Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 16:31:29 -0500
From: Timothy Stillman <comewinter@earthlink.net>
Subject: "Goodbye, Mark Lester"

			  "Goodbye, Mark Lester"
				    by
			     Timothy Stillman


"Mark, hey, on this cold and blustery day," I shouted out.

"Name ain't Mark, boy-o," he shouted back in his thin and
reedy voice.

"Why the hell are we shouting?" I shouted back.

"Cause you said I was a numskull, and I thought you
might get that chicken wax out of your ears."

"Come closer, Mark." I shouted a little softer.

"Okay, brains." He shouted a little bit softer too.

And then we snuggled together in our little bed and we
weren't far apart at all.

"His name ain't Deadlock."

His breath on me was like the aroma of freshly baked
bread.

He said, "You try too hard."

"I say, hard ain't enough when it comes to you, Killer."

"Stuff it, Brains."

"Roger Ramjet."

"Ha ha. Let's fuck."

Which seemed like a good idea. He was squirrely, this kid.
He was sweet too which made up for the squirrely part.
And he was good. And he was handsome. And he was
Mark. And I was screwing Mark Lester who Ramjet never
heard of but then Ramjet had never heard of Ramjet
either, Mulan, yes, and anime, yes, so worlds collide and
when they smash forth, we smile and giggle and think not
the years.

We lay there blustery night in my little warm apartment,
arms round each other, penises neck and neck, and he said
again, sleepy like, "Deadlock."

"No. Not Deadlock. Daedalus. The father of Icarus."

"Who flew too near the sun and got his wings fried." The
boy not named Mark though he looked like Mark Lester
though he really didn't look like him at all, giggled into
my chest. We were quite sticky with cum by this point.

"Yeah, Mark, you got that right." I smiled into his mouth
and blew him a kiss.

He blew me one too.

"Sure, I ain't no dummy, Ramjet."

"You're Mark."

He pushed away.

"Look, this is beginning to piss me off." He turned away.
The sea was wavy and deep all of a sudden. My heart
skipped a beat.

I touched his bare shoulder.

"OK, cool it, it was Icarus and his father was not
Deadlock and you are not Mark, but a fellow has got to
have his dreams."

He turned back to me. For a moment I forgot his name.
Then realized I didn't know his name at all...he had told
me..but I had forgotten.

"If it wasn't for that kid actor, would you see me at all.
Not that you see me at all."

Kid's deep, I thought.

"Hey, I am seeing the all of you right now. I see the curve
of your back and I trace it with my finger and I see the
curve of your butt and your two little dimples above that
sweetheart doorway to your little prize pearl."

He turned to me.

"You don't love me. You love that Deadlock shit, but you
don't love me."

"I do love you...."

"My name...tell me my name....;" and he wasn't playing as
he turned to me and put his nose right onto mine.

I laughed.

"You never saw me. You never saw my penis. You never
sucked me off. You and that Mark obsession are really a
troubling thing. You should get medical attention."

I touched his eyelids with my tongue. He touched my
eyelids with his tongue. Outside it was cold. Inside it was
like a little warm miracle in the snow.

"I don't love you," he said.

I pushed away a bit.

"I could go home right now and forget all about it and
you and pick anyone I wanted."

"You aren't going anywhere." I pulled back the covers he
had pulled over himself and put my hand on his dick and
rubbed then his balls. I tried to say it seductively. I failed.
I fail a lot.

"You're scared shitless." He said, as I watched his hard
on all pink and cute move and bob back and forth.

"He's a very talented fellow."

"He's not for you. You're old."

I sank back in the bed on my back. The wild spring got me
again. Ouch, I thought.

Mark or...come on...think of
it...Mark...Marshal..Deadlock..come on...this is silly...he's
only got me rattled cause he said he was leaving, that I
was too old, i.e., he has power over me and I don't like it
one damned little bit. Cause he's right. I love him. Yes,
yes, I do. For him. No I don't. Why lie? But still and
all--For him I'm a layover in the bad sense of the word.

"I'm 35." I said. I lied.

"You're 41." He said, thinking it the truth.

"I love you."

He looked at me. His eyes were no longer kind. They
flamed a little.

"Make me." He smiled. It was not a friendly smile.

I lay there for a moment not responding. He had taken the
breath out of me with the last few facts that hurt like barbs
in my skin. Everybody leaves everybody. It's how you do
it that counts.And that's bullshit.

He cuddled to me and lay his leg against mine and then
pushed it up till his knee was on my cock which was too
soft now and too sad. Yes, a cock can be very sad.
Sometimes it comes tears. You're lucky if you don't
know this.

"I sorry." He said, trying to be seven again.

I turned from him.

"You can pretend I'm that Lester kid. If you want."

I sulked. I knew I was acting like a big baby. And that he
was right. And that I pictured Mark every time I
saw....this boy...come
on...Deadweight...something...Doug...Don..come on
already...dammit I'm going to lose this kid...I love him for
himself...I do...no I don't...I love him cause he's a
stand-in...and he's just told me so am I...so there you go
again....justice will out..dammit...Charles...Asnover...some
name...come on..bats in my brain.

He put his hand on my cock and rubbed it. It got a little
hard but not much.

"I don't mind being somebody I'm not. I've done it lots.
Kids do it a lot. We do it more than a lot. You guys do it
all the time too. You are just too stupid to know it."

God, this is getting all wrong. I felt him put his warm
brave mouth on my cock and he sucked me to a stand still
and then he kissed the under shaft with his lips and tongue
and he put my hand on his own erection.

"I'll be Mark or Oliver or Marcus or any of his other
movie names. I'll be anybody. My mom wanted a girl.
She got me. She's never forgiven me for it. I'll be Mark
for you, baby, and I won't call you Ramjet anyway."

So he sucked me and I sucked him and we were two little
elves at the north pole making candy canes for all the
world so nobody would ever be lonely again after we
passed them out and Christmas would never ever go away
defeated one more time. I thought of the song "What The
World Needs Now." Then I
thought..Deadlock..Dreadlock...Mill on the
Floss....Flossy?..well that's really dumb..a boy named
Flossy?..

And then he held his dick out and he held his stomach out
and he smiled real big and he made a boy bridge of
himself, upping the undercarriage....and he said.."Wot's
new, Guv'nor."

In an attempt at a British accent that was Bronx all the
way and back again. I held him. He was nobody. I was
nobody. Everyone was nobody. He was warm and he was
pretty and he was thin and he giggled nicely and he knew
sex stuff I had never heard or read of. But he wasn't Mark
Lester, but neither was Mark Lester Mark Lester, cause
that was a while ago.

I pushed my mouth on his belly button as he arched on the
bed and I blew into it and he laughed and tangled me into
himself and our legs and our chests and our arms were for
one or two minutes one, as we jostled back and forth and
he was nobody but what his mother told him and movies
and TV and teachers and other kids, and his past, and all
the people who got him wrong and didn't care one way or
the other, and I was nobody but what my bosses told me
and TV and movies and books and other people and kids
from my childhood and other people who got me wrong
one way or the other and didn't care if they did told me,...

And we held each other and the sea was very choppy and
very big, very very big, for the both of us...and I held him
and I prayed he would be the sun and he would burn off
my too heavy too metallic too vulnerable wings...

..and I prayed I could be his father and bring him down to
land and show him that he was not cold or mean or
indifferent and that I was not a maker of bronze statues
and mazes and being used all my life for dueling grounds
between half men and half gods and Minotaurs and
matings with Bulls from the Sea, and down in the ground
making my dreams, which I thought some type of freedom
where the real sky lay, when I was being used all my life
by those Greek god freaks, and not knowing it till it had
long ago cost me Icarus and my families and my cunning
cowardice and my pride...and wait, that was a book...this
is real...but if we were put in a book, any book, any
movie, we would be whatever characters we were told to
be, change mix and match with anyone in so called reality
and we would be them too, this house, your house, my
house, and the one on third street too, last decade that
is...thank you Shirley Jackson and "Hangsaman"...

"I don't want to go away," the boy, of no name and no
purpose and no reason to be, said with only a squeak of
desperation to me, the same as he. His little heart beat
with my larger one, if I had a heart at all. I've been told so
many times I don't, so I guess, I don't. Its easier to flow
with the tide. Tide gets the sheets clean too. Sparkly they
are, sparkling out the spume.

"I don't want you to either..." I started.

But he did. He didn't care. He was pretending. It was easy
to see. I was pretending too. I was scared. He was too. Of
the world outside those windows. It was an awfully scary
place, to be protected by this little apartment and each
other. We were each other's sun. We were each other's
Icarus. We were each other's Daedalus, building each
other and ourselves other bodies minds a. We were in a
battle of Minotaurs and men and sun gods and endless
wars. We were designing mazes inside our cheeks and
penises and words, pretending we were closer to the sky
that way, and we were hobbits hiding in our brains hoping
no one would ever find out what frauds we were,
pretending the frauds who were too busy being frauds
would ever bother to find out..

I lay on my back, and he sat on my stomach and I held his
pink hard on and he reached back and held my hard on.
And he looked so tall up there. So blindingly beautiful,
Mark Lester, and somewhere behind him, gauzy, hazy, am
I losing my vision?, cloudy, oh great, going blind, gotcha
saith God, but then that was not it at all..it was the boy
who was not Mark Lester, a ghost of a boy behind a ghost
of a boy, it terrified me, but a real face was coming into
my vision, no, stop it, but too late, a real person, had I
ever known a real person?, god, what do I say?, what do I
do?, and then the thought, but Mark Lester was not, had
been not, had been an image on a screen, playing someone
else not he--in other words a FRAUD.

Suddenly there was ice in me. I was furious. My face kept
calm. Don't scare the kid. Calm does it. See what's going
on.  But I was a jumping bean inside. I suddenly hated
that movie kid. He was a lie and I hated liars. But I was a
liar. And so was everyone and I had to dive into someone
to keep warm, to keep from falling off the planet, and here
was this nice boy....

I rubbed him and he rubbed me and he moved down a
little to get his penis at my butt. I squirmed and helped
him inside. He rode me like he was riding a pony, and I
masturbated him till he shot onto my stomach. Then he
leaned down, still impaled, and moved his cum around
with his hand, rubbing it in. He looked at me with his
devilish smile. I still saw Mark's face. But less and less,
dimmer and dimmer..

He rode me for a time more. And suddenly against that
naked light bulb in the ceiling, I saw not Mark Lester
more than a little, but gradually gradually another face and
it became not evanescent, but more and more defined,
more and more solid, more and more a face I had not seen
before, and he rippled as he rode me and his dick was still
hard, and nipples laughed, and his little nest eggs were
rolling back and forth all warm and soft on my stomach
and I pushed him up and down as though he was the sea
and the sea was in him and in me, as it truly is in everyone,
boys and girls, we all carry our past inside us, no matter
how many millions of years distant, and I found myself
getting excited by this boy...named....this boy...who was
so beautiful, like a little perfect oval of a painting, and he
had his flaws, like real people do, and I wanted to see all
of them on him, and he was not a movie image, not a
fraud making you fall in love with him and not caring one
way or another about it even if he ever knew, and the
boy's eyes were closed and he was saying my
name....saying....Larry....over and over again....a sweet
whisper...the sweetest whisper I had ever heard...which
froze me and shrank me...cause like the old joke goes...my
name dearest ain't Larry...and I reached up to his arms
and pushed him down on the bed next to me so swiftly he
was totally startled..not knowing he had been saying
Larry...on purpose?...not realizing?..imagining?..of
course..

He said, "WTF?"

I held him to me and I said "what is your name?" I had to
admit it. He could have punched me. Called the cops.
Killed me. Anything. But I had to know. And I was
holding a naked boy who was suddenly the whole world
to me, and all the dangers that would accrue flitted
through my head.....though at that moment I did not care..

And he said, kind of scared, "Ah...Mark...."

I held him tighter than he had ever been held, certainly not
by his mom who wanted him to be a girl and all the
implications of that here...

I held his cheek next to mine. "No. Your real name. Your
REAL name. Come on. It's so very important."

I could feel him beginning to weep. He was suddenly
ashamed. Mark Lester had been his cover with me too
after all. And he was imagining me as Larry whoever, so
there was hope for us. For a little while.

"Dan." He said. Real quite like. Like he was ashamed.
Add that to my load of sins. But hopefully this one would
be corrected tonight.

"What's my name?" I asked, and he put his hand on my
thigh to steady himself because he was beginning to
tremble. he knew what was happening, maybe....

"I don't--" know. He couldn't say the last part cause that
would make him a fraud too. But he wasn't.

"It's Kevin." And I pulled back from him. And I said, "I
want you to tell me everything about your life...excluding
video games, music, movies, TV, booze and drugs and all
that shit."

He giggled and pushed back from me. "Not much left to
tell."

He smiled. And he was not the sun. And I was not Icarus.
This time Icarus makes it safely back to land and is used
by nobody like his father so stupidly was, and the sun
helps bring Icarus to land.

I extended my hand to him. Must have looked stupid as
hell. Man and boy naked in bed. And comes, get ready
ladies and germs, the fatal, awful, brain killing, corrupter
of innocents far and wide, regardless of age, ethnicity,
origin, or religion, turn your face away from this part--the
monstrous--the push off the brink--the HANDSHAKE.

"I'm Kevin."

He smiled and acted like he would imagine a man in a
business suit in an office would say to a potential new
client. It was so endearing and funny. We kept laughing.
Finally got it under control.

"Hello there, I'm Dan." He tried to make his voice deep.
Didn't work. And that was funny too.

And we shook hands and then I lay him back on the bed.
All giggles.

And then:

"Let's talk." I said.

"'Bout what?"

"Us. Each other. Everything we can think of to say to
each other so we out of the whole world maybe know we
are real."

He started to turn away. It is a terrifying prospect.
Honesty. Reality.

I touched his shoulder.

He turned back to me.

"Can we fuck after?"

I laughed.

"Sure thing. But first, I have to tell you that Mark Lester
in his prime and naked and primed for action in person
right there in front of me, in pure reality, not on a movie
or TV screen, couldn't possibly be more beautiful than you."

"Ah..pishaw..."

"Ok. I overstated." Dan laughed. And I continued. "But
really, this might be the most important night of our
lives."

He leaned up on his elbow and said, "No more
Deadlock?"

I said, "No more Dreadlock."

Then we lay in each others' comforting arms and I said
"who wants to go first?"

He grabbed me.

"Talking, horndog." And I pushed his hand away, ever so
gently.

And he considered for a moment, then he jumped up and
down on the bed, penis and balls jiggling, and screaming
out "ME ME ME ME."

He sat on me again. Plopped down on me. Knocked the
breath out of me for a moment. We cuddled, and then...

"Yes," I said. "and then me. "And we must never forget it.
We must hold onto it. It's a huge sea. It'll take us down
eventually, but we can prevent it for a while."

Dan said, drumming his fingertips comic bored on my
chest. "Through now? You said I could go first."

I laughed. "Be my guest, Dan."

"Can I burn your Mark Lester DVDs and tapes?"

"Ah...well...no...."

Dan thought for a time. Then said something troubling.
"Glad, man. Really glad."

I had no idea what he meant by that. I did much later on.
And it hurt. But that was for later on.

"I hate baseball. My old man loves baseball but I hate the
bejesus out of it...." Dan said.

And he was off and running and he and what he said were
absolutely fascinating, truly splendid. Boring as hell, but
he was telling me, so they were like Aladdin's tales.
There was no way I could follow that. So I just listened
and watched and enveloped him and his words with my
eyes and ears and for a little or a long while,  nothing
would be the same.

And yes, we told each other our last names too, and
everything that was us that we could think of. Having
another person's life roadmapped on your eyes and soul
and heart is a wondrous thing. It bites you in the end. But
even then, if you look at it the right way, if there is a right
way, you have to decide for yourself, it's still and all,
worth it.


And yes, if you must know, after the hours of talk, we
fucked like monkeys. However monkeys fuck. How do
they fuck? Never mind. I don't have this burning desire to
know.
                                          the end

(References to Icarus and Daedalus from the Greek myth,
and specifically the novel "The Maze Maker" by Michael
Ayrton.
The novel "Hangsaman" referred to in this story, was written by Shirley
Jackson.)
Timothy Stillman
comewinter@earthlink.net