Shelby

by McCormack, Pete;

  That night I had a dream in which my loins had been replaced with Frank’s. But more traumatising was the fact that I ejaculated upon seeing them. It was beyond bizarre, and for three days thereafter I feared sleep. What did it mean? I remember thinking, “I don’t want to be mentally ill.” But who could I talk to? My fruitless search for answers caused me to justify the happening as a side effect of what I had been through in the previous weeks: the question of Bryan’s orientation, degradation at the hands of Frank, seeing Frank’s genitalia, Lucy’s denial of my needs, excessive amounts of free time, debating the idea of manhood, admitting to a lack of a future, Derek’s marital woes, general social strife and perhaps even excessive exposure to bad rock and roll and tabloid news shows. But beyond that, one questioned loomed: Could I be a latent homosexual?

  Then came dream number two.

  All I recall is that a leg rolled onto my midsection and I awoke with a start, fully erect.

  So what?

  The confession

  Although I saw neither a face nor genitals, I know that that leg was not the leg of a woman. I had had a true gay dream. What did this mean? In a desperate attempt to appease my fears, I made a list, trembling as I wrote.

  Intercourse with Lucy:

  12

  Heavy petting with Minnie (mostly kissing):

  2

  Masturbation: 4/week over 6 years

  ∼1,248

  Erotic fantasies: 2/day over 7 years

  ∼5,110

  Wet dreams: 4/year over 7 years

  ∼28

  Sexual dreams (no ejac.): 1/month 7 years

  ∼84

  Hand job over my pants:

  1 (Minnie)

  Oral sex (blow job):

  0 N/A

  Total:

  6,485

  The numbers were relieving. Two homoerotic dreams out of over 6,485, 100% robust, heterosexual emotional and physical eruptions over a seven year period, did not appear to be a threat to my supposed orientation. The fact was I’d never fantasized about a man while awake, and only once or twice had I even considered the option. So I was just over .03% bisexual? It was common knowledge that nobody is 100% anything. Walt Whitman was a 50–50 split and exalted that awareness—in the 1800s no less. Perhaps it was his leg. Either way, why had the possibility of being homosexual petrified me so? The current wave of legislated hatred in Oregon and Colorado, the scourge of AIDS, the threat of sulphuric rain, gay bashing and, finally, the fleeting notion of sharing a life with Bryan seemed to be the most logical explanation.

  The following afternoon, packing flowers and an offer for dinner, I arrived uninvited at Lucy’s apartment. The door opened.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I … I thought I’d drop by and see if you—”

  “Christ, Shel. I’m in the middle of a psychic reading.”

  “How long will you be?”

  “It’s work … I don’t know.”

  “I need to spend some time with you.”

  “Look, come back in ten minutes.”

  “I … flowers …”

  “Ten minutes.”

  I trotted to the beach, sat down on a bench, and gazed into the gray yonder.

  My rearrival was better received. Lucy invited me in, put the flowers in water and filled the kettle. We both took chairs at the kitchen table. She lit a cigarette and stuck it in her mouth.

  “So?”

  “Well, we haven’t conversed much since Frank chased me out of your apartment.”

  “I haven’t heard from him since, either, so whatever you said to the dick-head, thanks.” She grinned.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of self-exploration these days, Lucy, and at this point in my life I’d say I don’t have what one would call a useful existence.”

  “What?”

  “And yet a part of me still feels, as if via a calling from a distant mountain or a bad phone connection, that I am still meant to be alive. It is this dying ember that allows me to push forward despite having very few friends, hobbies or goals.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “In short, I need to know about you and me.”

  “Sex?”

  “In a sense, yes.”

  “What sense?”

  “Well, it’s not that I have to have sex with you. Many a man has lived without sex; saints, scholars, lepers. But the fact is I am attracted to you and emotionally committed. Consequently, I have to continually deny my urges.”

  “So you need a good fuck?”

  “As degrading as that sounds, yes. Ironically, the need is not selfish. Truth is, I’m fearful of the manifestations of continued supressions.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I’ve been suffering from a series of abnormalities.”

  Lucy laughed. “Like what?”

  “Anxiety, insomnia, mild skin irritations, mood swings, depressions, self-hatred and I also had ahomaerodeam.”

  “What?”

  “Ahomoeroticdream.”

  “What?”

  “A dream … I had a dream.”

  “So?”

  “About a man.”

  “Who?”

  “It doesn’t matter who.”

  “A … wet dream?”

  There was a pause. “Sort of … yes.”

  To my dismay, more detailed confession had her on all fours, collapsed in a cacophony of laughter.

  “I fail to see the buffoonery,” I said.

  Lucy froze in mid-squirm. “You had a dream about a male leg and you woke up with a stiff dick and now you think you might want to fuck men up the ass. That’s funny.”

  “I never said—aaaah!” I crumpled to the floor, Lucy having clamped her teeth, through my corduroys, into my calf. Before I could offer protest, she had me pinned, her buttocks crushing my chest, her knees digging into my biceps. I grappled for several seconds without success and then chuckled, pretending I was allowing her to keep me there. Lucy stared at me, her vagina a foot from my face. O how I wanted to combine loins with her in a blitzkrieg of carnal explosions!

  “Are you reading my mind?” I asked.

  “No, my little faggot,” she said with a smile, “but I know what you’re thinking.”

  “Is there a chance?”

  “I can only give you what I can,” she said. “After that you have to decide if it’s enough.”

  “Do you think I’m gay?”

  She smiled. “Are you gay?”

  “No.”

  “Then I don’t think you’re gay.”

  “Sit on me forever,” I said.

  Yes, we laughed that evening. Lucy even kissed me a couple of times (one bordering on fervent); and in the days that followed physical intimacy advanced in the form of hugs, body brushes, hand-holding and so forth. However, as our (my) needs remained unmet and our (my) questions unresolved, there began to grow an unspoken frustration that had to at some time—and in fact did—reveal itself in an outburst.

  Lucy was standing on my shoulders and placing mouse traps in the attic space by the bathroom when I nonchalantly mentioned I hadn’t yet confessed to my parents dropping out of university.

  “You fucking Nazi!” she bellowed from above, slightly muffled by her whereabouts.

  “What?”

  “You fucking turd! Put me down!”

  “What?”

  “Get out of the way!” Bending my knees and moving to my right, Lucy gripped the ceiling space, dangled for a moment, and then let go, crashing to the floor.

  “What?”

  “You make out like my not sitting on your little cock once a week is the reason you’re spiritually hopeless and the truth is you haven’t even got the guts to tell your folks you gave up on school!”

  “Little?”

  “How long’s it been? June, Ju—” Lucy counted on her fingers. “What, four … five months?”

  “I’ve told my Grandmother … and Derek …”

  “I got my o
wn crapola, pal. My past. My present. My future. Dick-wad Frank. I’m tired o’ dancing. Last night in mid routine with my cunt in full parade there was a fuckin’ cockroach with the wingspan of a bald eagle climbing up my inner thigh. So I’m so, so sorry you ain’t got a hole to stick your dick in. Fuck you!”

  “Lucy, I didn’t—”

  “You need your dick wet to find yourself? Bullshit! Try looking for the mystic in the shit holes of Vancouver, babe. Dumpin’ on me! Fuck you!”

  “Lucy—”

  “Blamin’ me for your god damn gay dreams. Get away from me!” She cowered, shielding her eyes with one hand.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I can’t look at you. Get away!”

  I reached for the arm covering her eyes. “Lucy—”

  “No! Get away! I’m ashamed! I can’t look at you! Get away! Take your crap! Go!”

  She didn’t move. “Lucy—”

  “You’re an embarrassment to anyone who’s ever tried to grow! Get out! I can’t look! Get out or I’ll scream!”

  “But Lucy …” She straight-armed me with her still free left appendage, knocking me towards the front room. “How could I even consider screwing a two year old?”

  “Okay, I’ll tell them!”

  “Get out! I can’t look! Get out!”

  “I said—”

  “Get out!” I tumbled into the street face-to-face with several passers-by who definitely heard Lucy’s final demand: “Come back when you’re toilet trained, you fuckin’ little faggot!’”

  My initial embarrassment quickly turned to self-hatred. Lucy was justified in her ouburst. How could I speak of any kind of emotional evolution when I couldn’t even confess to my parents the most significant decision of my life? Clearly, my only recourse was to call them. Instead, I worked for two days on the letter that would let them know I would never be the doctor son they had so yearned for. It read:

  Dear Ed and Peg,

  Can I ever express the thankfulness I feel towards you both for offering me the gift of life? Granted, I was both a surprise and a mistake. Nonetheless, by your not choosing to terminate the pregnancy, I am here today—hopefully giving at least limited joy to you both.

  I have always tried to make you proud. But since I left your loving nest I have been forced to make decisions that will for the rest of my days affect my life. No doubt my second biggest fear was making a decision that would inhumanely disappoint you. My biggest fear, however, was making a decision that would destroy the essence of my own being. Hopefully I have done neither. With that, I confess, I have left university (last year) to expand the horizons of my innards.

  Please do not call for I will not answer. In fairness, however, I promise to come home on Thanksgiving day to discuss this in greater detail. I leave you with a short piece by the famed Irish poet, Patrick Kavanagh.

  I have a feeling

  That through the hole in reason’s ceiling

  We can fly to knowledge

  Without ever going to college

  Constant love,

  Your son, Shelby xxxx

  Five days later the phone calls began—all of them screened on the answering machine. On Wednesday there were four, the theme splitting between guilt and disappointment. Thursday there were another four, that cluster moving towards a more threatening tone that culminated in a final threat from Dad: “You’re puttin’ us through hell. You’ve been unfair and unrespecting. Your mother’s shattered. Either call back in half … what time is it, Peg? Peg! What?… Dammit, turn that thing down! [“Seven!” Mom cries from afar] Call back by eight o’clock or I’m driving the hell down …”

  “You see, Eric? You see that? I’m completely disheartened.”

  “What?”

  “They have no respect for my methods nor my wishes. I told them in the letter I would accept no calls … but that I’d come home at Thanksgiving to discuss future plans! But nothing’s ever enough. Now he’s coming down.”

  “No, he’s not.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, come on, Shel,” he said. “Ain’t you ever been in deep shit, man? I don’t even know the guy, but I know he’s bluffin’.”

  “He’s definitely not bluffing.”

  “He’s bluffin’…”

  Eric’s keen insight proved correct. The calls, however, continued for two more days, Dad ofttimes screaming incoherently. As for me, diarrhoea burst upon my bowels, leaving me chafed in the tenderest of places. Clearly, feelings had been hurt and expectations disillusioned. It got to me.

  “I’m not going home,” I said to Lucy a couple of days before my scheduled departure.

  She looked up from across her kitchen. “What?”

  I was pacing. “I’m not going home for Thanksgiving.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “I look around, Lucy … I see the poverty, the violence, prejudice, pollution, civil strife and so forth. Meanwhile, I’ve got two knuckle-head parents in turmoil over my leaving an educational system that does nothing to ameliorate the aforementioned. Frankly, I’m appalled by their narrow-mindedness. I will not discuss my dreams with knaves.”

  “What dreams?”

  “There are a plethora of social causes to sink one’s teeth into out there. I have to start helping.”

  “They’re your folks,” she said, one small nail in her mouth, another being hammered into the wall. “You got to talk to ’em.”

  “They didn’t respect my demands in the letter: I clearly stated no phone calls, I’ll be up on Thanksgiving and that this is my life.”

  “You’re scared shitless, aren’t you?”

  “Where’d that come from?”

  “That’s why you’re not going—is this straight?”

  “I’m not going because my parents have a warped reality of what I am, and I refuse to cater to it any longer. I am me. Isn’t that enough?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Nobody knows me.”

  “I know you—hand me that picture.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “Yes I do.”

  “Did you know I masturbate?”

  “D-uh.”

  “You did?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well … Did you know I’ve considered killing your ex-husband.”

  “Take a number—and we’re still legally married.”

  “Okay, okay … Did you know I had an affair with a fat woman?”

  Lucy hung the picture and stepped back. “You been gettin’ laid on the side?”

  “Would you care?”

  “I thought I was your first?”

  “It was before you. We never …”

  “How fat?”

  “Fat.”

  “Did you like that?” she asked curiously.

  “What do you mean?”

  “All that fat.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Hm.”

  “Wait. Dammit, yes I did like it!”

  “Hm.”

  “Surpised you, eh?”

  “What?”

  “I’m pretty weird, eh?”

  “Oh yeah. Big time.”

  “You don’t think so? Okay, that’s it. Get this: I once stole a pair of my mother’s underwear and wore them to school.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Seven or eight.”

  “You’re a kinky boy, aren’t you?”

  “I have my thoughts.”

  Lucy put down the hammer and turned to me. “I still say you’re chicken shit.”

  “If I’m scared, Lucy, it’s for my parents. They see me as some sort of gifted child. When I tell them I’m not they’ll be shattered. I don’t want to be a doctor. I don’t want their life.”

  “I think that’s bullshit. I think you’re scared o’ your reaction to their reaction.”

  “That’s fair enough. But it’s more than that.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “It’s money.”

  “Money?”


  “Money.”

  “What money?”

  I rubbed my eyes, defeated. “After school ended this year, my parents sent me resources to pay for next year’s tuition, books, et cetera, and a few miscellaneous bills. I knew I had no intentions of returning to the campus life. Nonetheless, I was mildly destitute and I deposited the check.”

  “How much?”

  “Two thousand dollars.”

  “How much do you have left?”

  “Couple of hundred.”

  “I’ll lend you the dough.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll lend you the cash.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Look, Shel,” she said. “I think you’re full o’ shit. I think you’re scared they’re gonna hate your guts. I think you’re scared of a lot o’ things. So … if that ain’t true, take the money and prove me wrong.”

  The following morning, Thanksgiving, Lucy and I met at Joe’s Cafe. It was ten past nine and I was nervous, packed and ready to go home. Lucy offered comforting words and handed me the certified check for two thousand dollars. I thanked her. She winked and lit a cigarette.

  “Don’t worry, Shel,” she said smiling.

  I shrugged, somewhat embarrassed by all the hoopla surrounding a trip I should have made months earlier. The fact that I’d borrowed two thousand dollars without the benefit of a job only made the situation worse. “So what plans do you have for tonight?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Thanksgiving dinner,” I said.

  She made a face of disgust and offered a thumbs down.

  “What?”

  “Holidays, you know. Crap.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I … I don’t like ’em.”

  “How can you not like holidays?”

  “I don’t like ’em.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Look, it doesn’t matter.”

  “Why won’t you tell me?”

  “There’s nothin’ to tell. Past shit, that’s all.”

  “I told you all those secrets yesterday. Tell me what’s wrong.”