Levi 4

The September sun is dropping to the great expanse of Lake Michigan. A broad band of white light rimmed with yellow splits the blue waters from horizon to strip of beach. There is hardly a breeze to disturb the still water. One dark line of waves suggest a breath of wind over the waters. Fourteen had climbed up through the grass along a sandy trail until his watch vibrated out the familiar warning. He turned back just short of bluff of oak and poplar. From this height, Fourteen can see cars parked along the road, other trails lead people up into the trees of Beachwood Park. Levi stands beside the Luxor lost in his old man thoughts. There is a glint of the Autumn sun on his bald pate.

Levi has been quiet most of the way up the Lake Michigan shore. Fourteen has been silent too. Conversation comes in bursts between them. Levi gets lost in his thoughts and finds he needs to concentrate on driving the unwieldy RV. Fourteen would talk more. He tries, but there is still little common ground between a teenager and septuagenarian. Something is on Levi’s mind, Fourteen knows it.

Fourteen is assimilated to this wandering now. On the hillside, he considers revised needs. He is used to handling this part of himself alone. It is not something to expose to others. A month ago, Jeremy Gates shivered at the thought of a touch on his fabric-shielded thigh. He has been forced open, willingly spread open to far more than that. This is the Fourteen-thing he never considers talking out with others, certainly not with Levi. Open-active gay in Chillicothy is a black hole of unknowns. Gay Jeremy is Schrodeger’s Cat: an alive-dead possibility to his friends till he has the guts to come out.  Being Fourteen on the road isn't so hard and risky. Partly because being Fourteen doesn't need to be permanent. This being Levi’s boy confers freedom on him. It is starting life over, becoming someone else, someone moving forward to an after he is groping for.

Levi waves at him from the door of the Luxor Winnebago. Fourteen knows he is being used. This seems to be the nature of things in the world. Patrick managed to convince him of that. He would like to hate it, wish his world would change. Fourteen looks out to the inland sea. Maybe not, he admits. The world changed, I’m free to be me. Jeremy free to be Fourteen. Another buzz from his iBomb. He checks his watch. Levi wants supper before they drive on.

Levi is watching long legs lopping down the sandy path. They both need another break from the road. Muscling the old rig along busy highways by himself grinds Levi down. Fourteen wants to be jackrabbit-active, not cooped up for days in an RV. Fourteen proves resourceful. The boy summer-swims in KOA pools or walks in circles. Stir-crazy gotta-go, Fourteen has even jogged like a dog beside the Luxor as they creep into or out of some quiet camp.

Safety first, Levi dictates. Fourteen swims by himself, does the caged-bobcat-circle by himself, shops by himself. Levi shadows him like the dirty old man that he is. They are never in camera-FBI proximity together. The Luxor-Fourteen link is always avoided. The RV is Levi’s personal Da Nang and each foray into the stream of things, just another danger-filled drop into the rice paddies. Levi did two tours in Vietnam. Just like then, he signed up for this dangerous excursion. There is a cold wind coming in off of the lake. Levi shivers in his jacket. Past seventy, with a brain tumor, he no longer feels indestructible.

The necklace-bomb-bluff  is working, so Levi argues over his urge to monkey-wrench everything. Fourteen thinks Levi is Marine-indestructible. Some killing machine like the psychopath John Canon. With the death-threat cemented around the impressionable boy’s neck, Levi offers an easy exit strategy. The choppers will come to lift the boy out of this fire-fight. Levi has the boy thinking this is just a tour of duty. Maybe it is, maybe it is not. Levi no longer trusts his own impulses. He is careful not to trust the boy jogging down the hill. In those months leading up to the Tet Offensive, I never understood the choices Tuan was making. I simply thought he was a horny kid like me. Both of us feeling safe with the other, maybe finding our way to something other couples felt amidst the cluster-fuck of the tipping Southeast Asian domino.

Levi is a long way from a twenty-two year old, horny-love-addled Navy corpsman. Mostly, he knows Fourteen is never going to be Tuan. Don’t make it worse, you old fool, what does it matter? It matters because this is Levi’s ride into the sunset. The scene should be perfect. Levi has his excuses ready, he even believes them. Fourteen checks both ways at the margin of the lonely street. The boy stops at the door beside him. Conscious of the busy street, Levi runs fingertips across the package. Teenage boys only fall for old men in the stories. Levi reminds himself.

“How far north are we heading?” Fourteen is riding the deck like a seasoned hand. Levi is long past Beachwood Park and convenient mall parking lots. They are following 31 north into the woods.

“Not too far tonight.” Levi replies. He takes his right hand off the wheel and tries to decide if it is the Luxor’s suspension or his own decrepitude making the fingertips vibrate. Time was, in the middle of a firefight, Levi’s heart beat slow and his fingers were sure. Well, as long as you were caring for someone. The rest of the time you were as shaken as a kid fresh out of Parris Island. “I will stop soon. Just have that sandwich ready.”

“I got some awesome steaks chilling in the fridge. We could set up the barbecue, have a bit of wine while I cook. I could start baking potatoes right now.” Fourteen is adding to his grilled cheese repetuar. Along with the adult sex, he is developing a taste for adult drinks.

“I will let you have a drink when we stop for the sandwiches.”

“It is funny.” Fourteen begins, “You say Michigan and I think of Detroit. Detroit was exactly what I thought it would be. Then there is the rest of Michigan. I never thought much about what the rest of the state looks like.” Levi makes no comment. This is so familiar now. Fourteen chatters sociably. Levi lets him talk. “Why do you want to go to the upper peninsula? I thought we were heading to California.” Fourteen has made three sandwiches; one Levi old-man-light and two teen-burger heavy on the meat. He grabs one and shoves the other two in the microwave where they can jiggle around happily. “You know Levi,” Fourteen offers between healthy bites, “I won’t be a problem if we stop somewhere crowded tonight. A hot tub, some people to talk to.”

“I want to see the north woods.” Levi skips back to the reason for the northern detour. “I’ve seen a lot of New England over the years. This is something new. I have an old friend to see.” Levi judges driving the RV through this unpopulated territory is actually not a good idea. If you want to hide a kidnapped boy, do it in a crowd. A week in Detroit setting up travel documents to Vietnam and arguing with his lawyer, and nobody cared about the boy tagging along. “Everyone your age must be in school now. All you will see in the RV camps are old people like me.” Levi glances at Fourteen. “What do you tell people anyway?”

Fourteen has packed the sandwich away. Seatbelts are for losers. The boy sits slouched in the big seat swung toward Levi. One leg is hitched over the comfortable armrest, pulling the fabric tight across his crotch. Fuck Patrick and John, Fourteen says looking at Levi. Levi thinks he is beautiful. Levi appreciates Fourteen’s still-fragile-gay self. “Patrick loathed himself.” The observation comes out all wise and into the left field of conversation. Fourteen is really saying, I see you perving me. Thanks for not making me feel like a piece of shit just because I like a man to touch me.

“You tell people Patrick loathed himself?” Levi glanced Fourteen’s way.

“I should tell people that.” Fourteen twitches his mouth. His face gets serious. “I tell them I lost my mom and dad. I have trouble dealing with that. You know, school counselor stuff. You are my grandfather. We are making some detours on the way to your place. Got to get over it, start a new life, yada, yada.” Fourteen looks at his fingernails. “I’m Sean by the way, just in case anybody asks.” He swings the chair all the way around with one foot, looks back down to the bed.

Sean-Tuan, Levi follows this easily enough. No way is he going to start calling Fourteen Sean. The two youths blur-merge in his mind often enough. It would be best to keep the boys separate in his mind. So is going ahead with this procedure smart? Levi ignores the voice in his head. “Good to know,” is all he replies.

“I’m gay and you don’t know it.” Fourteen swings back to Levi.

“What is the point of that?”

“Well, I figure I won’t see these people again, so it works.” He shrugs. “I would be scared to death telling my friends at school. I’m not ready to tell my parents even. I suppose I am practicing on people.”

“How is it going for you?” Levi sees a sign for some roadside stop fifteen minutes down the road. It seems a likely place to take the next step with this boy.

“The girls like me. I think the boys and men hope I like them.” Fourteen smiles. “They don’t want me to do anything. They just want to know they are in play, I guess.” The boy grins.

“You are lucky.” Levi observes enviously.

“Lucky?” Fourteen manages to pack a lot of teen-snatched-raped venom into one short word. He touches his silver loop, and then his hands fly away. “Boom, gurgle, gasp.” He adds.

How utterly unlike Tuan, Levi concludes. The Vietnamese boy kept his anger buried deep until he was rage-ready to let it out. Levi counted on this, like it was a convenient plot twist in a bad story. Teenage boys only fall for old men in the stories  but clearly, the kid likes being a stranger. Gay-safe, guilt-free sex, this is what Fourteen likes. Fourteen is dancing sweat-naked in rave-chaos. For the young teenager, this is sexting anonymous. Maybe, Fourteen is like one of those Xvideos.com boys showcasing his new-minted man-stuff to the crowd. That Patrick-guy he told me about would be pissed. The kid is hacking the twisted fuck’s after, celebrating his body.

 “It is just easier for you young people to come out.” Levi replies, keeping his thoughts to himself. “Gay Sean is dead to me.” Levi warns the boy.

“Why?” Fourteen pouts. “I want to be gay. I am gay.”

“Be gay.”

“Good.”

“Be Kale Euller.” Levi glances at the boy. Fourteen is nothing like the real Kale, worst luck for his overweight grandnephew. Levi thinks about the long stop in Detroit. It is on the route, but suddenly convenient. Windsor, Ontario just across the river, shady-desperate people finding ways to shift across the border furtive-like, false-face. You know a guy who knows a gal, who knows a dude who is tapped into a handy bloke… degrees of separation, and if you have money, you get what you need. Kale Euller was the easy fix. “Kale Euller is my sister’s grandson. I will remember the name better than Sean.”

“Kale is a salad, old man.”

“Yes he is.” Levi smirked.

“Kale is on your sandwich in the microwave.”

“You’re Kale, Fourteen. You are my nephew, well, grandnephew. Go with the rest of your backstory. Why do I have to not know you are gay?”

There is silence in the Winnebago until Levi parks in the deserted roadside bay. Fourteen joins Levi in closing the RV’s curtains. Levi snags the boy by shirt and draws him in. Fourteen looks expectant. Not Tuan-shocked in the wake of murder, more Tuan-willing in the third floor walk up Levi paid for in Da Nang. It was nothing more than a room over a busy street. Levi knows this narrow old Luxor is the ghost of that enchanted room. The solid flesh behind his clenched fist is no ghost. Fourteen is the gotta-be-Tuan Levi needs right now and he needs him feel-right for the Mỹ Sơn Temple end.

Sandwiches in the microwave give way to a different hunger. Clothing drops impatiently to the waiting chair. Fourteen gives himself to the somehow, still new thrill of being handled.

Fourteen thinks back. First, before they rose from bed to start the day. Again, when he came down through the sand and waving grass beside Lake Michigan. Third time now, and he is still cock-hard dribbling, begging this old satyr to drink in his beauty. He is nearly as tall as Levi, equal muscle mass. Age has eroded the man, but in his red briefs, Levi parchment skin still sheaves winter-muscles vain-free of life’s gluttonous bulges. His captor is not gravity-free like Fourteen. Time is eating Levi alive and the boy can see this. There is this now, orgasm-building experience that trumps each hand Fourteen plays over in his mind. It does not have to stop at three, he reminds himself.

Fourteen could come at a touch. Fourteen brushes Levi’s hands away. He reaches over and drags the sexy-man briefs down. Levi’s heavy cock swings free. The man has never asked him to do this. Still, there is this urgent need to draw the thick member past his lips, roll the luxurious weight across his tongue, taste-smell man. Fourteen is all-in on this.  Levi ruffles his hair and fingers roam down to his sharp shoulder blades. Naked-sexed, come-at-a-touch hard, Fourteen wants more. “You should take the pill, take two.” Fourteen breaths into the space between Levi’s heavy sack and firm thighs. He wants Levi John-hard deep in him.

“Next time.” Levi pushes the boy firmly back onto the bed. He is almost chem-clean-hard and a finger’s journey between the teen’s open thighs brings Levi to Fourteen’s open door. “Now I want your cock.” Levi barely rings the glans before teen-tension breaks. Come-at-a-touch indeed,

“Sorry!” Fourteen blushes, then giggles. Levi looks as Fourteen-breathless sprawls starfish across the bed, silly grin staring at the ceiling. Teenage cock head slips back into its hood one last time. White teeth bite pink teen lip as Levi massages the spent cock. A final trail of semon drips out. “When we go to bed, will you fuck me?” Fourteen’s spirit is floating above him in the afterglow.

Fourteen is asking for one of several dildos stashed beside the bed. “I’ll ream you out right now.” He does not. Instead, Levi gets up to fetch the juice he has prepared and secreted in the pantry, where a thirsty Fourteen won’t find it. “Stay where you are.”

The boy does not. He jackrabbits to the bathroom. Levi allows himself a sip of wine as he waits out the inconvenient truth. Something stronger would be nice, but even wine’s vapour breaks three decades of iron medical discipline. Call of nature answered, Fourteen paces back to the bed, bobcat-ready.

Fourteen nocks the you’re-screwed Screwdriver back like the novice drinker he is. He frowns at the glass, considering the flavour. “Bitters,” Levi explains. He is no date-rape expert, but he is a surgeon. Fourteen will be floating soon. Levi leads the boy back to the bed. This will be no heterosexual on gay robo-fuck. Levi keeps his promise. He lulls the little cunt along with a latex dildo. It is not strictly preoperative procedure, he is just petting the cat. Levi plays a rock-steady hand about the delightful contours of the Tuan-tight-teenage body, urging his patient into a satiated sleep.

Last chance to reconsider, not that this will likely happen. Levi has catalogued the essentials endlessly while he cruised closer to the two kidnappers in that Pennsylvania State Park. Levi needs an adolescent boy. Unfortunately, the anonymous internet exchange pushed this draftee across his path. What is done, is done. Fourteen is a boy named Jeremy Gates, not some willing whore. Jeremy Gates likes to play hoops with boys he meets on the streets of Detroit. Levi will not let himself think about that. Who he was, why he was, does not matter now. This organ swelling in his hand no longer belongs to kidnapped Jeremy Gates. It is easier to treat him like Fourteen, the whore he should have been. Levi fondles the respectable length of teenage manhood.

John has his Kill-zone.  Levi has his zone. There are the times everyone turns their face from an inconvenient truth, just so they can get what they want. It is time to act. He is holding Fourteen’s imperfect cock. It is a straightforward operation.

Levi lasted one more tour in Vietnam after Nguyen Huu Tuan ripped his heart out. Levi bleed, and saw Tuan in every adolescent face. The firefights were pointless. He wanted no part of them. Levi cleaned his M16 out of habit. “Why don’t you point that thing at Charlie for a change?” Fucking Jardine asked, and not for the first time.

Because I’ve held Charlie in my arms, kissed his lips, felt his life surround my life, held communion with him.

Levi removes the slick dildo from Fourteen’s body, takes a last kiss of the erection habit built. Fuck Jardine, the others never asked why he did not fire his weapon. They saw the way Levi packed his medical satchel extra carefully. Fuck the M16, just be ready for us Doc, they all thought. It was Levi’s atonement for what he let happen in Na Nang.

The pert erection faded before Levi’s eyes. Fourteen was ready for Levi. Levi had his tools in the red and black Trauma First Aid Kit he had liberated from the hospital. It was second nature keeping it around. Before he fetched it, he stole a kiss from the unconscious boy. The ritual of surgery was transcendent for Levi. Do no harm, no harm would be done, Levi reasoned as he lay his tools on a tray. It was as easy as picking up a shivering boy on a street corner.

It was two years thinking about Tuan before Levi slept with another man. He was in college, headed toward Medical School. One day, the urge came back, a coursing-desire. He had men, they had him. Hookups, relationships, partners, almost life partners once. It was all good, they were life’s ups and downs as his craft grew stronger. After his partner Dale (the one after Ian Holland) admitted it was over, and when the first touch of life’s winter touched Levi, Nguyen Huu Tuan started calling to him from the streets. The inconvenient truth behind the naked picture-perfect-boys or shivering-cold-afraid street-lost-refuse had to be put aside, just like the unfortunate Jeremy Gates’ rights to his own body were not relevant in this all-important now. Levi brought his tray over to the unconscious Fourteen.

It was a generational preference on Levi’s part. He grew up thinking every boy looked like himself. Partnering with men his own age and background sustained the bias. Professionally, Levi disapproved of the abandonment. It smacked of the cultish refusal to vaccinate children, or stop fluoridating water. Then too,  Levi started picking up street hustlers with the AIDS epidemic fresh on his mind. Each bought cock raised the hackles of his medical mind. Condoms and antiseptic, sure, Better safe than sorry, Levi told himself.

“It’s not pointless, Fourteen. First, it is a very minor procedure. Odd how many times I’ve done it. There are health benefits, particularly for a sexually active gay man like yourself. I could show you the studies. It is hygenic.” The sedative should keep Fourteen unconscious. Levi boxes the penis in with absorbent cloth. “It won’t affect you at all. The second point is,” Levi stops talking at this point. The main point is, Tuan was circumcised. 

Topical anesthetic first, discolour the soft shaft with antiseptic. Levi pushed the building tragedy of Jeremy Gates to the back of his mind. Levi needed to give Fourteen the cold-clarity now that Chiekezie Adichie agrees is slipping from his grasp. Bedside manner is for the surgical before, and recovering after. The procedural-now is always ruthless-dispassionate.

“It is going to be beautiful, just like you are, kid.”