The Reunion Show – part 18
By now, you know the rules.
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In February of 2001 the quartet that
I sang with had won the right to perform in a competition with four
other quartets from our region. There were a total of six regions
in the country that competed and they’d send their five best to another
level of competition. The best quartet from each of the six
regions faced off, or competed against each other for the grand prize,
which is a gold medal. Sounds dopey but barber shoppers are
really quite an organized group.
In May our quartet came in first
place for our region. We were ecstatic! It takes a lot of
hard work and we were on our way to the final competition which was to
be held in the fall. It was doubly awesome because it was to be
held in New York City. I hadn’t been there since I was four and I
wanted to take Scott to all of the sites: Statue of Liberty,
Empire State Building, World Trade Center, Radio City, Central Park.
We were going to make a vacation out
of it, and I booked our tickets. September 7th through September
14th. The competition was only for two days and we’d have the
rest of the week to go sight-seeing.
It promised to be an awesome trip.
It turned into a nightmare.
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Can anyone in their right minds
please tell me why, whenever you purchase plane tickets, you have
to stay over a weekend in order to get a cheaper fare? Why on
earth do airlines give a damn? Not that it really matters to me
now, but I’ve always found that curious. And why can’t the ticket
be transferable? As long as the person using the ticket has
proper identification, who gives a shit. Oh, well. Thank
God for First Class. These were the silly and mundane things that
I pondered as we boarded our Delta flight for New York. I brought
my cd player with me and a couple of cd’s for the relatively short
flight.
“What cd’s do you have,” Scott asked
as we taxied down the runway.
“Ella singing Gershwin—“
“Surprise,” he smiled. Perfect
teeth. Dammit! I was still attracted to his smile after all
these years. And his pecs. And his legs. And his ass…
“What else?”
I held up a disk without a
label. He smiled again really big. “You still have that?”
referring to the cd that he’d made for me when we taped The Reunion
Show.
“You dope, of course! I take it
out and listen to it every now and then.”
“Huh. I didn’t know that you
still had that. What’s on now?”
I started singing a bit of Level
42. “That there is something about you….baby…so riiiiiiight.”
He laughed. “Logan, you’re such
a nut.”
“Did you say ‘chin nuts?’” I asked,
looking down at his crotch. He just laughed at my endless flirting
The flight was uneventful and we
actually landed at Kennedy on time. It was early afternoon and I
didn’t have to be at our quartet’s practice until 6:00 that
evening. For years I had wanted to have a hot dog from a street
vendor in the city. Scott used to laugh at that when I’d tell
him. I also wanted to go to a deli and have a pastrami on
rye. Don’t ask me why; it’s just something that I associated with
the Big Apple. We found the shuttle to our hotel, the Tribeca
Grand, and the driver helped us load up the van.
I had glimpsed the skyline from the
plane and couldn’t wait to get into the city. When I was four we
had taken a train ride to visit family out in St. Louis and on the way
back we had a layover in the city. Mom and Dad took me to the
Statue of Liberty and to some other places. They said that we
went to the Empire State Building but I don’t remember it. I only
remember the Statue. Driving
through the streets of lower
Manhattan I was amazed at the sheer size of the skyscrapers. When
the city planners in 1811 laid out the streets in the grid pattern I
can only imagine what they originally had in mind. Nothing like
you see today. The city was so busy with so many people walking
all over the damn place. So many cars and taxis. I knew I
could never live here but I could easily understand how eight million
people could. Atlanta’s only one-fourth the size of New York City
but it still felt much more spread out and laid back.
The Tribeca Grand is on the Avenue of
the Americas and White Street. We had arranged for the rooftop
suite which had it’s own private terrace overlooking the southern end
of the island. The hotel itself is really sleek and the suite was
designed in warm, contemporary lines. Sounds like a contradiction
but the furniture was not fussy at all and the colors were more warm
than cool.
Once we were alone in our room we
checked out the terrace. “God, what a view!” Scott said.
“No kidding.”
“I was talking about your ass.”
I laughed at him. “Scott, you
are so damn crazy.”
“Crazy about you,” he said, nuzzling
up to my neck.
“Yeah? After all these
years?” He didn’t say anything, just turned me around to face the
railing and wrapped his arms around me. He started feeling on my
chest and down to my cock, which was started to get heavier.
“Dude. We really need to go inside for this. And what’s
your deal with balconies!” He laughed out loud and took my hand,
leading me back into the suite.
When we got to the bed I held his
face in my hands and started kissing him. Our tongues slipped in
and out of each others’ mouths, mashing and sliding against each
other. The whole time he was rubbing up and down my body. I
could feel the muscles in his arms and in his chest as he pulled me to
him. His dick was making a really awkward bulge in his
jeans. “I can’t take you to the Village like this,” I said,
squeezing his package. He chuckled at that. I turned him
and pushed him back onto the bed. Slowly he laid back, all the
while our mouths crushed in a kiss.
With tongues thrashing I held onto
his hands and raised them above his head. “I’m so glad you’re
mine,” I whispered, sucking on his neck. A low growl was his only
response. Slowly I traced my fingertips over his forearms and
then his biceps. My mouth was back on his as I ground my bent and
hard cock against his full crotch. Fuckin’ jeans. Not a lot
of room for expansion. Taking my mouth off of his I lifted his
shirt out of his pants and he helped me pull it over his head. I
took my shirt off too and started kissing him again. I loved the
feel of our naked chests pressing against each other. I ran my
fingers through his hair as I pulled his face to mine. I couldn’t
get enough of him. Our pecs and nipples were sliding against each
other. I loved the feel of his chest hair. God how I loved
him.
Slowly I licked and kissed my way
down to his right nipple. This always drove him nuts. I
took it in my mouth and chewed on it with my lips. Whenever I
used my mouth anywhere on Scott I was like a whore. You might
laugh but I really was. I’d twist my head and face back and
forth, licking and nibbling, all the while running my hands up and down
the other side of his chest and up his arms. Then I switched
sides, using a free hand to play with the nipple that I’d just finished
sucking on, and taking the other one into my mouth. “God, I love
you,” I moaned into his chest.
I could feel his dick pushing into my
stomach and reached down to do my nail-scratch thing through his
jeans. “Awww. Fuckkk,” is all he said. I unbuttoned his
jeans while I was still latched onto his chest. Then I slipped my
hand into his pants and felt his amazing cock. I looked
up suddenly.
“You went commando?” He just
looked down at me and smiled, nodding. “Awww, shit!” and I
practically wrenched the zipper down. Had to be careful,
though. Precious cargo inside. With his jeans framing his
hard cock and balls, they looked massive. I must’ve been leaking
like a running faucet myself as I looked at his body. I was
totally lusting after this guy. My man Scott.
I leaned down and took off his shoes
and socks, then started tugging at his jeans. He helped by
lifting his ass and I was able to slide them off of his body.
“Scoot back onto the bed,” I told him. He did and I kneeled on
the floor between his feet. Taking one foot in his hand I
proceeded to give him a foot massage. “Oh man…” he moaned, his
hands still resting on top of his head. After a few minutes I
switched to the other foot and he just sighed. His cock was just
laying there, hard as granite, on top of his lower belly. It
pulsed with his heart beat and I just wanted to jump on it.
But I didn’t. Instead I parted
his legs a bit and leaned in to start kissing his calves. Back
and forth I oscillated. When my mouth was on one calf I’d rub the
other with one free hand. Then I’d rub up to his balls and gently
pull them down and roll them in my hand. I made my way up to his
thigh, still kissing and licking. Still rubbing his balls and
shaft. From this point of view it looked really huge.
I slipped his muscular legs over my
shoulders and pushed them up into the air. The I dove into his
quivering ass with my tongue. No foreplay there. “Fuck!” he
said as I slid my tongue right into his hot hole. With my
lips I massaged his ass ring. A fuckin’ stick of dynamite
couldn’t have separated me from him at that point. With one hand
I reached around his left leg and started jacking his dick. As I
mashed my mouth against his hole his heavy ball sack
rolled and lolled across my nose. “Oh Mike,” he whispered,
moaning. I quickened the pace of my tongue in his ass and started
jacking him even faster. “GOD you’re fuckin’ KILLIN’….” I
smiled to myself, knowing that I was making him feel this good.
Releasing his dick I pushed his legs
even higher into the air and started eating him out with a mad
fervor. I used my lips to chew on his hole and pull at it.
The I’d swoop my tongue around the entire swollen gash. Looking
at him like this I had to have him. Right there, right
then. I let his legs down and reached into our bathroom bag for
some lube. He looked at me with lustful eyes. I got back
between his legs and he pulled them up for me. I lubed up two
fingers and sunk them in all the way to my hand.
“Ummmmph,” he sighed. I ignored
his cock completely and it was dripping quite a bit of pre-cum. I
finger fucked his ass with two fingers for a bit when he said,
“Enough. Just give it to me.”
“Oh baby,” I groaned back to
him. Then I spread lube on my red hot, rock hard dick, and
placing the head right at his hole, I sunk right into him. He
tilted his head back.
“Oh….Christ!” he hissed. I just
smiled as I started slamming my dick home. Over and over I banged
my engorged cock into his hungry hole. I didn’t take my
time. Sometimes you wanna make love; sometimes you just wanna
fuck. I wanted to fuck. I kept long dicking him at
lightning pace then I felt that great feeling behind my thighs.
“Here I come, baby,” I growled at him
as I ground my dick into his hungry hole. “FUCK!!!!” I
hollered. “Unh!…Unh!….Mmmmph!” Goddamn! I shot so hard it
felt like I lost my balls. I knew he was close himself so I
popped out of him, crawled over his waist and grabbed the lube. I
slopped it onto his cock and then deep-seated his big thick shaft right
up my ass.
“Awww man…” I moaned. You’d
figure I’d get used to this feeling but I didn’t. Immediately I
started grinding my ass on his swollen shaft as Scott reached up and
grabbed at my pecs. My dick was banging against his belly when he
grabbed hold of my thighs and started just banging the fuck out of
me. With one final thrust I felt his already meaty dick expand a
bit in my ass as his cock coated my insides. I kept grinding on
his rod until his cum-hollering stopped, then I collapsed onto his
chest. We were both out of breath. He wrapped his arms
around my back and started kneading my ass.
“I am so fuckin’ crazy about you,” he
gasped out.
Laying my head on his chest I could
feel his chest hair on my cheek. “And you always fuck the shit
out of me.”
Scott let out an exhausted laugh at
that. We kissed some more and then got up to take a shower.
I got dressed to go to practice and he put on some jogging shorts and a
tank top.
I looked over my eye candy.
“God, how I love your body,” I told him.
“Great. He wants me for my
bod. I feel so used.” I had to laugh at that.
“Well, I can’t have sex with your
brain!”
He mulled this over. “There’s
always nasal sex.”
“Oh shit!” I laughed. “I think
I’ll pass on that. I’ll see ya later hoss,” and I gave him a kiss
goodbye.
The Civic Center wasn’t that far away
and I walked over to meet the other guys. Our practice went
well. We spent about forty-five minutes warming up our voices and
practicing our craft. By “craft” I’m not meaning some ethereal
bullshit like acting. Curiously when a person is singing, the
tones that they hear in their head is actually not what someone
listening to them is hearing. The reason for this is because the
sound is bouncing around in your skull and the resonance makes it sound
higher in pitch to yourself than it actually is. So as a singer,
unless you’re blessed with perfect pitch, you have to train yourself to
hit just above (or an onionskin) above the note that you want to sing
so that a person listening to you hears that note accurately. In
layman’s terms if I want to sing a B, in order for it to be heard as a
B, I actually need to hit somewhere just above a B.
Now try to get four people to do that
at once, all singing different notes. All four guys have to be
right on target on every single note. Oh, and let’s not forget
expression. You really want to have your face express whatever
the emotion of the song is. All four have to sing the song with
the exact same interpretation. Not an easy thing to do, but when
it’s done correctly it sounds great. You may prefer hearing
howler monkeys over barber shop singing, but good singing is still good
singing.
All competing quartets sing a ballad
and an “up-tune.” For our ballad we were singing “When You Wish
Upon A Star.” Our up-tune was “Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That
Old Gang Of Mine.” After about an hour or so of practice the four
of us headed back to our hotels.
When I got up to the suite I found
Scott sitting on the terrace with a drink. “What’cha got there,
hoss?”
“Amoretto sour.”
“Ummm. Want another one?”
“Please,” he smiled back at me.
“You know Scott, you have an
abso-fucking-lutely perfect smile.” I winked at him and he smiled
broadly again. “Just thought you should know that.” I
playfully smacked him on the head and fixed us our drinks.
I sat down next to him and we looked
at the nighttime skyline. What an incredible city. I
reached across and held his hand. We sat in silence and looked at
all of the skyscrapers. They all looked like dwarfs compared to
the Twin Towers.
I chuckled a bit. “Do you
remember when they remade King Kong?”
“Um. Vaguely.”
“Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange.”
“Okay. When was that?”
“Mid seventies.”
“What made you think of that?”
“The twin towers,” I said nodding in
their direction. “There was a scene when Kong climbed up them
because they reminded him of his jungle home.”
“Those are some tall-ass buildings,”
Scott said. I nodded. “Can you imagine what it’d be like to
work there?”
“Uh-unh.”
Scott started twirling the ring on my
finger. He pulled my hand up and kissed the ring. “Of all
the things you’ve ever given me, Mike, this ring…well, I can’t put into
words.”
I smiled. “I love you, Scott.”
“God, I love you too, Mike.” He
usually called me “Logan” so hearing my first name was sort of
special. God, what a sap I am! Yeesh!
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I’d like to say that my quartet won
the competition, but we didn’t. We didn’t even place,
dammit. Our quartet came in fourth place, which I know isn’t bad
but I wanted to go home with a medal, dag nabbit! Oh well, such
is life. That night, which was Saturday, Scott and I got loaded
along with the rest of the guys in the quartet. We found a bar
that had pool tables and shot pool for a couple of hours.
Nightlife in Manhattan is indescribable. Scott and I headed back
to our hotel around one in the
morning.
Sunday morning we got up late and
then started checking out the sights. The main thing I wanted to
see was the Statue of Liberty. The breeze on the ferry made the
air a little cool and we stood shoulder to shoulder looking at the
approaching monument.
“Worthless trivia time,” I
said. Scott rolled his eyes. “The same guy who designed
Biltmore in North Carolina designed the pedestal of the statue.”
“Really.”
“Um-hmm.”
“Dude,” he chuckled, “where do you
get this shit?”
I smiled. “I’m a learned man.”
He put an arm around my
shoulders. “That you are, my friend.”
“You know we gotta check out Ellis
Island.” I had probably mentioned it a thousand times since we’d
landed.
“Really! I had no idea you
wanted to go there.”
I looked at him and backhanded his
chest. I leaned onto the railing and breathed in the sea air.
“You look so damned content,” Scott
said softly.
“I’m with you, Scotty boy,” I
smiled. He gave me a little half smile and turned back to the
statue.
“So whose name do you want to see
again?”
“My great-grandfather’s. He
came over from Italy in the early nineteen hundreds. From Naples,
I think.”
“Marrone, right?”
“Well, it was actually Marroni, but
at that time the Italians were so discriminated against by the Irish
that many had to change their names to less-Italian sounding
ones. So he changed the ‘i’ to ‘e’ and it became Marrone.”
“But your grandfather was Irish,
right?” he asked.
“Yeah. His parents were from
Ireland but he was born in Liverpool. He married my grandmother,
who was a Marrone.”
“Damn, no wonder you have such a
temper. You’re Italian and
Irish!” He laughed as I hit him
again.
The statue was incredible and the
view from the crown was awesome. Scott had never been to New York
at all, state or city, and he really enjoyed all of the touristy
places. I got my hot dog that afternoon and was happier than a
hog in slop. He just kept laughing at me because I walked around
with a smile on my face half the time. It was really great being
there with him.
Together.
Monday we went and saw the
Rockettes. Hey, I might be gay, but that’s a lot of hot piece of
ass on top of all of those legs. We walked across the Brooklyn
Bridge and strolled on the Promenade. I loved those
brownstones. I always thought it’d be cool to have one, but I
don’t think I could ever leave Atlanta.
Monday night we had dinner in our
room and sat out on the terrace again.
“I’m glad that y’all had to come up
here to sing,” he said.
“Me too. I’m glad you came up
here with me.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I have no idea how long we sat there
looking at the city. I just remember Scott nudging me and we
headed in to go to bed. It had been a long weekend and I was
really zonked. I slept like a baby….
Until I heard my phone ring.
Not the hotel phone, but my cell. I opened my eyes and looked at
the clock. 8:40. Oye. I stretched and yawned and
reached for the phone but it stopped ringing. A minute later it
started ringing again. Caller I.D., it was Scott.
I smiled into the phone. “Where
are you, you dope?”
“I’m on the…top of the world
lookin’…down
on creation…” he responded, singing the song by the Carpenters. I
got out of bed and headed out onto the terrace.
“You goof. Seriously, where are
you?” I asked.
“Num-nuts, I just told you.
Well, not quite. Do you want to have breakfast this morning?”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “Where?”
“Windows On The World. It’s in
the twin towers.”
“Hey, cool! Which one,” I
started to ask him but was suddenly drowned out by the sound of a
jet. I remember thinking, ‘Shit, they’re flying low today.’
I looked up and saw the first plane as it careened over the city.
“Goddamn!” I hollered.
“OH MY GOD MIKE!!!!!” I heard him
screaming into the phone.
I watched it and looking back it
seemed to be flying in slow motion. To my horror it was heading
towards the towers. “Oh my God!” I gasped. An instant later
it crashed into the building. “NOOOOO! SCOTTTT!!!!” I
screamed as the fireball blew out of the hole that the plane had
made. “NOOOOO!!!!” I screamed again. I stood there in
stunned horror as the smoke started billowing out of the
building. My legs became jelly and I sank down to my knees.
I must have stared for what seemed
like an eternity. I was too shocked to even cry. God,
please don’t let that be the tower he was in, I thought.
Horrified, I stood up and ran to the room to get dressed. On the
way in I tripped over a chair and dropped my cell phone. It
clattered across the terrace. I picked it up. Luckily it
was still receiving a signal. Thank God. I ran in to get
dressed. The Trade Center was only about ten blocks away and I
knew I could get there quickly.
The elevator seemed to take eons
getting up to the top floor. When the doors finally opened I
jumped in and smashed all of the buttons. They closed and I felt
the cab gliding downwards. Once it got to the lobby I ran through
it and out the main doors. I thought I heard someone say ‘Mr.
Logan,’ but I ignored it and stumbled down the stairs, falling onto one
knee. Fuck! I picked myself up and flung myself forward and
into the street. My knee was killing me as I ran as quick as I
could to West Broadway.
Please don’t let him be in that
tower, I prayed.
I was about four blocks away and all
you could hear was sirens. Police sirens. Firetrucks.
Ambulance sirens. All around people were either running away or
to the Center. A lot of people were standing there shocked.
My fucking knee! I ignored the pain as much as I could but it
slowed me down a little bit. You could see the flames over eight
hundred feet up. The sight was horribly awesome and I slowed down
a bit.
I heard my phone ringing.
Looked down. “Scott!!!” I answered. But there was no
reply. Fuck! I gripped the phone with both hands and shook
it. Hard. “God dammit, God dammit!!!” In my panic it
finally dawned on me to call him back. I dialed but it went
straight to voice mail. Okay, stop Logan. Calm down.
He’s probably calling you and you’re blocking his call by trying to
call him.
I breathed deep for a second or
two. Dialed him again. Voice mail. Fucking voice
mail. I took off south again. As I was running towards the
Center traffic at this point was not even moving. Too many people
stopped in the streets watching. You could see the firemen from
this distance running into the building. I neared the plaza,
still looking up, and stopped dead in my tracks. In the distance
you could see a dot getting closer that was quickly taking the shape of
an airplane. It was heading in fast and people in the streets and
looking out of windows nearby began hollering.
My phone rang again.
“SCOTT!” I heard clicking and static as the plane got closer and
closer.
“Mike! Mike! I’m—“
BLAMM!!!! The airplane flew right into the other tower near a
corner of the building, and the blast carried through the other face of
the structure. I stood there with my mouth wide open, phone next
to my ear. People around me were screaming and backing away from
some of the debris that had been blown away from the building.
There was no sound on the
phone. “Scott?” I said, my voice wavering. “Scott, are you
there!” I started sniffing uncontrollably as the tears
flowed. “SCOTT!! SCOTT ANSWER ME!!!” A few people
watched me as I stood there screaming into the phone, looking up at the
twin towers, crying almost hysterically.
I dropped to my knees and sat on my
heels with my face in my hands. A stranger slowly walked up to me
and put her arm around my shoulder. She was crying too. I
sobbed and shook like a baby in her arms. As I did my phone
slipped from my hands and hit the ground. She picked it up and
handed it back to me. I looked at it—it was blank. I tried
turning it on. Nothing. In a rage I screamed out and threw
it against the building next to me, shattering it.
I kept on crying, keening
actually. My insides hurt. I couldn’t breathe. I felt
like the bottom had dropped out in my life. I didn’t want my life
anymore.
I knew Scott wasn’t going to be
calling me.
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It’s not over yet, fellas.
mlogan6969@hotmail.com