Numbers

by John Rechy

  He’s startled to hear the trampling of running feet approaching him.

  Next to him panting, as though he’d sprinted several laps around the park, is someone who’s either a college student or successfully trying to look like one. He’s crewcut, and is wearing white shorts, tennis shoes, sweatshirt. Is he here innocently?

  No.

  He quickly gropes Johnny experimentally.

  Both inside the Cave, “Whattayalike-to-do?” he asks Johnny.

  “Nuthin, man—I don’t like to do nuthin,” Johnny answers curtly, annoyed, thinking the guy’s implying a mutual scene.

  “Ya wanna get blowed?” the guy in the sweatshirt says bluntly.

  Johnny shrugs, pretending indifference.

  “I’ll blowya,” the guy in the sweatshirt offers; and he does. A few seconds later he stops abruptly, stands up, unbuttons his white shorts, letting them drop. “You wanna fuck me?”

  “Here?” Johnny asks after a few moments during which he decided that’s not an insult, since he’d be assuming the man’s role.

  “Why not? . . . Cummon, fuck me. You don’t know what you’re missin if you don’t,” he says conceitedly.

  “Naw,” Johnny decides, bugged by the other’s vanity. But: Was he even tempted? He’s not sure.

  “Suit yourself!” Once again he squats and blows Johnny.

  After Johnny has come and is adjusting his pants, the guy in the sweatshirt says, “Another time you’ll screw me, okay, stud?”

  “Yeah—sometime,” says Johnny, already moving out of the Cave.

  “Groovy,” the guy in the sweatshirt calls out.

  Not even pausing to consider whether or not he’s satisfied, Johnny’s back in the clearing of the Arena knowing suddenly he needs to make it again.

  It’s 2:41.

  One in less than half an hour! And: I could’ve made it in even less time if it hadn’t been for that little man following me.

  And goddamnit there he is again!—watching him from a few feet away. And there’s the man in the suit, too, one of the earlier three.

  How to get rid of the little man? I could tell him I’m hustling. No—that might just turn him on more and he’d wanna take me home. I could talk tough to him—that might turn him on too!

  Hurrying to the Grotto. But, there—the unexpected sight jolts Johnny severely—the man who was playing with himself earlier is blowing the blond youngman in Wellington boots and, now, no bikini. Johnny dashes away quickly, curiously jarred. In his self-absorption he’s forgotten that others—all over the park—are making it . . . without him. (Too: Johnny Rio’s morality, like his sex scene, is at times one-way.)

  Walking swiftly up the path, through the Labyrinth, toward the Cliff, beyond it—passing other men (like ghosts in a cemetery . . . drifting), not encouraging them for one reason or another though they all stare at him. There’s no doubt he’s the main attraction in the park.

  He’s moved in a narrow horseshoe almost exactly back to where he started—and the mousy little man is there.

  Damn!

  Finally Johnny manages to dodge him long enough for the suited man to gravitate toward him.

  But this happens, shocking Johnny profoundly: Instead of coming to him, the man moves to one side of Johnny. Turning, Johnny sees the man in Bermuda shorts. The man in the suit is advancing toward him, not Johnny!

  Before the hideous feeling of rejection can descend on him like an axe cutting him down, Johnny laughs aloud. They were cruising each other! he thinks in disbelief.

  He grasps for ready protection, for a “reason”: Oh, hell, they just felt more easy with each other, he thinks as he watches them moving away together. They want to make it mutually, and they gave up on me because they knew I wouldn’t because I’m so toughlooking, and they probably thought I was hustling—because it can’t help showing—and they didn’t want that scene—and then too the little man was busting it up for me, and—. . .

  Johnny’s ego is intact this time . . . almost. What keeps him from really feeling rejected is that neither of the two men was nearly as goodlooking nor as exciting as himself—and he knows that. Had either been really handsome, Johnny’s heart would have been ripped.

  It’s 2:54.

  There’s the mousy man again!

  On wayward inspiration, Johnny walks up to him, crosses his eyes crazily, and begins deliberately to tremble and shake, hands dangling at his sides quivering. That’ll turn him off! he thinks, but he stops the contortions immediately when he sees someone else approaching:

  A young kid: 18 years old—at the most.

  Much, much too young, Johnny knows immediately, as he moves away (past the little man; is he finally turned off?), feeling a certain sadness for the kid, because he’s so young and already here among the hungry hunters.

  But the kid, crossing through the brush quickly, intercepts him on the path. “Wouldyouliketotakeawalkwith-me?” he asks breathlessly as if that’s the only way he’ll get the words out. A sandy-haired boy with blue, blue eyes, he’ll be an awfully goodlooking man in a few years. “Will you?”

  Jesus! He sounds so new at it! He reminds Johnny of someone. “I’m—. . . I’m in a hurry!” is all Johnny can finally think to say as he rushes out of the Arena.

  Outside, there are nine cars—spilling onto the very road.

  Inexperienced or not, the kid is persistent. He’s followed Johnny. “Where are you going?” he asks him.

  “Down the road,” Johnny lies.

  “Would you give me a ride please?”

  “You mean you walked up for godssake?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Get in,” says Johnny.

  No sooner are they driving down the road than the kid reaches out to touch Johnny’s thigh, his fingers springing toward his groin.

  For a split instant, Johnny lets him, thinking: He’s not inexperienced at all!—maybe he’s older than he looks; maybe—. . . He stops his thoughts, shoves the kid’s hand away roughly. He’s still too young!

  “Ouch!” But the kid’s blue eyes are beaming.

  “Cut that out!” Johnny says—feeling awfully square—but fuck it! At the foot of the road, where the houses begin, he says “So long,” to the kid.

  “You mean you really want me to get out?”

  “Right!” says Johnny, thinking, Am I gonna have to shove the bastard out?

  “Then please: takemebackupagain,” the kid says.

  “Nope,” Johnny says adamantly. “You’d better get out, I’m in a hurry.” Convinced the kid shouldn’t be in the park, Johnny is also determined to have his own way.

  The kid gets out. Leaning through the window, he says, “Bye,” looking at Johnny with eyes that hint of a fierce instant crush.

  “Be cool!” Johnny attempts to erase the uncomfortable feeling of having come on square.

  “So long!”

  It’s 3:09.

  The little shit queered all that time! Johnny thinks, driving back up the road.

  But he isn’t really angered because all of a sudden he knows who the kid reminded him of.

  Tina’s boy.

  On the radio, the mournful soul-tones of the Beatles, as Johnny, again shirtless, speeds to a place he noticed where three cars are squeezed tightly together alongside the road. He gets out.

  A tangle of trees and vines like a tight clutch of wire. A narrow path leading to an even more tightly wound tangle, like a beehive. But: In the Beehive, there are already two men. Pants lowered, they lie on the dirt, face down, one pumping on top of the other. Either they didn’t hear Johnny approach or they had reached a point where nothing would stop them. Johnny turns away instantly.

  Back on the road, he notices another path. He takes it—only to discover that it leads once again to the Beehive, where the two men, through, are adjusting their pants.

  Johnny drives away—fleeing the Arena when he sees the mousy little man standing before the entrance.

  He parks before the unexplored area near the cru
mbling iron tower where he saw many cars yesterday—that area, flat and bushy for a few feet, soon becomes a dense forest. No cars outside the Forest now. Johnny’s will be a signal.

  So steep he almost slides down it, a path brings him to a tangle of branches and vines, like a giant nest lying on its side.

  Inside, the Nest is even darker than the Cave. The sunlight hardly wounds the shadows. So strange. So strange to be just standing here among the twigs. Waiting. So strange and eerie. Like being alone in the world. Johnny feels as if he’s been abandoned in a dream.

  The sound of a car parking, a door slamming. Footsteps. Despite the vastness of this area, the many choices of paths, the number of secluded pockets, the man who has just parked is advancing ineluctably toward Johnny—as if some kind of radar leads sexhunters together.

  Now that the man has looked at him with unmistakable hunger, Johnny executes his signal. The man advances.

  Then: the crunch of twigs, of somebody losing control, slipping. They both turn, and there’s the mousy man about ten feet away. God damn! Not even Johnny’s loony exhibition turned him off!

  Alarmed, the man who was about to approach Johnny has moved a few feet away.

  Furious, Johnny drives away from the Forest.

  It’s 3:31.

  Past the sandy Outpost. He’s tempted to stop when he sees three men there; but it’s too bare, too naked; they’d make conversation. I’m in a hurry!

  Past the Summit. A few cars. But it would take too long to climb it. Another time, I’ll leave it for another time, he thinks.

  Finally, on a margin of the road, he parks. Anxious perspiration bathes his chest.

  Noticing that beyond this islet of dirt a long steep trail leads way, way down toward what looks like an abandoned water tank, he gets out of his car.

  On a slight mound he stands exhibiting himself before what he instantly names the Trail. In full view of the road, he’ll attract those driving by. Knowing how his tanned muscularly slender body, shirtless, looks, he becomes semihard.

  Then he sees it, long before it passes him, sees it along a curve as it ascends twisting more than half a mile away: the long, slick, shiny-new red convertible. Johnny feels instantly disoriented by it. I’ll turn my back to him! he tells himself, immediately assuming it’s the man he saw yesterday, the man wearing the dark sunglasses. But when he hears the insistent roar approaching, something compels him to turn. It’s the same man all right!

  Passing Johnny—the dark sunglasses turned toward him—the man stops his car several feet away. A slender man of undeterminable age, he looks back at Johnny.

  Suddenly—blasting his honk very, very loudly, the sound chasing itself into the many hollows of the park—the man drives away, tires screeching.

  Son of a bitch! Johnny thinks fiercely, sure the man was honking at him. But then he sees a car swerving closely around the curve; he could have been honking at it.

  That car, also a convertible—white—cuts diagonally across the road and into the islet of dirt where Johnny stands.

  A muscular man, roughlooking and also shirtless, gets out. Actually he’s quite short, perhaps a few inches over five feet—but his chest is massive and sculptured. After appraising Johnny, who’s still poised on the mound, the man turns as if to display two reddish X’s, about six inches long, on his back. They’re either tattooed or drawn on—Johnny can’t tell—or they could be relatively fresh scars. There’s something sinister about them.

  Vaguely repelled, Johnny gets into his car and drives away—but only long enough for the man with the two X’s to leave the area—which is too propitious to Johnny’s purpose to abandon now. Returning (the man is gone), Johnny Rio exhibits himself again on the same mound of sandy dirt.

  It’s 3:47.

  A sportscar, its top down, drives by: a man and a young-woman in it. Turning around to look at Johnny as he applies his brakes quickly, the man says, “Wow!” Still staring at him, he’s talking to the woman, who hasn’t even glanced at Johnny. After a while, the man backs his car up, parks across the road, and gets out. Facing straight ahead, the youngwoman remains impassively in the car.

  Dark and jazzy, the man approaches Johnny. “Lookin for action, babe?”

  “What kind of action, mano?” Johnny asks.

  “Like you’re the grooviest; so choose your trip,” the man says.

  “What about her?” Johnny indicates the woman.

  “She’s a lez,” the man says.

  “You sure?” Johnny can’t help asking.

  “Couldn’t be surer,” the man laughs. “She’s my wife. Well?”

  They move down the Trail. The man sucks Johnny off. Aroused further by the fact the woman is so near—though she can’t see them of course—Johnny came quickly. “Beautiful,” the man says; “You blew my mind baby.” They move out on the road together. The woman still hasn’t glanced back. The dark man gets in his car, says something to her—and they drive away.

  It’s 3:58.

  And Johnny Rio is ready to make it again.

  One more and that’s as many as yesterday and then I’ll leave the park, he assures himself. Just one more to make it three. Like yesterday.

  Driving up the road.

  Cars back and forth.

  Men staring.

  Standing.

  Moving.

  Johnny parks near the hollow in a hill. Gets out.

  The moment the man drives up, Johnny knows he won’t make it with him.

  “I’m hustling, man,” Johnny tells him when the man approaches him—figuring that’ll turn him off.

  The man seems hurt.

  Sorry, Johnny tries to make up for it: “It’s just that I need bread for gasoline to get back home to Laredo,” he lies. “I didn’t wanna waste your time, man. Shoot, I can tell you’re not the paying kind; I know you don’t have to pay.” He wants to make the man feel not insulted.

  But Johnny was wrong. “How much?” the man asks.

  Oh, no! “Ten bucks,” Johnny says automatically from the past.

  “I’ll give you five.”

  “Fuck,” Johnny says, insulted although he had no intention of making it with the man.

  “Okay,” the man reconsiders. “Ten. Why don’t you leave your car here? I’ll drive you—so you won’t use up your gasoline,” he adds slyly. He wants to make it at home.

  “Naw,” says Johnny. “I’ll follow you.”

  When the man turns his car to the left, Johnny makes a quick right. He feels bad, sure. But: It would’ve taken so long!—and I didn’t want him to come on with me!

  In case the man will try to find him, Johnny drives to the Observatory. In the men’s room a man is peeing. There for only that purpose, he’s nevertheless taking his time. That bugs Johnny, who’s impatient to be alone with the Mirror—he’s beginning to think of it as his own. When the man finally leaves, an obvious tourist walks in. Fuck! Johnny feels frustrated. The tourist finishes pissing. Now Johnny has the Mirror to himself.

  Curiously—perhaps because all the interruptions made him nervous—he approaches it with hesitation, again remembering the distorted face which sent him away from Los Angeles. (Hell, I’ve got to get that out of my head; it happened long ago, when I was fucked up!)

  I look great!

  Impulsively, he kisses his own reflection.

  A man standing before the Forest. The only one there, he’s so unattractive—round, short—that no one else has stopped. Although he feels sorry for him, sure, Johnny too passes him by.

  In the opposite lane, the man with the two X’s on his back stops his car to see if Johnny will turn. He doesn’t.

  It’s 4:33.

  In the Arena: The youngman in the bikini is gone, towel and everything. Johnny has already attracted a man who is following him to the Grotto. I’ve made it again! But, almost there, the man hesitates. Another handsome youngman is standing on an upper level of the path. Is the man deciding between him and the other?—or is he just waiting for the other to
go away so he can continue his pursuit of Johnny? And the handsome youngman—who—. . .? Johnny prefers not to find out. Rather than run the risk of feeling rejected, he moves out of the Arena. I left them!

  It’s 4:42.

  In the Beehive: His face and hair as if dipped in blond paint—as if the blondness had been smeared on, then chilled (but his eyes are intensely dark—perhaps black—or so they appear in the dimness)—the man stares at Johnny, who’s entering from the path. In only a few moments, Johnny is looking down on the blond head bobbing back and forth between his legs. But Johnny is finding it very difficult to come. Determined, the blond man keeps sucking. Deciding this is the only way, Johnny pushes the blond head back, then down, indicating that he lick his balls while Johnny works his own cock to the point of coming. The blond man nestles between Johnny’s legs. Just as he’s about to give up, Johnny’s aware of a sudden gathering at his groin. He pulls the blond head up, its mouth ready to receive the cum. While Johnny comes weakly in his mouth, the blond man jerks himself off.

  Standing up, the blond man spits urgently, as if about to vomit. The dark eyes turn hostilely on Johnny. “Shit!” the blond man says.

  “What the hell do you mean—shit?” Johnny asks indignantly.

  The blond man stutters in obvious disgust: “I mean—. . . It’s all so—. . .” He rushes out, perhaps at the point of tears, nausea.

  Depressed, Johnny sits in his car. He moodily looks at the sky shrouded by the gray Cloud. If it would only clear up—really clear up! he wishes. In Texas the sky—. . .

  He smothers his thoughts with the loud blare of the radio, and the Lovin Spoonful:

  Hot town! Summer in the city!

  Back of my neck! Gettin dirty an’ gritty!

  Been down! Isn’t it a pity? . . .

  It’s 4:55.

  There are even more cars in the park now. New people coming here from work.

  Just one more! something insists inside of Johnny, although only minutes ago he had to force himself to come. One more to—. . . to—. . .