by Neal Pollack
"I mean he's Sex Pistol, old-school punk. Jesus, he has a bi-hawk."
Trés chic. If there's anything better than a mohawk, it surely must be two. "You're joking. He sounds like a walking hygiene issue."
"You know, Stephen, this is exactly why we broke up. You are so judgmental. I mean, get an edge already. You are so limited in what you find interesting."
"What are you now, the minister of high culture? I've known Labrador Retrievers more discerning than you, Matthew."
He pulled a pout, the one I used to find irresistible. The pout that used to signal make-up sex. Now used for effect, could it have been less effective? But I'm not even sure to what end.
"So when's he coming in?"
"To the store?" Matt laughed out loud. "Eduardo would not be caught dead in here, he's totally anti—"
"Anti-what?"
"Exactly. Anti-everything that relates to consumerism. He makes his own clothes, with all these patches and stitching, you really can't imagine."
True statement: I really can't. I once orchestrated a series of Italian silk suits with fishing line and mobile footlights that became a pilgrimage, a Via Dolorosa to couture devotees. Working at a clothier does not equate to being a fabric waiter; Dress Accordingly is the hottest clothier in Boystown. I'm twenty-eight and still going strong, ageless really, born on the tide of my talent for tailoring. I can take you from gruel to cool in less time than it takes to steam milk. Show me the derrière I can't make smaller, the thighs I can't camouflage, the legs I can't lengthen. They don't exist. I feel like Warhol.
"Stephen, I so want you to meet him," Matt says. "I mean, come on, we've not been together for almost two months. We're friends. Aren't we?"
I sigh. One month, but who's counting?
"You really should know him, he has something. It's intangible."
"How strange, considering you do such a good job describing it."
The purpose of the pout was soon to be revealed. He couldn't actually think I would meet his Neanderthal lover. I don't play children's games, not even when I was a child. Matt Burton didn't know which way his dick was pointing until he met me. I made him in this community and here he is, a born-again fag sporting his red Italian tennis shoes and instructing me as to the finer points of his new lover. All that improvement and the best thing he could catch was a Mad Max wannabe with Portuguese subtitles? Where did I go wrong? After all, I had shown him a way out.
It was a door we all sought at one time or another. I remember finding my own. Mr. Gautreux, my high school French teacher. It might have been the easiest coming out in history. Born in French Guiana, he was a sleek panther moving about in a man's body. Married with two children. For me, it was evolution, a shadow seeking skin. I had nothing to admit, merely to accept. We spoke a new language and parented a new race. Our own silent society, one eye watching for a signal and swollen lips needy to speak.
Matt's voice is a buzz in my ear.
"Stephen, are you listening to me?"
Yes, back to now. Was he always this petulant?
"I'm sorry, what were you saying?"
"Scars are becoming art, Stephen. Eduardo is so beyond the tattoo. I mean, some of his friends were talking the other day. They say the most heinous righteous things. Anyway, one guy, Martin, he's from London and wicked smart, he says, 'The gunshot wound is the new tattoo.'"
"Jesus, what kind of barbarians are you involved with?" I flubbed a fold and had to start over.
"Seriously, Stephen, I have not been able to get that idea off my mind."
"Well, get it off, that is fucking insane. Not to mention illegal, dangerous, and plain stupid. There is no bliss in your apparent ignorance."
"He's a Brit. They have a radical different perspective. Scars are art."
"Even worse. Is there a culture more consumed with their own grandeur and absolutely no evidence to prove them correct?"
"Stephen, please, there's a couple bands playing at the Underground. Eduardo sings lead in Johnny Come Lately? They are amazing. Will you come? You can meet him after."
I see the pout give way to wide-eyed "please me." I couldn't believe it. He actually wanted me to enter the lair of this bi-hawked creature. He wanted Mr. Macho to meet moi. He wanted his brute to set his oversized brow on me. Allowing his hip quotient to skyrocket by teasing his new lover with the old. Now I was a sexual resume? Touché and no thank you, cheri.
I didn't intend to take Matt up on meeting his nouvel amor. I completely forgot it for the entire week. Even that night, I don't think I subconsciously ordered the parsley penne instead of the garlic pesto for social reasons—I wasn't planning on getting closer than arm's length to anyone. Well. I went, but didn't wear my best. I had an image of sweaty young Goths pressing their black-clad bodies upon me by mistake or purpose; as arousing as that might be in some scenarios, it was turning my stomach and I had no desire to wear it home on my sleeves.
I stood at the stairs descending to the Underground Pub thinking, why do the rebellious always embrace filth?
I was doing my best to move toward Matt through the crowd without spilling my drink or touching anyone. The lights went down. Nothing to do but stand still and hope for a short set. The entire room grew silent as the thick darkness settled over us and our pupils expanded into black holes devouring light. Eduardo took the stage like a newborn deity. Strobes flashed and he stood bathed in purple footlights. He had surgeon's hands, long, tapering fingers that curved around the microphone. The guitar strapped to his back like a warrior's sword. Looking at his face, I remember Matt saying, "He's half-Brazilian. Exotic." For once, Matt had not
overstated. Eduardo. Juxtaposed, I see Matt's simplicity like a cashmere cotton blend that you thought worked when you bought it off the rack, but didn't wear well after all. A knobby knit peeled off and discarded at my feet.
Eduardo leaned into the mic. "September is dead and the October bacchanalia is upon us. Feel this one in your blood."
I did. I felt an unused chamber surge and flash brilliant, a spectra behind my left eye. The blue-white burn of startling truth seared me. I longed to bite down.
I didn't move through the entire set. Matt introduced us when the next band went on. Eduardo wasn't like Matt had described. He'd been worshipped in a previous life. I knew right away, Matt had no idea what he'd discovered. Eduardo, idealistic and lordly at the same time—his words were a dizzy aphrodisiac tingling the arch of my foot and waking my bellybutton to connect a new cord, to rebirth.
"Do you dream, Eduardo?" I said. His name cream-coated my tongue and I anticipated the swallow.
"Sonhos. I live by them."
I've found an equal, I thought. Nothing is going to separate me from him. "He's one of us," said a jeweled whisper.
I watched him stroke Matt's face, but when the boy leaned in with lips close to his ear, Eduardo's eyes found me. Unspoken agreement. We knew, as easily as one tiger recognizes another. It's not the first time a blood sacrifice was made in his honor. I'm sure the scent of such allegiance was as familiar to him as it was to me. We are not like other people, we're an unknown matter born of divine illumination and escaped velocity. Matt's presence is a sudden impurity on my new found love. Eduardo and I are capable of heights Matt cannot conceive. Like a fingerprint on fine crystal, everything filthy may be polished away.
* * *
Death is beautiful and it need not be difficult. After the first night with Eduardo, I dreamed the whole production in great bruised sky colors. For Matt, I thought, it should come softly, a fragile sigh in his sleep.
I'm a devil for details. Matt's departure from my life needed to be as tendered in hypocrisy as his entrance. I planned to wear a new pair of dark adobe leather pants that night. So it had to be clean. Clean and quiet. Easy enough, I thought, to get him drunk and go about the X method. Drugs and suffocation. Good night, sweet queen. I took my time shopping and found the perfect poison. HPNOTIQ liquor, product of France. It was Smurf-blue and bottled as to confuse
the consumer whether it was bath gel or liquor. I bought two bottles.
We met at the Pepper Lounge. I used to blow the bartender and now he lets me bring in special bottles of choice. Matt proceeded to get drunk while we discussed everything from Johnny Depp to Mandarin collars; we never were at a loss for words with each other. Sleeping pills go down as easy as speed.
"Matthew, Eduardo's incredible."
"This is so different than I thought it would be."
"Really, I kind of always figured we'd be here, sooner or later."
Matt, the pathetic little peasant that he was, ate it all up. I thought for a second he was going to offer me a goodbye fuck in return for my tenderness. But then he started to feel the blue liquid settle in and I helped him to the bathroom. "Look, let's get you cleaned up. Want to come back to my place?"
"Oh yeah. Okay. I'm so sorry. I feel like shit. I just need a shower and some coffee."
"It's early yet, we have plenty of time."
"Stephen, I'm so happy."
"Me too, mon ami, me too."
He passed out on my bed. I lay down close, propped myself on an elbow, and studied his profile. "They all look like angels when they sleep." I pulled on my kitchen gloves and couldn't resist one last goodbye. I bit down hard on his bottom lip before slipping the plastic bag over his head, secured it around his neck, and poured a subtle Bordeaux. Never underestimate how the right wine enhances an experience. His slow breathing against the bag crackled like dry kindling. "Burn. Escape and burn, little soul. You are no longer inseparable from skin."
I cranked Never Mind the Bollocks up to ten and took a deep breath to find my center. You should never rush moments like these; they simply do not come knocking all that often. I put the gun in his hand and, cupping mine over his, pointed it at his left shoulder. The sleeping pills did their work, and he barely twitched when I pulled the trigger. The scar, a death mouth tattoo, was going to be gorgeous. Now we all have what we want. I'm so happy.
Later, people will tell the cops they saw me leave the bar with him. People will say they saw me leave the apartment without him, maybe. I don't care. I'd tell them too. It's just some fag with a fetish committing suicide. The city gives and the city takes away. The cops think we're a freak show anyway. No matter, the police don't care and his Christian foster parents sure as sin don't care. I got tickled thinking about that. And so we part. I left the note he gave me, the one he wrote, for just such an occasion, under his left hand. He was right to leave it without a date and his thoughtfulness made me smile.
I lay one finger on his wrist. The throb was mine.
"Eduardo is full-on." The phrase made me laugh and it echoed a howl in the quiet room.
"He's full-on."
It was the first thing Matt had said to me about Eduardo.
And the last thing I said to Matt.
Eduardo was just coming off stage when I walked back in the club. He watched without moving as I covered the last distance between us.
"Well."
"Like smothering a baby."
"You are a wicked, wicked boy, Stephen."
"I'm your wicked boy now. Any complaints?"
"Not from me. Come on, I want you to meet some people."
He took my hand and drew me across the room behind him. The crowd gave way, then closed quickly over the wake of the new king.
LIKE A ROCKET WITH A BEAT
BY JOE MENO
Lawrence & Broadway
1
High black cat is the worst kind of luck. It's the luck of knowing your ghostly number is up. It's the luck of the zero, the no one. It's the record that automatically plays whenever the radio comes on. Like Donna Lee with the trumpet blaring.
"Shirley stole this record too," Seamus cursed. "She took this one."
He'd borrowed a coupe and the night was warm so we were out driving. At the time, he was up to number nine. Mister Ten might go walking by anytime. "Pull over," he said suddenly. I slowed the automobile down, figuring it quick.
At the corner of Broadway and Lawrence, there was Cannonball Adams, the piano player, with a girl, standing unsuspecting. He was telling her the ideas he had about her—her legs and hair, the way she looked like a movie star in the lights of the evening. She was buying it because she wasn't his wife. The girl was on the corner listening to the music Cannonball was whispering and he began leaning in at her with his enormous hands, and it was then that Seamus opened the passenger side door.
In a flash, Seamus was at the corner and had already slugged the fellah in the back of the neck. Seamus gave him two chops to the head and a shot to the kidney and then one more to the crown, which laid him out pretty well. Seamus hadn't fought in the ring in years but he could still move like lightning. Then the heartbreak. Seamus raised his foot up.
"No, no, not my hands, not my hands," Cannonball pleaded, and he had hands unlike any other man, three times the size of most men's, they were the hands of a monster really. Seamus snarled and stomped down hard with his size-elevens on the sap's fingers, a step on the right, then the left, then back and forth, then again. The girl didn't like the idea. She swung her purse at the side of Seamus's head. It only made him madder. He turned and grabbed the purse from her hand, then turned again. He came shuffling back to the automobile but he was slow now and sad. He closed the automobile door and I took off quick like that.
It was quiet for a while. The ghost of a small black cat cut across the snow, from one corner into a dark alley, its shadow stretching thin and long. That cat, and me seeing it, was just about the worst thing that could happen at that moment. I swore to myself. We went on driving and I looked at Seamus, and what he placed between him and me on the front seat made my eyes ache, but badly. It was the girl's white purse: small, square-shaped, etc., etc. He had taken the girl's purse for some reason.
"How come?" I asked, and he looked down, embarrassed, then turned his head and started to open the purse, sad that the whole thing had ever happened maybe.
"He was number ten," he said.
"How come the purse then?"
"I don't know," he frowned, out of breath. "You want it?"
"No," I replied. "It's bad luck. I won't touch it."
"That settles it," he said, "I don't want to think about Shirley again," and even as he was talking, I was sure neither of us was having it. Cannonball Adams was number ten, the tenth fellah to have fooled around with Shirley. Somewhere out there, I was sure, was number eleven.
I glanced over at Seamus's big red face. He looked like he had lost the big fight. His left eye was twitching. He shrugged his thick shoulders then emptied the rest of the tiny purse in his lap. Inside there was a handkerchief and a makeup kit. A pair of fake eyelashes fell on out next. They landed right beside me, just like that, almost blinking. I didn't say a word. I just stared at them. They were thick and black and tired and lovely. He tipped the purse over and what came out next was like a song where the lady singing mentions your name, but directly, something like, "I'm in love with a boy who makes my heart spin/I'm in love with a boy, a boy named Jim. "
It was a white business card that fell out, with a picture of a blue genie coming up from a lamp. I picked it up and saw that, on the other side of the card, it read:
THE BEARER OF THIS CARD IS HEREBY
GRANTED THREE WISHES
It was those moments, those strange moments where I caught the lines no one else seemed to be hearing, those strange moments like the one I was having, that made me want to go into a church again so badly.
"What's it say?" Seamus asked.
"It says I got three wishes."
"Three wishes? What for?"
"For finding it. Sure," I said, "three wishes? That's easy."
"Sure."
"For my first one: huh. Well. Well, I wish I could sleep more soundly."
"How's that?" Seamus asked.
"I'm up all night. I hear things. I get afraid. I get afraid ghosts are sitting in my parlor, you know. I'm counting sheep
until daybreak."
"A grown man like you?" He smiled. "You oughta be ashamed."
"Sure I am. Ever since I was a kid, though. I get in bed and that's all I think about. Ghosts."
"You're gonna throw away a perfectly good wish on nonsense like that?" Seamus grunted. "Really. You oughta be ashamed. Why don't you use it on something you need? Something you always wanted, maybe."
I looked down at my sad Stacy Adams with the hole in the toe and said, "O-key, then, I take it back. For my first wish, a new pair of shoes."
"You're gonna waste 'em on a pair of shoes?" Seamus moaned. "That's terrible."
"That's what I need."
"That's terrible," he repeated.
"O-key, then you can have the next one."
"O-key," he said, and I should have seen it coming, down the block, right up the street. "O-key. I wish I knew where Shirley was right now." He whispered it and I nodded, without a word, letting that one pass as quickly as I could.
"O-key, for my last one …" I said. "Huh, I dunno. Maybe I'll keep it for a while."
"That's smart," he said, but even as he went on talking, I was already thinking. I held the card in my hand and thought of my Slingerland traps, the greatest drum set I had ever had, pearl finish with red sparkles, my kit which was now sitting in the front window of a pawn shop on Ashland, and the thought was this: "I wish I don't end up a two-bit just like everybody."
2
