A Boy at the Edge of the World

by David Kingston Yeh

  “So Pat tells me you’re a doctor?” someone asked, a dark-haired guy in a Nickelback T-shirt.

  “Um, no. That’s a long ways off. I just want to be a doctor.” The music was a swirling wash of electric guitars, the bass beat reverberating in my chest. Nickelback Guy was a little shorter than me, compact, with the clearest bluegray eyes I’d ever seen. “What do you do?” I asked. He smiled and nodded. I drained my beer and shouted in his ear. “So what do you do?”

  “I’m a bike mechanic,” he said and kept talking for another minute, tapping me on the chest with the back of his hand for emphasis. His nails were painted black. I had no idea what he was saying. I just smiled and nodded. Pat and his other friends had disappeared. Nickelback Guy ducked away and left me standing alone. So much for my twenty-first birthday. Ten minutes later, just as I was thinking of leaving, he shouldered his way back through the crowd with another two Jägers and two beers. “Cheers.” He grinned in a lopsided kind of way. “Happy birthday.” I could lip-read that much. I noticed one of his front teeth was chipped. He ran the tip of his tongue across it. “Cycling accident.”

  I blushed, embarrassed he’d caught me staring. “Thanks,” I said. We tossed back the shots and knocked bottles. He stood next to me as the opening act came on, the side of his arm pressed against mine. It was some local punk-house band called Kids on TV. Boys in wolf masks, underwear and knee pads pranced about on stage. Nickelback Guy leaned into me. “What do you think of these guys?”

  “They’re different.”

  “Well, I think that lead singer’s fucking hot. Would you have sex with him?”

  “Probably.”

  “Probably?”

  Despite myself, I had to laugh. “Okay, he’s hot.”

  “Definitely. It’s David, by the way.”

  “What?”

  “David Gallucci, that’s my name. Just in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “Daniel Garneau.” I shook his hand.

  “I know who you are, mister.” He looked me hard in the eye. His breath smelled like Jägermeister, cigarettes and cinnamon. I thought he was going to kiss me right then and there.

  Pat draped his arms over both our shoulders. “How you boys doing?”

  “Fine,” we retorted in unison.

  That night, David took me back to his loft and we were making out before the front door was closed, knocking over a framed poster of Che Guevara, scrabbling at our buckles and zippers, before moving to the mattress on the floor, trailing clothes behind us. I left before dawn while he still slept. It was good, really good, but I never expected to see him again. Yet a few days later he texted me, telling me he’d gotten my number from Pat, and asked if I wanted to go out on a date, a real date.

  We met Saturday afternoon at the Art Gallery of Ontario. The last time I’d come to the AGO was when I’d brought Parker Kapoor, when Marcus Wittenbrink Jr. was still a distant mirage in my life. When I got off the streetcar, I spotted him across the intersection leaning against the giant bronze by Henry Moore. Today he was clean-shaven, wearing a pair of black jeans and a vintage blue dress shirt. For a moment, I didn’t recognize him at all. I withdrew beneath the awning of the Village Idiot Pub and watched him as he checked his phone and lit a cigarette. One week ago, I’d had sex with this man. I recalled the nape of his neck, his pink nipples and taut chest, the inside of his thighs, pale and muscular, dusted in soft dark hair. I’d expected tattoos, but he didn’t have any. His crotch had smelled musky and pleasantly sweet. When I’d drawn back from deep-throating him to catch my breath, we’d remained connected by a gleaming thread of precum. Pedestrians crowded the intersection separating us, a constellation of humanity. I imagined invisible lines of energy weaving between everyone: ex-lovers, work colleagues, distant cousins, hospital patients who’d shared the same recovery room, two people who’d exchanged glances once in an elevator years ago.

  David spotted me and waved. Hello. Goodbye. It was all the same gesture. I waved back, drew a breath and crossed the street. It was just a couple hours at the art gallery, I reminded myself, nothing more. By way of greeting, I patted the side of his arm. It was David who drew us together and gave me a hug. That afternoon, he led me on a guided tour of the AGO. Apparently, he and his sister had come here for years. He showed me his favourite Renaissance pieces by Donatello, da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo. Logically, he concluded, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were also all gay. After we were done, we shared an espresso in the Parisian-styled café across the street. That evening, we walked into Chinatown where we had dinner at The Red Room, decorated with fairy lights, busts of buddhas and artwork by local Toronto artists. After two pitchers of Tsingtao, we ended up next door at the El Mocambo. It was a soldout event, a Battle Royale of all-girl rock bands. But David knew the bouncer and got us both in.

  Towards the end of that summer, David asked me to move in with him. But before I made any decision, he said he had a confession to make. He was perched on a stool on the gravel rooftop of his Kensington Market loft. The sun was hot and we passed a cigarette back and forth as I shaved his neck with a number two clipper. We ran power through an extension cord from inside the stairwell, the steel door propped open with a broken cinder block. Colourful graffiti decorated the concrete walls. “So what’s this confession?” I asked after a minute.

  David picked at the peeling decals on his stool. “So before we met, you know how I was friends with your brother Pat, right?”

  “Right.” I switched to a number one clipper and carefully began blending my way up.

  “Well, did he ever tell you exactly how we met?”

  “He told me you’d both crashed this frat party birthday bash where neither of you actually knew anyone, that you met in the kitchen and bullshitted each other all night before figuring out the truth. I’ve heard this before, David. Hold still.”

  “Okay.” A seagull flew past carrying a bagel in its beak. “Okay, well, we both got pretty wasted that night.”

  “Alright.”

  “So, Pat and I, we just thought it was hilarious the two of us had met like that, you know?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “And you know your brother’s pretty hot, right?”

  Almost done. I took the scissors and carefully clipped a few stray hairs around his ears. “Yeah?”

  “So I kinda messed around with him that night.”

  “Kinda messed around?”

  “Well, I kissed him. Or he kissed me. We made out in the washroom, maybe for half-a-minute. I think someone might’ve slipped G into the keg. I need you to know this before you move in. He said he’d just broken up with his girlfriend, that he’d never kissed another guy before, and he wanted to see what it was like.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “I know, he told me that later. He was just messing with me. He told me not to tell you, that you’d freak out. So does this, like, freak you out?”

  I stood back. “Okay, all done.” I unplugged the extension cord and began to roll it up. “David, look, Pat already told me all that before he introduced us.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, before that Alexisonfire concert. I know what happened.”

  “At the Kathedral? But you acted like you didn’t know me.”

  “David, I didn’t know you. Pat just said you were a really nice guy. What was I supposed to say? Hey, you’re the dude who made out with my brother? He set us up. Pat can be an idiot sometimes, but he always has the best of intentions. I didn’t want to go. I’m glad I did. Here.” I passed him a mirror. “So, what do you think?”

  “Holy crap, it’s perfect. Where’d you learn how to cut hair like this?”

  “From my grandpa. He cut all our hair.”

  “You’re just a jack of all trades.”

  I whisked his shoulders with a tea towel. “I’m a man of many talents. That’ll be five clams, kid.”

  David’s eyes grew wide. “Gee, mister, I’m flat broke. All tapped out.” He pulled his under
shirt on over his head. “I don’t suppose you’ll take an IOU?”

  “Nope. Pay up, or my goons throw you off the rooftop.” I put on my sunglasses, took one last drag off the cigarette and flicked it at David’s chest.

  “Ouch, harsh. Well, look, can I barter you for it?”

  “I dunno, kid. You got anything I want?”

  He squinted in the sunlight, hitching his thumbs into the top of his jeans. “I dunno. Maybe. What do you want?”

  I studied the axe blade of his nose, the curve of his lips. I imagined him as a young Roman legionnaire, or an apprentice in da Vinci’s studio, or a character in a Jean Genet play. “Everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “You can pay in instalments.”

  “Instalments?”

  I ran the tip of my scissors down the length of his arm. “We’ll start with this.” Taking my time, I pulled his undershirt out from his pants and began cutting my way up the front. His stomach muscles tensed. When I got to his throat, his Adam’s apple rose and fell, but he didn’t flinch. His cool, chrome-coloured eyes never left my face. When I was finally done, I set the scissors aside.

  “Now I’d like a kiss.”

  “A kiss I can afford.”

  Our foreheads were touching, his hands on my hips. I traced my thumb across the stubble of his throat and pulled the remains of his shirt off his body. “But it better be good, or off the roof you go.”

  “Well, mister, I just better be a good kisser, then.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  Of course, I didn’t move in with David. We’d only known each other three months. I’d also gotten to like my bachelor apartment. Some of the homeless people in the neighbourhood reminded me of Grandpa. One big guy who sold handmade jewellery reminded me of Liam. He said his name was Cree. When I asked him what that meant, he said that’s what all the local Ojibwe called him, given how he was Cree and come up from the States. Then he whispered in my ear that his real name was Robert Burns, like the Scottish poet. I learned later he was on meds for schizophrenia. He’d carve little pendants, eagle feathers and wolf heads from scraps of wood. He wouldn’t let me buy him a coffee, but he did let me buy one of his necklaces. Every time I saw him, I’d ask: “Hey Robert Burns, how’s it going?” And he’d say: “Keeping it real, doc, keeping it real.” Robert Burns would often hang out with his buddies in the nearby Allen Gardens, with its expansive lawn and century-old red oaks, sugar maples and beech trees. Seniors and dog owners also frequented the park. Sometimes I’d see groups of people practicing tai chi. In the evenings there’d be crack dealers and the occasional prostitute. The park offered something for everyone.

  On a rainy afternoon in August, David and I met in the Allen Gardens Conservatory. We entered through the central Palm House with its banana trees, bamboo and gigantic cycads. We found a secluded bench in the back of the Tropical House, next to a small waterwheel and a pool inhabited by turtles and goldfish. “So I still don’t understand why you won’t move in,” David said. “You need a place for September, I need a roommate. You’re already staying over for like days at a time.”

  “Yeah, and then I go home. I like having my own space.”

  “Daniel, things are good between us. Aren’t they?”

  “They are. And I want it to stay that way. I don’t want to rush this, okay?”

  The air was moist and fragrant, the rainfall softly drumming on the glass roof. When David stroked my thigh, I pushed him away. “What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t. Someone might see us.”

  “C’mon. There’s no one here.” Mischievously, he ran his hand up the inside of my shorts. “This is nice. You like this?” His fingers slipped beneath my underwear. “Well someone’s happy.” There were steel doors connecting all five greenhouses that made up the Conservatory. If someone came in, we’d hear them. I leaned back and swallowed. “I want you to move in,” he insisted. “We’ll just be two guys living together, like roommates.”

  “No, we won’t be just two guys living together like roommates. We’re lovers. We’re boyfriends.” I was distracted by what David’s fingers were doing. “These things take time.”

  “I think about you every day.”

  “Me too,” I said after a moment. It was the truth, but I’d been reluctant to admit it.

  “I think about you when I jerk off. I have these fantasies. You want to know what my fantasies are?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “Ask me.”

  “What’s one of your fantasies?”

  “Well, I have a few. But sometimes I imagine you’re a pirate captain, and you’ve captured me and I’m your prisoner. You need me to tell you where the treasure’s buried.”

  “Where the treasure’s buried?”

  “Shut up and just listen. You need to know where the treasure’s buried. You visit me down in the hold of your ship where your men have imprisoned me. I’m just this country boy who got pressed into the Royal Navy. I didn’t sign up for this. My clothes are all torn and bloodied. You have your men strip me and wash me. Then they leave us alone. I’m naked on my hands and knees. My wrists are shackled and I’m chained to a post. But I’m loyal to the king, and won’t give in to your demands. You kneel down behind me, spread my cheeks, spit on me and rub it in. No one’s ever touched me this way before. I get excited, I can’t help it. My hips arch. I’m so hard. I want to touch myself but I can’t because of my chains. You grab my hair in your fist and pull my head back. At the same time, you push your thumb inside of me. You’re pressing on me from the inside, massaging me. You know exactly where to touch me. It’s a kind of torture and I’m moaning. I start to drip. I can’t help it. The precum drips and runs down my shaft. But I still won’t give in.”

  “Stop,” I whispered. “Stop it, someone’s coming.”

  David withdrew his hand, and we both simultaneously took out our phones. Two Filipino women pushing strollers manoeuvred down the narrow path, admiring the orchids and lush tropical plants.

  “Do you know the artist Gauguin?” David asked.

  “Who?”

  “Paul Gauguin.”

  “No. Who’s Paul Gauguin?” I watched the women out of the corner of my eye.

  “Well, Gauguin, he was a French Post-Impressionist who painted all these figures from the tropics. There’s a painting by him called, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? It was his masterpiece. In the centre is this young guy, naked except for a loincloth, with his arms upraised reaching for an apple. His skin is golden, he’s so beautiful.”

  “Was Gauguin gay?”

  “Oh no, he had a wife and kids, and mistresses. After his marriage broke down, he started sleeping with the under-aged native girls who posed for him. The man was obsessed with sex and death.”

  “Death?”

  David showed me an image of the painting on his phone. “Paul Gauguin, he tried to commit suicide, a few times. He hated the modern world. His whole life he struggled in search of something more simple, more meaningful. This golden man in the middle here, he symbolizes everything about being young and alive, searching for truth.”

  “Keeping it real.”

  “That’s right, keeping it real.”

  The two women had paused close by, pointing out the fish in the pool to their toddlers. David leaned over and kissed me.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “No, wait,” I stuttered. David drew back. I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. You don’t need to say anything.”

  One of the women approached us. She held out a camera and said: “Picture? Take picture?”

  “Sure.” I felt awful inside. I managed a smile and reached for the camera.

  She stood back and gesticulated. “Closer, you sit closer.” Dumbly, David and I posed as she took our picture. “My brother back home in Manila,” she explained, “he is in love with boy. I hope they move to Canada. I send him picture.”

  Her compan
ion asked a question in Tagalog, whereupon the two started up an animated debate. They were still arguing when they departed. Rounding the bend, they turned and waved back at us.

  I listened to the rhythmic pulse of the waterwheel. I reached out and touched David’s knee. I was afraid he might pull back, but he didn’t. “Hey, I’m sorry.” I felt pathetic. This time, without warning, he rose and straddled my leg, gripped my face and kissed me. I’d never been kissed this way before. I could hear the rushing of my own blood in my ears. When he finally let me go, his hands slid down to rest on my chest. I was sure he could feel my heart pounding beneath his palms. He bowed his head, breathing harshly through his nose. “I’m crazy about you, Daniel Garneau. You know that, don’t you?”

  I hadn’t known that. I hadn’t even thought that was a possibility until this moment. When he looked up, I saw my reflection in his eyes. “So, Daniel,” he asked, “where are we going?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I honestly don’t know.” If I could offer David nothing more than that, at least it was the truth.

  The deep buried truth was, as much as I hated to admit it, that I’d fallen hard for Marcus Wittenbrink Jr. I didn’t tell this to anyone. Not to Karen or Parker. Definitely not to David. Maybe if Derrick McNeil-Tsao was still in town, I would’ve said something to him, but M.T. had moved back to North Bay last spring. After my break-up with Marcus, I’d promised I would never let myself be hurt again. I kept the squash ball M.T. had given me mounted on a shot glass over my computer desk. I missed our Sunday afternoon games together, but kept going on my own. It was my form of meditation, smacking that little black ball around in that nine-by-six-metre white room.

  One September afternoon, I was sitting alone in the sauna after an especially hard work-out when an older man with a moustache walked in. He might’ve been in his mid-forties, with abs like a washboard. I didn’t recall seeing him around the gym. He adjusted his towel and sat across from me. “Hey,” he said. “Hey,” I replied and looked away. He was a handsome guy with big, chiselled features. I pictured him wearing a Stetson and lassoing cattle. I entertained an image of him riding me down, wrestling me to the ground and trussing me up like a young bull.