by Tara Spears
I was swept into the land of nightmares on a tidal wave of vodka. Only this time it was antithetical. I was a spectator, swearing and punching things in a rage as the younger me was beaten, raped and sold to anyone willing to pay. A broken arm, a broken jaw, lost tooth (still missing), a crushed finger— for refusing a john because he smelled like piss, another one broken for crying when a john got too rough with me.
Thousands of bruises, endless days of bleeding, and pain, and clamping my hands over my mouth when I took a crap— so he wouldn’t hear me screaming. Then suddenly I was in the garage...
I saw myself tied to the rafters as Willie and his rich pederast clients screwed me over and over until I passed out. A cigarette ground into my ribs brought me right back in a fit of hoarse high-pitched wails.
“I was thirteen, God damn it. I was thirteen... a boy. Just a boy.” The words screamed into my room, startling me awake.
“I was just a boy.” I sobbed under my hands, feeling the injustice like never before. He stole my life from me.
I cried until I was spent. Tired and hurting emotionally like never before, I scrabbled off the floor into the sunlight streaming in wide swaths through the windows. Yet all I saw was a grey fog dulling everything as it swirled around me, threatening to drag me back under.
I made a cup of coffee, drank it, and made another. By the time I had finished the second cup, the shaking had subsided and I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. I couldn’t believe it was almost five in the evening. My eyes stuttered around the room, then down at my naked self squatting in the chair. When did I undress? My clothes were in a semi-neat pile on the bed. At least they weren’t tossed all over the floor.
I touched the scars along my hip and side the plastic surgeon hadn’t been able to make disappear. A smile worked across my face as the memory of Dr. Thurman’s kindness warmed me and chased away the fog.
At eighteen I had ventured into his office for a consultation. I wanted all the scars of my past removed. I felt if the evidence disappeared... it was just wishful thinking.
I had been tight lipped, refusing to tell him what they were from, but he knew. The second he had laid eyes on me he knew I was an abuse victim. He graciously waved all his fees except the aftercare.
I broke down in his office, adamantly insisting the marks were not from abuse. He set a box of Kleenex next to me, squeezed my shoulder, called me son, and left me alone until I managed to pull myself back together.
He was able to remove fourteen of the nineteen scars through skin graphs and laser therapy. He had treated me with the utmost respect, as if I were one of his high paying clients, never once making me feel small. Every scar that disappeared brought another breakdown he let me work through in a private room.
After he was done re-building me, I felt more whole than I had since my dad died. The five remaining scars now served as a reminder of who I had been and who I would always be. You can try to run from your past— but it always guns you down in the end.
I unfolded myself from the chair and went to get ready for work. I may not want to hit the Ave, but I needed to. If not to remind myself of who I was, then because my financial situation was descending rapidly towards poor.
* * * * *
I parked at Paradise and suddenly recalled the run in with Georgie. He had shoved me towards the edge that I eventually tumbled over. More than two weeks of my life gone. I was done, and if he couldn’t get that through his thick head then I would beat it into him.
As I rounded the corner of the building, I caught Benny standing outside like a guard. He spotted me and didn’t give me his usual puppyish smile.
“Hey, Benny, how are you?”
“As good as can be expected. Damn cops have been swimming all over the place.” He sighed heavily.
“What are they doing here?” I asked, immediately worried Salvo might be in trouble. Hired an under age stripper, served minors, or worse, one of the girls went too far during a lap dance with an undercover cop.
“Where you been? Don’t you watch the news?” He looked at me amazed.
I shook my head. “Not usually, too depressing. Why, what happened?”
“Georgie’s dead, Trey. Found in his apartment a week ago Monday, cut to ribbons.”
I fell against the wall, stunned and a little sick. Georgie dead? He was an asshole but— dead?
“They’re calling it a gay hate crime,” Benny continued.
“What? Why?” My inquiry turned Benny green.
“Who ever killed him, castrated him... completely. Cut it all off.” Benny shook his head and tried not to gag. I tried not to gag but didn’t quite succeed. I managed not to throw up though.
“Oh Jesus, he didn’t deserve that. Shit.” No man deserved that. “But why are the cops here?” I asked, in a tone still stunned. This is what I get for not watching the news.
“They found out he worked here and came to investigate. They have nothin’. No leads. Nothin’. Salvo... the only thing they pulled from his booth was his own DNA. Salvo told them he thought Georgie jacked off up there sometimes. Boss kept you out of the whole thing,” Benny said fondly. I was sure the affection was for both me and Salvo. Benny was a soft hearted lug that didn’t really hate anyone.
“Thanks for telling me. I’m going to go see Salvo, okay?”
Benny nodded sadly, and I gripped his shoulder for a moment. He may not have liked Georgie, but he knew him and that alone made his death hard to take.
Inside, Salvo wasn’t working the bar. Tim, his weekender was. He headed towards me the second he spotted me.
“Salvo’s in his office. Where the hell have you been? He’s been worried.”
“I’ve been sick. Nurse and all.”
Tim took a step back, and I glared at him, hurt at the insinuation.
“Not that kind of sick. Nothing contagious. Geez, thanks for that,” I said.
He offered me a sheepish look. “Well, a person never knows,” he paused then added, “Sorry, Trey. Shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”
“It’s okay.” I waved it off then swept my hand over the club, “I’d be more afraid of catching something here if I were you.”
He paled realizing I was right, and I turned on my heel leaving him to stew on that little truth.
I knocked on the flat-black door of Salvo’s office.
“Go away,” he called.
“It’s Trey.”
“Get the fuck in here,” he roared from inside.
I walked in and he collapsed into a relieved sigh on top of his desk, bonking his head on the surface. “Jesus Christ, where the fuck have you been?”
“Sick actually. I would have called,” I shook my head still disbelieving, “I just found out from Benny. Sorry, I um... I don’t watch the news. Shit, I still haven’t grasped it... Georgie gone.” I plunked down into the only other chair, a hard vinyl thing meant to make the girls squirm while being reprimanded. I’ve sat in it a few times and knew it worked.
“From the look on your face, I believe you had nothing to do with it. But what was that shit about last time you saw him.” Salvo’s lips stretched thin.
“You thought I had something to do with Georgie’s death?” I blurted, hurt and angry.
He placed his hands flat together, tipping them to his chin. “No, I hoped not. You were awfully upset when you left though.” He directed all ten fingers towards me.
“He fucked me without a condom, Salvo. I had a right to be pissed.”
His eyebrows lifted as he leaned back in his chair, causing it to creak in protest.
“It’s not like you can get pregnant.”
I huffed over his latent disregard.
“Sorry, bad joke.” His hand moved through the air as if clearing his words then he rubbed his face. I could see the toll this had all taken. His face was older, drawn, tired.
“I didn’t tell the detective about you and Georgie’s arrangement.” He chuckled. “You must be one clean fuck. They didn’t so mu
ch as find one of your hairs in his booth.” He shook his head. “Go, get out of here.” He waved me off.
“Thanks, Salvo.” I stood, offering my hand and he looked at it like it might bite him.
“I’m not touching you. You’ve been sick.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever.” I plopped kitten’s keys on his desk and headed for the door.
“Trey, be careful out there,” Salvo said quietly.
My head drooped as I bounced it against my chest. I then opened the door, and headed off to my corner.
I really needed to watch the news more often. I should have known there was a psycho slaughtering unsuspecting gay boys.
Cherry, Marie, and Toto were milling around my lamp pole as if they were having a meeting. Marie hit me first, almost knocking me over with her six-five frame, and two hundred and who knew how many pounds.
“Thank goodness... did you hear? Georgie... poor Georgie... he’s dead... Oh, Trey...” all spilled at once, in three tones, as I was dandled by six hands. Suddenly the three of them stilled and glowered at me.
“Where have you been?” came forth in unison as eyes in blue, hazel, and brown, waited.
“Yes, I heard about Georgie, No, I don’t want to talk about it. I was sick for two weeks. No, nothing contagious, so don’t freak out.” I took a breath, and was crushed into Marie’s oversize boobs, suddenly glad I had breathed a second earlier. She rocked me for a few, very long seconds and when she released me I gasped dramatically, making everyone laugh.
Skanks came and went on the Avenue almost daily. But there were only a handful of us who had been here a long time, and we had developed a friendship of sorts. We watched out for each other when we could. Toto was the most recent, but she had been here for two years and had earned her place. Cherry was kinda like me. Her mother had been a prostitute, so she stepped into the business young, at about the same time I began hustling for Willie. Marie arrived from Vegas four years ago and stayed, saying she liked the people here better. Why, she has never told me.
I frowned at Cherry as I took a hold of her chin, turning her face into the light. I hadn’t seen her close-up for awhile. She was thinner, her eyes brighter and more sunken in than the last time I had been face to face with her. Even her lengthy gold hair was beginning to tarnish. She knew better, and that fact made me angry, not to mention scared for her. She batted my hand away, yet had the decency to be chastised and dropped her eyes to the ground. I stayed quiet. She knew.
Her mother had died on this very street of a drug overdose. She was going to go the same way, and it saddened me more than Georgie’s death ever could.
“I kept watching the news... expecting to hear. You didn’t come and didn’t come... Georgie was one of yours. You had us all scared you were dead too,” Toto said, her voice muddled. “I’m glad it was all for naught.”
She gave me a benevolent smile before she turned, and waved over her shoulder as she headed down the Ave towards the Ihop. I never would have put it on her to care about anyone. Toto was a tiny girl of Asian descent, a total hellcat you didn’t mess with or she would claw your eyes out. I had never seen a soft spot on her, until now.
Cherry squeezed my hand as she planted a kiss on the air next to Marie’s cheek. “You two take care tonight, you hear me?” She let my hand slide away and sauntered down the Ave the same direction Toto had gone.
“Take care yourself, girlfriend,” I said to her back. She wagged her fingers over her head to let me know she’d heard.
“Marie, she’s going to kill herself.”
“I know. I pray for her every night, just like I pray for you,” Marie said reverently.
“You don’t need to pray for me. I’m a lost cause.”
She grabbed my face and turned me away from Cherry’s retreating form so she could give me a serious reflection.
“Trey, baby, you don’t belong out here,” she finally said. “Why you do this to yourself?”
I opened my mouth to respond and she pinched my lips closed between two fingers.
“You should be living it up, letting someone take care of you—”
“I refuse to be kept. That’s how I ended up here in the first place.” I took a step back and fumbled with my Zippo in my pocket.
“Bullshit.” Her hands landed on her hips. “You ended up here because of your sick stepfather. Not the same thing.”
“It is to me. I own myself, only me, no one else. I won’t be owned again.”
She sighed heavily, knowing she couldn’t argue against that. We all had a similar philosophy. Nobody owned us, they just rented us, and we reserved the right to refuse service. I liked to believe I owned my body, but in truth Willie still did— and probably always would.
“Hey kid, you working tonight?”
I leaned around Marie and glimpsed the silver-blue crossover at the curb.
“I was waiting here for you,” I said, grinning cockily at the scruffy dark blond sitting on the edge of his door, looking over the roof at me. He was a regular, said he was in some band but I’d never figured out which one. He was always twitching on something, and he liked to do it in his car. That meant I had to play contortionist, and usually walked away with bruises or a pulled muscle somewhere.
As I walked over, a pearl-white limo whipped in and stopped inches from his bumper, making us both duck and cringe.
“Sweetheart, you get that luscious booty of yours over here right now,” called a drag queen poking out of the moon roof. She looked remarkably like RuPaul. I squinted— it couldn’t be. Marie would have told me if she knew RuPaul. Marie squealed like a cheerleader and threw her hands over her head. The move pulled her shimmery pink skirt higher than I ever wanted to see it go again. Jesus, she could wear a thong at least.
Twitchy gestured for me to get in. I didn’t know his name. He had never offered it, and that was his right since I never told anyone mine. I shut the door.
“I don’t need to see that again. Talk about a mood breaker.” He made a face as he pulled off the curb, and zipped around the corner.
“I can fix your mood,” I said, reaching over and caressing his inner thigh.
“Mmm...You’re the only one who can. Without you my marriage, and my career, would have been all shot to hell a long time ago,” he said in a melancholy tone.
I didn’t pry. I figured most of my tricks were married. Many were secretly gay, strongly bi, or wanted, sometimes needed, something their partner would not give them. I made their lives more bearable.
Twenty minutes later I emerged from the crossover with a bruised knee and a hitch in my hip. How the hell he got me into that position I will never know. For three hundred bucks he could try to twist me into a pretzel if he wanted. Not that I could do it, but he was welcome to try.
I hoped for a nice leisurely string of normal fucks the rest of the night, but that didn’t happen. I would have sworn it was a full moon if I couldn’t see the sliver of white in the benighted sky.
It was an evening full of knees banged against dashboards, gearshifts in all the wrong places, and a pinched nerve in my back from straddling a leaning Harley. As I hobbled back to Paradise, I could feel a chiropractic visit coming on. Other than the shy freaks with small cars, the evening had gone remarkably well— except for learning of Georgie’s gruesome demise that is.
“Jesus, Trey, you get beat up?” Benny asked, looking me over with concern.
I chuckled quietly and shook my head. “No, just a rough night.”
“Who the hell clocked your pretty little face then?” He pointed to my cheek.
“This...” my fingers went to the spot, prodded, and I felt the bland pain of a bruise along my cheekbone. “was a steering wheel,” I told him.
He shook his head as amusement bloomed across his face then quickly turned to laughter.
“I’m glad my discomfort entertains you.” I introduced him to one of my more elegant fingers as I shoved the fuchsia door open.
Salvo wasn’t around. Tim sl
id my keys down the bar without missing a beat, as he set a line of Jager-Bombs up for a boisterous clutch. The torturous evening was taking its toll, and without a word, I headed home.
I showered, scrubbed, swallowed three Tylenol and hit the sheets close to two in the morning. I dreamt about him. Justin. Deliciously sweet imagery that had me aching in a way I didn’t understand when I woke.
A dulcet hum of longing danced over my nerve endings all day. Even “IT” was mesmerized by this new experience, and lay in a semi-lax tingling state.
The feeling magnified as Justin continued to float across the liquid dreamscape whenever I closed my eyes.
By the time I walked into Dr. Greene’s office Thursday, I was in a state of awareness so intense the brush of my cotton dress shirt against my skin was a sort of torture. Doc glanced at me as he pushed his glasses up on his nose. I must have been walking funny, because he frowned slightly as he indicated the couch.
“Nice tie, Doc.” It was the first chartreuse bowtie I had ever seen. It clashed a bit with his orange hair however.
He managed a scrimpy smile. “Trey, tell me about a time when you were happy as a child.”
I guess we were done with the small talk. I crossed my legs and leaned back to get cozy. It wasn’t the most comfortable of couches, rather firm, and I gave up. I hadn’t been comfortable all day, why should it be any different here. Doc tented his fingers as he waited for me to quit wiggling. I finally settled my ankle across my knee and sighed thoughtfully.
“Before my father died, but I don’t want to talk about that today. I want to talk about my last nightmare,” I said firmly.
I had never been an overseer of the abuse that befell me and I wanted to know what it meant. The man before me could at least offer his own opinion. Whether I would agree with him or not remained to be seen.
His face showed a hint of amusement at my attempt to control the session. He paused for a moment, his mind working, as his fingertips strummed each other in succession.
