“And because you occasionally masturbate thinking of a threesome with a faceless young lady so that the quarterback of your dreams will be a little more turned on, you decide you’re straight — ”
“I ain’t straight!”
“Okay, bisexual.”
“That’s not what I mean. I mean I ain’t gay for the same reason I ain’t straight.”
Bill raised a reddish brow. Along the hedge, sedge and japonica bent and unbent.
“Like you said, gay guys are guys who…what was it? Won’t eat their shit…” Eric shrugged, as if the connection were self-evident.
Bill said, “You’re going to have to tell me more than that.”
“Scott’s gay — the other cocksucker on the football team. He actually likes those HBO shows. The one I watched didn’t have no black guys on it. At all. And everybody’s hookin’ up and gettin’ all upset if anybody screws anybody else who ain’t him. Scott sucks Hoagy — one of the black guys on our team. But he says he’d ‘rather not.’ Damn, I told him I’d trade him Hoagy for any two of the white guys I do in a minute! Hoagy’s a halfback. But ’cause Scott’s Puerto Rican, he hogs all the niggers — I think he likes the white guys better — but they make him, anyway. And he’s scared. You know, last term in school, Scott said we should spend some time hangin’ out together — ’cause we both…” Eric shrugged. “You know. He really wants people to call him Scott, but everybody calls him Scotty, anyway. I wished I had a nickname. I wouldn’t even mind something crazy — like ‘Cocksucker.’ I mean, that’s what I am, ain’t I? And I do it good. But if he found out, probably it would mess up Mike’s head. Our coach, Mr. Doubrey, he would think it was funny. He’s gay too, but only me and Scott know — and Arnie Zawolsky. I mean, we’re the only three Doubrey actually sucks off. And he says he’ll kick us off the team if anybody finds out — not about us, about him. And we’re all scared. Well, maybe not Arnie — he’s too stupid to be scared; and big as he is he’s got a tiny dick. Six-foot four, and he’s like — ” Eric held up his little finger, thumb covering the lowest joint — “this. But Doubrey says Arnie comes a lot. When I first got there, Arnie’s name was ‘Buckethead.’ Now it’s just ‘Buck.’ Buck Zawolsky ain’t bad.”
“You only think you’d like a funny nickname,” Bottom said. “Believe me: funny names get old very fast. Take it from ‘Bottom Boy’ a.k.a. ‘Bottom Feeder’—and I may kill you if you tell the wrong person. I’ve worked hard at being Just Plain Bill.”
“Yeah?” Eric smiled. “Well, maybe…Anyway, I figured perhaps we should at least try to be friends — Scott and me. So one Sunday, he takes me to this place and we have a…fuckin’ brunch! And he spends the whole time ogling these stuck-up gay high school kids and saying how he wants this one or that one, and how the person who loves him should never love nobody else. Then he reads me out this article in a gay paper that was in there about gay marriage and how important it is for gays to realize how necessary the right to be married is. And be sexually and psychologically responsible, because we’d been through AIDS already. And I’m sittin’ there thinkin’, I don’t want one guy. I want maybe nine or ten. And I want each of them to bring home another nine or ten, and we’ll all fuck: little guys, big guys, black guys, white guys, Chinese guys. In the library basement bathroom, a month ago, I had a feller what only had one leg. He was Filipino or somethin’ and didn’t speak no English. We practically tore down the stall. I thought they were gonna come in and catch us. I been lookin’ for that motherfucker ever since. I ain’t never known nobody with AIDS — ”
“I have, mostly back when I was your age. But some things have changed. Though if you hang around with black folks — ”
“Hey, I like old guys, fat guys, hairy guys, black guys, white guys — yeah, I wouldn’t mind somebody like me, too. But Scott wants to be safe and happy and…monogamous. He doesn’t even like the guys he sucks off on the team. But it’s like there’s a fuckin’ rule — ”
“Do you?”
“They’re okay. Only most of ’em are straight. But that’s the problem, see? Straight guys, gay guys, white guys, black guys, to me it’s all the same fuckin’ thing. Love me, and don’t let me catch you lookin’ at nobody else. Or if you suck off a bunch of ’em, none of ’em wanna talk to you afterwards unless they have to. I wanna hang out with somebody who wants to go to weird places and beat off together and suck each other off and watch each other do nasty shit with other people. Stand around with our flies open and our dicks hangin’ out and see how long the two of you can do that before somebody says somethin’. Go to the movies and beat off in the back row and see how many people come sit there to watch. I did that by myself once and a woman came and sat a seat away. She was okay, man! She gave me some of her popcorn, and when I finished she said she hoped I had a good time. Hey, what’s this guy — Scott’s boyfriend — gonna do with himself? Change the curtains every week?”
“Probably the most important thing for Scotty will be that he pays his half of the rent. Which I suppose is in the same line, actually.”
“But that’s why I don’t think I’m either one. I need me about a yard of dick every day,” a line Eric had been impressed with from one of the hillbillies behind the Verizon sign, though he’d never said it before. “Know what I mean?”
“Actually,” Bill said, “I do. Lord, the boy is naturally queer!” He shook his head, miming disbelief.
“But that’s why I don’t want nobody callin’ me gay. I’d rather they called me a fuckin’, cocksuckin’, piss-drinkin’, shit-eatin’ scumbag…than fuckin’ gay! At least that gets my dick hard. I don’t wanna grow up like — ” Eric looked at his joined fingers. Well, it was his last day — “like you. I mean, I don’t wanna sound like you.”
Lowering them, Bill bunched his brows. “My northern accent…?”
“Not that! I mean you and Scott. Like you’re half a bitchy girl and half a man.” In his chair, Eric blinked three times, then took a breath. “But I probably will, huh?” His hands came apart.
“Only if you start hanging out with a lot of other people who talk like…me. And Scott. And who you start to think are cool. Also, the girl — at least — has come along a very tough road.” Again Bill’s brows lowered. “Remember. She has reasons to be a bitch.”
“I wanna sound like my dad…when he’s all relaxed and stuff.” Eric managed to drop his shoulders. “I wanna sound like the guys whose dicks I wanna suck and whose asses I wanna eat, and who I want to suck my dick and eat out my asshole.”
“Dear God in heaven, he’s actually a homosexual! He’s interested in his own sex. You know, there’re not a lot of you fellows left. Once more: Cheers.” Bill settled back in the chair, and lifted his mug in both hands till it was just under his chin. “Aren’t you going to drink your chocolate? It’s Swiss.”
“Oh.” Eric leaned forward to take up his own mug with one. “I’m sorry.” He glanced at his thick fingers. “Mike thinks I could be a welder, too. Like him.” He sipped, then put the mug down. “But he always says I should do whatever I want — Hey, it’s good.”