Boys of Life (15 page)

Anyway, some mornings I'd be lyin^ in bed and I don't know what would get into Sammy, but he'd brin^ me a cup ot tea on a trav and

n the edge of the bed while I sipped at it. It was like some kind ot joke to me, but I went along with it. I used to imagine we were in some movie where I was this Russian pnnee and Sammy was my faithful servant, and I could almost make it work too, especially on cloudy days when the light was this pale light coming in through those white on

tains that were the walls ot the bedroom, and Netta's opera music was

playing on her cassette player in the so-called other room.

While I'd drink my tea Sammy would thp through the pom mag azines that were always lying around, because Carlos loved pom mag

lon't know where he got them, but he was always brin them home. I thmk Sammy just thought they were really peculiar thing 'i bad but |ust interesting. He*d flip through them

list ihakc his hea Iventun us, these boys," he'd lay.

here?" 1 le'd shorn nu i kid with i dildo

sou I .'. I I they want to be doing that, I wondei'"

Whv did they' Sammy 'd lived through that ghetto I guess nothing

a h\ he was wnh I he ( ompany but nod n in tru lid made

mil* I ' l him. I flunk he always felt

theii Iim^ I thmk he was always thinl

B O Y S O F L I F E □

people he knew who never got a chance to he living their Uvea one u.i\ or the other.

"I guess it makes them feel good," I told him. But it occurred to me—I really didn't know why somebody'd want to do stuff like that when there was this camera watching them. Somehow I'd never thought about there having to he other people around—guys working the cameras, and lights, and everything like that. Suddenly it made whatever those two boys were doing on a bed seem different. It was a job, like they were actors, and they could be good or bad but it was still a job. It was something they were out there doing for the rest of us—so we could watch, whatever the reasons were that we wanted to watch them. And I thought—why not? Why not do it in front of a camera if that was what you needed to go and do. Because I guess I was happy they did. Not that I spent much time jerking off to those magazines. I was never much for looking at porn, though like I said before Carlos could never get enough of it.

"It just breaks my heart," Carlos told me once. He was holding up some magazine called, I don't know, Hotter Than Hot, or something like that—they all had stupid titles. What he was showing me wasn't any different from any of the other pictures, but he said, in that excited voice he sometimes got, "Look at it, look at it—the expression on that kid's face." He thumped the pages. "Right when the blond guy's putting it in him. See how they caught it just like that, that instant when the kid thinks, I'm gonna die. It's too big, I'm not gonna live through this. But he loves it. He loves that feeling of I'm gonna die. See—his eyes're kind of crossed, his mouth's hanging open, you can just hear that ouff! he's moaning when it sinks into him. And they've got it there, just some guy with a camera and he's catching this kind oi death that's happening for this kid—this one single instant that turns him clear as some pane of glass. You're looking all the way down into him, to where he's giving away something he didn't even know he had."

Carlos could get inspired—he'd talk himself into these excited states. It was true, the kid did look kind of shocked, not bored like they usually did in Carlos's magazines. But still, it was just some guy getting fucked. Carlos was always seeing things I never could, even in some stupid pom magazine.

"My God," Carlos went on, like it was something he was trying out for the first time, like it'd been lying there under his nose all along and he never noticed it. "Do you realize what we could learn from all that? I mean, for really getting the truth about somebody. That instant

□ PAUL RUSSELL

when some cock's going into them and they just give everything away. A single look. That's what's real—not all this posing around, hut that one real second when you think you're going to die. That's a true self, that second there. It's too scary even to look at. You could go to jail for the right kind of picture like that, and everybody knows it. It's why everybody's so scared and no good."

I lay there on the bed and just looked at him. He knew I thought he was peculiar.

"It's an idea," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "You have all these ideas," I told him. It was why he sometimes wore that black headband, I thought—to keep all those ideas from exploding.

"Yeah, I do," he said. "And tor what.' Who cares about am ot this. 7 " He let go of the magazine that just a minute ago he'd been holding like it was the greatest thing, and it tell on the floor. "Why make movies," he said, "or porn magazines, or anything?' 1 He sounded sad. I just sat there, my eyes locked on his. 1 knew he didn't want me HSWer his question. With his hand he reached down under t lull and closed around my dick that was hard tor him. "It's because this won't last," he said. He pushed rlu iside

and leaned forward and put my dick into his mouth. Then there he

was, slurping away, like the nois^ Sammy made with his tomatoes.

If his question was going to have any kind ot answer, 1 guess thai it. I guess there's some reason win 1 Started out talking about my and ended up talking about Carlos. Sauuuv would sit there on

the side of the bed while 1 sipped tlu tea he'd brought me. He'd turn those porn magazines this w.n and thai way, like he was trying to figure out something, and i ce In .» while he'd ^»\ something like.

n tins bed, .uul three heads and three impolite thingi and six U-g s and seven arms. No* can you tell me whj is thai I toes thai evei happen to you?"

D PAULRUSSELL

editing. They'd be hanging In long itripi from a clothesline. I'd take them down and ipool them through the viewtinder fot ten or twenty

nda o( nun ie action till it ran out.

It was something to tee myself there me and Sammy carrying on, rimnu' with each other out on the streets and so cold the breath coming

OUt oi our mouths was like talkdmhhles in B COmi( strip. Wh.it it made

me remember was something 1 hadn't thought about In \ears. When 1 was .» kid—1 think I might've mentioned this we didn't have .» TV set. So what I'd do Instead was, I'd go through the runny papers on Sunday, the enlur ones, and cut out the ones 1 liked—Dick Ti

Snuffy Smith, Li'l Ahner. I'd paste them unto a long ^trip oi pa|\ yOU COuld watch them like .1 movie. 1 even made a little DOX, with two

wooden sewing spools you could thread the strip oi paper onto, and .»

Window CUt In the box that was like a screen. When you rolled the

spools, each frame oi the comic strip moved by the window. You could

it each one and look at it, and then go on t<> the next.

I mUSt've been ten when 1 made that, and I was pretty proud ot

u. 1 made a show i>t watching mv movies, and how Interesting it was, hut 1 never could get anybody else to pay attention. I'd set up special showings, march around the house announcing to everybody, conu I >u k rracy at the movies, three o'clock. And I'd set everything u] the kitchen table ready to go, but when three o'clock came, nobody was then Maybe my mom and dad weren kbotH

me i ut hom we didn't have a TV, But led should've liked it

It was tor him as mu

It was iM tu thmk I md no* here 1 was making

real movies. I'd sit on i stool and watch Seth and Carlos putting the

rent i lipi togethei which, to tell the truth, was about as Interest

rloS knew th \[ i\," he'd

• outta here You're drivin

tchil I told him

ly, it there were plants m md wilt. "Non m ram (lo bothet Vet

i lived in this apartment about tn< blocks from the collet

•

told me "Anything Inst don't let l»«

And with that, and i laugh, h(

D MO

B O F . D

me out the J .ilU I was glad to go I loved being in thai room

with Carlos, watching him vlo his work, seeing ho* careful he was when

inch oi the time it could seem like he was the most careless person

met. It was one more ot those things that tillovl in the blanks

tor me At the same time. 1 could onl) ^u there and watch him edit long after that, 1 was happ\ to know there was work going on, and one ^ia\ thete'd be s movie out oi it,

rbena's apartment was this ding) place filled with pot plants some scheme she had going with Seth to grow plants indoors and >ell them. She had the windows blacked out. and tin toil and mirrors all the walls, and bright lights set up to shine on the plants Carlos said she'd figured out some wa) to Meal electricity from Con Ed the\ had no idea her apartment w.is even hooked up to them ["here must've been twenty five plants in there, so main they hlleJ up almost the whole room. Actually it was sort ot great looking, like being in some jungle. And \er\ warm and humid.

bena was sitting .it a table listening to the radio, some preacher raving on about the rapture how when u came, those that were saved would nist disapp< tan driving i bus, or ■ pilot frying .1 plane

The preaeher was laughing this big belly laugh to think ot all the plane

ihes and bus crashes the rapture w.is going to cause "How can you listen to shit like that?" I asked her "1 like the melody," she said. She held this painted tan and was fianning herself and sweating all ovei She had on these hi sweatpants and .« bra her heasts looked the sise of New |ersey it least I hadn't been to visit her in about a month Whenevei I saw her,

she always pretended not to remember im name At le.ist 1 thought it

w.is pretend.

1 on\." 1 told her. "Shy girl,*' she said, "I Seen SO main white DOV3 in m\ time the\ all look alike. But I'm happy tO See yOU. I was Itching to get out of

'* Where're wt I asked her. The idea of being seen around

klyn with Verbena w.isn't totally my thii

the root.'' she said. "It we «. .in m.ike it th.it far. 1 he ele\ StOI 's

broke. But we can rest on the landin

"What's v>n the roof

She smiled, that big gap toothed smile o\ hers th.u w.is the ugliest thing, sou had to love it. She wrapped herself in this flowery robe and

we were re.ul\

□ PAUL RUSSELL

It took forever, what with stopping every flight up: but in that building of hers, even that could be interesting. On one floor, this little black kid came tearing toward us down the hall. Then all of a Midden he just tell down. He didn't make a noise, he just tell down, and when I looked I saw whv he tell down—he was wearing two lett shoes, both of them about five sizes too big.

Verbena leaned with her weight against the metal door at the top ot the stairs—it gave way into bright sunlight, and there we were on

the root. Somebody else was already up there.

"T.J." Verbena called to this tall black guv—really tall, like seven

feet. He was standing in front of a tar-papered shed. On the roof ot the

shed were about a hundred pigeons, all standing there crowded together.

T.J. was cooing at them and they were cooing back, all ot them cocking their heads in his direction while he talked pigeon talk to them.

"Hey," he said tO US. "Ya'll just in time to see us slap off."

"What.'" I said.

He picked up this bamboo pole with a red tlag on the end ot it and waxed it through the air. It was like this explosion —a hundred pigeons all flying up in the air .it the same time.

It w.is a ship ofl .ill right.

T.J. lumped up on the root ot the shed where the pigeOfU had been and started making these sharp cries, not the sofi ones he WH Jon, : waving his flag around in these S shapes I he birds

went up and up—it w and then the\ started hooking around

in "s jutl hke T.J. was making with his flag. I ne\ er saw anything like It. The\ went up as tar as \ou COuld ie€, almost till the\ weie out ot

siLihr. It i helicopter fh. r, and they were up even farthei

than it. I 1 waving hai flag and lumped down ofl the shed.

It must kind ot signal. All those buds came ipiraling

n. like w.itet tunneling down •■ drain, like that shed was the

funneling right to It. In halt a minute it was like

there In the ilq at .ill tb in throug

.IK in rho sh,

M'. ating like m i H hi* >rn m

.s .1 Bne i ty, II taid " think

"It was .1 • Id him

i.t\ D M2

B O Y S O F L I F E □

"King Kong?"

"This guy who lofb birds about five blocks over. He's goi such .1 huge flock, I call him King Kong. Bur I'm ripping away at him. 1 got m\ nppcrs this past month."

"I'm totally in the dark," 1 said.

1 thought to myself, what am 1 doing standing hero on this root in the middle oJ New York with two black people and a hundred pigeons? What would Ted say to that, or anybody back in Owen? Not that 1 was ashamed to be hanging around with black people—I just couldn't get i^ed to the thought or it. I told myself these black people weren't like the ones in Owen. Though maybe they were. I'd never hung around

with any of the Macks in Owen.

Just then T.J. gave a shout, and Verhena did too—I looked to see what it was, hut couldn't see a thing.

"Over there," Verbena pointed.

"What. 1 " I shouted. The two ot them were so excited, I didn't want to miss whatever it was I was supposed to be seeing. With a big whoosh, all T.J.'s pigeons lifted off the roof into the sky. The instant they did that, I saw what it was Verbena was pointing to. From a root way otf in the durance, this other tlock of pigeons had taken off. They went rising up in a black cloud, changing shape all the time like a soap bubble does when it tloats, sometimes drawing way out and other times shrinking close hack into itself.