“You come to take me back to the van?” This was business and it was time to beat him to the fuck. Life, business: I saw now that Dad was correct and I couldn’t, no matter how much I had wanted to, keep life and business separate. Rubin wanted me, and I wanted him as a friend. With compromise and cooperation could both get what we wanted.
“You want to go, man?” he asked, smiling.
He was not good at playing the negotiating game. Never show a salesman that you want what he’s selling, Dad always said. That was why when shopping for a new car Dad would pretend to walk off several times on every salesman that undertook the challenge of haggling with him.
“Why should I? What do I get out of it?”
“What...what do you want?” Rubin’s smile turned to a confused grin.
“My Space Invaders game back and a big drawing of Captain America to hang in my room.” A swastika was a no-no on my walls, but Dad couldn’t complain about Captain America. Even though I didn’t like comic books, the drawing would liven up my room some, and more importantly, every day when I looked at the painting, I’d have the satisfaction of knowing that it was the first item I negotiated for.
“I want the comic books I let you borrow back,” Rubin said.
“You’ll get them after I have my game and picture.”
“No, before.”
“I’m going to the van before you give me anything,” I said. “Isn’t that enough good faith for you?” Good faith was a phrase I’d heard Dad use when dealing with car salesmen.
Rubin’s confused grin became more strained. Things had changed. I could speak to him however I wanted to now. And he was trying to figure out how to handle me.
The waves rushed in, erasing my deep footprint, cooling my ankles, and leaving white bubbles on my feet. I stared out over the water, pretending not to notice Rubin. This was another
negotiating technique I learned from Dad: after you’ve given your demands, act as if you don’t give a damn about the other person meeting them.
I looked back at Mr. Lopez, still seated on his barstool. He waved his hand at the young blonde bartender who ignored him at first, busying herself with a tray of empty glasses, but then
took his order for a second drink when he banged his empty glass down on the bar. If Rubin didn’t hurry and give me an answer, I was going to do the same: grab his attention and let him know I meant business.
I looked at Rubin’s black hair, dark eyes and brown skin; the opposite of my thin blond hair, blue eyes and pimply skin. Maybe that was what he liked in me: our physical differences.
Rubin looked me in the eyes, and once he saw me pivot to walk away, he said: “How soon would you want the picture?”
Good, he mentioned the picture first. Space Invaders he could just hand over to me one night at the dojo, but the picture he’d have to take time to draw.
“In two weeks,” I said. “And the picture has to be big, poster-size.”
“Anything else?”
“It has to be in color. And don’t sign it.”
“Why not?”
“I’ll know you drew it. That’s good enough.”
Rubin nodded in agreement, but slowly, and his slow movement told me he didn’t totally understand my answer or reason. I didn’t want him to sign it because I wanted to get some work out of him for which he wouldn’t receive any credit. Not only was I beating him to the fuck, I was fucking him out of his art. Dad would be proud.
“What exactly are we going to do in the van?”
“You’ll see.”
“I know I’ll see, but I want to know what’s going to happen.”
“Why, if you don’t like it, you going to renege on our agreement?”
“Renege” was a word I heard Dad use, and it was always a word to describe liars and cheaters and no-count businessmen.
“I’m not going to renege. But I’m not going to go ahead blindly.”
“We’re going to have some fun,” Rubin said.
“What kind of fun?”
“What’s up with all these questions? Do you want to go to the van and become my best friend or not?”
We entered through the sliding door and Rubin quickly pulled it shut behind us; the heat in the van was smothering. Before I could even sit down, Rubin reached out and began to rub my crotch. A boner, much like I awakened with some mornings, stretched the front of my shorts. My legs felt weak and I sat in one of the back-row captain’s chairs.
“People can see you through the windshield,” Rubin said, “come to the back.”
I moved to the sofa in the back and recalled Mr. Lopez saying that it folded out into a double bed. But Rubin didn’t unfold the sofa; he was too busy massaging me inside my shorts.
Sweat trickled from my hairless armpits and Rubin pulled down my shorts. My dick stood straight up and looked bigger than I’d ever seen it. Dad, I knew, wouldn’t appreciate his son having his private part stroked by a Puerto Rican anything, especially a boy. But I liked the feeling, and wondered why I’d never thought to do this to myself. Although Rubin was rubbing my dick, I got a powerful feeling in my toes which moved up my shins, locked my knees, and burned my thighs as it raced through them and out the end of my dick.
“You were full, man,” Rubin said, getting a towel. A creamy, white streak hung on the red roof of the van, and it almost glowed against the fiery backdrop.
Rubin’s snatched off his shirt and shorts and had a boner pointing at me. In the closet his dick had appeared huge, but now it seemed a tad smaller and not quite as intimidating. I sat back on the sofa and was so weak that I couldn’t move, but Rubin was running out of patience.
“Give me a minute,” I said.
“You got off, man. Now it’s my turn.”
I reached for his dick, but he grabbed my hand and jerked me to my feet.
“What’s going on?”
Rubin didn’t answer. He only pushed my face into the floor; the new car-smell filled my nose and I could barely breathe, but lack of air was not my main problem. Rubin’s dick felt like a
hard turd entering me, like the time I was constipated and had one hanging half in and half out.
In my mind I yelled “Stop,” but all I heard were Rubin’s grunts. I held back tears, telling myself that if I didn’t make a noise then none of this was real, none of this was happening. One sound and all of this would be real and undeniable.
Rubin, finished, backed away from me, and I immediately raised my head and took a deep breath. Rubin’s dick was still stiff, but now it drooped at the end and he wiped it with the same towel that had erased my streak. My butt felt hot and wet and I worried about Rubin’s white cream: was it in me? Or was the warm, wet sensation blood? My blood? I felt around with my hands and heard Rubin laughing.
“I didn’t get any in you, man.”
I didn’t ask him if I was bleeding; I figured if I was he would tell me. But my butt was sore, and I didn’t know how I was going to sit for the ride home.
“I’m gonna go find my pop,” Rubin said. “You come too.”
Now I knew that Mr. Lopez had something to do with this, and Rubin was bringing me as a trophy to show off to his dad.
“Fuck you!”
“What? Fuck me?”
“You heard me,” I said. The incident was over and now that I had made noise, it was way too real.
A punch to my stomach doubled me over.
“Don’t be an ingrate,” Rubin said. “You wanted this just as much as me. Now keep your mouth shut.”
At home, after the Lopez family had left, Mom asked again if I had liked the beach?
“Good. It was big and had lots of people.” That was the same answer I had given her earlier as Rubin stared at me.