Levi 3

Levi Fisher and Nguyen Huu Tuan were an awkward adolescent collision in 1968, something of a fumbling-wrestling-blind-groping mutual discovery. There is a nostalgic sweetness to that. Levi likes the awkward-graceful colt reminder of Da Nang in Fourteen’s bedsheet movements. Disrobing is still a shy tussle, or it is a locker room hustle. The boy is not comfortable in his (bare) skin when Levi watches. Levi sees him hesitate.

“Aren’t I too young for you?” It is a vulnerable question.

Levi thinks Fourteen is too young, but also not too young.Tuan was sixteen, maybe seventeen when they met. The Rent-a-Twinks Levi selects are mostly jaded at seventeen, streetwise-heartless, or casualty-angry. They simply body-beautiful, soulless encounters. The younger ones have the damsel-in-distress vibe Levi lives for. Levi has the Patrick-after sympathy for their Tuan-shattered lives., The street-frightened vulnerable minds remind him of the innocence of the Vietnamese teenager in the before. Before the Tet Offensive, but Levi shys away from that. Tuan had that Southeast Asian, lingering adolescent thing happening too.  Fourteen is adolescent fit, just waiting for the manhood weight. Levi speaks his truth. “Kid, at my age, everyone is too young. How old is your father?”

“I don’t know. Middle of his thirties, I guess. Not Forty, he says, Not the big 4-0.” Fourteen shrugs. Levi never asks for family details. Levi snaps irritable when Fourteen wants to share. “He just seems old to me.” Eighteen is old to Fourteen. Life is exponential inverse: a steep climb followed by the long plateau of nothing changes. Life changes, and somewhere, Jeremy Gates dad is feeling very young and very old without him.

“He is a kid.” Levi assures.

There is nostalgic sweetness to the now-newness of awkward adolescent collisions, but Levi has moved on from Rock’n Roll to Smooth Jazz. He prefers a little of the Shinbashi District of Tokyo in his boys. Less dash-light dash, more grace. “Hey Fourteen,” He stops the boy’s awkward-in-the-locker room movements. “You look good, own it.”

Fourteen offers sexy puzzled, fingers frozen on the white shirt, open at his chest. This is why Levi likes them young now. Fourteen, the boy listens, wants to do right by his shiny-new manhood. “Take it slow, this is not a race. You have what I want. I can give you what you want. There is a balance here between us. Show confidence.” Tangerine roll of the adolescent eyes, then Fourteen starts the burlesque.

“♪♫♬ Da da ta,

De, ta da da ♪♫♬”

“I said own it, not flaunt it.” Levi gets off the bed where he has been watching Fourteen. Ed Harris smile is ready to coach the ingenue to the casting couch. I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMill. “Just relax, you are simply taking your clothes off.” Levi brushes a hand through Fourteen’s hair. “Look at my eyes.” Fourteen does.

“Take your shirt off. No, keep your eyes on me, but drop that look you have that sends a signal that you are waiting to get hurt.”

Fourteen slips the cotton blend free, turns to the dining chair and tosses it lightly over the back. His eyes come back to Levi. “But I am waiting to get hurt.” He accuses quietly. Levi likes the bobcat warning in the tenor tone.

“Not by me,” and Levi believes this, forgetting his Mỹ Sơn Temple meditations, forgetting that the passage from mind-body virginity to sexual experience always hurts. “I’d take the singlet off next. Show your abs.”

“What abs?”

“Never run yourself down. Eyes still on me. Don’t look for approval. I’m not a vanity mirror. Nobody loves a narcissist.” Fourteen blushes. “It is enough to know and show you are equal to the task.” The white singlet follows the shirt. Levi is rewarded with the sexy-sceptical pursed-lip mouth-twitch, always to the right side. “Pants and underwear together.”

“What about you?”

Levi offers his own grin, and strips down to his boxer briefs. Years before, Levi shut his mind to the entropy of his own body. He knows he is a poor photocopy of himself, run through the washer by life’s casual mistakes. His eyes are on Fourteen, anyway, not looking for the judgement. “There you are,” Levi praises Fourteen’s nakedness. The boy stands one foot on the other, fingers of one hand absently touch the tip of his imperfect cock. “We’ll work on it.” Levi decides.

Fourteen has something on his mind. “So do you still, just,” It is a struggle to frame it right. “Can you? You have not.” There is no way to ask.

Levi listens to this mangled monologue. It actually takes him thirty seconds to figure it out. “Yes I can fuck. Not like you of course. You must understand, even your parents have slowed down.” Fourteen’s face makes it clear that that topic is taboo. “It comes and goes, very sad of course.” Levi smiles. Seventy-one is so far from fourteen that the boy cannot relate.

“Take a pill.” Fourteen suggests, and then he is all tangerine blushes. Is he soliciting a fuck? Fourteen wonders, confused.

“I did.”

Levi is sort of a master at sex-judo. He steps towards Fourteen, then by-the-shoulders footsweeps his lithe frame onto the bed slow-motion, no-threat seductive. Fourteen rests on his elbows, belly collapsed below his rib cage as if to offer the waiting prominence of his groin to the old man’s mouth. Deashi Harai complete,

Swimmer’s body, they always say swimmer’s body. Fourteen can only better-than-dog-paddle Lake Erie waves. He has been asked what sport he plays because he is quick and full of grace. Jeremy Gates shrugs shy and answers, “baseball.” Not really. Minor League was a thing to do. Major Division was okay until he was twelve. He shrugged off organized sports, organized anything. That was never his thing Jeremy Gates’ body just likes to sport. Fourteen is thoroughbred to it. He will never stand many hands, but he has the drum-tight, limb-long form of an athlete.

Levi trails his index finger across Fourteen’s table of contents. Starting with one set of soft lips, the fingers stroke the chin, the pulsing Carotid, tugs the ugly dog chain nuisance, right nipple-nub, counts ribs, traces wasp-waist, then delves behind young manhood to the second set of soft lips. “I want to fuck you.”

Fuck Fourteen, make love to Nguyen Huu Tuan, if Levi has a mind to. This is the lost before he could not touch until he turned away from men and sought out the boy’s.

Caught between anticipation and fear, Fourteen’s small voice pleads, “Don’t hurt me.”

“I won’t hurt you.” Levi answers gravely.

Fourteen nods, hoping this will be different. His man-sex dreams in the lost before were hot breath, hip-glued, feet-twined moments. Touching, being touched the way Fourteen touched himself under the sheets. Hard sex was wrestling match’s with the likes of Shane: twisting, panting giggles that might end in a cock-grinding movie kiss moment. There was the possibility it might be like tackle football with his older cousins. First year engineering Ewen Rush, snatching him off the ground, body slamming his horny excitement onto soft summer grass (not far from where he was body-snatched). Sex was like that in the before. Patrick and John taught him rough trade. Sex is pain and disillusionment, mockery mingled with the sensual flood.

“It won’t be like that.” Levi is reading Fourteen’s mind, feeling the fear, wanting to begin the Tuan-communion with this tangerine boy. “Look, I’m already in you.” And his finger is, testing the water, so to speak. Fourteen closes his eyes, centers on the almost benign presence curled up behind his prostate. “Lie back, just feel it.”

Fourteen is a little frog, legs splayed, having his sexual responses dissected. Grade Eight Science and Jeremy Gates is sitting horrified-transfixed as grumpy-gnome Velázquez cups a pulsing frog gently in her palm. Dispassionate words explain the nervous system. As easily as she refuses a late assignment, Velázquez hooks the hapless amphibian by its jaw and hangs it from the clamp stand. “Hang Frog,” Shane murmurs beside him. “Four letters, first letter is a ‘P’.” Jeremy Gates nods agreement.

Proving she has no soul, Mrs. Velázquez strikes a match and holds it to a toe. Frog jumps reflexively. It pees a small stream. Jeremy Gates has never been a firecracker-in-frog sort of boy. He is repulsed. She public-execution piths the creature. It hangs brain dead limp. “That is so wrong!” Renata blurts out. Velázquez notes this without comment. She is not the type to name the lab rats. She does not have to call the thirteen-year-olds to attention. She has all eyes her way. Match to toe and the frog jumps reflexively. That is Fourteen on the bed.

He hardly notices when a second finger slips into the warmth past his lean thighs. Levi unlocked doors for him already. That was why he stayed to listen, threw common sense to the wind. His own hard-cock id has pithed the look-both-ways superego comatose. Fourteen jerks to the two-finger flame up his ass. This now, this guilt-free journey into himself. It pins him down. Levi tells him to roll over, and he willingly gives himself up to this complicated old man, just as he had willingly opened himself to the enigmatic, homicidal John.

The fingers leave his body. The friction-pressure heat radiates reminders, and also a caution to what comes next. Fourteen’s forearm is close enough to tempt him to bite. Even if finesse was in the toolkit, Patrick would have scorned it. Pain makes a better after-memory. It is part of the pussy-boy-fuck aftertaste Patrick wants to leave his victims. Hetero boys say, “Of course it fucking hurts, man!” Fourteen whispers, I didn’t think it would be like that. He mourns his lost dreams.

Fourteen lies passive, waiting. Head bowed over folded arms, the backbone highway slides sensuous to the pert mounds. The boy is feather-weight perfection. This pause is Levi’s ritual sanitary moment. Condoms with a little Elbow Grease are a habit, like slipping on the gloves before you step into surgery. Odds are, he has done them both about the same.

Fourteen wonders if Levi will start to talk, or if he will be silent like John. He feels the massage starting at his tailbone. Fingers kneading the stiff-dough tension. It moves up his spine and onto the weave of muscles. Hands slide down. One comes to rest on the bed below his bent arm, the other trails to his hip. Fourteen’s pelvis descends as the man’s weight presses the mattress down. There is too much time to think.

Levi has words to share. Fourteen has to know he has an audience watching him everywhere he goes. He is that beautiful. Levi could gush about his different parts and the tangerine-glue oneness Fourteen caries through his young life. He has no words to share. Levi is only half there. The now words he might share with the teenager beneath his body are confused with the before words he felt for Tuan. Flayed by the agonizing after, Levi slips his free hand around the hip to the bobcat mask of the boy’s abdominal triangle. Lift him up, so the not quite perfect organ swings heavy-low. “Ce sera doux et lent mon amour, comme ce jour au temple.” Sweet and slow, as Levi remembers Tuan at the temple. This moment is the transubstantiation of every rent-boy’s bread-and-wine flesh into Nguyen Huu Tuan’s divinity. Levi’s cock finds its soft mark.

“Levi,” It is a voice-breaking, strangled warning, not a lover’s cry. Ala cadabra, Fourteen’s cave opens jell-chill easy to the broadhead pressure. He feels the fullness of the man sink in ever so slowly. Fourteen’s white teeth lie against his forearm, ready to distract him from the sharp pleasure-pain of possession. First breach, and Fourteen is panting, muscles iron-hard beneath Levi’s splayed fingers. Deep Yoga breaths, now. The boy is relaxing. With each long exhale, Levi inches fifty years of cocksmanship into Fourteen’s ass. The invasion ends with a shared sigh.

Levi’s cock strokes out slow, ultra glide; pause, then back to fullness. Heat builds. Ring-tingles echo in odd places around Fourteen’s body.

“You could go faster.” Fourteen stutters bashfully. Ewen Rush, snatching him off the ground, body slamming his horny excitement onto soft summer grass. Fourteen could do with a Levi-careful, John-hard-anger, mix it up. Experience is building, but Fourteen still lacks the personal metric to explain his Goldilocks fuck-zone. He is feeling the steady piston-action touch him places he never though about. Levi’s oh-so-slow fuck is building an itch his lengthening cock wants to scratch.

“Patience, mon garçon salope, j’ai beaucoup à t’apprendre.” Patience, there is much to learn. Fourteen has interrupted Levi’s thoughts, cruelly reminding him that he fucks a now rent boy, not his before lover. “You are here to learn.” He explains, applying the rod. He is supporting himself on both fists, letting Fourteen seek him out in his own way. Young hips rise on knees, only to be pressed back into the firm Luxor Winnebago mattress.  

A youthful hand reaches down to service the hard cock. “Leave it alone, I will take care of you later.” Fourteen nods into his forearm. “Nous avons l’éternité.” Levi reminds the impatient Tuan beneath him. After the after will be sweet, Levi knows. He will take the boy the distance tonight. Then, Levi resolves, he will take this boy-balm reminder of Tuan West, Far East. Intravenous Fourteen’s young manhood into his failing body, till he can finally rest.

Levi gives himself to the pleasure of possessing, feeling John-strong on a chemical cocktail. You could go faster, the boy suggested. Fourteen is pushing off the bed, trying to carry Levi’s weight with each deep thrust. Muscles vice-grip his slick cock, trying to apply the breaks. Damn, the kid just came all over the sheets.

There are touristy things nearby in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, but Levi has taken them to seclusion so he can fix things. There are some imperfections preying on his mind. He will ply his trade to that soon enough. Ohio is not the time or place. Ohio is too close to the rabbit hole freedom on the boy’s bemused mind. Fourteen’s jackrabbit potential needs a little sleight of hand magic. Levi needs ways to hem the boy in.

A week together, they are all domestic, settling into something like routine. Paradise Valley maybe, but Levi keeps Fourteen on a short leash. The boy is a natural pack animal. A passing pair of teenagers with a basketball will set off the jackrabbit jitters. Otherwise, Fourteen watches something satellite, or watches Levi hunched over the laptop. Amazon shopping electronics. The boy practices his cooking assignment, eating the successes for a snack and wasting food on Levi’s inexhaustible dime. Cleveland drags on dangerously, they barely move, except to seek out stores about the city in an Avis rental Levi had delivered.

Levi took the time to shop for many things. Levi took chances he should not have. He has shuttled around the bustling city with his captive, dodging cameras and the black cruisers. He takes the early risk because Tuan and Levi have an important date out West, Far East. Fourteen has a part to play in that. Levi needs to get him there.

Levi starts fussing ostentatiously with tiny electronics and bits of putty. Levi lets Fourteen think he is troubleshooting some small glitch in the Luxor complexity. Levi lets the boy Google recipes to break the grilled cheese sandwich diet. Fourteen is chef executif and learning fast. Levi sits one eye on the boy’s Pinterest, another eye is focussed on tinkering with the boy’s cage. Occasionally, he offers culinary suggestions. It is all very domestic.

Tall trees background a brokeback school house at the other end of the close-cropped pasture. The northwest side is weathered dry-rot boards. Barn-red layers of paint cover the sheltered east. The bell tower cants like a school globe on the peak. Fourteen walks across the pasture for a closer look. Cleveland is behind them. He exists in a quiet now, not worrying about the what ifs of the city’s black and whites.

“Fourteen,” Levi calls him back from the bare-board, animal-excrement tour. A blackboard at the front reminded Fourteen of his interrupted Freshman ambitions. He thinks of absent faces, familiar sounds, being Jeremy Gates. Safety of a sort, safety that matters, but also the gut-instinct danger of coming out as Fourteen to the crowd. He is that close to doing it.

He might have done it on the bike ride back from the August Fair, only the rain was coming. Shane was grinning, saying something like, she is into you. And all Jeremy Gates wanted to say was, I know, but Shane, I’m gay. He wanted to hear his best friend answer, okay.  In his heart, Fourteen knows he will be accepted by the crowd, but never acceptable. In that coming out after, he is the Vegan, gluten-free guy, PC tolerated at the all-you-can-eat adolescent hot-wings buffet. He is the peanut allergy outsider. Fourteen is fussy-not-normal. “Fourteen,” Levi calls.

The boy comes slowly through the field, stepping around droppings, eyes drinking in the scene. He joins Levi at the folding table by the door. “I want to do something about that ugly chain.” Fourteen is all for that. One broad storage compartment is pulled out. Fourteen sits in a lawn chair under the awning watching a herd of goats across the fence. “Here, Hold this.” Fourteen takes it absently. The Ohio drowsy heat is lotus-land seductive. He thinks about grilled steaks and fluffy baked potatoes with a glass of Levi’s las perdices (Malbec 2010). Desert might be… him served hot.

It is a delicate filigree ring. A geometric pattern of etched diamonds, each filled with flowers, all in half-inch antique silver. The oriental perfection is heavy in his hands. “That is Vietnamese. I want you to wear it.” Fourteen considers the ornamental offer. The chain snakes free after Levi severs the keyring. The hoop feels heavy in his hands. This is jewelry and not Fourteen’s thing. The chain was edgy-punk bad-ass. This stiff hoop is going to stand out as it were.

What goes on can come off, Fourteen reminds himself. Levi’s hoop is like this lazy kidnapping, something Fourteen can walk away from. He will. He has promised himself he will. Just a few more Ed Harris memories. The toy drawer fascinates Fourteen. There is this crystal, blue swirl, dildo with John-hard possibilities. Hard to return to being a Muggle before that (old crush) Harry Potter wand has worked at least one magic spell. Fourteen lets Levi take it. It flexes open, and then around his neck, finally the thing rests on his collar bone. “What are you doing?”

“I know it’s silly. Just humour an old fag’s fancy.”

Fourteen has been doing that for days now. Silly silver circles are now added to the ongoing Pride Parade. Fourteen will draw the line at ear piercing. What he is wondering about is all the extra fumbling, acrid solder smell, and flare of heat on his spine. The Beretta Nano is open carry today. “So are you a good shot?” He asks Levi as the old man comes around to admire the silver looped boy.

“Should I shoot that goat wandering off toward the shed?” Fourteen thinks that must be fifty yards away. He frowns, no, and asks Levi if he could. “My eyes are sharp at that distance. I just need glasses for reading.” or fiddling with jewelry clasps. His bifocals are perched on his nose. The lenses are not even as strong as Fourteen’s grandpa Gates. “You figuring the odds on lighting out on me, kid?”

Well, not with that thing strapped to your hip, jackrabbit smirks. Then too, it has been weeks since Fourteen has been crowd-lost possible. Jackrabbiting off across some farmer’s pasture and into the woods is as unlikely as escaping John in the fuck-barn. Anyway, Fourteen is geography challenged at the moment. Three hours to Chillicothe is far down the road. “I could stretch my legs.” Jackrabbit smirk.

Levi can not smile back. He could never explain to the lieutenant why he dragged Tuan onto the Huey. Fucking Jardine stepped into the French colonial living room spraying 800 rounds per minute. Twenty-eight rounds in a fresh clip, do the math. Fucking Jardine was done between the first grunt and the ejaculation. Levi stepped in while he was fumbling for a fresh clip. Mother and two little kids laid out on the floor. Wide eyed Tuan in the middle, not a scratch.

Their eyes met, and it was not love at first sight. Levi was the Doc, so nobody questioned him. Levi knocked Fucking Jardine’s rifle aside and possessed the Vietnamese boy. There was no time for grief. Tuan stumbled around variously shoved by Levi, or dragged by his blood-spattered shirttail. Levi had no time to consider what Tuan thought. Tuan just knelt beside him when he worked on PFC White. Compressed a wound when Levi grabbed a hand and pressed it down onto Will White’s oozing chest. Levi just kept dragging the shocked boy around, keeping him close, till the NCO said it was time to bug out. Their eyes met a second time on the chopper, and it was not love at second sight.

There was no love in Fourteen’s eyes, so nothing was really lost when Levi dropped the bomb on him. “It’s too late.”

“What is too late?” Fourteen was lazy-afternoon slouched in the chair, long legs loose, phoning a friend (or 911) with a hand at his cheek.

Levi offers his gravest bedside manner. This was going to be a you-just-shot-my-family moment. “Running now will kill you.”

Levi can not be dragging Fourteen around by the shirttails for months. He pointed at the hollow silver loop about Fourteen’s throat. “That is rigged to explode if you try to run.” Levi gives the boy his diagnosis. Sensible boy, Fourteen reefs on the ring, twists it around so he can get at the clasp. “It’s soldered tight. Cutting it will set it off.”

Then there is the look in Fourteen’s eyes he has been waiting for. “You are bullshitting me old man.”

True this, Levi is calling all in with nothing but a Queen (him). All he wanted was some ready-rent-boy to call him back to Tuan. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum foisted a reluctant draftee on him. Levi knows he is one shout away from Federal prison. So yes, he has to bluff. Dr. Chiekezie Adichie set the countdown on Levi with a consultant’s confirmation. Levi is all in on this trip, burnt-bridge, know-when-to-fold-them ready for this. Nothing stops him from completing his bucket list. 

Levi made his drop-dead money in surgical instruments for the 21st Century, but no, Levi did not pack Semtex into the hollow ring of silver. Show time Levi Fisher! He steps over to his bag of tricks on the folding table. “Just to be safe, put this on.” This is going to be James Bond dazzle for a while. Fourteen is still not on the hook. He is sniffing at the lure, but sensibly plans to run. Cool SmartWatch covers bony-boy wrist. Fourteen won’t put it on, but he lets Levi. “You need this when you are out for a walk. Even as far away as that old school house you were checking out.” Neat gift in a sort of sharks-with-laser way. “It is tied to my phone. If you go too far, it will remind you. Don’t do anything to it, don’t lose it.”

Fourteen examines the watch, an unattainable toy in the Gates house. He asked for a Fitbit, “You’re fit Jeremy, you’re fit.” Dad assured him. He watches numb as Levi shows him the phone can follow his movements like he is a loose pet. What the fuck! Fourteen is a National Park Service collared bobcat. This starts a slow burn. Dark thoughts stoke the fire. Fourteen has serious doubts though.

“This is bullshit, Levi.”

“Grab a goat.” The herd is an innocent bystander to this mind-mugging. Fourteen finally gets the right-wrong look on his face. The doctor is losing his mind.

“Why should I grab a goat?”

“You don’t believe me. I think you want proof.” Back to the bag of tricks for a second collar. “This is my prototype, before I downsized to the necklace. I made my money inventing gismoses for the medical field. You watched me put part of it together. I did most of this while you were sleeping, though.” Levi sleeps lightly, Fourteen sleeps in on this extended vacation: very adolescent-shagged-out. Mostly, Levi just watches the (naked) boy, remembering Tuan, but sometimes appreciating Fourteen for himself. “So grab a goat.” Levi juggles the collar.

Fourteen sits stunned at the idea. Ed Harris is Dr. Evil. He has a slight, expectant smile on his lips, but the pinky finger is curled around surgical hose and a small package. Just to be clear, “You want to blow the head off a goat?” Dr. Evil nods bald head slightly.

“Oh, I hardly think that would happen. The charge is very small. It will likely tear its throat open, possibly sever the spinal column.” Levi makes himself look thoughtful. “It’s only a theory till we try it.” Thoughtful shifts to a more genuine John-feeling. “Fourteen, I don’t want to hurt you. We are both safe this way, till I can let you go.”

Fourteen feels the weight of the loop resting on his collar bone. The second loop is similar. “No,” he replies stubbornly.

You have to love a boy who thinks about a goat’s feelings. Levi is back to plan A. “There is the steak in the oven defrosting. Go grab it.”

Levi has Go-Go-Gadget-MacGyvered this sleight of hand. Semtex is not sold on the side of the road. Cherry Bombs are. The Luxor roadside clutter gets stored away. Levi’s job, since Fourteen fetched an inch-thick Porterhouse soon to be goat/boy-throat ripped open in the demonstration. Skeptic adolescent watches Levi strap the load to a fence post. He is fingering the Vietnamese silver, still feeding his anger, but little-boy-with-bombs curious, Fourth of July time.

Dr. Evil lets the Luxor ease on down the road about half a mile. Fourteen hangs off the door watching the goats rip grass and the doomed steak. He feels the sharp crack of the explosion at his own throat. Goats scatter. Lunch wants to come back up. The RV sighs as the air brakes bring then to a stop, and then Dr. Evil backs down the road just a bit. He stops. “Go take a look.”

Fourteen walks slowly down the road. He can see the goats grazing in the middle of the pasture. Beyond them is the old school he might run to. Beyond March, he reminds himself. Just before he reaches the post, his watchdog-watch chimes. WARNING Nice to know, Fourteen looks back at the RV, trying to judge how far he came. Dr. Evil stands beside the door watching him. Time to check his throat.

The inch-thick Porterhouse is suitably shredded. Fourteen looks back up the road to where Dr. Evil waits. He considers the bullshit probabilities, flipping the familiar deck of cards. Levi starts down the road toward him. All is stillness, except for his heavy breathing and the incidental sounds of the goats moving toward the better grass along the shaded fence line. Dr. Evil stops. In a smooth move, Levi pulls the pocket weapon free. He takes a bead on the nearest goat and fires. Fourteen flinches at the sharp report. The herd fans out away from the fallen animal.

Fourteen walks right past Dr. Evil and stamps his way to the bedroom. He pulls the pocket door closed behind him. He needs to think. The suspension jostles him around as Dr. Evil continues on his way. Wherever they are going, the movement reminds Fourteen that they are one mile closer to the West, Far East end of his captivity. Fourteen wants to know more about the before and after of Levi’s story. Levi is John-quiet, John-tuned to Fourteen. The Saturday-Night-Special-necklace is less disturbing than Patrick’s sniveling malice-babel. Bullshit bomb necklace, the boy snarls. It’s just engraved silver, he reassures. He just up and fucking shot that goat! What if this bullshit necklace isn’t bullshit? The fancy watch holds no answers.

Interstate 90 will bring them around Toledo. Levi has let Fourteen stew all afternoon. It is time to stop, test the mood. This comes to Levi just about when the pocket door slides open. Fourteen’s black cloud draws closer to him. Tuan walked away from the cavalry’s confusion without a word. Levi turned Will White over to the ambulance and dropped his kit by a gas drum. He found Tuan at the perimeter. He could read Fourteen better than he read Tuan that day.

“Do you have any idea how many iPods I’ve had? Phones, game systems?” Fourteen frustration. “Shit electronics always breaks.” The boy spits out.

“Then you better hope it keeps going, at least for a year.” Fourteen needs some reassurance. There is an out for him. Fourteen is back to fiddling with the watch. He wants to know the password, which app pairs with the BlueTooth necklace, Levi is making progress.

“So Dr. Evil, what if I just say, fuck you old man, and scream for a police officer? Lincoln ended slavery, rather be dead than bed.” Fourteen has his shoes up on the dashboard just to piss Levi off. That last part was just to be clever. He hopes he can remember to share that quip with his friends. Fourteen would emphatically prefer being bedded to deaded. It is sort of shameful how much he looks forward to Levi milking him.

“I’m an old man. It has been a good life. When I was in country, I was scared all the time. Every moment, Fourteen. I was twenty-one by my second tour. Most were nineteen, just four years older than you. I’ve had partners, travelled all over the world. I’m seventy-one.”

“Is that old?” Fourteen asks. Levi has stopped feeling ancient to him.

“Aw, aren’t you sweet to ask. Sure it is old.” Levi sees a likely exit and another likely evening parking lot opportunity. “Kid, you are not old. I want you to get to old. Dr. Evil? I think I remember the reference. Sometimes killing yourself is the choice you make. Live long enough, someone close will do it.” Levi has to stop talking about that. “I won’t stop my trip. I won’t stop wanting you along. I suppose you can stop us both. It will not be the worst thing that has happened to me.” Levi asks his phone for directions to the nearest box store RV haven.

“Maybe later,” Fourteen concedes. They negotiate the narrowing path into another Rust Belt city. There is silence again, till Fourteen asks a sort of John-Fourteen question. “Where are we going?”

The last thing Fourteen needs right now is the silent-ditch-boy-to-strangers experience all over again. This road trip with Levi is beginning to feel Hershey-normal. He does not need to be reminded that the trouble with normal is it always gets worse. Levi’s answer is gratifyingly quick, “The steak got ruined. We can eat out.” This is going to be a pop quiz on the new blow-the-dog-up-leash. They both know it