The rain comes, melting the world before my eyes, turning
mountains into molehills, the black-encrusted curbside residue left from what
once had been pure, a blessing to be rid of it, as if what we once welcomes has
long since worn out its welcome, all the labor we took to pile it all so high,
only to watch it shrink again, still dignified, still determined to survive, even
now when it becomes all too clear that its season has come to an end, when such
monuments can no longer endure the change as the chill that brought it is lost,
and we are forced to bear witness to the flow at their feet, the stream gushing
along the curb like blood, a painful scene, this noble thing transposed into
rubble, leaving us to accept what is left, accept the loss as we embrace what
comes next.
“Hold still!” Paulie’s sister complained as she leaned in,
trying to get the mascara and eyeliner she applied to him just right.
“Why am I doing this?” Paulie asked me, seeing me in the
mirror, but unable to turn his head.
“The band wants you to look like David Bowie,” I said, half
laughing, but a bit alarmed, too.
“This isn’t looking like David Bowie,” Paulie snapped,
waving his hand at his made up face and at the rest of the attire his sister
had provided for him.
“Hold still,” his sister growled, and then at me, “Stop
provoking him. I’m almost done.”
That was the problem. Paulie didn’t look like David Bowie.
He looked like any number of the girls the band’s two guitarist took out to the
parking lot between sets.
I mumbled something about this to his sister, who seemed to
be enjoying the whole thing way too much, even though she was startled when Paulie
asked her to do this for him.
He did not see the look in her eyes, that odd spark, an odd
thought his request inspired in her.
Paulie had grown up in a household of girls, sisters,
mothers, an occasional aunt, and over the years, his sisters, even his mother
complained about having to live with a boy in the house, telling him he should
have kept life simple for all of them and been born a girl.
“Your worried way too much about this,” his sister assured
him, as she finished up his face, stepping back to admire him as if an artwork.
“You said the others are supposed to dress up like Bowie, too. So, nobody will notice
you too much.”
“I told you, this isn’t Bowie,” Paulie said, his palms
rising to almost cup the fake boobs his sister had installed under the bra
Paulie did not want to wear.
“No one notice,” his sister said, then asked me to reassure
Paulie, when I also had my doubts.
“Why did you make him use the hair remover?” I asked.
“Because his hairy legs would have ruined the pantyhose,”
she said. “And his stubble would have ruined the look for his face.”
“But that’s not all the places you shaved,” Paul grumbled.
“Stop complaining,” his sister said. “I told you it will
grow back. You wouldn’t want anybody to see the hair.”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t.”
“In the men’s room they would,” his sister said. “Which is
why I told you you should use the ladies room when you have to go at the club.”
“Oh that would look fine!” Paul said. “The lead singer
everybody knows going into the toilet with the girls.”
“Stop talking. I have to put your lipstick on.”
“Why do I have to wear lipstick and why that awful cherry
red color?”
“To go with our nails, silly,” his sister said.
She had painted his nails first to give them time to dry.
“I don’t like this,” Paulie said.
“You’re the one that asked for it,” his sister said. “Just
be quiet, I’m almost done, although you’re going to have to fix your lips later
at the club, especially after you’ve given some guy a blow jog.”
“What kind of fucking remark is that?” Paul squealed.
“I’m only kidding,” his sister said.
I wasn’t sure she was. She had that same devious look in her
eyes that I’d seen when Paulie first made the request.
‘Stand up,” she told Paulie. “Let me look at you.”
He stood; he wasn’t Paulie. He looked too good, too much
like one of his older sisters, only a lot more slutty.
“Perfect,” his sister announced. “Now you’re better get going
to the club. You wouldn’t want to be late.”
Then, with that same gleam in her eyes, she looked at me, “Don’t
go hitting on him along the way. But if you do, remember what I said about his
needing to fix up his lipstick.”
I want the power she exudes with each sway of her hips, or
the suggestive potency of her shimmering lips when she smiles.
I want what she has regardless of where she is or what she
wears, here on the river or when she’s dressed to the teens, her long legs in
jeans or sheer, unbelievable stockings.
I want what oozes out of her, and which drive’s men crazy,
like a pack of horny hounds following her pheromone trail, begging to be given
a bone.
I want to be able to snap my fingers the way she does and
get them to give her anything she desires, begging her for the privilege.
I would even settle to become one of the men·ageriethat
follows behind her heals, craving her attention, even when mean, letting her
use our backs as stepping stones to get to the next level, where other men do
the same, we all willing to be used and abused, and if we do our part, she will
remember us fondly when she moves on without us.
We crawl up to the fence behind the high school for a
glimpse of the wildlife there, not a Doe or Fox or even a groundhog, but lions,
tigers and bears.
I’m Dorothy telling Joe this isn’t Kansas anymore, and he –
aspiring one day to become a cop – is so scared, he’s as pale as a scarecrow,
and as courageous as a cowardly lion, trying his best to play the role of tin man,
we both know he has heart.
I keep hoping he won’t faint especially when we get a whiff
of what we cannot yet see, but when we get to the top, we still can’t see
We cut class to do this, while other, wiser kids, hide out
behind the gym smoking cigarettes
Even I wonder if we are crazy, and whether or not someday we
might both regret this, if we live so long.
In the distance we hear the train, freight trains bound for
the Greenville Yards, or passenger trains bound for Hoboken, I can’t tell,
rides we intend to take, but need to do this first.
Something growls when our feet hit the ground on the wrong
side of the fence, Joe suggesting we go back, me thinking its too late for
that, moving ahead through the maze of buildings and cages, the sanctuary where
authorities bring wild animals straight off the planes, animals we hear, but cannot
see, and ache to, and I wonder if they feel safe here, or are they scared of
what comes next, where they will be sent once their incubation period ends, and
I’m tempted to set them free, Joe freaking out when I suggest it, telling me I’m
crazy, and yet, hearing the stirring inside the cages, I think: what if it was
me there, like them, not knowing what to expect next.
I don’t get the chance. Someone with a flashlight, maybe a
gun, starts shouting at us. Joe runs. I hesitate, caught in the middle of
wanting to do what I said, and fleeing before I wind up in a different cage, me
and those poor creatures, those lions, tigers and bears.
The man shouts; I run, too, knowing I will never get the
courage up to do this again, a regret I’ll regret for the rest of my life.
