Novel Treatments / Catering to Vengeance

—Chapter 1, Part 1— The Alley
“You let him rot in this damn alley for how long before you finally figured out he wasn’t the usual piece of shit and decided to tell me?”

“If I cared about every queer homeless kid, I would have to write to Rudy Juliani for welfare checks.”

“K.B., you are a selfish son of a bitch. Look at him! I mean, his hair is caked with blood. What the fuck were you thinking?”

“At least I DID tell you. You and your vague descriptions… how am I supposed to know one little blond faggot from another?”

I barely heard this entire conversation. The first sounds of the day were these two assholes bitching right next to where I lay, hoping to die. Luckily, the correct thing to do seemed to be to let these two go on their way, continuing their conversation about the poor sap who apparently was suffering tremendously. Unfortunately, when they had mentioned blood, I knew they had meant me. Earning your bread is hard in this city. You sometimes have to do humiliating things like selling yourself or, in my case, fighting for someone else’s entertainment, in the hopes that a few coppers end up being tossed your way.

Luckily for me, I was pretty swift on my feet. This was particularly lucky since I was only a scrawny teenager. I was able to take a punch, lose my breath, and keep standing all at once. Basically what it boiled down to was determination: determination to survive the fight, to survive another day, to live to raise your ideals with pride; too bad for me that when I won, I only got the scraps of bread from another man’s meal and the coins from another man’s dollar. And, from what I could feel in my pocket, what I had done last night was not worth the cost. No matter how low you are, you don’t have to almost kill someone to survive. Leave that to the heartless people at the top of the fiscal pyramid who think money can compensate for poor taste in friends.

—

The fight last night is something I hope to forget, but it keeps racing through my mind. I see the cheap ring, in the middle of that large cinderblock room, surrounded by all those faces; all those greedy faces… belonging to people who are betting their money on me or on my opponent, like we are horses at the track. I can feel the humidity of the crowded room, which seemed to go on for miles in all directions, packed with those people. The feeling of the plastic tarp under foot and of the rope, cutting into my back as I leaned against it waiting for the fight to start, was the normal things I always noticed before a fight.

The first punch, coming from him, automatically went below the belt, trying to make the job fast. The air whooshing past my knee as he misses and my inevitable return: one fist strait into his nose followed by the tumble of his malnourished body to the mat. And the sound his body made was like a sharp crack. And, with a burst of bloodlust, I kicked him strait in the gut, hoping he would cough up the blood he had taken from me the night before in this same ‘arena’ (if it can be called an arena, as unsportsmanlike is the conduct within) the night before. The thing that hurts the most is the guilt about how proud I felt that I had taken down someone so much larger than me and how much blood I saw on the tarp, pooling there before me; a physical sign of my won vengeance.

—

As I returned to the present from this brief haunting of last night, I kept my eyes shut. I didn’t want help; I only wanted eternal peace. But the voices continued their excessive chatter, arguing about what to do with me, speaking as if I were a corpse on display.

“K.B., he’s out here in MY gutter for some reason. And I want to know why. So back the fuck off and let me see if I can pry that little tidbit of information out from him.”

“This better be the kid you used to talk about, especially after all the effort I put out making this joyous reunion happen.”

“Anthony? If you hear me, please let me know…somehow… God… you look beat up, but not too bad…”

At the mention of the name I had sworn off since I was sixteen, I flicked my eyes open to see what hell from my past was now forcing its way into my life. Two big brown Dago eyes were close to mine. Since my life is a horrible pulp-fiction novel with predictable turns, this was bound to happen; I knew who it was automatically. Michael had found me. Technically it was a bum who had dragged him down to this godforsaken alley to see me at my lowest. I moaned in protest to this fitting punishment for my actions last night, but it registered to him as me accepting his charity.

“Anthony, I want you to try and look at me. You remember me? God your face is bruised. Are you hurt too badly anywhere else? No? Okay… ...fuck. What am I supposed to do?”

“Just grab him up Mike. Do it before some pervert gets in here searching for their lost sex slave.”

“I can’t just take him home like some stray. What would Marc say?”

“You know Marc can’t say a single thing to you about it; he does worse shit all the time.”

“Please leave me…,” I finally muttered, “I don’t want your help… I don’t want any help. I just want to lie here, pretend you never saw me, and die in this dump.”

“Too bad; you need help and you might only feel this way for now.  I am not about to watch someone die below my own fire escape,” Michael replied, stating this like it was something as normal as taking out the garbage every Thursday to be picked up by BFI. As he said this, he kneeled next to me, placed his arms around my waist and dragged me off of the pallets and onto his shoulder. As he stood, vertigo caught me literally between the eyes and everything began to spin below me.

--Chapter 1, Part 2--

“What are you doing down here in the alley, Michael?”

“Marc, we’re going to be having someone stay with us for a while. He’ll sleep on the couch and be out of your way; I promise.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How dare he just tell me that we were having someone over, so short notice, without my consent? I may have been his bitch for the past five years, but that didn’t mean he had everything his way.

As calmly as I could, trying to sound somewhat reasonable, I asked, “Who is that sack of potatoes over your shoulder? I told you no more sets with extras; you have enough dynamite for both of us, I promise.”

“It isn’t like that,” Michael replied, quickly adding,

“You actually know this guy; he has no interest in you. I doubt he even has interest in me anymore.”

“Let me see- now.”

Through blood and dirt, I could barely make out who was tossed over my husband’s shoulder. But, even through all the blood, the blond hair still had a shine that was unmistakable; Anthony had finally made the Hajj to New York he had always threatened. I was now feeling the discomfort one only feels when an atom bomb has been dropped on their hometown, far off in the distance; the feeling of a guy whose territory is being challenged by the ex-boyfriend. But what could I say? If Michael felt that compassion was the right thing, then it was what was going to happen. But I knew once that boy entered our apartment, Michael would make him out to be a pet, like a dog.

“Bring him up, I guess. Just don’t get the upholstery dirty with all that shit he’s covered in…,” I said after weighing my options. Fortunately, every problem has a solution. Once Anthony was well enough to go, he would. He was too proud to take advantage of anyone; it was his one fatal flaw. It would plague him as long as he tried to make it in this town. I would just put the pressure on, convince him he had worn out his welcome before his blond head even passed over the threshold of the living room.

—Chapter 2— “These Clothes Were Dirty When I Bought Them”

When I gained consciousness, I had a rush of de-ja-vu. The antiseptic white of the walls, of the carpet, and of the upholstery seemed ironic for the situation in which these two lived. Marc was a comedic cross dresser who worked for a club uptown; very ritzy for a gay bar. Along with the rest of his profession, he would devour the attention. At least every other day get a booty call after the show before pouring himself into a cab to head home. Michael catered some of the up and coming social groups of the area. Because of this he sometimes would ‘network.’ Or he would just bring home an extra set of legs just for the hell of it. When and where they found these hookups, I have no idea. But I had heard enough about their habits from one another that I had a relatively good idea what they got into

I tried to lift my head to see more, but the sensation of everything twisting and turning returned. As I lay there, with my eyes closed, I began to focus my hearing. Every detail I could gather could help me get out of this temporary Hell, if I would only absorb them and use them to my advantage.

”...Marc, he has to stay somewhere. I can still remember when I lived on the street; how I had to break down and do the dirtiest things just to earn that thin dime. I still can’t believe my only salvation was a man who fucked me, then invited me to work for him and live in his basement.”

“I realize this but there really isn’t anything you can do for him; your business already hires people you don’t really need.”

“So, after all of my experiences, I should, against my better judgment, just dump him out onto the asphalt to fend for himself? Right now all he needs to do is have his body strengthen up. Then we will get to the other parts of his life we can hook up for him.”

These plans for me coming from the other side of the room, in what I assumed was the kitchen, were not what I wanted to hear. I wanted out of that apartment, and I wanted out, to be forgiven for what I had done to that other boy the previous night.

The silence hummed through the apartment reminding me that I was wasting time just sitting there, not learning about my surroundings. Instantly at the realization of this, I tentatively raised my head. The vertigo was now a minimal pulse in the back of my head and I had no trouble looking around. The only window was behind the couch, looking out to the street below. A flat screen television adorned one wall, framed by two bookcases and a fairly expensive looking sound system (it was too uber to be a ‘stereo’; it was probably one of Marc’s choice furnishings). Across the room were two doors, one of plain wood, and the other looking like the glass door to a reception room. One of the oddities of the building, Michael had told me, was that it was rebuilt with salvaged materials. So, from this information, I realized that the frosted glass door led to the bathroom. The door next to it probably led to the bedroom, there being no peephole or set of locks to identify it as the front. All of these details may seem pointless, but some times when you are in a place you don’t know, you aren’t somewhere safe. Knowing your paths of escape can save your life; observing the patterns of people and of their routines can tell you when there is a hole to take advantage or to escape through in their life.

As stealthily as possible, I rolled off of the couch to the carpeted floor. A quick dash to the front of the apartment was all that stood between me and an escape. The thought of getting up and running kept me on the floor. Fear of loosing consciousness again, leaving me completely helpless, made me stay in place where I could at least have a chance to beg for my salvation. This decision to not get up took only a split second, and in that split second, Michael was kneeling on the floor, looking down at me, trying to pick me up again. Standing at the foot of the couch was Marc, watching me with disdain; it was obvious he wasn’t exactly a good host.

“Leave him on the floor like the dog he is; I didn’t really want him up on the couch anyways. I’m just glad we got him cleaned up a little. The dirt was just HORRIBLE. How could you stand touching him?”

In response to Marc’s words, I looked at my clothes. Rather, I looked at the clothes I was wearing. And it was true; my clothes were gone, and my skin had been scrubbed until I was almost red.

“Those clothes were clean; I bought them looking grungy…,” I muttered. And truth be known, I really had just bought those clothes. I thought they had looked fit to die in, but I had more dignity than to be caked in muck and mire. Oh my god… they had to undress me to give me a bath and clean clothes… how did I know they hadn’t done more than that? Knowing Michael’s past, I knew he wouldn’t do anything perverted to me and I was fairly certain Marc wouldn’t either, but the thought still hung in the back of my head.

Speaking of Michael’s past, maybe I should share the story of how he once lived, back before he found his horrible ‘bride.’

—

Michael’s mother ran off either when he was born or very soon after, leaving him with a completely monstrous father. When we had talked, Michael often referred to himself as a ‘dumpster baby’ or an ‘after prom baby.’ Though I had never found it funny, he had meant those comments as a way to lighten the mood of an otherwise dark conversation. In the dark tenements his father ran a ‘business.’ At the earliest age Michael could remember, he could think of being sold sexually to all kinds of men. Even his father joined in on the activities. Michael went to school, but never spoke of what happened to him in those rooms. In later years, he began to be known as a good ‘top,’ and his father was paid for these services from Michael as well. When he turned twelve, he left and never came back, thinking to himself, ‘if he can sell me as a sexual object, I can just as easily sell myself.’

Michael would spend nights in parks and in under construction buildings. In the parks he would be run off by mothers who were selling their own children and in the buildings he would constantly fear the sound of approaching sirens. After years of life on the street, he had ‘clients’ who would set up appointments, and one of the men who paid for these privileges sometimes did not want this sad seventeen year old. This man, older than Michael’s father, would sometimes just pay to talk with him and see him.

After many meetings like this, the man invited Michael to live in the basement of his restaurant and work for him upstairs, teaching Michael how to cook and run a true business as they went along. Even with this job, Michael still worked his former business, sometimes under the pressure of his new boss.

When this phase of his life was over, Michael moved into his own apartment and opened a catering business. This led him to a life of semi-prosperity, where he could live comfortably and depend on no one other than himself.

All of these things impacted Michael in many ways; hence why I trusted him to have not raped me while cleaning me up. I saw the edge of my shirt sticking out of a trash can on the counter in the kitchen and knew that, most likely, I wasn’t going to see it again. I used to be a materialistic person; all I had in life were clothes, shoes and books to fill my time, but now, as depressed as I was, I didn’t care. When you have committed the great sin of harming another person purposefully, everything else falls into perspective. Having an ever-expanding wardrobe wasn’t important compared to something as cruel as attacking another person, especially when it has no true motive. Some could argue that my motive in the fights was to earn enough to live, but that isn’t a fair excuse. Why should I take from another to barely brush through life? There is no answer to that question.

—

The current question was how am I going to get out and survive? Like always, survival was essential. I looked up at the two of them bickering, Michael arguing in my defense and Marc opposing every word.

“The last word is mine, and I say he stays,” Michael said. And I knew Marc had no choice but to listen. Marc was practically Michael’s property; in Michael’s eyes, Marc was an animal to be trained and shown to the world.  

“He’s sleeping on the floor,” was Marc’s only response, and Michael had known all along that he would be the victor. After these words were spoken and a moment of tense silence had passed, Michael walked to the kitchen and began setting things out on the counter. As I watched with curiosity, Marc walked over and hugged Michael around the waist. Michael pulled away and walked back toward the living room with the plate, sitting on the floor next to me. When the plate was offered to me, I looked away. I didn’t want any of it and I knew he didn’t understand why. Or maybe he had made a generalized guess at what I had to do to survive and that was why he was trying to help me live.

Even with his honest conviction to help, I couldn’t let myself keep going on the way I was. At last able to gain control of my own legs, I stood up and ran for the door. As the stairs passed below my feet I thought of where I had to go, and it finally dawned on me that the alley was the only salvation left to me and that it was right within the easy reach of Michael, as well as loads of other people.

Through the doors, out to the shattered sidewalk, covered with tar and the remnants of garbage day, and around the corner I went, looking back at the building as I went. Michael wasn’t behind me, nor calling for me from a window. The place where I had been had been washed clean and I returned to it like a man who had just returned to his home country, with all the feelings of comfort that can be afforded by concrete.

—Chapter 3— Self-Inflicted Exile

The concrete had grown warm from my body, proving my heart was still alive, pumping blood through my veins to put out the heat. My heart’s slow beat was all I could hear. The repetitive sound beat in my ears like a kick drum. The sun was setting over Brooklyn, and it was beautiful to me. Even in all this misery and confusion, in the middle of all this self doubt, I was able to appreciate the beauty of the skyline. New York wasn’t a bad place if you had your purpose in mind and you were somewhat tactless.

The apartment building rose above my head, six stories in all. It wasn’t even much to look at, especially for this part of Brooklyn, where every building was pushing a century old. On the other side of the street was a row of brick townhouses and on the opposite side of the alley was a stone and brick hybrid with all-out masonry. But, compared to these, the concrete and stucco apartment building Michael resided in was not much to look at. The only interesting part of the building was the fire escape, made of solid wrought iron. Completely useless and rusty, but it still had grace that the rest of the building couldn’t offer.

With the study of my surroundings completed for the umpteenth time, I returned to listening to my heartbeat, trying to sleep in the cold of the late fall. Michael hadn’t come out of the apartment since I had ran out, but I had seen a moving curtain in his window, though I didn’t know whether it was Michael or Marc indulging his curiosity.

I almost wished Michael would have chased after me, telling me he was sorry for our miserable past and for choosing Marc over me. But I knew why he had chosen Marc over me. The simple reason that Marc was ‘real’ had been enough to sway his mind.

—

I met Michael through MySpace and before this day had never met him in person. Laugh all you want, but the honest truth was I fell for him. And at the time I had thought that he had loved me back. Talk of our home in the future, of me being with him when I turned eighteen, of us running his catering business together. In the end, after months of talking to each other, telling each other how we felt about one another, he went back to his ex-boyfriend, Marc. Simply because the guy lived there and was ready for a good fucking at all times.

The talking stopped abruptly. Not exactly without warning, but I was to naive to see it. One night he flirted with me, telling me how wonderful I was and telling me to sleep well… and then he was gone, as was Marc. Neither returned to MySpace and I was left for dead, as one friend had put it.

I never cried about it, somehow, but it still hurt. I hurt all over for a while after figured out that he wasn’t coming back. And, inconveniently, he had left right before I had to go back to school, where I hated almost everything and everyone excluding a small group of individuals who were different in their own ways and knew the value of a person. Only two of them knew Michael existed; my two (figuratively speaking) sisters, Ashlin and Kayla.

Ashlin, a year older than me, was, to say the least, an individual. I loved her to death for who she was. If you had to put a song with her, Scissor Sisters’ ‘She’s My Man’ comes to mind. She was just that kind of rough, fighting girl. She had a sense of humor but make one stab at her, and she would knock you down and tear you up.

Her not-so-identical twin, Kayla, wasn’t quite as rough, but she’d still fight for the right cause. Kayla cared about EVERYONE. She had the largest heart in the world, but it was a close call between these two.

During the whole thing, they were behind me. On my bad days, when I felt like a tragic mess and a complete loser, they were there for me showing no criticism toward me and showing complete hostility to Michael, like you would expect any best friends to do. Yes, being vicious for the sake of friendship is something I approve of. It means you get to grill the new boyfriends and have fun watching them squirm. On my good days, when I felt invincible and able to make it alone, they supported the mood and did what they could to keep it going. They were the best friends you could ask for, but now they had no clue where I was. The shame of sinking so low, of how I had to earn my living, was just more than I could ever expect them to understand.

The months that followed were filled with me thinking of him daily, no matter how hard I tried not to. My feelings changed through the months. In the fall of that year, right after he left, I moped about. I would just lose interest in everything and want to sleep. In the winter, I became angry rather than depressed. I would rage in my head, putting on a false front for everyone.

As the winter wore on and the holidays came, which I endured with a cheating mother and a father five states away, both of whom could care less about me because of who I was, I began playing the game. I tried to find people to just talk to and get to know. And I found plenty, but very few created any spark of interest from me.  Those who did always seemed to be similar to Michael in so many ways. It was like a line of dagos, all of whom worked in the art scene, whether it is film and photography or cooking.

I was scared to love them because I was unsure of whether or not I was falling for them or with the shadows of that past relationship. So, though these guys obviously liked me and told me I was their internet boyfriend and whatnot, I held back the fact that I reciprocated the feeling. Inside, I wanted Michael back in my life just long enough to find closure. I became consumed with what had happened and how I wanted the pain to end. To this day I cannot make the pain in my heart, and in my head, stop. The pain has dulled, but like a dull sword blade, it cut deeper and sloppier than a pain that was sharp and clear.

—

The setting sun behind the brick, glass and steel of the city was immensely beautiful. The structures of man against nature, standing as a monument to our own impracticality; how we could have feelings that made no sense and had no end and how they can stop abruptly like the ending beats of the human heart. The beats don’t fade; they beat strong until the end and then they vanish.

—Chapter 4— Leftovers

The moving shadows of morning emerged soon after I had closed my eyes. The not so unpleasant smell of yesterday’s baked goods woke me to the realization that I actually needed to eat soon. Not just need to eat, but wanted to eat. But it was the principle I had to keep; to see the end of this long, spiraling yellow brick road, I had to be gone. If I wanted to return to Oz, I had to be dead; even deader than the Wicked Witch of the East, crushed under a house.

The movement of traffic on the road was a mere trickle of vans and large trucks traveling about their routines. The sound of their engines was enough to wake me that morning. Almost ANYTHING could have woken me this morning, after the events of yesterday. My adrenaline was still pumping, hours later, and my mind was still racing about Michael.  

A flash of light from Michael’s building caught me eye, followed by the sound of a key in the lock against the sounds of the traffic.

The life of a baker, butcher, grocer, or caterer consists of early morning runs to gather products for the day and late nights of cleaning up after the mobs. This morning I witnessed the beginning of a caterer’s day. A canvas bag, a pair of plaid boxers and foam flip-flops were all that graced Michael’s frame on his way to the market. He had bragged of two-in-the-morning runs to the local outdoor market in his boxers and at the time thought he was only teasing me to get a reaction. But I had never imagined this to be so real. All 135 pounds if Italian tanned flesh marked with a single knife scar down his chest, strutted around so early in the day for no reason other than the fact that Michael was too lazy to get dressed.

—

The long knife scar on his otherwise flawless chest was from a mugging gone-wrong years ago, from the time of his prostitution. While taking a short cut through an alley, Michael had come upon two men standing among broken crates in the shadows. The knife was whipped out before he could realize what he had walked in on, and Michael’s precious Dago head hit the pavement.  His savior was a ‘bag-lady’ who had brought him to the hospital after seeing what happened and who remains anonymous to this day. The scar was not all the noticeable on the tan skin, but it had once been deep, jagged, and seemed perpetually agitated.
—

Instead of heading down the street, he turned into the mouth of the alley, walking with a purpose. Feigning sleep isn’t one of my talents, but, despite this knowledge, I worked against all odds to be believable.

“Anthony, I know you aren’t sleeping… I see you smiling.”

I looked up, trying to act groggy from sleep, but I knew that he knew better. Even through the dark, I could sense how e found this mildly humorous… and it ticked the shit out of me.

“What the Hell do you want? Isn’t enough that you humiliated me yesterday?”

“Apparently it isn’t, because I am here now. I brought you something if you would reconsider eating. I still don’t understand why you won’t eat, but I wish you would.”

“You know life is hard. I just want out. But thanks for caring now, after four years of being gone from my life. You just vanished along with a cross-dressing whore. How should I have felt about that? Should I have been proud to be a gleaming moment of your life and then nothing?”

“It was MySpace; I thought you knew it was just a fling. You took it that seriously?”

“Why shouldn’t I have? You were telling me everything and anything I might want to hear, making plans for the future, about how we’d cook together and be together. That seemed real to me. Too bad what turned out to be real is that you are just a pile of shit.”

“Do you want this food or not? I don’t feel like hanging around for this.”

“I wouldn’t hang around for this either if I were you; hence why I am doing it,” I said as defiantly as I could manage through the growing knot in my throat. And it wasn’t the normal knot in the throat you get when you are upset over doing poorly at something; it was the know which grows knowing you have failed at your one shot at the big time and that now you have absolutely NOTHING.

“Fine; I’ll be back after the morning shift punches out.”

“Don’t bother; I might not be here as an entity.”

“I’m leaving this here, and you better eat it. I mean, I DO cook for the all the ’debs’ you used to run with. What would they say if you turned away a meal from the infamous Michael DiAngelo?”

“I don’t know, because I never was all that high up to begin with on the social ladder.”

The term debutant usually brings up the image of a brunette with a bad smile and a load of money to back up her personal shortcomings. The abbreviate term (deb) however had been at one time a pet name for me, but now it stung like a knife. After the humiliation he had inflicted upon me, he had the nerve to mention the seemingly cushy childhood he never had? Maybe that had not been his intention, but, Gawd it had felt that way.

After I mentioned the fact that I was not the social better he made me out to be, his face turned a little cold with, what I assume, was the realization that he had nearly called me the old pet name which had been of his own invention; a term he deemed worthy of me.

Flatly he finished the predawn conversation stating, “The food is here. It’ll stay warm for a bit, but it should still be cold. I’ll be back after noon.”

That promise hung ominously in my mind for the hours after.

—Chapter 5— Early Mornings at the Market

From a personal standpoint, the building was horrendous. In the eye of the community, it was just another eye sore in a neighborhood of the same caliber. My life had started in the basement of this abandoned tenement, but it wasn’t like I had chosen my life.

“Hey- Mick, get over here if you want the rest of this here tilapia without the delivery fee!”

The street was deserted apart from me and this old screeching barker. Though it was only two thirty in the morning, he knew how to get the lead out of my legs and drag me over to his mildew-stained awning.

“How much for enough to feed a party of THREE HUNDRED?,” I asked, knowing I was bragging about my latest accomplishment and not truly considering the fact he probably did not give a damn if I was catering to that many of the elites.

“More than your bank account will ever hold, I tell ya,” he said with a seemingly toothless grin; I guess he cared somewhat after all if he bothered to make cracks at it.

“Well, put it on the bill and it’ll clear at the end of the month as usual; fag’s honor.”

His silent smirk left me wondering if he knew he was taking a risk on a failing business venture. If he did know, he was very considerate or financially incontinent to allow me to place such a large order.

As the barker was loading up the first bag of filets, I looked up at the walls surrounding his canvas jungle of stalls. The bricks, once an ageless red with bright advertisements for beverages which either no longer existed or had changed packaging, were faded. The letters either were chipped beyond recognition or had, in some strange way, been covered in graffiti with no apparent means for the person to reach them. These were the testaments that I had not imagined time passing in this place, even if it was very slowly trickling past my eyes.

—

To this day I hated the man who had made my life Hell and all which he had embodied: all of the damnedest things he had forced me to do. Words cannot even describe the fear of being a six year old, locked in a room with a strange man, stark naked, waiting for what you knew was to come. And to know you had known nothing different your entire life and the feeling that you never would escape the endless cycle.

When I was finally taught English after eight years of nothing but seemingly incoherent Italian, I started learning what it was the men wanted from me. Usually when I did what they wanted, I got what I wanted: a shorter amount of suffering and a slight bit of respect in the end. The entire experience was nothing more than a primer for what was to follow.

A short time after I turned twelve and had been allowed out of the tenement for short periods of time into the ‘real world,’   I ran away and since that time never returned. I reasoned that if someone had to be selling my body and making a profit, it should be me rather than someone who would never let me see a single dime that came from my pain. My first night out on the street showed me how cruel the world truly was, even in comparison with the Hell I had been faced with. A small corner park had been my first venue, but I was soon run off by mothers who had come to pimp their children to strangers. Some children were to be ‘rentals,’ used for a single purpose and brought back, and others were, to say the least, not as lucky as to have mothers who wanted them returned. Since I was technically competition, they wanted me gone. I was literally chased and stoned for being in ‘their territory.’

—

The bags of tilapia filets sat on the counter when I looked back down from the faded advertisements and the man was smirking at me for the way I had just zoned out. He simply asked, “He was just that good in bed, eh?”

“No, he really wasn’t. Nor were any of his other three hundred buddies which he decided to invite along.”

The barker had no idea what I was talking about, nor did I suspect he really wanted to know. Considering how many whack jobs the Big Apple churned out of cabs and tour buses, he probably had heard more fascinating stories than necessary for three lifetimes, let alone five decades of loading and unloading produce at one in the morning.

“Just put it on the tab; it’ll get paid, just like at the end of every other month.”

The walk home from the market was undoubtedly long, but it gave me a reason to leave Marc’s nagging and ranting out of my mind. He may be fierce in bed, but when he wants something done his way; he can be even fiercer with that presumably pointed tongue he seemed to possess. The lights along the backstreets, which seemed like home, turned off in unison as I was barely slipping the key into the lock of my apartment.

Caught up in my own thoughts about the studs from the night before and the daunting load of work which was ahead, I almost forgot to check on the sleeping nephilim in the alley. I drew the key out as I realized my mistake, and peeked around the corner, not wanting to be seen; no need to poke him anymore for the time being. He was still there, on the pallet, looking at the box I had left.

Leaving the bags of filets on the stoop, I casually came around the corner and stooped in front of him once more, trying to mimic what I had done earlier which had gotten him to the point of talking. That was the thing: Anthony didn’t seem like talking anymore. He just wanted to BE and then NOT be. He used to never keep his opinions silent and was abrasively honest. It was cute and somewhat interesting since he seemed to have some sense of grace with verbally depicting emotions.

“You want me to open and PROVE it isn’t going to explode in your face?”

“Mmmm… I don’t know… I don’t even know what I want…”

“Yeh?,” I prodded gently. Just to get this ball rolling would be an accomplishment for the morning.

“I haven’t known since I was like, what? Sixteen wasn’t it? Sixteen or seventeen when I thought I knew it all and that I was invincible?”

“That’s right. I remember that. You made such a big deal about, ’oh, yeh, JUST two years!’ Then you were going to be all mine, right?”

“Yeah, I guess…”

His eyes were surrounded by the shadows of stress and other kinds of emotional fatigue, and the eyes within those shadows, which were once vibrant blue, were now cold grey. They weren’t unnerving particularly, if you didn’t know their former vibrant color, but the change was apparent to me.

“Listen, I know it isn’t what you want, but you could NOT live in the alley if you want. I mean, you wouldn’t have me in the conventional sense, but you could still have me in your life.”

“I don’t settle for less than winning the house.”

A gentle Libra turned cold; that’s all that was left behind the glass stare.

“Please just take a leap for the sake of adventure like back in the days of, as you say, ’knowing it all.’ You know you don’t really want to die; it isn’t going to prove anything. Besides: you aren’t mean to die yet. You’ve lived through attempted suicide, your mother’s house, me abandoning you, and how many street fights?”

“In the words of Ethylene Tenenbaum as Henry Coleman proposed, ’I’ll think about it.’”

This was the first God damn normal thing he had said yet. Not normal in the conventional sense, but in the sense of Anthony: the archive of pointless facts and Wes Anderson movie quotes.

—Chapter 6— Comparison Shopping for a Futon

Do you know the feeling of being in a furniture store? The airy space and the stark white walls meant to accent the otherwise appalling selection of wooden tables, cheap upholstered furniture, curios, and mattresses? All of it hit me like a long lost friend. The thrill of something so expensive being brand new and actually going to make a selection were two feelings which I used to thrive on ’back in the day.’

Michael led the way down aisles of domestic goods to a sign marked ’discount,’ and I dutifully followed.

“Nothing personal, but if Marc hears I am buying expensive things for another man, he’ll go berserk.”

“I understand. I just wish I could pay for it myself.”

“We needed one anyways for when the Marc’s ’rents stop bluffing and actually come see how horrible their queer son’s life REALLY is.”

“It” and “one” referred to my new sleeping assignment: a futon, straight from the Orient. The fact that Michael was about to shell out coppers from his own pocket for me just made me want to beat myself up for being roped back into his charm. He was what he was, and what he was, was a walking paradox.  He was kind and outgoing, extremely manly, until it came time to commit to a relationship or the upholstery in his dream home. (Just for the public’s amusement, the big bad bruiser wanted was a Garden of England pattern for all the upholstery in his future Florida Mediterranean home… though that was up to debate, unlike the kitchen and dining room, aka his domain.)

After he had done his perusing of the fair the store had to offer, Michael looked at me, as if he wanted something to pop out of my mouth to make the situation simple.

“Um… (One of my more profound statements of the day) Would it help if we knew how much space this thing could take up?”

“Yeh… you can get whatever…,” he said to the tops of his Nike’s, slightly embarrassed for not thinking this too far out. At least this proved this was an innocent errand. If he had planned it out to thoroughly, I might have to think of why he really wanted me there and for how long.

The cashier’s vibe said, “I’m from Brooklyn and I’m gay, but I don’t have to be happy about it.” He looked at the tag for the futon, which in bold letters said ’queen,’ and then back at the two of us, standing on the opposite side of the counter, one of us bright red and the other pale from years of learning how to go through the moves of an embarrassing transaction; needless to say, I wasn’t the one embarrassed to be buying a bed for an ex-semi lover. The cashier’s raised eyebrow said more than a snide comment ever could. In that one facial gesture he told me, “You aren’t worthy of this man’s affection.”

I’d come to learn that, obviously, or else I wouldn’t have told Michael to buy a twin size futon. Yet, for the ” ’rents,” we HAD to get a sexually suggestive queen… not that I was about to complain; it all meant more room for ME in HIS apartment, in HIS life, in HIS conscience. Michael deserved a little bit of a guilt trip on a daily basis for a short period to understand how broken I felt.

He whispered in my ear, in a way which seemed to make the cashier jealous, “We’ll go get sheets at Gimball’s; they have more than this hole in the wall.”

I just smiled, like I had heard the best put-down that could possibly be directed at a random cashier’s crotch. And Michael, catching my eyes, smiled back. Our new repore.

—Chapter 7— Paradise Breeched

The sheets were 800 thread count, dark blue pinstripe on white. The contrast between the futon and the rest of the living room was obvious. The whites and beiges of the room, so clearly picked out to by someone who wanted ’matchy-matchy’, couldn’t compete. By the spread on the floor were my few possessions: a glass coke bottle from before the time of twist-offs, a copy of Fountainhead, an 80g Zune from my days as the ’deb’, and a stack of respectable clothes.

Michael smiled at what he deemed at ’his’ work. Though it took two to wrestle the futon up four flights of stairs past a disgruntled neighbor and her disgraceful cat, and though it took two to move the couch without tearing the precious berber carpet on the floor, AND though I was the one to pull the sheets on the futon, the work was all his in his eyes. We had hardly spoken through the entire lengthy process, but the silence had been what some call comfortable and what others would deem as a conversation without words: we knew what the other needed and we did it wordlessly.

Breaking this silence was the slamming of the door four stories below and the heated sound of wedges pounding the polished wood on the stairs. It was the sound of a disgruntled drag queen at her worst.

Marc’s attitude to me being invited ’indoors’ was similar to that of the hardworking housewife who hears her husband stating that he was bringing the hunting dog indoors to keep at the foot of the bed, to which the wife’s first thought is of fleas and the second is of the dirt which will ultimately be dragged upon the immaculate linoleum by the cur. Unsurprisingly, upon seeing the futon he almost lost it.

“Now Sally, before you open your mouth, calm down. We agreed upon this. Anthony isn’t on the couch, just like you asked [though in truth Marc didn’t ever ask anything].”

“You bought the dog a bed,” Marc, his disdain evident even to the most simple of New Jerseans.

“Anthony is not the dog. He is somebody. Or he will be once I’m done with him. Let it lie and move on; it is my apartment. My name on the deed, my money invested, just mine all together. So… my rules,” Michael simply trailed off.

“He’s a little punk who will ruin the union which is us, just like he almost did before. Inadvertently, I admit, but he almost did.”

“He wasn’t around when you laughed at me for proposing to you. He wasn’t around when you left me for Jerry. Anthony was part of our lives three months later, and then three months later he was out again.”

“Truth be known,” I interjected,” the three months I got, Michael was hardly around.”

“Quiet. The big people are talking and…,” was all that was heard from Marc before Michael erupted, as he once did when Marc first hurt him horribly. Now he did it in my defense, and it was appalling. His arm shot out with no hesitation and his breath became short drags for air as his arm reached Marc and clasped around his neck. He didn’t squeeze, but pushed him back to the wall.

“Now Sally,” his voice steadily said,” lets not drag him into what our shortcomings are.”

Marc’s eyes were at Michael’s arm, then the floor. I moved silently to Marc’s side and gently pulled Michael’s arm down. The world suddenly continued turning and the air seemed to once more circulate through the room. Only now did I realize I had not drawn a breath for this entire episode, and I now crashed to the floor. My head landed on the futon, my feet on the tile of the kitchen, and my torso on the berber of the living room.

The only known instance of extreme violence between Marc and Michael on this scale also seemed this brief. It had happened in this same living room, with the same generic ’modern’ furnishings. The center of the dispute: an ’escort’ for lack of a better word named Josh, who had traveled with his boyfriend from the state of Florida to meet the famed Michael DiAngelo and see the caterer’s lifestyle up close. In my place was Josh. To say the least, a New York lifestyle for a man in his late teens is explicit and a protective boyfriend can make it worse. Josh was not the first blight in the relationship, but he was one of the first major discretions to leave his crack in the gloss.

A glass of water in the face for Josh, a shove for Marc, and then ejection from the apartment for both until sundown were the consequences of the confusion centered about jealousy and lust of all three men.

My eyes met Michael and Marc’s eyes and their gaze suddenly brought the air surging through my body, bringing with is a sense of life which I had not reached since the age of sixteen.

—Chapter 8— The Scenic View from Behind the Couch

The sunrise was something I was to see often from the futon. The large plate glass window the couch had once been pushed up against now was practically free of obstruction other than when I was asleep. The sun shone every morning brightly in my face. Michael’s keys always jangled as he worked his way as silently as possible through the kitchen, and the sound of a sleeping behemoth was not uncommon at this hour coming from the one bedroom.

The street was pale asphalt, littered with the leaves of the season. The surrounding buildings were somewhat weather stained, but they still held their place in the skyline with as much dignity as the Chrysler building. The building opposite the window was a three story building which I assume was a bank at one time, but which now housed numerous families in the redefined space. The yellowed concrete and the simple rendered stone which supported had turned darker over the decades due to the rain and pollution. The clock above the lintel was able to tell the precise time exactly twice a day: at 3:47 in the morning and at 3:47 in the evening. Even through this disrepair caused by the elements, a person could see the beauty which time had placed upon the building: the aging of the timbering had turned the wood a deep brown and the years of exposure to rain had formed a patina on the copper roof.

Michael’s back was to me, so I looked curiously from the floor at his moving hands working with a mound of dough on the countertop. Even if he had hurt me, he still offered some sense of service for the world; producing meal for possibly hundreds a day.

I looked with one eye opened, pretending to sleep. Since I have already covered that I am not good at feigning sleep, it is no shock that within five minutes he figured me out. He looked over once, saw me watching, and rather than say anything, let a little smirk fall on his face to acknowledge my gaze.

The only light to trickle around the room was that of the sun and of the cast iron overhead fixture above the island in the kitchen, where he continued to work silently.  Years of sleeping on a street had conditioned me to be able to sleep through the midnight deliveries of flour to bakers (or marijuana to Gawd only knows) to the bright light of the morning. Yet, this light kept me awake; a seemingly impossible feat.

Rather than be useless on the floor feeling stalker-ish, I rose off the futon and began my morning, preparing for the rush that was bound to come calling upon Michael’s services. Part of my living arrangement: working as a busboy and server at the events and doing the lighter bit of kitchen work. Basically, I washed the endless line of dishes he employed in his process when I was in the kitchen.

A candid moment: working this way suited me perfectly well. I didn’t mind being in the kitchen with him, even if I still was irritated with his previous actions the majority of the time. He broke my heart, but it wasn’t like he had totally let me go to Hell in the end; even if his help was brought about by chance. The whole experience was almost like that which I had envisioned as a form of ’us’ which was never to exist. Well, other than the fact I slept facing the back of a couch every night and my bed was hardly five inches off the floor.

—Chapter 9— Stilettos & a Torn Zipper

“Mickey’s out, right?”

“Yeh, he has as job that goes on until midnight thirty,” I said. It was unexpected to have Marc actually ask me something, rather than just command something of me. Instead of being polite and asking, he could have also considered phrasing it as, “Tell me where the fuck Michael is NOW or you will wake up without testicles in the morning!” Not a pretty sounding thing, right? He doesn’t have the balls to come after me, but he would at least give me a little lip if I even hesitated, and we all know not to tick off the queen bee. Her drones come after you after they’ve had their booty call and have some adrenaline left to pulverize you with.

My shift that night had been taken by another of the regular busboys, Jase, so I had the unfortunate predicament of being stuck with Marc alone for an entire evening, though I supposed I could have just as easily walked down the block and spent the time window shopping. The cold may have bitten, but it could not have been worse than the sight in front of me.

Very few times had I seen a full fledged Queen in the apartment; a blouse was normal attire and perhaps a wig if Marc felt like something extra, and obviously jewelry, but nothing close to this. A sleek dress, stiletto heels, a blonde bouffant, and, lord, a mock pearl necklace ’graced’ (though the term is hardly fitting for the figure in front of me) Marc.

“Hon, can you come over here a minute? Sally needs you to help her…”

This was an out of character statement for ’dear old Sally’; something obvious to any suburbanite. I stood up slowly, and looked closely at him as I walked over. The smell of booze rose from him stronger than any wino I had ever been forced to be in close contact with.

“I can’t quite reach the zipper, boy. Would you mind?”

“I can try.”

“We both know pulling zippers up was never my thing. Pulling them down on the other hand is a personal talent. But you always thought I was a whore, didn’t you?”

“Hold still, it’s stuck on your corset. And no, I don’t think you are a whore. I just don’t understand everything I need to know about you, I guess.”

He looked over his shoulder and smiled as he felt the zipper reach the top of the gown.

“Thanks darling. Damn zipper… every time. Now be good while I’m gone, or I’ll get Michael to put you back outside. I’m kidding not…”

As he staggered out the door, I had conflicting emotions. For once he had almost been human to me. So why was I letting him out onto the street where he could be hurt? But there was that part of me that was jealous that he had won the man I had wanted for so long and had hurt over so much longer (and in truth still hurt over); that same part of me wanted him to suffer somewhat. In my mind I imagined a drunken act which would be embarrassing and public, but would not register in his corkscrewed head.

I looked out the window to the street below, part of me wanting to just see Marc sprawled across the sidewalk, possibly with his wig askew and the other hoping to just see him on the bench across the street, watching traffic. Instead I saw him waltzing his way down the pavement to the bar on the corner.

Like the average baby sitter/young child with no common sense, I had been given a list of emergency numbers which were posted on the fridge. I never thought I’d use any of them, but now seem somewhat appropriate. At the bottom, in red Sharpie was Michael’s cell phone number which was never to be called unless the apartment was on fire or flooding, or if something else equally outrageous was happening. Marc being staggering drunk and on the roam seemed a good reason to call.

“Yo”

“Michael? It’s Anthony… um… Marc’s so drunk he had to fall on his ass to save a little face, and he just left. So… should I grab him before he lands in the gutter?”

“Let him go. Why should you have to bother with his dumb fuck actions?”

“I don’t know. He was actually civil to me the entire time he was talking to me. Hence what tipped me off to him having gotten into the liquor…”

“I’ll be home in half an hour. Just sit and chill for a while and we’ll see what we feel up to doing to keep him from embarrassing himself.”

He promptly hung up, leaving no room for arguments. I just had to sit and “chill” in someone else’s empty apartment and pretend I was a normal man living a normal life (putting aside the homosexuality and ruthless beatings of the past). For me, unfortunately, this was normal. Normal is a lot of things, but it is not uniform. My normal is different than Michael’s normal, Marc’s normal, K.B.’s normal, and it is certainly different than the majority of what is deemed ’normal’ in the world, especially those parts which were not Jamaica (which appeared to be the anti-homosexuality capitol of the world).

To pass the time, I picked up one of Michael’s numerous recipe cards he left sprawled on the counter and began reading the handwritten notes in the margins. As soon as his handwriting was in my sight, I felt the pang of jealousy grow larger as it did every time I saw it. I wanted this handwriting to write something beautiful to me, not some dressed up hussy who wasn’t proud of what Gawd, in all his wisdom, gave them. I wanted this handwriting to be leaving me directions of how to handle the business for the day while he ran other errands. I wanted to be selfish, like I had planned to be when I ’met’ Michael on myspace.

I reasoned myself into believing he was rightfully mine and I could keep him as mine, alone, because I had never had anyone. I wanted the right to be truly selfish for the first time in my life, and he allowed me to act this way. He actually encouraged me to be obsessive over him and it grew to where when he did just up and vanish, I couldn’t cope. I couldn’t let him leave my head for more than a few hours before a song, a book, a chunk of eleventh grade history information, anything relating to cooking, or even a time of day would set me on to a rampant amount of thoughts about him and what I deserved. I loved him, but I could now see my love wasn’t strong enough to let him go and be happy, regardless of whether or not it was with someone else.

That one card brought about a thought that had never occurred: I was not a selfless person when it came to him. I wanted to own him, even after a month of living in his apartment on a futon. Over the course of the entire month, it never crossed my mind I missed him on this scale.

The card fell back to the pile, and I put my hands to my face (I’m always just the ’lil drama queen, ain’t I?). I wanted to cry, but knew I couldn’t, just as I had not been able to over the past seven years. Four of those years I had felt strong emotions over what had happened on MySpace and never shed a tear over it. I had wanted to cry, but, for an unexplainable reason, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. My damn pride stood in the way of me and letting some of the stress go.

When I pulled my hands away from my face, I found my self sprawled on the futon. I knew I wouldn’t cry tonight. I was stronger than that. I was, for the moment, invincible. I had survived Michael, Marc, and a street fighting ring Capone himself would have been mortified to contend with. I would survive for an eternity if the need became evident.

—Chapter 10— Shadows & Pavement

The cold of the street still stung in my bones as I listened to my own rhythmic steps up the four flights of steps to my apartment. The shadows cast by the lights on the walls gave the entire stairwell an eerie feeling, but seven years of living here and taught me that nothing could honestly ’lurk’ in a corner.

Fourth floor, apartment D, the last one along the hallway, was where life took root every morning before the sun came up. The stained wood of the door looked horribly warped, even in the looming dark, but the curve in the wood screamed ’home’ to me.

The light inside was the dim blue light cast by a television screen. The television in the armoire wasn’t on, but I knew where the halo of blue light came from; Anthony’s portable DVD player which, to me, seemed to be an eternity old. With his headphones in, he didn’t have a clue I was back yet. As I opened my mouth to utter a quiet hello, he turned toward me with his mouth open as well as if to ask why I was home late; another typical thought from the Mind of Michael, who expects everyone to nag him to death.

The first words from Anthony were, “We have to go find Marc.”

The kid was more concerned about Marc than I was and it didn’t shock me one bit. I know I can be a selfish git, but most times I will do anything to try and make someone happy, especially if they try to make me happy. Yet, Anthony functioned on a whole other level: he cared, regardless of any differences he has had. That is, if the person needing help hasn’t practically blacklisted himself for eternity by being purposefully hateful.

And what are the first words out of MY mouth? Are they, “I am so glad you think so too,” or even, “Well, obviously. Why are you just sitting here with those damn things in your ears?” No, what comes out of my mouth is, “Sally’s a big girl; she can take care of herself.”

As Anthony’s eyes grow wide with some level of shock, quickly extinguished, I look at him; blond all over and not more than one hundred twenty pounds.

“Give me some room down there. I am not sitting on this nasty carpet.”

“Okay, but Marc has been out for a little while. Aren’t you worried about him being loaded in Larchmont?”

I look at him, wondering if this is a serious question. As casually as is possible on a futon, I respond, “Well, for one thing, he is most likely in Astoria by now… he’s safe though. We both know Marc’s reputation; any guy will take him in for the night, and I’ll end up with him back on the stoop by noon.”

“How can you be so calloused? We should at least look.”

“Do you really want to leave the warmth of this apartment to look for someone you despise?,” I ask, my temper rising. Why should he care? I wouldn’t blame him not to, to be honest; I thought Marc and I had been blacklisted in his mind eons ago when we first left. I continued, “I know you think he stole me from you, so why is it you want to help him? He yells at you daily, yet you never do anything about it.”

Those two beautiful blue eyes looked to the floor, and then sharply he looked straight at me. “Michael, have I ever once asked you what happened in the course of one night to make you not want me? Before you even open your mouth, let me tell you. The answer is ’no.’ I haven’t asked because I know what happened between you two is real and what happened between you and me is, theoretically, nonexistent. I have to learn sometime. Dredging up things from the past…”

“Anthony, I can tell you…”

“Shutup and let me finish- Dredging things up from the past is never all that helpful in healing. I may not have healed yet, but it is only because I don’t let things happen, learn, and move on.”

His eyes are square to mine now; I can feel them looking right into me, looking into my thoughts. I knew he didn’t like what was going on behind mine, but that was a risk I was going to have to take.

“So, if I were to do… say… this…,” and with that sentence, I pushed him flat on his back and looked right back into those eyes, now filled with fear. I gave a small smile and quickly turned it into the snarl face he loved to see me make. With that, he pushed back and I let him. For the first time in my life since I had been truly on my own, I let someone push me and get away with it.

“If you WERE to do that, I would have to escape at any cost and never come back. But since that did NOT just happen in the living room of the apartment you share with Marc, I will just have to try and let you in on a secret: unlike Marc, you can’t bully me. Saying that magic word, ’bubblegum,’ will not get me stripped, where you want me, for you to do your worst at that precise moment.”

The word bubblegum… something most people associate with chewing, no doubt, is a term Marc and I held in a different light. Me asking for gum was my way of commanding him I wanted him to drop everything, even work or shopping, at once and to come back home for me to own. At the realization that I had truly once told Anthony this as a form of revenge against Marc, my face turned red.

In an urgent need to change the subject, I threw my last wrench into the conversation.

“If you are so concerned about Marc, let’s go for a walk. Grab your jacket and let’s go roam around. Let me tell you a story as we go. We’ll look as we go. Some parts of this city are only attractive at night.”

Those eyes; they just penetrated me again, trying to read me, but I was prepared for that this time. He slowly stood up, ignoring my offered hand of assistance, and grabbed the old cord trucker jacket he had owned in ’Hell’ at the age of sixteen. It still fit him as it had before, but it didn’t hold the same charm when it wasn’t worn with the hopes that a hand might reach around the back and hold the body within to keep it warm as it was modeled along the darker streets of the city which never slept.

Anthony pulled his hair back into a ponytail and pulled a cap on, and in that moment I saw him as he was meant to be seen: ready for a battle. After that moment passed though, I wondered how someone I had just thought of as selfless could also be a warrior. Was Anthony a warrior one of the ’modern-day crusades’ that were rampant through this city of freaks? I now doubted it, but that moment exposed a spark of something lurking beneath the surface; something which I had also observed through the innocent text on MySpace.

As these thoughts played through my mind, I ushered Anthony through the door, back down the stairs cast in eerie shadow, and out onto the windy street four stories below.

—Chapter 11— Street Corner

The air was cold on my skin as we descended upon the street, and Michael’s decision to tease me again did not make me feel comfortable either. I glanced over my shoulder as we walked to the speakeasy on the corner. As I waited outside while Michael went in to check for Marc, I thought of what had just happened up the block between Michael and myself. Why would he play with me after knowing how badly he hurt me? Was he so callous that he would intentionally hurt me? I doubted that he would do this, especially after all the time he had spent stoking my trust and stroking my shattered ego. The thought that he may actually want me back crossed my mind, but it wasn’t something I wanted to dwell on for long. I was not about to be dragged back into what little charm he could offer.

The light hit the pavement before his Nike’d foot was out the door, and his words seemed to leave his mouth before it was open; Marc wasn’t here drinking himself farther into the hole, like I think we both had thought from the beginning. I looked at him trying to read him, like I had been attempting all night. There was no trace of any extreme concern in his face, nor did he stand like he was stressed.

With that moment of silence and acceptance of Marc truly being out on the streets alone, Michael asked if I was ready to hear the story he had promised.

“Marc is out there on the street, and you want to tell me a story? I am hoping you are just trying to calm me down and not just ignoring the fact your Gawd damn cross dressing, drag queen of a boyfriend is out on the streets about to possibly get his ass kicked.”

As the words left my mouth, I realized why Marc liked the sense of power he received from talking a little trash to someone who seemed to be purposefully obtuse.

“Well, you might want to know this story, since it has you as a focal point in it,” he said through a calm face which I could tell was masking the urge to put me back in my place. A slight feeling of remorse came over me, but the remorse was immediately cancelled out by my curiosity.

Through a smug smirk, Michael said, “This is a story of my life before I had any of what I have now; and by that I mean, no relationships whatsoever, money, a business, or even any skills on which to build a business. This is the story of how I ended up with what I have, after I left that Hellhole I was forced to live in, where I lived like a caged animal with no means to talk to the outside world. And, in a round about way, it led me to you.”

Now this I had to hear. How could being a prostitute have any way of relating to me, unless he was referring to

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