Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 11:22:55 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ted M <mpls_ted@yahoo.com>
Subject: Taking Mark's Virginity:  No Place Like It  Part 2

"The Tuesday I met Melvin," I turn to Mark. "It was two days before his
first murder and three weeks from his imminent death. Melvin was about to
die and he didn't even know it."

"Don't start there." Vin says wearily. "Start at the very beginning,
Malcolm. Start with Vincent."

*** MALCOLM'S NARRATIVE ***

I woke up in a containment cell.

Jail.

Which was pretty funny, considering I was a cop. What can I say? I have had
a curious life.

I found their small size and lack of distractions calming. Provided, of
course, there were no other occupants. When I was on the force, it was
where I used to go when I wanted to be alone to think, or in that case, cry
hard. That Tuesday, I had received some bad news and needed to be alone.

The noise woke me up; noise in the next cell.

I had chosen the cell at the very end of the row and all of them were empty
when I let myself in. It was early in the afternoon, not a lot of action on
the streets. I was still in my street clothes and when I woke up my back
was to the cell door. Ironically, a jail cell was one of the few places I
felt free to let my guard down. For me, there was no place like it.

My body tensed instantly and my internal alarm was full alert. I didn't
move, I just started listening to the sex.

Oh right...there was sex happening in the next cell.

I could hear the wet thrusting.

"Yeah, do it." I heard a man's voice real quiet, real low. "Fuck that ass."

That was Wolchek.

"So...tight." gasped the other man in my neighbor cell. "Holy shit, it's a
really tight hole, man. Fuck! I could nut off at any time, man, just cream
it. Breed it."

"Yeah, fuck man. Do it." Wolchek said again in a low voice.

Yup. It was Wolchek and his partner Reynolds going at it.

Well, I could not say I was entirely surprised.

Not that they were big flaming gays or anything. They weren't.

But every night when they shook hands goodnight, dust crumbled around
them. Lies. They would have preferred to stick their tongues in each
others' mouths to say goodnight, but I predicted they would never do
it. Funny, though. They were both single. It was the 80s, so, you know,
there were gays around. It would have been weird on the force but generally
cool. But they never went for it. Maybe was a cop thing. Or maybe some men
just prefer to live in cages.

But they had more in common than just cock lust: they were both pretty
crooked. This was the south/southwest side of Chicago where you just didn't
start asking questions of colleagues unless you wanted to know the
answers. And with these two, you generally didn't want to know the
answer. You would not like either one of their greasy smiles as the lies
curled out. Like I said, this was the 1980s and these two thought were
Chicago's version of Miami Vice. Oh, sorry, Mark. It was this 1980s show
popular - probably never...oh you have. Well, okay. They also believed that
they were still fighting on the side of the righteous, justifying many of
the nasty things they did.

Anyway, Wolchek was this white dude from Berwyn and Reynolds, his partner,
was one of the very few black cops I actively disliked. Reynolds.

Reynolds was fucking Wolchek and it surprised me. Because I pegged them
both as too homophobic to make a move. Huh. I read that one wrong. People
will occasionally surprise you.

The grunting was getting more guttural, but not necessarily louder. After
all, someone could bring in a collar at any minute. This one was a quickie.

Reynolds grunted that almost-bark laugh which irritated me when I heard him
in the changing room. I couldn't help but picture his black cock, two
shades mahogany darker than mine, but slick with Wolchek's ass juice and
Wolchek pushing back to get more of his buddy inside.

I didn't really want to have that visual image in my brain, but it was
pretty hard to lock it out considering I could hear Wolchek panting, and
whispering, "Yeah, DO IT."

I recognized that wet fuck 'stank' and the slickery sounds. Men fucking.

Reynolds grunted a final time and I imagined his medium-sized pecker
burping out all this perfectly white jizz, coughing it all over the silky
insides of that pink Polish butt.

"Niiiiiice." Wolchek said evenly. It was oddly passion-free, as if he were
bringing a message from the Olympic judges. "My turn." He added.

That wasn't much recovery time for Reynolds. Yeah, this was probably a good
reason why I would not enjoy being a gay man. I don't like this idea of one
man nutting and the other saying, "Good. Turn over." I like being with
women because it's less tit for tat that way. But hey, it's not like I
chose to be straight. You don't get to choose some things. With other
things there's more flexibility.

But it did seem a bit business-like and that caused me to ponder.

"It's wet in here." Wolchek said and Reynolds laughed a smug laugh.

"Yeah." Reynolds whispered harshly to his bud. "Big load. I needed that
one."

Wolchek talked low and dirty about breeding this butt full of cop spunk and
it was clear to me then, probably much later than it should have, that
there was a third person in the room and they weren't fucking each other.

Oh. Right.

That made more sense, actually. They wanted to fuck each other, Reynolds
and Wolchek. Probably the closest they would ever come to screwing each
other was to watch each other closely, secretly memorizing strokes and the
glistening color of each other's dick meat.

I knew that I could probably confirm this theory this by turning to look in
the basin mirror of the cell directly across from them. But then they could
see me too. And I was pretty sure that they thought they were alone in
here, this row of cells. Someone would probably stand guard for them
outside the lock up area, but that wasn't all that unusual. All they had to
say was that they wanted to do some 'private questioning' and their buddy
would assume Reynolds and Wolchek were kicking some hapless informant
repeatedly in the nuts.

I had to play possum.

They would leave first and I could sneak out later. And nobody would be the
wiser. Well, I would. But there was lots of corruption on the force. This
might earn Reynolds and Wolchek a temporary demotion but more likely just a
big lecture. They probably wouldn't get a letter in their file as an
official hand slap, even if I insisted on following this through.

And yes, lots of good men and women were also in the blue. But these two
were no good.

Wolchek had a much bigger dick if I remember. Not big like mine. But you
know, it was still a big boy. A good, fat 8 and 1/2 inches. He liked to
soap it up semi-hard in the shower and make sure other guys saw it while
telling pussy jokes. That dude really wanted to get fucked.

Yeah, I had seen it. Fat too. Whoever was getting fucked was sure getting
an ass full. But I didn't hear any noise, not resistance, not pleading, not
grunting or anything. It was all silent.

"Fuck, yes!" cried Wolchek and I could hear the wet thrusting getting
faster. Reynolds probably was standing close enough to smell it, smell his
partner's body and watch his legs quiver when it last released its gushy
load.

Wolchek started to go, unloading it all and Reynolds put his hand over his
partner's mouth. I surmised this because Wolchek's cries were
muffled. Reynolds did it to cover the sound, of course. But maybe also to
touch Wolchek's body during that intimate moment and feel every quivering
drop explode out of his tense, hard muscles. And maybe Wolchek took
advantage of that moment to smell his partner's hand; close his eyes and
think of it being Reynolds's lean, midnight ass that was squishing back
against that fat Polish dick.

Yup. This was probably as close as the two of them would ever get.

But who knows?

With people, you can still be surprised sometimes.

So Wolchek dumped his heavy nut sack inside the anonymous butt four feet
away in the cell next door. I wondered if it was a transsexual or some
gender bender that fed their flickering flame of manly confidence. Or if
they had the balls to just out-and-out fuck a man. Whoever it was had been
stone silent.

I got my answer in less than two minutes when the two of them zipped up and
fled.

"Thanks, Melvin." mutters Reynolds. "We'll get you out."

There was no sound in that cell after they left. I think Melvin - whoever
he was - had somehow sensed the three of them were not quite alone and was
quietly listening for me, just as I had quietly been listening to them.

Two minutes after Reynolds and Wolchek left, I rose from the cot in total
silence, slipped through the wide open bars of my cell and into the
hallway. I passed in front of my neighbor's cell ghost-like. Didn't even
look at him. I wanted him to see nothing of me, not remember me or be able
to look at me and remember what was done to him. I just didn't want to see
him again. Ever.

It wasn't the fucking. I wasn't particularly grossed out by that. I haven't
ever experimented that way, but I once had a girlfriend who got aroused
watching gay porn while I pounded her senseless. So I saw a few things,
sure. But it didn't do anything for me. I was getting off on her - the
smell of her heat and how sexy it was to see my queen so richly
attuned. She was turned on, so I was turned on.

They were bragging about it in the changing room, Wolchek and Reynolds,
using quieter voices but snickering and quiet high-fiving
nevertheless. They were the kind of quiet where the person actually wants
you to hear. They were proud.

When I got to my locker, I ignored them. But they couldn't stop themselves.

"Hey Malcolm." jeered Wolchek. "You like fucking pussy, right?"

"Even if it's rat pussy?" laughed Reynolds. My loathing rose. There are few
in whom I cannot find some angle of compassion that helps me open my heart
to who they really are. But he was pretty high on that short, short list.

I didn't answer them directly. I just shook my head in disbelief. I didn't
want to get involved.

Wolchek snickered. "It's still tight."

"Well," laughed Reynolds. "Less so now, with your big cock, Wolchek."

They giggled again like ten year olds and I tried to ignore their baiting
me.

"Seriously, Malcolm, you should nail him. He's 21. In the lockup right
now. He won't tell anyone. He's nobody."

"Why'd he let you guys do it?" I asked.

I didn't want to know the answer, I really did not. But I wanted the
conversation steered away from goading me into fucking some homeless man. I
did not fuck men. And I certainly didn't fuck barely-legals. Well, despite
the state law, a 21-year-old still seemed 'barely legal' to me. I was 40
for Christ's sakes.

"He was carrying." Reynolds said, mildly bored. "Muling. Stupid white boy
on the south side of Chicago carrying crack to some nobody dealer. Stuck
out like a sore thumb. Five grams. It was more than a test run for this
kid, but he's still a nobody in the organization."

Reynolds smiled and it was ugly. Cheesy little moustache which looked like
shit and patchy scruff on his face. He did not look like Miami Vice. Just
an imitator.

His partner, Wolchek picked up the story. "Little Rat Boy is 21 and gonna
do adult time on this one if we didn't help him out. Serious time. Full
juvie record. So we did him a favor."

My stomach ached hearing this. I had enough common sense to not ask what
they did with the 5 grams of drugs.

They bragged about how Rat Boy offered them a deal -- he would suck them
off in a nearby crack house if they would let him go. And sure enough, he
sucked their cocks in some burned out home, probably while a passed-out
junkie twitched in the same room. But they changed the deal and insisted on
also fucking his butt. Here in jail.

According to them, this nobody kid did not make a single noise at this news
but nodded with acceptance and then as soon as they were near a broken
window, he leapt through it. They caught him, pulled him back in, and
somehow broke his nose in the process. They figured they were doing him a
favor because whoever gave him this crack to deliver from wasn't going to
be too pleased if he were wandering the streets empty-handed.

Coughing up a gut full of cop sperm wasn't going to be a very good
explanation for the lost crack. So yeah, they had done him a favor.

Then, they high-fived.

After dressing for street duty, I should have gone to my desk.

Instead, I kinda accidentally grabbed his clipboard and read up on him,
this nobody kid who trusted two cops to keep a shitty deal.

Grew up in a place on the south side of Chicago, some home for no-parented
kids. Typical story for some of these south side boys before their early
anonymous deaths. He was hospitalized for extensive rat bites bunch of
times. Bottle glass taken out of his skull once when he was 10. A couple
fights with other juvies, and then it got interesting. Stolen cars,
possession, and 'excessive loitering.' That was curious. Most don't get
busted on that one. He must have been cruising for sex somewhere. He was
hovering right on that line between stupid kid mistakes and bottom-tier
career criminal.

Like I said, early anonymous death.

A former teacher had made notes that were somehow still clipped to his rap
sheet. I think they were part of a plea for leniency on some charge that
was probably dropped, not even present on this sheet. She said how Melvin
kept away from other kids and was heavily influenced by TV. She saw him
taking notes on fight scenes in TV shows and when questioned explained he
was trying to learn how to fight back. She said he could be sweet
unexpectedly and she unfortunately didn't have enough time to spend with
him.

'Please go easy on him,' her notes concluded. 'It hasn't been easy for
him. The other boys call him Melvin the Rat.'

I finished reading this standing in front of his cell. My feet had been
walking towards him the whole time I was reading. I looked up and into the
eyes of Melvin the Rat.

I looked at Melvin through the bars and he was backed into a corner, like a
kicked and mangy dog. Fucking shitty, wet smelly dog. He looked very angry
and very afraid, ready to punch me through the bars if he thought it would
help. Scruffy. Paunchy. Dried blood under his crooked, swollen nose. He had
a Mohawk that was soaked and looked like shit.



"I looked tuff." Vin interrupts me.

"You looked dead." I tell him. Vin, you fucker. I won't let you romanticize
this.

Vin nudges Mark. "I was very cool. I rocked the Casbah."

Mark is pale but he nods at Vin.

I know what Mark's thinking, what he's wondering. Mark's wondering how many
rats would have to bite you and gnaw on your flesh before you were actually
put in a hospital. And how many rat bites would that total if you were
hospitalized 'a bunch of times?' Or maybe he's thinking of the tiny scars
criss-crossing the right side of Vin's skull near the hairline.

"Anyway." I say in with a slight edge of Cop Voice and pull them both back.

Vin's Mark said he wanted to hear this. And since Vin won't tell any of
this shit and I'm not getting any younger, I'd better get going. Someone
should know my little brother.

Know his true story.



I stared at Melvin the Rat in his jail cell and he stared at me. The guy
had curious eyes, I'll give you that. Smart, blue-gray, gleaming. And he
could stare you down. In ten or so years and if he had a different
background, he could have been one of those guys who made millions making
fake companies on the web and getting everyone to give them money. Yeah, he
was a smarty, Melvin the Rat. But not smart enough.

Melvin's problem was that if he couldn't pay for the lost drugs, someone
would offer him 'a deal.' His debt would be forgiven and he would get
offered the 'Not Shot Right Now In The Head' plan if he just agreed to
shoot so-and-so in the head. You know, kill it forward.

And who doesn't want to stay alive for another shitty day? Yup, Melvin was
going to be invited to murder in two days or less, and you know what? He'd
do it.

He wouldn't like it; he'd hate it. But Melvin the Rat had gotten used to
surviving on the shittiest bits of refuse and this shitty day was no
different than the thousand of shitty days before it. He was going to be
dead in two or three weeks when some mid-level drug thug wanted revenge for
the murder that Melvin hadn't done yet. In three weeks, this kid with the
smart and angry eyes would be found dead.

Shot in the head.

In the War on Drugs, there were two or three kings running the show and
still a thousand pawns. Easy to use, easy to lose. Not much has changed
since then, I guess.



Vin's Mark looks at Vin and his eyes are full of...hard to say. Horror,
maybe. Grief. Life without Vin. He takes Vin's hand under the table and Vin
mutters something else that neither of us can hear.

Their green beer hasn't been touched since I started this story and it
looks like the birthday cheer has left our small party. Nearby, revelers
are crooning 'When Irish Eyes are Smilin'.

St. Patrick Day sucks.



I stared at Melvin in the cell, trying to figure out why I should do
something for him. I saw a lot of lost kids on the southwest side. Some of
them trying hard to get out. This one wasn't doing much for himself. And
hell, why not help out one of the many deserving black kids instead of this
little white shit?

Before I could decide what to do, whether to get involved, he spoke.

"My name is Mal." He snarled at me. "Figured you should know the name of
the guy you're going to sodomize."

Electricity jolted me and I took this as a sign.

We had the same name.

My name is Malcolm and when I was a kid, I went by 'Mal.' Then in high
school I discovered the word was Latin for 'bad,' and figured a young black
on the north side of Chicago didn't need that kind of strike against him,
so I started going by Malcolm. And then just a few short years later, I was
a black Chicago cop named Malcolm in the late 1960s. It had been a curious
life.

"Mal." I said out loud, but softly. "Why Mal?"

He said nothing.

"Why not Mel? Why Mal instead of Mel?"

He looked at me with angry confusion. "The fuck? How should I know? It's
just a fucking name, you asshole."

"Mal." I said again. We had the same name.

"Just do it!" he yelled at me, his little rat fists shaking. "JUST GET IT
THE FUCK OVERWITH."

Melvin the Rat.

"Let me tell you about Joliet State Prison." I said to this mangy creature
pacing in the corner of the cell.

I had no idea where this conversation was headed.

"You won't have to offer your ass to be raped, because it's just going to
happen. Regularly. You're not that tough, punk."

"Golly, thanks Officer Friendly."  He snapped.

"They have four beds in the infirmary dedicated to first-time rape
victims. The beds are always full. On the plus side, your rapists will wait
until your ass heals because you're no good for selling if you're damaged
goods. So the first gang rape is really just to get your attention."

Melvin didn't say anything, just stared at me angrily.

"My brother Vincent killed a man in a bar fight." I told him, something I
hadn't shared with anyone I work with. "He's in Joliet. Vincent has been
raped three times that I know of, but it's only been four months and he's
still refusing to leave his cell except for showers and one meal per
day. Today I found out about the third rape, which was last night. He's
breathing into a tube."

This sobered Mal a little bit. He still glared and huffed at me, but kept
silent.

"It's a place you don't want to be. There's no place like it."

He shrugged in his cell, this white boy and he still had his baby fat in
his face. Oh yeah, he cared. But after so long of pretending that he
didn't, he didn't remember how to change his facial expression. He was
almost gone from being human.

"So here's what we're gonna do, Mal." I spontaneously outlined a plan.

I was confident I could get Mal released if he agreed to come live with
me. My house. Northwest side of Chicago, Logan Square area. He had to get a
job and he had to promise me to stay away from the south side. Promise. I
told him that I had worked it out where he could be thrown in jail if he
didn't spend every night at my house. Like parole.

He didn't know that I was bluffing or that I couldn't enforce any of it.

I was shocked to hear me offer my home, because this was NOT what I wanted
to say. I did not want Mal as a roommate. I had intended to say something
about finding him a group home, some charitable place to live, but then I
heard the words in my head that the teacher wrote, saying, 'they call him
Melvin the Rat' and I couldn't do it.

"How convenient." Mal spit from his cell. "Take-out butt pussy. You fucking
pig."

"Never." I shook my head. "I don't fuck men. I don't fuck boys."

"Ah yes...protect and serve." He stared at me with something like hate.

"Not in my house." I shook my head again. "That won't happen."



"Did you believe him?" Mark interrupts and wipes away a lone tear. "Did you
believe?"

Vin looks at me uneasily and his eyes are exhausted. My little brother has
bags under his eyes. Clearly, he didn't sleep last night. I forgot how long
ago this was for him...almost 25 years.

"No. "he says at last, looking at me. Even his voice is tired. "I didn't
believe him. Not for a minute."

Our burgers arrive and we look at our food and each other. Nobody eats.

"So after a quick trip to the ER to fix his nose, we lived together." I
continue. "And it was...unusual."



Mal slunk around the house and stayed in the den I converted into a
make-shift bedroom. He had a sofa bed and a table for a desk and a metal
folding chair. Bunch of boxes of my stuff were in there too, so he kinda
worked around those. He rarely talked to me and every night I heard him
putting a chair under the door knob. A month into staying there, he asked
me in a grumbling voice if he could tape a band poster one of the barren
white walls.

I said sure. Yeah, go nuts.

That counted as our conversation for the week.

I asked him once why he spent all his time in that room, why he didn't
watch TV with me or listen to music in the other part of the house. We
could rent movies sometime, if Mal wanted. VCRs were still new and I also
had a great stereo system.

Mal told me that 'he liked it in there.' I shrugged and let it go, but it
bothered me, his answer, because it was true but not the truth. So I asked
him a week later, and this time he reluctantly told me what was truth: that
he had never had his own room, a room of his very own. And even though
there were boxes of my shit crammed in there and the walls were white and
there was no window, he wanted to enjoy it while it lasted. Before it went
away.



Mark groans into himself and his heart is a new kind of heavy.

"That's enough." Mark says his hand on his head. "That's it. Stop."

Vin is munching his French fries and he's pretending that the worst is
over. "Why? What?"

"This is horrible." Mark says softly, his voice shaking. "Oh my god."

"Hey Babe, look around." Vin says, putting his arm around Vin's Mark. "I'm
with the two best people in the world. We're having green beer. And I'm got
a rock hard boner today with the help of magic soap. I think today is a
pretty good day so far."

"I didn't know." Mark says and he's covering his eyes. "I didn't know. Oh
my god, this is the worst birthday ever. And my making you go through
this...it's the worst present."

"The worst birthday present," Vin says and nods slightly towards me. Play
along, he's tell me. Help my guy. Help my Marky.  "...was the vegetable
juicer from the TV ads. We used it once."

"Really?" I ask. "I thought the worst birthday present was the year he got
you tickets for that traveling production of Chorus Line."

"Oh, right." Vin pretends to puzzle. "I forgot that one. God, I still can
hear tap danc --"

"It's not working." Mark says sadly. "You're not cheering me up. Don't
try."

Mark's right.

Once a story is started, best to tell it all.



So Vin -- or Mal, as he was known then -- Mal lived with me for two
months like this. He got a shitty job and hid in his room and left me
yellow post-it notes when he wanted to communicate with me. He was fond of
writing NO MAYO on a post-it note and leaving it on the jar, or on the
bread bag. And I kept putting mayo on the sandwiches I made for him because
I wanted the dumb fuck to talk to me.



"Vin, I growl at him, "what was with you and the stupid notes? Always
writing notes, this guy. Mal wrote notes for everything and always the same
block letters. Drove me nuts."

Vin shrugs and looks at Mark nervously.

Mark is looking down.



One day the post-it notes stopped. Mal was hiding in his room as usual but
for the first time since he started living with me, I got the sense that
something was wrong. Or more accurately -- about to be wrong.

Mal had been doing well up until now -- he steered clear of the south
side, worked his crap job. I had worried there might be some retaliation
for the botched drug delivery. But apparently he was off the hook if he
stayed away from the south side. When he was growing up on the south side,
nobody cared that he was there, and now it seemed that nobody cared he was
gone.

But that night, it was different again. Something was up. Melvin's nose was
twitching so that meant mine was too.

The vibe was all wrong.

It was a Thursday. Mal came through the house towards the front door and
this was the night -- the big one. The night that decided where your life
goes. He was walking to the front door as he has done often but this time
was different, this night, and I was standing up before I knew why. Mal was
walking wrong, acting normal when nothing was normal. It was a lie, his
casual demeanor, and it was crumbling off him like dust. My heart started
pounding.

"Where you going." I barked at him. It was more of a statement than a
question.

I never asked him where he was going. Never. I was not his father.

"Out." He said coldly.

Melvin the Rat was back.

"THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE IT." I say loudly. Cop Voice. It usually worked,
that hard ringing tone. But this time, there was no guarantee. This was
that kind of night.

Those words were a clear statement to both of us. Last chance. Melvin was
on his last chance.

"You leave here tonight," I told him real loud. "And there's no coming back
to this house. I don't wanna know what you're going to do. Maybe only steal
a car. I don't care. But it's done."

Melvin didn't even try to lie to me. He just walked out the front door.

I exhaled heavily and I had not realized that I had stopped breathing. I
was pretty sad, I realized, because I thought the post-it-notes meant he
was coming back to human. I thought Mal was coming back to life.

I walked to the door just to see him marching down the street for the last
time but to my surprise, there was Melvin, sitting on the front steps.

Just sitting.

Thinking real hard.

So he sat.

And sat.

Mal sat there until midnight, and that was five hours later.

Then he went back to his room and shut himself in there without saying a
word and that was it. The criminal career of Melvin the Rat ended with a
soft click of the bedroom door and the sound of a chair being shoved under
the door handle.



Mark is breathing heavily.

So is Vin.

I guess I am too a little bit.

"That was not a good night." I tell Mark. "I spent the entire five hours
sitting in a chair by the window watching your Vin, willing him to come
back inside the house. Come back, come back. I kept saying it right into
his head. Come back. Don't be Vincent, come back!"

"What..." Mark's voice cracks and he swallows. Tonight is the night all the
questions are being asked. "What were you going out to do?"

Vin breathes and his face gets less red. "I was going out for a RC cola."

Mark waits.

"Seriously, I was going for a RC." Vin is relaxing, breathing. "And yeah, I
was going to cruise this convenience store. This guy I met at work said we
could get like 4K if we rolled it on a Saturday night. Two days later."

Vin's Mark is absorbing this, best he can. He's hanging in there, and he's
strong.

"You overreacted." Vin tries to joke this off with me. "I was just going
for a RC."

But I shake my head. I won't play. I won't joke about that night.

Vin is grinning again and he is alive, my little brother is alive
again. The worst of the tale is over for him: remembering and reliving
Melvin the Rat. Seeing the small, ugly world from his tiny, beady eyes. The
garbage heap that was his life. And Melvin just scurried under the table.

The rest of the story is about becoming Vin.



Two weeks after that horrible night, the night on the porch, there's a
yellow post-it note on the counter inviting me to drinks with him at this
shitty dive bar on N. Clark St to celebrate his birthday. Turns out his
birthday was St. Patrick's Day.

Mark, don't get me started on St. Patrick's Day. I mean, I'm glad for the
Irish and all, but their holiday sucks. And everyone's Irish on that crap
day, even black ghetto bangers on the south side. Green barfed over
everything and then later, literally, green barf over everything. It's
amateur night for drinkers, second only to the shittiest holiday of them
all, New Year's Eve.



"He's fun at parties." Vin mugs to Mark jerking his head towards me.

Mark smiles weakly and he's got old man wrinkles on his face.

This story is aging him. Loving someone can do that.



I knew this was coming, this kind of event, because several small changes
in the household. Mal talked to me about the mayonnaise. He stopped taking
money out of my wallet when he thought I wouldn't miss it. I caught him
looking at books on a shelf one night in my living room and when I asked
him what books he had read, he ran like a startled deer right back to his
room. No big deal. I knew the books had been moved; that he was
reading. And I knew that we were close to a conversation.

So I joined Mal for a drink on St. Patrick's Day when my shift got
over. Everyone on the force hated St. Patrick's Day, but some worse than
me, so it wasn't easy to get off when my shift ended. No, I almost had to
fake a heart attack to get gone. But I made it.

Mal had a beer waiting for me when I arrived. He nodded and I nodded. We
drank for a bit and looked around at all the crazy-happy people getting
drunker and drunker.

"Happy Birthday." I said to Mal.

"Thanks." grumbled Mal, grumbling but not grouchy. "It's not my birthday. I
don't know when mine is. But I figured that I needed one and this seemed
like a good day."

"So you picked today." I said slowly. "St. Patrick's Day."

"There's always going to be a party for me." Mal said proudly, and I could
see he was a little drunk already. "And people are always in a good mood."

"Do not pick this day." I told him jabbing my finger on the table. "You
will regret picking this shitty, shitty holiday as your birthday. It will
fucking haunt you."

Melvin laughed and this was a new sound, a laugh. "I might actually be
Irish, you know. I mean, I look Irish. Or maybe I'm German. Or Finnish. You
know - the blonds."

And then it was official -- we were having a conversation.

But I couldn't talk him out of it. He had picked St. Patrick's Day and he
thought it was genius.



"Preaching to the choir." Says Mark soberly.

Mark's face is less filled with anguish. He has also returned from the dark
side. He's Vinsmark once again. Good to have him back.

"I live with this Einstein." Mark continues. "When he thinks he's right,
he's insufferable."

"It's true." Vin agrees. "I am King Prick those days."

"Hey." I protest. "Let's not get detoured by the obvious topic of Vin's
many flaws."



So there I was drinking green beer with this maybe-Irish-wannabe and we
were conversing like people. We talked about sports even though it didn't
interest either one of us much, but we were looking for common ground. I
didn't ask him questions about his upbringing or anything to do with his
former life. We mostly just looked at the people around him and I started
telling him my observations of them. He told me some of his observations as
well, and I discovered he had quite a talent for watching people as well.

We got corn beef sandwiches because, well, we have to, and Mal insisted on
paying for everything. He's still like that sometimes.



Mark bumps Vin's shoulder in a goofy way and I can see his arm muscles
tighten as he squeezes Vin's hand under the table.

I think that tonight's going to turn out alright.

I think the worst thing Vin imagined isn't going to happen after all. That
Mark was going to hate him for being weak and small. That Mark would look
into the eyes of this man he adores and instead of seeing his big strong
Vin, he would from now on only see a terrified 8-year-old, shaking
uncontrollably as rats chew his skin.

Two years ago I asked Vin why he wouldn't tell Mark about Melvin the Rat. I
had known Vin's Mark for years by then and I knew him well. He was
strong. Vin didn't doubt that Mark could handle it. That was never the
question. But Vin was still afraid. We argued about it over the phone.

Vin said, "I don't want him to see all that ugliness in me, of who I used
to be. It'll drive him away."

"He's not going anywhere."

"In his eyes." Vin said on the phone and then there was a pause. "He'll go
away with his eyes. And that would be worse than breaking up. If the light
in his eyes died because of Melvin."

I couldn't persuade him. Sometimes love makes you afraid, more afraid than
fear. Sometimes loving someone is the scariest thing of all.

But I think tonight is going to turn out okay. I think so, at least.

"So Mal starts leaving the bedroom." I continue, jumping us back to the
story.



He finally stopped propping a chair under the door knob and he slept
through the night. We ate together sometimes at dinner when our work
schedules overlapped. Mal discovered he could fix anything with four wheels
and he spent all day on his back under cars. One night I drove my patrol
car home and the next morning the vibrating throttle emanating from the
undercarriage is gone. I never even saw Mal leave the house to fix it.

Mal also discovered that he was a horn dog and once in a while there were
tell tale signs around the house that suggest he had sex.

I had heard a couple incidents occurring in the barren white room at
various times. Once I heard an "Ouch! Geez...go easy..." and awkward
fumbling and sometimes the sound of an elbow or knee crashing into the
wall. I got the impression that Vin wasn't so great at sex. Maybe I was
wrong...but he didn't have a lot of repeat visitors.

But hey, I wasn't complaining. This was good - having sex was a step
towards humanity. Mal had remembered to lust.



"Well," I chuckle. "He had a little help remembering about sex."

Mark mouth twitches a little, like he wants to smile. In fact, I think he'd
feel a little better if something fun happens in this story. So I tell a
little detail I never shared with Vin. This will make Vin laugh.

"So Vin -- er, Mal - was getting back to human and I figured I could help
accelerate the process. Speed it up. Remind him that having sex was
something worth something. Maybe he'd find a...I dunno...boyfriend or a
fuck buddy or something. Something good for him."

Vin frowns. "You decided this?"

I laugh because this is gonna be funny.



I used to get out of the shower and dry off enough to put on a pair of
jeans. I'd sometimes leave the top button unbuttoned and then I'd finish
drying off standing in the doorway of the living room. Vin would be in
there watching some crap TV or something and I'd make conversation, just
some stupid small talk. He'd half-watch me out of the corner of his eye.

Now, even at 40, I had a decently sized chest. Okay, impressive. And hell
yeah, I lifted weights. And I was strong. Fuck that, I am still strong. So
I figured I wouldn't be entirely repulsive to Mal, and maybe he would see
the mighty, fat bulge in my jeans, the hint of some giant black cock and he
would remember something good.

I'd be real careful to dry slowly, rubbing down my thick, strong arms, my
big pecs, my smooth chest, making sure Mal could see the water on my
smooth, chocolate skin. I wasn't gonna have sex with him or anything, I was
just trying to wake up that part of him. Remember what it's like to be
horny.



Mark's eyes bug out and he laughs a hard bark. "In the doorway? Oh my God!"

"Shut up." growls Vin and he's blushing. "Zip it."

I am still chuckling over this, remembering my clumsy attempt to entice Vin
to lust.



I didn't know how guys do it, how they hit on each other or anything. So I
was trying too hard, maybe. Who cares? Vin never responded anyway.

Now, women...that's another story. I could always use my cop skills of
listening and talking low, my physical presence, my eyes, everything. If I
don't mind saying so, I have always been pretty damn good at seduction. I
knew how to make a lady feel like a queen. And then how to turn a queen
into a whore, and still get her back to Queen before morning.

The next year rolled around and it was St. Patrick's Day again. Mal took me
out to celebrate again and there was something different this year, a
dissatisfaction. He was ripping his beer coaster to shreds and he wouldn't
sing any of the Irish songs like he did last year when he was drunk. He
still wouldn't give up on this as his birthday, saying you can't change
your birthday or it's not really your birthday.

But it was different this year.

See, all year, Mal was relaxing into being a real person on his own, with a
real personality. We had been hanging out and I was teaching him
things. And he was real smart at learning them. Read every damn book at my
house. But this day, well, this day was Melvin the Rat's special day to
shine. The made-up birthday somehow represented his last link to that
former life. He didn't think of himself as that creature anymore, and
already disliked Melvin the Rat.

"Tell me a story." Mal said to me and his voice was fake-happy and
desperate for real. He wanted something to forget.  He accidentally sloshed
his green beer out of the cheap, plastic cup.

"C'mon," Mal pushed my arm with his. "Tell me something."

I couldn't think of anything. I did not know stories that helped when
someone felt like shit. I didn't do that kind of thing, help people feel
better.

I could stop a woman from getting beat down and I could break up a gang
fight with nobody getting dead. I shot a man in the head once, a man who
was holding a hostage. And while I didn't like it, I also slept fine after
that.

But Mal needed something, something beyond my normal skills, so I reached
down and found an old story, one my Aunt Judy used to tell. She used to
tell this to me and Vincent when we were both under kids and at her house
after school. We would sit by her feet and make faces at each other, trying
to make the other one laugh out loud while she spun her tales.

"There was once an African tribe." I began, digging deep for the forgotten
words. "A tribe where every single man was a king. A tribe of African
kings, all of them. Well, until they got lost."

But Mal already looked bored and was scanning the room. I was pretty sure
he was not listening to a single word.

I had to make up the story, embellishing parts that I could not remember. I
started throwing in names of kings, men in my life who I revered and over
whom I had wept. Martin Luther. Malcolm X. JFK. My uncle Richard. My
father.

Kings.



A month later, Mal was waiting for me on the couch when I got home from
work.

"I'm moving away." He said and he wouldn't look at me.

I was expecting this. Dreading it. Waiting for it. He didn't need me
anymore. He wasn't Melvin the Rat anymore. And while this was a good thing,
a very good thing actually, I was also sort of sad. I had come to rather
enjoy having Mal around. Maybe I was a little lonelier than I thought.

"What's up?" I said but there didn't need to be a reason. It didn't
matter. It was just time.

"I'm tired of Chicago," Mal said in this complaining tone. "I'm tired
here. I want a different scene."

"Scene?" I barked a laugh. "Since when the fuck do you say the word,
'scene?'"

Mal scrunched up his face and gave me his best facial 'fuck you.'

I nodded and went to the desk and pulled out an envelope. In it was his
birth certificate with his full name, Melvin E. Vanbly and the smear mark
over his birth date, rendering it unknowable. I had looked up his birth
certificate for him, got him a copy with St. Patrick's Day as his
birthday. Got him a copy of his Social Security Number card as well which
was not easy with his fucked-up birthday. There was some emergency stuff I
think he should have. Medical records from his childhood, but they were
pretty incomplete. Well, to be honest, it was one page and it was ripped in
half. I had prepared all this because I knew this day was coming.

He rifled through the envelope and then he pulled out a cashier's check
made out to Melvin Vanbly for $10,000 and looked at it dispassionately.

"What's this?"

"Parole was denied." I told him.

I had been meaning to tell him. But this was my last hope for my
ever-hardening brother, Vincent, and my heart was still heavy. Even then, a
few weeks after parole was denied, I could barely choke out those three
words. Vincent was going to die in Joliet State Prison.

"It was his start over money. Now it's yours."

He nodded and said nothing about it, pushing it back into the envelope.

Mal had already packed. The car he has cobbled together over the preceding
months was loaded with his meager belongings. I think the most valuable
thing he owned was that framed rock group poster.

"Where are you going?" I asked him.

"I dunno." He shrugged and was already leaving the house.

"You should call me or send me a postcard or something." I told him.

He nodded in a non-committal way and the door slammed shut. From his car he
looked back at me on the front porch. He stared curiously for a moment and
then ducked inside.

Drove away.

Away.

I was getting a beer from the fridge a few minutes later, wondering how it
would be now without my strange and lonely roommate when I heard the front
door slam open.

It was Mal. And he was pissed.

He kicked over an end table in a spasm of fury, sending a lamp crashing to
the floor and he approached me with his fists clenched.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" He screamed and his face was red. "WHAT DO YOU FUCKING
WANT, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE?"

He swung at me, this amateur punch, and suddenly he was fighting me, this
22 year old punk who had developed a taste for my biscuits and gravy and
when he was in a good mood would make us both chicken pot
pie. Unfortunately, he was not a great cook and he usually burned it.

"WHAT DO YOU FUCKING WANT?" he raged and he was screaming at the top of his
powerful lungs.

Of course I was surprised by his return and this outburst, but not
threatened. I had faced much worse from strangers on PCP and Mal couldn't
hurt me. Not physically at least.

He kept lunging at me and I kept pushing him back time after time, easily,
easily. He was just a little kid, not even tapping the strength of a man to
throw himself at me.

Mal stood there, chest heaving, and if he could kill me with his sharp blue
eyes, he would have done it. Because he wasn't getting anywhere with his
fists.

I don't know why I said this, but it came out, maybe because I was sad he
was leaving, and maybe because St. Patrick's Day was only a month earlier
or maybe because I had been thinking about me and my brother Vincent and
how we would probably never again go out together for Demon Dogs, our
favorite Chicago hot dogs.

With all of that grief swimming in me right at the surface, I remembered
the story.

"It's a terrible thing...to be a lost king." I said.

Mal's eyes went white, so wild, he was so mad, so insanely furious at me
and he didn't even know why. His whole body shook like he was manning a
jackhammer while his face flushed fast from deathly white to rocket red.

"I HATE YOU, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE." Mal screamed at me, backing towards the
front door. "FUCK OFF! STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!"

And that was the first time that Mal had said the words 'I love you' to
someone.

See, Mal had apparently forgotten that I was a cop for 25 years by then. I
knew how to see lies, and smell their basement smell. I had spent more than
a year now teaching Mal how to listen, how to hear the words between the
words, but still he forgot in that moment.

He forgot who was the teacher.

But I knew.

I knew that a broken kid who had only known the love of hungry rats would
not recognize human love when it touched his face. The only way life had
touched Mal was by punching him senseless. He understood the beat
downs. But he could not fathom the caress of kindness.

I knew that sometimes 'I hate your fucking guts' could mean something
completely different.

It's hard to be a lost king.

Mal turned and fled out the front door.



Mark is crying and when Vin tries to comfort him, he pushes Vin away.

Sure it's sad and all, but lots of people have sad tales. Many of them
worse than this and without a happy ending. Not everybody gets a Mark. But
Vin is beside himself all over again, hating to see his Marky cry and him
be the cause of it. He hates this. He never wanted Mark to hear about this,
this weird and sad life of Melvin the Rat.

Vin looks at me desperately, eyes begging me to do something, to make this
weird tale less upsetting.

Can't help you out, Vin.

I saw a lot of those kinds of tales and they aren't just rat
stories. Sometimes the real vermin were other people. Drunk Moms and cruel
Dads who spewed venom into their eager kids until those kids turned out
with hate as their flowers and they didn't even blame the gardener.

Best to let Mark just hear it for what it is: the story of a pathetic life.

A decade or so ago one St. Patrick's Day night, Vin and I spent a few hours
on the phone in almost total silence, and during a brief interlude of
conversation, Vin said quietly, "I didn't come alive until I was 21."

Yeah, I know Vin. I was there.

I was the witness to your birth.


***

Feedback welcome and appreciated.

Mpls_ted@yahoo.com