Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 21:29:14 -0800 From: Tim Stillman Subject: "The Grapes of Ralph" "The Grapes of Ralph" by Timothy Stillman CA. country side, wet, is not pretty. Ralph, wet, was pretty. Ralph's hair was matted down in the hard driven rain. He was riding his Schwinn blue bike named Succotash down the dusty country road just outside the city. He was ten. His bike, peeled and faltering and dented, was fifteen. It did not ride well. Ralph however at the crusty old age of ten rode exceedingly well. As for instance, now. Here in gray rain and whistling wind. Past all the men he would have been with more often, if time had not been spent readying his geometry or history or English. For his was an indecipherable lot. It was not sexuality per se. It was a desire to be loved. That and truly and simply and exactly. He was a runtogether boy with runtogether thoughts and a runtogether life, there with Gram in the little white stucco house on Terminal Ave. Which is not a great name for anyone to live on. Especially not a ten year old named Ralph. Who had discovered at the age of nine and three quarters that there were lots of persons who were not loved. He tried to look up the long ruler of the years not happened yet for him, and tried to imagine what that must be like, what the faces in the crowd did when even the crowd was doing better than the anonymous faces in question, faces winking out and smiling and then gone. But he had himself and his whippet body and his sweet penis and his warm balls and his tight ass and he showed all that equipment in his blue shorts tight as tight could be, and here in the summertime rain, he wore no shirt, and his tits were little brown berries, and his chest was smooth and clean, and his abdomen was rudder board strong. He ran his bike and he ran his motor and he pushed his long brown hair out of his eyes and he tried to signal to himself that he was going to something important, something that had him there in it somewhere. Something that included a boy named Ralph Abernathy, and faith and begora, that would be him. Sex in the rain was fun. If the man wanted to have it there. Sex in the rain was more fun if the boy he could have it with wanted him with it too, but in that case, Ralph himself didn't have to be there. For he would pretzel himself into anything the boy wanted him to be and the boy didn't want him to be anyone named Ralph because that was the name of a grocery store chain and who can get their motors humming when they're thinking about a clown in front of a grocery at three in the morning, said clown holding up a sign and balloons advertising the baloney price knockoff for the next hour you lucky dogs you? The road spewed up heat vibrations, little fun house mirror things, and all of Ralph shook bone deep in the cold rain on the dumpy frumpy country road, where the night was not yet but the day was doing a fine imitation of it. What he was doing was following the man's car, the man he was going to have sex with wherever that might be, and Ralph thought it might be easier on him and safer too, Officer Friendly had suggested many things, but Ralph thought of this one himself, if he did not ride in the car with the man, but instead followed him on Succotash. Ralph was in the parlance of the time a hustler. He had been for about four months now and he found that he was real only when someone touched him, only when someone wanted to put their hands down his shorts, wanted to roll his little weapon around a bit and make a stiffy out of it. Because when they pulled him from his clothes and he was naked with them, it seemed as though for the first time he had clothes on for real. It was impossible to explain, but he felt as though he had armor on then, the molten kind, the kind that were impervious to pain or loneliness. Of his own and of theirs. Because they, the five men, and the one boy, had been so kind to him it half way made him weep. He had never known men and one boy could be that kind. Could seem to worship him. Could stroke him and envelop him and put their hands on his tiny firm butt and just smile and smile and make it seem like they were performing a laying on of hands, instead of just helping him jack. The rain was a curtain and other cliches. The wind was not cold but the rain made him goosebumpy and he wished a picnic in the rain because it seemed as though hands involved themselves more then with him, it seemed as though they wanted to find hiding places inside him even more than when they were not being rained on. Rainy days were best for sex, Ralph had decided. And if someone wanted to see him golden shower in a rainbow arc for their eyes and cameras or whatever, here, man, watch this whiz, it will steammmmm. Ralph was not from the Tenderloin and he was from Terminal Avenue which was a terrible joke that kids and teachers never got tired of razzing him about, but he was not from the Tenderloin and he lived with his grandmother and he had gotten a lamp from his mother two birthdays ago, sent from who knows where, and he loved that little tasseled lamp with the blue light bulb that came with it and had it on his night table in his little dump of a room. He loved the blue light making everything like blueboy's world on an old Dragnet rerun he saw once. Cool and groovy and rad and all that jazz. Even though he doubted his mother sent it, that it was his grandmother who bought it for him as a cover for his mom who probably was a street hustler and probably was dead by now if you think about it, for she left him when he was two and she was off to see the world after she dumped him on Terminal Ave. And he sent his mom a picture but his grandmom wouldn't let him know the address, said she would mail it, that it was a secret so he said okay, because he knew the score at that point. Damn, this was one long ride, where the hell was Fred, in that old clunker of a van, going anyway? Yeah, he thought, Ralph and Fred, names to conjure on and make juju forever more just on the melodic sound of them, silver flute in the background, and rain coming down in buckets though of course there were no buckets for the rain which just came down free form and all free as a bird. He had met his first "trick" (it made him feel giddy to say the word, like suddenly he was something and somebody) outside school one fine day when this gasoline smelling biker guy from the high school across the weedy lot had been on his hog and straddled it right outside the grammar school and the biker guy named Diesel, of course, started talking to him, and the kids around him getting ready to board busses or get in parents' cars or walk home were pretty damned impressed a biker with the leather jacket and the leather cap and the black gloves and the face that looked like broken concrete was talking to the little wussie boy from Terminal A. Wussie Boy's stock went up three points in that school for the duration of Diesel. The biker terrified Ralph at first, just talking to the guy and Ralph had never known how shy he had been till he was around Diesel, but Diesel knew things and Ralph wanted to know things too. Like who hung the moon for this arrogant biker prick and why was he glad handing himself by talking under his leather jacket wing a little boy no one wanted except his grandmother who let's face it got an extra check because of him. And Ralph learned and he read or looked at the pictures of stroke magazines and he was told about his equipment, but of course Ralph knew all this stuff already, and in no time he had Diesel derailed and eating out of Ralph's delicate flowery hand with the crinkle lines in it all freshly minted and the hands sweet boy smelling. And Ralph never misused his power with this lug name of Diesel, but he knew how to taunt and to play and to hold back and to rush forward and to rush backward again, and then toy with his little boy tits and make Diesel's tongue fairly hang out of that kind stupid sounding mouth, little mustache up there making the biker so bold, ha-- thought Ralph. Who had never wanted to be a child up till that point but to have a high schooler a bruiser and widow maker (whatever that was, Bruiser Diesel was fond of calling himself that and laughing manfully at it), and suddenly Ralph knew he was in a scene from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" and he was the boy with the golden ticket, and he was worshipped by Diesel--do you get it, bicycle name of Succotash?, he asked his bike, slapping the headlight that did not work, with his right hand, suddenly angry at being so happy. Happiness tricked a person, so don't get too happy, for it's like the box with the lamp in it from good old mom (wink wink) sent from nowhere at all, and he rushed the paper off after he stared at the handwritten card that said "from mom to my son" (she doesn't remember my name) and he found that lamp and he thought his heart would be the chest burster because from now on mom would remember him every birthday, okay, skip one or two, but she would remember eventually, he had no doubt or fear. Round the curve and more country roads to go, and Ralph massaged his dick to a good hard stiffy, and he couldn't want for the young man in that car up there just ahead (it was just ahead, wasn't it?, he couldn't see the thing, now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen the thing in some time, just poor visibility, that was all)-- --to see him stiff and his balls tight and his little boy hand jacking off that sweet pea thing, and one time the runtogether boy had been dressed in a Superman Halloween costume, and had his dick pulled out the slit the man had cut into the red shorts area of the uniform, with Ralph (all tough and determined looking) banging back a bean bag in the shape of Bozo the Clown while the man took shot after shot and later showed them to the boy and had him autograph them, and they both had fallen down on the floor and laughed at how silly that was, and then the man sucked him off while Ralph was still costumed and it made Ralph kind of sad for he didn't know what reason, but it was still kinda fun. This guy here, the one up ahead, had answered Ralph's ad in the classifieds of "The Advocate." Christ, it had taken Ralph an eternity to save up for an ad with so few words he had to spend three hours whittling everything in it to the bare bone. It was weird getting the copy of it from the paper, telling him when it would run, and for how long, how long, hell? one issue, who could afford more? The classifieds was where the money was with that newspaper. If they charged him a fortune for a five word ad, my god, look at all those book lengths ads they publish, all that walking on the beach in the sunset and sharing my music with you--well, barf me with a titty spoon, Ralph thought. They're sure cashing in on it. He was at his mail box every day after school to get the mail. He knew there would be tons of offers. He knew the code words to put in the ad, and everything and after a month and a half snail crawled along, here was his one crummy response. The one man and Ralph could have hailed a taxi and gone to the Tenderloin for real and had a dozen tricks in one night and could have made money at it. He never charged his tricks money though. Though he needed money desperately. He looked like an elf, little pointy chin, ears a tender small human retool on Frodo's in the movie and he was so limber he could almost suck himself off if he wanted to, with those long seductive legs almost over his head, showing his entire pink rosy ass hole to the lucky man watching him. He knew how to use dildos now, and he knew what cum tasted like and he knew it tasted different each time from each man, and from the boys too he did not doubt. Ralph stopped his bike. He got off and pulled his shorts down his legs and over his bare feet. He doubled them in his hand, got back on the bike and thought this was pretty cool and daring, riding a bike boy naked, with his little grape nuts warm on the seat underneath his warm butt, and his penis growing longer and harder until it stood up at his abdomen.. He felt wild and abandoned. He felt free and his butt crack felt good on the bike seat, though a foam rubber bike seat would have felt nicer, still this old one of fake leather was okay. He pushed his legs up and down, his naked feet turning the pedals. The red and purple and pink streamers bedraggled in the rain and wind, hanging from the bike handlebar. The baseball card soggy now and not making its click click sound in the back wheel, the card probably fell off back there a ways anyhow. He liked being like this in the rain. He thought if that idiot up there could see me now he would love me and love me and he would not stop, his man's curly black hair would be under my fingers and hands as I pushed him up and down on my dick and that would be the whole world to that man and the boy would sigh and moan and choke and cry and do all the usual things boys do, he guessed, when they get their dicks washed for them. Like a car wash, a dick wash, and the boy laughed at that. There was no green on this day that seemed as though he was on the moon. Ralph wondered if he would ever see the sunlight again, wondered if he would ever feel dry again or cool again, and he was beginning to be a bit bored, and he had promised he would let this guy fuck him if the boy wanted and he would be real gentle honest because I've never been with a chicken before, and Ralph did not quite like being called a chicken, but those were the names of the game and so be it. Ralph didn't really know why it came to him or how it came to him as he stopped the bike again, his steady heart and pulses beating faster, faster than the bike ride should have made them, but suddenly like a cartoon light bulb, or like a blue light bulb in a gray tasseled lamp that stood on his bedside table, the lamp he always woke up to, the first thing he saw every morning, and sometimes he would touch it with one hand, before he woke, as though it was magic or something but we don't need mom just cause she gave birth to me doesn't make her special, frogs give birth too I don't see anyone holding a parade for them or scorpions or salamanders or boa constrictors--- --Speaking of which, Ralph yelled out to the man who was long gone for whatever reason, "Hey, Dad, hey you! Asshole! I got a boa constrictor myself wanna come see? Diesel promised me it was the tastiest little boy wigwam in the whole wide world, did Diesel, and the other men they just fawned all over me, they were trying to find their son or brothers who didn't exist or did but not the way they wanted them to be, or one guy up in the Palace Hotel he just held me on the bed and he cried into my chest and he said momma don't go away again just please don't I've looked for you everywhere and I can't give up trying. They made me all their sadnesses and a window to open and get through them somehow--with me, goddammit, with me. I counted for that. I counted for something!" But Dad, and now Ralph was sure that was his dad, did not reappear, and Ralph was standing in the rain without his brief shorts. And he wished he could go somewhere where people weren't all the fuckin' time leaving you and not having the fuckin' courtesy to tell you why the hell they were doing it or where the hell they were going. He had found Dad, and maybe Dad had figured it out too and Dad took the chumpville road never to be seen again. I'm loved, Dad, he thought to no one least of all himself, the men and the one boy they adored me they lived for me and they never betrayed me till they were through with me, and they held me and wanted me to hold their dicks and whisper to them and tell their dicks how ten year old boys want it up the ass badddddd and they don't hurt me Dad, and they don't leave me till they're onto someone else or the morning light shines in the grimy hotel or motel window and a new day is starting and they have to get to work and I have to get to school and Gran will tan my hide for being out all night one more time. Ralph wished he had a toke. Wished he had a man or boy touching him and kissing him and sucking him and rubbing his spine and telling him he was the greatest little boy who ever lived, and he was Charlie Buckets at that time, from the golden ticket in the movie and the rain was not coming down in buckets so he could not be Charlie because a fellow named for rain buckets was sore out of luck when there were no buckets for the rain to come down in. Might as well name me after a rainbow because that's not even real. He lay his bike down on the dirty wet country road and walked over to where the grass was, and he sat down and leaned against a old bark torn tree that had been through god knows how many decades of life, and he stroked his penis that had no foreskin though two of the men he had been with did and that did not intrigue him, because he liked his penis right there ready to go, so you wouldn't have to unpeel it like a banana or something. Ready for action at a moment's notice. Ralph stroked himself and he remembered the men and gasoline smelling dirty fingernailed Diesel who might as well have been a man, no boy he. And Ralph remembered all the chins on his chest and his legs and his crotch as the mouths above those chins played him like lonely guitar music after an off day at the tracks, and though one man tried to get him to try a needle or two, Ralph pushed it away, and the man said addictions come in all sizes, even small, like you, and the man tongued the boy's tits hard and the boy held the man's raging stiff penis and the boy put his hands on the balls of the man and underneath them, and they felt all dangly and hairy, and, for Ralph, wrong, but if these men could see into themselves through him, then some of them, one of them, might some day, accidentally, see him in them, or, more important, see himself in himself. Ralph came, sighed, rose on his hips a little, felt the rain and the tickly grass and the tree bark he had ground himself into when he came, and he sat there for a while, dumbly, waiting immeasurably waiting, and knowing his Dad had left him again and it was a joke, just one stupid joke after the other and that's all fuckin' people were good for, leaving one another and never coming back and making you the butt of their stupid jokes and getting real mad when you don't laugh about it too. When he was like this, when he put his hands all over himself, when he remembered and imagined the men and boys of past and future, jacking was the worse thing of all, the isolated grubby silly feeling after the coming. You feel like god's laughing his ass off you right this second at you and only you. I would have liked to have a rain picnic, and the food getting all wet, no matter how well you wrap it in Saran Wrap, and I'd like to lie on a checkerboard table cloth on the wet wet ground and look for the Walrus and the Sea Turtle waddling over to meet us as the man takes me in his mouth and it is so good to be in that dark wet little hole of a mouth and I could look in there and see if I'm right, see if my dad's really in there, and then Terminal A won't count, and granma bringing me to church every Saturday and making me sing ever goddam hymn word for word, and my mother leaving and not remembering me, all that will be worth it. Because that man up there all up and gone like everybody else was my Dad or could lead me to him or tell me where he is hiding. That would not have been so much to ask, I don't want to spend the rest of my life looking for him and I would have let that man fuck me if he did it slow when I was on my hands and knees and waiting for the feel of that initial thrust, whatever it felt like. I should start charging money, the boy who had a name he couldn't stand, call me Killer instead, walked back to his bike, put on the wadded up shorts, turned the bike around and headed for home again. He hoped he wasn't lost out in this tangle of country roads, but he knew he would wind his way home to Terminal A, cause when you have a place that isn't your home, it's like a magnet, it keeps drawing you back and will never leave you and never let you leave it and its soggy flower garden that looked like so many melted broken rainbow colors once bright now vague and bland, and his gran who dragged him to church. Grandma who took photos of him, before the garden, in the house, at church, wherever, in his ratty church suit with its too big pants and its too tight shirt and tie cause he was her precious precious, "smile your pretty boy smile at me now" click click and she'd pinch his cheek and hold him against her cotton print dress and the house would be hot as hell and he would get yelled at for getting drenched today in the rain. Might as well get used to it, Ralph thought. I guess they call this life. One thing about it, I'm not a clown standing in front of a supermarket, holding a sign, at three in the morning, that reads LOW PRICE ON BALONEY FOR ONE HOUR!!!! But it was all baloney, Ralph knew, when you come right down to it. Who the hell buys baloney at three in the morning anyway? Do people set their alarm clocks, staggering with sleep depravation, and get to Ralph's in the nick of time and hope for the best deal? How crazy is that? I mean, would you want people knowing that? Ralph shook his head. The rain was slowing down. He would pick a more reliable trick next time out. Every place every event every moment of your life is so much like a school that can really teach you important true things they don't dare mention in phony baloney school? Oh yes.