My Father's Semen

My Father’s Semen

by Mykola Dementiuk

the disturbing story of a young man who seeks out his biological father only to be forced to survive the one way he knows how. This story will open your eyes to life on the streets of New York in the 1980s and will surprise you in the end.

published in Cruising for Bad Boys

STARbooks Press 2009

Don’t ever tell anybody anything! Absolutely goddamm right! The only reason I was in New York is because I talked too much in Cincinnati. Well, maybe not talked too much but certainly trusted too much. And I had to get out because of jerk-off dream I showed my asshole social worker, Ralph. It didn’t matter that I wrote down the dream more than a year ago for this other social worker, Susan, who told me that since I found it difficult and embarrassing to talk about my masturbating fantasies, maybe if I wrote them down it would be easier to talk about them later.

I did, and felt like a dirty old man gaping at Hustler or Screw, because the more I wrote the more I’d jerk-off…well, at first…because as new images began appearing in my fantasies, new scenarios and new contortions of legs around me, sudden twisting and glimpses of tits and pussy, cocks and pubic hairs, I had to stop jerking off and write down those new images or else I’d forget them as soon as I wiped the scum off my hand and belly. So I spent a lot of time jerking off, then stopping just to write that down, until I was sure I gave myself a good case of aching blue balls until my cuming was nothing but a weak ejaculation of frustration, disgust, shame and anger.

This guy Joey I knew had once told me that if you want someone to fall in love with you all you had to do was jerk-off to images of them and they’d certainly notice you, because it was just like a real dream when you’re sleeping, Joey said, and when you tell someone you had a dream about them they always look at you as if trying to recollect a forgotten dream they had about you of their own. But if it’s true someone is dreaming of you when you’re having a dream about them, does that mean when you’re jerking-off and picturing someone they’re about to have an ejaculation on an image of you as well? That’s what had gotten me into therapy in the first place: fantasies of people. Fantasies you can control, real people you can’t; because what if real people are using you as a fantasy as well?

I often fantasized about Susan, and when she left the therapy center to continue some schooling about six months later I wasn’t even jerking off as much anymore, though I continued to bring her all kinds of sex fantasies --I even think she got a kick from reading my dirty fantasies, stories she called them.

When she left I was assigned to this creepy other social worker, Ralph, who knew from my file I wrote erotic fantasies for Susan and wanted me to continue writing them for him. I hated the idea of having a man therapist and told him, and refused to write him anything that might be construed as a sexual fantasy. For Ralph? No way!

He had some strange ideas about trust, as if trust is so easily transferred from one social worker to another. Well, it isn’t; even though from Susan I learned that trust is the basis of all relationships --I used to like that phrase, she had used it at the end of our first session-- the only thing I got from Ralph was just the opposite, trust is the basis of all betrayal.

Fuck, if I had known any of this back then I never would have shown Ralph that old fantasy about the little girl raped and murdered and stuffed into a trash can outside of Riverfront Stadium. I had never shown it to Susan, but it really happened, almost a year ago. Well, the cops caught the little girl’s killer, arresting her mother’s live-in boyfriend who had left behind clues a mile long, or so they said.

At the same time I was having daily sessions with Ralph, I also had to meet with Mrs. Gillette, who was an almost-social worker; she was the high school guidance counselor I had to see before they kicked me out for chronic truancy, which meant I was headed for reform school, jail for kids, in other words. I hadn’t been to school in almost three months in my junior year and they had suspended me anyway and were probably waiting after Christmas when they could expel me for good and not feel bad about what they doing. I had just turned sixteen, right after Thanksgiving, so I wasn’t legally old enough to drop out of school on my own --dumb Ohio has these worthless laws. I suppose Mrs. Gillette was their last recourse at keeping me in school, I had run away a few times…I wonder if they really knew how she kept boys in line and staying in school?

Good thing was Mrs. Gillette didn’t talk much about my truancy or what was I doing in all the free time I had but simply wanted to know if I was as good a carpenter as I had proved myself to be in last year’s shop class. Carpentry my ass! But the bitch was wearing low cut blouses right after I began and even one day came to let me in her house in a skirt and a black Wonderbra to make it seem like I had interrupted her as she was getting dressed. But by then I had proved myself as worthless in carpentry as I had been in mending little motors in shop class. Where did these people get their ideas about me? And the certificates Mrs. Gillette had up on her wall, as did Ralph had on his, what did that prove? That they were potential qualified police informants or they knew how to look respectable?

You’ll do well, Mrs. Gillette simply said, smirking at me as I stared bug-eyed at the low-cut bra holding her tits. And I started coming to Mrs. Gillette’s house after school every Wednesday and Friday but soon I was dropping by every day. Besides acting like I was a carpenter I was doing other things as well. A wall needed plastering and painting, the windows had to be washed and cleaned, the Christmas tree had to be set up, and wouldn’t it be nice if I could pick up the laundry and do the grocery shopping? It wasn’t long before I became Mrs. Gillette’s servant. But that was the way of becoming a family member, wasn’t it? I had never asked if there was a Mr. Gillette (she had a ten year old daughter) divorced or separated I didn’t know but it was a good feeling whenever I’d go there, one that I looked forward too.

But it was awkward when Mrs. Gillette started kissing me. I always turned red-faced from that because I felt my hard-on spring up as if in surprise, which it wasn’t, I was expecting that from her nearness. At first it was on the cheek when I’d leave for the day, then on the lips as I’d arrive the next day, until we would greet each other in our arms as our tongues were probing and flitting each other before she broke off giggling and wiping her lipstick off my face.

And I suppose that’s when I started getting into trouble, when I started imagining not only kissing Mrs. Gillette but fucking her as well. Because isn’t that where all this hugging and kissing was going and isn’t that what she wanted from her jack-of-all-trades, a good old fashioned man-sized fucking?

One Thursday afternoon, when Mrs. Gillette had a few drinks and was feeling mellow --too mellow, I was certain-- she was in the kitchen when I stepped in her daughter’s room going in for a measuring ruler that her daughter had borrowed. The little girl’s clothes were on the bed and chair, but what caught my eye was a lavender-colored t-shirt that the cops said the killer-rapist had ripped off the little girl.

I fingered the soft t-shirt, than pawed it about --it felt lush and very soft on my face. I lowered it and caressed my hard dick, breathing in and out, when I saw Mrs. Gillette staring open-mouthed at me.

I knew it was over, and I shamefacedly left her house, undecided what to do. Fortunately, she didn’t call the cops, but there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t later. I just packed what little I needed, and without a word to my grandmother was shrugging off Cincinnati. It was two days before Christmas.

***

My father lived in New York, ever since I was little, and I haven’t seen him six or seven years. Every Christmas I’d get a card from him with a check for a hundred dollars, I suppose it was his way of saying, Don’t bother me until next Christmas! My mom I never heard from; grandmother told me she was in San Francisco with her lesbian lover. Oh, I said, and shrugged. Grandmother knew a lot but didn’t say much.

The station was packed with people coming and going, but I had to take a nondescript seat and keep out of trouble. Wasn’t too long ago that I got picked up in the Greyhound men’s room, doing nothing, but the cops hauled me in anyway.

Cincinnati has no claim to fame, besides Steve McQueen in Cincinnati Kid which took place in New Orleans, and Loni Anderson in WKRP, a TV show meant more to show off Loni’s tits then her acting ability. And one time it was know as Porkapolis, before they changed the name to Cincinnati, in honor to some local Indian chief lord, hell, do you think people like to call their home a sty? Fuck off, Cincinnati, or should I say, Oink! Oink!

I only knew three things about New York: it was big, my father lived there, and whatever Joey told me about it. He had been there a year ago; having spent a week there, also running away from the therapy clinic his parents put him in because he was gay. His parents were rich enough to send a bounty hunter after him and he nabbed Joey right in the back of the NYC bus station, on his knees, and sucking cock in between two cars. Getting caught in the act was bad enough, but before he nabbed Joey the bounty hunter snapped a Polaroid of Joey sucking cock and which he used to blackmail Joey into giving him blow jobs all the way back home to Cincinnati, or else he’d give the photo’s to Joeys mom.

Which he did anyway; an envelope full of photos of Joey, kneeling before men, bent over to a standing man, sometimes sucking off one guy while jerking off two others…And of course Joey’s mom never asked why he hadn’t brought Joey home the first day he spotted him but took an entire week to amass twenty rolls of pornographic photos of her son or why there was a receipt among his bills for the Motel 6 outside of Cincinnati.

She paid him 25 thousand dollars to bring me home so he could fuck me right on her doorstep! Joey told me. No wonder he said it took him six weeks to track down Sheila (our friend) in Reno; he had her in a motel for a month, the bastard!

But my grandmother wasn’t as rich as Joey’s parents so I knew no bounty hunter or parent would come looking for me; but Ralph? Who knew how the social worker would rat me off to his respectable pig friends? Who knew what kind of all-points-bulletin would be issued on me? Warning! Child Molester on the loose! Beware of dreamy-eyes loners writing poetry! That’s him, he’s the one! So that’s why I was headed to New York, instead of Chicago, which I had tried three times before.

And since that night and day I sat on the Greyhound bus playing out my memories of Mrs. Gillette kissing me. I had never kissed a girl and Mrs. Gillette was the first woman I kissed and liked it. There were guys I had let kiss me, mostly faggot guys I’d meet and go off with them for some dollars, but with Mrs. Gillette I felt I wasn’t doing anything wrong, until the last moment, at least.

I had no idea where I was going to stay once I got there; I had already dished out $83.00 dollars from my father’s Christmas present and had about fifteen bucks to live on. But I wasn’t worried, I had seen all the movies, gazed in the books and magazines, and somehow knew I could survive on the streets of New York, or at least try doing it.

The bus station in New York is immense, and it’s called the Port Authority Building, it says so right in the front. And it stretches for three blocks, in the 40s from 8^th to 9^th avenues, and is, I guess, almost five stories high. You could probably fit all the people of Cincinnati inside and still have room for the nearby city of Paducah too.

When my friend Joey ran away to New York two years ago he told me that for the first two days he didn’t leave the building but survived on food that people threw away as they rushed to catch buses taking them out of town. But this time the cops were everywhere, and I’m sure that that even Joey, with all his smudged biker tattoos, would quickly be spotted as a loiterer and troublemaker.

There was even more people on the street outside entering the station. It’s as if everyone was leaving just as I arrived. But this was rush hour, and nothing like the morning or afternoon drives in Cincinnati. I pushed my way out of the station.

***

Just as Joey had told me, 42^nd street was lined with movie theaters on both sides, but each theater was boarded up and shut, and the marques, rather then showing off some future attractions, had strange markings and readings which seemed like ominous end-of-the-world-is-coming: Life in not a rehearsal…This is not the end... I walked on, not knowing what any of them meant.

Joey had told me he had survived in all-night porno theaters, where he said he made money letting guys do him. The bad thing was when he made what he thought was enough some black guys ripped him off in the bathrooms or lobby or even right in the seats. 42^nd street was very dangerous, even though it looked pretty tame now. The street looked like one of those Hollywood stage sets, when the actors and directors all went home for the night, leaving the people to hurry after them.

I kept walking across 42^nd, not knowing which was to turn on 7^th avenue, up or down, so I crossed over and quickly found myself on Broadway, where a few steps down, I read the strange sounding Hotalings, an out-of-town newspaper store. Unfortunately, they wanted a $1.25 for a Cincinnati paper, kept behind the counter.

Try the library, the store clerk suggested. Then shrugged and added, They’re probably closed for Christmas.

Still, I asked, Where is it?

Look for lions in the street…he smirked, but I didn’t understand.

I continued on 42^nd street until I came to 5^th avenue. Of course, the lions that guarded the building were another symbol of New York, as much as were the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. They always showed them in some movie of TV show, either with birds sitting on them or Christmas wreaths around their necks, which is just what they were wearing now and sitting like sentinels to keep the ignorant and stupid out. That’s the kind of library I’d be proud of entering, not that prison-looking piece of shit in Cincinnati that practically had no books published before 1985, as if literature began with Tom Clancy, reached its shining hour with Stephen King, and was slowly mellowing out with Anne Rice. Oh, God!

It was Susan who got me to admit I liked poetry, and brought me two paperback books by Allen Ginsburg Howl and Kaddish. Man, were they weird! But I loved them, reading each one and hoping she had other book let me read. Before that I liked songs by Led Zeppelin, Metallica, even Meatloaf, but since I couldn’t play any instrument except air guitar I couldn’t really compose much music and quickly forgot what gibberish I did compose.

I had a NYC map, actually a NY Subway map I had ripped out of a NYC phone book in the Cincinnati library, in my knapsack but I didn’t care about the rest of the city, the boroughs, but only Manhattan because it was easily laid out in a grid and most of the avenues and streets were numbered in sequence and it would be impossible to get lost as uptown meant high numbers and downtown meant the low-numbered streets. Easy, no? Well, it wasn’t really all that simple, but I felt good about where I was going, downtown, as if I’d been there lots of times.

It’s funny to walk in a strange city and feel that you fit right in, well, I didn’t feel different I felt I belonged there. Looking at the Empire State Building was beautiful and immense! It surged up to the sky its top lit by red and white lights for Christmas that even shone over the clouds and mist fogging atop the high building. As I kept walking I kept turning around to look at the tower above me, like a beacon landmark that even is I got lost would be my direction back home.

***

The streets eventually cleared of that mad crowd of people rushing somewhere with packages and on the streets in the 20’s; I sometimes walked for an entire block without anyone passing me by.

On 26^th street I saw the dark bundles of trees and came upon a park, which was probably my destination all along. Another beautiful tower hung over the park, a clock tower also festooned in bright red and white and green colors of Christmas, and I entered the park as easily as I was entering the gay cruising parks of Cincinnati. And it was just as easy and obvious as I had expected.

Just like at home, I’m certain it was the same in New York, that people who go into parks at night only go there because they’re up to something or other. I went in because I was horny. With me getting tired and getting horny are the same thing; I sometimes think one leads to the other. The longer I stay up without any sleep, the harder my dick gets and the more I jerk-off. I once went without any sleep for four days and must off jerked-off at least 200 times before I collapsed with exhaustion, but still holding my dick as I fell asleep. So by the time I entered the park, after that long fifteen hours bus ride to NY, my cock was itching for a good jerk-off session. Plus I needed a place to stay.

My eyes quickly got used to the darkness of the curving lanes of the small park. The park was only a few blocks long and only one block wide, but even as I entered I could make out the image of an unmistakable shadow of someone standing against a fence by a tree, or sitting on a bench, or two figures standing together, probably discussing a price and where best to go and do the act.

I stopped, took off my knapsack and dropped it on the ground. I leaned against a fence and propped up my leg against a lower railing of the fence. I felt pretty good, happy I was in NY, and even more happy that I had gotten out of Cincinnati. They’d never find me here; no one even knew I left. But I was sure the quack social worker Ralph would tell the police I disappeared, probably to Chicago again. And I was grateful the weather wasn’t too cold, not like they sometimes showed of a frozen New York. I only had my Cincinnati Bengal’s jacket, but even back home it was already too cold to wear.

I looked up at the pretty tower; a little after 8. I wanted to take out my notebook and write something about being in NY and standing below a clock tower. I thought of Susan; I missed her a lot. Not only did she show me that poetry didn’t have to rhyme, but that I could write it too, without embarrassment.

I must have been looking up at the clock tower and dreaming about Susan when I next looked and saw one of those muted shadows inching closer in my direction. My prick immediately grew hard, but I could hardly make out his features in the park’s darkness, but he was short and fat and most likely balding, with a slash of hair above his ears that circled his head like a laurel crown, much like creepy Ralph.

I always wondered about Ralph, whether was gay or not. That would have been some betrayal on Susan’s part, wouldn’t it? When she told me she’d be leaving the counseling center I asked that her replacement be another woman. She said she couldn’t do that and her last day there, told me that Ralph would take over and help me. I said, Yeah, sure to myself and shook her hand and left.

I looked at the Ralph-looking guy inching nearer and shifted off the rail and raised my other leg up behind me, sitting on the top rail of the fence and dangling my free leg, as the Ralph-looking guy stood and watched.

There is always a kind of wariness in the approach of a pick-up; a kind of edginess and uncertain fear. With all the bullshit of the openness of the gay movement people are still afraid of coming together. Or maybe that’s what makes the coming together so interesting, that first wariness of approaching or being approached by someone. It’s really nothing but a dance, that one side has to show off to the other, just like animals on those Nature shows on public television. I once even got a hard-on looking on TV at one bird dancing and showing his feathers to another bird that pretended she wasn’t impressed until the first bird pounced on her and fucked her. Well, it’s no different with people, whether some guys tried to impress some girl in a bar, or an office, or on the street; his entire showiness is no different: to fuck her.

And just as I knew this Ralph-bird would, he slowly walked past me up the lane, though keeping his eyes glued to my crotch and licking his lips, first the lower lip, then the upper. I regret I wasn’t wearing tighter pants, wishing I could show off some cock-bulge, but my baggy jeans were the only ones I had.

Ralph walked past me, then paused and leaned against the fence across from me. I smiled, but as he stood leaning against the fence in an unlit part of the path I couldn’t see if he smiled back, but I certainly saw his arm and fingers gesturing I come closer to him.

I looked up and down the path, then pushed myself off the fence, picked up my bag and went to Ralph.

He was even more uglier and bloated than I first imagined, his face sprinkled with a sheen of sweat that even in the dimness of the dark path gleamed like so much obscenity. But I suppose girls feel it all the time when they walk down the street, and I too hated it when someone looked at me in that rape-desperate, sex-lust kind of way that only wanted my body, as if any body would do but since mine was available might as well have it too. It’s as if my walking down the street and looking as I did was simply for him to get his kicks off me, as if I exist only for your pleasure and sickness.

Ralph’s hand went to my crotch and squeezed. I gushed in air, pretending I was as horny as him, and quickly raised an erection from his groping, to which I suddenly ejaculated onto his hand feeling my hard dick melting in my pants. Hell, I had been horny ever since I walked into the park. But even with the ejaculation ripping apart my body I remained still, as if nothing was happening, simply scratching my face as if I had an itch in an attempt to hide and dispel the contortions trying to get out.

I learned a long time ago that in these park and street pick-ups no one wants to see your pleasure; the entire point of anyone’s approach is to get pleasure from you and never mind your getting any from them. The few times I unknowingly allowed my ejaculations to sweep visibly over me in shudders and contortions I was simply dropped as my sexual partner walked away in disgust. It seemed that my pleasure and satisfaction was an insult to them. And maybe it was: no one enters a dark park looking for mutual sharing or pleasing togetherness; it’s all a matter of selfish anonymity and objectification. Like a john looking for an anonymous prostitute some gay asshole prowling the park, or in movie balconies, is only looking for a whore to please himself with. Men who just bought themselves a hooker don’t expect her to show pleasure of any kind, besides her usual sham groaning and sighing, so why should it be different when some man attaches himself to me? Because it’s probably the anonymous coldness of being a stranger, a stranger clinging to you, that arouses a man with a prostitute more than any kind of warmth or physical pleasure of being with you. I was very good at not showing my feelings and emotions and Susan notwithstanding, so why should I show a stranger how I felt? 

The Ralph-gay-guy looked up and down the path, and seeing it was deserted, put his arms around my waist and pulled me to him. His hands went under my jacket and up my back and we were face to face. He smelled of heavy aftershave and I was repulsed by his avid sweaty face. I slightly pulled back, but separated my legs in an attempt for him not to think I was disgusted with him. I looked down and put one foot on the bottom railing of the fence. I raised my arms and put them on his shoulders, then raised my other foot and stood up, my legs wrapped around him like a girl for fucking. He was panting and gushing very heavily, clutching my back tighter to him.

I started riding him, lowering and raising myself, in a dry hump mimic of the real thing. Even through my loose baggy pants I could feel his erection breached in his own pants and I knew he wasn’t far from an ejaculation.

He began kissing my neck; I knew he was aiming for my mouth and face but I was able to raise myself up on the fence, too high for his lips to reach my mouth. I hate it when men kiss me. Because it’s not a kiss they lash onto me, but a desperate biting and sucking as if not only trying to eat me and swallow me, but to devour my life and soul for their fleeting lusts. Each kisser always leaves me with red bite marks and brown suck marks as identity marks that signify I am theirs, or was, for a brief insignificant lusting moment.

And of course, in between the sucking kisses, there were the usual clichés of, Ooo, baby! Ooo, honey! Ooo, sweetie! and the stupid questions of You like it? Is Daddy good for you, baby? and one he got stuck on and kept repeating like a dirge, What am I doing to you? I kept reciting in monosyllables, Nice! and Doing good, but I knew that’s not the answer he wanted as his questions seemed get sterner and harsher, What am I doing to you?

I refused to say it; I didn’t want him to hear that he was fucking me, and I didn’t want to chant, Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me! Because it was obvious that if we were naked his cock would be riding up my ass and I would have to pretend to be screaming Harder, you bastard! Harder, ooo! But with all the disgust his kissing brought upon me, and my own stifled half-hearted ejaculation, I suddenly didn’t want to give him any more pleasure. I suddenly dropped my feet off the fence rail and slid down his body, pushing myself off him at the same time.

No! he squealed, gripping my crotch with one hand and reaching out for me with the other. No! he yelped, squeezing the outline of his dick in his pants, and I knew he was cuming.

It was funny to watch him twisting and contorting, and I only felt a vague curiosity at how long he would be out of control.

I smirked, and at that moment he looked at me, and his own face, skewered in that pleasurable contortion of pain and release, surged with bitter hate at my smirking. I picked up my bag and slung it on my shoulders.

You mother-fucker! he grimaced, then doubled over at his ejaculation.

Faggot! I simply said, and walked away from him.

Fucking bastard! You fucking creep!

***

Tall building skirt around the park, and as I walked, I began to like the comfortable anonymity I felt myself to be in. But all of NY was huge and you were like a tiny speck lost in the mystery.

On 23^rd street, a tilted-like building rose up from the island on which it stood, in the center of the avenue. Damn! I couldn’t remember its name, shit!

I looked down Broadway, took a few steps and looked down 5^th. The avenue seemed more broader and alive, as if there were some people on it, but I only saw a few rushing by, and I took a step back and looked down the smaller Broadway, seeming to weave its way down in the darkness.

On 22^nd street I decided to turn and walk a short block to where I could be back on 5^th avenue. Now when I think of it, why wasn’t I bit more wary and alert? I saw the two black guys coming but didn’t pay them any mind, seeing them separate on each side of me to give me room to pass, or so I thought, and it happened as suddenly as it usually does: an arm went around my neck as the guy before me held a knife before my stomach. Fuck, I thought, I’m being mugged!

I felt the guy holding my neck search my back pockets as the guy before me pawed inside my jacket and shirt looking for other pockets. He pulled out the 10 and the few singles I had in my breast jacket pocket and demanded where the rest of my money was. I mumbled I don’t have any, hoping they didn’t see my lie and make me take off my boots to reveal my last 20 dollar bill I had in my sock --I had saved that from a time had hustled in Cincinnati. The guy behind me grabbed my knapsack and tossed it to the guy in front, who ripped it open and upturned my few clothes and notebook folder. He rifled through my clothes, then kicked them, scattering them apart and under a parked car.

He ain’t got shit! the guy behind me said, slightly easing his hold on my neck.

Mother-fucker! the guy next to me cursed, kicking my notebook and scattering the papers and my poems down the sidewalk.

I knew they’d let my go, and I sighed, and that sigh suddenly enraged the guy in front of me and he swung at me and hit the side of my face, hard too. I saw lights and stars and sagged against the guy holding me, who let go and I struck a parked car, tasting blood in my mouth. The side of my face hurt and my eyes welled in tears. For a moment, I caught my breath and saw the two black guys cursing and laughing and walking away.

I spat out blood and picked up a t-shirt and wiped my face. Good thing there was no blood. As quick as I could, thinking they might come back, I gathered a few poems and clothes, bending under a car to retrieve the rest, walking away to get out of there. But a few blocks away I realized I was walking uptown, the streets getting higher and higher. I looked at the park across the way of a large avenue, but turned and walked down a darkened street.

My paranoia was alert and cumbersome, turning about every few steps I took but not one person was in sight. Boy, 9 o’clock on during Christmas week and nothing! I walked past what looked like an empty huge parking lot, I’m sure that in the day it is filled with cars and trucks. I made my way across it.

Against the other end of the lot were the back yards of buildings, also tall and reaching upwards, and I walked near them until I found one fence that was falling down. I looked around, no one, and stepped in through the fence. I was in back of a building; I took a few more steps, the street was no longer visible from where I stood. I leaned against the building and slumped downwards. Amazing what tension I had been under but now I felt relief coming over me. I freed myself of my knapsack and lowered my head, hoping the night wasn’t too cold for me…

I don’t know what awoke me, the clatter of a garbage truck on the street, the light snow falling on my face, of some dream that instantly vanished at my awakening. But it was still dark and I didn’t know how long I had slept, a few minutes or a few hours. The fire escapes above me had kept most of the snow from me, but little mounds had gathered in the center of the crevice from the buildings on either side of where I had slept and it was a lot colder than before.

I touched my face, a large bump was the side, and it felt twice as large then before. Another truck clattered down the street, and I heard shouts of people screaming and laughing at each other. It was probably near dawn and I knew I wouldn’t sleep anymore.

I sat up, my body sore and aching, as if I had been beaten all over, instead of the side of my face. I wanted to take the 20 dollar bill out of my boots but then didn’t. What if I saw the black guys again? Would I recognize them? Would they recognize me? How many people did they rob and beat in the night?

I crawled out of my crevice and stepped into the parking lot. I walked to the street and saw the sky in the east was dawning with a grayness streaking in between the thick clouds above. I went to a parked car and looked in a mirror. I suddenly snapped to attention, looking around me for the two guys I imagined were close by. Everything was now scary and I had to be alert. I scooped a handful of snow, actually ice, from off a car, and suddenly jumped back. The car alarm went off at my touch and wailed in a police siren mimic. I walked away, gently wiping my sore face, the coldness felt crude but refreshing. I gazed in the mirror of another car, slightly bending over without touching the car. There were no distinguishing marks that I’d been punched, just my usual morning tiredness.

I crossed 5^th avenue. The clock tower read 5:15. I had fallen asleep around midnight, so at least I got about 5 hours of sleep. Damn, I didn’t want to be seen crawling out of the crevice in daylight. If the people who ran the parking lot saw me coming out they’d seal up the hole in the fence I went in.

Once more I started walking along to the park. A few people could be seen now, holding cups of coffee and walking briskly. A Christmas tree stood in the center of the big lawn and its lights shone brightly in the gloomy snow-misted morning. The snow was letting up, but it was very cold.

Other figures were entering the park, also carrying coolers with their lunch, hurrying to work, talking, laughing, each carrying a folded newspaper under one arm as if that was a part of their working uniform. I wished I had a job to go to; I wondered what kind of job I’d have? Probably some bullshit…

I walked out of the park and headed to 5^th avenue. From my mental image I had of the avenue I knew it would run into Washington Square Park and Greenwich Village, where my father had his antique store. Though my father never put his return address on his Christmas cards to me it was easy to find it in my grandmother’s papers. He had a shop in the Village and an apartment upstairs from the shop. Most likely my appearance would be unwelcome in either place. Still, this was the first year my father had actually penned something in his card besides his printed name. Merry Christmas, Dad, he wrote, and my grandmother was very pleased by that. He’s trying, she said. Would he try enough to reach out me?

It being a Saturday morning, besides the workers I saw in the park, there weren’t that many people on the streets and as I walked down 5^th avenue my steps were the first ones to crack through the crisp iciness of the fresh snowfall.

On 17^th street, as I had seen a truck do on 19^th street and 20^th, as it was probably doing down the avenue, making stops at each deli and restaurant and taking delivery bags into the cafes, if they wee open, or attaching a bag to the gated front. At most of the open stops the driver made 2 or 3 trips back and forth from his truck carrying large bags of rolls and flat boxes of pastries. Though I knew it wasn’t happening, I imagined I could smell the lush scent of fresh baked bread, the stunning warmness of baked crullers and donuts and Danishes. My mouth quickly watered…

From a block away I could see the driver jump out of his truck and tote a large paper sack, attaching it to a fence covering the closed restaurant, then jump back into his truck to make other deliveries along the way. I slowed my pace, watching the truck slant its way across the avenue, make another stop, then continue for about two blocks then I saw him make a turn and disappear from the avenue.

I looked behind me; it was the same as before: not a person in sight, and only a few cars on the slippery avenue. I slowly walked against the buildings and shuttered shops and reached the paper sack dangling from the café/deli. The top of the sack was twisted shut and laced with a hook-like wire which sealed the sack and let it dangle from the front gate. I pulled a pen out of my jacket and stabbed the bag, immediately piercing the paper, though careful not to rip it too greedily and spill out the rolls and breadstuffs.

I only wanted one roll, well, maybe two, and I was hungry for a mouthful would’ve done; I hadn’t eaten in almost 30 hours, but even when I had gone without food for 2 or 3 days I still didn’t have that much to eat to recover. A bite or two, and I felt myself coming to.

I looked around me at the empty street and made a hole deep enough deep enough to insert my hand a feel a roll, looking around me. I pulled it out and immediately took a bite. It was delicious! I took another bite, clutching the roll with my teeth, and pulled out another roll, sticking it in pocket. I almost retrieved another roll but instead lifted the bag off the fence and spun it round to conceal the ripped hole, hanging it back on the fence.

I quickly walked down the avenue, which I’m glad I did at that moment: a police car slowly passed me with the driver cop looking after me in his rear view mirror. Boy, if I had been seen eating the rolls before the store they’d have certainly stopped and arrested me. I didn’t have any ID and how fast they’d arrest me as a runway I didn’t have to ask.

On 14^th street I finally saw the famous Washington Square Park Arch. I crossed the avenue, getting a clearer view of the arch from the middle of the avenue, the overcast graying morning outlining the Arch in crisp clarity against the buildings around it. A large lit Christmas tree stood in the center of the Arch, and I hesitated before I turned right on 12^th street. I was on the street where my father lived, but the numbers were very low and he was at the 400’s.

The quiet walking and the roll I had stolen revived me a bit, but now that my hunger was appeased I felt sleepier than ever. I heard laughter behind me and I turned to see a group of people coming out of a building, the three men dressed in suits and loosened ties, and the three women in open fur coats exposing their bare legs under very short skirts. Must have been at a all night party, I thought. And one of the men looked at me intently, probably wondering what I was doing at the early hour, and I almost thought it was the Ralph-guy from the previous night, his fat red balding head almost like a replica of one who tried to kiss me last night. But the eyeglasses that framed his face were like an attempt to mimic an intellectual, and I smirked, thinking of Ralph mimicking the same. What a fake! A woman next to him was clutching drunkenly to him and giggling, and I knew his look was one of lustful craving and I’m certain I could’ve had him except for the woman he was with. That’s happened lots of times, a look, a gaze, and off I go after a man attracted to me, or at least the opportunities of my hard dick.

The bunch of them walked right into the street, ignoring the scattered traffic and the men raised their arms and began screaming for taxies that weren’t even there. It’s funny how rich people expect and demand immediately whatever they want, like a taxi, even if no one is in sight. A few of the couples strode out into 5^th avenue and started hailing non-existent taxis, but the man who had stared at me clutched his date and started leading her drunkenly down 5^th avenue. The woman slipped a few times in the snowy ice but the man clutching her to him turned a corner and disappeared. The other couples didn’t even seem to notice that they had gone. But even in that fleeting moment of looking after them in the distance I could see the man’s free hand groping the drunken woman’s breasts. But what had the man seen in me that made him look so long in recognition? I’ll never know. I walked down 12^th Street.

On 6^th avenue I saw another clock tower standing a few blocks away. It was now 5 minutes after 6 and I was tired but continued on 12^th street. Snow wasn’t that bad, now that daylight was coming, and I passed a few people on their morning walks for papers and other goods, all bundled up and staring right through me.

Then I saw it: Mata Hari, Art Deco Antiques, my father’s shop. I stood and looked at it, biting my lower lip. He was cozy and warm sleeping snuggled into a warm bed upstairs never knowing his son was damp and cold on the street outside. I looked at the shuttered windows of the three story building and wondered which was his. The shop was enclosed by a gate but I could make out its smallness and antique decorated window display. A lamp with a colored-glass shade stood in one corner of the window, an old radio stood in the middle, and a tall elegant female mannequin dressed in a long gown and holding gloves stood at the other end.

I never understood what people saw in these old things; it would make sense if they had been alive when these objects were used, but some of them were fifty or hundred years old. In Mrs. Gillette’s house, one room was devoted to just such a display: a Biedermeyer sofa reclined next to a Tiffany lamp which stood atop a little table, which I’m sure had a name to it too. To me they looked like simple old couches, lamps and tables. I immediately hated my father’s shop. If Mrs. Gillette was a bitch because she possessed such expensive objects and always suspected everyone for trying to steal them, what was my father like for supplying those objects? Would he accuse me of robbing from him too?

I glanced at a handwritten sign in the doorway: Special Xmas hours: open Xmas eve 9 to 9, and underneath that a gold leaf etched sign in the glass: Mitch Lescoux, prop., and underneath that, Josh Rankling, asst. I frowned; my father was such a fake. Josh Rankling was the name, along with his, that appeared this year on his Christmas cards, but every year the name was a different one. I sneered in disgust. I wondered how much he had to dish out each year for a new gold sign to be etched in his window; he probably had more money than my grandmother suspected.

I crossed the street and looked up at the small building. It was nestled in between two tenements and looked very old compared to most of the other buildings on the street. That’s what my father would do, live in the oldest building there was. I wondered which room he and Josh slept in; no matter how many times I got picked up and went to bed I never ended up staying the night with some stranger. The idea of waking up next to some stubbled-faced asshole was always repulsive, and I always fled in the morning, disgusted and hating myself for having spent the night with a stranger. I know I always did it for money, being nothing but a whore, and afterwards it would be some time before I tried going with a guy again…yet I always did…

I turned away from my father’s building and felt as much as I did those Cincinnati mornings when I walked out of some stranger’s arms and bed: disgusted, hating myself, hating the world for what I had become: a male whore. Still, didn’t I resent the strangers name below my fathers? Did I want to lie underneath my father as well?

I walked back along the small street my father’s shop was on. Wouldn’t it be best to show up after the shop was open? Would he see that as an intrusion into his business? Would there be so many shoppers so early in the morning that my appearance would destroy my father’s mood for the rest of the day? Still, wasn’t I reading too much into his handwritten Love, Dad message? Who knew why he had written that? Maybe guilt, maybe a sense of his own mortality, maybe a way of atoning for all the years of his ignoring me…? Who the hell knew?

I walked on, and pretty soon spotted the same clock tower I had seen moments ago on another street. It was red and stone colored, something so amazing in the tall sameness of the surrounding buildings that it seemed out of place and contrary, an oddity that would certainly be replaced by the architectural conformity of the city. It seemed that it should be in my father’s shop for display or careful purchase. It rose up from a triangular block of its own, to what seemed to be a garden at the rear of the building, and when I walked all the way around I found the short main stairway --gated as much as the entrances to other buildings-- was a public library that would open at 11 a.m. but close at 5 p.m. for Christmas eve.

And just as I had seen in other doorways and against buildings, a clump of blankets with obviously a person sleeping underneath, and bundles of much used shopping bags, and sometimes even shopping carts, was pushed as close to the building as could be. Back home in Cincinnati I had seen pictures on television of all the homeless people in New York, but they were presented the problem as in one or two places. Yet here they were everywhere: outside of the bus station, along the streets and avenues, here and there on the streets to my father’s house, on the steps of this library, and most probably on every street I was bound to walk.

It reminded me of an old couple that appeared not far from the social worker therapy center when I first started going to see Susan. They were probably my grandmother’s age, in their 70’s, and each day they sat in the doorway of a vacant store that once held a travel agency, the vacant-eyed deteriorating couple a stark contrast to the vacation posters still hanging in the closed store window of other couples, younger, skinner, fit and tanned in bathing suits and romping through the surf and sands on Cancun, or Hawaii, or Tahiti. It was as if the homeless couple mimicked another poster which would read: Hey, folks, don’t be like these old farts sitting in this doorway; be like these beautiful young people in the sun in these posters!

I never knew why these old people appeared in the first place; neither Susan nor Ralph ever said anything about them. Did they lose their home to a fire? Or their inability to pay the rent or fight off a co-op conversions? They just appeared in late summer, and just as suddenly disappeared in early winter. I like to think some family member or some shelter took them in, though the reality was most likely they froze or starved to death.

By the time I made it back to 5^th avenue a light but cold drizzle had started and the crisp frozen snow on the sidewalks quickly turned into slush, which instantly soaked through socks and shoes. I wished I knew where to go to get out of the rain, but so early in the morning the record stores and book stores were locked and gated up, even though more and more people started appearing on the streets.

I walked around the Washington Square Arch --even the Christmas tree was locked up behind a fence-- and continued to the tall buildings surrounding the park. New York Vinersity read the carved notation, a V for a U I figure. Was there some memory or association in my head with the name? I thought of Susan trying to understand (that’s the term she used Trying to understand…) why I was planning to stay out of high school in my 2^nd year no matter what happened.

Why? I had asked. To get into college?

To finish something you started, she said.

I knew that for her to be a counselor she definitely had to have a college degree but why did she assume that what was right for her was the same for me? I always wanted to ask her that but didn’t. Why did people always assume that if their lives were going good I should be like them? What crap! Ralph even hinted that his life was an example of a contented life; he was married, had two kids, and a job that he liked, so nothing was wrong. Or was there? If I analyzed Ralph I was certain I’d find a hell of a lot of faults in him. Susan too. And Mrs. Gillette most of all. Real assholes, the entire bunch!

***

I walked in the slush, the rain a fine chilly mist that made the day seem bitterly cold. The rain had soaked through my Bengal’s jacket and I felt my arms and shoulders shivering from the cold. Man, I hadda get warm! And fast too!

A few blocks away from the college buildings I saw a man struggling with the heavy locks of a metal gate he was trying to open.

Mother fucker! he mumbled, then reached for a bottle and downed a drink. Two gift-wrapped bottles were under each arm and he went back to forcing the locks to open. Must have been frozen with the cold outside, I thought. I again looked at the man, a red and white fake fur Santa Claus hat roosted on his head. I smirked.

Same shit all the time! he said, and took a step back and kicked the lock and gate. Goddamed piece of shit!

It didn’t do much good, and once more he started fumbling with the locks.

Fucking piece of shit!

He suddenly saw me and turned. His eyes were glassy wet and his face was unshaven and haggard, but the stench of alcohol hung heavily in the air around him.

Hey, he mumbled. Can you give me a hand, buddy? Hold this... And he conspiratorially winked but warned, No sneaking a drink, ok?

I slung my backpack on one shoulder and took the two boxes of liquor, the open box seemingly a lot lighter than the closed one; it was obvious he had been nipping from it and soon would begin on the closed one just as well.

Piece of shit! he repeated to the stubborn iced-over locks. I shouldn’t even go in. Serve ‘em fucking right if I didn’t clean their fucking pig-sty! Let ‘em come in and find it like they left it. What am I a fucking animal, cleaning up their dirt?

He suddenly succeeded in freeing one lock, shoved it in his coat pocket, and just as easily freed another one. He winked at me and his face had that familiar look I knew so well, his eyes going down my pants, and I wondered if my lips looked as wet and rapid as did his?

Go on, he winked. Take a drink if you want; my other jobs left me presents, not like this cheap piece of shit company.

He uplifted the barrier and started freeing the doors and I reached in one of the liquor boxes and lifted out the bottle. Only a quarter or so of the gin left, and he winked at me, took the bottle and drowned it. Yes, I wondered, why was gin always the preferred drink of those trying to make me? Is there a particular drink for every perversion? If faggots have gin, do whores drink bourbon? One time in Cincinnati a guy dressed me up as girl and made me sip blackberry brandy while he just had a beer. And what does the S & M crowd drink, vodka? What about the guy that killed a little girl in Cincinnati? What does he drink, probably Shirley Temple’s? Oh, what the hell do I know? And without a care he just tossed the empty bottle in the street outside, rolled down the gate behind us, and we were in.

He let out a deep sigh of relief and reached for the bottle I was holding, ripped it open and this time just took a sip and tiredly sat down in a row of seats. He looked at me glassy eyed, as if trying hard to remember who I was, then his cheeks puffed out and he belched. “Bouah! Bouah!” Again his eyes drooped but I was glad to be in a warm place, if only for a short time.

I looked around. It was dark -- just a Coca Cola sign shone brightly on one wall -- and after his little gagging I didn’t expect any real movement from him. But what did I think was going to happen? Well, maybe because the way he looked at me I felt I should play this out to the end. But that’s always been my problem, thinking that the look of sexual desire and lust in the eyes of strangers could be more than just a look of sex, but also a longing for love. Sometimes I’ve always felt I should never disappoint someone hungry for me, as if their hunger for sex should be appeased and rewarded by my giving of myself to them…and how easily I have given myself to others. But what sexual satisfaction or sharing would I get from the drunken Santa whose need for a bed was to sleep it off and not screw me in?

Santa let out a few more retches but they were mostly dry heaves. I moved to another table. My feet were wet, my shoulders also were wet, and the hood of my jacket was sodden and did nothing to keep the snow off my head. Santa slowly got up and shuffled behind the counter. Then he stopped, staring at me as if unable to recall who I was or what I was doing there, but the sight of his liquor bottle brought back some kind of recollection as he sheepishly grinned, wiped his mouth, and said, Shit, I shouldn’t have drunk it so fast…

I grinned and snorted, but said nothing, as he looked at me.

But I was glad to be in the store where it was incredibly warm; and the fragrant smell of pizza dough, cheese and sauce hung aromatically in the air like a welcome treat from the bitter slush and cold outside. I took off my wet jacket and set it on a stool backrest, thinking, maybe I could stay here? Maybe he’d give me a job in the shop?

Is this your store? I asked.

Santa didn’t look at me but rubbed his face and sat back down next to his bottle of booze, and started fumbling the package trying to rip it open. He did, and brought the bottle out. Suddenly I changed my mind about being here, the smell of alcohol and vomit was quickly over-powering the sweet smell of sauces and pizza dough.

Again I asked him if the store was his.

Wha…? he slurred, looking at me. What…?

I sighed; I was familiar with this time-lag, the almost slow-motion response of drunks, being told lots of times to jerk someone off when I just did, and them not understanding why it was taking them so long to ejaculate. Drunks don’t know that their sexual strength goes with each drink they have…

Are you the pizza guy? I asked.

He contemptuously snorted and lifted the bottle. It was a brown colored liquor and I knew if he started mixing it atop the clear gin there’d be real trouble.

Neah, he said, I just come in every morning and clean the place up.

He held the bottle and looked at it, then pushed himself up from the stool and went behind the counter and retrieved a bottle of beer from the store refrigerator. He cracked the top off and took a deep swallow, letting out a sigh of satisfaction. I don’t know how people can drink beer after drinking gin and setting off to drink whickey. He took another swallow, then reached into the refrigerator and pulled out another bottle of beer, then returned to the table and held out the beer bottle to me. I opened it and took a small swallow. I never liked the taste of beer, and since I was tired and hungry, the taste repulsed me even more.

What happened to the side of your face? he asked, slowly sipping his beer.

I looked more closely at a wall mirror and saw the left side of my face was huge, puffed up and bruised looking, where the mugger had stuck me.

I got mugged, I simply said, but I noticed he wasn’t paying me any attention, nodding out…again until he jerked up again.

Wha…wha…?

Good beer, I simply said, raising the bottle and pretending to move it into my mouth.

He did the same, took a sip, then set the bottle down on the table and sleepily looked at me. This was it, I knew it; the whole point of me being here with him. He moved so his legs were open and smiled. There was no choice. I got down to my knees and smiled back at him. Slowly, I tried pulling his pants down under his ass and down his thighs. The rancid stench of dried urine on his underwear surged into my nostrils and I hoped I could get away with giving him a hand-job and didn’t have to take his smelly cock in my mouth.

I sighed, but kept smiling, and lifted the limp penis and gently began stroking it back and forth, doubtful I could raise his drunken cock to erection. Then I heard the snore and looked up. His arms were crossed over his chest, his pants were down his legs, the Santa hat rakishly roosting on his head and he was asleep.

I held onto the cock, gently pulsed it in my hand, because if I let it go and made a movement he’d instantly stir awake. Being as drunk and plastered as he was there’d be no trouble in keeping him that way; as long as I kept quiet.

I examined the cock I was holding. Limp, but just as cock-looking as any I’ve seen. What was the fascination some people had for detailed examination of a cock, or a cunt? I didn’t understand those incredible close-ups of a wet cunt or scummy cock in porno videos and magazines; bodies aroused me, not detached orifices or severed photos of something entering them. Entire-body photos turned me on, especially photos of women with men, as I’ve always imagined myself to be the woman under the man, but whenever I looked at pages after page of cocks and cunts I grew quickly disappointed.

I gently let go of the limp dick, settling it to fall down to the loose droopy balls between Santa’s open legs. I had been gently holding the soft penis for almost ten minutes and I was certain Santa was in a deep sleep, probably dreaming of erections and liquor bottles and spotless pizza shops. This one certainly wouldn’t be cleaned up, I smirked.

I reached into Santa’s coat pocket in a side chair and gently pulled out his ring of keys, careful not to jiggle too much. It took almost five minutes inserting the various keys into locks until I hit upon the correct one; the lock snapped open. I was about to go out but then I went to the refrigerator where he had gotten the beer, and looked at the food. My mouth quickly grew wet and I wiped my lips. But I settled on a 2 lbs package of ricotta cheese and two bottles of orange juice. I stuck that in my knapsack and put my damp jacket back on. Santa was still snoring, his exposed dick hanging limply, and I shrugged, recapped the bottle he was drinking from, and took that too in my knapsack. Suddenly, I felt sorry for Santa; he probably would lose his job for sleeping half-naked in the pizza shop and not cleaning up the place. What a Christmas surprise he would be? I snorted, and went out, frowning that it was still raining and snowing.

I scooped up a handful of slushy snow off a parked car and washed my hands and fingers of the uriney smell. Again I felt sorry for the drunken Santa, but then said, Fuck him! Christmas is a time of revelation, lots of things come out in the open. I’m sure that Santa was a good cleaner, after all, he had the keys to the place, but after this he’d be left keyless out in the cold. Like me…

***

I walked on. More and more people were filling the streets, either rushing to work or already carrying shopping bags of wrapped presents. Sooner or later I’d have to head back to my father’s place. But why? He didn’t know I was in New York; what did I expect from him? A Christmas greeting? A firm handclasp? Some kind of hope that his Christmas card’s message of Love, Dad was real? But where did I get the idea that he would welcome me like some prodigal son who had strayed and gone away?

I had wandered up and on a quiet side 15^th street I stopped in a doorway. The single building took up one side of the street while another building took up the other side. I leaned back on the door and it instantly gave way to a large delivery dock with a shuttered gate drawn over what was probably another locked gate.

Probably closed for the holidays, I thought, and let the door close after me. It was as cold in here as it was outside, but at least I was out of the dripping rain and slush, my breathing even misting heavier than on the street outside. Only a little grey daylight came in from the cloudy day, and it would probably be pitch black by nightfall, and I certainly wasn’t going to be here then.

Then I was grabbed from the rear. A guy was on me before I could think of running and getting away.

Don’t move! I heard a voice say.

It was obvious that whoever it was certainly was accustomed more to the darkness than I was, and it was also obvious he wasn’t the only one in the place. On the platform, which I assumed was a loading dock, shapes and bundles were rising from the floor, coughing, spitting, that it was also obvious the voice behind me had awoken them.

A figure quickly leaped off the platform and approached me as a hand behind grabbed my shoulder strap and pulled the knapsack off. The approaching figure suddenly punched me in the chest and pushed me against a wall, grabbing my knapsack before the other figure could get at it and quickly un-zippering the pack open.

Well, well, well, the guy said, pulling out the liquor bottle. It’s sure gonna be a Merry Christmas today! He turned and lifted the bottle over his head, showing it to other shadows on the platform who cackled and coughed and laughed, and called out, Bring her over, Stanley! We could use a new whore!

Stanley quickly ripped open the colorful package, reaching in for the bottle and opened it, and took a deep swallow of the liquor. Instantly, he shook his body as he gagged and doubled over, than spat out a heavy sigh of exhaustion as if taking the drink was some kind of triumph or accomplishment. He recapped the bottle and put it back in the box. Not bad, he said, for whiskey…

He again went over my knapsack, pulling out the cheese, the bottles or orange juice, my notebooks and all my t-shirts and my one extra pair of jeans I had. And by now the three other figures had climbed off the platform and shuffled over to us. Two of them were clad in piles of shirts and jackets, while the third, who timidly stood between them, wore a huge overcoat with tattered nylons and mismatched shoes; her longish hair was dirty and matted, with the brown roots almost half-way to where they met the blonde intruders. And the lack of makeup and the stubble on his chin made it was obvious she was a man, one of those New York transvestites I’d heard about.

Behind me, I again felt the hand go over my body, rifling my pockets and finding a few scraps of paper, like the Burger King Coupons I got in Cincinnati. Disgusted with the meagerness of my knapsack, Stanley threw the bag down and stepped away. He was just like the other homeless guys there, piles of shirts and jackets on him, unwashed, putrid smelly, a bum. When did it become politically correct to label shiftless unwashed thugs, hooligans and alcoholics as homeless unfortunates instead of calling them what they were: bums?

I started picking up my shirts and putting them back in my knapsack, thinking I’d get out of there, when Stanley turned and growled, Where do you think you’re going? he glared at me. I need a whore to keep me warm, honey.

Stanley grabbed the front of my jacket and pulled me to the loading dock. Tattered pieces of cardboard boxes stood around the dock and the two other bums crawled into one box and worked their way under a blanket; the bum in a long overcoat also snuggled down between them. Stanley made me crawl feet first into the box and crawled in after me. It was like crawling into a bum’s underwear, smelly, stagnant, oppressive, and when he lay down on top and started kissing me I almost vomited in his face from his stench.

He rolled off a few times, pawing between my legs -- I refused to get hard, imaging it was social worker Ralph molesting me -- and pulled down his two pants and began jerking off his limp dick.

Suddenly, he crawled out of the box, growling I stay in, and pulled up his two pairs of pants. He removed the bottle of whiskey, gagged at his drink, and roused the other bums, all the while searching for other clothes he had nearby.

Get up, you losers! he roared. We’re gonna have a wedding!

The first one out of the blankets was the sorry-looking transvestite. I suppose if she had a bath with perfumes she wouldn’t look so bad but she did. She looked so frail then saw what Stanley was holding and surged towards him in a rage, her eyes wide, her mouth open in disbelief.

No, you promised! she hissed. You said it’d be mine!

Stanley looked her up and down, then spat in disgust. Fuck you! he said. You’re a disgusting skank! Take a look at yourself in a mirror, you slut!

The transvestite sorrowfully said to him, But you promised.

Stanley grabbed the front of her coat, twisting whatever tits she may have had, and squelched, You promised! You promised! he mimicked. If you don’t shut your mouth I promise you won’t have one! He flung her across the dock and she fell against the other bums, catching her balance but running into the cardboard box and flinging herself into it. I could hear her sobbing.

But shit, I didn’t know what was going on with these bums and more than that, I had no idea how to get out of the loading dock. Maybe the company that was here shut down and this loading dock was now the home of the bums. As my eyes had gotten more and more used to the darkness, I began to see that the place was even more dirty and filthier than I first imagined I saw. The blankets under which the transvestite dirty blonde sobbed seemed to be tattered and frayed to something that was brought here weeks or months ago. Stanley’s cardboard box, into which he had pushed me and where he couldn’t get an erection, seemed to have lain pressed against the wall for weeks. I began to suspect that this building was actually vacant and the loading dock hadn’t been used in months if not years. These street people and bums had quickly taken over to enforce their squatters rights. The loading dock was theirs and that’s all there was to it. Still, how come they hadn’t risen up above the loading dock? I suspect that the massive gate at one end of the wall kept them from exploring any further.

Stanley undid the parcel he was holding and pulled out a white satiny and frilly long dress. For a moment I thought it was an actual wedding dress but it was too short, looking more like a little girl’s Holy Communion outfit than a young woman’s marriage gown. From a plastic bag, Stanley sniffed at what looked like white nylons -- certainly not meant for a little girl to wear, but maybe it did. I couldn’t even imagine where a bum like Stanley could get a hold of the girlie clothes.

Stanley ordered I get out of the box than said, Get dressed.

I hesitated, looking from the clean white dress to filthy and vile Stanley.

No way, I said. You’re sick!

Amazing how fast a bun like Stanley moved but he was on me in an instant, holding my jaw until I could feel my teeth snapping into bits, or at least that’s what I thought.

Get undressed, mother fucker! he ordered. And that means now! I could feel his putrid breath was over my face -- pickles, sardines, pizza, who the hell knew what he ate? Kapeesh?! He flung me aside and tossed the white dress at me. Get dressed, whore!

I looked at them staring at me, the two other open-mouthed bums with Stanley and the wet-eyed blonde transvestite then took off my jacket and began unbuttoning my shirt, sliding it down my arms and raised the t-shirt over my head. Stanley sat down on a blanket but another bum came to me and began to feel my flat chest, kneading my breasts like they were fulsome breasts until Stanley jumped up and pushed him away.

Get the fuck off my woman! he hissed. She’s mine!

I remained still, forcing myself to stay unresponsive to Stanley’s hands, but I also knew I was getting aroused by the feeling of myself being treated like a woman. Just the thought gets me horny, it’s what I always imagined myself to be, a girl, a slut, a skank on my knees and taking it from all sides; in those alleys and rooms and cars in Cincinnati; to that Ralph-guy in the park last night, and that Santa this morning, men were after me like they should be, after all, I was their little girl-whore.

I smiled at Stanley and lowered my pants, my stiff penis sticking out before me. I could see Stanley’s mouth fall open. I lowered my head, like a shy little girl, and removed my pants. I guess I could explain my attraction to men as acting and being like a girl to them; if I didn’t feel myself as such the horror and disgust of homosexuality would have been unbearable. That’s why I always took on another persona, a girl’s persona that would please any man that wanted relations with me.

Stanley stared at my penis jerking and pulsing in the cold air, and started slowly jerking me off, but my eyes and thoughts were on Blondie, the wet-eyed sad transvestite under the blankets. I was aroused by her even more than by scabby Stanley.

What the fuck?! I heard a bum say. Look at her ass. All pimples, bet you she has AIDS.

I could just imagine I heard three bum’s cocks drop forlornly down. Never did the scare of a disease have such an effect as did AIDS. I been hearing about it in Cincinnati and here it was New York City and the scare was as prevalent as the sickness was real.

Stanley let go of my dick and spun me around; I almost fell over from my pants around my ankles.

AIDS! he said. The fucken whore has AIDS! He pushed me away from him and was mumbling to himself. I was gonna marry you, he sadly said. You were gonna be my wife, he whispered, and fell back against a wall, pressing the white dress he was holding to his face.

One of the bums watching Stanley, snatched up the liquor bottle Stanley had ignored and moved to Blondie, who jumped out of her blanket and came and stood next to me. The bum shrugged, then took the bottle and tried taking a sip when Stanley was on him. I started getting dressed.

You have AIDS? Blondie asked.

I shrugged. Who knows? I looked at her. I’ve always had pimples on my ass. I know they look disgusting, I said, turning red. There’s nothing I can do about them.

She snorted and smirked. Sure scared them.

I smiled back and I continued dressing looking at her. I wanted to hold and caress her, no matter how man-like she looked in her clothes and no matter how shabby and smelly she was. I took a step towards her, and she came into my arms. For a long time we stood like that, holding each other, gently swaying, my erection in my pants nudging the stiffness under her overcoat and under her skirt or dress, until we both spasmed in ourselves, clutching and holding to each other as if our mutual ejaculations completed the shared loneliness of our desperation.

I took a step back, drawing her with me, and slid down the wall, as she settled with me, cuddling in my lap and clutching her legs under mine. We kissed a few times, and I asked, How do you feel?

She beamed at me and smiled, I feel beautiful, she said.

It was as if we had actual intercourse with each other, yet this was so much better. I’m sure she felt the same, as her intercourses must have been rougher and uglier than mine ever were, taking more men in a single night then I had in a week.

When we broke from our kissing and she settled her face against my cheek, we both saw Stanley looking at us. There was contempt and disgust in his eyes. He suddenly flung the white dress across the loading dock. I looked at him, then went and picked it up and crammed it in my knapsack.

Fucking queers! he cursed. I shoulda killed you when I had the chance! He kicked at the items before him, looked desperately around him, and leaped to the other bum who was again holding the liquor bottle of his lips. Stanley surged at the bottle, spraying it from the bum’s lips, and kicked him.

Mother fucker! Stanley yelled, and began to stomp on the bum, who scrambled out of the way, dragging the blanket with him, but Stanley kicked him a final time and the bum went down and stayed down, his head covered by the blanket.

Stanley spat at him, dragged the blanket off his fallen body, spat again, and lay down, covering himself with all the blankets. Blondie and I simply sat huddled together, neither of us taking an interest in the downed bum.

What are you doing here? I asked.

She sighed and looked sadly at me.

I got nowhere to go, she said, and put her head on my chest.

Don’t they have shelters in New York? I asked.

She snorted and looked up at me, her eyes curious but at the same time sneering.

Where you from? she asked.

Ohio, I answered. Cincinnati. Just got in last night…

Wow! she said, looking at me. Last night, eh…?

I nodded my head.

I wish I had just arrived, she said, then I’d get the fuck outta here.

Don’t they have any shelters for homeless people?

She snorted. We spent a week in one time, and we had to leave. My sister got raped the first night we were there.

You were with your parents?

She looked sadly at me. That’s my dad, she said.

I looked at Stanley, holding the whiskey bottle but having somewhat fallen asleep.

Your father? I asked, looking at Stanley. Didn’t you call the cops?

She snorted again. They were these security guards, black guys. Who the hell was gonna believe us? They threw us out, after about a week.

I looked at her. Where’s your mom? I asked.

She shrugged. When we lost out home to a fire mom stopped taking her medicine and was very depressed and laid in bed all day. After a while she didn’t even cry anymore. Blondie was thoughtful, than said, She was depressed all her life. Only about a year before the fire did she seemed happy and interested in things, and even stood up to my father who was more and more drunk. She sighed. But that was the medicine. When she stopped taking that she was depressed as when I was a kid.

So what happened to her?

When they threw us out of the shelter she was so depressed my aunt took her in, she didn’t want her sleeping in hallways and park benches.

She didn’t take you?

Again she snorted. Said I was a guy and I had to stay with my father.

Blondie raised her head off my chest and looked at the blanket clump under which Stanley, her father, lay.

My aunt said she was gonna take care of my mother and kid sister and I had to watch over my dad until the family could get together again. That was almost two Christmas’s ago.

My eyes narrowed sadly that the bum in the corner was her father and she was his son. Who had decided to dress her up as a female whore and have her trick on the streets? And how come she had remained loyal to someone who had no concern or caring for her? What was it? Family values that she tried to preserve? The family that sticks together stays together…even if it was a slow stroll towards perversion and death…

We looked at each other, than Blondie said, You’d better get out of here. When they get up they’ll blame you for something and beat you up.

We gazed at each other. I bit my lower lip. Come with me, I said. You don’t have to live like this.

She frowned. How else can I live? Even looking as bad as I do I can make a few dollars every night. You’d be surprised how many guys wanna blow-job from someone who looks homeless, even if it’s a guy dressed up as a girl, like me.

Ain’t you afraid you’ll get hurt you when they find you’re really a guy?

She shrugged. One look at me, well…shit happens, she thoughtfully said, lowering her eyes that I was sure she had been found out a few times.

We were silent, and I held her, gently stroking her bundled arm.

There’s a place we can stay, I said. On 25^th street. Off an alley. By the park there.

She sat up. No, she snapped. I’m not going anywhere. This is fine here.

She pushed herself up off my lap and shrugged. You better get outta here. And I mean it.

She took a few steps and snatched up the white dress her father, Stanley, had been holding, and dropped it my lap.

Your wedding gown, she snorted. You keep it; you might need it again.

She threw it at me and picked up some high-heeled shoes, a bit worn and over-used but held them out to me.

Use these too, she said, and start off with how much you can. When you start giving blow-jobs for less than a buck you know it’s the end of the line.

I wanted to ask if that’s where she was, the end of the line, but didn’t. I got up off the ground, holding the dress and underwear package.

Please come with me, I said. I think I can get some money. My father owns a store in the Village, I’m sure he’ll give me something more for Christmas. Please…

She stared at me. Your dad’s probably no better than mine; that’s why you’re on the streets, just like me.

She turned away and went to the blankets close to where her father was asleep with his whiskey bottle. I sighed, looked at the comatose figure on the floor, then picked up my knapsack and shoved the dress and undies and shoes in. My other clothes had been scattered between the mattresses that lay on the ground. I picked them up and walked across the loading dock. Maybe she was right; it’s best to get out of here. I looked back at Blondie, but she facing the other way. I opened the door and went back out.

***

The snow had gotten heavier but the street was quiet and un-peopled, and the sidewalks remained as undisturbed and un-trodden; a sheen of white lay everywhere. I walked slowly, confused and disappointed by what had just happened. Blondie’s voice telling me not to take less than a dollar remained echoing in my skull. Is that what’s going to happen to me?

When I got to the big street I again saw the clock tower, 1:35 it said. Had I really been that long with Blondie and her father? It was barely 7am when I first met Santa; about 8 when I left him. About 8:30 when I wandered into the loading dock, so I had spent about 6 hours with them. What a way to kill the morning!

Though the snow was falling thickly and steadily, I was surprised at the amount of people on the big street trudging through the snow carrying bags and bags of last minute presents, though probably cursing themselves for having waited so long. Radio speakers in store fronts blared Christmas carols and the disk jockeys kept bawling, It’s a White Christmas! It’s a White Christmas! after every song and announcement.

Was it snowing in Cincinnati? Was my grandmother worried about where I’d be spending the night? I had spent lots of nights out but never on Christmas. Or had that social worker scum Ralph sicced the cops on me, certain I was up to no good? Oh, fuck him!

***

It wasn’t long before I was again on that big street going to my father’s house and shop. The gate in front of his stop was gone, the lamps were lit in the window, and even from the distance I could see people entering and leaving his shop. But would he be glad to see me? Or disappointed? And I couldn’t just show up out of the blue, especially if my grandmother called and told him I was missing, again…

I walked towards his house and looked at it from across the street. A tree stood in front of the house, the snow packed thickly on its barren white branches, but even through the fog of falling snow I could see someone moving in the lit second story window.

I crossed the street, took a deep breathe, feeling very afraid, and pushed the buzzer. I stared at the side of the gate, certain I was being observed the window above, then heard the crackle of a voice in the intercom.

Yes? it squawked.

My name is Billy! I yelled, louder than necessary, smirking to myself as I imagined the listener at the other end jumping back from the jarring shouts. I’m looking for my father, David…Lescoux! (I felt weird about saying his made up name. My own name is Leshko; but Dad had to Frenchify it --after all, this was Greenwich Village, where people were supposed to be hip.

There was a pause of silence, as I’m sure the voice was taking in what I said. Maybe I should’ve gone into the shop and looked if my father was there; maybe he had people working for him and didn’t have to be there all the time. Maybe the squawky voice was now getting my father from another room. Hell, what did I really know about him?

I’m coming down, the voice finally said, and I cursed, thinking I’d have been let in immediately if I were welcome. My face turned red and I squirmed under my wet coat, remembering a doorway in Cincinnati, where I’d have to wait for gay Vinnie to come down because the intercom worked but the front door buzzer was broken and it took Vinnie forever to come to the front door. I’d wait patiently, huddled in the doorway, looking up each end of the street, not wanting to be seen, because Vinnie lived a block from school and I knew that many of the kids walked past his building on their way to and from school -- I had done so myself when I was a kid -- and sure enough, coming up the street, and certain to spot me lurking in Vinnie’s doorway, were Petey and Mikey, two not-so-good friends of mine. It’s as if the three of us were on that street intentionally to meet up with each other because from down the street we each made eye-contact with each other, and Petey and Mikey immediately turned to look at each other then back at me, their faces in smirking grins. They knew what I was doing in Vinnie’s doorway…the door opened and Vinnie let me in, I entered hearing loud laughter after me…I still remember the scorn which they called me back in school, Billy the Fag, Billy the Filly, Silly Billy, and finally, Billy the cocksucking faggot just like his queer dad!...But that was a year ago…and I still feel ashamed…

I heard the clatter of locks opening and the door swung inside. Through the gate I looked at a goateed and bald man, studs in his ear lobes, black t-shirt, his arms tattooed his jeans tight with cowboy boots on his feet. We looked at each other up and down; he smiled, I smiled back. It was an unmistakable look, the kind I’d gotten in Cincinnati and a few times in Chicago and now in New York.

Suddenly I heard a buzz at the gate and I pushed it open. The man stood aside and let me in.

Ooo, get out of that coat! he grimaced. You’ll freeze! He shook all over.

I wanted to smile at his voice, real classic faggot-like and lisping. I dropped my knapsack and got out of my sodden jacket.

Does your father know you were coming? he asked. He didn’t tell me anything. By the way, I’m Josh.

I stamped my boots on the carpeted floor, and rubbed my upper arms. My long sleeved shirt was also wet, as I’m certain was my t-shirt and underwear. If I had to walk another hour I’d probably freeze to death.

Is Dad in the shop? I asked. The words sounded funny on my lips as I had never uttered them, simply calling him now what he had written on his Christmas, as Dad; my grandmother always threatening me to be polite.

He nodded his head. Oh, gee, he didn’t say you were coming for Christmas!

For all his tough biker macho image he was pretty effeminate, not really talking, but gushing, as if each word and sentence were an affirmation of how much he was enjoying life and the moment he was in; people like that make me nauseous.

Nope, I shook my head. He doesn’t know. It’s a surprise.

The man looked at me, his eyes wide, his mouth open, then clapped his hands together like a little kid, and spun around in a dance, squealing, A surprise! A surprise! David loves surprises!

I smiled, almost caught up in his glee, but I felt sad. How would I know what my father liked? I’d only seen pictures of him over the years, pictures he had sent only to my grandmother.

But first, the fairy said, you must get out of those wet clothes. Gee, you’ll catch the death of you. We wouldn’t want that to happen, now would we?

He again looked me up and down and it was the look I’d been getting from guys out on the streets ever since I arrived in New York; was the entire city gay? And was it so obvious what I really was too, an image of my father?

I suppose you’ve got dry clothes in your bag? he asked.

I shrugged; besides the dress and undies package Blondie had watched me stash way I didn’t have anything else to wear; but I didn’t care, if I could get out of these wet ones that would be great.

Josh led me upstairs to an open floor that covered the length and width of the building, the large loft room divided only by partitions which made the room into a sleeping area, a work space, and a lounge type of area with exercise equipment, barbells, and two stationary bikes. Dad must have looked very he-man macho type, I thought. Just the little I saw of downstairs, I was surprised by the expensive lavishment of my father’s house. Did selling old furniture make all the money he had?

The bathroom’s in here, Josh said, pointing to a small doorway next to a window facing the rear snowy courtyard of the building.

Thanks, I merely mumbled, and opened the bathroom door. I think I blinked in surprise, as the small cubicle-like-door opened into another large room with not only a bath and shower in one corner of the room, but also a hot tub and sauna at the other end. Beautiful white soft and immaculate looking towels hung around the room, all in reach of wherever the bather or sauna user may be in the room, and it looked like something out of a display store catalog, a picture showing off something that didn’t really exist out of a house designer’s imagination. But here it certainly did.

I slid open the shower door, turned on the water, testing it for warmth, than quickly and greedily took my wet clothes off. A mass of switches were on the wall next to the door, and I assumed they were for all sorts of lights and heating lamps that were on the ceiling, but I didn’t touch any of them.

There was a knock on the door, and I heard Josh call, Give me your wet clothes, I’ll throw them in the dryer! and the door opened.

I was caught totally unprepared and barely had time to grab a towel and cover myself. Josh had seen what his eyes were looking for, and he snatched up the wet clothes, and giggled, My, my, you surely are your father’s son, aren’t you? He hesitated, licking his lips, Take your time, David won’t get up till maybe 7 or 8, it’s only 3.

We both looked at each other, both knowing we wouldn’t even need all that time and Josh left.

I wished I could sink and loll in the tub, soaking in the warmth of the water, but I washed quickly, unplugged the tub and let the shower water run to give myself a good rinsing. Who knew how long before I washed again, because I sort of knew that my unexpected arrival wouldn’t be greeted with the giddy glee that cheered Josh. I doubted that dad would be cheerful…I wrapped a towel around myself, and stepped out of the bathroom.

The large loft room was empty, and I walked to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. The short bath made me sleepy and hungry, and I wished I had the cheese Stanley taken from me. I laid back and sighed. I slept…because when I jerked awake, Josh had undone my towel and was on his knees before my outspread legs, caressing my soft penis and smiling up at me. He pushed himself up from the floor, crawling on the bed beside me, and pulled me up with him so we could lie fully on the bed. He was also undressed except for a pair of tiny leopard-spotted underwear that only held his cock and balls, like a man’s g-string, worn more for teasing than for comfort. It would be crazy to out into the snow with those under your pants -- the chill and ice would get to you fast. He leaned over me, and we looked at each other, then our lips met and he plunged his tongue in my mouth and down my throat. I gagged, and Josh snapped his tongue out, and giggled.

Just like your father, he said, can’t take too much tonguing!

I smiled, and Josh was on me again, kissing my lips then working his mouth down my neck to my chest and belly all the while gently kneading his stiffening penis. He knelt up, facing me, and slowly lowered his tiny panties. I marveled at his the small length of his cock but which made up for it by his width and bulk -- short in size but a nice mouthful. I’m certain the silver cock-ring that glimmered between his pubic hairs had a lot to do with increasing the size of the cock, still, it was certainly impressive and I doubted I’d be able to spread my cheeks so far apart enough to easily enter me -- I foresaw pain…but pain was part of good sex, I thought.

My own cock was as stiff as it would get and Josh again knelt between my legs and moved his small cock atop mine. The sensation was ecstatic and I put my fingers at the base of my cock so as to stand it up to meet Josh’s movements. It reminded me of a guy I’d meet in a lot filled with yellow school buses stored for the night who simply would hold my cock under his and the two of us would simply sway into each other as if we were fucking the other until we got so good in reading the other’s point of arousal that often we’d ejaculate onto our cocks simultaneously, which only heightened and intensified our arousal and excitement in each other. I met him almost every night in the lot, but one night when I got there early and was skirting my way around a bus, I saw another kid making his way in the front of the bus. I saw the man wiping his cock with some tissues and I suddenly understood the feeling of being a sloppy-second. I turned and walked away from the school buses.

I ejaculated, Josh gripping my cock, pulling the foreskin as far as it could go, bloating and exposing my cock-head so nothing would hinder the eruption and he pulsed his fist around my cock to heighten the pleasure of release. I don’t think I had ever an ejaculation like that, clenching my eyes shut in pain, my body rocking on the bed, and as soon as Josh had gripped me I actually saw stars exploding in my head. 

When Josh finally let go of my dick and I opened my eyes, I saw he too was in a frenzy of pleasure and pain but his cock-ring cinched him tightly around the base of his cock and around his balls keeping him in a torrent of unreleased of any sort. He kept snatching at the cock-ring, trying to find a grip hold and release some of the pressure but the ring held him too tightly refusing to yield the desperation wracking his blue-colored cock. The only freedom he’d get was if his hard stiff cock loosened some of his stiffness.

I quickly spun around, kneeling on the bed, and put my mouth over his cock. I could hardly get my mouth around his cock when he exploded in a torrent of ejaculation, falling backwards off the bed and striking the floor in a spasm of rocking and cuming.

I leapt off the bed and straddled him, Josh’s dick cuming and tapping my ass, my arms and body pressed to his in an attempt to appease the uncontrolled rocking of his own body. It was something most guys wouldn’t do for me -- touch and hold me when I shot out -- as if in getting pleasure from the fact that they weren’t giving me any, indifferently looking at my frenzy as if resenting the fact that I was deriving pleasure when the entire point of our tryst was for me to give them pleasure.

Josh finally lay still, breathing heavily, his fat bulky penis softening against my ass cheeks and thighs, until he slightly nudged me to climb off. I did so and he immediately gripped the cock-ring and slid it under his balls and off his cock.

God, did that hurt! he said. But it was the best I ever had!

He fell back on the carpeted floor and I again straddled him and lay down atop him. Josh’s hands and arms went around my back and we kissed. I settled my head against his face…and we must have fallen asleep because when I next opened my eyes Josh was brutally pushing his body against mine and pushing me off.

David, no! I heard him say. It’s not like that, please!

I looked up and around me. My father stood in the doorway. He was a tall man, but I didn’t know that. His hair was black and curly and went down his back almost to his shoulders, like on the Blonde on Blonde Bob Dylan album Joey in Cincinnati had hung the wall of his room. I knew Dad’s hair was a fake; the photos in my Grandmother’s album showed him with brownish straight and flat hair that in various photos receded further and further back atop and around his head. He was wearing blue jeans, a tan studded cowboy shirt, and a denim tie around his neck; I wondered if he had just taken off a leather jacket downstairs, and I’m sure he was wearing cowboy boots. For a moment we looked at each other, my father’s eyes straining at some kind of memory as if not being able to place me in the picture. Josh kept mumbling something about You don’t understand, and I can explain, but my father kept looking at me.

Get out! he finally said. Get dressed, and get out! Both of you!

He turned, and I heard his boots thudding down the stairs. Josh had already put on his g-string and glared at me.

You heard him, he snapped, his eyes a burning glow of venomous hatred, as if I was responsible for everything coming apart in his life. Get out! he shrieked, mimicking my father and ran after him.

I remained on the floor, looking after them, puzzled that my own father really didn’t seem to recognize me. Over the years I knew my grandmother had sent him photographs of herself with me standing by her: my first Holy Communion, one of my 8^th grade graduation ceremony, and one of me alone behind the wheel of her car the day I got my driver’s license. Dad never recognized me…or if he did, he didn’t care. I don’t know if I felt sad just very numb. But whatever I was feeling, I knew I had destroyed whatever relationship my father had with Josh, and I knew that for him his relationship meant as little as did his relationship with all the other names on Christmas cards over the years. Why couldn’t I stay out of things? Why did I always make a mess?

I heard my father’s voice screaming from downstairs. Scattered phrases about working hard, and that it’s Christmas time! and finally one shrieking yelp of I know who he is! Am I blind!

I was quiet and still; my father knew who I was, and found me unworthy of even the slightest recognition! Just as I was alive because of him, so too was I a nuisance that had to be abandoned and discarded…Look what a mess I had just done! Aw, Christ! I was his son, but I was a mistake. I should not have been born, but since I was, I was simply tolerated and dumped on my grandmother. I sighed. My mother had it so much easier: she simply disappeared and the hell with the little shitting baby.

I heard my father shout, Some Christmas present you give me! but I shut the bathroom door behind me. I felt myself being in a cloud, as if I was sleepwalking, remembering taunts from school mates about my father, about my following in his footsteps, about my failures and worthlessness, that when I removed Blondie’s dress from my knapsack. I didn’t know what I was doing until I realized what I had on while I was straining to pull up the dress zipper on my back behind me.

I sighed; I was a faggot with a little white dress, and ready for a fucking, mister. But it was an almost a perfect fit, a little too tight under the armpits but it hung evenly and was aligned on my body as if it had been measured for me. At the time, I blushed, and reached in the knapsack for Blondie’s never worn pantyhose and slid them on my legs, tucking my cock and balls between my legs and stretching the hose tightly beneath them. The cock and balls stayed put. I strained into the shoes, a little worn out, but succeeded in plopping my feet into them, and tottered across the floor tiles to the medicine chest above the sink.

One thing I knew about faggots -- and Dad was one -- was that they always had some kind of girl’s makeup in their bathroom chests, either a bottle of facial cream, or a tube of lipstick, or some kind of mascara and eyebrow pencils. Why? I guess to make themselves in that secret image they so want to be.

I was in luck, immediately spotting on an upper shelf a bottle of Cover Girl, a Maybelline eye-stick next to it, and three lipstick tubes of various tints and hues. Still, I wondered who wore the makeup in this house, the macho-looking Josh with his cock-ring or my father the fag with his shoulder length curls and twirls.

I picked up the Cover Girl and looked myself in the mirror. A dark swatch of baby down hairs covered my upper lip, and other dark swatches swooned down the sides of my face as if straining in a mimic of Elvis-like sideburns. I had never shaved before, but I knew I’d better do so before I put on the makeup; the strong lighting in the bathroom made my naïve-ness so apparent. But I shrugged and scooped up whatever girly makeup I could find in the cabinet and tossed them in my knapsack.

I went to the door, slightly opened it and heard my father and Josh going at it downstairs. I turned back to the medicine chest: why did I so quickly ignore the package of cheap disposable razors and allow my eye to settle on a long oblong box knowing it contained an old fashioned straight razor and probably an antique from my father’s antique shop, one he had set aside for his own personal use?

I opened the box and looked at the elegant brown mahogany handle of the blade. No way could the cheap yellow plastic handles of the disposable razors ever compare to the old-styled elegance and craftsmanship of the old blade. I flicked the blade open, as if I’d always held one, and it hovered easily in my fingers, ready to shave my-virgin face. I heard my father’s voice.

Hey, you! he yelled, banging on the door. Come out of there! I want you out of this house, now!

I looked at myself in the mirror. I wished I had the makeup on. On another shelve I suddenly spotted another lipstick tube. I picked it up and curiously looked at it in my hand. The plastic wrapper was still on around it and it had never been used. I set it down and again fingered the razor blade. The door shook and rocked and again my father screamed something. I lifted the blade and swung it down on my left arm, instantly slashing my wrist, surprised at how easily and readily my arm fell as if severed from my body and hanging in a limp clutch as if about to fall totally from my body.

Dad surged in, and for a moment he was speechless, then he shrieked like a little girl. In a way it was funny, his squealing shriek not so much of horror and surprise, but one of hate, like I suppose a girl would cry out at the moment of losing her virginity to some unknown rapist. It was pleasure and fear and revulsion all at once, with also some kind of calculation of how to get out of this incident and how to explain it afterwards when there could be no explanation except cover up.

Josh burst in after Dad and for a moment we stood looking at each other, my arm dropped into the sink and leaking my blood in spurts and spits. I was certain I had probably cut an artery but I didn’t quite understand what those little white severed cords were doing in my arm. I was puzzled, and suddenly my eyes widened in a sensation of total awareness and understanding. They were put in me like the strings of a puppet, so as to manipulate and hover me about like I was in a performance by a puppet circus, unable to take actions of my own but responding solely to the pullings and tuggings of a lunatic puppet master.

But when had this insertion of my puppet strings taken place? I certainly hadn’t volunteered they do this to me; or was it something done when I was a child or while I slept or still a newborn? Maybe that’s why my mother left me, because I wasn’t a good performer? Maybe that’s why my father left me, because my performance had shamed him? Maybe that’s why I was left with my grandmother, that she looked after and took care of the accident I was growing up to become? Whatever it was, it made perfect sense: they’ve been controlling and tugging my strings for my entire life! And whatever stupidities I had gotten into was most likely my form of rebellion and rejection of those manipulations. No wonder I could never fit in; it wasn’t me at all!

Josh also screamed, What have you done?! What have you done?!

I was pretty much bored with both of them, holding my arm over the sink, grabbing a towel off a wall hanger and wrapping it around my wrist. I was strangely pleased, not a drop of blood got on my white dress.

We’ll need an ambulance! Josh gushed, going into a tirade of ambulances and hospitals, when my father interrupted him and asked, Look at the way he’s dressed, he’s not even 16! What will we tell the police? Oh, Jesus!

But David, Josh hissed, he’s your son!

And suddenly Josh lowered his head as if suddenly remembering what had just occurred. My father looked at me in a sense of disgust and again my feelings of being a puppet came back.

We’ll get a taxi! said Josh. We’ll take a taxi to the hospital!

My father sneered at Josh’s suggestion.

How will we get a taxi on Christmas Eve in the middle of a freak snow storm?! He looked from me to Josh and sadly said, Why did you let him in? Why didn’t you call me in the shop?

I’m sorry, Josh whispered. I thought you were expecting him.

They stood looking at each other, lost in their own feelings of betrayal and weakness. I glanced at the towel on my wrist; the blood had quickly soaked through. I knew I’d better get to a hospital.

Can I have my coat? I simply said.

They looked at me, but came apart to let me pass, as is I was wielding the razor blade and was coming at them.

It’s downstairs, said Josh.

I wobbled on my heels, tottering down the stairs, grabbed my knapsack and put one arm in my jacket. Josh ran after me reaching for his wallet. He shoved a 20 dollar bill at me and said, Take a cab! Tell him Saint Vincent’s! It’s on 7^th Avenue! The cabbie will know! It’s only a few blocks away!

Good, I could add his twenty to mine from Cincinnati but still I was curious as to why Josh was doing all the shouting yet I looked at him as he was helping me with my jacket --which was dry and clean; Josh must have thrown it in the drier. He must be a real nice guy, I thought and staggered outside.

I had walked past St. Vincent’s a few times that morning as I wandered along Greenwich Avenue and it’s the place where I knew could help me without Josh’s gushing sputtering of where to go. Josh just closed the door behind me, and I never thought why Dad didn’t come down the stairs.

***

They must have thought I was a girl and I must have staggered in from being raped since the blood had be now covered the front of my dress in one long streak from my waist to my bottom hem. And things were happening fast: when I slid down on the hospital gurney there must have been a dozen nurses hovering about me, my dress raised, then just as quickly they scattered as soon as they discovered my gender under my white hose. But in between the various injections and questions -- I told them my name was the social worker Ralph and gave them Dad’s address, let them figure it out. I wanted to sleep and for the first time since I got to New York I felt I could sleep in some kind of safety and warmth, as if I belonged in this room no matter that the nurses who passed my gurney giggled pr sneered to themselves as they looked at me.

I don’t know how long I lay there but when I opened my eyes I was being wheeled across a long hall. I shut my eyes to keep my head from spinning and wheeling until finally stopped; I never even saw who had pushed me from the emergency room to this room. A doctor was looking at me over his glasses that hovered on the tip of his nose. I knew I shouldn’t smile but the way his glasses hung on his nose reminded me of the grade school principal I had in Cincinnati whose authority made the kids in school fear being sent to his office -- all he did was feel me up while lecturing about God and Christ and Heaven; I didn’t think he was that bad just a homo flaky.

Somehow my bleeding had stopped as I lay on the gurney the doctor picked up my arm and looked at the wound. I also looked, a mass of red tissue surging from under the flesh, bloated, wet, the severed white cords still poking outside of the globulous muscle.

What’s that white stuff? I asked.

The doctor put down my arm and looked over his glasses.

Tendons, he blandly said. You severed your tendons.

His lips seemed to tighten.

Fortunately you only cut one, if you had cut two you’d walk around for the rest of your life with a claw for a hand.

We looked at each other and he raised his arm to his chest and contorted his fingers into a grotesque vulture-like claw. He raised the arm as if going for me. I turned my head away.

If you had cut all three tendons, he coldly said, you may as well have cut the arm off and thrown it away.

He shrugged and sat down on a stool next to my gurney.

Don’t look, he told me, and I turned my head away and felt his poking about my hand and wrist.

And just as time seemed to disappear in the emergency room it too faded into an almost stillness of peace and quiet. Why is it that only around dull and apathetic strangers did I feel myself attaining some kind of comfort and acceptance? These people were only doing their jobs; they had no interest or concern as to my well-being beyond that of their experience as care-givers. I wondered if they were as seemingly compassionate or caring of others in their own lives. Was Mister Social Worker Ralph as coldly indifferent to his own children? Was Little Miss Social Worker Susan as caring to her own boyfriend? Or did people shed their work-persona-abilities the moment they left work, putting on different personas as they were putting on their jackets to go home? Maybe all of life was just that, role-playing, pretending, acting… Would Susan tolerate the stupidities of her boyfriend the way she tolerated me? Would Ralph drag his own son to the police if he wrote a poem about a little girl being murdered? Would I have gotten dressed as a girl if my father had loved me as a son?

Ok, I heard the doctor say.

I turned, looked at his eyes over his glasses; there was a faint smile on his lips, almost like a shrug. I looked at my wrist: it was bandaged up, the bandage on my arm and hand looking incredibly clean and immaculate.

All done, he said, then turned away from me. They’re going to take you to Bellevue psychiatric; you did try and kill yourself, didn’t you?

He rolled the gurney down the hall and I was beginning to feel dizzy.

Rest, he said. Don’t think about anything.

He must have seen my face cringe in fear -- because who wouldn’t cringe at the word psychiatric and the possibility of being committed when you’re dressed up as a little girl?

Someone will help you, he said, so you don’t have to try doing this again.

I shut my eyes as the gurney rolled again, the boot of the gurney hitting and pushing open various doors, than we were outside as I was pushed into an ambulance. I shut my eyes, the two ambulance guys talking and laughing about a lady that they knew, and I must have slept because once more we were rolling down corridors again. A black security guard -- like they have in large stores and malls -- stood before a large metal door at the end of the hallway while another guard peered through a wire-mesh window in the metal door.

They’ll take care of you, one ambulance driver said to me and I was left alone with the black guard.

All of a sudden I knew I had to get my wits together. This was big time, a psycho ward, no lunacy here or you’d get locked up for a long time. One guard opened the metal door and pushed me in to the other guard.

Hey, nice dress, he said, and the two of them burst out laughing, as the huge door slammed behind me.

Whereas in St. Vincent’s the attitude of professionalism was certain, here in Bellevue the attitude of paranoia was prevalent. Since you had been brought to the psychiatric ward, the suspicion of the attendants and security guards was nothing but an attitude of certainty that you were a psycho and deserved to be treated as such.

Here’s another skirt wearing one, said one guard to the other, that makes four, don’t it?

Who the fuck knows? answered the other guard. The night is still young, I guess.

Possibly at that point I became incredibly lucid and aware that one mistake on my part would get me locked up for a long time with the other slashed wrist transvestites. Wrist slashing is a sort of rite-of-passage, a coming-of-age ceremony that initiates you into a world you were not born into, a world of exaggerated femininity and outrageous promiscuity. A slashed wrist is like a medal of honor, a purple heart on your chest that you have severed the link that would keep you in one gender when you raged and screamed to join and belong to another, leaving one gender, though still unable to belong to a second one, yet becoming a third, of male and female as one, together…a transvestite.

Of course I was a long cry from even pretending to mimic femaleness but already I felt the dress I was wearing, the makeup jar and lipstick tubes and mascara pencil I had in my coat pocket were and soon would be a vital part of my existence…if only I could get out of this sick psycho ward.

The metal doors clattered behind me and I was told to climb off the gurney and take a seat in a large waiting room; I immediately noticed the seat legs were screwed to the ground and clutched by metal hasps to the wall. Childlike drawings were pasted about the wall, probably drawn by Art Therapy classes in the wards upstairs. If they knew I wrote poetry about murdered little girls, would I now scratch out drawings of their lifeless bodies as well?

At the other end of the waiting room, across from the guard’s station, near the locked door, was a water fountain. I stood up.

Sit down, a guard instantly snapped, putting down the newspaper he was looking at.

I remained standing.

I wanna a drink of water, I said.

Sit down! he said again. His voice was firm, stern, unfeeling.

I sat down; the water fountain was close and the more I stared at it the more thirsty I felt, certain my mouth had never been drier or my lips more parched and blistered from the thirst. Still, I had to pretend everything was ok; I knew I had better not start getting argumentative as my reactions to the guard could be very decisive as to whether I was let go or dragged to the wards upstairs.

I slumped down in my chair, crossed my legs, daintily covered my knees with the dress, and stretched out an arm along the tops of chairs next to mine.

A gripping spasm tore through my left arm, as if I was viciously being pulled and tugged and gripped. I yelped in pain, the arm contorting back to my chest, my other right arm desperately gripping and holding the hurting one. Ever since I had been sewn up I held my arm braced upwards along the metal side railings of the gurney, the doctor even positioning a sling to the bars to hold it upright should I doze off to sleep, but my sudden almost nonchalant jerk of stretching the arm up suddenly made it clear how brutally I had hurt myself.

I doubled over and rocked back and forth, the pain slowly easing as my arm remained in one steady position. I looked at the guard; he was looking at me, and I don’t know what I must have looked like, but he scowled and coldly said, Go ahead, get the water, and he settled back in his chair and smirked, but there’s no more cups.

I didn’t care; I stood up and shuffled to the water fountain. It was one of the plastic-bottled refillable kinds, with two little red and blue spigots at the front and I suddenly knew my dilemma. I would need two hands and arms to take a drink: one to push the spigot and the other to cup my hand and catch the water in my palm. How did the guard drink? I wondered, but knew it best not to ask. Was this some kind of psychological problem, a test that was being taped by some hidden camera so that my sanity and competency could be studied and examined?

The guard was looking intently at me. A few paces from the water bottle a clear plastic garbage bag hung taped to a wall, bulging with a few discarded newspapers and masses of crushed discarded paper cups. I reached into the bag, rummaged for the least crushed cup, and leveled it under the blue water spigot. I pushed the spigot and the water swooshed into the cup and just as it appeared, cold and clear and inviting, so too it tasted on my lips as I drained the cup and refilled it one more time. The guard had been watching me all the while, and after three cupfuls I again felt my thirst abating and I put the cup into the trash bag, leaving it uncrushed for the next psycho patient, winking at a camera as I returned to my seat. I was certain I had passed a secret test.

After I had drunk the water I sat back down knowing I had better not act crazy; though I wanted to talk to myself I knew that this time someone might be listening and paying attention. I kept quiet. It was so much like sitting outside of the principal’s office when I was a kid, or sitting in the counseling center waiting for Susan, or Ralph, or just waiting in my whole life. A lifetime of waiting for help…but did I ever believe any of them that they only wanted to help me? Each counselor shuffling me to another, my file growing, thickening, the writing undecipherable to the next healer, care-giver, duplicitous social worker…

I suddenly heard the guard’s door clatter with that jail-like clanging that either clanged shut with your imprisonment or clanged open for your release. Two women came in through the door, both carrying clipboards and both pausing to look at me, the black woman entering the glass partitioned cubicle near the guard’s station. The white woman picked up another piece of paper -- it was the same paper I saw the doctor who had sewed me up had been writing on -- a transcript of my conversation with him? -- and she curiously peered over the paper and studied me a moment.

I wanted to smile, not because I wanted to seem friendly, but because the look was another constant in my ongoing reality of my life. Do they learn that in their schools, to look inquisitively at their patients as if assessing them in an instant without even having spoken to them? A look; not only for preconceived notions and judgments, but one also of those instant condemnations? Ralph always looked at me like that, as did Susan in the beginning before she seemed to have mellowed, and Mrs. Gillette’s look only got more and more critical and outraged as I kept coming to her house and always somehow disappointing her. What did she want and expect anyway? Aw, hell, I could never win with people looking like that at me, and I knew that this time I could lose out mightily.

I lowered my head, staring at the bandage on my wrist. An oily looking brown smear seemed to be edging its way through the porous fabric where I was certain I had slashed my wrist. I tried moving my fingers but could only get them to slightly react --my hand a claw for the rest of my life, eh? Would it matter so much anyway?

I at first supposed that the woman was some kind of nurse, she wore a white robe, but unlike the other nurses who were in completely in white, she wore regular clothes under the robe. Her name plate above her left chest was a complicated tangle of letters, mostly Z’s and W’s that I didn’t ever dare try and pronounce and her bright blonde hair strangely bee-hived at the top of her head almost seemed like a mimic of a nurse’s caplet she wasn’t wearing. Still, her stern blue eyes belied any kindness and tenderness in her demeanor, and I supposed that if she wasn’t a real nurse she was probably the warden of this place. I knew I had to be careful.

As the guard watched from his station, standing up when the woman first beckoned me, I walked across the waiting room and entered her cubicle office. I almost exploded in a Ah ha! of realization, as if I should have known it from the start, because I probably did, and what I saw on the far end of her desk, propped up against the wall, was the familiar bible of social workers, the blue book called Casework, which Susan also had in her office, as did Benedict Arnold Ralph, and probably sits on the desks and roosts in the minds of all Social Workers all over the world.

Once more I was sitting in the presence of a social worker; would I ever be rid of them? And once more I had walked in like a lamb for his slaughter. I wondered if that wasn’t another thing social workers kept in their desks, an axe at the ready to flail my bared neck and skull…

Name and address, she said, and was as unfriendly and alien as if I had landed on Mars and was being interrogated by an envious green sister of the red planet.

She looked sternly at me and at the form before her as if confirming my identity with the form before her. Was the official looking paper able to reveal more about my identity more than I could? She stared at me calculatingly, than asked, Do you know where you are?

I snorted, than said, In the hospital.

Which one?

I knew I had gone to St. Vincent’s but I didn’t quite know where the ambulance had escorted me in the night, and I told her so. And her eyes slightly softened, as if the awareness of my own experience and its memory disproved the question of my sanity. Still, I didn’t crack a smile. And once more she looked sternly at me, as if hesitating before she asked her vital question.

Why are you dressed like that? she asked.

I turned red and lowered my head, the front of my dress forever ruined by smears of my dark blood; yet if I could shed more blood and sprinkle it around the sides and back of the dress I could probably succeed in making the plain white fabric a mélange of polka dots.

I was at a party, I lied.

The woman’s looks again softened and she eased back in her chair.

Were you drinking at the party?

I nodded. Maybe too much? I said, again lowering my head.

How incredibly easy it was to lie to people! Just tell them what they want to hear, that’s all; that way it’s not really a lie since they expect it. And sometimes it’s not even wrong to lie, especially to social workers, since they have the power over your freedom, once you have fallen into their clutches and you must do everything to hold onto your dignity and self-preservation…which sometimes means you must lie.

What happened at the party? she asked.

It was like a costume party, I answered. And I had too much wine.

Do you take drugs?

I looked at her. Only pot.

Were you drinking wine and smoking pot at the same time?

Uh huh, I nodded again.

She wrote a few sentences on the paper before her and put the pen down. A faint smile eased across her mouth, as if my lies were a confirmation of her diagnosis.

And what happened?

We looked at each other. I went to the bathroom, I said. I wasn’t feeling too good. I threw up. I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked ugly. There was a razor on the shelf. One of those razors that carpenters use to cut sheetrock. You know the kind, with the blade at one end and a handle at the other?

Yes, yes, I know, she said, and I knew I had her, as she wanted to hear my lie.

There was a lot of gay people at the party, and I saw her tender smile and went on with my lie. I wouldn’t have gone but there was this girl…

Are you gay? she asked.

I hesitated, then said, I’ve been with gays, my face flushing and embarrassing red as if I was ashamed and regretted my betrayal of my sexuality. But lots of people think being gay is a choice; that we turn to another of our sex so as to fit in or have friends or being accepted by the crowd. I know it’s true, and I’d often admit the same to Susan, knowing that option was liked by her, as though I was trapped by circumstances around me and who I was with, that is, getting money from guys and also having my sexual needs satisfied. But you have a free choice of changing, Susan always stressed. And I suppose I did, but why do social workers always want you to change, and change in a way that they want you to change?

Do you like being with men? she asked.

Not really, my face even a deeper red then before. I don’t know how I was able to carry it off. I started believing my own lies.

There was this girl, I suddenly blurted. She was beautiful. She was dressed like a pirate, but all in red and green, like a Santa’s helper. She was with another girl who was also dressed like a pirate, but a captain pirate, and I knew that the other girl was a lezzie. I blushed and looked at the lady, then went on. Told her she had very short hair, like a boy’s, while the girl I liked had long hair and lets of makeup. And her pants and shirt was real tight. The lezzie had loose pants. They saw me looking at them. And the lezzie said You’re was a fine wench and that you’d make a fine whore for their crew. But I kept looking at the other girl who seemed guilty about something until the lezzie put her arm around the girl’s shoulders, very possessive-like and controlling, as though me the girl was hers. But the girl I liked started laughing. You look ridiculous! she said, and the two started laughing. I went to the bathroom. Saw the razor. Slashed it across my wrist.

We were silent, looking at each other.

Did you want to kill yourself? she asked, looking at intently at me.

No, I shook my head. I was embarrassed. The girl was so pretty and she was laughing at me. I was ashamed.

Do you always have problems with girls?

I smiled; she was setting herself up for this one.

Only when dressed as a girl, I winked, than turned red, and for the first time since the interview started she cracked a smile and snorted a laugh.

But she asked, Do you often dress as a girl?

It was a costume party, I said, I don’t know why they had it on Christmas Eve; maybe they missed Halloween or something.

The social worker or psychiatrist or whatever she was softened somewhat and looked relieved. I wondered if my strained attempt at humor eased her suspicions that I should be dispatched to the upstairs loony bin. Susan once told me that what would save me was my sense of humor; that given the time I could find and see the humor in every situation, which would lead me to forgiveness and peace. But she didn’t say anything about my humor as manipulation that could also save my life. To do that I’d even lie to the beautiful Susan and the hell with trust being the basis of all relationships, when trust can also be the basis of all betrayals.

Can you get home on your own? she asked.

I looked at her. Think, asshole, think! I thought. The ambulance ride didn’t seem all that long, and there were only a few turns. Damn, I should have paid more attention.

She looked up from her form. You live in the Village?

I knew my father’s house was in Greenwich Village and nodded. It’s a short walk, not far at all.

She looked at me. If you don’t mind looking like that, she said, I’ll give you a pass to leave, ok?

I nodded reluctantly but I was overjoyed.

You can sit in the waiting room and wait till its daylight.

I weakly smiled. No, I’ll be fine. Thanks very much.

She stared at me, then said, If we let go, will you try and cut your wrist again?

I shook my head, No, ma’am, I just wanna get home and get some sleep.

The humor that I had stirred up was gone; her face was thoughtful, but no longer condemning or judgmental. An expression of serious concern brooded about her eyes and she finally decisively bit a corner of her inside lip as if this allowed her to make a conclusive decision.

We have a daily clinic, she said. You can walk in any time. Or you can call and I want you to know if you ever feel like harming yourself that there are always people here willing and ready to talk to you.

I looked at her. I’m not gonna do this again, I said. I feel stupid about it already.

Her eyes opened wide, a flash of concern.

Do you feel ashamed?

Just very tired, I answered.

Again she bit her lip then said, When you feel better tomorrow or any time, come in and talk, ok?

I nodded, maybe a little too eagerly, but I was bored and disgusted by her solicitude and concern. Come in and talk? I talked for almost three years if not my entire life in Cincinnati and if anyone of them ever got me again I’d certainly make sure I would kill myself then. Talk to these social working quacks and shrinks? Fathers, counselors, girls, friends, grandmothers, what did anyone of them know why I wanted to hurt myself? I certainly didn’t, and I certainly had no faith in either of them helping me to understand the roots or basis of my self hatred. Oh, I recognized it now, the cowardice, the fear, the disgust, the confusion, the apathy. All I wanted now was to be out of here, back on the streets, away from the lot of these social workers and psycho do-gooders who in the blink of an eye can turn their compassion for your suffering into a jail sentence that can make you the loser forever. Survival and sanity had nothing to do with the truth. If there was any compassion in the world it must be for oneself. And the vital thing if you must love, do not love too much…

She pushed back her chair and stood up. I’ll take you to the door, she said, and tell the guard you can go.

I also stood up, bracing my arm against my chest and holding it up with my other hand. I followed her out of the office and back into the waiting room. Another man/patient sat in the room, his hair disheveled, his face looking stunned, but his eyes the most pleased and peaceful I’d ever seen. He smiled at me, and when I got to the guard’s station I overheard him telling another guard, He drove a nail into his foot because Jesus told him too, then he trailed off at our approach, his face reddening from embarrassment.

He can go, the woman said to the flustered guard and gestured at me. Take care, she said, but her eyes were already looking at the friend of Jesus, her next patient, and I was already far from her thoughts. Would he lie to her as I had just done? Or would he tell her the truth and would she be able to handle it? And what was the truth he would relate, forgive them Father, for they know not what they do?

But I was once more my own, walking past the busy emergency room entrance: people sitting in chairs, others leaning against walls, and all waiting their turns for some kind of treatment, something to soothe them or calm them for a brief moment that someone was taking an interest and preserving their lives and sanity as if on Christmas Eve the only place to feel oneself cared for was a hospital emergency room. When no one wants you alive, here they will do everything to keep you living…Too bad there was not a place such as this to keep you feeling loved…

***

Outside the snow had stopped and a crisp sheen of ice covered the sidewalk that crackled beneath my heels. Christmas lights merrily twinkled in the windows above the street and I was happy to discover that once more I was walking downtown. Back in the hospital I had put my pants back on and covered the dress I still had on with my Cincinnati Bengal’s jacket over that. My arm felt numb and I was very tired. But where to go? I turned west on 25^th street and once more found myself near the park that I had passed…what? yesterday?

But I knew my dress would deceive no one and that my ski cap would do little to alter the fact of my masculinity, but as I walked I saw the headlights of a car slowing to a crawl and inching to stop beside me.

A fat-faced man lowered his window and leered at me; once again the glassy and watery eyes unmistakably glistened with lust and passion, with a victorious look at feeling already having won me over by the mere fact of having spotted me, as if coincidence was destiny and we were meant to meet. But did he know I wasn’t a girl hooker? Or did it matter to him?

Ain’t you cold to be walking around like that? he asked, as his car slowly moved with me up the street.

I shrugged. A little, I said.

You look like you could use a little warming up, he smiled, stopping and letting a side door open. I know I could use some warmth, and he winked at me.

I barely smiled but he saw it was a friendly face and my hardening cock suddenly plopped out of the side of my panties and shot out before me, the loose dress doing little to restrain it as my pants would have done and trapped it against my belly. I pretended to shiver, as if his suggestion was what I needed.

Get in, he said. I’ll give you twenty bucks and that will warm you up, and give you a ride where you wanna go. He blinked, and I could feel the warmth of his car wafting out his open window. I stood still for a second then shrugged and circled around the car to the passenger side. The warmth was soothing and I relaxed in its comfort, as if I was home in bed under the covers on a rainy night, safe and sound.

He turned up the radio and a cowboy song blasted from the speakers and he quickly changed the station to disco, Where do you go, my lovely? I wanna know, where do you go? thinking I would like that better; I didn’t care. From the radio his hand went to my legs and up my dress and quickly found my hard dick.

For a moment he tensed, as if surprised and I was ready to bolt out of the car. Did he think I was really a girl? But his fingers remained circled around my erection and he stroked it a few times then let go and cupped my balls and leered, Feeling warmer?

I moaned a sigh of contentment, nodding my head so girlishly, and he gripped the steering wheel, shifted gears, and started the car up 23^rd street turning down a deserted 25^th street. We rode about two blocks and I glimpsed the cloud-like tree shapes above Madison Square Park, also glistening in frozen snow. Even in the cold I saw two huddled and bundled up figures walking on the un-trodden snow leaving their foot imprints behind them. I recognized the man who had felt me up on the day I had arrived from Cincinnati Along side of him a huddled young looking kid, I guessed my age, walked slowly beside. I smiled and shrugged.

Someone you know? the driver asked, once more inching his free hand up my thigh. Sit closer.

I inched closer to him and slightly opened my legs, the vision of my skirt rising and falling but covering my cock made me even harder.

Ain’t he a bit too young to be hustling? I said, looking at the young kid with the old man.

The driver looked at them. Aren’t you? he said, looking at me blushing. I ran my tongue around my lips and wished I was wearing lipstick.

The driver gripped my cock tighter then again his hand went up and down my thigh.

“But lets go here,” he said, putting his car into motion once more. We passed the park and he drove west --I could see the street signs. But in the car a warmth settled on me like I was home and safe in bed.

Let’s stop here, said the driver, coming to a stop in a quiet street. I saw row upon row of warehouses and shuttered gates on the street outside. In a window a clock peered out, 2:30 a.m. I must have been walking at least a half hour or forty five minutes before I met the feeler who had his arm up my dress, making his way past my pants, and reaching for my penis. I moaned, and he saw the bandage on my wrist.

What’s that? he asked.

I shrugged. A cut. No big thing.

He looked at me then said, Let’s get in the back, opening his side door and getting out. I quickly did the same, grateful to jump into the warm back seat from the brutal cold and wind. We relaxed a bit breathing very hard, then he undid his pants, raised himself up and slid them down his legs to his knees. Immediately the car smelled like cock and balls, urine and pubic hairs, and I knew that clumps of hairs were stuck together around his crotch and thighs, the hairs plastered and held by dried scum, either his own or another’s.

I’ve often wondered, when I went off with some guy, whether I was his first of the night or just one of many, often getting my curiosity speared by the shrugged comment that I wasn’t as good as the last one was, or sometimes, that I was even better, when I knew that even my best would pull them to leave and eventually find still others. Whether it be cruising along the river, prostituting for money, giving and getting hand-jobs in the parks, it would never lead to any kind of peace or acceptance. Anonymous sex leaves you as unknown to yourself as you never allow yourself to uncover the unknown about your partner. Is it really a search for love, all those garish prostitutes, the boys in tight t-shirts, girls in skimpy bras, the runaway children, the crack addict kids, the petty thieves sleeping in hallways, huddled on rooftops, in back of trucks, in cardboard boxes? Or are they there because they once knew where love once dwelt and existed but was never offered or given to them?

The driver put his arm around my shoulder, gripping my neck and pushing me to his crotch.

C’mon, baby, he hissed, get to work, you know the routine.

But my left arm was somehow twisted and contorted under my body as I tried to go down on him. I yelped and jumped back up, clutching my arm to my belly.

What’s with you? he angrily asked. When you’re a fairy that’s what you do: suck cock and bend over…that’s what you’re good for, right?

I whimpered. But I had an accident; I hurt my arm.

He shrugged. Just use your mouth, he said, suddenly frowning as he noticed the bandage peeping out of my jacket sleeve.

We looked at each other.

Let’s change seats, he finally said, pulling me atop him, his rigid cock tweaking my thighs and back, and I offered to remain atop his lap but he kept pulling me to his other side. I plopped down from his lap and immediately went down to his cock, filling my lipstick smeared lips with its smelly putrid bulk, my left arm arched at the elbow down my side.

But it wasn’t a real sucking, simply an open-mouthed bouncing atop his cock, and not a lavish tonguing, drooling, sucking like they show in porno theaters. As if we’re all porno stars, aw Jesus! I wonder if girls are the only ones who really know how to suck cock: but I felt like trying it too.

I sighed, compressed my lips around his cock, gripping his cock-skin around my lips, and settled my head as far down as I could go. His response was instantaneous and fast: his torso buckled upwards and I gagged from the entire penis but I held my lips tightly shut around his cock, his pubic hairs ticking under my nose, and readily swallowed his semen surging down my throat.

I knew I was good, looking up at him with my tender eyes, and his gentle pats and strokes on my head proved that I was. Most strangers who pick you up won’t even offer a caress afterwards, they want as little to do with you as possible; but not him. I swallowed him whole, the semen almost like a nutritious treat appeasing my hunger since I haven’t eating in almost two days.

His cock went soft in my mouth and finally dribbled out. I sat up, and he was immediately on my face, kissing and licking my lips and probing his tongue in my mouth as if greedily wanting to lap up his own semen. I let him, amazed that he did that, and with one hand reached under my dress and stroked my still hard penis.

My eruption was probably as immediate and powerful as was his own, and for the first time in my life I actually saw tweaks of glimmering stars under my clenched eyelids, like a meteor shower exploding in my brain and body and existence that proved I was as good and sexy and beautiful as the rest of them...and I had done it to myself.

Sure, the night’s disasters, the meeting with my father, his lover, my slashed wrist, the conversation with Blondie, her own father straining into my ass, the conversation with the shrink in Bellevue had probably strained my consciousness to its limit and only a sexual ejaculation could bring me back to my sense of awareness and self-control.

I had two days-full of people in my life and probably off all those people only Blondie was of any value. Trust is the basis of all relationships, Susan used to say; well, maybe…but if that were true, you also had to discover the trust could also be the basis of all betrayal. Wasn’t I in this city because I felt myself betrayed in Cincinnati? Wasn’t I sucking a stranger’s cock on Christmas morning because I had expected too much from my father, expected something he could never give me? Maybe…I wish I could tell Susan, If you must trust, do not trust too much.

We broke from each other and fell exhausted back in the seat. He sat a moment then suddenly bolted upright and pulled up his pants, as if suddenly realizing how openly exposed we were in the car in the well-lit street. But fortunately no one was looking and I doubt if even a car passed us by on that cold Christmas morning.

He zipped up, and opened the back door, stepping out of the car. I did the same and quickly rejoined him in the front seat. For a moment he looked at me in some surprise, as if expecting me to stay outside.

Five, wasn’t it? he angrily said. He looked around as if looking for a place he could go before anyone saw him.

You said twenty, I quietly said.

Twenty! But you didn’t do anything! he flared. Where did you get the idea a measly blow job was worth twenty?

I didn’t ask for it, I said, you’re the one who said twenty.

We looked at each other.

Well, ok, he finally said, reaching in his back pocket and pulling out a wallet. I saw there were more than twenty dollars.

Well, he mumbled, it’s getting late.

Can you gimme a ride? It’s not that far, I meekly protested, then added, Please?

What would Susan say about that, adding two emotions, anger and pleading, to get what I wanted?

Ok, where too?

I felt very peaceful.

15th street, I said. On Tenth Avenue.

He looked at me. Then reached for his car radio and turned the dial away from disco and back to the country station that was playing before he changed it.

You’d better fix your lipstick, he said, if you want to go there. He winked and we drove off.

I pulled out a tube of lipstick I had in my jacket and tried putting it on without looking into a mirror. He reached over for a sun visor and lowered so I could see. I smiled at him and looked at myself in the mirror. Blowjob mouth, I’d call someone who looked like me, the lipstick smudged heavily over my lips, like streaks of clouds staining the sides of my mouth. It was obvious I had just sucked a cock and was looking for more.

I did nothing to fix my mouth but applied another coat to my lips. The driver squeezed his cock in his pants as he looked at me.

Is that where you usually hang out? he asked. I’ve never seen you there.

You gotta keep looking, I simply said, pressing my lips together and looking in the mirror.

We drove some more and he finally said, looking at the desolate streets, There aren’t many...girls out tonight, eh?

I looked around. They probably got picked up real fast, I shrugged. On Christmas Eve everybody wants you to spend a whole night with you.

How did I suddenly get so street-smart tough-talking, as if I could take care of myself? Maybe I suddenly knew something incredible about myself and what I had to offer, and it would certainly go to the highest bidder.

Is that what you want, he asked, spend the night with someone?

Nope, I said, I’m not into that lovey-dovey stuff, smacking my lips together a final time and flicking the sun visor closed.

He looked at me then contemptuously shook his head. You’re a real Wham-Bam-Thank you-Ma’am whore, ain’t you?

Hey! I snapped. Do I go around calling you names?

We turned off 23^rd street made our way down 10^th avenue. In the distance I could see the dark building where I first met Blondie and the sick bums. A tall black transvestite stood on the corner, shivering in high heels, white nylons, garters, and red panties fully exposed, with a white furry jacket atop her shoulders but doing little to protect her from the cold. Looked like a late summers get-up. And the driver’s eyes went wide, and we passed her by and he said, Wherever you want to be dropped off? It was obvious he wanted to get back to her before anyone else did.

15^th street, I simply said, and it was only a block away.

He stopped the car, and I got out, not even offering a Goodbye, as he said nothing to me but sped away turning the corner burning rubber as he sped to catch back up with the skimpily dressed transvestite.

I made my way down the street, shivering from the cold, and wondered if I would ever be able to stand on a street corner only in panties and nylons. Is that how Blondie did it?

I stepped into a crevice of a scaffold and made my way into the deserted warehouse loading dock. The smell of extinguished candles hung in the air, as if they were just blown out. I let my eyes settle in the darkness so I could see clearer.

I made my way towards the shape where I knew Blondie had her sleeping niche --other body-bundles lay scattered about but no one stirred. Blondie looked up at me. Had she just blown out the candle?

Next to her sleeping bag was my notebook. I smiled, but suddenly realized that I felt better about seeing Blondie than my notebook, though grateful she had rescued and saved my poetry. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the pink lipstick and dark eyebrow pencil.

Her eyes widened to see better and she sat up and relit the small candle beside her. She held out her hand.

Oh, you got them, she said.

She took the makeup from my hand, clutched them to her chest and held out a corner of her blanket for me to crawl in.

I did so; her arms went around me, like a father’s around his son. We kissed. I felt right at home.

The End