My Busboy

by John Inman

  “Some people do,” I said, leery. I began to see where this line of conversation was going.

  A vertical trench dug its way between Dario’s heavenly brown orbs. “But some people don’t,” he said.

  I laid my thumb to his forehead and tried to massage the trench away. “Some people are dicks, Dario. Or maybe they don’t know how to express themselves without being vicious. Or hell, maybe they just enjoy putting people down.”

  “Doesn’t it hurt?” he asked, once again laying his cheek to mine so I could feel his lips move against my skin.

  I rested my hand on the heat of his hip. His skin was like velvet. I never tired of caressing him there.

  “Of course it hurts. But you can’t let it get to you,” I said, pressing a kiss to each of his eyelids, coaxing his troubled eyes closed so I wouldn’t have to see him worrying about a bunch of stupid reviews. “Go to any of the review websites, Dario. The sites where readers discuss books, critique books, review books. I checked one out once and found 29,000 one-star reviews for Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings—29,000! Arguably, the greatest masterpiece of fiction ever written and 29,000 people thought it was crap! You should have read some of the comments about it. It’s too long. The author uses too many big words. Couldn’t follow the plot. What the hell’s an Orc?” I laughed.

  Dario laughed with me. “But why do they have to be so mean about it, Robert? What enjoyment do they get out of that?”

  I shrugged. I had asked myself these questions long ago, and now I supposed I would have to tell Dario the conclusions I had come to so he wouldn’t be freaking out about my bad reviews like I used to do.

  “It’s pretty simple. Some people enjoy hurting others. Or maybe they don’t have the writing skills to tone down their rancor. Or maybe they are jealous that the writer is published and they have a collection of rejections slips at home from a writing career that never took off. Or, like I said before, maybe they’re just dicks. The best thing to do is simply ignore them. The last thing a writer wants to do is confront a reviewer.”

  “Why?” Dario asked. “I would.”

  I gave my head a tiny shake. “No, you wouldn’t. If you did, you would lay yourself open to a shit storm of attacks from all the readers who think writers should lay back and take all the insults hurled at them without engaging. And they’re right. It’s a battle the writer can’t win. He’ll only come off looking petulant and a poor sport. Once a book hits the market, you have to say good-bye to it and let it fend for itself. Some people will like it, some people won’t. It’s a fact of life. Believe it or not, I actually welcome bad reviews. A writer can learn a lot from a thoughtfully delivered piss-poor review.”

  Dario eyed me with what looked to be considerable pity. “I’m beginning to see why you don’t read reviews.”

  “I thought you might.” I chucked him on the chin. “Look. Don’t worry about the people who post those nasty reviews. There are countless reviewers out there who do get it right, who care about the genre they work in. Who truly love literature and want to see a book succeed. Reviewers who understand that even a bad review doesn’t have to go for the writer’s jugular. No, Dario, don’t fret about the reviews. If I were you, I’d worry more about the actual stalkers.”

  Dario blinked. “Why? Do you have some of those too?”

  “Just one,” I said, with a grin. “Although I have to admit I haven’t heard from him lately. Maybe he’s decided to splash his vitriol on somebody else for a change.”

  Dario frowned. “Let’s hope so.”

  I kissed his chin. “No kidding.”

  Dario relaxed beneath my kiss. We snuggled back onto the bed, his naked body so luscious and perfect against my own, fitting in at all the right places as if we were made to be together, that I wondered how I had ever lain in this bed without him.

  “Dario,” I said, not only to grab his attention, but to hear his name as well. I was crazy about the way it rolled off my tongue. “Dario,” I said again, just for the hell of it.

  He kissed the word from my lips. When he spoke his voice was once again lazy and dreamlike, yet something in my tone seemed to bother him. He pulled back enough to focus those cognac-colored eyes on my face. “What’s wrong, Robert? What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing’s wrong, baby. I want to ask you something. I need to ask you something important.”

  He studied my face until he apparently decided my question wouldn’t threaten world peace or worsen global hunger or the state of gasoline prices planet wide. He laid his lips to mine again and whispered his answer through a kiss.

  “What do you want to know?” he asked in a sexy purr. “I’ll tell you anything.”

  I opened my mouth to finally ask the question I had wanted to ask for weeks when suddenly—the phone rang. Fuck.

  Heaving a sigh of frustration, I realigned my train of thought. I wasn’t particularly happy about it either. I reached around Dario’s bronze shoulder, sliding a kiss over it as I went, and snatched my landline off the table.

  The voice that greeted me was unfamiliar. Butch, businesslike, terse. “Is this Mr. Robert Johnny?”

  Being naked, sexually satiated, and lying next to the sexiest guy in the world, who also happened to be naked and sexually satiated—by me, no less—one might forgive my proclivity for being a wiseass with my response.

  “Gee, cupcake. Who wants to know?”

  “The San Diego Police Department” came the answer, and if there was any humor in the statement I was hard pressed to find it.

  I sat up, nudging Dario gently aside as I did. “Yeah. I mean, uh, yes, this is Robert Johnny. Sorry about the cupcake thing.”

  I heard a grunt. “I’m a cop. Any term of endearment from the public is a welcome change from what we usually get.”

  “I’m sure it is,” I stated flatly, remembering how the SDPD had refused to make an appearance after my burglary. The twits. “So, Officer, what can I do for you? If it’s tickets to the Policeman’s Ball you can forget it. None of you guys look like you know how to dance.”

  “Funny,” he said. “You’re a laugh a minute.” He heaved a sigh as if to get himself back on track. “And I’m a detective, not an officer. Detective Stone. I’m at Mercy Hospital with the victim of a crime. That victim is asking for you. He won’t speak to me without you here, he says.”

  I casually slid my fingers through the hair on Dario’s thigh, all the while trying to make sense of what the policeman had told me. Dario sat there in the bed beside me, his chin digging a hole in my shoulder as he tried to overhear what was being said over the phone.

  “Look, Detective, I don’t—I mean, I don’t understand. Who’s the victim? What’s the crime? And what could it possibly have to do with me?”

  “The crime is assault. A stabbing to be more precise, Mr. Johnny.”

  I froze. “Good lord.”

  “Yes. Good lord indeed. The victim will survive, but he’s going to be sore for a while. He’s awake now, and he’s asking for you. Insists he won’t tell me anything about his attacker without you being present. In fact, he wants to speak to you alone before he makes a statement.”

  I could tell the detective didn’t like that, and I couldn’t really blame him.

  When I failed to respond, he said, “The victim’s name is Kevin Waters. He’s an addict.”

  The name rang no bells. Not even one. “I’m afraid there’s been some sort of mistake, Officer. I don’t know anyone named Kevin Waters. And I certainly don’t know any drug addicts. I’m—I’m a writer.”

  The cop heaved a sigh of frustration. I got the impression there was a donut waiting for him somewhere as soon as he could drag his ass away from me.

  “I know you’re a writer. The vic told me.”

  “The vic?”

  “The victim, sir. By the way, his street name is Bucky,” the cop said, his voice as flat as a day-old crepe.

  “Oh,” I softly said.

  To which the cop replied, “Yeah, he said th
at might ring a bell.”

  Chapter Twelve

  IT WAS Saturday night and the emergency room at Mercy Hospital was packed with unhappy people. When Dario and I entered through the street entrance, there were two more unhappy people in attendance. Us. Our weekends together were precious to us. We would much rather have been home naked.

  I immediately spotted a man with a police shield hanging from his sport coat pocket and knew it was Detective Stone. He was waiting by a kiosk in the corner where a row of vending machines stood. The vending machines were there to add to the hospital’s coffers by sucking up money while doling out chips, candy, peanuts, soda pop, and coffee to the sick and terminally impatient. Stone held a paper cup of fetid coffee in his hand, and by the grimace on his face when he took a sip, I figured he was sorry he had spent the money. He looked up when we approached, and in a perfectly coordinated display of ambidexterity, raised one hand in greeting, while the other hand dumped the coffee in a wastebasket by the wall.

  Stone wasn’t bad-looking, and he was young enough to make not being bad-looking an intriguing attribute. A bit ragged around the edges from what looked like lack of sleep, he wore a suit that hadn’t been pressed lately, and he had a ketchup stain on his crooked tie. Still, the bulge behind the fly of his wrinkled suit pants was intriguing, and when I saw Dario checking it out, I growled under my breath and told him to knock it off. Caught in the act, Dario cast his eyes up to the ceiling and whistled a casual tune under his breath.

  Detective Stone weaved a path through the rows of seats, each of them filled with misery, and met us halfway across the room. He didn’t seem predisposed to chatting.

  “Mr. Waters is on the fifth floor. Let’s go on up.”

  I had to ask. “How’d you know who we were?”

  Stone glanced at Dario, then back to me. Hauling out an iPhone from his jacket pocket, he waved it in front of our faces. “I looked you up online. Being an honest-to-god author, you were easy to find.” Tipping his head in Dario’s direction, he added, “This one’s a puzzlement, though.”

  “Boyfriend,” I said.

  And while Dario looked pleased by my announcement, the detective merely said, “Ah,” as if he expected as much from a writer, and steered us toward the elevator.

  Detective Stone wasn’t one to waste time on pleasantries. He stared at the numbers gliding past over the elevator door, waiting for the car to deliver us to our destination. We were barely past the first floor when, still watching the numbers, he asked his first question.

  “How do you know Mr. Waters?”

  I cast a guilty glance at Dario while I considered how best to answer. Figuring even Dario must realize he was not the first man I ever bedded, I told the detective the truth.

  “Years ago, we tricked. He wasn’t an addict then.”

  Stone turned away from the door long enough to eyeball me. Then he eyeballed clean-cut Dario standing at my side. “No, I don’t suppose he was.” The elevator dinged past 3 without stopping. We still had the car to ourselves. The detective swiveled back toward the door, presenting his back to us. He tilted his head up to once again stare at the numbers flashing by. “And when was this?”

  I took a moment to calculate the passage of time. “We were both in college. Maybe seven, no, eight years ago. We were practically kids.”

  Dario sidled closer, as if to give me moral support. The elevator dinged past 4 without stopping. We were on a roll.

  Detective Stone might have been chatting over a cup of tea with a scone in his hand. “And the two of you kept in touch all those years? Even with your life taking off in one direction and his taking off in another?”

  I sighed. Poor Bucky. “It wasn’t really that we kept in touch. It’s just that I saw him now and then on the street. He’s been homeless for years, I think. Hooked on meth. We run into each other occasionally, that’s all. We exchange a few words. I give him a few dollars to tide him over his latest crisis. I feel sorry for him.” I glanced at Dario, who was listening wide-eyed, then returned my attention to the cop, although what I was about to say might have been for Dario’s benefit as well. “And if you’re wondering, we tricked only once. Like I said, it was years ago. But that seemed to be enough of a connection to keep us in each other’s sights for all the intervening years. He’s a good guy, Detective. He just wasn’t strong enough to win his battle with drugs.”

  “A lot of people aren’t,” the detective muttered.

  Dario’s hand slipped into mine. He only released it when the elevator jerked to a stop on 5 and the doors slid open to spit us out.

  When Stone took off down the hall, I hustled to catch up and tugged gently at his sleeve, getting his attention. “I still don’t understand what Bucky’s attack has to do with me.”

  The detective’s phone beeped. He plucked it out of his pocket, glanced at the screen, then punched a key and stuffed it back out of sight. Redirecting his eyes to me, he said, “I don’t know what his attack has to do with you either, Mr. Johnny, but I guess we’re about to find out.” He gave Dario and me a kind nod, one after the other, as if accepting us as a unit. “Come on, both of you. Let’s get this cleared up. He’s a few rooms down.”

  Without waiting for a response, the detective took off down the hall again. Sucking in a great gulp of air to calm my frazzled nerves, I followed.

  Dario trailed along at my side, his finger hooked in my belt loop, matching me step for step. It was a comfort having him there. More than a comfort, really.

  It was at that precise moment, with heart-dropping suddenness and with the hum and bustle of a big city hospital buzzing around us, that I realized for the very first time I was in love. Yep. It was true. Our affair wasn’t a lark any longer. It wasn’t a fling. I was head over heels in love with Dario Martinez. My busboy.

  I stopped dead in my tracks.

  Jesus. What a time to snatch that curveball out of midair.

  I HAD to forcibly wrench Dario out of my head to concentrate on Bucky lying in the hospital bed before us. In a semiprivate room with a sliding cloth curtain offering a semblance of seclusion from the stalk of broccoli in the next bed, Bucky lay there on faded blue sheets with an IV snaking out of one uninjured arm, and some sort of monitor that looked like it might be related to R2-D2 blinking and whirring and clicking at the side of his bed. His left arm, which must have taken the brunt of the attack, was swathed in bandages from elbow to wrist. Defensive wounds, maybe. An orange smear of ointment covered another flurry of cuts on the back of his left hand.

  Bucky’s eyes were open, and he appeared more alert than I had seen him in years. He looked cleaner too. His hair, usually matted and unkempt, sprung up from the top of his head all fluffy and wild, but kind of attractive actually. His electric blue eyes were still stunning, now perhaps even more so than usual since it looked like most of the meth was out of his system. His eyes were clear of the drug smog that usually sullied them. The bedsheet was tucked about his waist, and he was shirtless above it. White bandages were wrapped around his torso from his armpits to his stomach. His face and arms were browned from life on the streets, the rest of his body as pale as alabaster. He was painfully thin.

  But still, those eyes were flashing with life. He had them trained on the three of us now as we walked through the door. The glower he aimed at Detective Stone morphed to confusion at the sight of Dario, whom he didn’t know from Adam, and then morphed even further into a slight smile when he saw me approach the foot of his bed.

  “Bobby,” he said in a whispered hush.

  Detective Stone stepped forward before I could speak. “Yes, Mr. Waters. I found him for you. Now maybe you’ll—”

  With a grimace, Bucky lifted the arm without the IV and pointed a finger toward the door. “You,” he said to Stone. “Out. I need to talk to my friend alone.”

  It was Stone’s turn to glower back. “You promised me a statement.”

  “Later,” Bucky said. “Now get the fuck out.”

  Detecti
ve Stone skittered his eyes from Bucky to me to Dario, then he huffed in annoyance and spun on his heel. Flipping the curtain aside, he stomped through the door we’d entered. As an afterthought, once in the hallway, he pulled the door closed behind him. It seemed to be a chore for him to maintain enough composure not to slam it shut. Silently, in my head, I commended him for his restraint.

  Dario and I turned back to Bucky, who was now grinning wide. I had to cringe at the condition his teeth were in, but I also had to admit he looked happy as hell.

  “I don’t like cops,” he said.

  I grinned back. “I don’t think he likes you much either.”

  We swapped a trickle of nervous giggles, like two kids caught giving the school librarian the finger.

  I stepped forward and took his hand. “What’s going on, Bucky? How are you doing?” I reached out and laid a gentle finger to the bandage across his waist. “What the hell is this?” I asked.

  “Stabbed in the gut,” he explained. “Ain’t that a pisser?”

  “Are you in pain?”

  He gave me a sneaky wink. “No, the drugs here are pretty good.” He dragged his eyes to Dario. “Who’s this?”

  “He’s my friend,” I said.

  Dario stepped forward then and held out his hand as I had. “I’m Dario,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  Oddly, Bucky blushed. His ears turned bright red. “So you’re the one who finally caught him,” he said, studying Dario’s face. He gnawed on his lower lip before finally saying, “Good for you.”

  It was Dario’s turn to blush. He shot me a quick glance before muttering, “Thanks.”

  Bucky’s blue eyes softened, then glinted like stainless steel. “I hope you know how lucky you are.”

  Dario stepped closer and bent over the bed. He brushed his lips over Bucky’s cheek and whispered in his ear, loud enough for me to hear, “I do.”

  The two strangers held hands for a moment while I stood by the bed like a fool, choking up.