“So much in life is, Eric.” Bill sighed. “You don’t have to drink it. I won’t be offended. But I still don’t see what this has to do with shitting where you eat. Or is that because you’re horny and I’m not? I’m not, incidentally, because I had a very nice night three miles from here with some guys I hope will be my friends, though for job-related reasons they had to bring me home early. But if it doesn’t work out…” Bill shrugged. “There’s always King Kong to climb to the top of the Empire State Building with and gaze out on the city sunrise. Have you ever thought that maybe our big black homeboy was giving Christine Daaé—or whatever her name was — some really good head, off-screen, with his wide, wet, expert tongue? I mean, think of all those native virgins he’d been practicing on…? That’s really why she loved him. One reason the first version is so good is because all the lovey-dovey stuff is left implied. Put it out there, and you can’t keep people’s minds off the sordid mechanics.”
“Lickin’ out her pussy?” Eric grinned — then remembered himself. His expression grew serious. “I could get behind that. Especially if some guy was fucking her at the same time. Hey…when’s the last time you ate out a homeless nigger’s ass who hadn’t had no toilet paper for a week?” as, indeed, Frack had not, three days ago, when Eric had last messed with him. “I mean that nigger had a big ass, too, and his hole was so funky I didn’t think I was gonna get to the other side of all the shit caked in there.”
“Not,” Bill said pensively, “so recently I can call it to mind.”
“Well, I did, three days back.”
“To be sure, the Road of Excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom, even when it takes you through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. Just watch out for parasites. You really wouldn’t suck off Peter Jackson’s gorilla — wouldn’t let it bone your butt? You don’t want it to lick your balls, or stick your pecker up its ass and hump it till you shoot? Did you know, King Kong, out in the morning sun, is called Hanuman in India and Sun-We Kung in China, not to mention any other signifyin’ silverback you can name? I bet you’d make him come all over himself. My, my, my…you are choosy about who you fuck!”
“And I ate shit — my own off guys’ dicks. Lots of times. And…and drunk guys’ piss, too.” (More than a cup, in seven or eight dog-like spurts, all half dozen times he’d sucked off Pickle: That just means it feels good. It happens when I beat off, too. Come on, you wanna do it with me and see…?
(Can I drink the rest?
(No! You can’t! Why you always want to do that nasty stuff? Though his dark knuckles had already gone into his fly, Pickle looked uncomfortable. If you get some pictures of naked girls, I’ll pee on ’em with you. So asking had been a bad thing. You know, when I’m beatin’ off and one of them surprise squirts sneaks up on me and jumps out, most of the time it hits my chin. Or my nose — that’s if nobody’s suckin’ on it. The guys in the place where I come up always thought that was real funny. I’ll let you see that, if you want.) “So I…do eat shit or whatever the fuck you said. Right?” Eric was annoyed by the way Bottom turned aside all attempts to shock; at the same time, on some level, it reassured. “Anyway, that’s another reason why I don’t think I’m gay.”
Holding up his mug, Bill looked at it, blew over the surface, then sipped. “Since I’m not going to take you inside and fuck you, I’ll tell you a story — instead.”
“About what? King Kong?”
“No. About me. Something you just reminded me of…that I did a long time ago. In New York, when I was in business school — at Fordham. I was nineteen — I think. You’re what? Eighteen, now?”
“I’ll be seventeen in eight days — no, a week.”
“Jesus!” Bill glanced up at cloud wisps. “Well, possibly I was twenty. I wasn’t as precocious as you. But it was about this time of the morning…probably earlier, because in summer the sun rises about an hour-and-a-half before it does down here. Anyway, I’d been up all night, walking around Central Park, trying to get laid in the worst way — and couldn’t to save myself. Lots of homeless guys sleep there, and it was pretty warm that September. It was in the Rambles, and I was coming up to where some rocks made this wall.
“Beside it, a guy lay on some cardboard, asleep.
“He was curled up, back to the stones, facing forward, this middle-aged black man, maybe in his late thirties. Mmmm…at least he seemed middle-aged to me, back then. He didn’t have any shoes or shirt — and no belt. Clearly he was homeless. He was real dark, a black guy, like I say — as dark as your dad. His pants were ripped completely apart in two places, waist to cuff, and his genitals were out, rough-skinned, uncut — and large. Not huge, mind you. Just large. They hung down over his thigh.
“I walked around him awhile, went away, came back, went away, and came back again. Finally I sat cross-legged on the edge of his cardboard.
“I could go on for an hour, telling you all the things speeding around in my brain over the next minute — would he wake up or not? Pull away or not, if he did? Hurt me or not? If he got mad, would it still be worth the pleasure and knowledge of the contact? Could I work up enough nerve to touch him? Then, somehow, I…I had him in my hand! (I still don’t know how I did that.) I was holding him. He was thick, fleshy, heavy…I slid my other hand under his testicles. They were wonderfully warm. My body felt electrified — the only way to describe that tingle. It was cool out, and I was quiveringly sensitive to how much warmer his nuts were than the air. Their heat worked all into me. I wanted to suck him so badly the side of my neck cramped up while I was trying not to bend down. The guy was really out of it, and I was getting up my nerve, when he began to pee.
“This glimmering arc just…expanded, sparkling, one end fixed inside his foreskin’s nozzle that was sticking out my fist.
“He wet one side of my shirt, the knee and thigh of my jeans, my cheek, my arm…
“I thought about letting him go, only I didn’t — I wouldn’t! It was so warm, and, because it was getting all over me anyway, I leaned down and drank. I bent way down, and put the first three, then four spurting inches in my mouth — about half of it. It tasted salty, his skin was rough, and his urine was bitter and hot. A lot ran over my hand. When it was running out, he moved a little and said, ‘Da’s nice…nice.’ His hand came down to pat my head. I jumped a little. I’m surprised I didn’t bite him. The guy said, ‘Suck da nigga, white boy. Keep suckin’ on it, real deep, now. Ah’m gonna come in yo’ mouf. Jus’ like you wan’.’ I swear, that’s the way he talked.”
“Mike’s got family who talk like that, in Texas — some of ’em. Like the niggers under the highway. We visited them — Mike’s brother; that’s my Uncle Omar. And Mike’s cousins. They were nice. But they call each other ‘nigger’ more than the hip-hop kids.”
“Now you know where it comes from: this is the South.” Again Bill’s voice dropped into black burlesque: “‘So you keep suckin’, now, ya’ heah? Don’ spiddit out. You swaller dis nigga’s load, white boy. Just like you drunk dat piss.’”