The Wild Boys (12 page)

“You someplace?”

“They call me the Frisco Kid. I’m out Front Street Nome Alaska 1898.”

“To stay?”

“No. Just got here. Want to.”

I give you for that belated morning man about twenty-three kerosene lamp on a sea chest. Smile through me then I looked at room 18 been there might have seen peeling my breath in the tarnished mirror someone comes in and sits down my crotch feeling the ache in my crotch stiff pulsing against his leg. Shoved his finger in and out I saw the fingernail shiny with dirt under it. Shoved his shorts down we lay there side by side naked he reached over and slid his hand down my stomach and felt it tight and aching when I touched him electric shiver same size same feel feeling myself. Nodded “Sure”

He said “Why waste money on a whore?”

Turned back the bed and spit into his hand pressure I
breathe cold air the snow was drifting here and there a white crust had formed on the window the wash stand the mirror.

“Like to turn in if it’s all right with you.” Shoved his shorts off stood there with nothing on stale flesh off the blankets and felt it slide in silver flash behind the eyes bright cold sunlight in the room every object sharp and clear. I took in the clothes streaked with rust the ache in my groin feeling a leg warm against it his pale smile spit on my ass on my side facing the wall sliding in tarnished sunlight I sighed and moved with it stiff he opened his eyes and looked where I could see he wasn’t there really pale eyes looking down his leg.

“Call me the Frisco Kid. I’m out. Just got here. Want to.” Whiff of breath belated morning the Frisco Kid’s legs used out and finished pale. I could see through him my cock was up under the covers he smiled finger in and out going to turn me too smell peeling old places tarnished mirror shiver down my spine and through the crotch a white crust had formed on his leg.

“If it’s all right with you” and stood there with nothing on the room was warm and I saw a wood stove. He walked over and threw in a log and put a kettle on the stove. He hung his coat on a wooden peg and I did the same. He sat down on the bed and pulled his boots off and I did the same. He took off his shirt and hung it up pulled down his trousers. He took the kettle off the stove and poured hot water in the copper-luster wash basin. He rubbed soap over his face and neck and dried himself standing in front of the mirror. He peeled off his socks and there was a smell of feet and soap in the room. He put the basin on the floor and washed his feet.

“Wash?”

“Sure.”

He tossed me the towel and I dried myself.

“Warm in here” he said. He took off his long grey underwear matter of factly and hung it over his shirt. “If it’s all right with you.” He turned to me naked. He stood there and scratched his ass looking at me pale eyes touching me down my chest and stomach to the crotch and looking at him I could see his genitals were the same size and shape as mine he was seeing the same thing. We were standing a few feet apart looking at each other and I felt the blood rush to my crotch it was getting stiff I couldn’t stop it his pale smile we stood there now both stiff looking at identical erections. We sat down on the edge of the bed. He made a fist and shoved his finger in and out. “That all right with you?” I nodded. He stood up and went to the wardrobe and came back with a tin of grease. He got on the bed and kneeled and made a motion with his hands pulling them in. I turned toward him on all fours he rubbed the grease in slow pressure and we were twisting he was pulling me up on my knees and shoving me down his hand on my eggs when I came there was a silver flash behind the eyes and I blacked out sort of there was a tarnished mirror over it stiff I looked at him his shorts stood out and I felt it naked.

“You figure to do?”

“I’m not here long.”

Felt it tight and aching shiver down the spine.

“Why waste money on a whore?”

Shuddering gasps my groin shot pictures lawn streets

sunlight faces a pale leg.

“Want to?”

Slow touching me down my chest genital smell peeling with nothing on the room was warm we stood there both stiff as wood.

In front of the basin and rubbed soap he turned to me and finished.

Rubbed his leg across my stomach to the crotch smiled finger in and out.

“All right with you?”

Getting stiff I couldn’t stop it he peeled the bed “With you?” I nodded. “Just got here. Want to. Warm in here with you.”

Shuddering off flash behind the eyes sunlight faces that’s us all right in the mirror stiff standing by the wash basin wasn’t there really. The Frisco Kid he never returns. In life used address I give you for that belated morning.

+ “ “ Billy the Kid said: “
Quién es
?” Pat Garrett killed him. Jesse James said: “That picture’s awful dusty.” He got on a chair to dust off the death of Stonewall Jackson. Bob Ford killed him. Dutch Schultz said: “I want to pay. Let them leave me alone.” He died two hours later without saying anything else.

+ “ “ Sardine can cut open with scissors shoehorn has been used as spoon … dirty sock in a plate of moldy beans … toothpaste smear on wash stand glass … cigarette butt ground out in cold scrambled eggs …

+ “ “ The old broken point of origin St Louis Missouri … lawn sprinklers summer golf course … iced tea and fried chicken at The Green Inn … classrooms silver stars … dust of young hand fading flickering
thighs and buttocks made machine-gun noises as he came … “Look the Milky Way” … “But that was long ago and now my inspiration is in the stardust of the sky” … dim jerky faraway stars the drawer stuck his distant hand there it is just to my shoulder.

+ “ “ Wife waves as her husband takes off in an autogiro. The sky is full of them. She gives orders to a robot that does the housework. In shattered cities muttering cripples pick through garbage.

“We set out Friday, April 23, 1976.”

“June 25, 1988 Casablanca 4
P.M
. A rundown suburban street.”

“April 3, 1989 Marrakech … unlighted streets carriages with carbide lamps. It looks like an 1890 print from some explorer’s travel book.”

+ “ “ Clocks strike the hour. Seasons change. New Year revelers sing “Auld Lang Syne.” Bell rings. Fighters go to their corners. Referee with stop watch ends soccer game.

+ “ “ Tissue, minerals, wood seen through electron microscope.

+ “ “ Stars and space seen through telescope.

+ “ “ Distant 1920 wind and dust.

There is something special for me about golf courses something that is supposed to happen there. I remember the golf course in Tangier but it didn’t happen there. I remember a room where the lights wouldn’t turn on and later in Mexico City I see myself standing on a street under dusty trees, and through the trees and some telephone wires the Mexican sky so blue it hurts to look. I see myself streaking across the sky like a star to leave the earth forever. What holds me back? It is the bargain by which I am here at all. The bargain is this body that holds me here. I am fourteen years old a thin blond boy with pale blue eyes. My mind moves from one object to another in a series of blank factual stops. I am standing now in front of the country club. There is a doorman. I stand there until he no longer
pays me any attention. If I stand somewhere long enough people stop looking at me and I can walk by them. People stop looking at me and then I can. The women in the market call me
”El Niño Muerto” “The Dead Child
” and cross themselves when I pass. I do not like the women young or old. I do not even like female animals and bitch dogs growl and whine at sight of me. I stand there under a dusty tree and wait. The members are walking in and out. Inside the gates is a building and beyond that the golf course. I want to get into the golf course but there is no hurry. A man sees me as he passes. He is looking not at me but around the edges drawing me out of the air. He stops and asks me if I want a sandwich. I tell him yes and he takes me inside where I sit at a table under vine trellises and he orders a sandwich and an orange drink.

(I buy the dead child a sandwich. An American boy here alone. Listen I made a wrong move finding that golf course to say sir and pretend to be the dead child. Way was blocked of course.)

The drink is very cold in my throat. I sit there and say nothing. There are several other men at the table. I can see the fuzzy word bits they call their “problems.” I have no problems. I am supposed to reach the golf course to get into the golf course and through the trees. I remember a room beyond that golf course I want. A little shiny ball drifts out of my head and nudges the underside of the vine trellis like a balloon trying to fly up into the sky but a thin thread always holds it back. I am outside now. It is hot. The stranger has given me some money. There is a soda kiosk outside the gates
where I buy another orange drink. Other orange drink. I am sleepy. I look around for a place to sleep. I find a corner where there are little round stones against the walls. Round stones are good to sleep on almost like sand. I make myself a place and leaning my knees against the wall fall asleep. When I wake up the stones are cool under my shirt. A man is standing over me. He is pink-faced and peevish. He asks me if I am a caddy. His caddy isn’t here and he wants to know what kind of a club this is where he comes from clubs are run right. Yes I tell him I am a caddy. “Well then come along” he says. The doorman stops us. I am not a caddy of the club. The man argues. The doorman says we will have to clear it with the steward. Then we pass. The steward doesn’t care. He gives me an armband with a little brass disk and number. I am 18. The man is not able to knock the ball far and can’t see where it has gone. I find his balls for him right away. And he says I am the best caddy he ever had and what is an American boy doing here alone? I tell him I am an orphan which is a lie and he gives me twenty pesos. After the man has gone into the clubhouse I find my way blocked by several Mexican caddies.

“Bueno, gringo
…
La plata
.”

Before my father started using morphine again he sent me to a Japanese person to learn something called Karate. I learn these things fast because I am blank inside, and I have no special way of moving or doing things so one way is the same to me as another. The Japanese man said I was the best student he ever had. He had a shower in his studio and in the shower he rubbed soap between my legs to look at what happens between my legs when a white juice spurts out. If I promised not to tell anyone he would teach me all the
secrets he never showed other students. What happens between my legs is like a cold drink to me, it is just a feeling cold round stones against my back sunshine and shadow of Mexico. I know that other people think of it as something special to do with how they feel about someone else and there is a word love that means nothing to me at all. It is just a feeling between the legs, a sort of tingle.

The boy is there in front of me making a scene he saw in some movie. He is talking out of the corner of his mouth. He spits. I flip the back of my fist to his nose and blood spurts out. He covers his face and I punch him in the stomach. He falls down and lies there trying to get the air back. It is a long time coming and he is blue in the face before he can breathe again. When I come back next day a boy seventeen years old and nice to look at with white teeth and very red gums says that I am his pal and nobody will bother his pal. I am glad of that because what I am here for has nothing to do with that kind of fighting that dogs do and there is not much difference between people and dogs. I am not a person and I am not an animal. There is something I am here for something that I have to do before I can go. That day I caddy for an American colonel who tells me about keeping my eyes on the ball in life and on the golf course and life is a game and you have to keep your eyes on the ball and keeps telling me the ball is over here and when I find it over there he doesn’t like it as if the ball should be where he thinks it is when the ball is someplace else. I am careful to say sir to him and pretend to listen, but I made a wrong move finding the balls too quick and he gives me a very small tip. After that I learn not to find the ball too quick and let the
player think he has found it himself. And I get bigger tips and save the money. I don’t like to go home. My father is taking morphine and always tying up his arm and talking to this old junky who has a government scrip and mother drinks tequila all day and there are kerosene heaters that smoke and the smell of kerosene in the cold blue morning. I rent a room near the club and stop going home at all. Now that I have more time to myself I can see what holds me back. It is not a thread like I thought a thin thread that holds a toy balloon a thread that might break and let me blow away across the sky. It is a net that is sometimes close around me and sometimes in the sky stretched between trees and telephone poles and buildings but always around me and I am always under it.

(Way is blocked beyond that golf course. Hands tingle. Morning legs in Mexico cool under my shirt. Standing there under a dusty tree hot white juice spurts out on the golf course. It is a feeling by which I am here at all.)

One afternoon I am in the shed where we change and take showers. The boy who said I was his pal is there. The others have gone because it is a fiesta. The boy has his shirt off and his skin is smooth like polished brown wood. He peels an orange and the smell of orange fills the shed. He breaks the orange in two and gives me half and pulls me down to sit beside him on the bench. He finishes the orange and licks his fingers. Then he puts his arms around my shoulders and I can see his pants are sticking up between his legs.

“Yo muy caliente, Johnny
. Very hot.” He rubs his face against mine.
“Quiero follarte
.”

His body is warm like an animal and I feel a soft tingle in my stomach and I say
“Muy bueno
.” We take off our
clothes. The boy has two blue roses tattooed on each side of his rump. There is a musk smell from his tight brown nuts. He brings out a little tin of Vaseline he carries in his hip pocket because sometimes he would fuck a tourist for money he has always carried it. I take the tin and rub Vaseline on his cock feeling it jump in my hand like a frog he is standing there teeth bared gasping …
“Vuelvete y aganchete Johnny
… I turn around and bend over hands braced on knees and let myself go limp inside as he slides it in I could see out through a little dusty window the golf course and the sun on the lake like bits of silver paper, and when I spurt the golf course seems to stretch out and then snap back pulling my eggs together and I am spurting out the trees and the grass and the lake. Silver spots boil in front of my eyes and the window blacks out.