ITCH

[This short story was originally published by THE MADISON REVIEW in the Fall 2002. Chicago writer, performer and all around fantistic human, Megan Stielstra, and actor Jeremy Zeman from Serendipity Theatre worked with me to adapt it for the "2nd Story Festival" in May 2006. We packed Webster Wine Bar for a sold-out show and had a blast performing together.]


Ryley’s hands reminded me of Davinci’s ideal. I procrastinated late, cramming for exams. He fiddled with clay in the campus studios losing track of time, then stopped by my apartment above the Korean restaurant on his way home, slipping past the screen door to keep it from creaking. We talked till dawn, willing to be exhausted in classes for the conversations we floated in while the city snored. He romanced me with his goodbyes– long handshakes turned to hugs turned to embracing sighs on my neck turned to cheeks brushing turned to kisses that let the screen door creak loudly against his back.

Marty had a boyfriend. He had a boyfriend. A boyfriend. We couldn’t eat each other with our eyes over French food on a crisp autumn patio confettied in leaves, flustered with pigeons. We chewed on it between us, gnawed the rawhide of need. I brushed my hand over the nape of his fuzzy neck, turning away with my smile, respectfully.

Mike always smelled. So good. No cologne. No spritz or splash. After inhaling, eyes shut, washed away by the beauty, I’d ask him, “What is it?” He’d shrug, answer, “Just me.” But it was bleach from scrubbing his sink and sliced lemon for his iced tea, peaches he’d picked, fabric softener, sawdust from fixing a windowsill, grass from kneeling toward dandelions. Yes, I’d think, Just him.

Too much attention gets mistaken for attraction. Those not interested, need not apply effort. All others, please smile. At least, just smile.

I hadn’t planned on Peter. His friend had caught my eye, held it. But I was drunk, determined, indiscriminate. I needed a one night stand so I could be like everyone else, not care, flip off emotion for the screw. The liquor helped. So much liquor I hoped I wouldn’t heave out the cab window before we got to my place. We couldn’t go to his; He still lived at home. His tongue tasted tangy, of coffee and smoke and a long lost toothbrush. I wished I’d been able to see him naked before we committed to the night. I didn’t sleep, but my arms did, my single bed too small for both of us to pass out. Angry, he woke late, asking why I didn’t kick him out before dawn. Now his parents would know he’d been gone. And I understood why people got kicked out after the deed was done.

Ray kissed me in the middle of all the straight couples dancing in a club called the Hindenburg. I forced him off the floor, into a hall, asked him how he knew. He slid his hand past my belt buckle, saying, “Finding out was worth the risk of being punched.”

“Gay!” I hollered, spit diving off my lips. “You are gay!” Oliver had taken my truck from the sandbox. MY truck. We’d played around together in his basement before. The things he did, like taking my truck, hurt me more than what other boys did. I wanted my truck back. He made me mad. I used the worst word we knew. Recess was over. He handed me the toy. Then we stopped being friends.

The truth is hard to come by. Black and white. You are two colors, brown and peach. Others see this difference. They comment on it away from you. But in bed you roll around together with skin tinted by the TV gone blank, its light dying the moment, both of you just blue.

Noel and I built a fort from the Alice in Wonderland set pieces we found in the rusted dumpster behind our elementary school so we could undress together. The structure took all day, but the janitor caught us before we could explore skin, making us put the giant cardboard playing cards and mushroom back, he said, where they belonged.

We slipped out of the bookstore when the thunderstorm ended and stood on the street corner with out chins straight out, watching furious clouds rearrange themselves, like tussled white sheets. Panicked, they dragged the pink and robin’s egg blue away with them into the night. We stayed so long in that spot, both desperately searching our brains for a bed we could share, that passersby shook their heads confused as to why two grown men would stare blankly into nothing.

At sleep overs, Wayne let me sleep in his bed, but drew a line with his hand over the sheet between us, dividing our space. His back to me all night, I watched the shadow of his eyelashes flutter on the wall and listened to his breathing never slow.

Jesus, the train makes me crazy. I fucking see him, perfect, the one, across the car. And careening toward the loop, I dream our meeting (an accidental bump maybe, I pick up his dropped book). I dream the first date, the dating, the discussions, the difficulties, the divorce. Shit, no! He hops out with the rest of the crowd and I never see him again.

Just like the ones that pester you right in the middle of your back where only scraping against the sharp bark of an old oak will cure the delicious annoyance.

Paul never laughed at my missing a hoop, taught me badminton, soccer, golf, tennis and occasionally missed the volley, his racket intentionally slicing air near the net to make me want to keep playing. His latte-tanned tummy so taught and so casually exposed distracted me as his shirt seam stretched to his sweat-shined enviously-acne-free face. Jealousy and need mixed in me so furiously I forced myself to hate him.

Roary lived next to me. Called me to play. Let me watch him shower through the basement window, pretending I wasn’t there. Afterward, I’d knock on the front door. His mom would make us peanut butter and honey sandwiches that we ate watching Bugs Bunny in silence.

Man, he’s good looking. Facing me, he eats across the street at the counter in the sandwich shop window. I laugh at him. Behind the guy, glowing red with an arrow pointing down hangs a neon sign that reads, “PICK UP.”

The finger wagged naked under the bathroom stall partition. The body part looked foreign, got no answer, the question unsure.

Jude broke up with his best friend for me, just for week six at summer camp, my glistening eyes mistaken for hero worship. Other guys liked to wrestle Jude. I didn’t wrestle. I just watched and listened to him, best friends like boyfriends sometimes.

Valentín could tickle me until I laughed. Before him, only my grandmother could. She reached behind my knee so lightly. I laughed until my stomach hurt, writhed, kicking and panting. He managed to unbutton my shirt while my elbows bruised on the hardwood floor. I heard my own voice echo into the hallway. I could barely open my eyes before they forced themselves shut, flashes of white wall, his ruddy dimples and grin. My belt buckle clacked against the floor.

I can’t stand the way you like me. God, I fucking despise the way you pay attention to me, spend time with me, fit me, think about me enough when we’re apart to bring me gifts. Not big or bought ones, but just right. Jesus, just stop. Oh, sure, an article in your Tribune about exactly what we were talking about, you thought I’d like it. I don’t do that for you, do I? I just read my paper online and click delete when I’m done. But you have to find your scissors, fold the sheet neatly, wait to see me again. And that blue shirt that didn’t quite fit, so you thought I could give it a try. And it fit. Perfectly. Screw you. Now I have a You Shirt. And to top it off you take me on a date, the most romantic date of my life. You suck. Sure, to you it’s just two friends hanging out, but you can’t tell me that slipping in smooth Cuban jazz and sipping fancy martinis at your house, talking art and philosophy and world news and life and the future and desires wasn’t beautiful. All of it exquisite. After cocktails, you pick the restaurant– not me, you– and the corner table and the tasty wine. Even the server watches us with Date Eyes– “isn’t that cute,” she thinks, “two guys on a first date together.” And we talk without pause, which is rare with another man. You keep up, you push me, teach me, let me teach you, before you ask me back to your place for a fragile crystal glass filled with peach liqueur your mother hand-carried back from France for you, so lush that I lick my lips and avoid your eyes for my sake. Even the walk back had The Bump, the one when you walk so close together your shoulders knock just before you veer away and come together again. Shit, and the air off the lake, ideal, that wet breeze misting the streetlights. I go back to your house and drink with you, peak at your bed through the doorway, picture climbing in, curling up while you talk at me about the girl you like. I did run my hand over your comforter while you busied yourself with the CD. I know what your bed feels like. But, even liquored up, I know I won’t get near it, even if I wait. So I say I have to go. And, being the asshole you are, you walk me. I’ve never been walked before. I’ve never even thought about walking someone, and you had the nerve to do it to me, you goddamned gentleman, to make sure I was safe, to continue our discussion. You shake my hand, you fucker, because we are friends. You suck, you know that, right? No, probably not. Because I’ve said nothing.

Jamie broke into hysterics at the woman tucking her poodle into a stroller. I would have also if at that same moment his long fingers hadn’t suddenly, casually grazed mine to slip the burning cigarette from my fingers, the nonsmoker giving in to my vice without being invited.

My best friend told me to get a work crush. “Otherwise, what do you have to look forward to?” she asked. So I got one.

My final summer, Phil ran archery. I ran Arts and Crafts. He stopped by when he could, drew targets just for fun. Made projects he could shoot. His thick fingers fumbled from pen to crayon, not watching the paper. Ken came by too. He made candles after pool duty. They talked. Week Eight they walked into the woods together, alone. I wanted to go, be them. Others saw. Rumors flew. I sighed, safe, not caught, but still wanting.

The only one I still wonder about is dead, a clubbed-down tourist, caught in a Peruvian protest. We only touched accidentally. Nick treated me like a prince, gave me a ring from the grocery store gum ball machine. A red spider. Its legs tickled my knuckles.

There is only so much a man can take. No ads. No meat markets. No escorts. No cruises. No baths. We don’t all give it away in the bushes. We don’t all raise the antenna, hone in, find the signal. We don’t all live beyond the flimsy crumbled walls of morality. We struggle to be within them. And we wonder why.

David had more guts. He asked the hotel owner for a queen-sized bed, the both of us standing there, casual grins pasted to our lips. He requested the window table and squeezed my hand when he felt like it, when I could only reach for my water glass. David never whispered his love for me; I always looked around to see who’d heard.

We hopped the fence to the neighborhood pool and pulled back the thick plastic cover to the deep end, steam slithering over its surface. Ricky was scared, nervous he said. He didn’t know how to swim. I was on the swim team. I wanted to be reincarnated as a sea otter, loved sitting on the bottom until my lungs forced me to the top. I watched him undress, clothing piled quickly at his feet. We hugged our goosebumps, then climbed slowly down the ladder, surprised the water was warmer than the midnight air. Ricky gripped the lowest rung. I told him how to blow bubbles through his nose to keep the water out. After coaxing, he submerged, his hair seaweed on the surface. I wanted to be two sea otters. I supported Ricky’s stomach as he practiced, thinking that skin was the best thing I’d ever felt in my life. Before we snuck away, he torpedoed below the water, by himself, silent as I held my breath for his return.