inaction.
Later, curled up between his sheets and his futon, he thought back to a spark of a memory, when he was ten, maybe eleven, and had watched the footage of the war, the green blurry film images passing by on TV after dinner. He had watched every night until Eric Sevareid’s looming commentary face and hard corn-like teeth told him the show was over.
He’d become very upset one night when a soldier walked by the screen and made a peace sign. He’d said out loud, “That’s Bobby,” the name of his older cousin who was in the Army at the time. His father, who wasn’t listening at first, looked at the screen from behind his newspaper too late. His father argued that no, it couldn’t have been him. “What do you know?” he had screamed at his father. He’d been sent to his room, yelling defiantly.
I know who it was , he had said over and over, crying himself to sleep. I know who it was.
For years, the new war had been outside of him, somewhere else.
Those days were scrapped.
9 “Hi. This is Ritchie ...”
“Brian ...”
“And Ed. We’re not doing the phone thing right now ...”
“But leave a message ...”
“And we’ll call you when we are.”
BEEEEeeeeep.
Alex Tilson’s smirk nearly sliced through the wire like a carving knife. “Cute, guys. This is Alex at Fabulous. We have a party at the Seagram Building next Tuesday. We need more guys. This is a four p.m. call. Please get back to me today to confirm whenever you boys are in the mood to–”
Feedback pierced the machine as Brian picked up the phone and struggled to waken. His hair jutted up from his head like a porcupine’s ass.
“Hulloh?”
“Brian?” Alex guessed.
“Just a sec.” Clawing frantically to turn off Ed’s machine, the naked Brian nearly tumbled to the floor elbow first. Instead, he merely yanked the AC cord from the wall. That seemed to do the job.
“Sorry ’bout that.” Brian sat up in bed at attention, as if he actually were behind Alex’s cubicled office a bridge away.
“Napping?” Alex quizzed, as if sleep were beneath him.
“No,” Brian lied. “I was in the other room.”
“Well, anyway, I have a lot more calls to make. Are you available?” Brian’s vision was still blurry, his piss hard jutting up in equal confusion.
Are you available tonight?
Backtrack. Brian Burns, ten years old, already bored with his new electric toy car Christmas morning, burping up cookie and eggnog giggles in the warm Connecticut home where his needs were always met, usually within minutes. The baby in a family of five with two older brothers, and the prettiest of the lot, he invariably got what he wanted, either through charm, deceit or by simply whining. He spit back their masculine torture in other forms, particularly threats: >
Upon arrival to New York from the ivied canopies of Bennington, the realization that he was not about to become the next Tom Cruise stung as sour as pretzel mustard. The seeds of resentment took root. He could manipulate friends and acquaintances for favors with a low flame. He learned to charm employers into raises with the never-kept promise of seduction dangling from his lashes.
Unsure, however, of what he wanted, just that he wanted, his first years in Metropolis amounted to little more than a scattered resumé of odd jobs, including two Off-Off-Broadway appearances, as the cute deaf mute in a Harvey Fierstein one act, and a walk-on as a shirtless guard in a science fiction version of Medea . While pursuing the improvement of his body, he did learn which gyms had the hottest saunas.
Before making the glorious jump to catering in the spring of ’87, Brian lived in an Upper West Side railroad with a soft-spoken Columbia University grad student who kept to himself. Late one night, while flipping through The Advocate among his growing collection of porn, an ad caught his eye:
MALE ESCORTS WANTED
LOOKS, BUILD, SIZE
HAVE TWO OUT OF THREE? CALL US
After two
Later, curled up between his sheets and his futon, he thought back to a spark of a memory, when he was ten, maybe eleven, and had watched the footage of the war, the green blurry film images passing by on TV after dinner. He had watched every night until Eric Sevareid’s looming commentary face and hard corn-like teeth told him the show was over.
He’d become very upset one night when a soldier walked by the screen and made a peace sign. He’d said out loud, “That’s Bobby,” the name of his older cousin who was in the Army at the time. His father, who wasn’t listening at first, looked at the screen from behind his newspaper too late. His father argued that no, it couldn’t have been him. “What do you know?” he had screamed at his father. He’d been sent to his room, yelling defiantly.
I know who it was , he had said over and over, crying himself to sleep. I know who it was.
For years, the new war had been outside of him, somewhere else.
Those days were scrapped.
9 “Hi. This is Ritchie ...”
“Brian ...”
“And Ed. We’re not doing the phone thing right now ...”
“But leave a message ...”
“And we’ll call you when we are.”
BEEEEeeeeep.
Alex Tilson’s smirk nearly sliced through the wire like a carving knife. “Cute, guys. This is Alex at Fabulous. We have a party at the Seagram Building next Tuesday. We need more guys. This is a four p.m. call. Please get back to me today to confirm whenever you boys are in the mood to–”
Feedback pierced the machine as Brian picked up the phone and struggled to waken. His hair jutted up from his head like a porcupine’s ass.
“Hulloh?”
“Brian?” Alex guessed.
“Just a sec.” Clawing frantically to turn off Ed’s machine, the naked Brian nearly tumbled to the floor elbow first. Instead, he merely yanked the AC cord from the wall. That seemed to do the job.
“Sorry ’bout that.” Brian sat up in bed at attention, as if he actually were behind Alex’s cubicled office a bridge away.
“Napping?” Alex quizzed, as if sleep were beneath him.
“No,” Brian lied. “I was in the other room.”
“Well, anyway, I have a lot more calls to make. Are you available?” Brian’s vision was still blurry, his piss hard jutting up in equal confusion.
Are you available tonight?
Backtrack. Brian Burns, ten years old, already bored with his new electric toy car Christmas morning, burping up cookie and eggnog giggles in the warm Connecticut home where his needs were always met, usually within minutes. The baby in a family of five with two older brothers, and the prettiest of the lot, he invariably got what he wanted, either through charm, deceit or by simply whining. He spit back their masculine torture in other forms, particularly threats: >
Upon arrival to New York from the ivied canopies of Bennington, the realization that he was not about to become the next Tom Cruise stung as sour as pretzel mustard. The seeds of resentment took root. He could manipulate friends and acquaintances for favors with a low flame. He learned to charm employers into raises with the never-kept promise of seduction dangling from his lashes.
Unsure, however, of what he wanted, just that he wanted, his first years in Metropolis amounted to little more than a scattered resumé of odd jobs, including two Off-Off-Broadway appearances, as the cute deaf mute in a Harvey Fierstein one act, and a walk-on as a shirtless guard in a science fiction version of Medea . While pursuing the improvement of his body, he did learn which gyms had the hottest saunas.
Before making the glorious jump to catering in the spring of ’87, Brian lived in an Upper West Side railroad with a soft-spoken Columbia University grad student who kept to himself. Late one night, while flipping through The Advocate among his growing collection of porn, an ad caught his eye:
MALE ESCORTS WANTED
LOOKS, BUILD, SIZE
HAVE TWO OUT OF THREE? CALL US
After two
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