Levi 13

Deceptions, the persistent undercurrent of this journey West, Far East. Man and boy facing moments of crisis, doubt, when something threatening wells up to disturb the equilibrium of this precarious journey. Levi can only imagine the boy’s cognitive dissonance. The human way Jeremy Gates suppresses a healthy skepticism of his own motives. Even in the face of violence and violation, Jeremy Gates persists with Fourteen.

Opportunity costs, the term comes naturally to Dr. Fisher. White coat, black arts, Dr. Fisher, practiced thoracic surgeon, dry-tone-detached explains prognosis over Franklin King’s comatose body. Boston Emergency Room too-routine on-call. Levi stands coffee unapologetic  in one hand. The gangbanger’s bullet burned past the boy’s heart, still lies deep-dangerous. The larger threat of the second wound along the spine parked at T2 and T3. Then there is the bone-shard shattered rib, shrapnel consequences. Levi lays out the costs, the after outcomes calculations for the parents. Malcolm King could only nod through the interminable hospital formalities. His only boy is dying. This Doctor Fisher, who speaks detached, was Doc. Doc Levi, who tended to his shredded leg, calm in the shit-show of a drop. Twenty years brings them together in a fresh horror. “Save Franklin, Doc, like you saved me.” Then Levi recognizes Malcolm through the two-decades long aging, sorts the anxious man out of the kaleidoscope  memory of so many young faces, bloody-body moments in Vietnam. Driving the New Mexican interstate, Levi remembers. That second generation saving leads to this opportune cost. A deceptive way out of this precarious journey, for the boy, for him.

Opportunity and deceptions all around in this last transaction with Malcom King. For Levi, a free run at My So’n Temple and slipping into that good night. Nguyen Huu Tuan’s spirit welcoming him to rest and reconciliation. For Jeremy Gates, a guilt-free run at his March-after life. For Malcolm King, who lost his Franklin anyway, a chance to pay two debts. Levi negotiates necessary deceptions to achieve all this. How utterly (forgivably) human it all was. Deception leads to opportunity. Opportunity necessitates deception.

The silly (transparent) boy seems unaware that the Luxor Winnebago is redolent with the odour of male sex. Levi has had a lifetime of experience with that. Fourteen, always adolescent-rank, always rut impregnated, thinks a clean sheet, open window, and cursory shot of air freshener can mask the smell. The boy is every teenager, “Just a second mom!” vanishing the joint, hiding the sticky-yeast rag beneath his mattress. Levi is every adult suspending disbelief at the whiff of spice-autumn leaf, not acknowledging the lingering male-spill odour. Levi must confess he dallied too long in the hospital room. Cat away, the mouse played.

Nguyen Huu Tuan came to him off duty. Tuan came to him at their rented room, or on the street, at the barracks. In the sleepy after, jealousy awoke. Levi quizzed the sleeping youth. Where have you been? Who have you been with? The anguished questions came to Levi in the night. Not often, fleeting, because Levi was quite definitely Tuan-struck. He was twenty-something intoxicated with first love. So easy to believe the whole Vietnam War was a small contrivance to bring them together.

Levi has had a lifetime of experience with jealousy. Fourteen is all who-me-innocent, Levi is too experienced, too tired not to forgive adolescent transgressions. Obviously, it was the handsome police officer. A youthful sense of responsibility brought the young cop to the hospital. Half prepared for such events (the boy will betray him,that is written), Levi still almost had a heart attack. But the young man was simply interested in his condition, and concerned about the wandering boy. Guileless, caught up in Fourteen’s tangerine, the young man forgot his training all together, parroted back Fourteen’s lies. Levi played him like a fiddle.

The boy betrayed you, as you knew he would. In the long run it comes to no difference. Levi does not feel betrayal, so much as balance. He does not seek to understand this change in him. The brain tumour perhaps. Personality changes are to be expected. Levi is at the denouement, the resolution. The resolution is a letting go.

Fourteen might understand a little of what is happening inside his adolescent mind. The boy is Spring-confident despite the tempest of the last half year. Some artesian upswell of optimism and courage nurtures Fourteen. Young flesh, young minds heal quickly. Dumb kid checks out of the KOA and drives blind (underage) to the hospital. Strides past cameras and security to the ward where Levi sits (private room) malingering. Gives the room ($300 per day…) the curious once-over. Tries the bed, drinks Levi’s juice, declares, “Okay old man, I’m tired of waiting.” You want to rape a kid like that right there on the Invacare where he bounces. So Levi resumes the journey. Dumb kid has parked illegally on the street. Albuquerque parking citation under the wiper blade. Levi is philosophic. Another detail left to his estate.

Everything grows, everything goes; Levi worries that he is too old, too much a living fossil now. His intellect was wetted to a dedicated edge in the last century (when he operated on Franklin King). Then it was blunted by hard use. The tumour is taking its toll. Levi knows he struggles to manufacture a semblance of cleverness, summons a pattern of behaviours in response to this more or less familiar challenge. Time to let go. Levi can contribute something to the boy’s future, a wisp of opportunity, a further deception. How ugly I am, he thought. How old and cold, and full of lies.

He let his young partner drive back to Interstate 25, take the interchange, turn onto Interstate 40, drive blind toward Flagstaff and deceptive next opportunity. Levi feels the balance.

Levi takes the wheel. Reassuring, although Fourteen cannot sort his feelings out. Control felt very good. Ultimately, Fourteen knows there can be no explanation, only survival and completion. Lost Alburquerque opportunities with Scott Beck and the police officer named Dean. Fourteen let chances slip away, like he let the iPod possibilities of talking with his parents slide.

In most ways, Fourteen has lived his short life in clueless ignorance, wrapped in the baby blankets of culture and surrounded by the poor theories of his friends. It all amounts to a kind of womb-protective, Chillicothe atmosphere where life’s harsh John-hard realities bounced or burned away before reaching him. It was all very safe, except for this fermenting difference in his body. Until Patrick punched him into the Bronco, John whipped him on the hood, Fourteen lived in a suburban bubble. Fourteen slumps in his passenger seat, reassured by Levi’s take-control presence. Near two days since he drunk-propositioned Scott. Scott… somebody. Scott hard fucking him in his parent’s Airstream Caravel. Fourteen remembers. Not in a Chillicothe bubble now, not hardly. The Luxor Winnebago motor is reassuring. They are moving again, West, Far East. Fourteen can sleep for a while.

Scott Beck split the scar tissue when he pierced Fourteen’s flesh. Slumped in the passenger seat, Fourteen dreams of John, impulse-angry. Scott’s sex-play cuffs to the head. Sure, they were the young man’s subconscious reaction to the wrong-gender, too-hot-fuck now of that Luxor Winnebago sex. Fourteen gets that. Punish his body for being Fourteen, for seducing a straight man with his male-tainted charms. First time Fourteen tried whoring for his fix.

Scott Beck’s light cuff recalls John’s man-hard blow to the face. Dream-real, Fourteen tastes the empty-street, iron-tang blood across his lips again. The memory of that rude slap is still digitally printed on Fourteen’s flesh. It was a Saturday-Night-Special reminder that he has to be way cool about the whole Fourteen thing. Way cool with John Cannon, way cool with Scott Beck. Fourteen feels John’s rough hand on his face, a Cameron-kiss soft-tender consolation. “Are you still going to fuck me?”

“Fuck you hard, I owe it to Patrick, bitch boy.” John’s words echo across America from that dark, deserted Pennsylvania street. Always, Fourteen feels pinched between the seductive-warm palm of these men and the steel-intent of their different after passions. Fuck you hard, is so damn good. It saturates Fourteens Dreams as the Luxor Winnebago rocks him like a stagecoach into Arizona.

Dreamtime Fourteen tosses a pebble into Bull Shoals Lake, back turned to the familiar convocation of friends and family. The Ohio before crowd cannot see past the Jeremy Gates facade to the Fourteen-fermenting closet-secret reality. Tween Jeremy, racing Shane down a Great Seal State Park hill, felt the first fumbling wrong (oh, so right) feeling in his gut. Being gay-thirteen sucked big time. The cocktail brew igniting his body left him on a boy-bender he could not shake. Fourteen learned to (finally) deal with unrequited Shane-lust. He consoled himself with the next-streetcar world of boys (hello Cameron). Secrets stayed in the shame closet. He was so thoroughly straight Jeremy Gates for these significant others, so on the right track. Fourteen knows the familiar convocation’s every fuzzy-furious certainty. Everyone knows Jeremy Gates drank the Gay-Kool Aid. He is just gun-shy muddled, poor boy, poor boy.

Fourteen stirs on the passenger seat, draws a glance from Levi. Levi considers poking the boy. Interstate fatigue is a narcotic. Fourteen could bring him coffee, talk to him, perhaps amuse him with confessions, suck his cock while he drives. Some streetboys try that on the old man, the confessions. Excite old cock with salacious stories. The young sluts think it sexy. They cannot understand that Levi wants them disbelief-suspended virgin. The rent boys are there to be Tuan-lithesome for the lustful sacraments. Ian Holland thought Levi liked confession. He never did, except some honesty would have been nice from Tuan...

Fourteen stirs fitful dreams on the passenger seat. Patrick, now there is a guy always looking in the mirror, poor Patrick, poor Patrick. Fourteen knows fucked over, so he sort of knows where Patrick was coming from. Riding shotgun in the Luxor Winnebago, Fourteen dreams Patrick’s rough penetrating mockery. He twists fitfully on the road-rocking captain’s chair, wanting distance from the tortured man’s after. Pussy boy, slut boy, you know you want a cock. The taunts scrape painfully across Fourteen’s thick tangerine skin like a dull knife. Poor Patrick never knew Jeremy Gates, so the crafty-after demolition just won’t work.

Man-fuck shame Fourteen into Patrick’s anguished-angry after? Not the right cast on stage, and Patrick should have known it by the third time he raped Jeremy Gates. You want to cut out the tender heart of Geremy Gate’s sweet tangerine? Get Shane and half a dozen other boys to do it for you. Cameron Krueger could have cut deeper with one hard scalpel-sharp-shove when Fourteen tried a virgin kiss. It takes a boy to kill a boy. All those finger pointing boys in juvie lockup, they murdered Patrick. Patrick thinks his adult, rapist self matters to a Jeremy Gates? Three boys (one Shane) on the hot-august-night mattered more than man-Patrick’s weasel-words punctuating first fucks in a barn. August Jeremy Gates would ride the cheerleader Ferris Wheel all night to avoid that nightmare after-life of his best friend’s contempt.

Maybe, Patrick does get that. Caught in the trap of his relentless (murderous) after, sharing his bad times with God knows how many unwilling Jeremy Gates, Patrick, maybe, knows it never works. Most times, the raped-after is a short-brutish affair. John Canon’s Saturday-Night-Special finality is the real after for Patrick’s raped boys. John is the hard fist crumpling the semen-soaked boy-tissue left from Patrick’s yet-another after-masturbation. Patrick’s endless quest to force-fuck his revenge on the prison boys. How full is the wastebasket now? Fourteen wonders when he has the courage.

John let the cold-stone-killer slip. Fourteen lives because Patrick needed to prove he could manage things. Fourteen lives because John made a mistake. Name the anonymous boy, call him Fourteen. Fourteen knows his Chillicothe farm boy classmates learn early to stop nicknaming the stock. It is hard to watch dad set the hammer between Bossie’s brown eyes. Jeremy Gates never understood how the boys and girls could 4-H their way through pampering livestock. Maybe they did it John’s way, pass the problem on to someone else. John let Patrick auction Fourteen’s ass on the Dark Web so he could wash his hands clean. No shallow grave for the boy who found a crack in John’s armor. I’m going to fuck you hard. You have to be grateful for that!

John let the stone-cold-boy-killer slip. John saw Jeremy Gates. “What about the next one? Did you see him too?” Dream questions. Are you here to fuck me? Why yes, yes I am. Scott Beck answers. Scott Beck fucked John-hard. Fourteen’s hand slides between his thighs, eyes rem-shifting, legs sprawled invitingly. Bull Shoals twinkles out, dream illogical. He is back in the seedy hotel or maybe the Luxor Winnebago, knowing John’s anger-hardness deep inside him. John or Scott, details are confusing. John never explained this attraction to his victim-lover any better than Fourteen-near-fifteen can explain his attraction to a serial killer. John was not one for words. Levi Fisher is full of kind words and Dr. Evil deeds. Half a year of after-sex-education with Levi, halfway across America, Fourteen does not know Levi.

The still visible scars of Levi’s Tuan-fever North Platte assault remind Fourteen what drunk Levi sees. Nguyen Huu Tuan’s ghostly poltergeist-presence (always) shapes their shared now, and threatens the Jeremy Gates’ after. Good thing drunk Levi moments are fleeting. Being understudy for Trust-Breaking-Tuan when Levi untethers from reality is dangerous. Levi is usually Ed-Harris-friendly. Jeremy, the name slips out when Levi gets serious with Fourteen. Fourteen needs that possibility-reassurance because Fourteen bears after scars.

Sunlight on the continental divide bounces off a passing Makayla-18-wheeler, and flashes across Fourteen’s shuttered eyes. Translucent lids flutter annoyance. Fourteen shifts restlessly, cock hard, lifting from the drowsy New Mexico highway dream. Just short of conscious, he dreams of Levi’s touch. Levi Fisher is a trip and a half. The quiet man just knows things that Jeremy Gates never thought to know. With his eyes squeezed tight, shackled playfully in a chair, it is easy to dismiss the five-times-Fourteen reality of Levi. Tuan-drunk or Fourteen-fevered, either way, Levi’s old-dog-tricks drive him crazy.

Fourteen knows Levi Fisher loves the boy-gagged grunts and squeaks that prophesy the next shuddering shower; the salty after taste. Fourteen was a frightened rabbit-silent-screaming while Patrick shame-raped him. Levi has to mute his young instrument as they practice endless crescendos. Fourteen dances bobcat-naked to Levi’s lead. The quick two-step, usually a slow waltz (1-2-3), and boy-gagged and chained, they Tango. These days, Fourteen volunteers his hands for the shackles and opens his mouth wide for the silly ball gag. Just start the next lesson. Easy to dismiss the John-cold reality of Dr. Evil-Levi, dismiss the kidnapping. Fourteen is getting sex.

Bump in the road lifts him off his seat. Fourteen wakes shotgun, unconscious of his fading bulge and a pre-cum leak. Fourteen stirs in his seat beside Levi. It draws Levi’s eyes away from the straight Interstate. Fourteen rubs his eyes, blinks the dreams, the aggressive men from his eyes. “How are you doing, old man?”

Cocky boy. Odds are Jeremy Gates never talked like this before. “I’m fine.” Short words, saying not enough. “The new medications are an adjustment.” Levi stops talking. He checks the dashboard, checks the vibrating mirrors, checks the boy beside him. Fourteen watches the inaccessible world pass by, thoughts stretching just over the horizon. A painful dinner comes to mind. Ian Holland across a hungry-man-worthy table, usual inconsequentials between them. Then, matter-of-fact satchel bomb delivered, “I slept with Andrew. It’s over, Levi. I can’t keep doing this.” Fork poised, Levi absorbs this. Conversation resumes as if they are only haggling over a new sofa.

“The gas is low.” As if underage Fourteen, without a credit card, ought to have stopped to fill the Luxor Winnebago on the way to the hospital. Fourteen nods agreement. So much is left unspoken between these two. So much passes between them unspoken. Infidelity lies between them.

Fourteen is the victim, not a volunteer-employee-lover. Fourteen’s changed cock is a constant reminder of a pathological-coldness in Levi. His inner-Fascist goose-steps over Fourteen’s supine body. His First-World exploits Fourteen’s developing nation, extracting resources. If Fourteen sees it this way, he rarely lets Levi know.

There were those heartless fuck with Barry Gordon moments in Michigan. That joyless fuck-revenge was all just a helpless baby’s fussing on the change table while the diaper gets changed. Barry’s straight cock fumbling around in the boy was just Fourteen pissing in Levi’s face before the diaper taped down. Levi knew that as he watched the shadow puppets couple in the red tent. Still, he faced the smell Barry Gordan’s revenge-stench on his boy each time he stepped back into the Luxor Winnebago. Smell the young police officer linger about them both, even now. Transactions, Levi reminds himself, consequences.

“Back on the road.” Fourteen drawls unexpectedly.

“Back on the road.” Levi agrees.

Fourteen takes in the old man’s profile, meets the questioning glance. The Luxor Winnebago companionship-routine. The easiness of two Solitudes. Easy to be Levi’s grandson (whatever)  tagging along on this old man’s, Ed Harris-easy, retirement road trip.

Levi is old-man insular, set in his ways, total grandad-curmudgeon behind an honest-to-God ink-smudging newspaper. Levi likes geriatric tranquility, old music, and rabbit food. Problem-solving moments remind Fourteen Levi Fisher is a surgeon. Fourteen cannot talk to Levi about the circumcision-rape. Instead, he asked about the opening people’s bodies. It is not television Emergency Room frantic, Levi tells him. It is a well-rehearsed technical dance. Levi’s passionate restitution-intensity under VC-fire has faded. Dispassion, Levi explains as he sips a drink on night left far behind now.

Fourteen is… well, Fourteen. Dispassion is hard to understand. Levi makes it sound a bit like classroom boredom. Worse yet, Levi’s tone makes dispassion sound frighteningly like John Cannon’s stone-cold-killer end-the-rape-victim necessity. Levi’s Japanese Hikari folding knife beside his scrotum lacks the sexy intimacy of John’s blunt revolver in his mouth. Easy to get lost in the ecstasy of being fourteen. Where is Levi when Fourteen is lost in the adolescent ecstasy?

Snow dusted New Mexican desert seems endless after five weeks in the South West. Levi promised him south, away from winter, before they turned this east. He expected dusty dry beach weather. Instead, winter is following him everywhere. To one side, the land is flat, flat, flat to a cloudless blue horizon. The snow-dusty plain extends on ahead giving no hint of change. Icing covered mountains march along the other horizon. There have been so many unexpected mountains. This is a ridiculously rich tourist treasure of monuments and conservation areas. This is the winter roost of North America’s SnowBirds, yet Levi is determined to push on to Arizona. The Tuan-Hadj east seems in earnest now. There is no time for the Grand Canyon, just the interstate sliding under the wheels of the Luxor Winnebago.

“I’m feeling tired.” Levi announces. “The highway is not busy. Do you think you can drive to Sanders?”

Fourteen nods, alert to Levi. The old man looks migraine-grey about the eyes. “Are you alright?” Since Albuquerque, Levi’s doom is high definition real to Fourteen. “We could go down to the Petrified Forest, check it out, rest a bit more.”

“I think we took too much time in Albuquerque waiting for the mail and Malcom King to poke his head out of the rocks and sand. We have to meet him in Flagstaff. I just need you to drive for a while.” Thoreau is just ahead. Fourteen watches it rise out of the desert. “Almost there Jeremy.”

“You said past March. You needed me till then. It is barely December.” Fourteen studies Levi’s color carefully before climbing out of the seat. He remembers Levi’s wineglass twinkle at the moment he fell out of his chair. It could be that quick, he reminds himself. “You should let me drive more.” Or drive all the time, he adds to himself. Fourteen is might-as-well-be fifteen. Time to take the wheel, see Levi home, so to speak. Time to see this Damocles necklace off his throat. Levi is a frayed thread now. Fourteen figures he is either going to take them off the road or across the median and into an eighteen-wheeler unexpectedly.

There is nothing from Levi. Fourteen catches a moment in the bathroom and splashes water on his face. The Winnebago shifts down and lurches to the side, pressing Fourteen against the kitchen sink. It roles to a stop beside a yellow sign. “Lights on for Safety,” stands alone. Nameless bush-trees scatter toward a ridge topped with a power line. Stumpy trees and desiccated grass, rocks and sand. Fourteen thought there would be cactus sentinels jazzing up the landscape.

“Right, after March,” Levi finally offers. “Promises, right?” It is a tired voice, but reassuringly Ed-Harris-friendly. “The gas is good till Sanders. Gallup is next. Drive through to Sanders.” Levi claps Fourteen on the shoulder, handing the wheel over to him. Fourteen watches Levi take a pill, then Levi is on the bed, arm across his eyes. “If I am not up by Flagstaff, wake me.”

“How far is Flagstaff?” Fourteen wonders out loud.

“Three hours,” Levi mutters. “Last stop, I promise.”