The Grand Ballast (10 page)

It was wonderful to have
this sort of power. To know that if he placed his tongue at the
very tip of Kilroy’s cock, he could get him to gasp, get his thigh
muscles to tense into firm ridges. And if he sucked hard, Kilroy
would moan and tug Bode’s hair. Bode laughed with his lips around
Kilroy, using his tongue to press the hard shaft against the roof
of his mouth.

Kilroy closed his eyes.
“Oh, that’s good,” he murmured. “Whatever’s funny, keep thinking
about it.”

Bode sucked Kilroy deeper.
It took a moment’s concentration to figure out how to get air with
his mouth this full. But Kilroy ran a hand across his shoulders,
and Bode relaxed, breathing steadily through his nose and pushing
his head forward until the tip of Kilroy’s cock hit the back of his
throat, and he gagged.

Shh
, Bode told himself.
Careful.

He balanced in the moment,
slowing time down the way he might for a complicated dance
step.
Concentrate, but not too hard. Trust
your body.

His nose was pressed to the
hair at the base of Kilroy’s cock. Kilroy’s back arched, his legs
quivering, and he groaned steadily as Bode swallowed around him.
Saliva spilled from between Bode’s lips.

Kilroy moved his hips—not
forcefully, but Bode blinked as his eyes started to water. Bode
forced himself to keep sucking and swallowing, until a thick stream
of liquid slung against the back of his throat. That, too, seemed
less intimidating—simpler—than Bode had imagined.

Kilroy sighed, slumped, and
fell backward onto the mattress. The taste in Bode’s mouth reminded
him of being near the door to a restaurant kitchen when it burst
open—a few seconds of sweat and steam and a savory rush of smells.
He liked it, but wasn’t sure he wanted to hold onto it.

“
I’m gonna brush my teeth.”
Bode hoped that wasn’t insulting.

Kilroy turned his head
slightly, his eyes still shut. “When you’re done, come back and lie
with me.”

“
Of course.” Bode smiled,
jittery and tired both. He brushed his teeth so roughly his gums
bled. The new bathroom had one blue wall and three white. A small
gathering of mildew in one corner that Kilroy had tried and failed
to eradicate earlier. The floor tile was white with faint blue
marbling. Bode liked the apartment, but he didn’t feel at home in
it, not yet. He almost missed the clicking of his father’s knitting
needles and his mother’s marbles. He returned to the room and
climbed into bed beside Kilroy.

The lamplight was too
bright. He pushed his head under Kilroy’s arm, and Kilroy stroked
his hair before heaving himself half up and pulling the lamp’s
cord. The cord swung against the lamp’s base, making a soft
ding-ding-ding
in the
darkness.

Kilroy rolled onto his side
and pulled Bode close to him. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“
For what?”

“
That was damned
good.”

“
Oh. Good.”

“
I’m not kidding. You have
a talent. You’re as good a cocksucker as you are a
dancer.”

The words felt like a
slap.
You’re being a prude again. It’s
just dirty talk, and Kilroy means it as a compliment.

Why not be good at filthy
things?
He tried to push closer to Kilroy,
suddenly overwhelmed by the possibilities that raised bouquets to
him. He could be bold, he could be extraordinary. How, he wondered,
did anyone in this world feel bored, when there was so much
unknown, dangerous, and alive? His heart clipped on even after
Kilroy’s had slowed; his thoughts were wild long after Kilroy’s
seemed to have slipped into dreams.

Maybe I am in
love.

Maybe I’m
lucky.

Maybe everything is
perfect, and the things that one person alone can be or make or
see, maybe that’s not enough.

Kilroy believed in
grandness. In people showing a more splendid version of themselves,
through dance or art or crime or desire. But he also believed in
the beauty of simplicity.

Bode looked at the shadow
of Kilroy’s slack face in the dark.
I want
to be both for you: simple and a spectacle. I want to—to put on a
show. But I need you to see
me
underneath. Whatever I wear or do or say, I want
you to see
me
.

LONG JOHN

In Warren—a dried-up fruit
pit of a town—LJ wouldn’t rise. Lein opened the coffins and ordered
the performers to their dressing room, but LJ remained in his box,
breathing shallowly. Bode lingered and tried to coax him to get
ready. LJ’s skin was hot. His gaze flickered, sometimes landing on
Bode. When it did, LJ smiled.

“
You gotta get up.” Bode
rubbed his arm. “Come on, now. Before Kilroy gets after
you.”

Bode felt surprisingly
alert. He was still taking the Haze to dull the memory of that
disastrous show in Hilgarten, and to make sure nothing like that
happened again. If the Haze made obedience easier, he’d decided,
then that was what he wanted. But he found it nearly impossible to
fall back under the drug’s spell. He didn’t know whether it was the
pain from his injuries keeping him grounded, or if there was
something bigger at work. Perhaps, when he’d stopped taking the
medicine for those few days, he’d woken some part of himself that
couldn’t be quieted again.

The result was a soft,
persistent guilt about taking the pills at all. Shouldn’t he be
scheming for freedom? Shouldn’t he want to stay awake?

Lein came in a while later
to give them an earful for lagging. He clutched candy wrappers in
each hand.

“
He’s sick.” Bode hunched
over LJ’s coffin, wincing at the movement—his right eye was still
swollen, his back stiff with welts. He wanted someone to do
something for LJ, but he didn’t trust Lein to be gentle. “Please,
tell Kilroy?”

Lein stomped over to LJ’s
coffin. He dropped a handful of wrappers and popcorn kernels as he
reached down to grab LJ’s shoulder. “Up, you lazy fuck. It’s show
time.”

“
Stop it,” Bode said as LJ
groaned in pain. “He’s sick. Leave him be.”

Lein released LJ and
focused on Bode, his expression thirsty and dark. He threw his
other handful of refuse at Bode’s feet. “What’ll you give me to
stop?” he shouted.

Bode flinched. Lein was a
pathetic man, not worthy of fear. “Go and tell Kilroy LJ’s sick,”
Bode said calmly.

Lein ignored him. “You know
how many times I had you when you were doped up? How many free
shows I got?”

Bode fought back a sick
feeling. He didn’t think this was true. The Haze blurred thoughts,
memories, but it didn’t erase them. He would have remembered if
Lein had… “Bullshit. Get Kilroy,” he repeated.

Lein lunged suddenly. Bode
moved as if choreographed, smashing his fist into Lein’s face. Lein
staggered back, hands over his nose, blood leaking through his
fingers.

“
I
said
get Kilroy.”

A sharp whistle made them
both turn. Sibyata entered the coffin car. She took one look at
Lein and shrugged, then glanced at Bode. “You’re holdin’ everything
up.” She walked toward Lein; the blood was still flowing from under
his hands. “What you been doin’, lug? Somethin’ you shudenna
been?”

Lein struck her hard,
sending her spinning. Her head knocked the wall of the car, and she
muttered a curse. She staggered forward, raking Lein across the
cheek with her nails. “K!” she yelled. “K, c’mere!”

Kilroy arrived moments
later wearing a silver shirt, black pants, and suspenders. He
carried the ring stick. “What’s going on?” he asked
brusquely.

“
Please.” Bode moved
between Kilroy and the coffin. “Please, he’s sick. It’s not his
fault. Okay? He’s sick.”

Kilroy walked around Bode
to get to the coffin. LJ coughed.

“
I mean it!” Bode started
after Kilroy, his hysteria mounting. “Don’t hurt him.”

Kilroy crouched beside the
coffin. Set the ring stick aside and placed the back of his hand
against LJ’s forehead. “Oh, you’re burning up, sweet boy,” he
murmured. LJ glanced at Kilroy. “Yes. Poor Long John.” Kilroy
stroked LJ’s hair again, whispered to him: “We’ll get you more
comfortable.”

Envy rose slowly, familiar
and seductive. He knew what an unbecoming feeling it was, and yet
he couldn’t get rid of it. Long ago, Kilroy had crooned to him. Had
touched him the way he touched LJ now. Bode remembered nights
together, the two of them surfacing from under the covers like they
were emerging from a swamp, webs of mud and moss trailing from
their limbs, tying them to the land.

“
You may go get ready,
Bode.” Kilroy waved him off. “We’ll do the show without
LJ.”

“
Will he be all
right?”

Kilroy’s eyes tracked back
and forth as he watched LJ. “Go get ready.”

***

Bode wasn’t sure when his
bond with LJ had started, or if it was even anything much. In its
early days, the Grand Ballast had spent more time in the towns
where it performed. The circus wasn’t popular yet, so Kilroy could
afford to linger in each new place, and the performers got used to
building fires pits near the train and sitting around each evening.
They weren’t on such large doses of the Haze then, either, so
sometimes they could hold interesting conversations.

What Bode remembered from
those evenings was the feeling of being among animals. Loud sounds,
barks and yips. Grating, hyena-like laughter. All of them ragging
on one another’s performances.
“You’re
gonna need surgery to tighten up your cunt, after that,”
Roulette had told Sibyata on a night when their
bodies had collided hard on the trapeze.

“
I’ll
get ’em to sew your dick slit shut while they’re at
it,”
Sibyata had shot
back.

It bothered Bode that the
others seemed to enjoy performing. Or at least, they didn’t
not
enjoy it. Bode was
still repulsed by the idea of sex on stage.
He knew his fellow performers were dangerous—had learned that
the day he met them. But after they’d “introduced” him to the
circus, they’d mostly left him alone.

Too alone. They skipped him
when they passed the bottle of gin. They told jokes he wasn’t in
on. They shut him out of conversations. He shouldn’t have
minded—why would he have wanted the friendship of that leering
bunch of creatures? Sibyata with her spider limbs and Kayak pouring
gin into his mouth from a bottle clutched between his grimy feet.
The snake charmer bonding too deeply with Harold.

But Bode forced himself to
stay out there, staring into the flames, hoping with a
self-destructive desire that Kilroy would come looking for him.
Would take him into his private car and keep him there for the
night, while the others had to sleep in their coffins. Everything
had gone to hell between them, but Bode still hoped for
forgiveness. Still, pathetically, craved Kilroy’s approval and
love.

He’d gulp from his tin mug
of coffee.
I don’t belong here. I’m not
like them.

And then a more insidious
voice would agree.
No. You’re something
worse than any of them.

But then LJ started to look
at him. LJ was huge—he loomed over the other performers, and his
shoulders had a massive, terrifying span. His hair stuck up, his
nails were short and dirty, and veins wound across his forearms.
But his eyes were gentle, and he never spoke loudly. Rarely spoke
at all, in fact. LJ did what he had to do to Bode onstage each
night, but it was a job and nothing more. With LJ, Bode could
almost enjoy it.

At first, it was just a
glance or two across the fire. Then LJ started sitting next to him.
One night, Bode followed LJ back to the coffin car while everyone
else was still by the fire, and they kissed in the dark wagon. In
the car next door, they could hear Mr. Lein rooting around in his
nest of trash, and they laughed softly against each other’s
lips.

Not long after that,
Kilroy began dosing the performers with the blue pills twice a day,
and Bode lost track of what he and LJ did or didn’t do. Lost track
of the hours, the days, the weeks. Of how many fires and how many
towns. But even from the murkiness of those days, Bode could draw a
few vague memories of pressing close to Long John. Of sharing a
coffin with him. Pouring his juice at breakfast. Of laughing
together over a good review in
The X-show
Rustler
—a weekly periodical about the
country’s X-shows—even as the words lodged in Bode and sickened
him.
Has there ever been a more beautiful
X-show specimen than dancer Bode Martin, who sucks cock like he was
born to do it? His helplessness when he’s thrown to the ground, his
cries, will thrill you even as they get you hot…

LJ succumbed to the Haze
more quickly and completely than Bode. He became dull, ghostly.
Roulette did impressions of LJ lumbering and moaning. Sometimes,
when Bode passed, Roulette would thrust his hips mechanically and
groan with his tongue out. “Who am I, Bode?” he’d call.