Chapter 6 Late 1998
It was a spur of the moment decision I decided to try something new with Patrick. Months ago I purchased a DVD set of films by Buster Keaton. Most of them were comedies. I bet they would be painfully funny if you watched them stoned.
I put the first DVD on and we settled down on our sides, him in front, me in back and we watched his 1926 movie The General.
Keaton's parents were successful vaudeville performers. Vaudeville simply meant Variety, his parents did live stage shows with a theme of acrobatics and physical stunts that looked dangerous, kind of how magic shows looked real.
His parents taught young Buster how to fall safely, and he became a part of his parents act. By the time he turned five years old he was the most popular actor in the trio of Keatons. By age 5 he wore a large balding head wig with a full beard to look like his father. Buster went on to a very successful and ground breaking acting career in films. In that era if you suffered a big fall (like down a flight of stairs) it was often called a 'Buster,' He supposedly got the nickname from a close family friend and fellow stunt actor: Harry Houdini.
The movie 'The General' was set during the Civil War. The General was the steam locomotive that he piloted, mostly hauling passengers between rural towns. He loved that train more than anything else, including his girlfriend. They get tangled up when the northern and southern armies attacked and withdrew in the area where his train operated. The movie was actually filmed in Oregon in 1925 and was now considered one of the greatest American movies of all time.
Some of the stunts he did in the film were tremendous, and of course he always stayed in character with his emotionless pale face and highly expressive large eyes.
Patrick had never seen Buster Keaton before and he thought the film was hilarious, especially when he rode on the cow catcher and threw a rail tie to bounce another one off the tracks ahead of the train. After that film we watched another Keaton short called Cops which was from 1922. The stunts were amazing, definitely earned his name, Buster. (Watch it free on archive dot org)
By the end of both movies he was yawning but told me he had a great evening, his best time ever at my place.
I mentioned that I took a vacation every winter around Dec 21st and offered to take him along, no expense to him, did he have a passport? Then said I'd need to introduce him to my parents since they were paying. We'd stay at a waterfront 'hut' near theirs.
I told him I had a friend up in Highland Park that made top notch fake driver licenses and we should go there if we decided to take a trip this winter together.
He asked why you needed a fake ID to take a vacation and I told him that a lot of Caribbean islands outlawed sodomy, if you got caught you could end up in jail, that's why you needed fake IDs. If you got busted when the cops asked for your ID you handed over the fake one so if you escaped they would issue a warrant for the fake ID person.
He said he still didn't understand fully. So I told him I've been to the BVI several times and saw with my own eyes people getting busted for stupid stuff, like smoking a joint on the beach. When they approached you just ran out into the water and then it's over. You swam to the next small island and they can't chase you. Sometimes if you swam away you could come back hours later and it was like it never happened, but that depended on the cop. But never disrespect the cops or it becomes personal.
Patrick asked, "So it's ten at night and you're fucking and someone outside hears two guys moaning and calls the cops. They arrive and find you and your boyfriend naked on the floor fucking. They haul you to jail but you manage to break free and swim to freedom, is that what you mean?"
"It sounds like bullshit but it actually happens all the time, everyone knows about it. People have to swim if they get caught with pot or other stupid stuff they still prohibit in the British Virgin Islands."
"No sharks in the Caribbean at night, they all go home after sunset? Unionized Sharks?"
"Nah, but that area has never had a shark attack, I think the water's too warm, or maybe too many speed boats so the Great Whites don't go there. They get smaller sharks but they're harmless to humans, maybe not to a seagull floating in shallow water."
"Where was Jaws filmed?"
"I think it was filmed somewhere up around Boston?"
"Oh. I thought it was in the Bahamas."
"No, it was northern. Oh hey that reminds me speaking of Jaws. One time I had a patient he said he was one of the hydraulic engineers that designed, built, and operated the platform that moved the shark in Jaws. He said it was a huge frame and took many people to operate, it was a frame that sat on the bottom just off the beach and was totally hydraulic and they had to use mineral oil instead of hydraulic oil in case there were leaks."
"Patrick said he didn't like the movie because everyone did stupid shit, just like the teens daring each other to spend the night in the haunted house at the end of the abandoned dirt road. Anyone with an ounce of brains would never go there."
I changed the subject back to the BVI and told him to get his birth certificate and apply for a passport right away, like in the next couple days, I would print the form for him before he left, and give him cash for the fee. He said his mom would write a check if they let him speak to her.
I told him we could go to the grocery store and get a money order instead. He said he knew exactly where his birth certificate was.
"You used a word I don't know, I've heard Sodomy used before, exactly what does it mean?"
"I researched that. In the USA Sodomy means any sex act that would not normally end in a pregnancy. Like jerkin' off, butt fucking, blow jobs, and I think that putting your dick anywhere else but in a consenting vagina might be considered sodomy, and the perp would be a sodomist."
"It sounds evil, like Molester or Rapist."
"I think that's the idea. It's probably a very old term, like maybe hundreds of years old."
We talked about the trip for over an hour then fell asleep still on the sofa in our shorts, my arm around his front side. He felt like he melted back into me and was totally relaxed.
In the morning we ate Italian subs for breakfast then we went to two stores to buy him clothes and bathroom stuff to leave at my place. We also got a money order and printed the passport application form. I even addressed and stamped an envelope so all he needed to do was insert his birth certificate and drop it in the mail.
Late that morning we drove to Highland Park on Greenbay Road to visit my friend Jim, he made excellent fake IDs (above 450 Central Ave I think). He needed to take our pictures and get some information to put on them, then he'd mail them to me in a week or two. We got to pick out two names so I became Bradley Burns and in honor of his puffy nips he became Patrick J. Dallesandro.
After lunch he said he should go home and try to make peace with his parents, so I walked him to the train station and asked nicely for him to call me once a week, on the way I programmed my cell and home numbers into his tracfone and offered to buy more airtime when those two months were over. We shook hands outside the train station and he vanished inside the building.
I had one more day off so I got back on my night shift life and did laundry and other stuff. I made myself a pizza and got back into my normal work hours.
I read the manual on my phone to see how to send a text message and sent him one but he never replied, not sure why, maybe they didn't cross over from tracfone to Sprint yet. I got no idea except that he has more down time with his Nokia than I ever did with a cell phone.
I was still unsure if Sprint charged extra for text messaging.
On Wednesday I started my normal work routine again. On Friday morning my mother shouted downstairs when I got home from work and updated me on the dates for their annual trip, I could invite my friend if I wanted.
During my work week I got one text message from Patrick, he was fine and looking for a job in Skokie, no fights at home so far.
On Friday night I had another terminally ill elderly patient that had a long history with the University. He was a retired professor of physics and was famous thirty years ago and personally knew Enrico Fermi, they expected him to pass overnight since his vital signs were slowly trending lower.
I guess my care of Sister Kriss really impressed administration and they offered to build a private three bed hospice unit. Northwestern University had a lot of elderly retired staff that had been with the university since the 1940s and were nearing hospice stage for various health reasons, the most common being dementia and strokes.
Since their families had given a lot of money to the University they wanted to have a place for those special donors, they offered me the position. I said I'd have to think about it for a while. Since the unit didn't exist yet I had time to carefully consider their offer. It could have a bad effect on my nursing skills since you really don't do much for hospice patients. Most of them already stopped eating and only had IV drips and pain medications. Most of those people had no living relatives, that was sort of the role of the hospice nurse too.
As an ICU step-down unit RN I had to maintain ACLS and keep current with ventilators and the latest cardiac meds. As hospice all they did was turn patients, give comfort measures, narcs, deal with relatives, and wait for them to pass. There was often a mountain of paperwork and phone calls to make. But some of them were simple when the death was anticipated so we only contacted the designated funeral home and maybe one family member.
I emailed my friend in Highland Park (Jim) he said our IDs went in the mail today, although we never discussed why I'm sure he knew why I wanted them. We both went to WIU and were in the same dorm. He rented an apartment above a store in downtown Highland Park and liked living there, said it's cheap and fun but the place was old and drafty but his heat was free.
There were parts of downtown Highland Park where an entire block of two and three story buildings were all built at the same time and were all on one big steam system run by the city. Lots of cities had municipal steam systems.
Three weeks passed and slowly Patrick faded from my mind. I had my semi-annual ACLS class on Sunday. It's actually a two day course but I just went for the testing.
ACLS was a common nursing certification, it stood for Advanced Cardiac Life Support. Basically it covered what we did as a team when someone cardiac arrested or was choking to death.
In lay terms 'cardiac arrest' meant when someone suddenly had a heart pattern that didn't pump blood. We did CPR with chest compressions (fast and hard) then gave IV drugs to try to stimulate the heart back into a pumping rhythm again. Sometimes it worked, most of the time it didn't, but we always tried to save them. Over the decades since CPR first started the odds of returning to life improved with new and better training, especially with the fast and hard CPR and less emphasis on breathing into their mouth. Doing proper chest compressions was very hard physical work.
When you did chest compressions on an elderly patient sometimes you felt their ribs break, which was really creepy and sad. I absolutely hated it when patients died. I never forgot their faces and I silently prayed to God for each code blue I participated in. It's important to keep in mind that Death awaited all of us, and always treat the dead with respect. They said hearing was the last sense to go after they passed out.
One of the hard things to deal with was when you're a nurse and you had a patient die then you had to go home and act like nothing unusual happened at work. It's very difficult to relate such things to a non-medical spouse.
Thanksgiving was next weekend, it's been four weeks since I last saw Patrick and in all honesty I started thinking less and less about him and even stopped visualizing him when I jerked off. I liked running in the cold morning air and left on my daily run as the sun came up over Lake Michigan. Sometimes it was down into single digit temps at 7:20am, one block from the lake.
On Saturday morning I got home and felt exhausted. It was cold outside but I was almost out of groceries (except pizza stuff) so I decided to take a quick shower then run to the store and go to bed when I got home.
I never parked my car in the garage because space was tight so it sat outside on the driveway, even in winter. Our garage was built in the late 1910's when cars were small.
That time of year some of our trees were still dropping their leaves so I had to brush them off the windshield, then climbed in, started the motor, and put the car in reverse and turned in the seat to watch while I backed down the long driveway. I noticed there was an odd odor in my car then out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of something large and dark in the back seat. I about screamed, stomped the brakes and slammed the car into Park, jumped out and looked in the window. There was a fucking human body on the back seat of my car! I saw its shoes and legs.
I yanked open the back door grabbed its ankles and dragged the body out of my car onto the driveway. It squirmed a little and rolled over, it was fucking Patrick asleep in my back seat! I yelled "FUCK!" at him, jumped back in the car, and drove it back to my spot, shut it off and got out of the car. I slammed my door, yanked open the back door, reached in and grabbed his backpack and dropped it on top of him. He landed on his back on the driveway with a look of fear on his face. After forcibly standing him up I tugged him by his arm down the steps, inside the door, and into the living room area. I shoved him onto the sofa and stood there with my hands on my hips still panting. He sat there looking scruffy, cold, and dirty.
I took off my sweatshirt and threw it on a chair then kicked off my shoes and stood near his feet. "What the fuck were you doing hiding in my car, you scared the fucking shit out of me asshole!" I screamed at him.
Patrick sat on the sofa staring at his knees not moving or talking. He appeared to be shivering and pale, then he pulled up his legs to his chest and held them and lowered his face to his knees. I walked over to the kitchen filled a glass of filtered water from in the fridge and drank it down. Then I filled the glass again and brought it to him. Patrick guzzled it down in ten seconds and handed it back and resumed his position curled up vertically on the sofa and wouldn't look at me. I could tell something was very wrong and he wouldn't talk without some sort of prodding.
Back in the kitchen I filled the glass with water and brought it to him again. He took it, drank the entire thing and handed it back to me without looking at me. I noticed he stunk like feet and ass and his hair looked like he hadn't showered in days.
"How long were you out there?" I asked.
"Two or three days." He mumbled with his mouth against his knees.
"Why were you in my car Patrick?"
"I needed a place to stay and didn't want to bother you during your work week like you told me not to unless the world was on fire."
"Well yes I did say that but you could have texted me."
"My battery's dead."
"Well that explains the silence." But it didn't explain the previous four weeks of silence.
"There's a charger in my backpack."
"What happened?" I asked and carried a kitchen table chair over by the sofa and sat it facing backwards. Then I opened his backpack and fumbled around inside until I felt a wire and pulled it out. Then I plugged it into an outlet by the toaster and into his phone. The display came on and said it was charging: 1 % charged.
He mostly sat there not speaking I started to sense that he had a lot of hurt and needed me to be caring and not mad or acting like he was interfering with my idyllic life.
I sat down beside him on the sofa and pulled out his hand, which was cold and dirty. He stunk like feet, armpits, and butt. I got off the sofa, put the chair back and got on my knees in front of him and start unfolding his body then I slowly removed his clothes, he never resisted. I pulled off his shoes, socks, sweatshirt, hat, long sleeve shirt, and his jeans. This left him in a wife beater undershirt and his nasty looking underwear with pee stains.
I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him to his feet. From behind I pushed his shoulders steering him into the bathroom. I got out a towel and turned on the water, slid open the curtain, pulled his shirt off from behind, slipped his undies down, and gently pushed him into the shower. I took his nasty clothes and dumped them into the washer and started it. I went back to my car and got the grocery list and dashed back inside.
Fifteen minutes later he emerged from the bathroom with the towel around his waist, still looking sad and beat down. I gently grabbed his upper arm and walked him back to the sofa and sat him down on his spot. Like we did in the past we sat crossed legged facing each other, knees touching. I grabbed a stadium blanket and wrapped him in it then sat on the floor by his feet and waited for him to talk.
Patrick only looked at his legs and sniffled a little. His very thick reddish hair stuck up at different angles all messed-up and he even had about nine stray whiskers on his chin, obviously not shaved in a while. His teeth looked nasty, his fingernails had dirt under each one. "You know if you leave your toe nails long like that fungus will grow and you'll get those nasty thick nails."
He shoved one leg out against my arm. I got up and got the clippers from the bathroom, came back to the sofa sat by him then clipped his toe nails to the nub, then I did his other foot. I used the pick on the cleaner to clean under his fingernails and trimmed them too, then I got a comb to fix his hair. Lastly, I came back with my electric and shaved the whiskers off his chin and the few up by his sideburns.
In the bathroom, I got out his toothbrush and paste and came back with a wash cloth and a bowl of water and made him brush his teeth on the sofa. He still wasn't talking but he was letting me mother him.
I got all that stuff done and put his clothes in the dryer, he still only had the towel around his waist.
I moved him around on the sofa and had him lie on his back with his head on a pillow. I took his right hand into mine, we interlaced our fingers. I kneeled beside the sofa and held his hand, stared in his eyes. I put my other hand on his stomach gently inserting one finger tip into his wet belly button and pretended to dry it.
"Patrick, what happened?" I whispered at him, our eyes were maybe two feet apart.
Tears leaked from his eyes down the sides of his face. Without looking up he mumbled that he got beat up. I asked by whom and he said by his brother.
I didn't know he had a brother, he never mentioned him before.
"Matt roughed me up two days ago, my father cheered him on, so I left and haven't eaten or had a place to live since."
"Holy fuck, you should have called."
"When it happened my battery was dead and I had to run."
"Where's your bike?"
"Outside your garage in the weeds, it's hard to see."
"How'd you get here?" I asked.
"I rode from Skokie two days ago late at night."
"How'd you know which car was mine?" My mom's car is nearly identical to mine and at night they look exactly the same.
"Well it wasn't hard, there's two BMWs outside and a Mercedes in the garage. Yours has a stethoscope on the rearview mirror and the license plate says BURNS."
I chuckled, "Yeah I guess that was easy. You're lucky I never lock my car in the driveway."
"Yeah well I guess that may be the only good thing that's happened this month."
"So tell me what happened?"
"It started three days ago, my brother [Matt] was sitting in the kitchen with Dad. I told him happy birthday since it was like a week ago, and he says, 'Don't fucking speak to me fag boy.' And Dad starts laughing. I asked them what their problem was and Matt stands up and says I'm 'the f-ing problem' and shoves me into the wall then punched me in the gut twice, knocked the air out of me. I fell to the floor and hit my head on the oven door on the way down and saw big drops of blood land on the floor, which got Dad all pissed off. Now it's two against one."
"I was on my hands and knees with blood dripping on the floor and Matt stood there yelling crap at me, I looked over by the kitchen door and saw my backpack and got up, shoved him into the table and ran out the back door with a bloody face."
"The neighbor lady did some first aid when she saw me sitting by their trash cans all bloody. She got it stopped and offered to call the cops then Matt walked out in the alley and ran at me so I took off towards the street and kept going. After it got dark out I went back and got my bike and rode away, spent that night in the big cemetery across from Old Orchard then rode here the next day. Your car was unlocked and I needed time to think about what happened so I stayed there until you came out and woke me up. That's it really."
He still looked depressed, very sad, a few random tears on his face or down on his shoulders. I held his hand the entire time.
"How old is your brother?"
"Same as me."
"You're twins?" I asked.
"Yep, some twins ain't we? One's gay the other's redneck straight like our loser Dad."
"Fuck me! Oh wait a minute, I get it, you guys are Pat and Matt, how...!" I was going to say 'How Gay!' but decided to shut up instead.
Patrick looked up at me and snarled from the corner of his mouth but didn't say anything. He looked so totally heartbroken, I leaned over, kissed his forehead, and pulled him into me and held him tightly for a while. He put his arms around me and pulled me tight back into him and shook a little as he silently cried with his face buried in my shoulder. Eventually he let go so I did the same, but I reached up and straightened his bangs because I couldn't resist my desire to comfort him. I actually sort of enjoyed mothering him.
"You hungry?"
"I ain't eaten in three days."
"Before I discovered the body in my car I was goin' to the store, let's go get stuff for a feast and celebrate your birthday!"
"Sure. I guess. Not like I got nowheres else to be."
I went to the dryer grabbed his clothes and tossed the entire load on the table. He got dressed while I went over the list again then something he said flashed back in my mind. "Did you say you wished your brother a happy birthday?"
"Yep I did."
"How old are you now?"
"Turned nineteen last week, what 'bout you?"
"I'll be 28 in February." While he got dressed I sprayed Febreze in both his shoes but watched him out of the corner of my eye. When he got up from the sofa he stood there naked and folded the Bears blanket then slowly pulled on his undies so he was beautifully naked for several seconds. I pretended not to notice but it looked like his pubes grew out fully.
We walked out the door and got in my car. We backed out to Linden Avenue and drove west to Greenbay Road then south to the Jewel store. I followed my list but got some other stuff since he might be over for several days I suspected.
I grabbed the stuff on my list and also added two cases of Miller Genuine Draft in bottles. In the pharmacy I saw a rack with pre-paid gift cards for stuff and saw several for tracfone minutes so I grabbed one of those too (the two month refill card I got him last visit was almost over now). We got steaks, frozen breakfast things and ground beef, veggies and a ton of other stuff. I actually filled the cart with the beers, wine, extra toilet paper and laundry soap. Four full paper bags the bill came to $347! He didn't see the airtime card. I even got a box of Twinkies to substitute for birthday cake.
We got home and discussed what to eat for dinner and what to do after dinner. We also decided to pretend to be like a couple for a few days as a test. He was willing to see how it went since he was still conflicted over the potential for problems being outwardly gay especially after the fights at his parent's house.
We pan fried a large rib-eye steak to share and had corn on the cob too. Then I sang happy birthday and lit a candle on a Twinkie for his party. We shared the Twinkie after he blew out the candle. As a joke he fit half of it in his mouth then tried to talk normally.
With his mouth stuffed full of Twinkie he mumbled, "Fanks," for his only birthday party. I think my reaction to seeing half a Twinkie sticking out of his mouth was different than he expected, I saw it as very sexual, he intended it as an innocent gag.
After clean up, I repeated the Twinkie treat with it halfway inside my mouth this time. He walked up to me, put his hands behind my neck tilted his head slightly and pressed his mouth into mine and gently bit off the other half and stood in front of me chewing and smiling. It was nice to see his change in attitude. The slow way he did it was very erotic.
I reached up to wipe the cream filling off his lips then stuck that finger in my mouth. It was a silly but intimate moment we had in close proximity. The fact that he let me get that close was a good sign. I actually wanted to lick it off his mouth but chickened-out.
I really wanted to pull open a Twinkie and smear the cream filling on his nipples and slowly lick 'em clean. And maybe do the same thing with another Twinkie and his boner. The possibilities were endless, I started to get hard just imagining.
Dishes were done so we returned to the living room area but left the TV off again. He sat in his spot with his knees up and his legs spread wide. I got on the sofa and laid half on top of him and used his chest like a pillow. He wrapped his arms around me and we talked for the next four hours. Actually, he talked for the next four hours. I watched the sunlight slowly disappear from inside my place.
He told me about his identical twin brother Matt and their sometimes violent relationship, and growing up together with an abusive father and distant/cold mother. He said he realized at a young age he had to defend himself because he had nobody else that would stick up for him. He said by the time he was in 2nd grade he truly hated his parents.
I got some sleeping pants from my room and asked him if he wanted to move the conversation to the bedroom since we both looked tired. It was purely a selfish move on my part, I offered him pants but not a shirt! We slept together but never did anything. We slept back to back the entire night. I was out of bed first in the morning, I left him alone to sleep by himself.
Contact the author: borischenaz gmail
Reminder: this is a rough draft version.