Date: Sun, 07 Apr 2002 06:12:14 -0700
From: Clone Buggs <cqsqfq@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Across the Alley 34

Across the Alley XXXIV


	David supported himself for several years with money earned from the
streets.  His writing became polished, and after he wrote an article about a
series of gay related murders in and around the docks on the West side of
the Village, he became sort of famous.  The Village Voice gave him a by
line, and after his first years worth of articles in the Voice was published
as a collection, he was approached by a major publisher to write a series of
books on gay life for the mass market.  The advance was so substantial, he
suddenly found himself in need of a financial advisor.
	After a year of writing in his loft in SoHo, David decided he was lonely.
He had kept up his relationships with Robert and Elton, but after Michael
had left him, he hadn't taken anyone into his heart as a lover.  In his
deepest self, he still loved Michael.  Always did, and always would.  He had
occasionally seen Michael on the streets, but he made a point of never
speaking to him, and Michael seemed so strung out, he didn't seem to
recognize David even once when they came face to face in the doorway of a
deli on Sheridan Square.
	He avoided him thereafter if he saw him coming along the street, but he
hadn't needed to bother.  Michael was a lost soul wandering the streets.  He
once was with a trick himself, picked up in a bar on Christopher Street,
when as they exited, Michael was walking diagonally across the street
oblivious of the flow of traffic and blaring horns.  The trick had snickered
and pointed him out to David.
	"That cock sucker is a Skag Queen.  I had her once, and her hole was so
loose, I kept slipping out on the river of cum."  David left him standing on
the sidewalk with his mouth hanging open with the words David had muttered
in his ear still ringing.
	"Fuck you asshole.  He's my lover."  David wanted to go after Michael, but
he didn't.  He knew in his heart, he would be wasting his time, and only
making Michael's obviously miserable life more miserable in the long run.
It was less than a month after that incident that David stopped into the Gay
and Lesbian Center to give a talk, and saw a photo of Michael hanging on a
bulletin board.  When he read the words under the devastated image of his
lost love, tears welled up in his eyes and he broke down into body wracking
sobs.  Several people gathered around trying to figure out what his problem
was.
	He got himself together, and dried his eyes and stopped his trembling
heart, and gave his talk about safety on the street.  He was able to answer
a few questions from the audience of mixed gays and lesbians, but cut it
short.  He thanked his hosts, and declined the offer of a coffee and
schmoose about gay issues at a local coffee shop, and walked out into the
darkened streets feeling more alone in the world than he ever had before.
	He made his way through the streets to the Village police station where he
told the desk Sargent he could identify a John Doe for them.  The Sargent
took him into a small room, and handed him a file folder with half a dozen
photocopies of unidentified dead.  He looked through the file, a small boy,
found on the sidewalk outside an abandoned building in Harlem, his tiny
black head smashed on the sidewalk from the fall out of the building.  A
woman found shot to death and floating in the river.  She had been pregnant.
  Two men found shot to death in their rented sedan in Brooklyn a gun fired
once in each of their hands. A very bloated body unidentifiable as male or
female found floating in the harbor.  Michael beaten to death with what was
obviously a baseball bat from the size of the depressions in his skull.
Found on a rooftop in Little Italy.
	He closed the file after removing the photocopy of Michael and after crying
silently for a while, he wiped his eyes, and took the folder of unidentified
dead to the desk Sargent.  He handed the folder across the high desk, and
looked again at the distorted head in the photocopy.  Tears were still
glistening in his eyes, when he handed it over to the cop.
	"He was once my lover."  The cop took the photocopy and looked at it with a
grimace.
	"How did you know to come in?"  The cop laid the page aside and pulled a
log book over and picked up a pen.
	"I saw the flyer at the Gay and Lesbian Center."
	"Yeah?"  He wrote something in the log.  "I'm gonna have to ask you to
speak to a detective.  You all right with that?"
	"Sure."  David was in a daze, but knew he had to finish what he'd started.
The Sargent picked up a phone and spoke briefly to whoever had answered.
When he hung up, he wrote in the log again without speaking to David.
	A man came down some stairs on the left side of the lobby, and came toward
the desk.  He was dressed in a tired gray suit, and had a large coffee stain
on the front of his white shirt.  His tie was hanging loose on his neck, and
slightly askew.  He walked up to David and nodded at the desk Sargent, who
handed him the photocopy record of Michael's distorted head .
	"You the guy making the ID?"  David nodded.  "Come with me please."  He
turned on his heel and sauntered toward the stairs.  David followed him a
few steps behind.  In the detective's room which was like a collective
office for several men some of who were present, and some not, the man in
the suit pointed at a chair beside a worn and cigarette burned wooden desk.
He took the seat behind the desk, and pulled a beaten old typewriter from
the edge of the work area front and center.  He opened a drawer in the desk,
and flipped through several files until he found the one he wanted.  He
pulled a sheet of paper out, and fed it into the typewriter.  When he was
finished, he looked at David for the first time, and stared at him like a
shark observing a meal.
	"I'm Detective Malloy.  Can I get you some coffee?"  David shook his head,
and closed his stinging eyes.  "Good.  Then I have a few questions for you
and we can get this over with quickly."  He picked up the photocopy he'd
laid image down on his desk while he'd prepared the statement form in the
typewriter.  His grimace before he laid the paper image down again told
David it was as horrible to look at as he'd thought.
	"Can I have your name?"  David told him in a dead voice.
	"Relationship to the deceased?"  David's voice seemed to drone out of him
without his personal attention.
	The typewriter cracked, and the dead words were recorded.
	"When did you last see the deceased?"  David had to think hard, and then
remembered the incident, now several months old, standing on the street with
the trick who had called Michael the Skag Queen.
	The process took another half hour, and when it was over, David found
himself on the street in front of the Police Station, bewildered and lost.
He decided he didn't want to be alone, so he found a pay phone, and called
Elton.  He told him where he was, and asked him to come and get him.  He
stood on the corner examining his broken heart, and blaming himself for not
going after Michael the last time he'd seen him.  It was painfully obvious
he needed help, and David had not been able to give it.  Various scenarios
played out in his mind while he waited for Elton to get to him, and by the
time the yellow cab pulled to the curb and Elton stepped out, David had made
some basic changes in his life.
	Elton took him home, and let him cry out his grief.  It took three days for
it to subside enough for him to think about claiming the body and having it
cremated.  When that was done, he found a fine Chinese Ginger Jar in an
antique shop on upper Madison Avenue, and carefully poured the ashes from
the shiny metal canister that the Crematorium had given him.  He used a
scented wax candle to seal the jar of Michael's ashes, and said a brief
prayer over the sealed jar, and promised Michael that they would be together
always.  After that, he called his lawyer and had a rider placed on his will
that he was to be buried with the antique ginger jar when he died.
	He asked Elton to take a vacation with him, and together they flew out of
Kennedy to Europe, but David couldn't get Michael out of his mind, so after
a lackluster tour of Amsterdam, they got on the plane and flew back to New
York.  Elton felt he had to get back to his job, which was now Editor in
Chief of one of the major publishing houses, and the publisher of David's
books.  A new one was nearing publication, after a year out of David's
processor, and Elton needed to be there to guide it through the process.
David was depressed, and couldn't stay in Manhattan.
	He took a plane to Las Vegas, hoping that a few days of gambling or seeing
a few shows would bring him out of his funk, but it too proved to be a false
Chimera.  He rented a car, and drove down to see the canyon country, and
ultimately the Grand Canyon.  On the lip of that massive geological wonder,
early one morning, he decided he couldn't stay in Manhattan any more.
	He called his attorney and told him to hire a moving company to clear out
his loft, and put his possessions into storage, and sell the loft.  He
Called Elton and Robert, and told them of his decision.  They both tried to
talk him out of it, but his mind was made up.  After he hung up, he packed
his bag, and strapping the ginger jar into the seat beside him, drove South
through Flagstaff, and Sedona and finally to Phoenix.  He had planned to
drive on to Tucson and maybe into Mexico, but by the time he got to Phoenix,
he was tired of the road.  He checked into a hotel along the freeway, and
after sleeping for several hours, began to explore the city.
	He marveled at the changes Phoenix had gone through in the thirty-five
years he'd been gone.  What had once been vast orchards of citrus fruit,
were now vast housing developments.  The house where he'd grown up was no
longer there.  In its place was a shopping mall.  He looked in the phone
book, and found several names listed that could have been his mother and
father.  He drove to each of the addresses listed and parked for hours
observing the people coming and going, until at the fourth house, he saw his
mother come out and begin working in the flower garden planted in front of
the house.  He started to get out of the car to approach her, but the front
door of the house opened, and his father came out, looking bitter and old.
He said something to his wife, and she got up from her knees, and went back
into the house.  His father took out a cigar and lit it with a silver
lighter, and then turned and looked straight at David where he sat in the
rented car.  He stared for a log time, before turning suddenly and going
into the house and slamming the door.
	David drove away, and never returned.  The house he found on a quiet street
had everything he needed, and he paid cash for it.  The back yard was well
planted, and had plenty of shade, and some fruit trees and a grape arbor
hanging lush with grapes.  The lemon tree in the center of the yard was in
full bloom, and the apricot and plumb trees were already fruiting.  The
front yard was planted with desert growth, and the house itself was
comfortable and pleasant.  He bought himself a new Mercedes sports roadster,
and parked it in the driveway, and had his stuff shipped from New York.  In
no time at all, he was back at work on his next novel, and spoke
occasionally to Michael in his ginger jar on the shelf next to his computer.
  He liked to read what he'd written out loud to the jar, and would always
listen for Michael's response.
	His neighbors on either side, felt he was a little eccentric because he
always turned down invitations to their back yard cookouts, but he didn't
care.  He had his writing, and he had his Michael, and for a few years, he
didn't need anything else.  The neighborhood changed a little bit around
him, and the neighbors on both sides sold out and moved to retirement homes
in Sun City.  A Mexican family bought the house on his North side, and a
young white couple with a new baby bought the one on the South.  The house
directly behind him across the alley, became a rental, and had a series of
loud and obnoxious tenants over a period of years, until he noticed some
young men playing basket ball in the dirt yard of the rental, and took an
interest.
	On his ladder one day pruning the lemon tree, he saw the two young men
sitting on a fifty-five gallon drum that had been turned on its side.  They
were intent on doing homework while they were soaking up sun rays.  Neither
of them had a stitch on, except for thin leather strands around their necks.
  In their blonde beauty, they looked like twins from a distance.  When they
realized they were being stared at, the one on the left stood up unabashedly
showing David his young cock and balls, before turning to go into the house.
  The second boy covered his privates with his books as he followed his
brother.  David made a note to pay more attention to the neighbors across
the alley.
	He often sat in his back yard in the evening, enjoying the cool evening
air, scented with lemon blossoms and the smell of cut grass.  He watched the
exotic birds coming to bathe in the bath he'd made for them, and to help
themselves to the seeds he always kept replenished.  His favorites were the
several species of Hummingbirds that frequented his lemon tree, and the red
syrup dispenser he kept hanging in the branches of the plum tree.  Their
tiny darting forms accompanied by the whirring of their tiny beating wings
were charming to watch.
	One night a few days after he had seen the sunbathing boys in their dusty
back yard, he was sitting in the dark in the yard, with his head back on the
chair, looking at the myriad of twinkling stars, and thinking about Michael,
when voices, loud and angry erupted from the house across the alley.  He
listened, and heard only male voices shouting indistinct words at each
other.  It ended with the sound of flesh hitting flesh.  After it had been
silent for some time, David got out of his chair and went inside.  For some
reason the angry voices had made him sad.  He took Michael's jar off the
shelf, and sat with it in the dark den at the back of his house listening to
a record of The Pines of Rome, playing softly on his player.  He didn't know
if the tears running down his cheeks were for the loss of Michael, or the
loss of himself.
	The next morning, he got himself psyched up, and went to see his parents.
He bought some flowers for his mom, and parked in front of their house.
When he rang the door bell, he held the roses in front of his face to make a
surprise for them, but when the door opened, his father stood there with a
sour look on his face, the stub of a cigar in one corner of his mouth.
	"Hi dad."  He felt himself trembling as he lowered the roses.
	"What?"
	"Is mom here?"  His voice was choking in his throat with emotion.
	"What?"
	"I said, is mom..."
	"You got the wrong place buddy.  My wife's been dead a year now, and we
never had a son."  With that, he slammed the door in David's face.
	The roses wilted on the leather of the Mercedes as David drove through the
heat of the Phoenix day.  He had the windows down because he couldn't seem
to get enough air into his lungs for some reason.  When he got home after
driving for what seemed like days, the sun was dropping toward the horizon.
He took the dried crisp roses, still wrapped in their plastic cover, and
walked through the gate on the side of the house into his back yard.  He
stood for a moment, and then headed out the back gate to the alley where the
trash container was.  He'd just deposited the dead roses, and was surveying
the pile of boxes and obvious moving detritus piled on the ground next to
the trash container when the gate to the back yard of the house behind his
opened.  The two boys came out with more for the pile.
	David had been raking the pile into some order when the two boys had come
into the alley.  He looked at them quietly, while they deposited their load
of boxes and wrapping paper onto the pile.  Neither was wearing a shirt, and
their baggy pants had slipped down their shapely hips exposing their boxer
shorts at the top.  David looked at them, and smiled when the older boy
spoke.
	"Hey man.  "When they gonna pick up this shit?"


	The phone rang on the desk beside the computer and David finished typing
his sentence before picking it up.
	"Yeah?"  He was always brusque when the phone disturbed him in his writing.
  Lately, it had been calls from computers trying to sell him some service
or benefit.  As soon as the computerized voice kicked in, he always hung up,
mainly because he couldn't imagine having a conversation with a computer.
	"Hi dad."  John's voice was good to hear.
	"Hey Danny! how's things?"  He'd been in school for most of a semester, and
he and Bill, were living together in a small apartment in Flagstaff.
	"We're coming down this weekend, and just wanted you to know.  How's
everybody."
	"We're doing fine.  We'll be glad to see you.  When are you going to get
here?"
	"About ten Friday night I think.  We can't leave until Bill gets off work.
It's Bill I want to talk to you about."
	"Any problems?"
	"Not really, but we need to do something for him.  The waiter's job isn't
getting it, and he needs an education if he's going to have a chance."
	"I agree.  What does he think about it?"
	"We haven't talked really.  I'm just picking up hints that he wants more
than being a waiter can give him out of life."
	"We'll think about it. and see you Friday night.  You want me to have some
food ready?"
	"That would be nice."
	"See you then."
	"Love ya."
	"Love you too."  David called Jack as soon as soon as he hung up, and they
planned a bit of a party for the whole family when Danny and Bill got home.

END