A Question of Manhood

by Robin Reardon

  In my careful observation of everyone I could see, I noticed our girl stop for about one second to say something to a guy in a doorway partway down the block. “She’s getting another one,” I said, straining to see him better, but it was too dark there. All I could see was that he was tall and broad.

  “That’s probably her pimp. He’ll get a cut of her take.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Protection?”

  She was waiting in a dark spot. Marty pulled over and she leaned into my window, pointing a little ahead. A smell of something that must have been perfume wafted in. “Turn right into that alley. Leave the car in the loading zone. They don’t ticket on Saturday night.”

  We parked and got out. I was having a little trouble breathing by this time. I shoved my right hand into my jeans pocket to stop the trembling, fingering the wrapped condoms, and then I checked in my left pocket for the cash. I hadn’t brought anything else with me; I might not know a lot about pimps, but I do know that sometimes prostitutes rob their johns.

  She led us down the sidewalk two doorways and up a dark stairway with no windows. It smelled of garbage and piss. I felt like I was in some stupid detective novel or something, the environment was so predictable. We walked a little way down a hall and she pulled out a key, and we went into a room not much bigger than the double bed, something that passed for linens all rumpled up on it. There was barely space beside it for a small table and a tiny lamp, which was already on, and a wooden chair. No frills, that’s for sure. You can bet I recognized the smell in here.

  She stood at the open door and looked at Marty. “You said one at a time. Who’s first? The other waits in the hall.”

  He gave her a weird grin, I guess trying to look sexy, and stepped back out of the room. She shut the door.

  “Cash?”

  I reached into my left pocket, and the bills were out of my hand before I’d looked up, crumpled in a hand decorated with long, pointy fingernails painted some dark color I couldn’t quite make out in the dim light. I almost couldn’t see her eyes, there was that much makeup on them, and the room was so dark. But I could see her eyebrows were a lot darker than her hair. I didn’t see where she put my money.

  “Ever done this?” she asked as she unfastened her skirt. The way she was reaching behind made her boobs nearly pop out of the pink vest. She must have had a blouse on underneath, ’cause her arms were covered in some kind of lacy sleeves, but all I could see above the vest was skin. She set the skirt on the chair seat. No need to remove underwear; she wasn’t wearing any.

  There was no point in lying. “No.”

  “Thought so. Okay, here’s the deal. No kissing. You do anything that hurts me and you’re pulp. Just relax and do what I say. Can you work with that?” I nodded. “Condom?” I gave her both of the ones I had in my pocket, and she put one back. “Who d’you think you are? Superman? Take off your jacket, shoes, pants, and underwear. I don’t care about the shirt or the socks.”

  She unbuttoned her vest, and there was a blouse underneath, the low neckline folded down so far that it hadn’t shown above the pink. She lifted the blouse over her head and stood there, hands on hips, waiting for me. I’d been so intent on watching her boobs make an appearance that I hadn’t done much. I rushed now, yanking things off and throwing them in the corner.

  “Lie on your back,” she told me, her voice a little gentler now. She reached down and removed the shiny black ankle boots she wore, and I watched her boobs sway and bounce. I was already hard. She got on the bed, her knees on either side of my thighs. I just stared at her boobs.

  “You can touch them if you want,” she said softly. “Just be nice.”

  I tried to touch them in a way that she might like, but it didn’t seem as though she was even noticing. Her fingers ripped open the condom wrapper and pulled the thing out like she’d done it a billion times a day for years. I was still playing with her tits as she rolled the sheath over me. So much for my practicing. But, I told myself, I’d need to know how for Jenny. Then she pulled away where I couldn’t reach her, and it worried me.

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “Nope. Just want you to relax for a second. You wanna come while you’re just wavin’ in the wind?”

  I made an effort to get my breathing under control again and closed my eyes. To my horror, I started to go a little soft. My eyes flew open.

  She laughed softly. “Not to worry, little man,” and she worked a hand under my balls and ran her fingernail gently along the ridge behind them. I stopped worrying.

  As soon as I was filling out the condom again she lifted herself over me, held my dick, and pointed it under her. She lowered herself onto me, and I swear I nearly lost it right then. Thank God I didn’t, or I’d have missed the rest of what it felt like to be hard and inside her. I tried not to think about what Marty had said, that other guys’ dicks had already been here tonight, and after she’d plunged down hard onto me a few times I couldn’t hold back anymore. All I can say is that it felt nothing like pulling on myself until I’d soiled my sheets at home.

  By the time I was able to stand, she was already dressed again. She pulled a tin bucket lined with plastic out from under the table.

  “Dump it in here.”

  I was glad I’d practiced getting a loaded condom off myself without making a mess, and I did what she said. She stood at the door while I dressed.

  “You did okay, kid. Welcome to manhood.” She yanked open the door and jerked her head for me to exit. Marty was leaning against the opposite wall, but I knew better than to think he’d been there the whole time. I was sure he’d listened, but I didn’t give a shit.

  He punched my arm as he passed me, and the door closed behind him. I didn’t want to listen, so I moved to where he’d been standing. I was just about to sink onto the floor when the door jerked open again. Marty stood there. “I need the rest.”

  “The rest of what?”

  “The other fifty. I thought you’d already given it to her.”

  “I gave her fifty.”

  “Yeah, I get that, so now give me the other fifty.”

  I shook my head, confused. “What other fifty?”

  I could see dark-tipped fingers reach round the edge of the door and try to pull it open, but Marty held it fast. He said, “I told you to bring enough for both of us.”

  “You said to bring fifty. That’s what I brought.”

  He was struggling to hold the door by now. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  Somehow he got the door closed. Now I could hear whether I wanted to or not. “I told you fifty each. Forty won’t cut it. If that’s all you got, then get out. You’re wasting my time.”

  The door opened a crack and got pushed back hard against the jamb. This was getting ugly real fast; was he going to try to force her? I couldn’t let that happen. No matter who had made what mistake, she’d been honest with us and good to me. I started toward the door, and then I heard her scream the name Eric.

  Who’s Eric?

  I was about to reach for the doorknob when someone bounded up the hall toward me. It was a guy the same size and shape as the man she’d stopped to talk to on the sidewalk. The word “Protection” flashed through my mind.

  “Marty!” I yelled. “Get out!”

  Next thing I knew I was thrown so hard against the wall I think the impression of my body must still be there. The door flew open and Marty bounded out.

  “I’m gone!” he shouted. “I’m gone!” Eric did the same thing to him he’d done to me. I grabbed Marty and we stumbled down the hall, practically falling down the flight of stairs as he mumbled, “Why the fuck didn’t I bring the gun?” We’d nearly made it when I heard Eric gaining on us. He must have stopped just long enough to find out from the girl what the problem was.

  We headed toward the Mustang for all we were worth, but of course Marty had locked it. He fumbled for his keys, but Eric got there before he could unlock the door, and he slammed Mar
ty against the car. I took one look at Eric and knew that even together Marty and I couldn’t take him. I ran into the street and started shouting. I’m not sure now what I said, maybe “Help!” and “Police!” Who knows what I yelled. I could hear Eric working Marty over behind me, thudding sounds and grunts, and then nothing but footsteps.

  I went back to Marty. He’d fallen on the ground, his face bleeding, conscious but unable to speak. Suddenly headlights shone full on him, and I could see that his face wasn’t that bad. Probably his ribs took the worst of it.

  The headlights belonged to a police car.

  My first thought was Thank God. My second was Shit. Two cops walked slowly toward us, guns drawn. For all they knew, I’d been involved in getting Marty beat up. I’d never been so scared in my life.

  “Hands on your head and stand up!” one of them shouted at me. I did, but my knees were shaking so hard I wasn’t sure I could stay on my feet. One of the cops held his gun on me while the other felt around me for weapons, I guess. Or a wallet, which I didn’t have on me. He made me lean against the car while he reached into my pockets.

  “No ID? What’s your name, kid?”

  The rest of that evening is a bit of a blur. I managed to blurt out that a large man had beaten my friend. I tried like hell to avoid saying why, but in the search the cop had found my unused condom, and then of course Marty had some. He’d recovered well enough to be able to speak, but he kept insisting he wouldn’t say anything.

  At the station house, they took Marty and me to separate rooms and kept hammering me with questions. Finally they got out of me who I was. One guy left the room to call my folks, though I didn’t know it yet. The only thing I can say for myself is that I didn’t cave until my dad got there. Then it all came out. It felt kind of like the day I’d had to tell him about Chris getting killed, when I could be strong as long as Dad wasn’t there. But once he was, it was like he uncorked something, like I’d been given sodium pentothal, and I spilled my guts. At least I didn’t cry this time.

  Marty wasn’t seriously hurt, and amazingly I didn’t get the belt as a result of this little adventure. But I also didn’t get to ask Jenny out again. Dad made me quit my job at Burger King. He took my driver’s license and my bank passbook away. And I got grounded for the rest of the school year, telephone privileges revoked, TV time severely curtailed. Plus, I had to work at the store on weekends. His store.

  I spent a lot of time over the next couple of months feeling sorry for myself. Sometimes I blamed Marty, first for his bright idea, then for being idiot enough to think I’d pay for him even if he had told me to, which he hadn’t, then for trying to cheat the prostitute. Sometimes I blamed Dad for making me feel like some stupid little kid when what I’d really done was become a man; even the prostitute had said so. Sometimes I blamed myself for being such an idiot, for not knowing that I could get into a shitload of trouble for something stupid when I could have just kept my head down and let Jenny be my first time. For letting Marty talk me into doing it in the first place.

  Sometimes I blamed my mom, not so much because of what happened, but because of her reaction to it: “Your brother would never have done anything like this!” To which I nearly responded, You bet your ass he wouldn’t. He was queer. He’d have done something worse. And in there someplace was more blame for her because she needed me to be Chris.

  And sometimes I blamed Chris.

  I’d sit at my desk, supposedly doing schoolwork, and stare out onto the street. I memorized the branch pattern of the tree in front of our house. I could tell you exactly what time the streetlights started to come on, predicting changes as the days got longer. And I’d think about Chris, and it seemed to me now that maybe once upon a time he’d had to be so good to make up for the bad things I did, and now I had to be a man to make up for him being queer. I blamed him for letting Dad force him into a situation where he ended up dead and leaving me to deal with the mess. And I blamed him for making me keep his secrets. Hell, for just having secrets.

  And I blamed him for pretending to be the man Dad wanted me to be.

  PART III

  Initiation

  Chapter 8

  Grade-wise, I scraped by. Mr. Treadwell and I had a couple of little talks, with him trying to find out what was wrong and me sure as hell I wasn’t going to reveal anything. What business was it of his, anyway? Who was he to me? He wasn’t even a guidance counselor. Sure, he’d been decent, but I’d earned that B in history last semester. Maybe I was barely earning a C now, but that was up to me. He kept trying to tell me that college would be—what were his words? an unfulfilled dream, I think—if I couldn’t get my grades up. I made a bit of an effort toward the end and did well enough on finals to avoid disgracing myself altogether, but it was not gonna be Harvard or Princeton for me in a year. As long as I could go someplace. Get away from here.

  Marty and I managed to recover our friendship, such as it was, at school. He finally agreed—much to my surprise—that maybe he hadn’t been clear about my paying for his romp in the hay, and after trying to make it my fault that the police had shown up he admitted that I couldn’t have known that we wouldn’t end up needing any assistance, or that Eric would just get in a few licks and leave, so even though he caught hell at home for his part in our evening out, he was kind of used to that. Plus he liked making a show of how little it meant to him to have his father mad at him.

  On weekends, at the store, Dad and I talked only as much as we had to. He told me to stack the dog food bags, and that’s what I did. He told me to take inventory of the angelfish, and that’s what I did. I got a tiny salary, which he put directly into the bank account I couldn’t get at. I couldn’t bring myself to speak much to him at home either, and I sure as hell wasn’t gonna ride with him in his car to work and back, so I rode my bike, rain or shine.

  Every once in a while Marty and Kevin would stop in, but unless they showed up on Sunday, Dad’s day off, he usually sent them packing. Once I didn’t know they were there until I heard Marty’s voice shouting, “It’s a free country!”

  Just before school ended, Dad informed me that I’d have to work at the store all summer, and not just on weekends. I nearly threw a fit, but I was pretty beaten down by then and didn’t really have the energy. He also told me I’d have to train the new guy, some kid named JJ O’Neil who’d just graduated high school with all kinds of honors and was headed to Cornell in the fall. Just my kind of guy. I’d seen kids streaming in and out of Dad’s office, interviewing for summer jobs, but I hadn’t paid much attention.

  Sure enough, on the first Monday after school let out for the summer, when I got to work JJ was already there. Brownnoser, I thought to myself, showing up earlier than me on his first day, and it wasn’t like I was late. He was already destined for greatness, according to my dad, so what did he have to prove? Worse still, Dad had made me come in on Monday, which was going to be my one day of the week off, just to train the guy.

  I wheeled my bike through the rear entrance that leads into the stockroom, pushed through the heavy door into the store, braced myself for the wave of smells—bird shit, dog pee covered by antiseptic, fish algae, hamster cage, and two or three things I couldn’t quite name and didn’t really want to—and there he was, hunched over and labeling cans of cat food. All I could see was his back covered by a white short-sleeved shirt and really dark hair on his head. I ignored him.

  First thing I did was try and scout Dad out and avoid him, so that as long as possible I could also avoid him telling me to work with the kid. I listened carefully outside the office door, near the front of the store, and it seemed Carol was in there on the phone. I peeked around the corner. She saw me and beckoned me in while she finished her conversation. I waited patiently. She’d kept on being decent to me, even though I’d bet anything Dad had told her exactly what had happened, why I was suddenly working at the store, and why there was so much dead air between us.

  “Hey, Paul. Did you meet JJ yet?” I shoo
k my head, afraid of what I was about to hear. “You’re in for a treat. He’s a great kid. Smart, too. Your dad’s got him doing cat food at the moment, but he said if I saw you first—stop me if you’ve seen your dad—that you were to introduce yourself and show him how to clean the fish tanks. Do you want to go find JJ, or shall I come with you?”

  Oh well. Guess there’s no avoiding the kid. “No, I’ll find him, thanks. Um, why are you in today? Don’t you have Mondays off?”

  “Just here for the morning, to get the paperwork for the summer help in order.” She gestured toward a couple of folders on the desk. I knew they would contain whatever was needed by way of personnel records. “And you? Don’t you have Mondays off, too? It’s the slowest day of the week.”

  “Dad wanted me to be here for JJ’s first day. Um, by the way, what’s with the name?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “What does ‘JJ’ stand for?”

  “I don’t remember.” She waved a hand, smiled, and then bent over something on the desk. It seemed kind of unlikely she’d have forgotten already—she was working with the personnel files, after all—but I turned and left, wondering what the big secret might be.

  JJ was still where I’d seen him, whipping price tags onto the cans like he’d done it all his life. It wasn’t a tough job, I don’t mean that, but there’s a rhythm you get into that takes a little practice. Practice he obviously didn’t need.

  I stood next to him a minute, waiting to see if he’d notice me. When he saw my sneaker he froze, almost like he was bracing himself for something. Slowly he stood, still looking wary. He tossed the gun into his left hand and looked up at me. He may have been a year older than me, but he was probably two inches shorter. His eyes were really dark, almond shaped, and his features were a little delicate. Almost pretty. Skin was slightly dark. It wasn’t tanned, exactly, but it had color to it. He looked a little exotic, or something.

  When I figured I’d left a little bit of an impression I held out my right hand, and we shook. “I’m Paul Landon.”