Tales from Another Time

by Questioner

3.

Steve Johan stood behind the counter in Herod's, counting the money in the register and making notes in his account book as Nicky Carelli appeared from the back of the store. As the man approached, Steve looked up and smiled.

“Hey, hon,” he said with a smile.

Nicky leaned against the counter and laid the two overcoats he was carrying between Steve and him.

“Hey. Jack just called and said he and Ed are going over to the Unicorn for a drink. Why don't we head over for a bit before we go upstairs?”

Steve frowned and looked down at the quarters he was counting.

“I don't know. I'm a little worried. Janice's sister may call and I don't want to miss it if she does.”

“Oh, for Pete's sake,” Nicky responded. “You've been divorced for ten years. How long has she been sick? Three months? You deserve a little break. Besides, they all hate you, anyway.”

“I know,” Steve replied as he made a notation in the account book. “But, what if this time it's for real?”

“Hell, that bitch will outlive us all. Let's go relax and have a drink.”

Steve looked at a picture beside the register of a little boy with blue eyes, blond hair, and a wide, confident grin. As he started counting the dimes, he said, “No, I need to stick around. Tim might need to talk to me, just in case.”

Nicky rolled his eyes and started putting his jacket on.

“No. You are going to relax and you are going to have a drink with the girls. Tim is two hundred miles away and you can't do anything for him tonight even if something does happen. Now finish closing and let's go. I'm tired of having to tell everyone that we're waiting breathlessly by the phone for the bitch to finally put us out of our misery.”

Steve sighed and nodded as he wrote in the book again. A few minutes later, he placed a bank bag in the safe below the counter, turned off the lamp beside the register, took his coat from Nicky, and followed him toward the front. At the door, Steve checked the sidewalk outside and then ran his fingers thought the thick black curls of the man beside him and smiled. Nicky ran his fingers through Steve's thick blond hair and leaned over to kiss him. Steve immediately recoiled.

“Not in front of the window!” he cautioned. Nicky rolled his eyes.

“You have got to relax!”

Nicky opened the door as Steve shook his head.

“You're going to get us both killed, one of these days.”

Nicky stepped out into the chilled air.

“Settle down. There's no one around.”

“Look, Nicky. You're not in The Village anymore. This isn't New York. This is Northborough. This neighborhood is all blue-collar, working-class Catholics who don't want their kids coming home from football practice or catechism or whatever and see two queens making out on the sidewalk in front of God and everyone.”

Nicky grinned wickedly as Steve locked the door and said, “I love it when you get butch.”

Steve rolled his eyes and they crossed “The Boulevard” as traffic opened up.

They chatted about inanities as they walked past the old apartments until they came to The Unicorn's Horn. Nicky was opening the door when Steve noticed a kid in a ragged coat, and greasy blond hair, sitting on the curb at the corner up the block. His shoulders were heaving as if he were crying. As Steve paused, a look of concern over his face, Nicky glanced up the street and then shook his head.

As he pulled Steve unwillingly through the door, he said, “Come on, Fairy God Mother. You're not saving the world tonight.”

Steve frowned, but followed Nicky through the dark, smoke-filled bar, past the pool-tables where mustached men in skin-tight t-shirts were shooting and chatting, and toward the bar. Nicky caught the bartender's eye over the several Ivy-Leaguers who lined the bar gazing with lustful disdain at the pool players. He ordered a couple of Screwdrivers. Moments later, the two were seated with Jack and Ed in another room, partially protected from the too loud voice of Connie Francis as the younger set paraded around the pinball machines and looked with disdain and no lust at the trolls, (Steve, Nicky, Ed, and Jack among them), seated along the wall.

Ed and Nicky talked trash about the ad agency downtown where they were both commercial artists while Jack feigned interest in the conversation as he looked lustfully at the array of college boys around the room. Steve simply looked around as his mind wondered back to his ex-wife and her cancer, his eleven year-old son whom he had not been permitted to see in five years, and the crying teenager outside. It was not until after they had finished their second round of drinks and Nicky had forced Steve to contribute something, anything, to the conversation that Nicky winked at their friends and frowned at the wall separating them from the music in the other room.

“Well, I can't take Judy Garland again tonight, so I think it's time to take The Cadaver home to bed. Nighty girls!”

Steve rolled his eyes and waved at their friends as Nicky pulled him through the crowd of college boys to the front door. As they stepped out into the chilled air, Steve muttered, “I wish you wouldn't get so nelly sometimes. You almost sound like a drag queen.”

“Well,” Nicky replied as they headed back toward the store, “you're certainly in a pissy mood tonight!”

Steve frowned and didn't reply. He walked along side Nicky and glanced across the street. As he walked, his eyes met those of the blond teenager, who was now standing opposite them in front of a record shop. The boy was clearly cold and had one hand jammed into the pocket of his jacket. His other hand nervously grabbed his crotch as he looked with hope toward Steve and Nicky. Steve stopped at that gesture and stood still. Nicky turned and saw the boy hesitate a second and then nervously run across the street toward them. Nicky looked around as the boy approached and said with concern, “You are not picking up a hustler.”

“No, I'm not,” he replied as the boy came up to them. Steve quickly examined his face and saw none of the signs of venereal disease or neglect that often marked the hustlers in the area. That, plus the clearly nervous actions of the boy, the way he clenched his mouth, sucking in his lips fearfully, standing right out in the open rather than taking precautions against arrest by walking and pausing in shadows, led the man to conclude that this was a kid in trouble.

“Hey,” the boy said cautiously. He shrugged his shoulders and asked, “You guys wanna have some fun or somethin'?”

“No, not really,” Steve replied as he saw the boy's face fall. “But, if you need some help...”

The boy looked at Steve's face and the man could see him trying to judge the situation.

“Look, we have a place to stay, no strings, if you need a place to stay for the night. Are you hungry?”

The boy looked down and shook his head. He was still thinking, but Steve put a hand on his shoulder. The boy flinched and then relaxed as he looked up at the man's face.

“I'm Steve,” he said, “and this is Nicky. We live just up the street. You need some money or a place to sleep?”

“My... my old man kicked me out tonight. I don't got any place to go. I'm looking for a job and a room that I can pay for. I'm... not...”

He shrugged, unable to say anymore. Steve nodded.

“Come on. You can sleep on our couch tonight. As for a job, I think I can help you with that, too.”

Nicky looked at Steve with wide eyes, as if to say, “Are you crazy?”

“It's OK,” Steve said to him. He turned to the boy and asked, “What's your name?”

“Tyler,” he replied, brushing the long hair from his eyes. Steve felt a surge as he did so, but quickly looked away.

“OK,” he said walking on, “come along and we'll get you out of the cold.”

Tyler followed the two men as Nicky shook his head and Steve smiled serenely. They crossed The Boulevard and walked directly to the front door of the store. As Steve was unlocking it, Tyler asked, “You live in the store?”

“No,” the man replied with a smile. “Upstairs. But, I own the store. Come on.”

Tyler noticed a sign in the window as he followed the men inside. Steve closed and locked the door as Tyler asker “You have a ‘Help Wanted’ sign. You have a job I can do?”
Steve smiled, and replied, “Maybe.” As he led the others through the center of the store, past rows of bookshelves. They passes tables covered with various and sundry things that Tyler couldn’t make out and thick, leather chairs. They came to a back room and a door, behind which was a lit stairway and a door leading outside, Tyler presumed, to the alley. Steve and Nicky climbed the stairs and Tyler followed. They then walked up a hallway toward the front of the building, past several doors until they came to one at the end of the hall.

When they entered the apartment and Steve turned on the indirect lights around the edge of the ceiling, Tyler gasped. The building was old, probably built around the turn of the century, but the apartment looked like something from television. It was beautiful to the boy, very modern, with off-white walls, futuristic furniture, contemporary art on the wall, and an expensive-looking television and hifi on one wall.

“Wow, you must be rich,” Tyler remarked quietly.

Steve smiled but shook his head.

“I’m just good at finding bargains.”

“Boy, that’s an understatement,” Nicky commented as he walked toward a bedroom to the right. Steve grinned.

“He thinks I’m tight.”

From inside the bedroom, Tyler heard Nicky yell, “She’s so tight, she squeaks!”

Steve saw the look of confusion on Tyler’s face. Quickly, he pointed to the couch before the boy could give Nicky’s use of pronouns any more thought and said, “You can sleep there for the night. We can talk in the morning.”

He gave a reassuring smile to the boy, who looked at him nervously and asked, “So, you want to…” he shrugged suggestively, “…do anything before. You know…”

Steve smiled.

“Not that I’m not tempted. I just think you need some rest and we need to talk in the morning.”

And, after a cup of hot chocolate, (a cup of hot chocolate? How corny was that? Tyler thought, unable to remember the last time he had enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate before bed), the teenager found himself in his underwear, under a sheet and blanket on the couch, the lights out, warm and very tired. He lay still, feeling himself drift away as the soft moans from the bedroom left him rigid between his legs. Perhaps, life was not as hopeless as it had seemed four hours before.