Levi 14

Last stop, but what are promises? Levi admits to himself. He can hear-feel the RV-last-home burning carbon as Fourteen’s heavy foot accelerates the old rig like it was a T-Bird burning rubber. The boy will have fun, fun, fun, till daddy takes the T-Bird away. Fourteen is morphing on, as near-fifteen’s tend to do. Levi wonders if Fourteen notices they meet eye to eye now. Half a year, How did that happen? Pennsylvania to the Arizona border along the US Interstate arteries, the Luxor Winnebago might have made it in five easy days. Five sensible days to elude pursuit.

Those two wack-jobs in a rusty Bronco, snatching kids, had to be easy pickings for the FBI chasers, Levi tells himself. He feels the law breathing down his neck. The kid FaceBooked his parents from Nebraska, he reminds himself. Painful replies piling up on Jeremy Gate’s home page, silence from the boy who started the flow. Levi checks these things from his hospital-vacation bed.

Levi fears it, naturally. The law mapping his gas station trail, cutting him off from his Mỹ Sơn Temple ending. Just a simple connecting flight, Levi reminds himself. Instead, too many flag-draped headstone stops, too much indecision, too much delectable Fourteen. Levi knows he could have ended it all by himself at Mỹ Sơn Temple a year ago. Just get on board at Logan International with his end-of-life medicines, walk the beaches and streets of Da Nang, taxi to Mỹ Sơn Temple ruins, end of story. How hard was that to do?

By myself hard, Levi lets his arm fall away limp. The Luxor Winnebago turns the welcome bed into narcotic-massage. Fourteen taking charge is comforting. The Luxor Winnebago’s antique carriage carries them along the well-worn Interstate with grace. It is a land of western beauty sliding by. This is Levi’s last chance to see something new. They are headed toward the Grand Canyon, but he has no intention-interest in looking at it. It is just another thing of beauty. Levi has seen (done) things. He is focussed on his own eroding geology now. Nguyen Huu Tuan’s river (so to speak) mingled with his waters in Da Nang. Then Tuan dipped beneath the surface of his long life. The Colorado River cut deep into this old land for ages, but Tuan washed out Levi’s New England granite bedrock over a short lifetime.

The thin-skin life he led after the Tet Offensive collapsed a year ago when his oncologist Chiekezie Adichie confirmed the countdown with a colleague’s regretful finality. Levi’s life collapsed into the widening sinkhole of regret. Live for those who died. Well, Levi tried. Levi saved lives, tried love, thought he grew comfortable in his aging skin, till the Tuan-like vitality of the street boys seduced him.

There were so many beautiful partners playing the forty-year progression from Disco to Smooth Jazz. The partner-serious, like Ian Holland, and not so serious-hook-ups, evaporated with the years until there was only Dr. Levi Fisher, eminent Thoracic Surgeon, thank you very much. Settle into your age old man. But Levi turned to back-alley boys too young to call men, too old to call children. He remembered Tuan in their young bodies. He remembered his younger self in their young orgasms. That was the tell. That should have told him he was at the end. When his oncologist confirmed the truth, Levi realized all that was left to do was find the way back to Mỹ Sơn Temple before he faded. Only, not alone. He had never been alone. Nguyen Huu Tuan mingled with his waters in Da Nang.

Detroit, Bull Shoals, Albuquerque, the other stops, were about not being alone, not ending it alone. You might have found some Tuan-like youth in Hanoi, make a last hook-up hang-up. Only that would be some stranger, someone who would never understand the small hotel room perfection of Da Nang. A Vietnamese hooker would soil the sacred coupling memory at Mỹ Sơn Temple. Some young Vietnamese man would just be Tuan-faced indifferent to the mortal wound he carried for fifty years. The Ohio boy reveling in the driver’s seat knew him best. Ian Holland knew him less well. So, Levi crafted his plan as Fourteen’s tangerine infused the lonely Luxor Winnebago, mingled a boy named Jeremy with the Tuan-Levi duality. The Michigan circumcision (engagement ring) to Mỹ Sơn Temple, start to finish, Mỹ Sơn Temple with Fourteen by his side, not alone. There are ways to make that happen.

Fourteen, who likes to kiss, but not kiss Levi. No fault in that, Levi sighs. Levi has met-used a few who like his kiss. Youngsters needing something out of old flesh. Levi is a doctor, but not that kind. He does not understand the anatomy of the mind. He understands it is not Jeremy Gate’s thing to love old men. Jeremy Gates is just tripping out on being Fourteen-free. He is every dweeb-tween feeling the werewolf-fangs of adolescent transformation. Rip the clothes off, feel the dweeb-muscles expand, Fourteen is blood-singing, flesh-devouring, seduction-drunk on being Fourteen. Levi uses that. Fourteen is cock-hard, mindless groping for the next electric cum. Levi can keep him there. Only, every sex-mad teenager wakes up from the fever dream. Tuan did, Jeremy Gates will.

Levi rubs his temples, wonders if he drifted off. He has the lethargy of surfacing. The buff package from his lawyer arrived in Albuquerque. His latest codicil sent back to Boston, requests to Ian Holland (fuming now in Madison with his Antigua sunburn), that would change Mỹ Sơn Temple. It is tucked away safely for the right moment.

Neil Jardine’s scorn, and Jeremy Gates huddled on a North Platte curb shook Levi. Malcolm King would meet them in Flagstaff. Malcolm would clean up his mess.  Levi knows he cannot end it with Fourteen in Mỹ Sơn Temple. Ending it at Mỹ Sơn Temple with Fourteen was a Tuan-fever fantasy. It makes Levi sad.

Fourteen cares of him now. The kid, who U-Turned on a dark street to help a stranded pair, puts Levi first. Levi remembers Fourteen that first day, fresh-bewildered from the rusty Bronco, setting Levi straight, banishing his cynical assumptions. Levi remembers the boy’s bitter story. “It’s what dad would do.” Fourteen concludes, tears of disappointment ripping down his cheeks, voice frustrated.

No good turn goes unpunished, Levi knows. Nguyen Huu Tuan schooled Levi on that. Levi fucked happy-senseless on a lazy Vietnamese afternoon. Levi desperately needs to believe he was Tuan’s one sacrifice to family and country. Young Fourteen heard the Tet Offensive story and offered an explanation quickly. It was a balm for Lexi’s torn heart.

“Levi,” Fourteen begins, “Tuan  made sure you were not in the barracks when he made his move. He must have loved you. He wanted you to live.” Young, tender-heart Fourteen, adolescent-dreaming first-forever love. The tangerine hopefulness of a Jeremy Gates, somehow still idealistic. Levi wants to believe this. Levi supposed he would not be going back to the spot of their love trist at Mỹ Sơn Temple if he did not believe the boy; still believe in Nguyen Huu Tuan’s eternal love.

Fourteen is taking care of him. Piloting the Luxor Winnebago down the Interstate, peddle not quite to the metal, because some State Patrol might interrupt their flight. Levi curls onto his side, lets the old RV’s suspension rock him to sleep. Levi is tired, and he has to rest. He needed this long Autumn season with Fourteen, dodging discovery, rethinking what to do. All the medications in the world won’t stop the crescendo of seizures. Levi has probably left it too late, when he thought he had started too early. Not quite too late to rediscover something of the young man who loved Tuan, ministered compassion to ganja-addled Malcolm King under VC fire. The fresh package from his lawyer confirms small Jeremy-friendly adjustments to Levi’s modest estate.

“Here’s Gallup.” Fourteen interrupts Levi’s thoughts. The boy’s tone suggests he is talking to himself. He does not want to disturb the resting Levi. How lonely he must be, Levi realizes with his new charity. A young pack animal separated from its brothers. Levi gets that, when he is honest, when he is not hungry for young flesh.

Levi needs to get to the airport and on a flight yesterday. He needs to meet Malcolm King in winter-Flagstaff. Levi drifts off, letting thoughts of loose ends fade.

Pine trees sigh Fourteen’s indifference to the ephemeral-friendly KOA village sprawled out before him. Throwaway communities for a consumer society. Nobody more invested in disposability than these prosperous Baby Boomers. Even their memories are ephemeral, casually substituted for the next-best destination. Fourteen thinks their community is as transient as a concert ticket line or the audible-bubble at a beer-lubricated Bengals game. Wave friendly at the slim teenage boy. Smile at Fourteen’s (safe) white middle class urban coloration. Fourteen is everyone’s grandson reminder.

“Our Leon is back in school.” Connection? Condemnation? Fourteen smiles strained, smiles camouflage-respectability, smiles Jeremy. Oh so Jeremy Gates tangerine. He is a good kid, the women think nostalgic. Wistful matchmaking for a granddaughter, maybe. He is a good kid, the men think, manly, they mean. Wistful memories of the boys they thought they were and gladly left behind.

The new Foretravel Motorcoach throwing shade on the Luxor Winnebago piqued Levi’s interest. “Half a million,” he estimates to Fourteen. Canadian Snowbirds, someone Bay Street finance, someone Boston-familiar. Wellesley Hills connected. The inevitable self-deprecating tour from the new neighbors. Fourteen thinks Levi should have traded up. Indulgent features everywhere, the boy bounces on the bed, speculative half-smile, ripe for the taking. The motorcoach has every touch-of-home accessory. The motorcoach indulgence echoes the life Levi has abandoned in Boston, or perhaps life abandoning Levi.

Accessories, conveniences, the Canadian woman delights in Fourteen’s culinary interest. “He is a good kid.” She thinks, “A delightful, funny boy so clean, so fresh.” So tangerine, impish-manchild, she can see. The bragging is restrained. The Toronto Harbour Street condo facing Lake Ontario, Maui, worn thin like too many visits to Disney World, so try a camper as they did when they were young. Levi nods retired understanding. Levi appreciates accessories, conveniences, Fourteen being one.

“Half a million,” Levi estimated. Travellers pay for all sorts of impractical accessories. Sitting in a Flagstaff winter chill, Fourteen recalls the possessive way Levi looked at him as he explored the Foretravel Motorcoach kitchenette. Could you pay for this? He asked Ed-Harris-Levi. Ian Holland hinted there was wealth in Boston. Patrick and John shopped his young ass for hundreds, surely. The 1996 Luxor Winnebago is antiquated luxury. Doctors make money, Fourteen reasons. “It’s hardly worth it.” Levi replied. Well, Levi was dying. Life was letting go of the old man. Fourteen knows this. What he does not know is just how much Mỹ Sơn Temple means to Levi Fisher. Half a million, Fourteen thinks idly.

From the top of the wooden and plastic playground structure, Fourteen has a vista of half-full camp sites flanking Pima road. It all just goes on and on, much like this forced Levi-Odyssey. A frail woman wanders the large dog run close at hand. She seems attached to a vicious looking Rottweiler. Walking along the fence to the playground, Fourteen paused to watch the dog snarl at him. “Don’t worry, Rambo is very friendly.” Rambo reminds Fourteen of John Canon, snarling lips, dangling balls and swaying cock-sheath part of the package; Just another muscular threat.

Past pines and empty campsites, faux Teepees draw his eyes. The ever-boy in Fourteen thinks it would be fun to try one for a night. They are that close to the east entrance to the Grand Canyon. That close, and yet Levi drags him to another cookie-cutter KOA.

“What’s with the KOA, Levi?” Fourteen gave up the wheel one gas station shy of Flagstaff. Less gritty than Albuquerque, Fourteen looked at the little city with interest. All in all, it was just more strip mall America. Flagstaff was a likely drive through. Fourteen figured they might stay a month and he would still see nothing more than a slice of KOA real estate. The streets of Flagstaff might as well be the moon. KOA’s were very lonely places. “Do you have a thing about KOA’s?” He asked exasperated.

“You refer Walmart parking lots?” The man replies. Better a drive through off Yuma, Fourteen knows.

Fourteen braces himself against a gusty wind. Winds in Arizona rise up without warning, drive dust along at gale force, and throw a brown haze into the sky. There is no mini golf here. His first jog at the end of his pyrotechnic leash, Fourteen found the horseshoes beside the laundry. Near the KOA Korral, beyond the tiny cabins, there are hoops. He ran past Snowbirds (in the lingering snow), noting the unfortunate absence of people his age. School days, and Fourteen has abandoned the home-school study routine. It is feeling pointless.

An unexpected child wanders past the green slide below where Fourteen perches morosely like a much-molested gargoyle. He figures the little girl is some granddaughter to some gypsy geriatric couple. It is very Evie-Grace from Albuquerque, only the unexpected-child is Queer-Eye cute-harmless. He waves, neighbor-friendly. The movement of his hand catches her eye, so she stops. “Hello.”

“Hi,” she studies him with an innocence he has lost. More fool Fourteen, that he has always thought in the vanished before that the older folk might look on youth with anything but patient-exasperation. He has understandably adolescent-lusted over older celebrities (discrete wall posters) and maturity-blessed, (hallway-strutting) hot teens, sure enough. Harmless adolescent god-worship. Who would think a Patrick or a Levi looked on his coltish, fumbling disproportion with more than good-willed amusement? Adults thought kids were apprentice-people. In the nuanced now of Levi’s septuagenarian lust-fest, Fourteen knows better. “What are you doing up there?”

“Just taking in the view.” Waiting for Levi to talk to whoever. Waiting for some old Nam Vet to set Levi off again, break the promise of my safe After-March ending. “I’m Fourteen.” He adds politely.

“I’m eleven.” She studies the possible paths to the playground rooftop, considering the climb. The adolescent-gale is just a whisper-wind in Eleven’s willow-supple body. She is still outrun-the-boys, hammerlock friendly with the cute ones. Boy-band tangerine flows off the roof, cascades down to the green slide where sand-snow drops the temperature. Eleven feels an unfamiliar shiver when teenage-tangerine licks at her toes. “My name is Kye.”

Of course, she thought I was giving my age. So what is my name? Fourteen feels this close to his March-after. Being Jeremy Gates won’t work. Levi makes the rounds of the tiny-home-trailers, chatting up the Fisher family. Rambo-John’s frail mistress at the dog park will see Levi Fisher’s grandson, Kale Euller rambling on the roof. Poor, poor depressive, soon to be twice-orphaned Kale. “Tuan,” the word comes to him as a joke.

Tawny he is, in Kye’s novice opinion. Fourteen’s unconscious citrus-half-smirk draws her up the side of the playground-Ferris-Wheel ride. One hand on the rough board roof, she checks his welcome wagon mood. Twinkle eyes offer a friendly vibe.

The goofballs piss her off with their no-girls-allowed frowns on shaggy foreheads. Girls don’t get to measure dicks, they want to say. Kye likes the boys who take her as she is. This boy sits Halloween festive, crisp tangerine sweatshirt over tight black slacks. She does her thing, scrambling up beside him. Tawn(?) shifts over on the roof, giving her space.

“Tawn, you said?” The view is nothing special. It is a be-by-yourself place, only the teenager seems easy with her company. He is thinking her question over with a cute eye roll.

“I’m Kale Euller.” He decides.

“Do you live in Flagstaff?” Kye wipes her nose like she just sniffed snuff. “I live in Pine Canyon. I go to Mountain School, sixth grade. Next year, Junior Academy. Do you go to Junior Academy?  Kye’s mom says she is too gregarious, dad says chatterbox.

Tawny-Kale looks away toward the Grand Canyon. “No, I’m from Ohio. Just travelling with Levi… my grandfather.” Levi shifts between grandfather and granduncle randomly, unsure what works best. Fourteen thinks this time he is an orphaned grandson.

“Ohio, you’re a long way from home. That is near New York.”

“Nearer than here.”

“What is New York like?”

“I’ve never been there.”

“The Capital?” Kye continues. “Have you seen the president?”

Fourteen blushes. “Kye?” She nods agreement. “They are a long way from where I live.” Kye’s casual-curiosity small talk discourages. It should not matter, but halfway across America, Fourteen realizes he has been nowhere, seen nothing. “I’ve been to Lake Erie. Mom had a conference at this place called Shawnee Lodge. You know, beaches.” Fourteen’s voice trails off into a frown. I’m so lame!

“We don’t go anywhere either. Grandma and grandpa live in Omaha. I’ve been there.” Kye passes this off as nowhere too.

“Okay, I’ve been there.”

“The zoo and aquarium are great. Grandma goes bananas for plants. Last time, she dragged me off to this huge greenhouse garden place. The museum with climbing walls was awesome. So like, yeah.” Kye is mining for connections. “Did you go there?” Fourteen shakes his head. He is thinking of the traffic-clogged expressways, clone-Walmart, blacktop nothingness of the Luxor-Winnebago journey. To cover the poverty of his experience, Fourteen maps his journey for the little girl. Google-blocked by Levi, it comes out as a brightly daubed, fuzzy impressionist painting.

Kye does not care. Mom’s old iPhone 8 comes out and foreheads gravitate over the small screen while she Google Maps the many places Fourteen ghosted through. Fourteen is the world's expert on ghosting. The conversation lapses for a moment while Fourteen gazes past the tourist Teepees, lost in his own thoughts.

“You’ve been to the Grand Canyon?” He asks the girl.

“Oh sure,” tone obvious. “You?”

“Not yet,” maybe never, Fourteen admits. The unspoken Jeremy-Levi journey the sex or die contract is a guided tour into being-feeling Fourteen, not a tour of America. Here in Flagstaff, Fourteen senses the manic-end-of-life urgency in his road-companion, and Levi’s Tuan-fever has cooled (somewhat). Journey’s end for Levi Fisher, but Jeremy Gates’ journey around the August-hot midway-excitement of teen manhood continues.

A million years ago on that Ohio midway before, surrounded by his friends, clock ticking down to closing, Fourteen needed the Adrenalin-pumping now of stepping away from his mundain Chillicothe life. The evening with his friends was shabby, local fair predictable. Still, the four boys felt it was pump-up-the-volume alive with possibility.

Kye rattles on with her school-girl bio. Fourteen is very definitely one of the boys who take her as she is, no ill-judgement. Kye is sporty. Her parents take her climbing Arizona rock, paddling Arizona whitewater. Fourteen feels the blandness of his suburban, shooting-hoops before. He cannot even compete with an eleven-year-old girl. Their only common interest seems to be waiting out the geriatric conversations in a RV roadstop. Kye and Fourteen, stuck at the kids table on Thanksgiving.

Fourteen lies back on the roof and takes in the sky. A hawk floating on the updraft catches his eye. I’m like that bird, paused beneath Levi’s breeze, waiting to be blown somewhere. Fourteen-flying is a trip, but near-fifteen, the boy knows the destination is still uncertain. The cards look good today. Last Vietnam-memory stop, Levi assures, then farther east, and February crowds March-after.

iPhone blocks out bird, and snapchat catches bemused boy beside penny-bright girl (head to head serious-photogenic). Fourteen blinks, surprised. It is such a before-normal moment. "What are you going to do with that?"

Kye lies with a blush. "My friend Danielle just asked me what I was doing, so I thought I'd send her a picture. Do you mind?"

How can he explain that he minds? Tell her that he's a fugitive from his own before-life? Fourteen decides to Let It Go. He sits up and leans on his knees. Kye interrupts his thoughts. "Do you have a girlfriend?"

Here is another awkward-adult explanation he will not give Kye-Eleven. Deflection is in order. "So, what do you like to do with your time?"

This opens floodgates about club basketball, and road trips to Phoenix with her girlfriends. Kye talks up a storm. It only serves to remind Fourteen how little he has done, and how desperately he wants to do more.

"Where are you going next?" Kye checks their selfie, posts it to Instagram. The ball is back in the boy’s court. This is an existential question offered by this little sister type.

"Levi, granddad, is pretty sick. I'm watching out for him. I take care of him. He is seeing old friends, you see. It’s a final lap sort of thing. Sorting stuff out in his mind. Soon, I'll go home." Fourteen looks toward the Luxor Winnebago, trying to Superman-see-hear the old man’s conversation with another Neil-Jardine-type. He has the Beretta Nano promise that Levi will behave, but North Platte is on his mind. Things were shit-your-pants tense in North Platte. "I'm going home." He promises himself.

Levi refills Malcolm King’s empty mug before continuing. “So you see it’s a real shit show. I’m at the end of my tether.” From the kitchen side, Levi can see Fourteen’s iconic bright orange hoodie flagging the playground fort. The boy likes to do this. He bungee-cord-stretches himself out on the deceitful bomb connection. The imaginary tether might snap, but bobcat-boy half-trusts Levi and the greater freedom of the long Alburquerque wait leaves Fourteen more independent. You’re smart Fourteen, too smart to buy the cherry bomb ploy I played on you. Why haven’t you run? He pauses at the sink to run another inventory on his body-state-of-mind.

“And you’re asking for my help.” Statement, not question.

Levi thinks Malcolm looks just the middle-age same as he did the last time they shared a coffee. Think back, Rabia’s on Salem Street, fifteen years ago. Just a courtesy coffee, a relationship is hard to define sometimes. The boy Franklin stress-aged Malcolm more than the years. Malcolm King ran up the mileage with that Bad Seed. After the drive by shooting, the two men just started doing small things for each other. The years in the Arizona desert had been kind to Malcolm King. Recovered his disposition, Levi realizes, wondering about his own. Levi recalls Neil (Fucking) Jardine tried to tag Malcolm with an “X”. That fell as flat as the M.L.K. Jokes. Malcolm soft-spoke his way out of that sort of problem. He is trying that out on me right now. Levi turns back to Malcolm King. The pair were not friends, just fellow survivors of a bygone age. Debts to pay, Malcolm owes him two lives. Levi feels bad calling that one in.

“What do you think I can do?”

The next deception. Levi built it on the phone in Albuquerque when Malcolm came out of the desert refuge. Malcolm cannot wrap his head around it yet. Malcolm is in the desert because he has (almost) turned his back on life’s complications, family complications. 

“Kale has it in his head that he is responsible for me. As I said on the phone, his mother wants me safe in some hospice where she can let me die guilt-free for her. She’d drop in enough to remind me not to change my will. I don’t blame her. I was never an uncle to her.” Levi cannot remember the embellishments to this gritty story. Malcolm King knows he is childless, endured Levi’s grousing. More slippage old man, he grimaces. “I kept family at arms length, very happily. The kid, he’s a different generation. I’m not hiding.” Levi pauses to sip cold coffee, regret clouding his face. Wrong thing to say to Malcolm King. He tries to move on smoothly, almost believing the touching tale he is weaving for the skeptical man. “When Fourteen was ten, he came down to the hospital. He attached himself to me.”

Levi can see it, gives himself the pleasure of living this Hallmark Storytelling, made-for-TV movie. The funny thing is, Levi knows this is what young Jeremy Gates would do. The thought makes doing this deception easier, righteous even. “My cancer hit him hard. It sent him into a spin.” Levi is luxuriating in this fabricated relationship with Fourteen. “The fighting with his mother made it worse. It was all so pointless.”

Malcolm King knows pointless family fighting. Franklin, in his way, was just as bent on destruction as this old man in a Luxor Winnebago. Malcolm could not stand around and watch. Lonely evenings at The Pueblo, before Roman Montreal brought his family out, Levi knew heart-and-soul he should have dragged Franklin with him. Always too late with that boy.

“I gave up on talking, just up and left. Kale caught up with me in Pennsylvania.”

“How did he find you?”

Good question, Levi offers an Ed-Harris-worthy grin. “I talked about my plans, let the kid plot routes. I thought it would help. Crazy kid hitchhiked there with two dangerous drifters. We made a deal. I would take him with me. He would not tell his mom and dad where I was.” Levi rolls his eyes dramatically. “Young fool would have tried to dog my tail across America.” Time for a heavy sigh, “I need to shake him now.” Shrug helpless, “Can’t let his folks know. Malcolm, I need a head start. I think I need to be on the ground in Vietnam before the shit hits the fan and they declare me incompetent.”

The plan is fraught with danger. Count on a privileged whitey like Levi Fisher to ask a brother to piss off a frantic mother. The FBI was probably hot on Levi’s tailpipe. “I entertain him for?”

“A week, maybe two.” Levi finishes for Malcolm. “I’ll send a message to let you know I am in the clear. You will need to poke your head up more than once every four weeks, for God’s sake. I’ll tell you when I’m in the clear, then let him call home. You’re living off grid, doing this Pueblo-commune thing with your…”

“Community,” the old man finishes for Levi. “Kale keeps his eyes on you. I can see that. He reminds me of Nelson at that age. Not so tough, not into the street drugs, but stubborn.” Malcolm’s eyes say sceptical. “How do I keep him pinned down for fourteen days?”

“Tell him I went back in the hospital. He will believe that, feel relieved. When that wears thin, Kale will start working on you. Kale is going to be a writer some day. I just know it. He will spin some sad story to get me back, or get in touch with his parents. Kale has a big heart. He can’t bear to think of me dying all alone.” Levi says it calmly. It might even be true. He could wrap that thought-possibility around him at Mỹ Sơn Temple. Fourteen lingering about him as Nguyen Huu Tuan welcomes him home. This is all that matters. A near-fifteen, be honest, just-a-hooker’s feelings comes a distant second. Jeremy Gates will get his after-March ending and a little more. “He is just a kid. He will lie to get his way.”

Malcolm’s weathered face hardens. “Nelson taught me how to read a lie.” Behind the hardness, Malcolm is sad. Nelson lied for a fix and to get out of a fix. Train-wrecked thirty-five, he broke his old man’s heart. Arizona would not freeze-dry the monkey off Nelson’s back. Malcolm is not blind. Samuel Faulkner would have seen a kindred spirit in Malcolm’s Nelson. His son taught him to read a lie. He was not sure about Levi’s story. “This will come back to bite me.”

“No, once it is done, Fourteen will be relieved. He looks young, I know, but he’s eighteen, left a girlfriend behind to chase me down. Let him hate me a little for stranding him with you. His folks will sort it out. He is young, I’m an old man dying like old men do. Fourteen will go back to his life.” Malcolm reads truth in this, nods….

“The bitchy niece and her brood in Hartford. She is not going to be happy.”

“It’s not a happy story.” Levi poses. “Dirty laundry, I‘ve shared a bit over the years. Don’t forget, Fourteen is eighteen. That’s a man. He has the right to come and go as he pleases, despite what mamma says.”

“Christ, don’t I know it.” Malcolm narrows his eyes. He met the boy coming and going. Slight build, clean face, not the eighteen Franklin was. “He doesn’t look it.”

“He thinks he is going to Vietnam with me, brought his passport. Did you want to check it out?” Levi raises an eyebrow. “He has good genes, like his old uncle. I was a baby face corpsman when we met. Don’t you remember?”

“I suppose,” Malcolm agrees, thoughts on his lost son. “I respect what you are doing. Stepping out before there is nothing left but an empty husk. Why Vietnam? Nothing could get me back there. Bad memories, misdeeds, and bad weather.”

“Not even to say hello to your leg?” They share a smile. Levi lets it drop. “Close the circle, I suppose.” He mutters downcast. “It gets pretty hot here in the southwest.”

“Not like in-country,” Malcolm counters. “I feel clean here. Boston was a shit hole.” Malcolm King surveys the trim old man across the table. Levi Fisher’s Boston was Wellesley Hills. Flowers-in-the-window, Prius-on-the-street, million dollar zip code living. No way Levi Fisher wandered into Malcolm’s old neighbourhood. The closest Dr. Fisher ever got to Roxbury Crossing was laying his hands on chest-shot Nelson in the long ago. Still, Malcolm and Levi shared sweat-rank fatigues side by side, little difference between them then. They had that, so Levi could ask this. “So what happens next?”

“I had a setback in Albuquerque. Fourteen was on his own for a week. There have been a few other times along the way. Fourteen is used to it now. We will drive the RV out to your place. You can get me back. I just have to say I need a hospital stay. Lie to him. Tell Fourteen I am having surgery after all.”

Malcolm shakes his head. “This boat is not going to make it over that road.” This is a problem on problems. The old men talk it out. “Roman has the Dodge over at R&S loading up. I will have the Bollinger packed tight too. We don’t come out unless we have to. We make the trips worth our while. We can split you up. I will take Kale out with me, say you are following in the Dodge with Roman.”

“Only, I don’t.” Levi finishes. “You drop the hospital excuse on him later.”

Levi looks at his cold coffee, thinking back to Gifford Pinchot Park, near Harrisburg, and the August cluster-fuck in a rusted Bronco. His underage whore hookup turned kidnap-victim. Those angry-tangerine tears make this moment a resentful complication. Levi planned a Tuan-fucking memory tour. Him leisurely recharging hard-body-memories of steamy Da Nang rooms, smelling Mỹ Sơn Temple across the salt-pan, bread-yeast, incense-musk of some well-used street boy’s spent body. Masterbate-suck-fuck organisms out, enough for three (doaner, dying, and dead).

Levi sighs. He glances at Malcolm. Well might you sigh in frustration, old man. Levi is death’s-door now. This is his make-a-wish-foundation, Mỹ Sơn Temple moment. Jeremy Gates is not going to spoil it. His Boston lawyer tells him bitchy Hartford niece is having kittens, imagining his money is spinning down the drain. Fuck her, Levi frowns. Forget monkey-wrench Fourteen, Cordelia would stop the hemorrhaging inheritance if she could. Contemplating Patrick’s Dark Net offer, Levi planned to stuff 5K down a young hooker’s crotch, last lap dance for the old queer with a thing for adolescence. Levi was content to send the damaged goods on his way to some California street corner for his next-hookup (no hard feelings). Another slight-of-hand con game, Levi shrugs.

“His parents will sort him out. Fourteen is young.”

“Where did he pick up the nickname?”

“What?” Levi stares.

“Fourteen, you call your grandnephew Fourteen all the time.” Malcolm smiles. It is an innocent question. So many question marks circling always-private Levi Fisher. The tense-taciturn teenager Malcolm met is not one of them. He is just uptight, want-to-be-responsible boy playing nurse to granduncle Levi. Little wonder that the boy was tense, if Levi has been crashing.

“Well… Wide Receiver.” Levi drops quietly, ironic smile on his face. He is facing the broad bed over Malcolm’s shoulder. Easy to picture Fourteen quivering-hard, wide-receiving his favorite dildo. “Kale played rec football when he was ten, doesn’t now. Number fourteen; he lived in his jersey, so the nickname stuck.” Levi likes the tangerine-goodness of the fairytale. Little boys are just little boys to Levi, but it is a come-alive story in his mind. It could have happened. Little Jeremy Gates bouncing into his hospital, wandering the confusing wards. Searching confidently for a grandfather-type. Real Kale sucks. Get him off a couch to play football and the coach would have him on the line. Not light-on-his-feet, quick-with-the-hands Jeremy Gates.

“Fourteen,” grunts Malcolm. The boy in question is rambling down the road toward them, shoulder close to some willowy-woman-on-the-cusp. It is a football player-cheerleader Instagram. Nelson played ball in the hopeful before. Malcolm is in the off-the-grid after, praying Keon and Vondell will not follow their gang-banger father. Only, there is Samuel Faulkner threatening holy hell if Malcolm agrees to come back with this boy. It is enough to make an old man wish he could follow Levi’s lead. Malcolm nods toward the road. “He is back.”

The sameness of Old Route 66 lulls Levi into a contented doze. The short hike, from Flagstaff to Grand Canyon Caverns Grotto’s dinosaur distraction, leaves Levi fresh. Luxor Winnebago living is giving way in his mind to Four Star hotels and first class travel. Phenix to Mỹ Sơn Temple, Fourteen-free final step back to Nguyen Huu Tuan. Shouldering the Grand Canyon, Fourteen’s restless discontent breaks free. “We could have just driven up the road for a look.” The disultry argument follows them down the historic highway till they reach the sandy green dinosaur bolted to the ground.

For a time, there is time. Malcolm King will meet them next day on the dusty-cold road to his hidden nowhere. They follow the tourists to the grotto. Levi is memorizing the boy, noting the way he draws strangers into his tangerine orbit. A girl, much like the short haired beauty in Flagstaff, cold-showers her parent’s obligatory vacation enthusiasm. Levi winces at this display of adolescent annui. She rolls her eyes skeptical when the guide delivers his rote lesson on geology. The more graceless boys Levi has handled also make an art of sarcasm. It seems the age to skillfully spot defects and the girl’s gleefully does. Old man paunches, the garish clash of one woman’s color, the guide’s enthusiasm, it is all near-worthy. Not Fourteen, of course. Fourteen’s lanky maleness is the only attraction leaving this girl speechless. Levi absently counts the Instagram/SnapChat efforts. Fourteen is content to ignore the adulation. He is taken with the gloom.

Sandy rocks crack crazy, opening clefts and narrow passageways off into lightless oblivion. Floodlights cast odd shadows, sun yellow, lava red. Voices echo. Fourteen’s familiar rust-belt accent is the only voice on Levi’s mind. He tries to erase the unwelcome intruders to this underground. Grey hairs like himself, chatting up the well-formed, well-groomed grandson (whatever). Levi thinks of Orpheus journeying down to the underworld. It is not the same. Levi cannot be Hades and Orpheus (Fourteen might beg to differ). Levi Hades-captured his Fourteen-Eurydice in Pennsylvania, hot-August-fresh from the Bronco-bozos. Now feeling like Orpheus, Levi hopes he has the will to not look back as he draws this captured boy back to Spring sunlight. Winter is done. Caught in this Arizona tourist trap, Levi does not feel the sacred. The sacred clings to Mỹ Sơn Temple and its potential to evoke Tuan. Fourteen’s laugh echoes at some comment. Levi imagines them alone in utter darkness, cold cement beneath their bare flesh, no eyes to see, just echoed gasps, fiery flesh, male odours, touching, moving, heartbeats. Maybe Nirvana with Tuan will be like that. After he reaches Mỹ Sơn Temple, Levi will find out.

There is no place like home, there is no place like home, there is no place like home. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! It is about a boy. It is about doing no harm. Levi intends to bury the boy in this desert while he flees-unfree to Vietnam. He is not Breaking-Bad gunning his young companion with the Beretta Nano, burying the evidence with a rusty spade. Levi wants to send Fourteen back to Ohio-Kansas guilt-free, Levi-safe.

He looks at the blue bullseye wandering about the screen. Fourteen described the shadow-hallo as the bomb blast zone. It is only the harmless-I’ll-be-watching-you red dotted trail of the expensive watch hanging from the boy’s bony wrist. The times I wished Nguyen Huu Tuan had this James Bond connection in Da Nang, Levi muses. Old man maybe, but Levi has never been averse to technology. The Arizona desert has already captured Fourteen’s attention. He roams it at every stop. Malcolm King and parched silences might amuse Fourteen while Levi evaporates West, Far East. Levi abandons the computer display tracking the boy’s SmartWatch. He stares at the bulky envelope before sending his young friend’s watch a text-threat that he has wandered too far off the reservation.

Don’t look behind the curtain. Those teenagers Levi fucked. He was never comfortable drawing their backdrop-curtains free. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Of course, it had to be the usually ugly. Underage-flesh-market backstories have to be ugly. Levi never once asked Tuan how he felt in the Fucking Jardine after. Why would he extend the courtesy to some twitchy teen in Baltimore (Chicago, Miami…)? Live it up, and let live, ignorant. There have been a few, Levi still knows their stage names. There have been a few who wanted to talk it out to Levi’s open bedside manner. Didn’t ask, don’t tell please. It is sexual surgery, not a conversation. Slam, bam, thank you young man.

The August Patrick-John cyclone dropped Fourteen into the Luxor Winnebago bound-dizzy. It has been a long and winding fugitive road from Pennsylvania to Mỹ Sơn Temple. The insanity inside the bulky envelope explains a lot. Something selfish makes Levi want to share the contents with the boy. The boy just there beyond the RV window, coming back to him like Tuan from his daily wandering. Levi had travelling plans, plans change. In North Platte, Levi handed Fourteen the Beretta Nano, placed the Damascus Steel, Hikari folding knife on Fourteen’s palm, dared the boy to pull the pin on his righteous-anger, satchel-bomb Levi in the dark street, give in to a natural revenge-impulse. Levi stood still drunk in the street, feeling so guilty. Do it, already! Double dare you! But Jeremy Gates would not. Self preservation? Maybe, but this un-Tuan like behaviour deserves its own reward.

The bulky envelope he has lingered-malingered for in Albuquerque was never payment for services rendered. It was the means to Levi’s shared Mỹ Sơn Temple peace. It never would have worked, Levi reminds himself, we would be caught. So let the contents of the bulky envelope be Fourteen’s weregild. Life’s (death’s) unintended consequences. The bulky envelope sent from a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy (nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more).

Just place his sweet-faced, hard-body promise, eager sexiness into Malcolm King’s hands without another word. What do you expect old man? That the boy will want to take the risk? Be grateful for the unintended consequences of an old man’s deadly intent? It will be the right thing to do. Let the lawyers pass on the payment-for-services-rendered-surprise in the promised Ohio-After. Door opens and Fourteen steps in with a desert sunset glow.

Levi shuts his laptop, drops it onto the bulky envelope. This is end-of-the-line Frazer Wells. This is the last night. Levi takes a sip of wine, telegraphing intent to the boy in the doorway. The years drop away just drinking in the dusty pants and pea jacket availability of the boy. “Let’s take a shower.” Levi signals.

“It’s getting warmer. At least before the sun started to set.” Fourteen leaves the black coat on the couch. He approaches Levi at a bent finger.

“Let me, tonight.”

This resonates with that long ago last coupling with Tuan. He came into their stifling room, tranquil. Most times there was a fierce grappling at the start. That last time, they slow danced to the bed. Fourteen twists a wrist, offering the watch strap to Levi. The heavy watch slides off and Fourteen lets his arm drop. The white dress shirt and black jeans are Levi’s kink. The jeans are (perfectly) too tight now, flood-pant dangerously hinting at four-month’s silent stretching. Fourteen helps push them past his slim hips. His crisp white underwear rides down with them. A gentle press sends him into a pirouette stopped 180.

Levi strips, pausing often to trace contours. Worn fingers slide up the neck, combing the lengthening hair, coaxing Fourteen to bow his head in some sort of submission. When Levi is free, feeling twenty-something strong, he steps into the boy’s sensuous back. He will miss this, but he is in the now Zen of these last simple steps. Patrick-almost zoned-detached, ready to cast his latest conquest aside. Perhaps in the morning, for now, Levi celebrates a lifetime of this.

Fourteen is in his own now-Zen, body and mind centred on the unfolding moment. His head comes back against Levi’s cheek as a male forearm circles his rising chest, cups a flat breast. Fingers begin to play his rising cock. They slow dance spooned like this. Levi teasing the first orgasm. He is pulse-checking Fourteen’s progress with the fingers splayed across the boy’s breast. Many hands make short work. Fourteen’s fingers are guided to his scrotum. His clenched fingers feel the cardiac tug as Levi dry fucks his cock with his palm.

Sex is man-on-boy right. Four months and Shane-sex-dreams have been massaged-fucked from Fourteen’s malleable mind. Cameron was soft kisses, shy touches. Sex with Levi is stone-hard John driving into him and knowing what will strip the nerve endings off a boy’s body. Electro Glide, John-hard, but free of the Patrick-malice or the selfish Scott-Masturbation. Levi always celebrates Fourteen’s multifaceted manhood. With this old man (on a stimulating cocktail), sex is the great letting go of Jeremy Gates’ teenage closet-angst. Fourteen whimpers for relief, knowing he doesn't want it yet, knowing this is just getting undressed.

“What are you up to old man?” Fourteen whispers. Levi pauses to squeeze the boy’s hand tight around his stretched scrotum. Old hand covers young as they work the orbs together for a time. Fourteen captures Levi’s earlier cock-stroking rhythm. Lesson learned, Levi attacks the velvet shaft and a hard nipple. “Ahhh!” The boy cannot decide if he needs to arch his back, or press hard onto Levi’s Viagra-cock.

Levi catches Fourteen’s free hand where it has been clawing at a thigh. They are at the crest, so Levi tasks the boy to knead the swelling cock-head while they turn into the home stretch (first evening lap). Familiar noises, the vocabulary is unintelligible and high pitched. When Fourteen cums, and cums (and…) Levi clamps his hand over Fourteen’s leaking digits. Together they catch the flow (as best they can), holding it as Levi forces the boy to keep punishing his cock past pleasure. Finally, Levi guides the cupped hand slowly to Fourteen’s lips, smearing it about an open mouth. Satisfied with this beginning, Levi kisses cum clean.

Levi sends Fourteen to the bed, squeaky clean. The boy moves with confident strides, a knowing glance over his shoulder. Levi’s towel is still as he his eyes sweep the hair-dust calves, bare thighs, swelling glutes, and the handsome fat-free wedge above. Levi romances-fuckes the Patrick-ugly out of man-sex. Fourteen knows he is weight-in-gold worth the laying on of strong hands. Fourteen knows Levi Fisher has sculpted his Ohio clay into a Ming vase of breathless beauty. His open adolescent face says it. Fourteen is Levi-ready for the next nocturnal movement. Last step is a skip up onto the waiting bed. The boy pounces, rolls onto a haunch, strings vibrating. The waiting weight splays off across his perfect thigh.

This earns the boy a sardonic Ed Harris approval. Fourteen’s morphed into a cocky little bastard on the bed. Demanding in ways Nguyen Huu Tuan never was. Testosterone-saturated thatches of wire congregate in Fourteen’s pits and groin. He is child-clean elsewhere, but fourteen-tipping-fifteen is quivering at the starting line, ready for the second sprint.

Somewhere around Bull Shoals, Fourteen’s antennae-fingers sought out the places old men’s hair migrates. Full of questions, he listened without judgement as Levi good-humouredly mapped out expansions and retreats. Levi’s baldpate does not frighten Fourteen. Both his grandfather's suffer this. It is all in the immeasurable Levi after for Fourteen. “I think comb overs are stupid. Your hair looks good short.” Fourteen’s fingers and eyes were on Levi’s trimmed groin, though. Fourteen is too man-child proud-sensitive to trim his hard-won pubic hair. Levi just smiles at the beauty of it all.

“Grab the Icicle.”

It is a (goodbye) party, and Number 5 Sapphire is Fourteen’s favorite favour. Make sure he packs it, Levi makes a mental note. He joins the boy by the bed, watching as the spiral of blue almost corkscrews up the leg-cocked passage. It is a toss up which is better; watch the length of glass slide deep in a confident two step, or catch the play of emotions across the boy’s face. Levi settles on the parted lips and flickering furrows of Fourteen’s forehead. He waits for the final head toss and satisfied smile, before putting one foot on the bed against Fourteen’s shoulder. Fourteen’s mouth finds his cock.

Fourteen sucks cock, hands free. Mouth-lips devour the old man’s familiar shaft, measuring it in different ways. He is a young pup gnawing on old bone and gristle. Soft lips, soft flesh, Incisors bite the frenulum, ring the neck, scale the facia. He rocks back and forth on one elbow, his fingers sensitive to the muscle play along his side. Multitasking manipulation of the long glass dildo deep-delving in his cavity. Push it in, fight the slow release with Levi-trained muscle-lips. Flavourless lollipop sucking lips, on the spiral-blue ice-veins. Rhythmic ridges echo the old man’s old-man veins netting the old-man Viagra-rod. His body ungulates to the matching tensions.

Smell Fourteen. Smell the pig-rooting, soil richness of truffle shaved delectably over the dew-damp thighs spread for the icicle offering. Soft-skin wrist and forearm take the pulse of Fourteen’s next erection. Fingers push it in. Arm caresses a cock that cannot stop weeping for the joy of paired lips echoing man cock, dildo penetration. Fourteen smells accents of vanilla rising from his own heat, snuffled out in the retreating perfumes of an old man choosing to end life proudly.

Lips come off cock, head lies against an almost youthful, not quite gravity-defeated belly. “Thank you Levi.” Just a pause, then lips that praise resume their pleasure.

Thank you for what? Levi wonders. The time is right. Levi pulls away, and the boy knows the time is right too. Easily one hundred times they practiced-perfected this dance. The metronome of thrusts are not counted out. It is a quiver-touch sensitivity between them, part of the Thank-you-Levi Fourteen ejaculated. In the tight grapple to shift man-weight onto (into) hungry adolescence, the Thank you is inarticulate obvious. Jeremy Gates does not have to think. Levi Fisher has taught him how to feel.

No holding back, that’s wrong. Impaled repeatedly on the Viagra-hard cock, Fourteen holds back for something. Fifteen-(almost)-year-old cock unthinking drips onto his navel, masterbates itself mindlessly on wrinkled belly flesh, waiting, waiting, waiting for the lip-fire, prostate punishing, muscle-coaxing next hallelujah. It comes, he cums in a babble of tongues only Levi can translate. Fourteen holds back for something sort of Cameron-Shane missing in this man-fucking grapple.

Hard to think of that while Levi Fisher grasps the situation. Grasps twice-spent cock and matches his burning thrusts to a fist pounding reminder that Fourteen, take away two, leaves twelve. Well, as the poet said, A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for? This is goodbye, so make it several. Levi probably came himself. The ejaculation is lost in friction and old man insensitivity. Viagra-strong he cocks on, storing memories for the last sane dash for Mỹ Sơn Temple. The long night gives them time. Levi Fisher praises his failing body for this final gift of strength. Levi bats one out into center field. It coats convulsing chest, gums up the works between his palm and the rug-burn shaft.

It seems a crime to sleep. Sleep can come after Fourteen vanishes. Levi could tally the hours left before the long sleep. I’ll miss this, but he won’t really. It is hours later, fucks later. The last selfishly taken cums were dry-heave painful for the boy. This was good, not just the long night Levi cannot end, but the long trip. The boy-warmed shaft of twisted glass has been oil-anointed often, swabbed clean, exchanged for old (but willing) flesh, kept mindlessly busy. Fourteen is fucked out of his mind. Still, somewhere behind the REM-busy eyelids Fourteen dreams an endless orgy where maybe nothing is held back.

So much life in him, bring him to Vietnam with you, a part of Levi urges. But he won’t really. The Luxor Winnebago is Arizona-December cold. Levi cannot sleep. This lazy dildo fuck as the boy sleeps (stirs) is just a last celebration of life. Levi doctor-knows he is peace-of-mind-high on the coming suicide. Life has been a difficult relationship since the Tet Offensive (fifty years!). Levi is ready for the breakup. The young life beneath his hand is satin-goodness. Fourteen’s back, the young heat radiating from the parted thighs his knuckles brush, it is not Nguyen Huu Tuan. Tuan waits for him in Vietnam. Levi knows he must face his lost lover without the distractions of another. Fourteen must be painfully puffy. You should leave him alone, but he won’t.

Fourteen shifts his leg until a knee is pointing toward his chin. A hand slides down to cradle the knee in fresh contortion. “Deeper, harder.” Fourteen mumbles. Five-hour fuck moves into six. Soon, there is a fresh release somewhere that moves Fourteen to gasp. Icicle Number 5, Sapphire rests deep in him, offering a chance to drift down into the satiated depths.

Levi and Fourteen have never figured out what the Par is on this fairway. Minigolf with boys, Levi has played through many times, he likes Jeremy Gates’ hazards. Like Fourteen with Evie-Grace, Levi has not counted the strokes. He is only counting the hours now. Young manhood stirs on the bed, mumbles something. Encouragement, protest? Levi cares as little as he did when he took his scalpel to the boy’s foreskin.

The boy’s arm releases his leg, slides up to frame his tousled, sweaty head. The freed leg drifts down, easing muscles that want to sleep. Fourteen mumbles something to someone, then smiles tangerine-soft. Levi is too proud to think the boy dreams of him. There is some younger lover on Fourteen’s mind. That is okay, he nods slightly in agreement at the thought. Somewhere tropical-sweat-hot, Jeremy Gates will find his own Tuan. A could-be-forever-after Other to carry in his heart to seventy and beyond. Someone he would travel across the world to rest with.

The burden of the plump Manila envelope, the morning conversation he needs to have, occupies Levi’s mind. Absently, Levi squeezes out more body glide onto the stretched lips. It flows over the pinkness, flows around the tempered glass. The glistening dildo resumes its work. Fourteen shifts once on the bolster pillow across his hips. He stretches his long legs, letting the narrow thighs part instinctively. The thumb-sucking security of the constant slow-sly penetration is as natural as the soft rise and fall of each breath. It’s so slow now, like final breaths. The young cock won’t harden, but that will not stop the next nocturnal shudder when it happens. Old-man-awake, Levi lets his life’s-loves flash before his eyes in a private life celebration. Let him sleep, but Levi doesn’t.