Eddie whispers, “Did you wish it was me instead?”
I nod.
His hand goes back down but he keeps his face right beside mine.
“Me too,” he says.
Holy shit, I think. I’m burning from the belly, hot in the balls, and my face cripples up. A vein explodes in my brain. Eddie thrusts once, twice. He groans in my ear, and we shoot onto each other, onto the roof, into the night.
He relaxes beside me. We’re panting. Blood thumps in my ears, my chest. His skin is hot, his breath ruffles my hair and tickles my ear. His pulse, his heart beat, bangs in time with mine.
I love you, I want to say. I’m yours. I am nothing without you.
Eddie sits up.
I wonder if he’ll kiss me now. I lick my lips, in case. But he don’t.
Eddie clears his throat. I wait for what he is about to say. I wonder if this means he’s my boyfriend. If this is how it’ll be from now on with us. But Eddie doesn’t say a thing. Eddie doesn’t even look at me.
Cool air blows between us. I poke my tongue out and touch the tiny balloon, the blister on my lip. Eddie opens a new can of beer. He does up his pants, uses the bottom of his shirt to mop the sweat off his face. He drinks. He’s all put together. He looks the same as before, softer in the face, but he’s far away again, like nothing happened. For all I know, he’s thinking about Mary Lou.
I’m still hanging out, shrivelled, pruney. The wet spots could be snot drying on my skin, pulling it tighter. My stomach weeps.
“Eddie, get your ass down here and bring your pretty faggot afore I kick you right off that ruff, ya hear me?” She’s as loud as an eighteen-wheeler still, but the harsh edge is rubbed down some. It’s warmed up, and there’s a catch in her voice. We look at each other and we look away quick, cuz we both know what that means.
“Hope you’re good to go,” says Eddie and slaps me on the back.
That’s when I start to close in on myself. That’s when I want to cry or scream or punch something. Jump off this low roof. Run away. Hitch to some ugly, scary city. Throw myself to the wolves, to the wind. But I don’t. I bite my sore lip and pull up my jeans. I tuck it away and zip up, button. Jiggle and shake into place. Stand up. Wobble. I follow Eddie across the roof slow, and over the edge slower, and swing myself down through her window, last.
She looks pretty good, in all. A bit like Eddie, only with big soft tits, frosted hair, nail polish, a hairy bush. Like Eddie with an even dirtier mouth, an even harder hit. Why, when that one winds up, you knock yourself. You see stars, alright.
Seven-Dollar Blow
“That guy’s got the ugliest dick I ever sucked.”
Darcy doesn’t say a thing, just keeps rocking back and forth, heel toe, heel toe. He’s biting the skin of one itchy arm, peering through his greasy red bangs. He’s wearing his huge “Psychiatric Help 5¢, the Doctor is in!” T-shirt. Fucking Charlie Brown. Makes him look pre-teeny, younger than he really is, which is good for business.
“Plus he tried to rip me off.”
I lean on the brick wall in the alley, right beside him, and adjust my balls. I bought them at a sex store in the joke section. Pant stuffers. But they’ve saved my ass more than a few times, let me tell you. I tuck the soft silicone thing into my Y-fronts, average sized dick and balls, and it works. The lump looks pretty good, especially in my ripped-up jeans, though I wouldn’t want to be caught pants-down, if you get me. Dudes are always peeking, too. Always trying to get more than what they paid for. Anyways, it feels good having my dick lump, my crotch bump. Definitely better than not having it. Sometimes I find myself hanging around, hands down the front of my pants, just mindlessly massaging those soft greying parts. Calms me right down.
I tap a Marlboro out of my pack, put it in my mouth. I feel around for my new lighter. Darcy grabs the smoke out of my mouth and puts it in his own. I tap out another and light them both with a flourish.
Darcy nods at the lighter. His eyebrow arches.
“Oh, yeah. Got this from that American dude last night. The New Yorker.” I hold the smoke in my lungs as long as I can, then blow it all out noisily. A piece of tobacco sticks to the tip of my tongue.
“Mister white pants?” says Darcy in his strange scratchy voice.
I say, “Ha ha. Yep, Mister white pants.” I spit the tobacco piece onto the sidewalk. Mister talked too much, took too long, and had a fat, dirty wiener. “You’d think anyone who’d wear such clean pants would at least wash the cheese off their dick, right?”
Darcy shakes his head. We smoke for a bit. Cars zip by and some drivers slow down and check us out, but they keep going.
After a bit Darcy says, “So what were you saying?”
“Nothing, man.” I shrug. “I’m just standing here. I’m not saying nothing.”
“No,” he says. “Before. You were saying you got ripped off.”
“Did I?” I take one last drag, then flick the butt in a tall arc, right into the gutter. “Oh yeah,” I say. “Yeah, that guy just now totally tried to rip me off. Slips me a bill all rolled up tight and tries to book it, right, but he’s not all zipped yet, so I grab what’s still poking outta his fly, right? I got his thing in one hand and unroll the money with the other: a fuckin’ fiver! So I says, ‘It’s ten.’ And he whines, ‘You said seven.’ And I go, ‘It was seven, now it’s ten.’ He’s bugging me so I give him a bit of a twist, and he jumps and is all, ‘You said it would be the best seven-dollar blow job I ever had,’ and I’m like, ‘It would have been, but now it’s the best ten-dollar blow job you ever had cuz you tried to rip me off, and also cuz you have the ugliest dick I ever put in my mouth.’ Ha ha.”
Darcy laughs too.
“And I’m leavin,’ right, and he goes, he goes, ‘By the way, my sister gives way better head … for free!’”
“No way, dude,” says Darcy. He laughs so hard he starts coughing.
“Way. But that’s the biz for you, right? You never fucking know.”
Darcy’s still laughing when I flag my next trick. A middle-aged dude with glasses and a receding hairline, driving an old Tercel. He’s wearing a rumpled button-down shirt that’s grey around the collar. Probably got his work tie in the glove compartment. He looks like my math teacher from grade nine—pasty skin, dandruff flakes on his shoulders. His wife—I have no doubt at all that he’s married—probably hates him. Probably hasn’t given him head in years. I’m charging double. Darcy waves me off, still chuckling. He’s never gonna make any cash tonight.
Later, I find Darcy back in our spot. He’s twitched, freaking. I hate him like this.
“Sly,” he whines. “Come on, man.”
I say, “Jeez.” He’s green in the face. Those pain pills his gay doctor slipped him are finally all gone. Party’s over. Now he’s jonesing, scratching at the invisible wrigglies under the skin of his arms, bringing up blood with his sharp, dirty nails.
“Please?” He screws up his lips, and I see the tremor ripping right through him.
I grunt. “Fine. But you already owe me twenty. I want it back. Tonight.”
“Sure, yeah. Thanks, man.”
He lunges down the alley with me. Usually we go behind the can or down the street a ways, but he can’t wait. That’s obvious. We just fully fire up that nice rock I got after my last guy, and get a fast buzz going. I don’t need it yet, but why not? It sure perks Darcy up. Getting high takes his mind off the gut rot and the three-day migraine and the sub-skin crawlers. Getting high helps him forget about his itchy arms so maybe they might even start to scab over proper for once. Getting high helps me forget how much I hate doing this shit for money. So it’s totally worth it, right?
“Hey,” I say.
Darcy looks at me, right in the eyes, like he hasn’t done in a long while. I know he sees me, right? He sees what I really am and not what I’m stuck with, this pathetic half-formed body. I smile and maybe I laugh a bit; I get nervous when people look at me too long. He zooms in real close ’til his sour breath
warms my face and bits of his ginger hair poke me. He’s calmer now. He’s focussed and quiet while the chemicals shoot through him. Darcy kisses me. Kisses me warm and soft and a bit wet, just the tip of his shy tongue touching my own, creeping over into my mouth quietly. His lips move slow and sometimes suck and sometimes slide over mine, that tip of his tongue still there reminding me of what it can do. What it would like to do. And all I feel is my mouth and his mouth and the heat spreading in my crotch, the blood rushing away from my brain.
The sky gets dark and streetlights blink on. The pigs are cracking down tonight. Some nosy neighbours are complaining about the action again. Don’t like the boys hanging around, playing with our own titties on the sidewalk. Don’t like us swinging around the bus-stop pole, smoking on the corner. Don’t like the tires screeching and car doors slamming and stereo music getting loud then quiet when the cars peel off into the night. Don’t like their husbands sneaking out for a beer at the corner bar and spending grocery money on a hand job in Kiddie Porn Park. Don’t like finding used condoms on the ground the next morning, either, but then, where are we supposed to put them? Don’t want their husbands fucking with no latex, right? They just can’t win, those broads.
Darcy paces up and down our corner. He’s wearing a new shirt with wide stripes, long sleeves. It has a white collar with a few snaps at the top, like some frat guy shirt. Some kind of university shirt. He wipes his nose on the too-long sleeve of one arm. He looks relieved to see me. “The King cruised by with a wagon. He picked up Lil’ Brat.” He spits.
“Shit.” You don’t want the King to catch you, that’s for sure—meanest cop in town, obsessed with hunting street kids. He calls it pest control, like we’re rats or some kind of bug. The nervous twitch under my eye starts up.
“Where were you?”
Darcy’s eyes shift one way, then the other. He’s sketched.
“Fuck it,” I say. “I can’t get busted. Let’s jet.” Darcy knows I’m already on probation. Not to mention the complications of getting thrown in the slammer when I’m obviously a boy except for the few inches between my legs. The shit I should have been born with, but wasn’t. Then, if I don’t get murdered in the clink, it’s off to the shrink factory for me, suits and nurses trying to brainwash me into being a proper biological girl specimen.
“Where to?” says Darcy. He’s bugging.
“I don’t know. You got that twenty you owe me?”
He blushes. “I did. But, well, now I don’t.”
I finger the designer name on his chest pocket. “Nice shirt.”
He cracks a smile. “That big courier gave it to me.” He blushes again.
“Which one?” But I already know the answer. I can even see him wearing the shirt, filling it all out perfectly, whizzing past us on his skinny tires, that satchel strapped around him. That blond one, the big beautiful one, the one we all love. He spins around on one wheel doing bike tricks on our corner, smoking spliffs between calls.
I smell Darcy’s betrayal. The wall of secrecy he slapped up when I wasn’t looking, when I was out working and he was lounging around, available. There’s a small stab in my belly, the jealous knife. I try to bury it. Can’t have any of that, right? I don’t even know who I’m jealous for: Darcy or that other boy.
Darcy shrugs. His long-sleeved arms swing wildly, like some cartoon guy. Then he starts pacing again. We’re broke. It’s not the warmest night. The sky might open up and dump rain all over us, any minute. I have one small rock left. Four cigarettes—three, cuz now Darcy’s smoking again.
“Why do I always got to think for both of us?”
“You’re good at it,” he says. “Good at using your head, ha ha.”
I want to punch him, but instead I swallow hard. I don’t want to be alone tonight. “Bathhouse?”
“Naw,” says Darcy. “I’m not in the mood for those fuckers. No clubs, no bullshit.”
“Underpass?” But we both owe money to some dealers over there, so I know that won’t fly. It’s too late for the drop-in where we crash sometimes. Darcy’s sister put out an R.O. on him so we can’t go there, and Henry, well, Henry is definitely out of the question.
“What about your vegan hippies? Can we go there?”
“Hmm.” Darcy twiddles his fingers on his chin. “Probably not. Not supposed to hang there if you’re fucked up. House rules.”
I snort. “What are they, straight edge? No wonder you’re never there.”
“Too far, anyways.” Darcy snaps his fingers and says, “What about the Professor?”
“Aw, that dude is away somewhere. Out of the country or something. Can’t stay with him.”
But we could stay at his place, right?
“No, goof, it’s this street.” I stop on the corner, but Darcy keeps going. “Fine, be that way,” I shout after him.
He keeps walking down the main drag of the gaybourhood. He’s stubborn, but he’s usually wrong when it comes to directions. He’ll come back when he figures it out. I lean on a parking meter and pull up my hood. It’s getting colder.
It’s dinner time, that lonely twilight hour. Gay men run in and out of the expensive shops. There’s a cheerful sign in the butcher’s window right in front: “Our meat’s not cheap but neither are you.” Inside, a well-dressed man leans over the counter and points: organic beef, lamb shanks, lean spiced sausage.
My stomach growls. Looking at that meat reminds me of the time Darcy got the great idea to go cattle rustling. We had this rich old trick in Cabbagetown who had a nice big patio for summer parties. We discovered his deluxe new barbecue while squatting his garage last spring. Darcy’s idea was to steal raw meat from the grocery store. So we smuggled it out in our pants, right, and carried it bare-handed all the way down to the old man’s house to try and talk him into buying it, cash on the spot. Ha ha. Made some money that day, didn’t we?
Me and Darcy have panhandled this whole strip long enough to know the drill: Starbucks’ lattes in the morning, brunch at noon, afternoon shopping, dinner with a friend. Then a long night of drinking, dancing, and debauchery. Around here, most men like their meat as fresh and pink as the boys they invite over later, after the scraps are tossed.
Darcy runs back down the street toward me as the sky opens up. “Shit, you were right,” he yells. I’d laugh, but we’re busy running. Down comes the rain: big drops, surprisingly cold and stinging. Almost hail.
“There,” he shouts. He points to a tiny fenced-in front yard with a large boulder as a centrepiece. He leaps over the wrought iron and lunges around several flower pots.
“There was no rock!” Darcy’s not listening. This thing is so large it must have been driven from goddamn Sudbury, driven down Highway 69 in some kind of reinforced flat-bed four-by-four, a truck from my ghostly past.
He says, “It was this place with the rock, so shut up,” and I cuff him. I’m still kind of mad about the courier. Darcy looks around for the spare key. He peers under the doormat and in the mailbox and digs up some of the orange flowers from the garden. “Fuck,” he yells.
The rain is pouring down his face, drilling into the ground, slopping mud all over his sneakers and the draggy hems of his pants. He’s about to smash the wee glass pane on the front door when we notice a man inside, staring at us. He’s wearing an apron and oven mitts and he’s holding a frying pan in one hand. In the other is an oven-mitted cell phone. He looks a bit scared but mostly surprised. He waves the phone down towards the mess of flowers at Darcy’s feet. Now he’s pissed.
“I told you it’s the wrong house.” I book it.
“I coulda sworn that was it,” he says, when he catches up to me. He’s laughing, imitating the dude. His hair is plastered to his forehead. That awful shirt is completely soaked.
“Shut up.” I cut across another fenced yard and duck behind the shrubs that block the front door. I move the mat. The key is right there, small and hopeful. It isn’t breaking and entering if you got a key, right?
Inside it’s q
uiet and dark. It smells musty. Darcy locks the door and puts the chain across. He squeaks his wet shoes down the hall and into the living room.
“Take your shoes off,” I yell. “Seriously.”
“What are you, my mom?”
I take mine off, pull the wet hoodie over my head, and peek around the corner into the living room. There are bookshelves all around. Stacks of books lay on the ground in front of them. Books spill off the coffee table. Books support a dying plant. Books underneath the phone. There’s a small TV covered in more books. There are a couple of old chairs. Darcy collapses on the professor’s big leather couch, muddy shoes smearing the little pillow at one end.
“Fuckwad. Look at the mess.”
Darcy sucks his teeth. He slowly reaches for his shoes, one then the next, and tosses them at my head. I catch and drop them on the plastic tray by the door. The small recycling bin beside the boot tray is full of old newspapers. And on the very top is the temporary cancellation notice—for one whole month.
“Uh, this dude is away for a while,” I say.
“Awesome.”
“Well, I’m washing my clothes, right?” I know where the machines are from the last time I came over. The professor gently touched my clothes and asked if I wanted them cleaned. He didn’t make a big fuss about it, just showed me where everything was and how to turn on the washer. He wouldn’t mind, I think. I go straight down the hall, through the small kitchen, open the closet door, and there it still is.
“Do mine, too,” says Darcy. He follows me to the kitchen. He rips off the preppy shirt, his pants fall around his feet. He pulls his dirty socks off, then his Tasmanian Devil boxers, not a blink of an eye. He’s naked and absentmindedly tugs his ball sac, scratches his bony chest. His skin is so white, the veins show through. Blue veiner: that’s what chicken hawks call him at the bathhouse. When Darcy first got to town, he sure made some money. The men couldn’t keep off him. Now, he’s no runway model, but at least his arm sores aren’t oozing.
“I’m hungry, yo.” Darcy opens one cupboard, pokes around, slams the door, opens another. “Fuck, this guy has no food.” He tosses a few things onto the counter, packages of ramen. They fall to the kitchen floor. “I want Kraft dinner.”
The Dirt Chronicles Page 6
