the emotion there would overwhelm her. She couldn’t wait for her Billy to move back in.

  48. Handsome Buildings and Men

  MIKE WAS IN Miami, and he was exhausted. He stood in an empty changing room in a South Beach bar and slipped on his red jock strap. He’d been on tour since the end of August, and he wanted to go home, wherever that was now. He told himself that as soon as he got on stage everything would be okay. The crowd would energize him. One more city after this, and the tour was over.

  It had been good to be out of LA for the last four weeks. That smog-choked city felt too crowded all summer long – too busy and ugly and full of tourists. On t
op of that, Dale’s neediness since he’d moved in with Nick had worn him out. He liked it here in Miami, especially South Beach. Just that afternoon he’d wandered around the Art Deco District, checking out the buildings and the men.

  Now he picked up his black knee-high socks. There was no place to sit in this changing room, and he leaned against the wall to put them on. Next he stepped into the pants – tightly fitting yellow brocade, the legs ending snuggly around his calves.

  He didn’t quite know what to do about Dale, about the incessant phone calls that had continued all summer long. It was like having your mother living in the same city as you, wanting to see you all the time. It was horrible. Just because he still cared for Dale didn’t mean he wanted to hear from him every day, or catch up over yet another lunch. And Mike did still care for Dale, although he was very happy to not live with him anymore. In spite of everything there was an enduring bond between them, and Mike couldn’t imagine the world without Dale. He just wanted a little bit of space.

  If Dale could find a boyfriend, or at least a new roommate, that would be perfect. The double rent Mike paid through June had extended into July. It was easily covered with extra clients, but when August came he finally told Dale he wasn’t paying him rent anymore. Now it was already the end of September. He was worried that Dale was struggling to pay the rent for that place on his own, although of course Dale would never say.

  Reaching down to his enormous gym bag on the floor, Mike pulled out a white shirt with ruffles down the front. He slipped it on, followed by a brocade jacket that matched the pants. There were epaulets on the shoulders, and a high-cut waist. The entire outfit was Dale’s handiwork. Mike leaned against the wall again and put on the small black dance shoes Dale had insisted on. Finally, a black matador’s hat finished off the look.