Shelby (15 page)

“Good God. Does Marj still dance?”

“Are you kidding?” she said, lighting a cigarette. “She now juggles her weekdays between volunteering at a youth centre for runaways and eating chocolate cherry bonbons on the couch with her ugly, overweight chihuahua, Peppermint.”

“How cliché and yet fascinating. And you know nothing of their sex life?”

“Okay, Shel … one secret,” she said. “He's hung like a baboon.”

“Is that healthy?”

“I'm kidding. All I can tell you is Marj is a saint. She's got a heart the size of an oil drum.”

There was a pause. “Hey, Lucy?”

“Yeah?”

“I don't want to appear childish,” I said, “and I in no way want to pen you in, but I worry about you when I'm unsure of your whereabouts for extended periods of time.”

“You do?”

“See, I don't have a lot in my life these days; reading, waiting for my calling. Therefore I've fully committed myself to caring for the people close to me—with hopes of expanding that as my confidence grows.”

“Thanks … I didn't know that it worried you. If I would've, I would've filled you in.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Hm … Hey, Lucy?”

“Yeah?”

“Nothing.”

Later that evening while Lucy cooked up a stir-fry, I volunteered to go to Safeway and buy some ice cream for desert. Bouncing up the stairs on the way back, I was startled to hear screaming from the front room. I sprinted into the apartment.

“Lucy!”

“
You
!” Frank yelled the moment our eyes made contact, his as angry as a boil. I braked in mid-stride, the ice cream tumbling from my hands.

“You wife-fuckin' adulteratin' son of a bitch!” he screamed as he lurched towards me from the other side of the room. Lucy attempted to slow him down and got knocked out of the way. I turned and ran, sprinting out of the apartment, diving over the railing and tumbling into a juniper bush. Frank pounded down the porch steps to my left, screaming mean things. And there we were; the hunter and the hunted, galloping into the darkness of that Vancouver night, the sound of traffic and the sea upon us; and there I was, bulldozed to the most basic of instincts, survival, and inches from the most primordial of functions, defecation, all the while yelling:

“We're friends! Just friends!”

In the process of sprinting towards my car I opened up a space between us of perhaps a hundred feet—enough, I presumed, to give me time to get into my car and pull away. Getting the key into the door lock while trembling, however, hadn't been calculated into the equation. Frank closed in quickly. Again I was forced to flee, his desperate breaths now within earshot. Perhaps thirty seconds later and without obvious reason, Frank ended his pursuit. I stopped and turned around to see him walking away. The brute had given up chase. I, the victor, bent over and leaned my hands on my knees, gasping for air, keeping my eyes on him. Just when he reached my car he stopped, glanced to his left, and stared at it. There was at that moment the type of silence that allows a person to hear all their own inner workings; blood flow, peristalsis and so forth. I jumped when, with a god-like
tour de force
, he punched out my driver's side window. He then elbowed in the left back window. Before I could react he climbed onto the hood and in a series of frightening kicks with his gargantuan boots, smashed the front windscreen. My reaction was childlike trembling and a welling of tears. Finally, while staring at me, he unzipped his pants and revealed a penis so large it appeared to have a life of its own. Mesmerised by fear and awe, I watched in silence as he peed through the broken window and all over my seat and dashboard, his massiveness silhouetted by the streetlight behind. At that moment I knew what it felt like to be gelded.

In the days that followed I was so ashamed by what had occurred, I was unable to disclose the truth to anyone. How could a man have his car urinated in by another man and offer no rebuke—and then drive home in it? To myself, I blamed my nondefense of Lucy on the fact that our lack of lovemaking had weakened our pair bond. Although a lie, it didn't come close to what I said to my companions. I told Lucy I pelted Frank with insults until he just gave up. To Eric and the insurance lady, I blamed the damage on unruly teenagers seeking acceptance among their peers. To Gran I made no mention of the violence whatsoever but ventured into the philosophical and asked her: “What does it mean to be a man?” Her reply: “How the hell should I know?”

XI

All that wells up from the depths of the young soul is cast in the old molds, young feelings stiffen in senile works, and instead of rearing itself up in its own creative power, it can only hate the distant power with a hate that grows to be monstrous
.

—
Oswald Spengler

At the Void of Paisley concert on September 16th Eric dropped a Molotov cocktail by telling me he had reason to believe that Bryan was homosexual, and that his anger was probably a result of confusion. Despite my desire to
not
stereotype, I was flabbergasted. Bryan was
so
gruff;
so
big. And yet, ironically, my toosh may be what turned him on.

As for the venue we were playing at, The Big Easy, it rippled with “big hair” women in glossy Spandex pants whose look I would never confess arouses me, but nonetheless does. What is it about wantonness that stirs one's innards and calls to free the individual from sexual constraints? And was this establishment a bastion for ignorance or self-confidence?—for even women with Minnie's dimensions wore form-fitting attire.

To Eric's chagrin the keyboard player never showed up, so essentially we were SMEGMA BOMB! with an alias. An eight-foot banner that Eric designed was suspended at the back of the stage. The words Void of Paisley were cut out of a thick purple paisley material that hung somewhat buckled on a white cotton backdrop. Eric said he used the paisley to emphasize irony. “Pure genius,” was my response. I think he took me seriously.

We were the last band of the night after three heavy metal acts. Eric's opening comment through the microphone was delivered with a roll of the eyes: “I assume you've had enough of
glam
rock!” Midway through the opening song (halfway through the set) the banner fell onto the stage in a crumpled heap. Eric's closing comment through the microphone was: “You're all ugly.” The crowd was punishing.

Suzanne was at the concert and we went for coffee together afterwards. Her critique was forthright: “The band was horrible but I liked your pants”—which were actually Eric's, and ridiculously big. We went back to her parents' house and she showed me a selection of her sculptures, the zenith being a fabulous series of clay figurines entitled
Modern Genetics
. My two favourites were
Fish-tail
and
Plane Jane; Fish-tail
being an old fashioned Chevrolet Oldsmobile that tapered into the back end of a fish,
Plane Jane
a Boeing 747 on top and a faceless nude woman underneath. We chatted on her bed until four in the morning and, to her amazement, I recited select verses from a couple of her favourite poems. Mostly, though, she discussed the impressionists she most respects and her refusal to tolerate relationships that come between her and her art. Upon leaving, an awareness of the chemistry Suzanne and I shared left me mildly guilt-riddled in knowing I was still in some sort of esoterical way committed to Lucy (and indubitably still in love with her). I also knew that continued repression of my sexual urges and an awareness that Frank was thrice my size in every way had affected me enough to speculate on the possibility of other relationships.

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.

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!