Cleaning up his place, he called Keith, told him he had not gone to Florida after all, but wanted to meet for a walk. Keith enthusiastically agreed to the unexpected invitation.
Hanging up, Michael spied the number he had written on the wall above the nightstand—the corner payphone. He considered dialing it, but the idea seemed crazy.
When Keith came, they walked uptown, Michael secretly searching for the Blueboy among the winter-wrapped pedestrians. But the young man was not to be found panhandling among shoppers or bumming smokes from office workers on breaks.
As they traipsed down to South Street, Keith complimented Michael’s newfound energy. Michael said nothing as he led them along the northern edge of Gray’s Ferry. Still no sign of the Blueboy.
Soon they came to the South Street Bridge, where the kid had jumped. Hadn’t he? Michael stopped halfway across, ignoring Keith’s puzzled expression as he scanned the river winding southward. In the distance behind scraggly trees, refinery smokestacks trailed charcoal wisps. Michael studied the riverside, trying to X-ray with his eyes the abandoned Navy Home in a vain effort to spy the house in Devil’s Pocket where the Blueboy had grown up. Where his brother had beaten him. Where he had become convinced life wasn’t worth living.
Your spirits are certainly up today, Keith remarked.
Michael snapped around. Behind his companion, the spires of the city rose up—all glass and metallic blue in the afternoon light. The river ran alongside, flashing bright slivers against murky indigo. The colors hurt Michael’s eyes. The wind blew sudden cold back into his bones and he found himself shivering.
*
A few days later, Michael’s phone rang in the middle of the night as it had long ago. At first he couldn’t believe the faint whisper of the voice in his ear. He crossed to the window and looked down at the street corner. The Blueboy stood by the payphone, face upturned toward Michael’s window.
Soon the boy was at his door. Ushered in, cold and damp, his skin so pale it showed the lace of blue veins beneath.
You’re frozen, Michael said, removing their clothes until his naked form lay atop the Blueboy’s goose-bumped skin. Michael tried to warm the Blueboy with hands and mouth. He drew the kid’s cock past his lips, glanced up, saw the Blueboy’s eyes roll back and shudder in their sockets.
So much coldness to fire, Michael thought. He reached to the nightstand for a condom, started to roll it on when he felt the chill of the Blueboy’s hand close around him. That’s not needed anymore, he said, guiding Michael in.
Inside his chest, Michael felt a silken skein unwind as if the Blueboy still held the psychic cord that had linked them the night of Michael’s fever. Michael let the Blueboy reel him in, rocking against the young man’s body, feeling a long-feared part of himself build toward release. Soon his warm cum filled the boy’s coldness.
Morning came, and Michael awoke alone, door once more locked from inside. When Keith came to walk Michael to his doctor’s appointment, Michael fought the urge to divulge everything, knowing Keith would only roll his eyes. At the hospital, Michael remained moody and silent as the doctor poked and prodded, only the faintest of smiles coloring his lips when he learned his T-cells were up, his physician impressed by his speedy turnaround.
The weather broke. No calls from the Blueboy came. Michael’s good health became a trophy Keith showed to his volunteer pals. Michael began to work out with them, meet them for herbal tea, attend their potluck dinners of tofu and tahini. He was glad for company if it meant taking his mind off the Blueboy for a while. And it had been years since he found himself welcomed by a group, though in the back of his mind he thought their chatter rang hollow; their friendship—even Keith’s—seemed forced, mere proof of the charity of the unafflicted.
Still he gratefully accepted when Keith arranged part-time work for him at the AIDS Fund, where Michael now spent mornings organizing bingo benefits hosted by drag queens and stuffing envelopes with brochures. Afternoons, Michael climbed the Stairmaster at the gym, sometimes glancing down at his chest, straining to glimpse the silken cord that might at any moment be tugged by an invisible hand. It never was. Evenings, he walked the streets a hustler might haunt, up and down Thirteenth past skinny black drag queens who called out hey white rooster. But the Blueboy was never among them, nor inside the bars that Michael checked each night. Spring was in the air and the Blueboy’s ghost had been sucked back into the dark.
One afternoon Michael entered St. John’s, though he hadn’t been to church since his father’s funeral. Out of habit he genuflected and crossed himself, then took a seat in back. An old woman crept past to the confessional. When she shut the wooden door, Michael raised his eyes to the vaulted ceiling, its filigreed firmament hazy and oiled behind a veneer of candle soot. Michael sighed and scanned the painted saints. What good would it do to take the old woman’s place when she left? The bearded carvings offered no answer. Michael rose, lit a candle before leaving, recalling the distant lights from his dream, how hard it had been to reach them.
And now when night comes, Michael stays up late, dials the number written on the wall above his nightstand. He carries the old black rotary to the window and looks down at the corner where the lost boys gather. Regulars ignore the ringing payphone as they place their palms on open car windows. Occasionally a curious new boy picks up the payphone receiver, and Michael listens in silence as a naïve hello threads through wires to reach his ear.
Fingers point to Michael’s window as the newcomer learns who the caller is. A peal of laughter rises. Michael shrinks from the lost boys’ sight. He sinks to the floor, hears the payphone receiver drop and clatter, yanking against its cord. He shuts his eyes, wondering how can he help himself when each upturned face might be the Blueboy’s come again—his hand lifting the fallen receiver, his voice whispering It’s me. Snowflakes fall on the Blueboy’s cheeks, collect on his lashes. Michael can feel them melting.
Contributors
JONATHAN ASCHE’S work has appeared in numerous magazines, including Playguy, Inches, Torso, Honcho, and In Touch for Men, as well as the anthologies Friction 3, Three the Hard Way, Manhandled, Buttmen 2 and 3, Best Gay Erotica 2004 and 2005, and Hot Gay Erotica. He is also the author of the erotic novels Mindjacker and Moneyshots. He lives in Atlanta with his husband, Tomé, and their neurotic pets.
DAN BOYLE is a Los Angeles–based writer. His first novel, Huddle, published in 2003, is about nine gay men whose team vies for the championship of the West Los Angeles Flag Football League. His second novel, Housecleaning,published in 2007, is about a gay Caltech physicist trying to find a unified principle of the universe who returns to Seattle to care for his mother who is dying of a strange form of dementia in which she falls back in time. A former newspaper reporter, Dan currently works for a large public relations agency covering healthcare.
BILL BRENT knows you aren’t reading this book for the authors’ bios. Follow Bill’s antics at www.LitBoy.com.