What We Do Is Secret (9 page)

19

Tim and David’s room is one door down and isn’t that amazing smells like popcorn popcorn popcorn and what kind of perfume, Squid wants to know.

“‘Promise her anything,’” Tim sings out. “ ‘But give her Arpège.’ ”

“My mama wore that,” Squid says. “I’d recognize it anywhere.”

She actually has a family that she remembers, and they even sent her a present through Greyhound will-call for her birthday. A dress. Or “sundress” according to Squid. She ended up giving it to Su Tissue of Suburban Lawns, who wore it onstage. Later I heard Kickboy wrote up the gig for
Slash
and said more about the dress than the band.

While we’re settling onto the bed and around it on the matted shag carpet David offers us Cokes and I ask if there’s Pepsi, not thinking. Everybody laughs but me, and it takes awhile, but finally I get the joke. I know one thing though, if I was them I’d have made the switch by now. I’d have switched right there in Atlanta. That fuckin museum wouldn’t even let them in for free.

I don’t say anything though. I’m sitting at the foot of the bed, legs stretched out on the carpet, leaning back against the mattress with the cardboard carrier box for the mice in my lap. I feel them scratching around in there, scratching around in the dark.

Tim asks Blitzer about the studs on the shoulders of his leather, the swirly ones.

“They’re called chocolate chips. They’re from London. This was Darby’s jacket. He put them on last year, when he went to England.”

It was just a year ago. Right at this time. A year exactly. I remember listening on KROQ to the long-distance interview he did with Rodney. Nobody over there knew who Darby was. He carried the
G.I.
record around under his arm and played it for people. They all thought it was too fast.

Darby said.

Anybody that wants to get in touch with me can get in touch with
me like through Michelle. Like if Rory wants to get in touch with me,
or Blitzer, or Rockets, or Tony, if he could get in touch with me before
he goes to jail.

And how ranking was that, Darby naming us on the radio to all those jacks and all those jills? Especially since it wasn’t that long after Michelle stood in for Tony in that scene for
The
Decline.

Though actually she stood in for Rory Dolores, if you want the whole and nothing but. After Darby decided Tony would make him look bad, he asked Rory to do it instead, and I was over there when Tony found out. Tony laughed at Darby and said, “Oh, you don’t want me to be in it, but you want this blond-haired freak to be in it? Not only are you gonna look just as gay as if I was in it, but you’re gonna look like a gay dude with a hideous, acne-scarred freak for a boyfriend!”

And Tony he actually listened to sometimes, so then he asked Michelle. But just a few weeks later Darby was name-checking his boys on
Rodney on the Roq
. So maybe it finally hit him.

That you can’t keep a secret that isn’t one anyways.

David starts station-surfing the radio for punker mood music, and Siouxsie tells him he’s wasting his time, real punk isn’t played on the radio.

“Really?” Tim says. “But how do you know who the stars are?”

At first we shop-talk Poseur and Vinyl Fetish and Zed Records, then scene-check back in the day at the Masque and the Starwood and Blackie’s and the Hong Kong Cafe till finally Siouxsie says the magic words.

“We know who they are because we know them personally.”

And you don’t need the Amazing Kreskin to read their minds, if they can’t be stars themselves, why not settle for knowing some?

Hell.

Fuckin.

Na.

Goodbye Judy, hello Darby.

It’s 1980, can’t you afford a fuckin haircut?

Only
The Decline
was last year, so they don’t just want haircuts, they want this year’s model, they want Atlantic Blue like Siouxsie, On Fire Fuchsia like Squid.

“And that boy next door,” Tim says. “What were the streaks?”

“Aubergine,” Siouxsie says.

“And platinum! I loved his look.”

“Among other things,” Blitzer mutters. He starts massaging my shoulders.

“Well, it’s best to dye—” Squid says, then laughs and tells Tim and David it must be catching, she hopes it isn’t terminal, their “to-die” disease.

“Anyway, darlin’s, you want to color before you cut, if you really want to color. Poseur’s fully stocked, and they’re still open.”

David asks how far it is.

“Within walking,” Squid says.

And Tim’s boots, rumor has it, are made for just that.

“So that’s just what they’ll do!”

After the briefest little visit to the powder room.

When he’s finished powdering whatever he powders Blitzer asks if they mind if him and me just kick it here. And Tim and David don’t mind at all. Or so they say. From the way they say it I bet they mind, all right. They mind not being here to watch.

Blitzer follows them doorwards, though he doesn’t lock it behind them, just stands there waiting then walks out too. He’s back in three or four. He locks the deadbolt and starts searching the closet. I ask where he went.

“Next door.”

“Why?”

“I left something.”

“Did you do anything mean to Rory?”

He says he channel-surfed the TV to a showing of a movie called
Shaft
. What hey, how fuckin appropriate. And how spun is Rory’s whirled tonight, anyways? There’s the open door policy, what the fuck is up with that? Then there’s the deal with his boots. He couldn’t get his clothes off and keep his boots on, so he must have put them back on. Maybe for the trick, and whatever his sick little trip was. Or is.

I say maybe Rory was wasted and decided to leave when the trick went down for the count and he got his boots laced then remembered he was naked and just thought Fuck it and passed out cold.

Blitzer laughs and says any which ways we couldn’t have planned it better ourselves, getting T and D all riled over Rotten Rory.

“How’s that?”

“Because they’re thinking one thing right now, and one thing only, we can get them in the groove and hook them up with dudes like Rory.”

“But they can’t be punks, Blitzer. They’re way too big of fags.”

“We know that, but they don’t. They think the whole scene’s one big homo clusterfuck, based on what they’ve seen.”

“But sooner or later—”

“They’ll figure it out. Right now they’re Silly Putty in our hands. We get ’em frying and point ’em at some punk boys and they’ll forget everything, their room, their van, they’ll forget—”

What hey.

He shakes something, muffled inside metal.

How fuckin clever.

He takes a sudden whistling breath.

How fuckin fuckin clever.

Traveler’s checks in the fake Coke can that’s mixed in with the real ones on the shelf in the closet.

Three thousand dollars in traveler’s checks.

Three thousand dollars in UNSIGNED traveler’s checks.

Not so fuckin clever.

Just fuckin fuckin ranking cool.

He dives on the bed and drops his head down over the edge by mine, then huggy-bears me with his arms and pulls me onto the mattress. He kisses the back of my neck.

“It’s the real thing, Rocketman.”

I’m still sitting facing away, with Blitzer on his knees behind me. He smells like leather and cloves. He links his fingers in mine and raises my arms over my head.

And who do I think of?

The Dog Groomer to the Stars.

How fuckin romantic.

He pulls his Circle One up over my head.

But not like you know who.

Faster.

I try to smell myself.

Neutral, I guess. Not bad. A little like Jell-O.

His hands don’t shake.

He doesn’t hold the shirt with all his fingers so none touch my skin.

His fingers touch me.

Everywhere.

Too gently.

He drops the shirt on the bed.

“Something’s wrong,” he says. “Tell me what it is.”

He moves out from behind me and presses me down on my back on the mattress with his hand on my chest.

“Talk to me, Rocketman.”

His fingers.

“They can get those checks replaced?”

Loosen my belt.

“That’s why they’re traveler’s checks.”

Work my top button open.

“What’s up with V-13, anyways?”

Pop my fly buttons.

“I snaked them for a little Desoxyn, like a quarter, but somebody else snaked them for a lot, like a roll. They must have mixed us up. It’s like mistaken identity. Pretty soon they’ll figure it out.”

Tug my jeans and shorts.

“Is there a scene in Idaho?”

Pull them down my hips.

“If there isn’t we’ll make one.”

His fingers fingers fingers.

Move to where to there and then to.

There.

Too gently.

Lips follow, circle check, left nipple, circle check, right nipple, lips follow, singing.

Sex Pistols.

“Submission.”

I’m on a submarine mission for you baby
.

Lips follow, circle check, belly button, lips follow, singing.

I can’t get enough of your watery—

Drown, drown, down, down, hands follow, his, lifting me, legs follow, mine, lips follow, his, circle check.

There.

Not gently.

Yes.

Darby said.

And you can swim, and it’s so great ’cause it’s dark, you know,
and you can just swim and it doesn’t matter if you live or die or anything.

And it’s dark, and it hurts, and I’m yes. The poison in the, yes. The future, yes. What I can’t tell, yes. The look on my face, if I could only, yes. I know and I can and I wonder, sex boy, was I ever, the slave, am I still, uncontaminated?

All this started with words from songs.

20

Afterwards water runs quivers of rivers between us. Except where there’s nothing between us. Soap, maybe. Standing behind me in the shower Blitzer shows me with my hands how my chest isn’t flat like I claim it is. Curves are detectable. He says at least the cops went easier on me than Rory, my bruises aren’t as bad as his, and mine are looking better now too.

The old ones anyways.

He won’t let me dry myself. He wants to do it for me. He tells me to shake my head like a dog.

I think of Dogboy and for the first time ever I wonder, What if I just went back? It’s only a bus ride. But I can’t go back. There’s nobody there I know. And I was nobody there myself. I just listened to tapes and kicked it in the library. I had no friends.

He towels my hair. He says we’ll go to the Hollywood sign, and I can free the mice. Then to Vicious Circle at the Vex to sell the tabs, we only need a couple apiece for Tim and David, a couple for Squid and Siouxsie, we can move the rest at Oki’s easy, all the HB crowd will be out after.

“How much a tab?”

“Five bucks.”

“That seems like a lot.”

But he’s all, Not to those boys. And when I do the math, if we sell ninety, that’s four-fifty, and I’ve still got almost twentyfive. So with the traveler’s checks, it’s like money to burn. I tell him we could just buy bus tickets to Idaho, and forget about the van.

“We can’t live on the bus once we get there. We have to get off.”

He smooths my eyebrows with a corner of the towel.

“What hey, if we take their money we might as well take their van. It’s insured anyways.”

“I just don’t like getting caught up in shit.”

“We won’t get caught in any way, shape, or form. I’m not stupid. You’re not, either. You’re smart.”

He kneels behind me drying my legs.

“I told you, earlier. That’s one thing I like about you.”

He stands back up, one hand’s fingers leading the way, tracing circles up my leg, my inner thigh, farther, there.

“So is that,” he says in my ear.

“My worst fear is like ending up in a boys’ home.”

He says I won’t. I say what about getting Rory in on the party, so we won’t be the only ones who could have jacked the checks. Like we could maybe just pay him to trick with Tim and David while they’re frying, we already know they like him, so giving them alone time could be camo for our getaway.

“And at least that way they’d get laid.”

Blitzer laughs like there’s nitrous pumping through the showerhead. Finally he asks how much cash I’ve got left, total, after buying the mice.

“Twenty-three and change.”

And he goes off again, then sits down hard on the toilet seat, catching his breath.

“What’s so funny?”

“That it’s even a possibility. In your mind. Because you’re Rory’s friend. You know him. So it
is
a possibility. That he’d turn an all-nighter, one on two, two fuckin flamers from the hottest part of homo hell, for twenty-three and change.”

“But I don’t think he would.”

“But he might,” he snorts. “He might.”

It turns out I’m off the frequency, till we sell the L we won’t have any cash at all besides what’s in my pocket, and he reminds me twenty of that I’m holding for Squid and Siouxsie, since Blitzer promised them ten apiece of the fifty Tim and David already flowed that he put in on the tabs. So there’s actually more like three and change in the Rory rent-boy fund. And no way do we jack the checks here and now, because what if we do and the first order of business when they walk-right-in-sit-right-down is Coca-Cola inventory? What do we do then? Go Johny-hit-and-run-Paulene on the dudes? Get all violent?

And I’m all, Okay, got it. But the whole thing seems kind of Darby-like. Telling you how smart you are, then showing how your way of doing something could lead to exactly what you don’t want happening in the first place, or worse. Building you up, tearing you down. Making a scene to put you in your place, and keep you there.

Mind control.

How fun.

Though maybe it’s the speed, you do get paranoid. Either way it’s theories, making my head hurt. And I don’t want to think.

“I want to shave.”

“You do?”

“Squid called me a Norelco virgin. So I better lose that one tonight too.”

He helps me and when he’s finished he says I look great.

“You were great, too.”

He presses full-body hard against me.

“The way you—yeah. Your fuckin—yeah. When I—yeah.”

The lock starts turning in the outer door.

But the deadbolt.

He takes the towel for package camo and goes out to play doorman. And it’s so max vol suddenly with Tim and David shrieking about fabulous this and to-die-for that it sounds like New Year’s and Mardi Gras combined, it’s almost like they brought more people back, I even think I hear Hellin’s voice. But when Blitzer comes back he says no more youth of today, they just did more MDA.

Now that we’re Mr. and Mr. Clean our clothes seem really nast. Not smelly dirty but gritty dirty. All that scary dust settling out of the air, from the cars. The shit we’re breathing, 24/7. I start pulling on the Circle One but Blitzer says Shine, he stays bareskin, I should too.

“Just to keep the boys on edge.”

His fingers race down my chest.

“And me on edge.”

We’re not two steps out the door before Siouxsie’s all, Yeah, sure you were in there drying off, it was jerking off, wasn’t it?

“Jerking off’s the last thing on my mind.”

I sound so cocky I surprise myself, Stickboy cocky, it must be the Desoxyn. Or maybe it’s walking into the room with no shirt, everyone looking at us knowing what we’ve been doing, not the details but more or less, it’s a ranking sexy feeling actually, and a new one, it reminds me of my birthday again, hell fuckin na, at least it’s going to mean something this time, like it’s supposed to.

“So what’s the first thing on it, darlin’? Giving hickeys? That’s what it looks like.”

And we don’t plan it or anything, it just happens, great minds think alike, we’re shoulder to shoulder in front of the bathroom door and both our hands shoot out tandem to flip her off, and next thing you know Tim’s holding our wrists in his skin-so-soft hands, saying, “Oooh, you match.”

So I lied.

No way did all this start with words from songs.

Only all this tonight.

All this period started with a cigarette.

Darby had seen me that night in the bathroom at the Masque, but he didn’t say anything, he waited for me by the door. And by then I knew who he was, he’d talked to me a few times. But we didn’t talk about him, we talked more about me, so mostly what I knew about him was what we all knew, that his first band was called Sophistifuck and the Revlon Spam Queens, that he had a shrine to Bowie in his room at home, that at the very first Germs gig he covered himself in red licorice whips that melted into goo and he stuck the mic in a jar of peanut butter. And I knew he did lots of drugs, anything he could get, and drank lots too. So that night when he came up to me and asked if I’d go outside with him I thought he wanted to do some drugs, though I wondered why outside when the Masque was always anything goes, people shot up in there, people fucked, people fought, people puked. And too I couldn’t figure out why with me but who the fuck cared, I still hardly knew anyone and there I was walking up the steps to the street with Darby Crash, just him and me, and all those year one little babies watching, I could feel it.

Then on Hollywood Boulevard he started telling me about circles. This light misty rain was falling and I was cold after being inside and he stood super close so our legs kept touching and I could feel how warm he was. He said everything works in circles. Everything goes in circles and you’re always completing cycles and starting new ones, small cycles, big cycles, always. He said sometimes you’re doing something and then like a year later it seems like you’re doing something else, but really you’re back at that same point.

He explained all this to me. Then he took my right hand and turned it wrist up to the rain and said he wanted to give me a Germs burn.

Darby said.

Cigarette burns are tied in because of circles. If you do a cigarette
burn right here, right on the bone, you get a circle scar and a lot of us
have them. You can only get them from a person who already has one.
It all has to do with circles.

He lit a cigarette.

We stood there.

He said, “Do you want me to burn you?”

I nodded.

He leaned in closer.

“I want you to go home with me tonight. Do you want to do that?”

“Yes.”

He gripped his hand around my wrist.

“Will you do anything I tell you to?”

“Yes.”

The smell was there before the hurt. I thought the smell must be the worst while I still thought and then I only hurt. He pressed so hard so long so hard on my wrist pushing up so long so long pushing down so hard so long so fucking fucking long.

When he stopped I leaned back my head and opened my mouth and tried to catch rain. Darby stood beside me, breathing hard.

“Let’s leave now,” he said.