Goodbye, Mark Lester

"Goodbye, Mark Lester"

by

Timothy Stillman

"Mark, hey, on this cold and blustery day," I shouted out.

"Name ain't Mark, boy-o," he shouted back in his thin and reedy voice.

"Why the hell are we shouting?" I shouted back.

"Cause you said I was a numskull, and I thought you might get that chicken wax out of your ears."

"Come closer, Mark." I shouted a little softer.

"Okay, brains." He shouted a little bit softer too.

And then we snuggled together in our little bed and we weren't far apart at all.

"His name ain't Deadlock."

His breath on me was like the aroma of freshly baked bread.

He said, "You try too hard."

"I say, hard ain't enough when it comes to you, Killer."

"Stuff it, Brains."

"Roger Ramjet."

"Ha ha. Let's fuck."

Which seemed like a good idea. He was squirrely, this kid. He was sweet too which made up for the squirrely part. And he was good. And he was handsome. And he was Mark. And I was screwing Mark Lester who Ramjet never heard of but then Ramjet had never heard of Ramjet either, Mulan, yes, and anime, yes, so worlds collide and when they smash forth, we smile and giggle and think not the years.

We lay there blustery night in my little warm apartment, arms round each other, penises neck and neck, and he said again, sleepy like, "Deadlock."

"No. Not Deadlock. Daedalus. The father of Icarus."

"Who flew too near the sun and got his wings fried." The boy not named Mark though he looked like Mark Lester though he really didn't look like him at all, giggled into my chest. We were quite sticky with cum by this point.

"Yeah, Mark, you got that right." I smiled into his mouth and blew him a kiss.

He blew me one too.

"Sure, I ain't no dummy, Ramjet."

"You're Mark."

He pushed away.

"Look, this is beginning to piss me off." He turned away. The sea was wavy and deep all of a sudden. My heart skipped a beat.

I touched his bare shoulder.

"OK, cool it, it was Icarus and his father was not Deadlock and you are not Mark, but a fellow has got to have his dreams."

He turned back to me. For a moment I forgot his name. Then realized I didn't know his name at all...he had told me..but I had forgotten.

"If it wasn't for that kid actor, would you see me at all. Not that you see me at all."

Kid's deep, I thought.

"Hey, I am seeing the all of you right now. I see the curve of your back and I trace it with my finger and I see the curve of your butt and your two little dimples above that sweetheart doorway to your little prize pearl."

He turned to me.

"You don't love me. You love that Deadlock shit, but you don't love me."

"I do love you...."

"My name...tell me my name....;" and he wasn't playing as he turned to me and put his nose right onto mine.

I laughed.

"You never saw me. You never saw my penis. You never sucked me off. You and that Mark obsession are really a troubling thing. You should get medical attention."

I touched his eyelids with my tongue. He touched my eyelids with his tongue. Outside it was cold. Inside it was like a little warm miracle in the snow.

"I don't love you," he said.

I pushed away a bit.

"I could go home right now and forget all about it and you and pick anyone I wanted."

"You aren't going anywhere." I pulled back the covers he had pulled over himself and put my hand on his dick and rubbed then his balls. I tried to say it seductively. I failed. I fail a lot.

"You're scared shitless." He said, as I watched his hard on all pink and cute move and bob back and forth.

"He's a very talented fellow."

"He's not for you. You're old."

I sank back in the bed on my back. The wild spring got me again. Ouch, I thought.

Mark or...come on...think of it...Mark...Marshal..Deadlock..come on...this is silly...he's only got me rattled cause he said he was leaving, that I was too old, i.e., he has power over me and I don't like it one damned little bit. Cause he's right. I love him. Yes, yes, I do. For him. No I don't. Why lie? But still and all--For him I'm a layover in the bad sense of the word.

"I'm 35." I said. I lied.

"You're 41." He said, thinking it the truth.

"I love you."

He looked at me. His eyes were no longer kind. They flamed a little.

"Make me." He smiled. It was not a friendly smile.

I lay there for a moment not responding. He had taken the breath out of me with the last few facts that hurt like barbs in my skin. Everybody leaves everybody. It's how you do it that counts.And that's bullshit.

He cuddled to me and lay his leg against mine and then pushed it up till his knee was on my cock which was too soft now and too sad. Yes, a cock can be very sad. Sometimes it comes tears. You're lucky if you don't know this.

"I sorry." He said, trying to be seven again.

I turned from him.

"You can pretend I'm that Lester kid. If you want."

I sulked. I knew I was acting like a big baby. And that he was right. And that I pictured Mark every time I saw....this boy...come on...Deadweight...something...Doug...Don..come on already...dammit I'm going to lose this kid...I love him for himself...I do...no I don't...I love him cause he's a stand-in...and he's just told me so am I...so there you go again....justice will out..dammit...Charles...Asnover...some name...come on..bats in my brain.

He put his hand on my cock and rubbed it. It got a little hard but not much.

"I don't mind being somebody I'm not. I've done it lots. Kids do it a lot. We do it more than a lot. You guys do it all the time too. You are just too stupid to know it."

God, this is getting all wrong. I felt him put his warm brave mouth on my cock and he sucked me to a stand still and then he kissed the under shaft with his lips and tongue and he put my hand on his own erection.

"I'll be Mark or Oliver or Marcus or any of his other movie names. I'll be anybody. My mom wanted a girl. She got me. She's never forgiven me for it. I'll be Mark for you, baby, and I won't call you Ramjet anyway."

So he sucked me and I sucked him and we were two little elves at the north pole making candy canes for all the world so nobody would ever be lonely again after we passed them out and Christmas would never ever go away defeated one more time. I thought of the song "What The World Needs Now." Then I thought..Deadlock..Dreadlock...Mill on the Floss....Flossy?..well that's really dumb..a boy named Flossy?..

And then he held his dick out and he held his stomach out and he smiled real big and he made a boy bridge of himself, upping the undercarriage....and he said.."Wot's new, Guv'nor."

In an attempt at a British accent that was Bronx all the way and back again. I held him. He was nobody. I was nobody. Everyone was nobody. He was warm and he was pretty and he was thin and he giggled nicely and he knew sex stuff I had never heard or read of. But he wasn't Mark Lester, but neither was Mark Lester Mark Lester, cause that was a while ago.

I pushed my mouth on his belly button as he arched on the bed and I blew into it and he laughed and tangled me into himself and our legs and our chests and our arms were for one or two minutes one, as we jostled back and forth and he was nobody but what his mother told him and movies and TV and teachers and other kids, and his past, and all the people who got him wrong and didn't care one way or the other, and I was nobody but what my bosses told me and TV and movies and books and other people and kids from my childhood and other people who got me wrong one way or the other and didn't care if they did told me,...

And we held each other and the sea was very choppy and very big, very very big, for the both of us...and I held him and I prayed he would be the sun and he would burn off my too heavy too metallic too vulnerable wings...

..and I prayed I could be his father and bring him down to land and show him that he was not cold or mean or indifferent and that I was not a maker of bronze statues and mazes and being used all my life for dueling grounds between half men and half gods and Minotaurs and matings with Bulls from the Sea, and down in the ground making my dreams, which I thought some type of freedom where the real sky lay, when I was being used all my life by those Greek god freaks, and not knowing it till it had long ago cost me Icarus and my families and my cunning cowardice and my pride...and wait, that was a book...this is real...but if we were put in a book, any book, any movie, we would be whatever characters we were told to be, change mix and match with anyone in so called reality and we would be them too, this house, your house, my house, and the one on third street too, last decade that is...thank you Shirley Jackson and "Hangsaman"...

"I don't want to go away," the boy, of no name and no purpose and no reason to be, said with only a squeak of desperation to me, the same as he. His little heart beat with my larger one, if I had a heart at all. I've been told so many times I don't, so I guess, I don't. Its easier to flow with the tide. Tide gets the sheets clean too. Sparkly they are, sparkling out the spume.

"I don't want you to either..." I started.

But he did. He didn't care. He was pretending. It was easy to see. I was pretending too. I was scared. He was too. Of the world outside those windows. It was an awfully scary place, to be protected by this little apartment and each other. We were each other's sun. We were each other's Icarus. We were each other's Daedalus, building each other and ourselves other bodies minds a. We were in a battle of Minotaurs and men and sun gods and endless wars. We were designing mazes inside our cheeks and penises and words, pretending we were closer to the sky that way, and we were hobbits hiding in our brains hoping no one would ever find out what frauds we were, pretending the frauds who were too busy being frauds would ever bother to find out..

I lay on my back, and he sat on my stomach and I held his pink hard on and he reached back and held my hard on. And he looked so tall up there. So blindingly beautiful, Mark Lester, and somewhere behind him, gauzy, hazy, am I losing my vision?, cloudy, oh great, going blind, gotcha saith God, but then that was not it at all..it was the boy who was not Mark Lester, a ghost of a boy behind a ghost of a boy, it terrified me, but a real face was coming into my vision, no, stop it, but too late, a real person, had I ever known a real person?, god, what do I say?, what do I do?, and then the thought, but Mark Lester was not, had been not, had been an image on a screen, playing someone else not he--in other words a FRAUD.

Suddenly there was ice in me. I was furious. My face kept calm. Don't scare the kid. Calm does it. See what's going on. But I was a jumping bean inside. I suddenly hated that movie kid. He was a lie and I hated liars. But I was a liar. And so was everyone and I had to dive into someone to keep warm, to keep from falling off the planet, and here was this nice boy....

I rubbed him and he rubbed me and he moved down a little to get his penis at my butt. I squirmed and helped him inside. He rode me like he was riding a pony, and I masturbated him till he shot onto my stomach. Then he leaned down, still impaled, and moved his cum around with his hand, rubbing it in. He looked at me with his devilish smile. I still saw Mark's face. But less and less, dimmer and dimmer..

He rode me for a time more. And suddenly against that naked light bulb in the ceiling, I saw not Mark Lester more than a little, but gradually gradually another face and it became not evanescent, but more and more defined, more and more solid, more and more a face I had not seen before, and he rippled as he rode me and his dick was still hard, and nipples laughed, and his little nest eggs were rolling back and forth all warm and soft on my stomach and I pushed him up and down as though he was the sea and the sea was in him and in me, as it truly is in everyone, boys and girls, we all carry our past inside us, no matter how many millions of years distant, and I found myself getting excited by this boy...named....this boy...who was so beautiful, like a little perfect oval of a painting, and he had his flaws, like real people do, and I wanted to see all of them on him, and he was not a movie image, not a fraud making you fall in love with him and not caring one way or another about it even if he ever knew, and the boy's eyes were closed and he was saying my name....saying....Larry....over and over again....a sweet whisper...the sweetest whisper I had ever heard...which froze me and shrank me...cause like the old joke goes...my name dearest ain't Larry...and I reached up to his arms and pushed him down on the bed next to me so swiftly he was totally startled..not knowing he had been saying Larry...on purpose?...not realizing?..imagining?..of course..

He said, "WTF?"

I held him to me and I said "what is your name?" I had to admit it. He could have punched me. Called the cops. Killed me. Anything. But I had to know. And I was holding a naked boy who was suddenly the whole world to me, and all the dangers that would accrue flitted through my head.....though at that moment I did not care..

And he said, kind of scared, "Ah...Mark...."

I held him tighter than he had ever been held, certainly not by his mom who wanted him to be a girl and all the implications of that here...

I held his cheek next to mine. "No. Your real name. Your REAL name. Come on. It's so very important."

I could feel him beginning to weep. He was suddenly ashamed. Mark Lester had been his cover with me too after all. And he was imagining me as Larry whoever, so there was hope for us. For a little while.

"Dan." He said. Real quite like. Like he was ashamed. Add that to my load of sins. But hopefully this one would be corrected tonight.

"What's my name?" I asked, and he put his hand on my thigh to steady himself because he was beginning to tremble. he knew what was happening, maybe....

"I don't--" know. He couldn't say the last part cause that would make him a fraud too. But he wasn't.

"It's Kevin." And I pulled back from him. And I said, "I want you to tell me everything about your life...excluding video games, music, movies, TV, booze and drugs and all that shit."

He giggled and pushed back from me. "Not much left to tell."

He smiled. And he was not the sun. And I was not Icarus. This time Icarus makes it safely back to land and is used by nobody like his father so stupidly was, and the sun helps bring Icarus to land.

I extended my hand to him. Must have looked stupid as hell. Man and boy naked in bed. And comes, get ready ladies and germs, the fatal, awful, brain killing, corrupter of innocents far and wide, regardless of age, ethnicity, origin, or religion, turn your face away from this part--the monstrous--the push off the brink--the HANDSHAKE.

"I'm Kevin."

He smiled and acted like he would imagine a man in a business suit in an office would say to a potential new client. It was so endearing and funny. We kept laughing. Finally got it under control.

"Hello there, I'm Dan." He tried to make his voice deep. Didn't work. And that was funny too.

And we shook hands and then I lay him back on the bed. All giggles.

And then:

"Let's talk." I said.

"'Bout what?"

"Us. Each other. Everything we can think of to say to each other so we out of the whole world maybe know we are real."

He started to turn away. It is a terrifying prospect. Honesty. Reality.

I touched his shoulder.

He turned back to me.

"Can we fuck after?"

I laughed.

"Sure thing. But first, I have to tell you that Mark Lester in his prime and naked and primed for action in person right there in front of me, in pure reality, not on a movie or TV screen, couldn't possibly be more beautiful than you."

"Ah..pishaw..."

"Ok. I overstated." Dan laughed. And I continued. "But really, this might be the most important night of our lives."

He leaned up on his elbow and said, "No more Deadlock?"

I said, "No more Dreadlock."

Then we lay in each others' comforting arms and I said "who wants to go first?"

He grabbed me.

"Talking, horndog." And I pushed his hand away, ever so gently.

And he considered for a moment, then he jumped up and down on the bed, penis and balls jiggling, and screaming out "ME ME ME ME."

He sat on me again. Plopped down on me. Knocked the breath out of me for a moment. We cuddled, and then...

"Yes," I said. "and then me. "And we must never forget it. We must hold onto it. It's a huge sea. It'll take us down eventually, but we can prevent it for a while."

Dan said, drumming his fingertips comic bored on my chest. "Through now? You said I could go first."

I laughed. "Be my guest, Dan."

"Can I burn your Mark Lester DVDs and tapes?"

"Ah...well...no...."

Dan thought for a time. Then said something troubling. "Glad, man. Really glad."

I had no idea what he meant by that. I did much later on. And it hurt. But that was for later on.

"I hate baseball. My old man loves baseball but I hate the bejesus out of it...." Dan said.

And he was off and running and he and what he said were absolutely fascinating, truly splendid. Boring as hell, but he was telling me, so they were like Aladdin's tales. There was no way I could follow that. So I just listened and watched and enveloped him and his words with my eyes and ears and for a little or a long while, nothing would be the same.

And yes, we told each other our last names too, and everything that was us that we could think of. Having another person's life roadmapped on your eyes and soul and heart is a wondrous thing. It bites you in the end. But even then, if you look at it the right way, if there is a right way, you have to decide for yourself, it's still and all, worth it.

And yes, if you must know, after the hours of talk, we fucked like monkeys. However monkeys fuck. How do they fuck? Never mind. I don't have this burning desire to know.

the end

(References to Icarus and Daedalus from the Greek myth, and specifically the novel "The Maze Maker" by Michael Ayrton. The novel "Hangsaman" referred to in this story, was written by Shirley Jackson.) Timothy Stillman comewinter@earthlink.net