Chapter One Sacré Bleu

The Dove Keeper

The sky was a gray shade matching that of an unwashed pearl still blanketed within the mouth of an oyster sunk at the bottom of the sea. The small Jersey town seemed to sink as well, in this ocean of freedom and the land of opportunities. The skyline was almost always gray and dreary, except for those few days in the summer where the sun would peak at the top of the sky, ruler for the few hours without shadows. But this reign was cruel, and would pummel heat down onto the bodies beneath without lament or signs of stopping. So, perhaps the dull ache of gray that oozed in the new afternoon sky was a good thing, because it did not bring such dry yet sticky heat.

It was the end of winter; not close enough to that beautiful spring breeze and budding flowers that brought on new life and love, but too close to that frigid cold that sunk deep within bones and would not warm up. The snow had now since dispersed in the sky and instead Jersey, at least in this part, was greeted with chilly rain and ice pelts nightly. In the darkness, the earth would freeze over and act as if nothing existed, until the daytime rolled around and sub freezing temperatures essentially vanished, the frost turning into deep mud puddles that school children would play in while waiting for the bus. But there was still that air, that nothing, non-living air that seeped into the seams of the town, folding over into the hills.

Today was no exception, but the school children were no longer playing in puddles. They were still in Sunday School, forced to wear itchy clothing while their mothers’ lips were pursed uneasily, casting a dark light on the gleam of hope that surrounded the children, trapping them until they were let loose at noon, free to be hellions once again. It seemed that it was only on Sundays that Jersey lost its bleak edge. People were fairly religious in this area, and if they weren’t, they at least pretended to be. Inside any of the matching small houses that lined the streets the insides were predictable. It was like dissecting a cadaver; you always knew where the heart and stomach and lungs were. Going inside one of these small abodes, you knew you would find a velvety painting of Jesus, followed by a cross with the man’s limp body hanging off of it. And, if the house was particularly adamant about their faith, a bible would be present, the cover gleaming, gold pages lining the edge, just begging to be read.

For the most part, Jersey was a pretty dangerous state. Of course not all parts where bad, but Newark was by far the worst. Over the past few years, bodies have been found in the local river, situated near the neighboring park. Kids were never usually allowed to go out to play, even in daylight hours. And when they were allowed, their older sibling had to cling to their side at all times, checking to make sure everything was okay and stayed okay. You had to look over your shoulder constantly as you walked, even if it was to the friendly convenience store. And the convenience store wasn’t always so friendly. Along with the bodies piling up in the river more than one clerk had been shot in the head while doing the graveyard shift. The place was robbed constantly too, but most of those incidents were relatively harmless, since it was almost always teenagers doing the crime. The men in the area saved their time and energy for bigger and better criminal acts, like the mob and drug trafficking.

Despite all these precautionary measures however, if you lived in this town you never really felt fear. You’d get scared sometimes, when you’d pass by a police car carrying a murderer in the back but there was never a constant throbbing fear. You never thought you yourself were at danger; you were just aware that danger was around everywhere. And to deal, you acted how you were supposed to act. It was ingrained in your memory to not cross over onto Dunlop street because you just knew that that’s where the guy lived who had all of the ammunition in his backyard shed. You knew not to go behind the movie theatre in broad daylight because drug deals were happening. You just knew. And you accepted it. This was our home, after all, and fuck, despite the sheer and complete danger behind everything people loved where they came from. And they supported it fully. They filled the local shopping centers, schools and even churches with smiling faces and pride. And it was on Sundays where Newark maybe didn’t seem like such a bad place after all. Even the criminals that you spent your entire week hiding from had some form of faith. They were sitting a pew right next to you, redeeming themselves for all the sins they committed and were about to commit. And you would smile and nod to them, forgetting that you saw them take out money instead of put some in as the collection plate was passed around. It was Sunday; it was what you just did.

However, my main concern right then was getting drunk.

Unlike the majority of the population who stuffed their withered souls into a stain glass coffin, me and my two friends, Travis and Sam, were liberated from this excursion while our parents suffered in a heaven focused hell. Though my parents were nice, kind and gentle – fitting the perfect mold, per se, I never felt one ounce of pity letting them stew away in church while I did whatever the fuck I wanted. My parents had given me the choice to be saved or damned when I was thirteen. And though a lifetime of clouds and love and peace sounded tempting, my urge to sleep in on Sundays won over whatever faith the old bat of a Sunday school teacher had built up. And still, four years later at seventeen, I was still choosing my Sunday activities over being saved. Even if these Sunday activities now involved me and my two friends, standing outside in the fucking cold for the greater part of an hour, hands shoved in our pockets for warmth, scamming alcohol in front of the local liquor store while everyone else was tucked into their little niche. Well, almost everyone.

There were a few stragglers that would occasionally pass by the beer store, coats and collars pulled up high to conceal their identities as they went in and purchased their customary ten AM drink, but never too many people. It was usually after the church services were let out that the store would be flooded with the populace, creating enough people to chose from and to also make a shield around us as we grabbed one aside, begging and persuading them with an extra five bucks (on top of alcohol price) if they went in there and bought us a two-four. It usually worked, but the number of trials varied.

Once we only had to stand outside trying to look tough for a mere fifteen minutes before a guy approached us and offered. He had been a kid once, he told us as he snatched the paper bills out of Travis’ hand, tucked them in his wallet and went inside. He had bought us the shitty beer, keeping the extra cash for himself but we didn’t mind too much. We cut out losses and our waiting time and went on our way to getting hammered.

Other (most) times, we were there for a few hours, digits becoming numb in the harsh air before someone finally gave in, taking pity on the three sad pathetic skinny teens. But whatever – the pity and the short changing was all worth it in the end. After, we would take the two-four back to Travis’ house usually, because his parents always went out after church and we had the house all to ourselves. Sam and Travis’ parents, much like mine had also given their sons the option of being saved. And of course, they had declined, knowing that we could all be together as the alcohol we bought burned our throats, much like the hell fire would supposedly do as well. But hey, life was short and we might as well have some fun with it while we were alive.

Our little fool proof plan of waiting in the parking lot however, wasn’t always so fool proof. The owner had caught on from day one, and depending on who was working the cash that day, we would sometimes be chased away, empty threats of police involvement echoing in our ears. Sometimes people outside passing by would look the three of us up and down, scoff and spit, before going inside leaving us in the gravel of the parking lot. And most of the time after that occurrence would take place, they would bring their alcohol back out to brag in our fucking faces. It was pure and utter torture when they did that, but it wasn’t the worse fate we had had.

Once or twice, the person we paid to get the booze fucking ran off with the cash. Luckily, Sam was a fast runner, despite his remarkably short and skinny stature and chased after him for four fucking blocks. When he finally caught the fucker, he kicked him a few good times before getting the money back. I don’t think that day we bothered to get drunk, at least from alcohol bought that way. We went back to Travis’ place instead and jimmied the lock open on his parents’ stash. It wasn’t as much fun and it wasn’t the good stuff, but it was something to ease our tension and loosen our moods.

This means of alcohol consumption was working for us so far and would have to do until we were at the legal age of twenty-one. And those four years seemed like a fucking lifetime to us all. So until then, we had to learn to take no shit from anyone outside the store. And that’s why Sam was around.

I had known Sam ever since kindergarten. I can still remember the day I met the small dynamic child. I was in the sandbox building a cave for my dragon figurine I had brought that day to school. I was happily pushing and prodding the sand together, feeling it ooze between my fingers when my perfect peace was disrupted by small light up sneakers, right over the cave I had spent at least a whole five minutes on. And for me, the kid with a minor case of ADD, that five minutes was a fucking lifetime.

“Hi,” Sam had said, high pitched and squeaky. Though as a child he possessed this high voice, even after puberty he could still reach some startling octaves. Most people wondered if he went around with his balls in a vice clamp all day long, his voice was so high sometimes. However, when Sam yelled or did any kind of vocal exercising, his voice dipped down low. Really low; we’re almost talking Barry White. I never felt like his voice matched anything about him; his face, body and mind. But then again, nothing really fit right on Sam. He was tiny and loud and crazy and had a weird nose. I think that’s why I loved that kid so much; he was a freak of nature and didn’t make me feel so fucking strange in my own skin that was always pulled too tight.

Young Sam’s first debut of his deep low voice occurred after I glared at the strange child who had just ruined my dragon’s lair.

“I crushed it so we could build it again!” Sam had shouted, grinding his small feet into the dirt more. My mentality at that point was still beyond pissed and moments later, me and Sam were down at the principals office, sand in our hair and eyes, making mud on our skin. Both of us were never able to live down being sent to the principal’s office for fist fighting in the sandbox when we were only in kindergarten. We always needed a supervisor after that. But those cuts and muddy bruises were good for us in one way; we were also never able to live down the friendship. Soon after we had healed, mentally and physically, Sam started appearing next to me almost every chance he got, destroying everything I made if he was not included. I eventually learned to invite Sam in on everything, or risk having my dreams crushed. And once I was able understand that fact and let Sam in, I began to get to know him beyond the bone crushing hellion. And he actually wasn’t that bad of a guy. He was definitely a little crazy at times, especially when he got mad or over excited. Just as long as you were on his good side, you were okay. And I was so fucking grateful that most days I was.

Sam was not a person to mess with. He was not very tall, and had a small skinny frame – even smaller than me, which is really saying something. I’m convinced my mother bottle fed me coffee as an infant because there is no other way to explain why I am so short. It annoys me that most guys my age tower over me, which is probably another reason why I stayed friends with Sam. He’s the only other guy I know who can see eyelevel with me. When we talk, it doesn’t feel weird or stressed and my neck doesn’t hurt after. But even with Sam’s vertical challenge, he was pretty damn deadly if you pissed him off. He had gotten into a few fights during high school, the worse involving a bloody and torn lip. But for the most part, he stayed out of trouble. Well, except for substances but we were all guilty of that.

Aside from the alcohol we all consumed, there was the occasional burst of drug use. When Sam and I had been fifteen, we discovered pot, which led us to meet Travis. He was your average run-of-the-mill recluse at the school. The kid that always sits alone at lunchtime, their headphones in their ears and picking at a sandwich that their mom had made for them. However, Travis stood out more than the fade into backdrop loner. He had this aura about him. His long dingy black hair fell over his dark features, like the hooked nose that veered off to the side, and in his too big clothing he kept most of his body hidden. I also couldn’t help but become aware of the sweet pungent odor that tickled my nostrils anytime I got near our new friend. Even if Travis didn’t have any of the herb with him that day, or he didn’t even smoke it, the odor was still present. That’s just what Travis smelled like. It was his thing. Like Sam’s thing was being a crazy fuck; Travis always smelt like pot.

Travis got the dope from his older brother, who was away at university, growing it in his dorm room closet. It was pretty good stuff, but nothing too expensive. Of course, Travis got it for barely nothing because of the brotherly love the two siblings shared. I later found out that Travis had walked in on his brother and his girlfriend discussing something very important. They were pregnant, and his girlfriend was in the process of getting an abortion. Travis’ parents were probably one of the most religious out of all three of us, and finding out about Jason’s little fuck up (literally) would not have gone over too well. So for silence, Sam and I got pot for nothing. It was a good deal.

For the longest time, I don’t really remember how long exactly, most days after school were spent in a haze of sweet smelling smoke. All three of us had found a new love, a new drug for which we were completely addicted to. We smoked every day and into the night. My fingers were raw and were scattered with small thin paper cuts, from constantly rolling joints. My lungs and nose felt just as raw as my fingers, but it was a good raw; like I was cleansing my body, instead of polluting it further. I loved the first breath of the drug and how the smoke was so fucking thick it felt like liquid and I was drowning. I’d still breathe it in, because hell, it was worth dying for this. I never did die, I just got really, really hungry. I would stumble home at dinner time, wolf down anything I saw on the table in front of me (I may have eaten a salt shaker once) while itching my blood red eyes and then fall back out the door and run into Sam and Travis again where we would go to McDonald’s for a second dinner and then fall back down into nothingness, either outside or in someone’s basement. It was fucking awesome, but I knew that all good things had to end.

We were getting exceedingly dumb from our over-consumption. Sam had forgotten where he lived at one point and had to sleep in a park over night. He had gotten hypothermia; not hard with the little body fat he had on his weak bones, and spent the next week sick in bed. He had detoxed then and I finally convinced Travis that we needed to take a break, for at least a little while.

Taking a break only meant switching poisons from booze to ground up aspirin to sleeping pills and back once again to booze. I preferred it that way. Booze was semi-legal (not to us, but to others) and so much easier to come by. Besides, there was only so much pot out there to try. Once you’ve had one green leaf, you’ve had them all. But there was so much alcohol to choose from. But even with the diversity, I liked beer. I had always liked beer.

Perhaps it came from distant childhood memories of my dad, sitting in his god-awful ugly plaid chair and watching TV. I can remember sitting in the crook of his knee on the floor, watching the same show but not getting anything from it. When my dad would go to the bathroom or the kitchen for a snack, I would always steal a sip of the amber liquid. It tasted so fucking gross when I was younger because my taste buds were ten times as strong, but I still did it every chance I got. Mainly because I wasn’t suppose to. That allure of the wicked was enough to keep me coming back for more every time. And it still did in the semi-state of adulthood I was now in, even if I didn’t want to be near or like my father anymore.

Ever since I was a little kid, I had looked up to my parents like everyone else in the community. And as my key sense of observation grew, I discovered that for some strange reason, they were put on a pedestal. My parents weren’t bad people or anything, I just didn’t understand the magnetism they had. After all, I lived with them and saw how they acted, or didn’t act. They were parents by definition but not by heart. They did the things they were suppose to do, but anytime I dragged them to a carnival when I was younger or to parent teacher interview, I felt like I was a heavy weight on my parents’ hearts. So, eventually those events and proceedings stopped occurring and I nestled myself in a world of drugs, booze and my pathetic friends, while the community nestled themselves at my parents feet.

Though both of their jobs were mediocre at best – my mom was a teller at a bank and my dad worked a desk job at General Motors after hurting his back in the floor area – they still managed to obtain this holy-than-thou image. And to keep that image nice and polished, they had to go to church. Every single Sunday. They even helped out in church functions, which maybe made them more desirable. But I saw them at home and that bible that sat on the shelf collecting dust was never read, let alone followed. My parents broke the rules under the table, but I butchered and ate them raw in front of everyone to see.

“Hey!” I heard Sam call out, breaking me from his trance. I daydreamed a lot, even if I’m in the middle of a task. Anytime I have to read something for school, especially if it had no creative flow of a story whatsoever, I will zone out and my mind will go onto other things. For the longest time I thought this was because of the chemicals I pumped into my body, but I had been doing this ever since I was a child, imagining myself as big and mighty as my father drinking amber liquid like water.

“Hey – you!” Sam called again, reaching out and jogging his small body over to the shadow of a person. It was just turning twelve noon and soon the packs of supposedly saved sinners would be piling into the store and stocking up for next week. Apparently there was an early bird, an older man wearing a jacket and a hat, his white hair coming out in tuffs. The old man either didn’t hear Sam or didn’t care and kept on moving, past the liquor store. He wasn’t even venturing inside, but still Sam insisted on tracking him down.

“Just leave him alone,” I called over to Sam, who had taken off in a flash. I sighed out loud, knowing that my friend was taking things too far again. I made no effort to stop the hyperactive teen however, in hopes that maybe, just maybe Sam’s darting and dancing eyes would scare the old man into buying the desired liquid. Or have a heart attack. Either way, I stayed poised at the farthest corner of the lot, my legs spread out in a V, shifting my weight from side to side in the cold, attempting to keep my long fingers warm in bawled fists at the bottom of my jacket pockets. I only succeeded in getting gray downy fluff on the pure blackness of my gloves, that I really only wore because I thought they looked cool. I hated saying so, but I really did care a lot about how I looked. I didn’t follow trends or anything, but it bugged the hell out of me if I was wearing a jacket with a rip (that I didn’t put there on purpose) or had a shirt with a stain on it. I didn’t know who I was trying to impress, other than myself, but my appearance mattered.

I glanced my head around the lot, wondering just where my other friend had gone. Travis was never as vocal as Sam, hell, Travis was never very vocal at all. He was the recluse we had picked up solely for drugs, but kept around because occasionally he would provide operative conversation. He was quiet for the most part, occasionally coming up with random spurts of genius, sometimes writing entire English essays inside his head. Too bad he never got the willpower to write them down on paper, or he may have actually passed his grade eleven English course and wouldn’t be a course behind right now. But when Travis was high, he talked a blue streak. It was funny listening to him ramble on and on and on about God, conspiracies and the aliens living in his backyard, especially when Sam, the usual crazy talker, was so calm and mellow. Sam was your typical high person; he’d lay back, glazed expression on his face and mumble one word constantly. His favourite was probably ‘carrots’ because it sounded “like totally trippy man.”

Sam and Travis were more connected than I ever knew or could even understand. When I thought about it, which was too much, I felt like I was the middle man in between the two constant extremes. I was neither talkative nor reclusive, crazy nor sane. I didn’t have a ‘thing’ either. I wasn’t a loud crazy mother fucker, or the loner who always smelt like pot. I was just Frank. In our Careers class in grade ten we were given an assignment to write a paper describing ourselves and fuck, I just couldn’t do it. I stared at the blank computer screen for hours on end, trying to think of how to describe myself. At first I tried to write an essay. Then just a paragraph. Then just a sentence. Until finally, I was down to thinking of a single word to describe myself and I could grasp nothing in my mind. I never did the assignment, claiming it was too bullshit. I could never tell anyone that I had actually sat at the computer for three hours racking my brain and got nothing. I just couldn’t. I couldn’t figure myself out, and I couldn’t tell people that I had tried. And even in my seventeen years of life, I’m still trying to get it right. No success, so far.

All of this probably led up to why I drink. When I drink, I don’t have to think about why I can’t figure anything out and why I want the fuck out of this town. I can just drink it all away, swallowing my hopes and fears along with the hot liquid. And I needed that hot liquid soon because my fingers and mind were going to go numb pretty damn soon.

I watched as Travis talked to an older woman, in her fifties perhaps, trying to deny her age by the layers of make up she kept around her face. Her wrinkles seemed to grow even deeper because of the weight of it all and as she shook her head vigorously at Travis, she never made eye contact with her blue encrusted eyes. She seemed almost ashamed that she was going into the liquor store, and that someone had caught her. Her ivory coat hung off her shoulders and her clothing was wrinkled and disheveled underneath. It became clear to me then that this woman had probably slept in her make up, clothing and her fears. She was hiding from someone or something and she too was going to mask it in alcohol.

I smiled. I wanted this woman to be my mother for some strange reason. My heart and arms reached out to her, though never visible. At least if this woman was my mother, I would have a better chance at understanding her. My mother was always so clean, prim and proper. She would have never slept in her make up and clothing, only to go outside in them the next day. Especially to a liquor store. I always wondered why my mother wanted everything so goddamn clean. What was she hiding? This woman I was looking at then wasn’t hiding, no matter how much she tried not to look at Travis. She was crying out for help at the bottom of a bottle. And I heard her cries. If my mother did the same thing, then maybe I’d help her too. It saddened me, how I knew this stranger more than the woman who had birthed me, but like a lot of things, I pushed it from my head and replaced it with a more tolerable image.

A shiny see through bottle that I didn’t think I was ever going to get. My stomach grumbled under the weight of my craving, making me realize that a breakfast of a chocolate bar was not the best choice. All of the sugar and caffeine was gone from my system and I wanted, needed something to quench my thirst with. Sam and Travis were failing at the mission; I knew I better pick up the pace fairly quickly.

Across from the beer store, separated by a road, were a set of apartments. They weren’t high rises or anything special, but they were taller than most buildings in the area. There were brown bricks and gray side paneling, leading up the sides to the small balconies on the upper homes. They were old and worn down, and if you could avoid living in these filing cabinets of housing then it was for the better. There were rumors of cockroaches and mice littering the basement, no heating on some cold winters days and water pipes that made noises like the tundra was escaping into your room. But they were homes, and some people, desperate lonely and desolate people, lived in them. It made sense that these houses were right across from the liquor store; this is where most of the inhabitants would go. They needed their delusional water to stay alive in the filth they lived in. Maybe because his image was something so contradictory to filth in front of myself, but stood out and made me pay attention. He was something that didn’t need to be cleaned.

A man, in his late thirties, early forties maybe, popped the steel gray front door open of the apartment building and stepped out confidently. He was wearing all black, from his out-of-place dress shoes up to his button up collared shirt and black leather jacket open at his sides. The only thing that was not black on him, was a deep lavender wool scarf that he wrapped around his neck, one end draping over his shoulder then the other dangling down by his thick side. He was wearing sunglasses, despite the grayness of the day, over his rough and aged face. I couldn’t see too closely from where I was standing, but though the man’s face was clearly worn away by time and other vices, it still retained a pale and youthful glow. A glow that I hadn’t seen in my own face for quite awhile.

As the man neared closer and closer to me, I saw the deep wrinkles that only seemed to exist around the man’s eyes. All other places, his skin was merely tough, but devoid of such deep valleys. The man’s long legs skipped over puddles and walked across the street without looking, like he owned the place. And for some reason, I believed that he owned the place, just from the way he moved. He held his shoulders high and walked forward not missing a beat. He was on a mission, but before I could ask if I could join, the man tilted his sunglasses down off of his nose, eyeing me, who was staring hard, harder than I should have been. The man seemed unimpressed by my slightly open mouthed glare, but didn’t say a word; his face spoke volumes without vocal chords interfering. I immediately sucked in a breath, snapping myself out of my daze.

“Hey,” I called, dragging to the surface the rough exterior that Sam had. It didn’t work. For some reason, I didn’t want to be mean to this guy. Perhaps I took pity on him that he lived in such a horrid place. He was probably sick of the many, many teens loitering here, trying to get drunk or high or both.

The man stopped in his tracks, and angled his body slightly to look at me. He placed his hands in his jacket, staring intently, his eyes analyzing everything. Though I was cloaked in layers of clothing, protecting my fair skin from the cold, I felt naked then. The naked feeling that starts at your inner core and works its way through your body, tingling all of your limbs.

“Yes?” he said, cocking an eyebrow at the unknown teen boy.

I swallowed, unsure of how to proceed. “Buy us beer.”

I wanted the words to come out as harsh, but they just came out like a normal sentence. And I concluded that it probably wasn’t a good idea to demand this type of thing, especially from a guy much older than myself. But it was too late; the words hit the air and went into the stranger’s ears and lit up his eyes. He looked away for a bit, scoffing and smiling.

“No,” was the pure and simple answer the man gave, his remarkably small teeth brimming with a smile.

“Why not?” I asked, furrowing my brow but my wrinkles never reaching the depth of his own. I was not used to such utter refusal. Most people, when bombarded with this question, would usually just say a quiet embarrassed ‘no’ or give a stupid vague reason. Or just insult us. But this, though it was one simple word and not an offense, hurt ten times more than that. There was no justification in the man’s actions, just a refusal. And I didn’t work that way.

The man’s smile grew wider and he still didn’t answer my fucking question.

“Buy us cigarettes, then,” I combated. I was going to get something out of this stranger. I didn’t smoke cigarettes, but Travis did occasionally and Sam would try anything at least once. It was worth a shot to ask.

But apparently, it wasn’t worth too much to the stranger. He shot out the exact same ‘no’ and left it as that. My bewildered expression made him smile even more, as my insides just grew more and more confused. Fuck, I thought. This is too damn awkward.

Suddenly, the foreigner shifted his weight, turning back to his original destination. He pushed his sunglasses over his head, so his hazel eyes were free as he began to walk. The conversation was over.

But I still wanted more.

The strange man disappeared into the yellow glow of the convenience store while Sam suddenly appeared at my side. He placed a friendly hand on my shoulder, which made me leap out of my skin slightly. Luckily, Sam didn’t notice (like a lot of things).

“No luck with the fag?” His sharp and uneven voice filled my ears and shook whatever left of a daydream off of me.

“Huh?” I questioned, looking over at Sam. We were both standing now in the corner of the parking lot, no idea where Travis had gone to, transfixed by the glowing and blinking red letters that read “Cherry Slurpy”. My stomach growled again, my hunger building into a persistent force.

“That guy,” Sam said, twisting his face up unsure of how to express himself. “He’s weird. Some kind of artist. He lives alone, as far as I know. Meaning, he’s probably a fag.”

Both Sam and I paused, watching as the door of the store opened. The supposed artist stepped out again, unwrapping a pack of cigarettes in his smooth hands. I noticed that despite the age the man bared on his face, his hands were still even and youthful, as if he were still in his teens. Once the plastic coding was off the smokes, he slammed the package a few times, causing one slim stick to spring forward. He paused right in the middle of the entrance, just to cup his hands around the cigarette that was now poised in his mouth as he struggled to light it. When he was successful, he sucked his cheeks back, revealing a rigid cheekbone before he blew the smoke out around him, his eyes closed and head rocked back in elation. As soon as he caught his breath again, the strange man opened his eyes and looked over at me and Sam who stood awkwardly and watched him from a safe distance, like he was some kind of zoo animal. The wild and elusive artist fag; come watch as he smokes. I felt bad staring and treating him like a freak show, but I couldn’t help it. I could see those eyes, inviting and mysterious look over at me. But I wasn’t entirely sure if he was looking just at me alone, or at Sam and me together. And I wasn’t entirely sure why it mattered.
When the man smiled suddenly, not bearing teeth but merely raising fine lips, all of my doubt was removed at who he was indeed looking at.

“And besides,” Sam’s voice cut into my thoughts. “No one can wear tight pants like that and not be gay.”

I smiled, but it wasn’t at Sam’s joke, though that’s what I told myself. The mysterious man began to walk again, his long legs drifting apart and coming together with a quick motion, reminding me of scissors. Before he could get too far however, Sam’s voice interrupted everything.

“Hey!” he called, his voice cracking as he hit a high note even he was unfamiliar with. “Buy us booze!”

I felt my chest tighten and my cheeks grow red. Sam could be so fucking embarrassing sometimes. Though I had no idea why I was embarrassed in front of a stranger, it was still a small town; everyone knew each other and everyone would tell each other of such foolish teen antics. Just like I cared about how I looked, I also cared about what people thought of me. I didn’t want to be known as the weird kid; I rather not have a ‘thing’ at all. The fact that this was a fairly small town, is probably why this stranger captivated me so much. I should have seen him before, but I hadn’t. I wondered how long he had been living there, under my radar.

“I already asked that,” I muttered under my breath, hoping that Sam would hear me so I didn’t have to raise my voice. I still felt that creepy tingly naked sensation. I jabbed Sam in his ribs which were easy to find, to distract myself.

“So?” Sam looked at me with a crinkled up countenance. His nose had always been somewhat smashed into the middle of his face, like he had broken it too many times as a child. And now, when he did this action of crushing his face further together, his features just looked like a big mess. I would have laughed out loud, if it were not for his high pitched voice invading my ear drums again, yelling at the stranger walking faster and faster away.

“Buy us booze!” Sam shouted again, but this time had enough patience to wait. When a distant but solid, ‘no’ was heard, Sam blew his cool.

“Fag!” he shouted loudly in anger, but calmed down quickly, giggling at his own insult. He always did this. He was one of those people who could never deliver a proper joke because he would ruin it the instant it hit his tongue by laughing too hard for the punch line. Even when he insulted people, like right then, it was hard to take him serious.

And this man didn’t take him too serious either. Instead of getting mad and threatening death, which is honestly what I would have probably done if someone was calling me a fag, this guy played right along with it. He stopped dead in his tracks, and turned around coolly, only inches from his steel metal door to freedom. He looked at the two of us, now three when Travis randomly appeared like a ghost beside Sam’s shoulder, raised his hand and did the unthinkable.

He blew us a fucking kiss.

I think Sam was the first to react. He stopped his giggle fit and let his small mouth fall open in shock. Travis just stared in a quiet stance like he always did, but seemed as genuinely surprised as Sam was. And me, I had to suppress laughter for fear of Sam hitting me if he found out I was laughing at him.

Sam wasn’t exactly homophobic, but it’s hard to explain what he actually was. He would always tease and play around with that kind of thing; bending sexuality. He’d come on to guys to scare them, make fag comments and jokes and just be an ass around that kind of topic. But if someone actually reciprocated anything and if any gay person ever made a pass at him, he’d shit his pants. Sam never wanted to be gay, but he found the whole thing funny as hell – except when it was happening to him.

“Fucking fag!” Sam shouted at the top of his lungs. He went to go run forward, but thankfully Travis stopped him by tugging on his shirt sleeve. It’s not like Sam could have done anything anyway; the strange man was already inside the filth covered building and probably in his apartment by then. Sam was just going to have to deal with these new ‘urges’ until everything calmed down. He needed some liquor and a few laps running around a tree, then everything would be fine.

As my bottom lip started to swell from the pressure I was putting on it from my teeth to keep from laughing, Travis and I turned Sam around and tried to get him to walk away from the corner. It didn’t take much calming down; Sam was back to his old self once he saw what he needed.

John, the super of the worn down building, was across the street at the base of the apartments, fixing a water mane. He was a halfway decent guy, but a pure drunkard. Most of the time, it was him who would buy our liquor for us, especially when he was so tipsy himself he had no idea what the fuck he was doing. This time, it was Sam who did the dragging, taking us all over to the bald and fat man, sweating inside his gray super’s uniform. Sam did most of the talking at warped speed about the deal, while Travis got the money out from his wallet. I watched the dealings go on, my mind and heading wandering away into nothingness.

“Thanks so much, John,” Sam declared, taking a deep sigh of relief, before his cheerful voice turned sour. “The fag in your building wouldn’t buy us any.”

Before John, obviously still in a stupor if he was offering to buy us booze, could answer, all of us heard a loud cough and a clearing of a throat near us. It took us awhile, but we eventually cocked our heads upwards and came face to face with the stranger from before. He was looking down on us, from one of the highest apartments.

“My name’s Gerard,” he said causally, as if he was actually apart of the conversation. “Just so you don’t have to keep calling me that fag name.” It was hard to tell from below him, but he appeared to roll his eyes.

“Fucking fag!” Sam called, ignoring Gerard’s request and gritting his teeth. Sam’s anger had returned again, but luckily John was gone now, across the street to fix Sam’s ailment at any moment.

“Sam,” I soothed, glancing down at the small boy in front of me, bawling his fists and screwing up his already screwed face even more. I placed a hand on his shoulder, and Travis did the same to hold the boy in place. He seemed to breathe a little easier, and when I looked up again, I noticed it was because Gerard had now vanished. A faint muttering of ‘kids these days’ could be heard in the background, but other than that, everything seemed okay again.

But that feeling lasted mere seconds before all sensations and feelings seemed to bubble and pop at the surface. I didn’t know what hit me first; the weird cool wetness on my skin or the loud shouts from above me, but the next thing I knew everything was a haze of blue. I gasped and opened my mouth, my first bad idea, as the blue sticky liquid began to pool in my mouth, causing me to choke and cough. The liquid tasted icy and metallic on my tongue and it was only when I became aware of the words the new stranger was shouting that everything made some kind of sick twisted sense.

“Sacré bleu!” Gerard’s deep and sing-song voice swore, filling my ears, along with the blue paint he had tossed on us from his balcony.

After doing a combination of choking, coughing and sputtering, I wiped what I could away from my eyes, the noxious substance only stinging briefly. I looked up at Gerard, empty paint bucket in his hands and the widest grin spread on his face. I felt utterly gross and sticky under the thick sludge of the paint clinging to my skin and clothing, probably not coming off for a good long while, but I couldn’t help but laugh. Especially as I watched Sam freak out and run around in circles, as if that was supposed to remove the paint already hardening and making light blue patches all over his skin. Travis was freaking out on mute, unlike Sam whose voice echoed with the bubbling of paint in my ear. Travis was merely standing against the wall, trying to brush off any excess he could onto the building with little success.

I couldn’t help but notice that as the blue trails were places down the side and ground from my friend’s bodies, how much light it added to the bleak and dreary day. And I smiled, not caring as the paint started to seep into my mouth because it actually felt good. I barely knew Gerard the stranger then, but I respected him so much for what he had just done, even if he had ruined my favourite sweater in the process. The irony in his swearing and method of revenge he used was too fucking genius. Gerard the queer artist, had just turned us all into a work of art.

And suddenly, I didn’t need to get drunk anymore.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14