Shuck (18 page)

“They dropped the charges. I'm not technically a criminal.”

“No, but you're a liar.”

“I just forgot to tell you.”

“That's still lying.”

I can feel the itch of things to come:

At 12:00 a.m. EST on January 1, 2000, Kurt Vonnegut's personal computer will list the date as being 19100, eerily reminiscent of the “timequakes” that so many of his novels have foretold. The author will then start working on a new novel of “suggested corrections” to the chronology of his previous ones, since his science-fiction hypotheses were based on the assumption that a “timequake” would never actually occur. Mr Vonnegut will leave the Y2K glitch on his personal computer unfixed, and he'll continue to live 17,100 years in the future.

Wanna bet?

“Did that really happen?” Richard asks, reading a random page over my shoulder.

Click, snap, refocus.

“That's not the point.”

“Right, yeah, I get it.”

Zoom.

“Did the United States stop importing jasmine tea?” I say, tapping the empty cup with my pen.

New York got its first snowfall of the season last night. At first, it looked like the kind of snow the city's underground heat would melt, but it stuck around and piled up. It's funny watching bike messengers wobble through the mini-drifts gathered at the curb.

Jackie 60 dress code, Valerie Solanas Tribute Night—We Can All Shoot Andy Warhol:

Pop art razor blades, Boho dykewear, Hobo dykewear, newsboy caps, geo-patterned Diane von Furstenberg hip holsters, Factory
ammo belts, Nico eyeliner, sixties hair, typewriter ribbon, street urchin fatigues with utility pockets, powdered white wigs, bulletproof vests, fake blood, Andy Warhol silkscreens on Stephen Sprouse knock-offs, flash boxes, Super-8 wind-up cameras, sewer scum.

Yesterday was December 8, the day I turned twenty-three.

Whoopty-freaking-doo.

I decided to go out and have some fun, to try and forget that I also had twenty-three days left to turn this year around and prevent it from being a complete failure.

Jackie 60 was full of night crawlers and Factory wannabes all trying to make out with each other. Morrissey was warbling through a remix of The Smiths' “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out,” a song I know all too well. I don't know why DJ Johnny Dynell thought the song had anything to do with Andy Warhol, but he's earned enough cred to be given the benefit of the doubt.

The itch got to me, so I made a batch of Red Bull and crystal, probably one of my last. Then I finessed a couple of drinks out of some thirty-something easy marks.

I saw him canted against a wall watching the dancers—the same goth boy who was making eyes with me the last time I had come to Jackie 60. He was dressed in a black Elvis Costello suit and tie as if he were going to a funeral, or a wedding, or maybe that's just how he woke up. I was in love with his canvas sneakers. He was so my speed.

I crept up behind him and he noticed right away. There was a flash in his eyes and a lull in the music. God bless Dynell for misplacing his wax.

“Let's go to your place,” I said.

“Right.”

We didn't say much, walking on the deserted sidewalk through Chelsea, kicking through the snow. It was too cold to smoke, so I hid my hands in my sleeves. He told me his name was Adam.

I followed him into a sketchy-looking establishment on Fourteenth Street.

“This is it,” he said.

A central L-shaped hallway branched off into different rooms, divided by wonky sheets of drywall covered in colorful graffiti tags and phone numbers of people who suck cock.

“This is
what
.” I said.

“The Gavin Brown Gallery. My place. It's an art installation, and I'm validating it by living here.”

“I get it,” I said, though I didn't get it at all.

It's weird, what keeps your legs from running when your brain says go. I felt guilty just being there, like I was cheating on Derek. It made no sense, but feelings can be so blind to logic.

Adam must have noticed my hesitation. He planted his mouth over mine for a solid minute. His spit was more viscous than mine, and it felt warm and silky on my tongue. His eyes, lined with black kohl, were closed, and I wondered what pictures he was playing on the inside of his head to have melted his sullenness into this living liquid in my mouth. I could taste traces of sadness in him, but more than that. Lightlessness.

A different kind of logic took hold of me. Why should I feel guilty about having sex, for the first time I can remember, with someone I'm attracted to?

“Where's the bedroom,” I said.

“Pick one.”

I pushed him backwards into the nearest corner and peeled his shirt over his head. His chest was white and fragile, almost bird-like, with two nipple piercings that looked slightly raw and infected. I left my clothes on because I wasn't in the mood to be vulnerable—not just yet.

I shucked his pants for him and bent him over. Adam's crack was filled with this soft, mousy brown fur that curled into a cowlick near his tailbone when I made it wet with a lascivious lick.

“I think it's really sexy that you wear sneakers with a suit,” I said, ruining the wordless state of bliss that we had achieved.

I buried my face in his bum and he squirmed. I licked circles around his hole and then pushed my tongue into him. He tasted like apples and sweat, almost bittersweet. When he moaned, I could feel the vibrations buzz right through my mouth. I don't think I've ever felt more intimate with anybody, save Derek. There was something exotic about eating out a queer goth boy's butt. Something dark.

God freeze this minute forever. I was getting weepy. Who said you had to take your clothes off to be vulnerable?

Adam turned his head and looked at me over his shoulder.

“I want you to fuck me until I lose my voice screaming your name.”

I told him what it was, and exactly how to pronounce it.

I left much later, when the sun began to spill into this corner of the city, when Adam was sleeping and voiceless, and when missing Derek hurt too much.

This is how I experience Richard in traces:

When I pass a car window and see my reflection, when I feel beautiful despite a lip ring infection or a rash-du-jour or a nose-diving sense of self-worth, when I'm tempted to spread my ass cheeks and then realize I have other things to offer, when I'm tying my shoes, when I find myself retelling a part of my journey, when I feel vulnerable.