Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2021 08:47:35 -0500 From: MC VT Subject: The Green and Black Episode Gay Adult-Youth The Green and Black Episode ©MCVT2017 8 February 2021 Quick tale of a life, importance and these strange days. Nifty. Always here, always new stories. Donate: http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html Adult Content: 100% fiction, Mt, first, rom. ========================================== Not my best time of year: February and March. Can't remember the exact date, the numbers blur. The events of those two months several years ago still rip me. Their finality's always clear. For those two months I stay inside. Hiding my tearfulness; snuffling. Can't sleep until I'm so exhausted can't push it away any longer. Fall into deep dreams on the porch, sitting in the car in the garage. Fell asleep at the kitchen table for a REM-nap one afternoon and left a puddle of saliva on the formica. Diversion helps. ... Last stop. I get off the 113A, no cars allowed here anymore. Big parking lots where tourists used to park, all empty, a few kids skateboarding on the gentle slope in front of the boarded stores. Sea gulls on the light poles. Past the edge of the lot, a calm sea. A few trinket shops and cafes on a narrow strip. Several people window shopping. Strangely, few people out; overcast but warm. A nice-looking older lady exits the bus behind me. Older and dressed like she's going out, classy get-up. Her clothes are a style from years ago; something my mother would have worn. Navy blazer and matching pillbox hat, she wears jewelry, glittering with heavy, rings, pins. Red glossed lips same shade as a ruby brooch on her lapel. A few long white hairs escape the dark curls of her wig. ... Down the shoreline, sauntering past the shops I hear people abuzz about a tunnel. I listen to a brief conversation and wonder. Tunneling in the sand would be futile--where are the signs? Where is the construction equipment? They must mean a funnel structure further inland to divert sea level rise. Meandering to my favorite places, the shell shop that has that calcified, bleached smell, and the man with the parrot hawking hermit crabs from a tv tray. Walk the shore, smell the sea's soup of life and death; my ocean's pale in soft light caressed by warm breaths of breezes. Peaceful. Ahead is a cluster of folks. Only ten, twelve, all dressed in high style. Stood in groups of twos, threes talking quietly where the highway ends at the beach. There's a series of creosoted stumps to barricade traffic from the water. The stumps still stink an almost-iodine smell. Being a nosy codger, I have to see what's going on. Closer. Oh, they're at the opening of a tunnel. A tall man in a suit with a narrow, black tie approaches, "You're here about the funding?" "Funding?" I retired from that decades-long migraine of a career. "For the tunnel." "I just found out there is a tunnel--why a tunnel here?" "I'll show you." He took me to the opening. It's finished off, but only about eight-ten feet high, roundish opening decorated with brass trim on wooden beams. Inside, I see everything is black and green, like black and white, but a deep emerald green and complete black. Green floodlights above make stark, deeply-colored images in the passageway. Walls are cluttered with framed photos, small shelves. A heavy herbal smell of anticipation--fresh mown yard ready for a weekend filled with guests. "Harsh décor, why is it like that?" The contrast was jarring. He explained to me that every so many feet, the color changed. "Fuchsia, cerise, magenta, every color. The tunnel is fifteen miles long." Described cultural displays set up inside, each epoch had a different color flooding the old photos, bits of the era. People liked it that way. "Soothing with the old curiosities, delightful for others who like the color. And the black--unimportant details. Don't need lighting." "Soothingly colored curiosities for fifteen miles?" I contemplate, "Preposterous." To my side, here comes the lady from the bus with an even older lady, both dressed to the nines, decked-out in jewelry. They twirl two swiveling chairs that are affixed to a small track which runs into the tunnel. As they seat themselves, they're smiling, talking about musicals, artists, Marcelled hair, rumble seats. My eyes follow them as they comment, sit and cross their ankles. Much further ahead of them, just a dot of the aqua and black section; another period--Tony had a '58 Impala that color.... The chairs move them away as they chatter about a man named Cab. ... "Where does the tunnel end up?" I ask the man, "How do they get back or can only one group go at a time?" "They don't come back." Gave me a kind look, tilted his head. "Don't come back...." Had to think for a moment, "What's your rate?" "No charge, that's why I asked about funding. EPA and the county PHC are sending someone. Thought that might be you." EPA I knew of, "PHC?" The man lifted his finger to his lips, glanced around, "Personal Happiness Committee. Adjunct to the Travel and Tourism Commission." No government could ever administer such a program. Adjunct to those idiots in Tourism? Blood pressure rose and an achy anger stretched through my guts. "My personal happiness has never been their concern...." ... Took me over an hour to calm myself; required two banana shakes with butter brickle ice cream and a steak sandwich. Blood pressure stayed high; I took a pill, then another. Banana shake and steak sandwich; Tony's favorite on Saturdays after he mowed, edged while I swept. Weekend guests came often, stayed late. Grabbed Tony's green polyester apron and went to my lounger before I fell asleep at the table again. Tossed his apron over the lampshade, turned it on and looked through the boxes of old photos a pool of green light. Evening shadows deepened to ebony, hiding the clothes I hadn't taken to the washer, the cups and plates from solo dinners. Green light caressed me and the photos on my lap. Held a photo of Tony in his black knit trunks at the beach, strutting his big, hairy body, hoping to impress me. There's me in baggy trunks hoping he wouldn't notice I had nothing to impress him with. At thirteen, I barely had a few hairs around the base of a skinny dick with a long foreskin that looked weird. As shy teens do, I criticized my body, thought my foreskin looked like an unfinished dick-sock. Tony called my foreskin giftwrapping; said my mighty, masculine tool was still in the making. My lack of confidence was eroded by my curiosity, Tony and I exchanged presents often. Some gift exchanges were quite the vigorous kind. (My god, my rear had some exotic visitations.) Holidays, dinners, friends, dances; closed my eyes and remembered our lovemaking. My butt twitched; he was a big man in every respect. Always burned. Now only my eyes burned. Missed even that short stab of pain, the prelude to pleasure made more profound by love. Squeezed my eyes shut to rest myself in the inky infinity behind my eyelids. Dreams and days are getting harder to sort. Pad of my thumb rubs the edge of that old photo at the beach, tears run, breaths heats.... Never thought I'd impress a man more than twice my age--twice my everything. I did; he cherished me until that February-March when my cherishing him became mighty tool of gratitude. Green and Black MCVT2017@gmail.com