boystown (5 page)

Wrapping both hands around his hips, I pounded into him hard and fast. With each pump I lifted him off the floor so that his cowboy boots tapped against the hardwood floor. I was punishing him, though I couldn’t have told you what for.

“Oh my God, oh my God...” Brian groaned.

I picked up speed. A thin layer of sweat broke out over most of my body. With a yelp, I was coming deep inside of him. But still I continued to slam into him until every last drop was squeezed out of me.

Breathing heavily, I stopped and stayed very still for a few moments. I pulled out of him and stepped back. At first, I wasn’t sure if he’d come or not. But then, when he stepped away from the wall, I saw that he’d sprayed jizz all over it. When he turned around, there was come all over the bottom of his sweater, as well.

I noticed he was shaking. A good fuck will do that to you, I thought. But then he turned and looked at the mess we’d made of his wall, come and buttery handprints everywhere. He took it all in, his neck flushing red with anger.

“I think you’d better leave.”

* * *

takes up nearly half a block. A white and blue sign hangs off the corner of the building, reading

“Chicago Police Department.” I tried not to grind my teeth as I climbed the steps into the building.

At the end of the entrance hall, a double door opened onto a squad room. A chest-high front desk blocked entry into the room. Behind the desk, sitting on a stool, was my fat cousin, Jan Duda.

He’s a good ten years older than I am. Apparently, he finally made sergeant.

I walked up to the desk and said, “I need to file a report.”

“You get beat up again?” he asked.

“Burgled.”

“Yeah? That’s too bad,” he said insincerely as he slid a clipboard my way. There was a pen tied to it with a piece of string and a blank incident report shoved under the clip.

I filled out the report as quickly as I could. I was part way through the inventory of what was taken when Jan asked, “You like sunshine, Nicky?”

“It’s got its good points.”

“You should move out to San Francisco. They like your kind out there.”

“I have roots here.”

“Yeah, but your roots don’t want you.”

I gave him a look that I hoped was cold and withering. He smirked. I went back to working on the report. When I finished, I slid the clipboard back to Jan. He glanced at it, like he wasn’t going to bother with it much, but then he stopped.

“You had a gun stolen?” He gave me the cop eye. “Why didn’t you call and have someone come over? Give the place the once over.”

I gave him a look that said, “You gotta be kidding.” He gave it right back to me.

“You’re not up to something, are you? Something that would require being disassociated from your own gun.”

“I’m a private investigator. Not a criminal.”

“Private investigator. A noble profession,” he said in a way that meant the opposite.

I walked out of the station and broke my New Year’s resolution by picking up a pack of cigarettes at a little shop next to the El. Marlboro reds in a box. Then I stood on the Addison
Boystown - 26

platform and smoked half a dozen cigarettes while I watched the trains go by. Each time I inhaled it felt like a toddler kicking me in the chest. God, I’d missed smoking.

The unreasonable part of me wanted to get a semi-automatic weapon and blow away every cop in the city. The reasonable part just wanted to limit the destruction to my family members. San Francisco. No, that wasn’t for me. I’d miss the suspense of wondering which of my toes had frostbite.

I finally hopped a train and made my way to my office. Near my office, I picked up a grilled ham and cheese, an extra greasy order of fries, and a Pepsi. When I unwrapped the sandwich, the cheese stuck to the paper. Meticulously, I scraped it off and put it back onto the sandwich. It was delicious and gone in four minutes flat.

I lit a cigarette and thought, “If there is a God, he’s a son of a bitch. If he wanted to do us a favor he would have made raw carrots and bean sprouts as appealing as a fatty, fried sandwich and a Marlboro.”

At 2:11, Walt Paddington hadn’t called. Something was off about him. I’d felt that from the start.

I just didn’t know what. Of course, when he did finally call, I’d let him know I found Brian and give him the kid’s address. That was my job. That’s what I’d been paid to do. That’s the deal I’d struck. But I was starting to feel bad about it.

The phone rang at 2:27. Even though I was expecting it to ring, I jumped. “Mr. Nowak?”

“Mr. Paddington.”

“Yes. Yes, it’s me.” He had the same nervous quality I’d noticed the first time I talked to him.

Except now it seemed fake, although I didn’t know exactly why. “Please tell me you have good news for me.”

“How’s Carbondale? Snowing down there?”

“I... I don’t know, haven’t been outside.”

“You don’t have windows?”

“I have curtains. Which are closed. Mr. Nowak, I didn’t call to talk about the weather--”

“Radio said you guys got hit pretty hard.” They didn’t say that on the radio. In fact, they said the opposite. The state was snow-free for the first time in a week.

“Okay, yeah, I just took a peek and it’s coming down pretty bad. There’s a good four inches on the ground. Did you find Brian?”

“Yes. I did.”

Boystown - 27

“Excellent work. Let me get a pen, then you can give me his address.” The phone went silent. I wanted to find a way out of giving him the address. It was really just a hunch, but it was a strong one. Paddington came back on the line, “Okay, I’m ready.”

“Why don’t you give me your address first?” I suggested.

“What for?”

“Well, I didn’t use the entire retainer,” I cursed myself for saying it. It meant I’d have to return my boom box. “I should send a final invoice and a check for the difference.”

“You did this pretty fast. I appreciate that. Why don’t you keep the rest as a bonus?”

“You don’t want to give me your address. Why not?”

The line went silent. “If I don’t give you my address, you’re not giving Brian’s. Is that the deal?”

“Maybe.” And maybe it was. I hadn’t thought this out.

“I paid for that address. If you don’t give it to me, it’s a kind of theft.” He paused, and then hit me with, “Maybe I’ll call the cops. Tell them you stole from me. You don’t like it when people call the cops, do you?”

The cops wouldn’t bother with something like this. But they would bother with me, and he seemed to know that. He seemed to know a lot.

“What do you know?” I whispered.

“I know that you’re going to give me Brian’s address like a good boy.”

I was quiet for a long time. Then I gave him Brian’s address. Not because he knew stuff about me, not because he was messing with me, but because he was right. He’d paid for the information. It was his. If I wasn’t willing to give clients the information they’d paid for, well, then I’d have to find a different way to make a living.

He repeated the address back to me and then, without saying goodbye, hung up.

I sat there holding the receiver numbly in my hand and slipped into my past. I didn’t want to think about it, I come from people who say ‘what’s done is done’ and move on. But when some asshole who shouldn’t know a thing about you starts hinting that he knows all your secrets...

Well, what else are you going to think about?

We’d been together almost three years, Daniel Laverty and I. He was small, blond, and tightly muscled. I guess if I have a type, it’s because of Daniel. His eyes were the blue of a summer sky that clouded over whenever I made him unhappy. He had a way of laughing at me when I was mad that made everything I did or said seem silly. And he had a hundred ways of saying my
Boystown - 28

name; ways that meant he loved me, that he expected more from me, that I was perfect, or awful, or just too ridiculous to take seriously. It was the best almost-three years of my life.

Daniel had a friend who did a drag show at a bar on Sheffield. The bar closed a year or so ago.

People called it Mary’s, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the actual name of the place. It might have been the name two or three owners ago, but it definitely wasn’t the night we went.

I don’t remember the friend’s real name, but his drag name was Candy Caine. I also remember I didn’t want to go. Not only is drag not exactly my thing, but as a police officer the last place I wanted to be seen was in a gay bar. I was afraid someone might spot me going in, or catch me going out. I was afraid I might even see someone I knew from the job in the bar. Sure, if I ran into another cop in a gay bar we were in the same boat. But paranoia is paranoia. It’s not exactly rational.

Daniel wanted to go, though, and was willing to fight with me most of the day to make it happen.

It was summer. Hot. Muggy. And he finally wore me down. When I got to the bar, I hit the booze pretty hard to keep my discomfort in check. Did a bunch of shots. Drank lots of beers. By the time the show was over, I was drunk. I used to be one of those people who get overly affectionate when they drink too much. It always embarrassed Daniel, since I’d do insincere shit like telling Candy Caine she actually looked like a woman, so he steered me out of Mary’s before I could get too sloppy.

We were cutting over on Cornelia to get to Halsted. The street was dark. One two-story courtyard apartment building followed the next. I slipped my hand around Daniel’s waist. I pulled him close to me. He chuckled a little, happy to get the rare bit of PDA out of me.

“You’re gonna feel like crap in the morning,” he said.

I don’t know where they came from. Four of them. They looked like kids from one of the better suburbs. Other than that, I couldn’t tell you much about them. They got between us. Calling names. Talking shit. I went into cop mode and tried to defuse the situation. Warning them off, which only caused two of them to start poking their fingers into my chest.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another of the guys bouncing an aluminum bat in his hand.

Twitching almost. Getting ready to swing. Daniel was yelling. I sensed the situation slipping into chaos. I reached for a gun I wasn’t wearing. Bat Boy reared back to swing. Frustrated, I grunted as I jumped for him. But the two who’d been poking at me grabbed me, while the fourth swung a punch into my stomach. The bat arced and caught Daniel square in the left cheek.

Down on the ground, screaming, Daniel holding his face.

Rage ripped through me like a wildfire. I kicked at the guys holding me, which made it hard for the one throwing punches. I wiggled and twisted trying to get away from them. Individually, I could have pounded the crap out of them. But working together, they had the upper hand.

Boystown - 29

The one with the bat stood over Daniel. He looked like he was going to take another swing.

“No!” I yelled.

Suddenly, Bat Boy got hit in the face with what turned out to be a potato. He stepped away from Daniel and looked around. A voice from above yelled, “Leave them alone you sons of bitches.”

A couple more potatoes flew by. This gave me an in, and I was able to pull away from the two guys holding onto me. I spun around, wind-milling my arms, and caught one of them in the chin.

He went down.

Between my lucky punch and the potatoes that continued to connect every so often, the guys started looking at each other. One of them said, “Fuck it. Let’s get out of here.”

The whole thing took two, three minutes tops. But it felt like it went on forever. They were gone, running down the street. Daniel was still screaming. Had screamed the whole time. I bent down over him.

“It’s okay. They’re gone.”

He took a couple of deep breaths and said, “Hurts like fuck.” He started moaning after that.

Loud. But at least it wasn’t a scream.

“Sweetie,” came the voice from above. “You want me to call the cops or get an ambulance?”

I turned around and for the first time looked at the guy who’d help us out of this mess. He was a queen in his sixties. His fire-engine red kimono hung open as he leaned out the window, revealing chalk-white skin and an emaciated frame.

“No, don’t do that,” I told him, flushed with embarrassment. I should have been able to handle this, I told myself -- as I would tell myself again and again.

“You sure? Your friend doesn’t seem okay.”

“We’re fine,” I snapped. “Mind your own business.”

The queen swore at me and slammed his window shut.

I pulled Daniel off the ground. He held his hand tightly over his left cheek and eye. I started walking him down the street. I didn’t feel drunk anymore. In fact, I felt completely clear-headed.

“We’ll get a cab and go to the hospital,” I told Daniel. “Just tell them you fell down and hit your head on the curb. We’ve been drinking. They’ll believe it.”

We reached Halsted, and I stepped out into the street to hail a cab. Luckily, there was one a block away. After we climbed in and I told the driver to take us to Illinois Masonic, Daniel got very quiet. I was glad the moaning had stopped. But I wasn’t prepared when he said, “I’m going to tell the truth.”

Boystown - 30

“What?”

“I’m not going to tell people I fell down. That’s not what happened.”

“You can’t do that. They’ll call the police.”

“So, we just let them get away with it?” he asked.

“What do you think the police are going to do? Some kids beat up a couple of fags. You think that’s a high priority?”

“If we don’t report it, nothing will ever change.”

“You know what will happen to my job.”

“They can’t fire you. Can they?”

“They don’t have to fire me. Once people know, I’m not going to want to be there.”

“You’re overreacting.”

Daniel didn’t understand. The guys I worked with, a lot of them had been on the job going back to the sixties. They talked about raiding fag bars like it was the good old days. Like they were pissed they didn’t get to push a bar full of fruits into a paddy wagon anymore. Hell, the way my family was, my Christmas presents when I was a kid were probably bought with payoff money from the fag bars they didn’t raid.