I must preface this story by saying that it is pure fantasy. As you might know, I don't always write fantasy. Sometimes I write fact disguised as fantasy. It's up to you to tell the difference. I avoid the usual disclaimers because, I figure, why are you here in the first place? Wouldn't you like to be surprised for a change?

 

Streetwise, The Conclusion:
by Larkin, .... jet2larkin (at) gmail (.) com
July 2012, copyright

 


The New Me:

I held up a pair of black, long, broad legged pants complete with chains and hooks and snaps all over them.

Ken shook his head doubtfully. "I don't think so. At least not in our neighborhood. It looks like good slave wear but let's keep looking."

He picked up a pair of khaki cargo pants. "How about a couple of these?"

I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Ok."

Ken said, "Five tee-shirts for twenty bucks. Pick out five different colors."

I got one of each color. From there we picked out a pair of black and white high tops. I wanted two different colors but Ken said no.

In another store, I looked up at Ken and said, "What's a windbreaker?"

Ken answered, "Well it is sort of a jacket but why don't you look around and pick out one.."

Ken rejected the orange day-glo in favor of a red padded vest.

He got up close to me and whispered in my ear. "What about some nice underpants to keep your behind hole nice and warm? If we get white ones, I can always see if they need washing."

He chuckled at the idea and I said, "Ok."

The waiter seated us in a semi-circular booth and lay menus on the table. I asked Ken, "Why do they call this the Olive Garden?"

He said, "I don't know, it's just a name. By the way, are you feeling a little better?"

I looked up from the menu and said, "Yeah, thank you for the clothes."

I felt Ken's hand on my leg. "So what'ya want, spaghetti? Practically everything in here is spaghetti. What about meat balls?"

I said, "Ok."

Once home, Ken suggested that we try on all my new clothes. He held one of the store bags open in front of me.

"Come on, all your old clothes go in here and then into the trash. Come on get naked."

He handed me a new pair of brilliantly white under pants. I put them on.

He was being my audience. "Come Michael, show me a boner in your new undies."

It was fun. He said, "Give your butt a wedgy in your new underwear."

When I did he said, "Oh look, now I have wash them!"

Of course he was just joking.

When I put on my Khaki cargo pants and a blue tee shirt along with my new high tops Ken lead me to a full length mirror. "See Michael, see how good you look." Ken tossed me a New York Yankees hat from his collection.

I looked very different. I had lost that unfortunate homeless look and I really did feel a lot better.

Maybe it was a honeymoon but we fucked mostly twice a day except half the time I had to fuck him or make him blow me. I wasn't used to being the badboy, I was used to being the pussy which is what Marko called me most of the time. All in all it was ok. What was different was that we would lay in bed at night and talk about things.. Marko never talked about anything.

Ken asked me, "When did you stop going to school?"

I thought about it and said, "I think when I moved in with Marko. The school people never came lookin and I never went back."

Ken picked up a small book from the night table.

He opened it and handed it to me. "Here, read this.."

I looked at the title. "The Glass, Madjority? The Glass Mullto?"

Ken said, "It's The Glass Menagerie, skip that and open the book anywhere."

I read about a half a page until he said, "Well, you read a lot better than I expected, but I have no fuckin idea of how to legally get you back into school without opening a huge can of worms."

Ken got up and came back with a glass of wine for both of us and a different book. "You'll like this but I really want you to try and read at least 10 pages a day."

I read the cover. "Salem's Lot by Steven King.

"Michael, your reading level is shitty but you are far enough along that if you keep reading you will improve on your own with or without school."

He gave me a few other books in case I decided that I didn't like the one I was reading. One book was called, Fahrenheit 451 and another one was called Mice and Men.

Ken said, "Salem's Lot is the most interesting for someone your age. I figured it is right up your alley, it's about vampires."

He was right, I put the others aside and started to read Salem's Lot.

I started to read and fell asleep. I was being shaken and I opened my eye to see Ken all dressed and ready for work. He sat on the bed next to me and cuddled me in an affectionate way. He pulled out a shiny brass key and handed to me. "Here, it's the front door key, don't lose it!"

 

 

Five Years Later, Epilog:

Not long after I came to live with Kenny, we moved up to country along the coast. He spent a lot of time tutoring me and I have no idea how he did it but he got me back into school.

In spite of our sorted homosexual relationship where everything was tried at least once, it was a more stable life than I had ever known before. As it happens, we began to lose the intense sexual interest in each other but we grew close and very devoted to each other. Occasionally Kenny would go out looking for anonymous encounters just for variety and vanity sake but he made a point of not bringing it home.

On the other hand, I became a hot date for those that knew I was queer. Ken didn't mind as long as they were my age. He even liked to hear my accounts of what happened. As long as they were my age, 3 somes were not out of the question but rare. However, if it was someone close to his age, it would worry him into a jealous fever so those were carried on in relative secrecy.

I know it is hard to believe but I actually graduated high school. Ken was very proud and no one was more astonished than myself.

It was during that summer that I started to long for the city where I was from. It was one night when I dreamt about Marko and Boyscout. When I woke up I had such a longing to see them. Kenny understood and gave me the money to go down a visit. Kenny looked sad as if he was afraid that I would go and never come back. I hugged him, put on my backpack and headed down to the train. On the way down to the city memories of Boyscout and Marko rushed back. I wondered if they would still like me. I had grown up and I had changed. The closer I got the more intense my feelings. Whenever you go home to see long missed friends there is a ball of excitement that is in your belly. Kenny calls it anticipation.

I knocked on the door where I once lived with Marko. I knew that Marko and Boyscout would probably be long gone but I had to start somewhere. A man holding a baby opened the door.

"Yeah?"

The baby was content and the man was wearing a sleeveless shirt and sweat pants. He was maybe, half black.

"Yeah, what you want?"

"Boyscout, It's me, Michael.."

He broke into a broad smile. "Well, Motherfucker, come in!"

The apartment had been painted and everything had been rearranged but I saw the bed where the three of us spent so much time. He put the baby down on the bed and gave me a warm but tenuous hug.

"Michael, how you been?"

He looked at me more closely. "Damn, I almost didn't recognized you. You know you were lucky, you got out just in time. It weren't more than a week when the state came in and tore up the place and put me in foster care. It was fucked-up! They got Marko too but he went to some kind of youth home."

I needed to know. "Where is Marko now?"

Boyscout sighed, "He's up state in prison for some drug thing. Been there almost a year with who knows how many to go. I been meaning to go up and see him but I gotta take care of the baby."

"Boyscout, is that your baby?"

He gently picked up the baby in his arms and proudly displayed her to me. "This is my daughter, Jasmine. Isn't she beautiful?"

"Where's her mother?"

Boyscout said, "Oh she's at work. I can't get no job so I'm sort of a house-husband, ya know what I mean?"

"Do they still call you Boyscout?"

He lit up, "No, my name is Abdul Zahir. It means servant of the manifest."

I said, "So they call you Abdul? What does manifest mean?"

He gave out a laugh and said, "I don't know."

I said, "I'll call you Boyscout one last time. Didn't we have fun times together?"

He suddenly got serious. "If you're talkin about what I think you're talkin about..I don't do that shit no more and do me a favor and don't be tellin anyone that I ever did that shit!"

There was a silence for a moment and then he got friendly again but I realize a distance greater than even time had come between us.

The train up the correctional facility was a long one. When I got there they wouldn't let me in because I was still under 21. so the trip was a terrible disappointment. When I got back home I started writing to Marko. He instantly wrote back.

 

Letter from Marko
Well my Pussy, I am glad things worked out so good for you. I am grateful for your letter because I don't hear or see no one. It's like I was never been born. I will take an extra long stroke tonight thinkin about your tasty hole. Oh by the way, could you possibly see your way to put some money on my book?

 

Not long after I turned 21 Kenny took me down and I visited him. I was grateful that Kenny let me go in on my own. More than 7 years had passed and Marko appeared to be smaller than I remember him. It was probably was because I had gotten bigger. Marko had grown a handle bar mustache and his collection of tattoos had bled blue and lost all detail. The lines in his face were hard and unforgiving. His eyes were cold and calculating and when he spoke his voice was coarse and defient.

"15 years for a stupid ass pot bust and I was only 19! but what's the fuckin use of whining about it,"

I looked into his face and tried to find the Marko that I once knew. It was there but he had been so disfigured and tormented that the image of Marko that I knew was faint and inessential and maybe I am the only person in the world who could see it. The sex we had together seemed to be the only real thing about our relationship and he liked to talk about it and he promised he would bring it all home if he could only get out.

 

Back home Kenny and me settled into a suburban life. I got a job I really liked at a comic book store at the mall. As the summer passed, Kenny sat me down for a serious talk.

He said, "I think it is good that you are working. It's not just for the money but just to give your life some structure."

He paused and then went slowly on. "Michael, I can't afford to send you to college but I can pay for one or two courses at a time and I want you to think about what you like. It doesn't have for some future job but it should be something that you are really interested in."

I told him I really like the drawings in comics and I told him about the painting I made of me and Marko. and maybe I could learn to draw. We settled on two art classes, life drawing and composition.

It was a small city college and I took the train two days a week, one class each day. Wearing my Peruvian sock hat and carrying my art supplies I felt genuinely happy for the first time in my life.

 

 

Full Circle:

One night I arrived at the station early. There was a inch of snow on the ground and the weather had turned colder. At the far end of the platform there sat small figure huddled in the cold. I approached him. He looked up at me and I saw young face in desperate striates. "Can you give me some money to get on the train?"

I said "Where are you going?"

It was then that I noticed that he had a terrible lisp that was the result of a deformity or maybe a clef pallet.

He said, "I not goin nowhere, I just want to get on the train to get warm."

I agreed and we got on the train together. The boy went off to sit by himself but I followed him.

"Hey, come sit with me." The boy joined me in a double seat.

I asked him his name and I wasn't sure but it sounded like Chas. He was 14.

"How come your out on a night like this?"

It was difficult at first but I was learning how to decipher his speech. "They kicked my ass out about a month ago."

The obvious question was why?

He went on. "I no fuckin good and my Dad is a fuckin asshole."

Where's your Mom?

The blood seem to drain out of his face, "She OD'ed"

He looked away from me and was silent and still.

"When was the last time you ate?"

He didn't answer.

The train pulled into my stop. I got up and turned to the boy and said, "Chas, come on, you're staying with me tonight."

He looked perplexed and wasn't sure.

"Come on Chas, let's go.

Kenny was waiting for me at the station and I pushed Chas tumbling into the back seat and sat up front with Kenny.

Kenny was very doubtful. "What's this all about? He looks a little young to me.."

All I could do was hold him off until we got home. We rode home in silence.

Once in the house I got him out of his wet clothes and got him something to eat. Kenny was waiting patiently for an explanation.

He listened quietly while I told him about Chas. "Kenny, we have to take him in, he's homeless, he's fucked up and he needs our help."

After a thoughtful pause he said, "Michael, I love you and I understand, but you know these things are not always trouble free. It could blow-up or there might be unseen consequences."

I appealed to him again, "Kenny, he's me! Don't you remember how you took me in? We have to give him a chance..

Kenny was silent and then looking at me he smiled and said, ...."Ok."

 

The End

 

 

 

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