Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 21:58:11 -0500
From: carl_mason@comcast.net
Subject: STREETS OF NEW YORK - 8

STREETS OF NEW YORK - 8

Copyright 2006 by Carl Mason

All rights reserved.  Other than downloading one copy for strictly personal
enjoyment, no part of this story may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, except for reviews, without
the written permission of the author.  However based on real events and
places, "Streets of New York" is strictly fictional.  Any resemblance to
actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.  As in real life, however, the sexual themes unfold
gradually.  Comments on the story are appreciated and may be addressed to
the author at carl_mason@comcast.net

This story is indebted for both its inspiration and many of its ideas to
several books, especially Tyler Anbinder's FIVE POINTS, Jacob Riis's HOW
THE OTHER HALF LIVES, and Luc Sante's LOW LIFE.

This story contains descriptions of sexual contact between males, both
adults and teenagers.  As such, it is homoerotic fiction designed for the
personal enjoyment of legal, hopefully mature, adults.  If you are not of
legal age to read such material, if those in power and/or those whom you
trust treat it as illegal, or if it would create unresolvable moral
dilemmas in your life, please leave.  Finally, remember that maturity
generally demands safe sex.


CHAPTER 8

(Revisiting Chapter 7)

Colonel Marsden found Tom about two hours later, sitting on a stone terrace
at the rear of the stable.  He sat looking down over the river that
sparkled under a harvest moon.  "It's beautiful, isn't it, my boy?" he
asked.  When he received no answer, he said sadly, "I know.  It's over -
and I am so very sorry.  Would that man were as strong as the gods."  "Yes,
sir, it's over," Tom replied, "but I'm sorry, too.  I'm weeping inside."
Marsden went to lay his hand on the boy's shoulder, but Tom shrugged it
off.  "Know that I shall honor every promise I made to you, Thomas.  My
word is my bond," he added.  "Thank you, sir," the youngster replied.  "If
it's all the same to you, I'll bunk down out here in the stable.  I'll be
ready early in the morning."

At first light, Tom found some food in the kitchen, for Billingsley was
nowhere to be found.  No too long after that, the Colonel appeared and they
soon left for Cornwall Bridge, the private train, and home.

(Continuing Our Story - People Problems)

It took Tom a few days to get his feet back under him, but, let's face it,
there are advantages to being twenty!  Before week's end, he was back out
on Mulberry Street, trying to find out what had happened to Tony.
Informally, he had received some tips that his friend had become involved
with some of the rougher gangs...and with drugs.  Despite the earlier
advice he had received to "lie low," he even visited some of the saloons
where gangs gathered and made some inquiries, but to no avail.  Tony
appeared to have sunk into the woodwork of the old (and still very
dangerous) tenement district.

The first sign of danger came when he again "accidentally" encountered
Jerry McGuire, the local beat cop.  Jerry was all smiles about the
continuing success of his "photographic business" and wondered if Tom would
again like him to "take care" of the tax problem (see Chapter 5).  By now,
Tom was fully clued in to how such things worked and handed over the
suggested $40.00 to McGuire without question.  Of greater concern was the
little conversation that ensued as the portly cop was about to resume his
beat.  "Yuh know, boyo," he panted, "I wouldn't go disturbin' the boys
around here too much about the fact that you can't find your wop friend.
("Wop" is another offensive word - referring to Italians this time, but
akin to "Mick," "nigger," "Heinie," "kike," or "Chink" - usually heard
among ethnic groups struggling to establish a pecking order...or among
others bent on insulting them.)  Kinda like hittin' a hornets' nest with a
stick...  Hard to put a plug in it when those bastards start comin' out
aftuh yuh."  Tom nodded and let it go at that.

Actually, drugs had been a fact of life in New York since early in the
century.  Rare was the chemical advance that wasn't put to unintended uses
by criminals.  Opium and its derivatives, long used as a painkiller and
sedative, provide a case in point.  Many patent medicines of the 19th
century were based around laudanum (a solution of opium in ethyl alcohol),
a fact that spawned generations of addicts.  It was spread further, of
course, by the extensive need for anesthesia during the Civil War. Not that
these solutions represented a major social problem at the time, for an
opium addiction could be maintained on five cents a day!  Seemingly more
dangerous was the discovery of chloral hydrate which, when in solution with
alcohol, provided the infamous "knockout drops" and their refinement in the
"Micky Finn." Not uncommon was the arrangement some dives had with the
police wherein after they had been robbed and perhaps stripped, customers
who were not murdered were brought unconscious to a convenient location.
There they could be removed to the precinct house and eventually charged
with public intoxication!

Opium slowly became a more direct problem in the city.  At first, its use
had been centered in Chinatown where its smoking provided a form of escape
well established among the Chinese on the West Coast.  By the 1890s,
however, opium dens had gradually spread into impoverished areas in the
city, especially those that fringed on the expanding Chinese districts.
Their use by certain classes in the underworld and the show business
increased.  Now more visible, large numbers of the poor fell prey to the
addiction, providing new opportunities for criminal activity and civic
corruption as opportunities for graft increased.

Tom, Dross, and their friends finally discovered Tony on one of their
periodic sweeps of dens on the edge of Chinatown.  Purchasing a small
amount of the drug for smoking, they were led into the depths of a dank
basement where they found the partially nude youngster curled into a fetal
position on a crowded bunk's filthy, vomit-covered pad.  Over the virulent
protests of an infuriated proprietor, they hauled his senseless body up the
stairs, into the street, and to Tom's flat where they cleaned him up and
got him to bed.  Tony's recovery did not come easily.  He found it
difficult to sleep and when he did sleep, he often had violent nightmares.
Thanks to Tom's nursing, aided by several of the boys' friends, he did get
better - though one was never entirely sure when he would begin reacting to
some weird visual hallucination.  He finally confided to Tom that he ran
from that which he saw to be an intolerable life by escaping into the dens.
Given his youth and body, he was able to earn enough to purchase opium for
some days at a time.  He would intermittently smoke and collapse on a
filthy bunk until finally roused and kicked out, gaunt, disheveled, and
often discovering that most of his clothing had been stolen.  Tom held him
as he cried and admitted to being frequently raped in the dens.  On a night
when he had almost seemed to be his old self at supper and their guard had
fallen, he escaped into the rain and, once again, sank into the woodwork of
the unforgiving city.

Life went on as the later fall and early winter set in.  Dross was there,
fully involved in his studies.  Perhaps a little less intimately connected
to Tom than he had been during earlier months, he now spent more time at
his parents' home.  Nevertheless, both youngsters still obviously cared for
each other, watched what they said, and prevented the situation from
further deteriorating.  Tom spent even more time with the Subway Gang,
often supplementing their food and sitting around the fire with them.  He
still allowed the little ones to climb all over him as they listened to his
stories and watched how he made models from discarded scraps.  Even the
eleven and twelve year-olds and the early teens now treated him as a much
loved and respected older brother.  To his partial discomfort, he realized
that it was now known more widely, at least among some circles, that he was
gay.  He first realized this when two very cute fourteen year- olds invited
him to join them for a slice of pizza at lunch, Between the tomato sauce
and the mozzarella, they shared some of their problems at the gay club
where they danced and, as if bringing their problems to the pater familiis,
asked his advice.  God, Davy was a cutie and Pat wasn't far behind!  He was
going to have to stop by that club!

Finally, he also used this time to become more familiar with the work of
the Children's Aid Society, inspecting several of their five boys' lodging
houses, and one for girls; twenty-one industrial schools in the tenement
districts, two free reading rooms, a dress- making and typewriting school
and a laundry for the instruction of girls, a sick-children's mission, and
a brush factory for crippled boys.  All in all, he gave their efforts high
marks, especially to the degree that they increased the opportunities for
tenement children.

This as he saw it was one of the chief problems that faced children of the
poor, i.e., their relative lack of opportunity to forge a better life.  As
a host of commentators point out, the boy might become a burglar, a mugger,
a bare-knuckles boxer trained to provide blood and circuses, a
gambling-house shill, a saloon runner, a swindler of immigrants, a contract
poisoner of horses, a contract murderer, a river pirate, one who entices
young men to ship out or join the army or navy, a pickpocket, or one who
exhumes dead bodies and sells them to universities or others who have use
for them.  With skill, luck, drive, and ferocity, he might come to lead his
own gang.  If, despite the terrible mortality statistics for young males
between 15 and 20, he wasn't killed, he might be launched into politics or
saloon-keeping or real-estate management or the business-end of
entertainment.  Men with power were always looking for young men with
organizational ability and muscle.  (Luc Santee in LOW LIFE points out that
even these opportunities were more numerous than the situation that faced
the poor girl, i.e., under one name or another, prostitution.)

(Home for the Holidays, 1893)

Despite his knowledge that Dross wanted him to come to his home for
Thanksgiving, he decided that he needed to go home to North Jersey and talk
seriously with his parents.  He had always found them to be wonderful human
beings and, after his experiences on the Lower East Side, he was convinced
that they were very special parents.  He had some obligations to them - and
to Dross - that could no longer be delayed.

The first sign that something serious was afoot was seen in the fact that
he ate like a canary at the Thanksgiving table.  This was not the rule for
a hulking, twenty year-old football player, and his parents knew it.  They
also recognized that he was absolutely white-faced with stress, but they
contained their fears until he sat them down after dinner.

He began by telling them, directly and explicitly, how much he loved them,
and how they had won his respect.  He emphasized that they had become
models for his life.  Never, he swore, had he ever wanted do anything that
would hurt or harm them, for he hoped that they would come to respect him
as he respected them.  As he completed his short introduction, he was
already flushed and close to tears.

Ignoring her husband's efforts to shush her, his mother interrupted his
soliloquy at that point by saying, "And now, dear Thomas, you must tell us
that you have done something to hurt us or that you think will hurt us.  Is
that it?"  The air leaving his lungs as if he had been hit in the solar
plexis, he managed to bleat like a child much younger, "Yes, mother."  "And
just what is it that you have done or that you think you have done, my dear
son?" his mother continued.  (His father exhaled noisily and threw his
hands into the air.  There was no controlling her!  Besides they had talked
about how they were going to handle this moment for years and now she was
acting like the proverbial bull in the china shop!)  With that, the tears
started to flow down the face of the big footballer.  Finally, he raised
his hands to his face and fell to his knees on the floor.  Sobbing, he
managed to choke out, "Mother, father, I'm so, so sorry.  I love you so,
and I know that you cannot accept me.  I'm homosexual."  Having said that
cursed word, Tom broke down completely.

Moments later, Tom felt a hand grabbing at his collar and pulling him to
his feet.  Allowing his boy to lean against him, he put one hand around the
back of his neck and handed him a glass of brownish liquid with the other.
"Your mother has gone out into the kitchen to fix you a cup of tea, but I
think you need this more.  Drink it down...now!"  Obediently, Tom tossed it
down in one swallow - and exploded, thoroughly spraying his father.  "Hell,
dad, what was THAT?"  "Don't ask," his father whispered as his good wife
reentered the room.  She sniffed...once...twice, smiled (slightly), and put
the tray down on the table in front of the couch.  "I'd be very pleased if
my two men would join me on the couch so that we might enjoy our tea
together," she said calmly...and lovingly.  "Thomas, I think your father
has something to say to you," she said in the same tone of voice.  Looking
at her a little strangely, her husband hrrumped and did his duty.  "Son, if
you think we haven't known about this for years, you're nuttier than a
fruitcake!" he said forcefully.  "Seth," his wife interrupted, "Be kind."
With a audible sigh, his father continued, "And if you think we don't love
you, and respect you, and ACCEPT you, I disown you right now.  You just
can't be my son - even though your mother says you are," he added a bit
lamely.  "Just go out and find someone you love like your mother and I love
each other and bring him home to meet us.  He'll be welcomed with love."
For a minute or two, there was dead silence in the Victorian living room of
that comfortable old farmhouse.  Then Tom whispered, "I HAVE found him.
May I bring him home soon?"  The room absolutely exploded into questions,
and laughter, and hugs, and happiness...and . . . just what you'd expect if
you were a dyed-in-the-wool romantic!

Following a second (and more complete) Thanksgiving dinner on Friday and
after helping his father to catch up around the farm for a few days, Tom
returned to New York, his heart full and knowing well what he had to do.

Dross wasn't at the flat when he returned nor did he appear as suppertime
neared.  Taking the bull by the horns, Tom hiked over to the Wagners'
apartment and, when the door was opened, shyly inquired if he could get
something to eat.  Dross was a little distant, but the Wagners were happy
to see him and dinner went well.  After some help with the dishes, Tom
hooked Dross's neck in the crook of his arm and asked if they might go out
for a while and talk.  Smiling, Dross simply said, "Sure!"

As the boys walked along the cold, deserted street, Tom finally inhaled
deeply and said, "I love you, Dross."  His white-haired companion
stiffened.  Stopping dead in his tracks, he turned to Tom and said in a
level voice, "Have you got the Colonel out of your system?"  His heart
sinking, Tom responded, "Yeah.  (Pause.)  Yes, Dross, it's one of the
sorriest pages in my life, but I do have him...completely...out of my
system.  You knew?"  "Yeah," Dross replied.  Then grabbing Tom by the arm,
he resumed walking.  "It's too damned cold to stand here, jawing at each
other, Tom.  Besides, you know that nothing's secret down here."  "Please
forgive me, Dross," the trembling young giant whispered hoarsely.  "In all
my life, I'll never hurt you that way again.  I promise...on my soul."
"Don't need your soul, lover," Dross mumbled.  "Got enough trouble with my
own.  You're forgiven.  Just remember your promise," he added seriously.
With that, he snickered and offered a cold hand to his friend.  Tom took it
in his, lifted it to his lips, gave a sharp little cry, and burrowed it
deep under his coat until it lay against his naked skin.  "Umm, yeah,"
murmured his love.  "Let's stop by the house and then head home."

The young men didn't talk a great deal further that night.  They had other
things to do.  Nevertheless, over the next days...and weeks...they talked
at great length.  Although they had both learned some things about
themselves and the other, it had been very late in the game when they
pulled back from the precipice.  They could not risk so taking it to the
brink again - and, throughout long lives, productive and happy lives, they
never did.

It must have been in mid December - at least Dross was studying hard for
his end-term examinations - when Tom returned to the apartment to find that
his partner had stoked the fire until the little stove was turning red.
Having taken his shirt off, he was sitting at the table, pencil in hand,
mumbling as worked through some sample problems.  Creeping up behind him,
the footballer bent down and ran his tongue along the top of the
white-haired one's substantial traps.  "Uhm-m-m...  Tastes good!" he
chortled.  Dross threw his pencil on the table, turned his head, and began
to duel with the tip of his partner's tongue.  Leaning back, he grinned
lecherously and cackled, "Oh, yeah!  Let's do it...NOW...and you can take
my test tomorrow!"

"Sorry, massuh, sorry!" Tom chanted jokingly, raising his arms into the air
in mock fear and hopping back from his love.  "It's just that I come
bearing an invitation."  "Details, slave!" Dross barked.  "Got just a
minute?" Tom asked in a natural voice.  "Just..."  Dross answered tersely.

"Well, I didn't tell you last month," Tom responded, "but I went home at
Thanksgiving to tell my parents that I was gay.  Guess how they responded?"
"Well," Dross drawled, "they said you were a sinner and to get your mangey
hide out of the house?"  "Dross!"  Tom exploded, "Hell, no!  They said they
had known for years, that it didn't matter, and that they loved me.  More
than that, they said my partner would be welcome in their house...when I
found him," he added with a Dross-baiting grin.  "Humph," the white- haired
one offered.  "Guess it's going to be a long, cold winter."  "Dross!" his
mate yelled again, tackling him and throwing him to the floor.  "You're
going over to Jersey Sunday to meet my folks!"  Dross looked up at him, his
face calm, but his heart racing at flank speed.  Calmly, he bent forward,
extended his long tongue and wetly licked Tom's face from the bottom of his
chin to the hairline on his forehead.  With a wicked grin, he asked, "Guess
where I'm going this Sunday?"  "Dross!"


To Be Continued