Numbers

by John Rechy

  That’s the terror!

  I’ll leave for Laredo tonight! Leave before the Park wins! But if I do, I’ll have gone back defeated—to hide again. But how can I win?

  Thirty!

  The number he grabbed for yesterday when Guy asked him his goal re-enters his mind. Thirty. . . . Where did it come from?

  Lurking . . . waiting to be spoken. Unconscious calculations now becoming conscious:

  Feverishly: I’ve been away three years. . . . If I hadn’t left, I would have made it with, say, 300 people in one year. . . . In three years 900. . . . I’m behind 900. . . . How long would it take to catch up? . . . The least I’ve made it with in one day in the park is three. . . . At least three a day . . . into goo. . . . that’s 300. . . . I could catch up in 300 days. . . . But I came back for only 10 days, and that’s exactly how long I’ll stay. Ten into 300—. . .

  Thirty.

  That’s it!

  Thirty!

  That’s the goal!

  Now partly from having been raised a Catholic—and partly from the fact that he’s long fled self-examination—Johnny has always relied strongly on symbols to externalize whatever bewilders or troubles him. Outlandish as his symbols—like his “reasons”—may be, they have never failed him. And so, now, having limited the anarchy by choosing 30 as the symbol of his triumph over the park, he feels suddenly resurrected. As usual, he doesn’t look too closely at his deductions nor his conclusions. He was battling against chaos, and all that matters is that a symbolic “reason” has again emerged to save him from disintegration. Now that the game has a winning score, the horror of counting toward no limit—of being swallowed by the Park—is actually gone.

  Johnny Rio is sure—unequivocally sure—that when the ten days are up and he returns to Laredo it will no longer be to the imposed isolation of those three years. No, his victory over the Park will end that; and, he tells himself, in Laredo or anywhere else, he’ll finally be able to live peacefully without fear that that devouring world of rampant sex is stalking him, luring him back.

  That’s why I came back to Los Angeles! To free myself completely!—because it has to be me that’s through with that world—I had to know it still wants me but I don’t need it!

  And so 30 is his symbol—both of that world’s desiring him as well as of his liberation from it. Thirty: It wanted me for all those years and it still wants me. Thirty: I can walk away from it—freely, and not feel confused as I have in the past.

  Suddenly it’s as if an iron band had been removed from his mind.

  He can think calmly: and so, nine to go and the game’s won. . . . He’s about to enter the last inning of this strange game which he will win at the symbolic score of 30.

  I can easily add four tonight, in that theater balcony, he thinks.

  But no.

  He knows that the score of 30 must be won only in the Park. Those in the movie theater before and the one in MacArthur Park are okay. He can count them because they occurred before the rules of the game were clarified. But the rest must all be in the Park.

  But he won’t begin now—because it’s late and he’s hungry—and because he wants to cherish the sudden peace—a peace shaken only momentarily by an awful, glancing doubt:

  What if I don’t make it! What if something happens!

  What for godssake?

  Something!

  No. Nothing can. Absolutely nothing. Because:

  I’m in control again.

  Nine to go.

  For the first time Johnny Rio drove out of the Park completely happy.

  And that night—still in high, high spirits—he went to downtown Los Angeles, knowing the Negro woman would be at her corner.

  She was.

  TWELVE

  SATURDAY. Ten-thirty in the morning. An alternately sunny, cloudy morning. The day which begins Johnny’s victory over the Park. “Begins”—because he hasn’t yet decided whether to rush, accumulating all nine today, or to go slowly, savoring victory into tomorrow.

  Nine to go.

  Monday he’ll leave Los Angeles. Before noon. Exactly ten days. I’ll pack Sunday, he reminds himself as he drives past the Arena reconnoitering the Park.

  Sunday. . . . There was something—. . . Paul’s invitation, Johnny remembers. I couldn’t face him. I’ll just call. No. Not even that. Guy might answer. Guy’s voice. He still can’t remember his face. But the sound of the lost voice haunts him.

  There’s a serenity about the Park today . . . the greens so varied and gentle . . . a serenity he’d never noticed before. He laughs as he remembers that in the dark of his room last night he actually convinced himself that, at that very moment, in its own darkness, the Park itself was girding for the last lap of the game!

  (Johnny exercised vigorously this morning as if in preparation for his victory.)

  The weekend waves of men have already inundated the areas of the hunt, spilling beyond what is usually the boundary. Despite the recurrently cloudy sky, several men sunbathe on the shoulders of the road—sometimes lying across the trunks of their cars. Others pretend to read, books propped on steering wheels.

  Johnny decides to try the Arena first.

  In this last inning of the game, he’ll be even more selective “choosing” only the very most desirable. Of course—it isn’t that he responds to physical appearance in males, he reminds himself: Attractiveness in those who want him has merely become what money once was in hustling: a further indication of his own desirability. Already he’s rejected several today.

  From among the many here, he finally encourages two, who were cruising each other before he walked in.

  In the Grotto, the one who reached him first asks, “You wanna come to my place?”

  “Naw, man,” Johnny says, “I gotta be somewhere in a few minutes, I wanna make it here.” He’s anxious to count 22. Having called the game and determined the winning score, he had expected there would be no franticness today. But already he feels nervous, apprehensive.

  “Too bad,” the youngman says, “cause I don’t mess around in public—too dangerous cause of the vice cops—but if you wanna come to my pad, I’ll ball you.”

  “Can’t, man—sorry.”

  Turning away without another word, the youngman goes to the one he was cruising before both began following Johnny. If they go off together, it’ll depress Johnny severely; he’ll feel rejected by the one who hasn’t approached him. He readies a “reason” in that eventuality: Hell, the guy who just talked to me will have told him not to make it with me because—because—. . . whatever he’ll invent. Or maybe the other guy just wants to get blown and knows—of course—that I won’t. . . . But Johnny doesn’t have to grasp for a “reason,” because, very soon, the two youngmen are with him in the Grotto. The one who spoke to him earlier is saying, “He’ll suck you off, I’ll watch out for you.”

  This annoys Johnny only at first—that he’d give him up so easily—until he reminds himself the guy wants someone to go home with, doesn’t like to make it in public—and so what’s wrong with his having gone to get the other guy and offered to guard against any possible hostile intruders? Besides, he suspects the guy likes watching.

  Before he unbuttons Johnny’s pants, the second youngman is outlining the shape of Johnny’s hardening cock with his mouth. Impatient to count 22—and he can’t until direct contact is made—Johnny quickly opens his own pants. His prick is already erect. The youngman sucks it.

  Instantly at the contact Johnny counts: Twenty-two!

  He resists an urge to come: If he decides to make it with all nine today, he’ll have to hold off; and so—because the other is determined, putting his hand firmly under Johnny’s balls, pushing his cock farther out—Johnny fakes it, apparently successfully: He thrusts way into the other’s throat, his body jerking in imitation of orgasm.

  Afterwards, the two youngmen went off together, probably to make it mutually at home. Since they both preferred him first, that doesn’t bug him at all.

/>   Eight to go! he begins to count backwards.

  In his car, minutes later, he stops by a place he hasn’t explored. Five cars are parked flush against the side of a hill. He gets out. A path leading steeply up is all but obscured by the thick brush. No one around. After a long climb, he reaches a scrubby section of more or less level land.

  In a pool of sun two men lie side by side naked.

  By a different, shorter, but steeper route than the one he’s often noticed, Johnny has reached the place on the Summit which the youngman with the towel mentioned yesterday. He moves away quickly through more thick brush. A few more patches of sun, all occupied by large beach towels—but no one on them. Ahead, branches separate just barely enough to reveal two men, shoulders bare, standing very close.

  “Why don’t you take your clothes off?” A goodlooking crew-cut youngman—propped on his elbow and lying on an army blanket in another small island of sun—is looking up at him. Less daring than the others, he’s concealing his nudity with a small towel draped loosely about his middle. Quite likely he pulled it up when he heard footsteps. Dog-tags about his neck indicate he’s a serviceman.

  Since he was trying to cut through the bushes to the path by a route that wouldn’t take him past the two men lying together, Johnny didn’t notice the youngman until he heard his voice.

  “Cummon—take your pants off!” he coaxes Johnny. “Want me to help you?”

  Johnny avoids looking at him, especially now that the towel has slipped off.

  Encouraged by Johnny’s silent acquiescence, and by his not having moved away, the youngman sits up—and unbuttons and lowers Johnny’s pants. “Sit down so I can take them off.” Johnny does, on an edge of the army blanket. The youngman pulls Johnny’s boots and pants off—and even his socks, which he places neatly inside the boots. Lying flat on his stomach, he buries his head quickly between Johnny’s spread legs—and Johnny’s apprehension at this flagrant scene thaws in the heat of making sex, naked, under the sun.

  Seven to go! he counts.

  And he stretches back on the blanket as the youngman licks his body from toes to neck. Raising Johnny’s legs so they straddle his shoulders, he rims him, at the same time jerking him with his hand. Aroused by the double sensation, a sensation further augmented by the sensual warmth of the sun emphasizing their unsheltered nudity, Johnny comes readily, his cum spurting on the other’s face. Wanting it in his mouth, the youngman takes the squirting cock just in time, pulling himself off.

  Johnny dresses hurriedly—keenly aware of the rashness of the scene, now that it’s over.

  He descends the steep decline of the hill back to his car, not bothering to take the regular path. Suddenly he bumps his foot on a large stone, loses balance—and slides several feet down the slope of the hill before he recovers control at the very edge of a sharp drop.

  Heart hammering, his shoulder bleeding from a scratch, he looks down—many feet down. Directly below, cars cruise swiftly up and down. A few inches more and he might have plunged into their midst.

  Never clumsy—and profoundly superstitious—Johnny reacts for cold moments as if there had been some deliberate action behind his fall. As he stands wiping the blood with his handkerchief, the beginning of a horrible thought shapes: The Park! What if—. . .

  Oh, wow, he chides himself hastily. I’m at it again like I was about the car that busted my scene that night at Lafayette Park. An accident happens and I’m running wild. Oh, wow!

  But he proceeds very, very carefully down the hill.

  He wouldn’t admit it, but he was so shaken by that incident just now that he left the park “for lunch” although it was still early and he’d had a late breakfast. He also stopped at a drugstore and put a bandage on his scratched shoulder: which made him feel even more attractive—the white, white bandage on his brown, brown skin.

  Now he’s back in the Park, but his nerves are still hopped-up by his reaction to the fall.

  To occupy his mind with other thoughts as he drives up and down looking for a propitious place to park and make it six to go, he tries to remember all the numbers he’s collected till now—all 23 so far.

  Number one: the man he stood before in the movie theater, who tried to suck him through his pants; number two: the youngman who made him come, who was so very expert at blowing; number three: the very good-looking guy who sucked him in the restroom; number four . . . who? Oh yeah: the dark youngman in the tan trunks here in the Park. Oh, and the blond one in the bikini who held it for the other—that’s five. Then there were several at once: the two in the Beehive, who alternated: numbers six and seven. And there were the three—but he can count only two because one never touched his cock. That’s eight and nine. And today he’s made it with two. So that’s 11. Eleven. . . . There’s 12 more. Oh, and the naked man yesterday: number 12. And also yesterday: the guy carrying the towel; he’s 13. And . . . of course . . . the curly-haired youngman in the sailor cap. . . . (Johnny again hesitated counting him; but—. . .) He’s 14—and the total is 23 so far. Nine more.

  Nine he can’t remember now—no matter how hard he tries to squeeze them from his memories.

  Nine, lost in his mind.

  Because there are too many hunters in the other places today, inhibiting quick action, he’s decided to concentrate for now on the islets of sand off the road.

  To his annoyance (though he doesn’t know exactly why he’s annoyed), the man with the heavily muscled chest and the two red X’s on his back—again shirtless—parks near his car by the Trail. Actually, he’s a goodlooking guy; it’s the weird reddish X’s that make him seem strange.

  “What are you looking for?” the man asks Johnny, who’s standing on the mound of sand.

  “Nuthin,” says Johnny, deliberately acting dumb.

  “Wanna good time?” the man asks.

  Johnny shrugs. His mind counts prematurely: six to go. He’ll ignore the two X’s, which he hasn’t actually seen today. Maybe, if painted on (but why?), they aren’t even there today.

  “Let’s go down there.” The man indicates the path to the water tank.

  To avoid seeing the other’s back, Johnny goes ahead.

  By the water tank: Unexpectedly, as if a triggered switch had transformed him, the man pulls his own belt from the loops in an ominous thrash! and, holding it out to Johnny, he begs suddenly: “Hit me with it!” And he turns his back expectantly to him.

  The two X’s are there: scars, either slashed or burned on.

  Wincing, Johnny looks away, genuinely puzzled by the man’s desire to be hurt. “That’s not my scene,” he says softly. “Man, what made you think I’d—. . .? I mean, what made you take it for granted that I—. . .?” He’s honestly perplexed and bothered. It’s the second time in two days he’s been similarly approached, although this time it was much more overt.

  Obviously verbalizing rehearsed dream words from a wild, perverse fantasy, the man says, in a voice broken by his pain-craving desire: “Because you’ve looked cruel from the first time I saw you—like a merciless, dark angel. Like a beautiful executioner! I was sure—. . .”

  Johnny feels cold. “I’m not anybody’s executioner!” he says angrily—though of course he knows the man doesn’t mean it literally.

  The strange man follows closely as Johnny walks away. Halfway up the Trail, Johnny whirls around instinctively. The man makes an abrupt movement. Something flashes silver.

  A knife!

  But no: The man has merely taken out a metallic cigarette lighter.

  I’ve gotta cool it! Johnny resolves as he drives away. I’m getting too psyched-up.

  Still seven to go.

  Parked on another shoulder up the road, he’s approached by the handsome dark youngman who sucked him the first day in the Park—the first one of all here. “You wanna?”

  Johnny doesn’t want to hurt him—after all he was the first one in the Park—but how can he explain he can’t count him twice?

  Okay, okay. They move off the ro
ad to one of the ubiquitous sheltered sections. The dark youngman blows Johnny. Johnny pretends to come—though he’s not at all sure the other was fooled.

  Okay, I let him, Johnny thinks. But I can’t count him. It’s still seven to go.

  Irrelevantly he remembers one of the nine “lost” numbers in his earlier inventory: the man who was going to touch him so tenderly yesterday and then withdrew and later spat out the cum.

  He’s driven to the Arena, parked, walked to the Cliff. There aren’t as many cars before this area as there were earlier—so the chances of quick action are good.

  A slender, pretty youngman is trying to come on with him. Very nervous, he’s about to open the first button of Johnny’s fly when they hear what may be footsteps or a branch shifting in a breeze. “What was that?” the youngman says. “Nuthin, man,” Johnny assures him, anxious to count six to go, “Go ahead.” “You watch carefully!” the youngman exhorts him as he starts once again to unbutton Johnny’s fly. From somewhere along the Labyrinth, another sound. “Oh, my God, this is nerve-racking,” the jittery youngman says, “I heard the park is crawling with vice cops lately.” “Go ahead and suck me!” Johnny insists, pulling out his own cock, his mind insisting: six to go—six to go—six—. . . Still, the youngman is much too apprehensive. Johnny is about to say to hell with it and leave when the youngman bravely takes Johnny’s cock in his mouth. “What was that?” He’s heard another noise. Now Johnny does say to hell with it—and he moves away; but brief as it was, the contact was made; he can count: Six to go.

  Only six more! He’s already experiencing a hint of the liberation he knows he’ll feel on reaching his goal of 30.

  Even more so: now that—a little while later, in the Forest—he’s about to make it five to go, and it’s still early in the afternoon.

  A lithe, blond youngman—the type referred to in some effete circles as “a great beauty” (not effeminate, but reedily slender and delicate-looking, with enormous beautiful eyes that any woman would envy)—keeps following him throughout the Forest while still others pursue them. Finally, they’re alone, Johnny leaning against a tree.