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Moonshine

Part Five

Gabe's letter got me thinking about two things. One was Christmas, and the other was finding a house like the one where he found James. I am not too social, though, so I never met anybody else shared my particular desires. Then, when I thought about it some more, I figured I really didn't want whores.

You don't often meet boys like Gabe and Johnny -- that is, boys who really want a man. I guess there are boys who can be taught to think they want it, when what they really want is the love and attention. Then there are boys like James, who just get raped.

It was about then I got the telegram from Johnny, saying how the "crop" was extra good that year, and how I should go up there for Christmas and try it out, and meet a new friend he and Albert had found. Telegrams being how they are, he didn't say nothing more, but I telegraphed him back saying I'd be there with a new friend of my own, adding in how he'd damned well better be very kind and gentle to him.

Albert picked us up at the train in his roadster, which was real nice and let me know business must have been good. Like I said before, I liked Albert, and he even planted a little kiss on top of James' head when I introduced them. James may have been a little surprised, but I think he kind of liked it.

They had built onto the cabin. which now had a couple extra rooms off the back, so the kitchen got to spread out some in the big room, and they was burning soft coal instead of wood. It was real warm and cozy, and totally decked out for Christmas with bunting and wreathes and a big tree with china angels and strung popcorn. I never done nothing like that when I lived there.

Johnny gave me a big hug and ran the fisheye over James. "it ain't like that," I whispered in his ear. "He's been through rough times."

I never saw how James took to that, because that was when I seen the girl. Anyway, I thought she was a girl, because she was decked out like Shirley Temple all set to tap dance. It was James who asked.

"You ain't really a girl, are you?"

"I'm whatever in hell I want to be," was the reply. Well, it turned out she was a boy, but she still sounded kind of girly because her voice had not changed, and maybe because she swung her bottom back and forth while she said, "Call me Babycakes."

Johnny and Albert had a good laugh at the look on James' face, and probably the look on mine too. "Babycakes," I figured, was about thirteen years old -- but like I said before, kids just didn't grow up so fast in them days. Just the same, his little short skirt looked kind of funny with his long, coltish legs sticking out. "Go on, honey," Albert told him, "go give Uncle Tommy a hug and a kiss. And I'll bet he'd like to squeeze them babycakes."

Ernest, which was his real name when he was not calling himself Babycakes, strutted up to me and jumped right up so I had to catch him, and there I was squeezing those babycakes. There was no underpants under that little red skirt. Next thing I know, he is kissing my mouth, and I'm getting more action than since Gabe and Johnny was boys.

I cast my eyes over at James, who looked a little disapproving, so I put Babycakes -- that is, Ernest -- back down. "Well," I said, that was some welcome."

"Well, Merry Christmas," Johnny replied. "Go put some britches on, Ernest, and help Albert with the dinner. 'Nuff fooling around for now. James, you reckon you can help set the table?"

James reckoned he could, and Johnny led me outside where he rolled up a cigarette and lit it. He offered me his fixings, but I declined. Smoking is one habit I'd always managed to steer clear of.

"Where in hell did you find him?" I asked.

"Under a pile of other boys, getting his ass whipped," he answered. "Where did you get yours?" he wanted to know.

"Present from Gabe, I guess. It's a long story. But tell me more about Ernest."

"Well, you remember Justice Wainwright. Not long before he died, he started getting religion, and he got it in his head that getting sucked off by little boys would send him to hell. After that he would only let little girls do it, so Ernest's mother would dress him like a girl when she had to get her man out of jail. He got to like it."

"So how did you wind up with him?"

"His daddy went north a few years back to try and find a job in the stockyards. His mama's in the crazy house over in Greenville. Ernest did not get on too well at the orphanage, what with stealing girly clothes off of the washlines. Took some bad beatings, and run away. He'd just got back to town when Alfred scooped him up from under them other boys."

"So, do you and Alfred, uhn..."

"Me and Alfred is married, remember, best man? I mean, I guess the preacher don't remember, but I figured you would. We let him in our bed some nights, but we don't let him get too frisky."

"Sorry," I told him, sincerely. "But what in hell are you gonna do with him?"

"Why, teach him to make 'shine, of course! No way a boy like that can last too long in school, sure as hell, so somebodies like us has got to teach him a trade. And what's you doing with James, now?"

"I'm not sure. I want to make him feel safe -- but me, I ain't felt safe since before I left for the War." I choked up a bit. "You and Gabe, now, you made me feel..."

I did not get to finish what I was going to say -- not that I really knew what I was going to say -- because Ernest called from the porch, in his girliest voice, "Suppertime!"

..........

We ate a real nice glazed ham and sweet potato pie and collards and wild mushrooms fried in butter and bacon and two kinds of fruit pies and kind of smoky yellow 'shine better than any I ever brewed. (James did not drink no 'shine, but Ernest knocked back a finger or two, mixed in with a glass of lemonade.) Them pies, made up by Alfred, were amazing good -- and so sweet they put James to sleep in maybe a quarter-hour.

I carried James to the pallet Johnny'd made up for him, pulled off his shoes and his britches, and covered him with the quilt. Then I went back to the front room to sit by the fire and drink some more 'shine. Albert and Johnny cleared the table, then said happy Christmas and headed for bed. I didn't know where Ernest was. It had got real quiet.

Then I seen those long, coltish legs coming down the ladder from the loft. Ernest was wearing a white nighty with little pink and yellow flowers embroidered 'round a scoop neck. I said, "Merry Christmas, kid. You headed for bed now?"

He just stood there in the lantern light, in front of my chair a minute. Then he said, "I really don't look much like a girl, do I?"

I was not sure what to say, so I just looked.

"I got these skinny arms and legs, and no matter how much I eat, I just get taller and no wider."

"Oh, it ain't so bad," I told him. "You're still kind of cute. You're just what they call a awkward age."

He stepped in closer to my chair and put his hands around my neck. I rubbed my hands up and down those skinny legs of his. Well, skinny or not, they felt real good, being so warm and smooth. Then I moved my hands up under his nighty and let myself squeeze those babycakes again. I rubbed his little bottom, and pulled him in closer so my face was against his belly, and I kissed him through the thin fabric of his nighty. It was real nice. Nothing smells so good to me as a young boy.

"Shuck your clothes," he whispered, "and I'll suck you real good."

I just kissed down his belly so I could get a whiff of his boy parts, and give 'em a couple of kisses, and that's when discovered he wasn't even half hard. His little peter was just kind of hanging there. So I pulled up his nighty and ran my tongue up his nut sack. He was the age when a boy's balls are growing pretty fast but his pecker ain't caught up.

Well, that little pecker stiffened up a little, but really not like you'd expect. I lay a kiss on it, and then looked up at his face. "Ernest," I whispered, "men like me don't much excite you, do we? So why offer to suck my bird?"

There were tears on his face as he said, "So you'd like me."

..........

We visited the old farm every Christmas. Christmas 1934 Ernest had hair between his legs, and by 1935 he was taller than Johnny. As the years passed, James and me did our best to love and help each other. By the time the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, even James was all growed up.

Ernest wore women's underwear to his draft physical in 1942. He didn't get drafted, but he sure got beat up. James was not so lucky when he got called up the next year. He was on a landing craft got shelled off Anzio in 1944, and died before he ever fired a shot. I really wanted to die too, but somehow I didn't.

I'm back to the farm now. I don't want no more boys. I'll stick with my moonshine.

(Okay, now it really is over. If I start feeling creative again, I guess I'll be back.)

heedon@tormail.org