Chapter 14
ON HALLOWEEN, Griff was a day into his seventy-two hours off from the firehouse, and he was working the front door at the Bone. As the night went on, the crowd got crazier and younger. On top of the costumes, there was a bachelor party going on—great for business, great for tips, loud as hel.
At about eleven, he heard some chick screaming up the block. A bunch of guys were scuffling on the corner. At first he thought the bachelor party had started breaking up and heading into Manhattan for lap-dances. Then he realized these men were fighting and shouting in a tight ring about fifty yards off. A car alarm went off as someone slammed against it. Breaking glass.
The screams had come from a chubby girl across the street, dressed as a bumblebee, who was staring at something on the ground at their feet. Griff couldn’t see it what it was, but she had taken a step into the street. Her face was a mask of horror, but she wasn’t running away.
The fuck were they doing?
Griff walked toward the noise slowly. His gut felt strange; this wasn’t a fight over beer money. The rest of them were yeling and kicking at the sidewalk. Was it a dog? Sick bastards.
Under the streetlight, one of the assholes stopped kicking, unzipped his pants, and puled out his dick. Griff closed his fists and broke into a jog, thundering toward them. “Hey!”
The men didn’t hear him. Their car was next to them in the street, and the engine was running. The doors were open. They were shouting and cursing at the concrete.
And then Zipperboy started pissing on the ground, just let it rip right there on Van Brunt like he was at a fucking urinal. But he wasn’t pissing on pavement.
The stream was hitting cloth.
A moan. A wet cough.
“Fucking faggot piece of shit….”
Jesus Christ. It was a smal person curled down there, some kid getting kicked to death and being pissed on.
“Hey! Needledick!” Griff barked as he jogged toward them like an angry giant. Zipperboy looked up, startled, and stopped laughing when he clocked Griff’s size. Tucking his dick back in his jeans, he said something to the rest of the geniuses. One of them spat on the kid.
They piled into their idling car fast and took off, puling away from the curb with their limbs half in and slamming the doors when they had gotten halfway up the block. One last shout and a beer bottle thrown at the body as they took off. “Fag!” The bottle smashed against the concrete. People were peering cautiously out of windows and doors.
“Somebody cal the cops!” Griff crouched over the prone body curled in a fetal bal. The victim was a teenager, or a short man. There was piss and blood everywhere, and he was afraid to rol the body over. At least the rib cage was moving a little; it wasn’t a murder yet.
The chubby bumblebee’s voice said from across the street, “I caled 911.” Her footsteps approached. Other people were coming out into the street.
Vultures.
“Good.” Griff knew he had to make sure the airway wasn’t blocked. The victim didn’t seem to be breathing regular, or if he was, he wasn’t getting much air.
The guy’s hair was matted with gore. Shalow panting barely whistled through his bloody mouth.
Griff leaned down to make sure he heard the sound. The dread in his stomach tightened.
“Is he… dead?” She was standing beside Griff, her sturdy legs shifting as she wrestled with rubbernecking fascination and disgust. “I don’t think you better touch him til the paramedics get here.”
“I’m a firefighter. He could….” Griff came around the other side so he didn’t have to move anything to check the airways for breath, and then he realized.
It was Tommy. Dobsky.
Tommy’s face was mottled and split, nose broken. His left arm hung at a strange angle. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood. Those bastards had pounded the shit out of him. He could die. He’d saved Dante.
“It was al so fast. Not like on TV at al.” The chubby bee-woman said to no one.
Fag!
Griff ignored her and checked the basics: pulse was erratic and breathing was difficult. Broken ribs too, probably.
“Where’s the goddamn ambulance?” Griff growled at the clouds.
Someone knew about Tommy being gay. Had someone seen something and spiled the beans? Had someone seen him with Alek the other night? Had fucking Alek said something to the wrong people?! Oh God.
A crowd of kneecaps gathered around Griff and Tommy on the ground.
“Back off!” Griff’s voice was louder than he’d intended.
Sirens.
Fag!
With sudden certainty, Griff knew what had happened: Tommy had told someone the truth, spiled his beans al over someone other than Griff, and they’d taken it… badly, to say the least. He’d flirted with the wrong guy or confessed to the wrong cousin or gotten caught in the wrong bar. Trick or treat gone wrong.
He had paid the price. He just kept paying al over the sidewalk.
“Griffin?” Jimmy had walked up from the bar, and his feet slowed as he saw the dark puddle soaking into the pavement and Griff’s jeans. “Jesus. Jee-sus!
Dead?”
Griff shook his head. “It’s one of the guys from the house. Tom Dobsky.”
Fag!
The sirens were getting closer. Tommy’s breath rattled low in his chest. A thick drool of blood ran from his nose to his ear; it could have come from either.
“I gotta go with him.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure. Fucking Christ. The cops are on their way. Ambulance.”
“This young lady is gonna need to make a statement.” Griff turned to the celphone bumblebee. “You good to stay?” The chubby girl nodded, squinting at him. Her hair was a halo of tight brown curls. She was crying.
Griff looked at the onlookers. “The rest of you should fuck right off.”
A caped old man took a picture of the streaked pavement with his Blackberry. More vultures gathered, murmuring and speculating. One girl wearing horns and high heels had a French buldog on a leash that was trying to sniff the puddle.
Fag!
Griffin glared at the ring of costumed idiots and gritted his teeth. “Jimmy, get these assholes away from him before I kil somebody.” Jimmy grunted and herded the onlookers back with his tattooed arms.
The trucks were coming. He could hear them a couple blocks up Van Brunt. Griff lowered his face to talk to Tommy. “Hang on, buddy.” The chubby bee-girl sat down on the curb, tears streaking her face. “They were kiling him. They were kiling him.” Tommy was so stil on the pavement. He was gonna die right here with Griff watching. Griff guarded the body like a rabid dog, kneeling in the blood and piss and praying for a miracle.
By the time the sirens reached them, the Haloween crowd had grown to about forty people and Tommy’s breathing was so shalow that Griff was worried his broken ribs had punctured both lungs.
Behind him, Griff vaguely heard the cops talking to the chubby witness. EMS swooped in past him and took charge. “Griff?” Fag!
“He’s not… uh, God. It’s one of ours.” Griff nodded at the baby-faced paramedic. “That’s Dobsky down there. Tommy.”
“Jesus.” The baby-face was aghast. If only he knew.
“Eight guys jumped him. Maybe nine. I can identify.”
Jimmy walked up to them and clapped Griff on the shoulder. “I gotta get back on the door. Cops are gonna need a statement from you.” Griff nodded.
None of this should’ve happened. If I’d let him tell me the other night…. If I’d confided in him myself…. If either of us had told the fucking truth.
The EMTs roled Tommy onto a board and lifted him onto a gurney. Jimmy was walking away.
Griff started toward the back of the ambulance. As he reached the cops and the chubby girl, he stopped and hugged her.
She hugged him back. “Thanks.” Her voice was muffled in his shirt.
Griff nodded, like she could hear his head moving, and let her go. One of the cops said something about a statement, but he ignored it.
“Ask me at the hospital.” Before anyone could object, Griff climbed into the ambulance and sat, daring them to order him out. “I go with him.” This is my fault. I knew he needed help but I was a coward. The guilt in Griff was like acid, slippery and toxic.
Fag!
The emergency crew took one look at Griff’s size and rage and gave in. The baby-faced paramedic said, “Let’s hit it.” Tommy wasn’t moving. Behind the oxygen mask, his face was a pulped mess, and he stank.
I’m a goddamn coward. Shoulda been me getting pissed on.
GRIFF was sitting in the waiting room when Dante showed up.
Griff was braced against the wal next to a trashcan waiting for some kind of information. The knees of his pants were stiff with Tommy’s blood and the urine of that evil motherfucker. He wanted to put his fist through a wal—no, through that pissing kid. Griff wanted to reach down that bastard’s throat, grab his asshole, and pul him inside out like a shirt.
Dante got there about forty-five minutes after Tommy had been admitted.
“They told me at the Bone.” Dante’s voice was quiet. He just knew one of their company had been assaulted. He didn’t know why. Only Tommy and Griff and the pricks who’d done it knew the truth.
It coulda been Dante. What if those assholes had gotten to Dante and I wasn’t there?
Griff leaned over the trashcan and vomited.
Dante rubbed his back in soft circles. “It’s okay, G. You did great. They got him.” Griff gave Dante a crazed glare.
“Easy. Fight’s over.” Dante held his hands up like a white flag.
“Those fuckers woulda kiled him.” Griff’s voice sounded strange in his own ears, like he was a gigantic ventriloquist dummy and someone else was talking through him, like someone had their hand up his ass making him say things. “I saw it. He would’ve died. They wanted to murder —” Dante frowned and crossed his arms, unwiling to hear. “But he didn’t. Let it go. You did everything you could and you saved him. Whatsamatter?” Griff shook his head no, but he didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything. The HotHead scenes were like a fucking bul’s-eye on them.
It coulda been Dante bleeding out in the street ’cause I didn’t speak up.
It coulda been Dante bleeding out in the street ’cause I didn’t speak up.
Around them people squirmed in discomfort under fluorescent light on the patched vinyl furniture. Announcements squawked on the PA system uninteligibly.
Emergency rooms in New York were never exactly cheerful.
Dante shrugged. “Tommy is always getting into scrapes, huh? He just got jumped this time.” He was trying to talk Griff down. Guys got into fights al the time.
Griff thought about the scratches and bruises from the aley fuck. Dante had no idea about Tommy or that other secret life, and no way was he going to be the one to let that cat out of the bag. “You don’t understand.”
“He got beat up, G,” Dante reasoned gently.
But that wasn’t the truth. Griff and Tommy and the pissbag posse knew that was a fucking lie. This was a whaddayacalit, a hate crime. Tommy hadn’t gotten mugged or mauled, he’d been gay-bashed. Like anyone was going to report it that way. Uh huh. Tell me another.
“I didn’t even know you knew him that wel.” Dante’s forehead was creased with confusion.
“I didn’t. I don’t. They were so ready to kil him.” Griff’s breath caught in his throat as he thought about Dante curled on pavement in a ring of boots.
“For al we know, he banged some dude’s wife.”
Uh. No.
Griff ran a hand over his hair. He needed a shower. “They were al fucking kicking him into mush with boots. For fun. He was unconscious. Al he could do was curl up and bleed. No one deserves that. It coulda been you or your sister, or I dunno—”
“Hey. Hey! No one wants to kil me. I don’t bang married women anymore. Not my scene. And they’d have to go through you, huh?” Dante was trying to squeeze a laugh out of him.
“Fucking right.” Griff almost hugged him but didn’t. He looked down at himself and realized how he must look, how crazy he seemed. He thought about the scene they’d just shot for HotHead. If someone saw Dante sucking….
Dante dropped a hand on his big shoulder and squeezed. “Let me give you a lift?”
“I can drive.”
“You don’t have your truck, man. You came in with the EMS, remember?” Dante held up an extra jacket.
“Oh.” Griff’s brain was cold oatmeal. “Right. Thanks.”
They walked toward the exit.
Dante fished keys out of his pocket. “I caled the station to tel the chief. The guys wil come by tomorrow.” Griff thought about those attackers again and wondered who they’d be teling. Who else knew Tommy messed around with dudes by now? How many more would know tomorrow? How many wel-wishers were gonna come by with Playboys and chocolate once they knew Tommy took it in the ass? Somewhere, someone had told the truth, and Tommy was in deep shit. They al were, only Dante didn’t know it yet. Griff just had to keep it that way.
Fag!
“Griffin?”
Griff realized he was standing in the automatic doors holding the jacket. The air outside was freezing cold, but he didn’t seem to be able to feel anything. He put the jacket on.
Dante nodded and waited for his best friend to catch up, bumping shoulders and heading for his parking place on a side street.
Griff nodded to himself. Loving his friend was bad enough. Losing him would….
Would….
Griff choked and kept walking.
If it kiled him, he would make sure Dante didn’t find out the truth.
GRIFF went to HotHead the next afternoon right out of work, wiling to sel his soul. He didn’t tel Dante. He didn’t even warn Alek.
On the way he caled the nurse’s station on Tommy’s floor. No change; he was stable but stil unconscious.
At the warehouse on Avenue X, Alek was al business from the moment he came down to the street door to meet Griff under low clouds like thick felt. A gray day for Al Soul’s.
They didn’t talk in the elevator, and Griff was acutely aware of not having the duffel with his turnout gear. He’d worn the kilt he used for bouncing at the Bone, hoping the necessary ass-kick would come easier. He had to find a way to get pissed at this Russki asshole.
Upstairs, Alek tugged open the freight elevator with a clang and headed back toward the studio in the half light. He spoke at Griff without turning back as he threaded through the boxes and storage crates. Alek looked down at his legs. “I like your kilt.” Griff looked down at the olive drab pleats. He’d forgotten he was wearing it. “It’s a utility kilt. I’m doing some construction later.”
“Very handsome. But you did not bring your bunker gear.”
“No.” Griff looked down at his empty hands as he folowed. “I forgot. No. That’s a lie. I didn’t mean to bring it.” Alek unlocked the door and entered the studio. The curtains were al puled back, and chily daylight was strong in the room. “My apologies for the cold. My landlord is cheap about lighting the boiler because most of my neighbors use this place for storage. Russians!” He checked the computers briefly and headed for the fake sitting room set. “Then I wil assume that you have not come to shoot the solo video we discussed.” Griff stood empty-handed near the door, ready for the argument he needed to have, trying to work up the nerve to get nasty when Alek had been nothing but cool with him. He felt like a stone-cold prick.
Alek’s eyes smiled at him. “You look as if you are about to make a scene.” He settled back on the black leather loveseat, waiting.
“Yeah.” Griff entered far enough to stand on the carpet in front of him. “Sort of.”
“What kind of a scene did you have in mind, Mr. Muir?” Even seated, Alek managed to seem like a handsome concierge talking to a ruffled patron at a hotel.
“Is there a problem?”
Griff shifted his weight foot to foot. He took a step closer to the set. “Wel, I came here to be an asshole, but you been nothing but nice to us.”
“I’m glad you think so. I like both you and Mr. Anastagio a good deal.” Alek smoothed his pants, chin out, ready for anything. “You even saved me from an assault, the night we met.”
Griff had forgotten about that. It felt like a hundred years ago. And he felt weird talking with the whole room between them, but he couldn’t make himself get any closer, and the only furniture was on that side of the studio. “Look, man, those videos are a real problem. For Dante and me. Ya know? The kinda problem that could get us fired or kiled or worse.”
“Then I can understand your anxiety. You are in a dangerous business.” Alek leaned forward in his seat, looking concerned or faking concern… whichever.
Griff shrugged, powerless and desperate. “I thought… I came here to say I got cops for friends and I could be a prick and shut you down. But I don’t want this to go public and mess up our lives. And I don’t want to mess with your business.” He took a step. Then another. He closed the distance between them until he was in the HotHead.com set with Alek.
“I appreciate that, but you stil have a problem. Yes? Because of the homoerotic content we shot of you and your friend.” The Russian drummed his long fingers on the fake coffee table, like he was thinking of a solution, or was pretending to think.
Griff stepped closer, fidgeting. “Yeah. You don’t understand…. The porno thing could get him kiled and I realize that it’s not your problem and I don’t know how to fix it and I don’t want Dante to know and I don’t want to dick you around.”
“Slow down. It’s al right, Mr. Muir.”
“Fuck, but this is awful.” Griff sat down in the big leather armchair and leaned forward, desperate to make Alek understand what he was saying. “Look, you’re a good guy, Alek. ’S’weird actualy. I used to think you were a total pervert skeezbag back before I….”
“Ejaculated on this chair.” Alek’s smile spread over his face like syrup. “But I am a pervert. You know that. We are al perverts of one flavor or another, yes?”
“Yeah. Yes.” Griff knew what he meant. Alek knew he knew. Their knowing slithered between them in the fake porno room where so many things had changed. His legs were goose-bumped under his kilt.
“However, I am not a vilain.” Arching an eyebrow, the Russian exaggerated the Slavic edge in his accent til he sounded like a cartoon Rasputin. “The evil Soviet trafficking in innocent flesh.”
Griff nodded again, trying to figure out what Alek was trying to say. It seemed important that he make sense of it. Why did he feel like he was talking with a friend?
Alek leaned back against the black leather and thought out loud. “I wish no harm to either of you. On the contrary, I would much rather find a way to share some of the good fortune you have showered on my smutty corner of the World Wide Wank.” Without the camera and the lights, this little sitting room looked like the corner of an office. Griff had the weird thought that they could both be waiting to see a dentist.
For a root canal.Or amputation.
Griff wiped his mouth. He was supposed to threaten this guy, or beg for some kind of reprieve, or try to buy him off. But something else came out entirely.
“I’m fucking terrified.” Griff felt embarrassed as soon as the words were out in the cold air.
“Has someone threatened you or Mr. Anastagio because of the site?”
“No! I mean, not yet. No one knows, and I need to keep it that way.”
Alek’s forehead creased in confusion. “Then may I ask the reason for your fears?”
“A guy got hurt. Beat up real bad.”
“I don’t folow. During a fire this happened?”
“No. Like bashed. Gay-bashed. One of the men at the firehouse. You met him at the Stone Bone. This paramedic who sneaks around to, uh, sleep with dudes. Have sex. Jesus. You know.” Griff thought of that rough aley fuck. Of Tommy’s sated face and the dark man’s hand on his back after. Tommy calmly keeping Dante alive at that fire. Tommy curled up on the sidewalk, dying.
“Thomas?!” Alek’s face was serious suddenly. His shoulders bunched and his hands closed into fists. He looked angry, almost as angry as Griff felt.
“Yeah, Tommy. Messes around with men. A lot, apparently. His wife found out, and then her brothers found out, and then I found him getting mauled, and now he’s in the fucking hospital pissing into a bag with his face held together by staples.”
“But that is terrible.” Alek looked like he wanted to kil someone, the planes of his face rigid. “He was such a lost soul.”
“And, I mean, he knows how to fight, but not al of ’em at once. Ya know? And sure he cheated, but al those fucking guys cheat on their wives ala time!” Griff rubbed his face and closed his sore eyes, trying not to lose it. “But not with guys. You see? Not with guys. So he’s a filthy fag. They almost kiled him. They pissed on him. His family. His family.”
Alek’s mouth was open in shock. He realized and covered it with his shaking hand.
“I watched him in the ambulance dying. Almost dying. Blood came out of his ears.”
Behind his fingers, Alek cursed in Russian, then cursed again.
Griff shook his head and rubbed an eye. “They’l get away with it. He won’t press charges. Sixty-something stitches. Three ribs. Concussion. Dislocated shoulder. His face was like a goddamn eggplant.”
Alek’s face was granite. “You helped, though. You were a hero. And he wil get better.”
“Wil he? I feel fucking awful. Because I knew. I saw him one night, down in the Vilage with a guy. Humping some big guy, I mean. Not even Dante knows that.” Griff wiped his nose and made a fist. “But I never said nothing. Maybe if I had, he’d’a been more careful.”
“Or maybe not.” Alek didn’t rest a hand on him for comfort, but Griff could tel he was trying to be gentle. “Perhaps Thomas made sure he got caught.
Perhaps he wanted that poor wife to find out and hadn’t the words to give her. Perhaps that was his way of punishing himself. Masochism. People torture themselves more terribly than anyone else could. Yes?”
Griff nodded.
Alek nodded. He hadn’t forgotten what he’d seen.
Suddenly they weren’t talking about Tommy. Sirens went off in Griff’s head, but he slid right down the pole into it, unable to stop himself….
Griff’s voice was low and he spoke to the floor, unable to look at anything. “The lying is awful. The hiding.”
“It is.” Alek shrugged a shoulder and frowned at the studio around them. “But common. Look at HotHead. Many of our members are closeted men in bitter marriages. ‘Curious’, these men cal themselves. The fantasy is how they survive. This place is a dream for them.” He looked around at the three-waled sitting room set. “The world is built of lonely people.”
Griff grimaced. “How can you be ‘curious’ if you know? I don’t get how people can hack it. I mean, I know they do, but I can’t imagine doing it for your whole goddamn life. ’S’like being burned alive, lying to people you love. No wonder people become drunks and hide and hit each other. Truth. Easier to be dead inside.”
“There are so many better ways to kil yourself.” The light from outside silvered Alek’s stern face, making him look older, his eyes paler. “You drink.”
“I drink too much. I know. I know that. Like my dad.” Griff looked at his scarred knuckles. “I only do it when I’m trying not to….”
“Love your friend?” Alek’s voice was gentle, his accent a soft, understanding burr.
The room felt suddenly stil to Griff, like even the dust had stopped dancing in the motes of cold sunlight and the wind had stopped dead outside. His heart paused. The blood stopped in his veins. The world holding its breath, holding its breath….
Until he looked up, his gray eyes startled and wet and relieved as the word escaped his mouth. “Yeah.” His heart started again.
“Mr. Muir, loving your Dante is not a bad thing. He certainly loves you… although I don’t know if he can love you in the way you wish. Or I wish, for that matter. Only he knows. You understand? Life is very rarely romantic.” Alek wiped his hands on his pants. “But if you are not going to be honest with him, you at least need to be honest with yourself.”
Griff nodded then shook his head no. Which is it, idiot? “I just get hammered every once in a while so I don’t have to feel anything. I’d rather be numb than feel everything al the time. Ache for him.” He fiddled with the pleats of his kilt and strangled on his cowardice.
“A dangerous habit for someone so often in danger. What do they say on pils? Do not operate heavy machinery? Life is heavy machinery.” Alek was looking at something on his pants, unwiling to raise his eyes like he knew he was going too far with a stranger but couldn’t stop himself. “Trust this: drinking until you go away from the world only wastes moments of your life. Al that time is lost. And time and love are incredibly precious. Yes? Don’t waste either.”
“I know. IknowIknowIknowIknow….” Griff nodded. He felt the hot tears on his face before he realized he was crying.
- Plip -
A tear hit his hand. “You didn’t see Tommy al smashed there on the fucking ground. People who loved him did that. Family. The truth did that, not fucking romance. I gotta do something. Whatever it is I gotta do. And I gotta take care of those videos or someone is going to hurt Dante and I’l snuff out like a fucking candle. Extinguish. If our family did that to Dante or me, I’d… I dunno, I don’t know if….” He choked, quietly bawling in the middle of a porn studio with this strange, kind Russian watching him with awkward concern.
How had he gotten to this exact point? Griff tried and failed to retrace al the steps that had landed him here on this fake couch crying real tears with a gentle pervert who wanted to pul him out of the rubble.
Ground Zero.
Alek didn’t say anything for a while, just patted his fire-fuzzed forearm with the patient pessimism of a burn-unit nurse. His quiet breathing actualy helped calm Griff down. After a few minutes, he nodded his bald head to himself and stretched to open a briefcase on the fake coffee table. “Mr. Muir… can I make you an offer?”
He extracted a big envelope.
“Are you fucking kidding?! Have you been listening?!” Griff glared at the papers and then up at Alek. “Jesus H. Christmas. I didn’t bring my fucking turnout gear! I don’t want any more fake online porno bulshit that’s gonna get us kiled. No thanks.” He took a breath. “No offense.”
“No. That was not what I was going to suggest. A moment.” Alek shifted on the loveseat and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “You helped me once, before even you knew me. Now I would like to help you.”
“Yeah. Sure. But first I gotta find a way to keep us safe, to help Dante, to protect what he cares about, to get both of us to a place where we can be honest, even if it’s just for one goddamned minute, the two of us.”
Alek just watched him, gears turning inside his head as if he were doing calculus. “I think we should remove the remarkable footage of ‘Monte’ and ‘Duff’
from the website. Streaming it was a mistake that could have unfortunate repercussions for you and for me.” Griff nodded, stunned.
“However, that video content has been very popular with the members. You are fan favorites. It is that bright heat between you, you see. Not just the flesh, but the feeling. The rest of us are drawn to it like pitiful moths. I’ve gotten an enormous boost in registrations with your masturbation clips, and I am a businessman.” Alek steepled his fingers, tapping his big nose and looking straight into Griff’s eyes. “So I’l make a deal with you, if you are wiling.”
“Yes!” Griff was on his feet so fast that Alek flinched. “I could pay you. I’l buy ’em back. Cash! I can borrow….” He’d sel his truck. He’d rob a bank. He would swalow his pride and beg his dad.
“No. I don’t think you can afford what the footage has turned out to be worth. Especialy the extraordinary felatio scene, which has not been seen by anyone other than myself.” Alek’s empty hands opened like he was offering something. “And need not be.” Anything. Yes.
Griff nodded, then shook his head, feeling like an idiot. He plucked at one of the pleats in his kilt.
“But the earlier scenes have served their purpose, and the members’ appetite for fresh product is relentless. You represent something to them now. A fantasy.
By removing these clips I could of course suggest some kind of homoerotic scandal in the FDNY, which would only enhance the site’s reputation. That is almost a strategy.” Alek’s blue eyes scanned the ceiling, and he ran a hand over his shaved scalp. “In return, I would like something from you.” He turned his eyes to Griff’s and smiled.
Griff froze, his chest cold, his face salmon pink and roasting with embarrassment. “I don’t think I could, with you. I know you like… like me. Whatever. I mean, if you’re asking…. You’re handsome and al, but I don’t think I could have sex….” Alek laughed and shook his head. “No, no! You misunderstand me. I do like you enormously, Mr. Muir. But as beautiful as you are, I think you have blundered onto something quite rare and precious with your Italian friend that deserves protection from perverts. Even from me. No, I want you to model for some photographs.”
“But I thought —”
“Nothing explicit. Nothing that would reveal your identity. I’d like you to be the HotHead man. My coverboy, as it were. My brand. I wouldn’t show your face. You don’t even have to represent yourself as a firefighter. We can easily find you other uniforms if you prefer.”
“But you want to take naked pictures. Of me. Being naked.” Griff knew he was missing something. He scanned the nubby oatmeal carpet, trying to put the pieces together. He wiped his wet lashes.
“Wel, yes. Obviously. With some uniform elements, of course. And in exchange for those photos, I wil agree to remove al of our Monte and Duff content: videos, photos, bios. The website has become quite popular in the past few months, in no smal part thanks to you and Mr. Anastagio. But I’m rebranding it as something a little more upscale, and I want someone”—Alek scanned Griff’s body frankly—“exceptional to represent HotHead for its new incarnation.” Griff waved away that idea. “How is me naked al over your site gonna fix my problem?”
“We wil not show your face or any identifiable markings, tattoos, etcetera. But of course, you do not have tattoos on that flawless skin. Smart.” Alek grinned and nodded, flirting a little in a friendly way that made his accent a little stronger for some reason.
“Bulshit.” Griff was already shaking his head adamantly. “I’m not that hot. I’m not that ripped. And I’m not that hung. I seen some of the monsters you got on the site.” He blushed, but he stuck with being honest. By now, what did he care what Alek knew about him haunting the site incognito?
“I could argue the point.” Alek’s blue eyes creased and twinkled gently. “And the members are fascinated with that chemistry between you and your friend.
But that is not the reason.”
“What, ’cause I’m a redhead?”
“Because you are authentic, Mr. Muir. One hundred percent genuine. You don’t look like a stripper or a hustler or a criminal. You’re not pretty or groomed or juiced. You look like exactly what you are: a handsome American hero who doesn’t know his own appeal. And you are intensely appealing. That is most of the reason, anyways.”
Alek tilted his head, giving Griff’s arms and crotch a close once-over. “Plus I do love your remarkable coloring, and it is appropriate after al. I cannot imagine a hotter head.”
A wink and Alek chuckled like they weren’t haggling over their respective futures.
Over by the door, one of the computers made some kind of squawk, rebooting itself, for al the world as if it was butting into their conversation. Griff and Alek turned at the sound, but it had nothing else to say. On the row of monitors, the smoldering HotHead logo ping-ponged around the blank screens against the shadowed wal. The light was fading outside.
When had it gotten so late?
Alek tipped his bald head and glanced back to Griff for his answer.
Griff frowned and scowled so hard that he knew he looked like his father playing bad cop. “So… what? You take skin pics of me and the porn clips go away?”
“Mm. Not me, though. I have a photographer who would work with you over a three-day period. Beth. She’s very polite and very talented and very professional.” He put his hands behind his head and relaxed against the cushions, daydreaming his bigger, better HotHead.
“A chick? Sheesh.”
“A dol, she is. Beth does primarily editorial and fashion photography. But she has a sideline in beefcake calendars, and she has a real eye for artistic nudes.
She wil, no doubt, swoon when she sees you in your glory. She wil be made to understand that your face, name, and any identifying features wil never be associated with HotHead-dot-com or the pictures themselves.”
“Dante wil kil me if he thinks this is charity.” Griff turned the idea over and over in his head. “Worse, he’l be pissed you didn’t ask him. He’s crazy vain and he’s the one who needs the fucking money.”
“Then you should discuss it with him first. Along with… other things. Yes? Talk to him.” Alek unfolded pages with single-spaced legal crap on HotHead letterhead and waited for Griff. His brown eyebrows scrunched over kind eyes, as if they were old friends chatting. He understood Griff and vice versa, so in a way they were.
Crazy.
Griff didn’t know where to begin. His mouth tried to get words out, but nothing came. Was this for real?
“And do not think I’m letting you off easily. A three-day shoot can be quite exhausting. You wil earn every cent of my costs of kiling those videos.”
“Why?” Griff finaly formed an inteligent thought, rubbing his hands on his thighs and standing up so he could pace like a caged bear. Nothing is this easy.
“Again, Mr. Muir, you ask the right question.” Alek seemed pleased, like it had been a test. He watched Griff pace the carpet, and as he had the day they’d first met in this room, the Russian counted off his reasons on his fingers. “Because you may be able to fulfil a crazy fantasy for me about hot men in uniform.
Because I saw whatever rare thing burns between you and your Dante. Because I once felt something similar and let it die. Because people should not be punished for loving and hoping and holding their hearts open.”
Griff felt himself smile and nod, stupid with gratitude. Thank you, thank you, thank you. He wiped his cheek with a rough hand. In this room where everything had changed between them, he could almost feel Dante’s leg pressed against his, like they were together on the loveseat.
“What is funny?” Alek seemed perplexed by his reaction, but stil pleased.
Then Griff did laugh, his face warm, his relief so strong it felt like whiskey in his veins. “Open heart. Someone else said something similar to me a while back.
A lady who’s known me a long time. Huh.”
“Wel… we are both right.” Alek held out a hand, waiting for an answer.
Suddenly, Griff hoped Tommy was okay in his hospital room. That someone had gone by. He’d go visit in the morning before his tour. He wondered if Dante would go. He wondered if either of them was brave enough.
He took a breath, weighing the offer. What was the right thing?
Outside the November daylight had cooled into a powder-blue evening. Inside the studio, in the failing glow, it was almost dark except for a warm ring thrown by one fake floor lamp next to the fake loveseat on the fake carpet in the fake living room. A little island in the middle of the cold blue November sky. The fake room, the fake art, the fake porno world, and Alek just holding the exit open for him, for Dante… the world waiting.
Griff sighed, eyes closed and happy. He could feel Alek’s eyes resting on him with patience he didn’t deserve. For a split second, the smal flickering fantasy of the set almost felt cozy. A place to hide, and a place to find answers for al the curious people in the world who had no place else to ask or dream.
“Okay.” Griff shook Alek’s hand firmly, like a promise. “I’l talk to him.”
GRIFF drove from HotHead to his best friend’s ramshackle house ready to hash everything out, ready to lay his guts on the table. He didn’t even rehearse what he needed to say. He already knew.
I love you; yes, like that.
His heart was slamming against his ribs like a chimp in a cage.
When he got there, the sun had gone for good. The front door was wide open to the winter air, and music was pouring out into the lamp-lit street: the Carpenters.
Mr. Anastagio had to be here. He loved al those gloopy Muzak singers of the seventies. He loved them so much that after about fifteen minutes of listening to him hum along and feel the hokey lyrics, you started to love them too.
It was probably better that Griff leave and come back when he could talk to Dante alone about Alek and the offer and, oh yeah, his feelings. This was going to be complicated enough without getting Mr. A. involved. He’d just say helo and head to the firehouse a little early for his tour.
Griff stepped inside the front hal and took off his jacket to hang it on a peg.
“Helo?”
No answer. Not surprising. With Karen Carpenter crooning “Top of the World” at that volume, a bomb could go off down here before the Anastagio men noticed.
Inside, windows were open al over and the house was chily. As Griff entered the parlor, he could hear Dante’s scratchy baritone singing along with his father’s rough, tuneless bass. He smiled at the sound. Were they out back?
Dante’s voice sounded like it was coming from the kitchen or the dining room, but up high.
Walpaper! Griff remembered now.
Father and son were walpapering Dante’s bedroom with rols Mrs. A. had found up in the family attic—a pattern of diagonal bronze stripes that looked expensive and sexy. She’d puled a bundle of antique roled paper out at Sunday dinner, and Dante had swooped in to claim it instantly. Flip was furious, but his house was a rental, so he couldn’t realy argue.
They al knew how much Dante had poured into this crazy dump. Besides, Dante had waited and waited to paint the master bedroom, chipping away at al the other repairs until just the wals were unfinished. Mrs. Anastagio’s bronze stripes would be the final piece on the first complete room in Dante’s house.
That his mother had found the paper, that his grandparents had bought it and brought it from Italy, was gravy. His father had volunteered to come help, and that was perfect too.
Griff stepped smiling into the dark dining room. Their singing came from a shadowy gap in the ceiling about the size of a door. This was too far back to be under the master bedroom where they were working. He was standing under the unfinished office that looked over the back garden. Al the doors were open to let the paste set up and dry.
Upstairs the CD ended, and Griff opened his mouth to shout a helo up at them, crack a joke about instaling a backsplash behind the bed. He took a breath to speak—
And in the short silence of Dante walking across the floor, Griff heard something that shut his mouth. It echoed back to the dark hole over his head.
“Have you confronted Griffin?” Mr. A.’s voice sounded upset. “Asked him?”
The smile turned to ice and melted on Griff’s face. He took a step closer, looking up at the hole. Their voices bounced off the bare sheetrock wals in Dante’s room. Griff felt like a ghost hovering down there in the shadows.
“No, Pop.” Dante sounded like a scared teenager. “How am I supposed to ask something like that?” Griff tried to get closer to the voices back at the front of the house, but away from the overhead gap, they were muffled. He went back to the dining room gap and they were stil talking.
“… know your mother wil take it hard. She loves Griffin like her own. You’re ready to expose him to that kind of bulshit?” What the fuck had happened?
Dante sounded upset. “I gotta fucking know, though.”
“Griff is wide open. Open heart. Open eyes. Saying something could—”
“I know! I fucking know, Pop.” Dante sounded like he was almost crying.
Fuck! Fuckfuckfuck. Griff could feel his life burning and faling around him, the rubble crushing the breath out of him.
“You could leave it alone. Do you care that much? I mean if he says you’re right, are you gonna do anything you wouldn’t do normaly?”
“I was so stupid. I mean, I been so stupid. He was trying to help me because—”
— because I love you I love you I love you—
“I made him. It wasn’t him. It’s me.”
Griff felt the whisper escape his mouth. “No.” He had to go up and stop this. If there was blame, he’d take it.
Mr. A.’s voice was almost inaudible. “Kiddo, it’s the two of you.”
Griff rummaged franticaly through his mind trying to figure out what could have happened. The only thing he could come up with was….
The goddamn website!
It was too late. They were busted. Everyone knew. Everything was lost. The solution that Alek had offered was worthless now. They would lose their jobs.
They were gonna wind up kicked to death in a filthy gutter with their friends pissing on them.
The breath rushed out of Griff’s body like someone had dropped a cinder block on his ribs. He slid down the wal under the hole in the dark.
“Maybe you’l have to take a break. Maybe he needs to be somewhere that’s away from you.” Griff hugged his knees. He’d been so happy coming in the door, and now they were talking about him like he was a fucking sex offender. Um, duh? He didn’t know which was worse—his other family trying to figure out how to handle him or the fact that he was guilty of everything and more. He had to get out of here.
Mr. A. didn’t say anything for a long time. Griff could almost imagine him chewing an unlit cigar into mush and sweating in his undershirt while he brushed milky paste onto the wal. But he couldn’t figure out the man’s face.
When Dante’s pop spoke, he sounded resigned and something else. Was he pacing? Pissed? Ashamed? “Dante, you’l make the same mistake. Your whole life, huh? We al do. Everything each of us does is one long mistake. Whatcha gotta do is look for your solution.” Dante digested that before he spoke again, his words echoing in the house. “And what if I’m wrong?” You’re not wrong.
“Then you’l know. He’l know. And truth is the only way anything starts or anything ends, kiddo.” Mr. Anastagio’s voice faded as he walked back toward the front of the house.
There was a scraping sound across the ceiling of the front parlor as the Anastagios shifted something heavy in Dante’s bedroom.
Griff hauled himself to his feet and out the open front door. Hopefuly they hadn’t seen him, but if they had, it wouldn’t change anything.