I remember the day Mrs. Wright was buried. My father threatened to whup my sister Gina and me for screaming and fighting in the backyard. Show a little respect for the dead, he warned. Late that night, I was awakened by the doorbell. I stood at the top of the stairs, behind my mother. My father told Mr. Sax to settle down and speak slowly so he could understand him. Then, barefoot and wearing only pajama bottoms, he left with Mr. Sax, closing the door behind them. My mother sent me back to bed and went to the kitchen to wait for him to return. An hour later I heard the front door open. I crept down the stairs and listened, safely hidden behind the kitchen wall.
Mr. Sax wouldn’t let him call the police, my father told my mother. Mr. Wright had trashed his mother’s bedroom, breaking furniture, shattering mirrors, ripping her clothes to shreds, tearing the curtains from the windows. The fat old bastard was curled up on her bare mattress, naked as a jaybird, sucking on the nozzle of a pistol. It only took a few sharp words from my father for Mr. Wright to hand over the gun. The goddamn thing wasn’t even loaded. Mr. Sax got him into a bathrobe and my father forced shot after shot of bourbon into him until he finally passed out. Disgusting, the old man told my mother, just disgusting. I should have put the bullets in the gun for him. It’s not like anyone would have missed him if he had shot himself. Well, I suppose Mr. Sax would have missed him, my mother countered. Jesus Christ, Ruth, my father said, the incredulous tone of his voice implying she was crazy.
After that night, Mr. Wright and Mr. Sax withdrew back into their solitude. I knew they were not real men like my father. The old man said Mr. Wright clipped coupons for a living. (I wondered how anyone could make any money snipping the newspaper to get ten cents off a carton of orange juice or a roll of paper towels.) And a good thing too, since he was a little “this way” (my father pursing his lips and waving his hand airily) and then there’s all the goddamn booze…but then again, they mind their own business. When I asked if Mr. Sax had a job, the old man muttered under his breath and told me to go in the house and get him a can of beer.
Mr. Wright and Mr. Sax’s lives didn’t extend beyond the veranda. From the first warm spring evening to the last damp chilly night of autumn, Mr. Wright and Mr. Sax observed the world from the safety of their porch, Mr. Wright in an Adirondack chair, Mr. Sax in a rocker, a small table between them. Mr. Wright sipped a drink from a tall tumbler that Mr. Sax jumped up to refill each time Mr. Wright emptied it.
From the distance of our yard, you could see Mr. Wright’s mouth moving, talking, talking, talking, as he jabbed Mr. Sax with the index finger of his free hand, making sure he didn’t miss his point. Mr. Sax sat rocking, smiling and nodding his head, never saying a word. My sister and I, lying on our backs and counting the stars, heard Mr. Wright’s harsh voice, slurring his words as he lacerated Mr. Sax for some imagined betrayal. The ending never varied: Mr. Wright stumbling out of his chair, Mr. Sax sweetly advising him to be careful, Mr. Wright slamming the door and locking it behind him. Mr. Sax would sit for an another half hour, rocking away, fingering the house key in his pocket and staring at the constellations in the sky, searching for his lucky star to thank for getting him through another day. Regina and I would mock him, mimicking his high, singsong voice—“Be careful!” “No, you be careful”—as we wrestled in the grass.
At age fourteen, my father put me behind a power mower and pointed me toward our lawn. Mr. Wright and Mr. Sax sat on their veranda, sipping away in the shade, amused by the struggle between a wiry kid and a six horsepower engine. I felt their eyes assessing me, lingering on my developing chest, Mr. Sax looking over the reading glasses resting on the bridge of his nose, Mr. Wright staring through the blue haze of cigarette smoke. One Saturday morning, Mr. Sax approached my father and asked if I would like to earn some extra spending money. The old man, determined I would repeat his up-by-the-boot-straps-through-hard-work-and-determination-Horatio-Alger story, negotiated the price. Ten dollars for my sweat and the wear and tear on his lawnmower. Five bucks extra if they wanted to set me loose on the boxwood hedges with a pair of clippers.
I acquiesced without argument, not knowing how to explain the queasy feeling in my stomach when I knew they were watching me. I refused to take off my shirt, not even when the temperature spiked into the low hundreds. Of course, Mr. Sax and Mr. Wright were perfect gentlemen, never advancing to remarks, let alone casual touching. Mr. Sax would bring me glasses of ice water or lemonade and, when the labors of Hercules were finished for another week, hand me my remuneration in a thick, cream-colored envelope. Lovely, just lovely, he’d say. I asked Gina why he couldn’t just say good job or nice work. Because, stupid, she said, he’s talking about you, not the grass.
Later that summer, Mr. Sax approached my father again. He and Mr. Wright were taking a short holiday (again, my father pursed his lips and flitted his hands, mimicking the conversation) and the guest house on Cape Cod refused to accommodate pets. Mr. Sax assured me Miss Hellman would be no problem at all. (“The fucking cat’s a male!” the old man sputtered, disgusted.) He was as gentle as a lamb, the sweetest puss on earth. Just change the litter and make sure he had enough food and water. On the third day of cat-sitting duty, I persuaded my mother to take the Grand Tour. She oohed and aahed over each camera-ready tableau. A green velvet sofa with huge carved claw feet dominated the front room. Chairs with needlepoint seats and fierce straight backs were clustered for intimate conversation. Porcelain shepherdesses herded tiny crystal objects scattered atop the occasional tables. Spit-polished brass andirons waited for colder weather to return. Mr. Sax spent countless hours surveying his Master’s domain, repositioning a hair here, an eyelash there, the perfect arrangement never quite achieved.
My mother and I wandered from room to room. But when we reached the wide staircase that led to the second floor, she hesitated, declining my suggestion we explore the rooms above. A troubled look crossed her face and she asked if I had been up there. No, I answered truthfully. She said she shouldn’t have come here uninvited and for either of us to invade Mr. Wright and Mr. Sax’s private rooms would betray their trust. She allowed herself one last indulgence, picking up a china plate to appreciate the delicate blue willow pattern. Imagine the holidays they once had in this house, she said. I tried to picture Mr. Wright and Mr. Sax as they sat down to dinner. Did they huddle together in one corner of the long table or sit at opposite ends?
And where exactly did Mr. Wright and Mr. Sax sleep? I would have to wait until Miss Hellman’s next feeding to answer that question.
The cat sat at the bottom of the staircase, accusing me with his eyes as I climbed the steps. The windows were shuttered, letting in only thin strips of daylight. The first room was a bedroom, meant for guests, its closets and chests full of towels and linens. The second room was a study with walls of books and a prissy writing table with a full complement of expensive writing implements. The last room was for sewing, with an ancient Singer and baskets overflowing with spools of thread. Miss Hellman streaked across my feet, having decided it wasn’t wise to let me wander these rooms alone.
He followed me up to the third floor. The door at the end of the hall was open; a huge canopy bed, mattress riding high above the floor, overwhelmed their bedroom. Books were neatly stacked on the nightstands on each side of the bed. A pair of reading glasses sat on one table. Mr. Sax’s side of the bed. A cigarette case and silver lighter rested on the other. Mr. Wright’s side.
The cat leaped onto the dressing table where he could watch my every move. I kicked off my sneakers and hopped on the bed. Giddiness overwhelmed me and I rolled from side to side, one minute Mr. Sax, the next Mr. Wright. Kiss me, you fool, I said, puckering and smacking my lips. Yes, mon amour, I said, hugging my ribs, a fourteen-year-old’s idea of passion as inspired by crummy old movies. The cat licked its paws, bored by my childish shenanigans. I flopped on my back and threw my legs over the side of the bed. When I reached down for my sneakers, I saw them, a stack of magazines on the floor, nearly hidden by the
dust ruffle, on Mr. Sax’s side of the bed.
They sure as hell weren’t Life or Look or The Saturday Evening Post. A chiseled figure flexed his enormous biceps on the cover of the magazine at the top of the pile. I knew I’d hit the jackpot, understanding for the first time the concept of “impure” I’d been taught in catechism. Physique, a Magazine for Gentlemen. I tossed them on the bed and raced through the pages. All the models had short crew cuts, clipped close to the skull, and every one was stark naked except for a little sock slipped over his penis, secured by a string around his flat hips. Dipping, stretching, flexing, stretching some more, looking right, looking left, looking down at their toes and up to the sky, always careful to keep that silk sock front and center. They made me think of my older cousin Bobby, who lived on a farm and who, that summer, had taken to strutting around his bedroom in nothing but his underpants, showing off his newly muscled chest and arms and legs and the bulge between his legs.
I dropped to the floor, looking under the bed for another stash. All I found was a pair of slippers with the heels stepped down. But the black-and-white magazines I found in the cedar chest at the foot of the bed made Physique seem as tame as Weekly Reader. The sailors didn’t just pose alone in the sun. They sprawled in pairs on beds, on couches, on rugs. Black strips were burned into the photos to conceal their eyes. They had long flaccid dicks and balls that hung like weights in their wrinkled sacks. They smiled and reached out to each other, never actually touching. They had pimples on their asses, scars on their veins, and their arms were tattooed with Chinese dragons and bleeding hearts pierced by daggers.
I broke out in a sweat, my heart racing in my chest and blood pounding in my ears. My legs started shaking and I pressed my thighs together as tight as I could. My dick felt full, like I needed to piss, but better, warmer, more tingly. My hand, not even knowing what it was doing, yanked at my zipper and the cat looked up, surprised to find my pants down around my ankles. I rolled over on my stomach and rubbed against the mattress, not thinking about the men in the magazine but about Bobby strutting back and forth, remembering his smell, imagining myself on the floor with him, rubbing faster and faster, until I was so hard I was sure I would burst. I wouldn’t, couldn’t stop, and at the very last minute I panicked, realizing I’d lost control and nothing, not my gritted teeth or the hand squeezing the head of my dick, could stop me from pissing all over the bed.
Only it wasn’t piss or anything like it. It was white and sticky; it must have been the stuff Bobby meant when he bragged about creaming the bed. It smelled like my socks after I wore them three days in a row. The cat pounced on the bed and sniffed at the dribble on the bedspread. I watched, appalled, as he licked it clean. I jumped off the bed and into my pants, anxious to get out of there.
That night at dinner, I couldn’t look my parents in the face, absolutely certain they would realize something was different about me and interrogate me about what had happened in the few hours since breakfast when the old man had threatened violence if I kept flicking Alpha-Bits at my sister. I promised God I would never, ever, do anything like that again if He let me get away with this. And when He did, I climbed the stairs to Mr. Wright and Mr. Sax’s bedroom the very next afternoon and every day up to the evening they came home.
Mr. Sax was delighted to find Miss Hellman healthy and happy and insisted I accept a ten-dollar tip on the twenty he had promised. August turned to September and then it was fall, Mr. Wright and Mr. Sax still watching me from the veranda every Saturday until the weather turned cold and the lawnmower went into hibernation for the winter. One thing changed, though, after they came back from their holiday. I started taking off my shirt, my adolescent chest glistening with sweat, compensation of a sort, or maybe bribery, for the stolen contraband hidden in a small footlocker stashed in the corner of my bedroom closet. If they ever missed their copy of Sailor Tails they never said anything.
This used to be a hell of a lot easier. And a hell of a lot more fun. I suppose I’m too distracted to really concentrate on imagining the big, big movie star riding my cock, shouting filthy names at me, ordering me to slap his ass as he bounces on my pole. Then again, lately I’ve been too distracted to concentrate when an actual live body is riding my cock, shouting filthy names at me, ordering me to slap his ass as he bounces on my pole. Fuck it, why not just read a good book, I decide, turning the pages of Bang the Drum Slowly until I drift off to sleep.
Homecoming
It’s either this dump or the comfy linoleum of the Knoxville Regional Airport. One bounce on the bed makes me regret not spending the night on the terminal floor. I was damned lucky to get this sarcophagus. Every other room in town was booked a year in advance for homecoming weekend.
This was supposed to be a day trip. I flew in at nine. The manager of the emporium of Official, Authorized University of Tennessee Merchandise was emphatic. She would not, could not, make any decisions without the architect from Facilities who had been stricken by the flu that morning. I tried to persuade her she could at least look at the catalogue, let me take a few measurements.
“No, sorry,” she said, perspiring in her Official, Authorized University of Tennessee Sweatshirt, size XXX-Large. “Facilities is very strict about these things. It will have to wait until he’s back on his feet.”
I would have sliced the fat bitch’s brake cables if I’d known which car in the lot was hers. Now I’m stuck overnight in this backwater, on the hook for the cost of the counseling session I’d had to cancel with less than twenty-four hours’ notice, all on account of a five-minute sales call. It’s a beautiful autumn night, crisp and cool, the oaken hint of bonfires lingering in the air. It’s hard to believe that only a few hundred miles away, raging thunderstorms have halted all air traffic into the Charlotte airport, stranding weary road warriors who just want to spend Friday night in their own beds. I don’t have a bed to call my own so it’s hard to call this a hardship. It’s almost a blessing, in fact. When I called my mother with my traveler’s tale of woe, she worried about me getting a flight tomorrow. Randy T. Olsson and his (third? fourth?) wife would be so disappointed if I couldn’t make it to dinner Saturday night. He’s been asking after you since you came home from High Point, she said, a harmless little white lie. Don’t worry, I said, I’ll be there, nearly dropping to my knees to beg Jupiter Pluvius to take mercy on me and summon a hurricane gale to spare me from an evening of forced small talk with Randy T, who, as the president of Nocera Heat and Air, had been receptive to the gentle suggestion by the sole shareholder, my mother, that perhaps I might appreciate becoming reacquainted with old friends my own age.
A scavenger hunt for essentials—toothbrush and paste, disposable razor, personal lubricant—takes me deep into the heart of Knoxville, probably the most improbable candidate ever for the site of a World’s Fair. The town is teeming with alumni of all ages, drunkenly toasting Alma Mater and imploring the gods of the gridiron to deliver victory tomorrow. Not that it will really matter if the justification for excessive alcohol intake is celebrating a triumph or mourning a defeat.
I’m sitting at the bar of one those classic campus rath-skellers, eating a hamburger and nursing a beer. A short woman, just shy of middle age and sporting a cascade of blond ringlets she should have cut years ago, sidles next to me.
“You shouldn’t be here all alone tonight. Come over and meet mah friends.”
She’s a type I know all too well. The aging Party-Hearty Gal. Tri Delt, everyone else has. She’s surrendered to her metabolism and forsaken calorie counts. She has to believe there’s at least one man out there who’s looking for a girl with a sense of humor and a head on her shoulders instead of a stick-thin, broomstick-up-her-ass debutante. She’d made sure there was no ring on my finger before she’d approached.
“Class?” she asks.
“I’m not an alumnus,” I say.
“That’s okay, tonight everyone’s a Volunteer!” she says.
I might as well be a gentleman and help her
caddy the drinks she’s ordered to her table. Her friends eye me expectantly as we approach. I realize it’s been a setup, sending Little Gloria Bunker up to the bar, all alone. The men stand and shake my hand. The women nod politely, squeezing their chairs together, clearing a space next to Little Gloria.
Andy, Andy, Andy, Andy Nocera, Andy, I repeat as I’m introduced round the table. I take my assigned seat, next to Little Gloria. They whisper among themselves, talking about me, giggling when they realize I know I’m the topic of conversation. They’ve been drinking since five; they’re all a little toasted. The men make crude remarks; the women act offended. Someone belches and everyone pretends to be disgusted. I feel like I’m back in college. I guess that’s what a homecoming is all about.
I got to the party a semester too late. The dormitory alliances and rivalries had been etched in stone when I arrived at Davidson after the Christmas break. The other freshmen had already overcome their bouts of homesickness and laid the foundations of their new world. No one was particularly interested in a newcomer, particularly one who was shy by nature, unsure of himself, not the type to approach a table and introduce himself, a coward who would never make the first move.
So I would find a seat alone, at the far end of the dining room table, and hunker down over a plate of macaroni and cheese and a pint of milk, pretending to be absorbed in the run-on sentences of William Faulkner while I counted the minutes until Friday afternoon when I could run home to Gastonia for the weekend. Later she would admit she’d had her eye on me since the day I’d arrived and that she never got beyond the first thirty pages of the copy of The Sound and the Fury she’d bought as an excuse to strike up a conversation with me that February night. (Valentine’s Day, if memory serves.) And later still, she would admit she knew from that first night I was what she had been looking for.
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