Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 00:58:13 -0400
From: "C. E. Jordan" <c.e._Jordan@MailAndNews.com>
Subject: "The Village Boy"

Copyright 1999 c.e. jordan.  all rights reserved.
c.e. jordan@mailandnews.com

I appreciate any responses to my stories. Thanx!


The Village Boy


        It was sometime after two in the morning on a balmy summer night
and folks from the neighborhood and even tourists were still walking around.
People sat on the curb, or were hanging out in pizza parlours and cafes.
Even the sidewalk vendors were still in business, and occasionally, I had
to step over or around piles of second-hand novels, comic books, magazines,
and colorful antique clothing. I was in New York's East Village on my way to
get the train home after leaving a boring party.

        When I got to the area near the subway, it was quiet and fairly dark.
But there was someone standing on the shadowy corner holding an armfull
of books or magazines. I wasn't scared, because I figured if the guy was a
mugger he would not have his hands preoccupied like that. In the half-dark
it soon became obvious that the person was a kid, and as I passed by he
murmured something I couldn't make out. I have a soft spot for kids and
wondered if, at three in the morning, this one might be in some kind of trouble.
So I back-tracked a bit and asked, "What did you just say?"

        The boy lowered his head shyly and some black hair fell forward
across his face. Again he mumbled something too softly for me to hear
but this time he pushed forward the little stack of books he held in his
arms. And I could see that they were National Geographic Magazines with
pictures of dinosaurs on the covers.

        Since he wasn't exactly saying anything, I asked, "Are you
selling those?"

        "Yeah," he answered.

        I certainly didn't need any more magazines than I already had at
home. Now I was close enough to make out his features even in the
shadowy area where he stood. The boy was a head shorter than I am, and I
couldn't help noticing that he was as pretty as a girl. "Umm, I
dunno if I want..." I began.

        "Oh please, I'll take anything fer 'em," The boy finally spoke up
as I started to move away. His voice slipped  abruptly from high to low
and back. I smiled to myself. Puberty was doing a number on the kid's voice.

        "Look," he said, "they have dinosaurs and everything in 'em."
Being the softy that I am, I stopped and looked at the magazines. They
were all the same, and way over ten years old, I think they were dated
1981.

        I laughed, "Damn! These books must be older than you are."

        "I was born in 1985," the boy said proudly, grinning at me. Now
that he had finally started talking, it seemed he was really
glad to have someone to chat with. I stared at him. This young guy was very
interesting to look at. He wore a short black T-shirt with torn edges
that went down only to his midriff exposing his narrow waist. The shirt
was decorated with one large silver safety pin and the usual strip of white
underpants showed just above the loose waist of his Village-style black jeans;
it was not quite the baggy pants most other kids his age are wearing.
His dark eyes were vaguely oriental and I wondered if he had a
bit of Native-American in him. An earring -- a thin silver loop, glinted
in his left ear. His hair was probably a bit longer than mine. It was
shaved low at the sides, and except for the long strands at the front,
the rest of it was pulled into one thick braid which hung down the
middle of his back. All this gave him an exotic, punkish beauty.

        I asked, "Aren't you afraid to be hanging around here at this
hour of the night? There are a lot of bad people...crazy folks who would
hurt a good-looking boy like you if they could."

        The 'good-looking' bit slipped out of my mouth by accident. The
kid looked surprised -- and pleased. He smiled, blushed and looked at the
ground. When he raised his face again, he said that he wanted to help
his mom get money for their rent, that they lived nearby, just up the
street. The landlord was threatening to throw them out because they owed
two months back rent. This was a depressing story. I sat down on the
high edge of the curb and he sat next to me.

    "Are you sure you're not just trying to get money to buy drugs?" I
just had to ask, because this particular evil shadow haunts the city and
can consume anybody. He pulled away a bit and looked at me as if I had
slapped him.

        "Noooo... I don't do no drugs, uh, well...I smoked a joint
once." I looked at him, "...Okay, twice....but please believe me..."

        "It's alright, I believe you." To calm him down I put my
arm around him and patted his shoulder. For some strange reason we felt
completely at ease with each other and he relaxed against me instead of
pulling away. I hoped for his sake, he wasn't lying about the drug
thing. "Does your mom know you're out here?"

        "Naw, she's sleepin'...she drank a lot of beer tonight," he
glanced quickly at my shocked face, and added hastily, "...but she's a
good mom...it's just that sometimes it seems she can't take all the
pressure...that's why I gotta help her."

        It troubled me that this nice boy had an alcoholic woman for a
mother. And I'd bet anything that he didn't have a father either. So all
I said was, "You should be sleeping too kiddo, it's real dangerous out
here, especially for a child, and there's no way you're gonna raise
money selling those old magazines."

        I stood up figuring I'd give him a buck and leave before I got
too involved. But he reached up and grabbed my hand pulling me back down
to sit with him.

        "But look," he said, "it's old but it's still a nice book." He
took a copy from his stack, placed it in my lap and in the dim light
opened it to the article about dinosaurs. "...look, look, did you know
their skin was so tough that it could break a knife if you tried to stab
'em?"

        He seemed very comfortable leaning onto my lap, and underneath
the sudden flow of chatter, I recognized his desperation, his loneliness
and his hunger.

        I was briefly distracted by a large older guy who walked slowly
past us on his way to the train. In the soft night his eyes were hard
diamonds of hatred as he stared at us. The boy didn't seem to notice,
but I could only imagine what the man was thinking about the pair of us
sitting there so intimately close on the street curb at three-thirty in
the morning. But New Yorkers are conditioned to mind our own business,
to see yet not see, so, thankfully, he kept going on his way.

        Like a little child the boy was trying to get back my wandering
attention. He reached his left hand up to my cheek and pulled my head
back towards himself and the book he still held open on my lap. His face
was so close to mine I could smell his peanut-butter breath. "Look at
this one..." he was saying, "Look how big it is."

        He may have appeared to be a punk like lots of others
in the area, but this boy was just a sweet kid, probably a little
unhappy and lost emotionally -- and I was clearly getting much too
attached to him much too quickly. And that could mean all kinds of
trouble for me, if not for him. So I disentangled myself and stood up
again. "Umm...I really do have to go now and I think you should go home
too, ok?"

        He didn't say anything, just turned his lovely sad-looking face
up to me. His one earring glinted in the low light. Damn, I thought,
"I wish I could take you with me."

        A little surprised twitch of his body made me realize that I'd
spoken the last sentence aloud. Now I was embarrassed. I quickly grabbed
a magazine from atop the little pile, blindly pulled twenty bucks from
my pocket and pressed it into the boy's hand. He didn't even look at the
money, just kept staring at me.

        "I think I want the magazine after all...to remember you
by," I whispered. Turning, I walked towards the subway entrance only
about twenty feet away.

        At the top of the long flight of stairs which led down to a
dull well of light that was the subway station, I paused to look back,
and was startled to find my young friend just three feet behind me. In
the distance the leaves of the abandoned magazines were noisily flipping
open in a sudden gust of wind. I hadn't heard the soft padding sound of
his sneakers as he followed me to the mouth of the station. Standing
there he looked vulnerable and confused. I wished then I could keep him
with me forever. But I turned away and started descending the stairs.

        Nearly halfway down I heard, "Wait, wait....." and this time
the sound of his shoes seemed loud as he scrambled down the steps. He
came to a halt just above where I stood waiting. He was panting. "I...I
didn't get to say thanks..."

        "That's not necessar....." I began, but the boy stopped my words
and almost my heart by throwing his arms around me. Caught off guard and
off balance, I almost fell backward. I automatically clutched him into my arms
just so I wouldn't tumble down those steps. And I kept holding on as he
pressed up hard against me, because his slender body was so warm and
comfortable, and because his soft lips were suddenly on mine, and
because at that moment we needed each other more than anything else in
the world.

        I felt a gentle moist pressure against my closed mouth. Gasping,
I opened up and the boy's peanut-butter tongue darted past my lips to
press against my teeth. My mouth was suddenly filled with a sweet
softness that rotated insistently around my own formerly numb tongue.
And when our teeth clicked briefly together, the sensation was as if our
two heads had suddenly merged into one, and it seemed we'd never, ever
be separated again. But when we finally detached ourselves, one from
another, my heart was pounding, panicked, for I knew then, that I was at
at the mercy of this boy who could make me feel so... so...not alone.

        With a life of its own, my hands greedily caressed the tender
flats and rises of his stomach, they slipped under the bottom of his
short black T-shirt and lightly caressed the perfect smooth skin of his
back; my hands traveled further, moving below the loose waistband of his
jeans then dipping into the radiant heat of the white undershorts to
grasp the solid proof of passion. I was hungry for that intimate touch.

        His right hand made similar movements on me, but the active,
demanding fingers of his left hand stroked my face while I sucked at his
lips, his chin, his nose, a tender earlobe; then I plunged helplessly
back into the familiar yielding cavity of his mouth. Circling and
probing with both tongue and fingers as though we were desperate to
climb all the way into each other's body, it was a total invasion. I
felt congested, swollen from head to toe like an over-inflated balloon.
Stretched to the limit, we hung on, desperately. When the young boy
hooked one leg around mine trying to get as close to my body as
possible, we were drawn into a position where we were practically lying
on the stairs. Our position on those steps was precarious, and totally
lost as we were in our own world, we had completely forgotten that we
could be seen should anyone happen to come along.

        The boy's head was thrown back, eyes closed, his face wet with
tears and the evidence of my kisses; his mouth was wide open; ecstatic.
I stared at that perfect face illuminated by the night sky, and I wanted
to burn the precious image forever into my memory. I felt the sweet
pressure of his live body -- of his hardness beneath me as it drove
directly against the tight knot at the center of my own being. He
moaned, and breathed, "Yesss," as his arms and legs locked tightly around
me and his spine arched upward and stiffened. At that moment, my own
brain melted into icy explosive fragments as together, our bodies
spasmed and jerked convulsively off the steps.

        We slid entwined down the stairs a little way before we broke
apart, breathless -- and astonished.

        And immediately a noisy, bickering young couple appeared at the
top of the stairs and with barely a glance our way, skipped down past us
into the subway.

        We sat quietly on the steps for a minute looking at each other and
grinning widely. My young lover's hair had come undone and it
swirled around his face and over his shoulders in luxurious profusion. I
ran my fingers through it. I had never seen anything more beautiful. The
boy smiled and briefly took my hand in both of his. Then he stood,
straightened his clothes, turned and wordlessly started climbing up the
stairs. I sat there nearly at the bottom end looking upward. To me it
appeared as if my friend whom I had found and lost so quickly, was
ascending into the deep dark blue of the early morning sky. When he got
to the top, he turned and yelled something to me, but his breaking voice
was out of control again and I didn't quite understand him.

        "What did you say?" I yelled back.

        "I said, my...  name...  is...  Jeremy."

        I laughed out loud. It was funny that all this time we never
even introduced ourselves.

        "My name is Charles," I shouted, "and I am very pleased to meet
you Jeremy."

        And when he laughed he sounded happy.


                                ***