by John Inman
Once Dilbert had disappeared into his apartment, after the two gay guys gathered up his belongings and sent him on his way, Boz had slipped across the street and searched the area where Dilbert fell, hoping he might have unintentionally left a belonging or two behind during the turmoil of damn near breaking his neck. If he had, Boz would have delivered the object to Dilbert’s door, knocking politely and handing the belonging over like any good neighbor would, thus wangling himself an introduction to the man of his dreams. But just Boz’s luck, Dilbert had left nothing behind on the street. So another plan would have to be contrived to wangle that long-sought introduction.
Another sigh. Another cookie. Leon’s little feet scraped across Boz’s instep. He was chasing dream bunnies in his sleep.
Boz gazed around his living room and realized for the first time that the sun had sunk behind the city skyline and he was sitting in the dark. He groaned his way upright, heel-walked carefully toward the light switch so he wouldn’t wake Leon, and once the lights were on, limped off into the kitchen to fix himself some dinner.
Heartsore, he stared desultorily into a pan of water while it took its sweet time coming to a boil. When it finally did, he threw in a box of macaroni. With Leon still snoring away on his foot, he watched the macaroni tumble around in the boiling water until the timer went off, then drained the pasta, dumped in the powdered cheese mix, and voila, dinner was served.
He sat at the kitchen table and ate the mac and cheese straight from the pan. While he ate, Boz developed a plan. His heart did a jittery tap dance inside his chest thinking about it, but he was determined.
Tomorrow was the day. Tomorrow he would meet Dilbert Allan Jones.
And come hell or high water, tomorrow he would coax a smile to Dilbert’s sad little face.
He gazed down at his foot and noticed Leon gazing up. His tail was beating a wee tattoo on the floor as he blinked the sleep from his eyes.
Boz smiled down at him while cradling a fresh cup of coffee.
“See, Leon,” Boz crooned while Leon stared up into his face with unmitigated adoration. “I have an ace in the hole that Dilbert Allan Jones doesn’t know about. Something we share, he and I. Something we have so much in common he won’t be able to not fall in love with me.”
Leon tilted his head to the side as if to ask What might that be, pray tell?
Boz just grinned. Then wondering about the lateness of the hour, he tilted his watch toward him so he could check the time and, in the process of doing so, dumped his freshly poured coffee directly into his lap.
“That!” Boz hissed, jumping up and plucking at the crotch of his pants where the hot liquid was soaking through faster than he could escape it. “We’re both clumsy, Leon! That’s what we have in common! We’re both frigging dorks!”
Leon didn’t appear inclined to disagree.
Chapter Three
DILLY’S DAY began at the Retro Record Shoppe on Island Avenue downtown the same way it always did. His aging hippie boss, Puffer Moran, directed him to riffle through several boxes of old LPs that Puffer had purchased at an estate sale the evening before. It never ceased to amaze Dilly that there were actually people out there who would pay good money for these musty old vinyl records. In fact, Puffer slapped such exorbitant prices on some of them, Dilly figured they would never move at all. But those were always the first to go.
Puffer Moran might be stoned most of the time—thus his nickname—but he certainly knew his ’50s music. And it was his music, since Puffer was well into his seventies. He had grown up with this music. It came from his generation. As he liked to tell everyone, whether they were interested or not, rock and roll truly was in his blood. While Dilly might never have heard of Paul and Paula, or The Penguins, or Billy Fury, or a gazillion other ’50s recording artists before he started working at the Retro Record Shoppe, Puffer most certainly had. In fact, Puffer started salivating like a Saint Bernard every time one of their platters found its way through his door.
Puffer stood six foot eight and weighed about as much as Dilly. “Skinny” didn’t begin to describe Puffer Moran. He loped around the shop on those long legs of his, stooped over like a vulture. A thin, sparse, graying ponytail dangled lifelessly down his back, and a perpetual cloud of cannabis smoke wafted about his head. He wore his shirts buttoned all the way to the top, and above that top button Puffer’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down on his long neck, always reminding Dilly of a heron swallowing a frog. Puffer’s beloved rock music was forever thumping through the sound system in the background, and Puffer had a coterie of friends and fellow rock and roll enthusiasts who popped into the shop now and then to share a few joints and jabber on and on about the vinyl business. Or what remained of the vinyl business, since the advent of CDs and streaming had pretty well killed it dead as far as Dilly could see.
Puffer’s greatest area of expertise was one-hit wonders. He knew them all. Chumbawamba. Blind Melon. Norman Greenbaum. And those eternally forgettable classic one-hit-wonder groups like The Vapors, The Knack, and Don and Juan. There were dozens of others too. Soloists, duos, and rock and roll bands, each and every one of whom produced a single song that swept the charts, then disappeared forever, sinking from the public eye without a gurgle. The happiest Dilly had ever seen Puffer was the day Dilly fished a perfectly preserved vinyl platter of Ronald and Ruby’s smash hit, “Lollipop,” out of a box of crappy LPs and 45s resurrected from an estate sale that actually had a petrified mouse sprawled out dead in the bottom of it. The “Lollipop” single was from 1958 and in pristine condition. Even the cover sleeve was flawless. Unstained, without a wrinkle in it.
Puffer took one look at it, let out a whoop, and hoisted Dilly onto his shoulder. He galloped all around the shop, weaving in and out among the aisles with Dilly hanging down his back like a bag of hog feed, screaming to be let down. Dilly had gotten a raise that day. And part of a joint, which made him crave Fritos for the rest of the afternoon. Puffer thought that was so hilarious he actually went out and bought him a bag. Of Fritos, not marijuana. They sat together for hours, Dilly and Puffer, hunkered down on the floor between the last two aisles, giggling, smoking weed, nibbling on Fritos and telling each other the story of their lives. Not that Dilly’s life was anywhere near as interesting as Puffer’s.
Still, an honest-to-God friendship was born that afternoon, and Dilly knew it. Somehow that day, in Puffer’s eyes, Dilly had suddenly surpassed being a simple employee and risen to the exalted rank of weed buddy. Dilly knew this because Puffer told him so. Time and time again. He told him through a haze of wacky-tobacky smoke, with maudlin tears of goodwill streaming down his cheeks. While Puffer leaned in close and breathed Frito breath all over him, proclaiming his newfound dedication, Dilly had laughed so hard he actually peed in his pants, and Puffer had to send him home to change. That too seemed to cement Puffer’s affection for Dilly. Not that there was anything untoward about their relationship. After all, Dilly was in his twenties and Puffer was creeping toward eighty. Plus, Puffer was unashamedly heterosexual, with a string of girlfriends who were as old as he was, or older, and were always stopping by the shop to borrow some weed or a spoonful of Metamucil to keep the mail moving.
No, it was strictly friendship that Dilly unearthed in that old box of records that day. And for that friendship, Dilly remained immensely grateful.
Lately, however, Puffer had been getting into a fatherly mode. Pushing Dilly to get out more. To find someone to share his life with. Lamenting his shop clerk’s lonely existence.
On this particular morning, out of nowhere, Puffer screamed across the shop at Dilly, “You do know you’re gay, right?”
Blood rushed to Dilly’s cheeks as he broke off from the customer who was asking about a particular Flock of Seagulls album. He stormed across the shop to where Puffer was standing hunched over in a cloud of hallucinogens back by the cash register. Puffer had a surprised expression on his wizened old face and a big fat joint hanging from his bottom lip like a fe
nce post about to fall off the back of a truck. He couldn’t seem to understand why Dilly was flapping an angry finger at him as he approached.
Poor Puffer looked positively stricken. “Wha’d I say? Wha’d I say?”
Dilly stopped in front of the counter and shot darts at Puffer through pissed-off eyes. “You’re embarrassing me! Be quiet!”
Puffer blinked, then leaned in close. “Dilly, baby, everybody knows you’re gay. I just wondered if you knew.”
Dilly hissed, still trying to keep his voice down, although he wasn’t sure why since everyone in the shop was already staring at them. “Of course I know I’m gay, Puffer! Jeez!”
Puffer’s eyes were so dilated they looked like two eight balls embedded in his face. Still, somehow he managed to look professorial. “Then I think it’s high time we did something about it. You need a boyfriend.”
Dilly was about to say something cutting and wise beyond his years—he was almost sure he was—but then the little bell over the shop door tinkled, and he and Puffer both turned to see who was coming in off the street.
The young man was small like Dilly. He had brown hair streaked with blond from the California sun. His eyes were such a vivid blue that Dilly immediately wondered if he was wearing colored contacts. Even Puffer seemed mesmerized, staring at the guy as he started browsing through the stacks.
“Go for it,” Puffer whispered, his bony fingers digging holes in Dilly’s forearm. “He looks as gay as you do. Strike up a conversation.”
Dilly wrenched his arm free and rubbed the pain away. He leaned closer and growled at Puffer, “Let’s just leave the guy alone, shall we? He’s trying to shop. Let him browse in peace.”
Puffer wasn’t having it. “He’s not shopping. He came in to cruise you. Look at the way he keeps casting glances your way.”
“You’re crazy,” Dilly groaned. But at that precise moment the young man really did shoot a glance in his direction, and Dilly caught him doing it. Even more oddly, the guy knew he’d been seen and turned a bright crimson red before yanking a whole stack of albums that must have weighted fifty pounds from the rack. He started awkwardly flipping through them to read the back covers, although Dilly was pretty sure the poor guy had no idea what the hell he was looking at… and cared even less.
“Look how cute he blushes,” Puffer hummed in Dilly’s ear. “Move in, or I may fall in love with him myself.”
“Oh, hush!”
Dilly rolled his eyes and walked away. He headed back to the customer he had been dealing with before only to find the customer had gone. He must have grown tired of being ignored and flounced out the door in a huff. Not that Dilly cared. He was about to steer a nervous path toward the new customer with the electric blue eyes because he didn’t know what else to do when he saw that he had been headed off at the pass. Puffer was already schmoozing with the guy, his scrawny head dangling over the young man’s shoulder as they scanned an album cover together and giggled back and forth. Dilly wondered if the new customer was already getting high from Puffer’s second-hand smoke, which would most certainly account for the giggling.
Puffer and the cute customer started whispering to each other, and suddenly Puffer poked his head up like a meerkat. “Oops,” he cried out, “there’s my phone! Dilly!” he screamed, “Come help this young fella while I go get the phone! It might be important! Phones are like that! You never know who’s on the other end!”
The customer turned red again, and this time Dilly turned red too, since they both knew there was no telephone ringing anywhere within a mile and a half.
Shooting Dilly a wily wink, Puffer strolled off to the back of the shop, hooking an imperious thumb in the new guy’s direction, demanding Dilly tend to him ASAP.
Dilly saw that the customer was staring at him expectantly, so he really had no choice but to head his way. As he neared the young man, Dilly became more and more nervous, because the closer he got the more handsome he realized the guy really was. His face was innocent and sweet, his hair sexy as hell, and Dilly really liked the little gay pride bracelet made of beads the guy wore around his slim wrist. By the time they were face-to-face, Dilly’s gaydar was wailing like a tsunami siren.
Shyly, Dilly said, “Hi.”
Much to his surprise, the guy opened his mouth to answer, his lips even formed the word hello, but lo and behold, nothing came out. Not a peep. Only then did he really start to blush. And when he blushed, Dilly blushed yet again.
Finally, the guy found his voice. Staring down at his feet as if seeking courage from his Reeboks, he lifted his eyes and at long last centered them on Dilly’s face.
“Aren’t we a pair?” the young man stammered, all but strangling on the words, his ears the color of cherry Life Savers.
“Don’t I wish,” Dilly almost said out loud. “Don’t I fucking wish.”
Chapter Four
WHEN HIS voice abandoned him, Boz stood with his arms full of those stupid, musty records, which weighed a frigging ton, and damn near died. Literally. He almost collapsed lifeless to the floor, stricken dumb by a rush of sizzling hormones, which the mere nearness of Dilbert Allan Jones had sent squirting through his nervous system, electrifying every niche and crevice in his body. Suddenly it seemed a rash mistake to just stroll into Dilbert’s place of work, which Boz had ferreted out weeks ago by stalking the poor guy. It had taken the intervening weeks to build up the courage to walk through the shop door, and now that he was here, he had already made a fool of himself and was practically frozen stiff in terror and shame.
At that moment, Dilbert Allan Jones stepped closer and, still blushing like crazy, asked softly, “Are you all right? You look a little flushed. Do you need to sit down?”
Boz heard the old guy, the guy that smelled like a pot party, snicker from four aisles back, and somehow that gave him courage. He cleared the blockage in his throat, which felt like a softball. He realized suddenly that he was indeed feeling a little woozy. He prayed to God that all the blood that had rushed into his face would soon start dribbling back down through his neck and begin dispersing some much needed nutrients to his dehydrated organs before they shut down altogether.
“I’m fine,” Boz heard himself say, a lie if there ever was one.
The moment the words were out of his mouth, the stack of LPs he was holding slipped from his grasp. They crashed to the floor and went sliding off in every direction.
He and Dilbert—had the old guy called him Dilly?—both bent to gather up the LPs at the same time and bonked their heads together with a dull, hollow thunk that echoed throughout the store. The old guy in the back muttered, “Jesus,” while he and Dilbert staggered back from each other, each holding their wounded heads in their hands. The next thing Boz knew, they were sneaking embarrassed peeks at each other and trying out a couple of smiles.
“I’m sorry,” Boz muttered, still seeing spots.
“No, I’m sorry,” Dilbert muttered back. “My fault. I bonked into you. You didn’t bonk into me.”
“No, I’m pretty sure it was my fault.”
“No, I’m pretty sure it was mine.”
From twenty feet away, a faint voice grumbled, “For Christ’s sake, it was nobody’s fault. You bonked into each other!” Both Boz and Dilly ignored the voice.
“Is your nickname Dilly?” Boz asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’m Boz,” Boz explained, for lack of anything more intelligent to say.
“Boz,” Dilly said. “I like it. What’s it short for?”
“Bosley.”
Dilly made a face, then immediately shook it off.
Boz got redder. “I know,” he mumbled. “Terrible name.”
Now it was Dilly’s turn to blush again. “No! I didn’t mean that!”
Boz fought back a grin. “They why are you blushing?”
“I’m not blushing.”
“Are you kidding?” Puffer muttered from the back of the store. “Your face is a frigging bloodbath.”
; Dilly tried desperately to drown out Puffer. “My nickname is short for Dilbert.”
Boz tried not to look too sympathetic. “I know.”
Dilly looked up while still gathering up the spilled albums. “How did you know?”
Uh-oh. Boz did a little vocal flailing. “Let me think. Oh, yeah. I think your boss said it.”
“No, he didn’t.”
Boz thought briefly of admitting he had stalked Dilbert’s mailbox for his name and quickly decided against it. “No, I’m sure your boss said it. He yelled your name across the shop floor, in fact. Didn’t you hear him?”
Dilly opened his mouth to argue, then clapped it shut, giving up.
Desperately seeking another subject of conversation to mangle, Boz looked down to study the armload of LPs that were still lying scattered about their feet.
“Does anyone actually buy this stuff?” Boz asked.
And Puffer cried out again, “Hey, you fucking heathen! Those are artistic classics. Gems. Great American treasures!”
A tiny smile touched Dilly’s mouth, which Boz thought was the cutest thing he had ever seen in his life.
“Like Puffer said,” Dilly grinned. “They’re classics. Gems.”
Boz snorted. “And great American treasures.”
“Yeah. That too.”
They shared a smile. “Then I guess we’d better finish picking them up,” Boz said.
“’Bout time,” Puffer groused from the background.
Both Boz and Dilly dropped to their knees again, cleverly avoiding banging their heads together this time, and started gathering up the scattered albums.
