I had not slept for I could not tell you how long.
I mean real sleep -- deep, seamless, dreamless sleep. I mean the kind of sleep which is without the disturbed images of inverted and inside-out consciousness turbulating on a non-existent, four-dimensional screen, located somewhere beyond the boundaries of the space and time which I thought I occupied but which I found momentary escape from in the five or ten minute hypnogogic episodes which I succumbed to every now and then.
I was living on honey-heavy Turkish coffee, vitamin B, and fresh orange juice from the juice bar down the block.
I was hyper. My father used to call it speeding. My mind was fast, but sharp and clear, and my body was like a knife. My eyes pierced anything they looked at.
Man, you go on like this, Denny said from behind the bar as he crushed some blood oranges in some high-tech chromium juicer he used, and you ain't gonna be alive in six weeks.
Wanna bet?
How much? he said with a wink.
You get to fuck me.
If I win?
No, if you win I'm dead, and I didn't think even you were that kinky.
So if I lose I get to fuck you?
Right.
And if I win?
You're outta luck?
Deal, he said.
It wasn't really a joke. He was fixated on it, fucking me. Every time we got together, he always finally got around to asking.
Isn't this good enough? I'd say taking him by his cock and kissing him on the lips.
He got hard as hell in my hand and his breath ran away from him.
More than enough, babe.
But it was not enough. Enough was owning me.
But I gotta warn you, I said, slapping an old Susan Anthony on the counter as he handed me the juice, even if you get to fuck me, which I'm perfectly confident you will, you're not going to own me.
You're probably right, he said, but I still want to feel what it'll be like to fuck you.
I guarantee you'll like it, I said.
The place was not empty. But it didn't matter. We touched our lips together over the counter and I split with a wink.
Tuesday night I didn't sleep, either. But that was for the best. I finished my column and decided I'd bring it over to the paper myself instead of e-mailing it.
The night was balmy. The streets were nearly deserted. I walked down to West Street and turned right. The paper's editorial offices were in the twenties. Frank buzzed me in.
It's slow tonight, he said, Good to see you.
You look like shit, I said, but it was not an insult.
We don't get much sleep since the baby came, he said.
How is May? I said.
She's wonderful, he said. Exhausted, but she thrives on it.
And the kid?
Ah, Frank said. You're the one who can do things with words. Me, I wish my heart was more fluent in English so I could express how I feel.
That ain't bad.
I read it in a story on the AP wire. A guy who's refusing to go to Iraq, his father said it about him to express how proud he was.
It's good, I said.
But what are you doing up at this hour?
With no new baby as an excuse, huh? I said.
Yeah, he said.
I got a lot of old babies who keep me up.
That and all the Turkish coffee you drink.
You know me, Al.
You still writing about S&M? Frank said, glancing quickly at my copy.
Uh huh.
Be careful, Max.
Careful?
Some of these guys are very serious about their games. They're like secret ceremonies, old mysteries. They need the darkness to thrive. They don't like reporters.
You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you...
Scared! Especially when you start making connections, life can get very short.
Jeez, Frank, you're the second person tonight who's talked to me about death.
Just be careful, Max.
I'm glad Chekhov isn't writing this story.
How do you know he isn't?
Because he's dead.
It was after one when I left with Frank, who turned the place over to Richard, who got off at nine. Frank headed down to the Village on West Street. I headed east into Chelsea where the bars were still open. I stopped into Crazy Benny's first, figuring I'd have a brandy and find out from Ezra, the bar guy there, if he'd heard anything it would be worth it to me to know.
It wasn't exactly packed, but for that hour on a Wednesday morning, nearly two a.m., there was a good size crowd.
It's been relatively quiet, Ezra said. If you want heavy leather and squealing pig stuff, you still have to go to Thirteenth Street, a block from the water, a place called The Troth.
We spoke and I looked around.
He's pretty, I said.
That's Martin, Ezra said. The twink with him is called Domino because he falls easy, but his name's really Tim.
Martin was actually more than pretty. He was exquisite, fine, solid, delicate, and masculine all at once. Tim was diaphanous springtime personified.
Martin stood beside the bar, nearly six feet, tall, lean and graceful as a panther. As subtle, too, and as beautiful, and as capricious, now a sweet cat and now a dangerous one. His eyes were soft and softly burning. Something in them let you know they could express defiance as well as desire.
He touched his glass to the one the young white kid, not yet twenty, Tim, tilted towards him and smiled. He was in a mellow mood, casting a gentle spell all around.
Oh, you don't know how I want you, Martin whispered huskily, yes, huskily, for he was loose and right with alcohol. Everything down there is quivering for you.
You think I don't know what it's like, Tim answered. It makes the way you move so sexy, he said, lithe like a panther. It sends a shock and a current through me.
Like a black panther, Martin said, pressing one palm against the side of Tim's bare waist.
With the index finger of his other hand he traced the blue black length of the asp tattooed on Tim's chest. He stopped at the asp's head, which covered a nipple and pinched it, hard. It felt to Tim as if the asp were biting.
Tim gasped.
That's only the beginning, Martin said.
I hope so, Tim said, sucking in a breath and biting his teeth together.
Five of them were piled in an old Chrysler across the street from the bar, waiting for excitement, waiting for trouble.
How come they let niggers in there?
He ain't a nigger. He's an A-rab.
Same difference.
Just the same he ought to know he ain't welcome on this street.
They trembled as they spoke and passed around a bottle of Jack Daniels.
They thought it was anger that made them shake. But it was the thrill of being in each other's company and being of one mind.
Faggots! One's a nigger and both of 'em are faggots. Look at 'em.
Martin and Tim walked away from the bar's entrance towards the subway, trying to steer clear of trouble.
Hey! Not so fast, Barron, sitting behind the wheel, called to them. And he released the emergency brake, because that was the only brake which worked, and let the car crawl down the street beside Martin and Tim. There was no traffic otherwise. The street was empty except for Martin and Tim, and the guys in the car stalked them slowly. The hulking car rolled and sent out a wave of threat.
Martin put his arm around Tim as they walked. Tim leaned into him.
Martin's bare arm was hard and muscled and warm against his flesh. He held Tim softly, oh so softly. And Tim was hard for him even though he was scared.
At a time like this, Martin said quietly and steadily, you have to know who you are no matter what you look like. There's a difference, and it matters that you remember that.
You want to get in the car and give us a good time, too, jungle boy? one of the punks with a shaved head called out of a back window.
Hooting and shouting. They were afraid of what they wanted and wanted what they were afraid of. They lived in fear and brought fear with them everywhere they went.
Now, Martin, not letting go of Tim, the kid told me when I spoke to him at the morgue, turned and faced them. The car stopped.
The nigger fag is gonna make a speech, Barron, a punk in the back sneered. I have a dream. A wet dream!
Barron pulled up the emergency brake, and the car lurched to a stop, and a woosh of dirty exhaust smoked out of the tail pipe.
Why don't you guys look for other amusement? Martin said.
You know, murders can begin this way, someone inside the car yelled.
Yours, nigger, another cried.
And then there was the flash of a gun and the report of a shot and the screech of the engine as Barron released the emergency brake and gunned it out of there.
Martin lay on the ground and Tim was holding him, his head, his chest. He knew Martin was dead and he was numb.
Martin, in fact, was dead when I saw the body in the morgue, but Tim was not. And, ashamed as I ought to be to write this, he was ravishing when I saw him all in black, black turtle neck, fitted black velvet suit, black boots, and his skin, transparent, clear, luminous, delicate. The boy was an incarnation of fragility.
It means nothing that they caught them, he said. It does not bring Martin back to life.
And it does not bring you back to life, either, I said.
No, he said. He understood what I meant.
But wait, I said. Give it time. Desire will be reborn and it will grow.
I wonder if I want it to, he said. If it does, it will feel like betrayal.
No, I said. Living without desire is betrayal.
Perhaps, he said.
I gave him my card.
Call me whenever. Keep in touch. Let me know how you are getting on.
He walked over to the place on Perry Street that he shared with his sister.
I took a cab east.
Denny was gentle with me, not because I was a bottom virgin. I wasn't. But my soul was still sensitive and I lived with the ache of what had happened.
When we heard the shot, Ezra looked at me.
That ain't a truck backfiring, I said.
I saw Tim hunched over Martin's body, and I put my arm around him and helped him up. Ezra touched Martin's chest.
The man is dead.
What happened? I asked Tim. I know it's hard but it's important you tell us, the quicker the better if we're gonna catch them.
Ezra called 911 on his cell and six squad cars, lights turning, sirens blaring were there before he snapped it shut.
I held Tim, my arm around him as he told the cops what happened and the direction the car went off in.
Does he have to go down to the precinct house? I asked McCreedy of the Sixth.
He shook his head kindly.
You can stay with me tonight, I said.
Ok, Tim said.
I'll give you a ride, McCreedy said. He knew where I lived. No one else knew it, but we'd seen each other a couple of times. He'd even slept over.
If this is what loosing feels like, Denny said, kissing me sweetly on the lips.
No, Denny, this is not what loosing feels like, I said opening to him like a melancholy gardenia.
I held him around the neck tight and raised myself up and kissed him as I felt him slowly taking me all the way inside him, even though it was really the other way around. I opened to him and felt him touch me in another country beyond the borders where I lived, and I smiled at him and thanked him as he sweetly fucked me.
I didn't expect that kind of sentiment from you, he said as he gently stroked me and took me back into the world where I wasn't sure I wanted to go.
I hardly knew him, Tim said, looking softly into my eyes, reciprocating my gaze.
I'd met him that night. It might have gone nowhere, where things like that usually go after the first night, but what happened made it get stuck in me. Or it made me get stuck, right in the middle of love. It did not have the chance to die. What a weird thing. Because he died, the love did not have a chance to die.
It's painful I said.
Like what a pain is supposed to feel like in an amputated leg.
I took him in my arms and pressed him to me and gently kissed his delicate temple.
Thanks, he said, his body yielding to exhaustion.
Beyond us the Hudson River slowly flowed and the sky rose forever like nothing had happened.
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