CHAPTER NINE

 

When he picked up the phone the next morning, Richard didn’t recognize the shaky voice of the old woman on the other end of the line.

“Hello, is this Richard Miller?”

“Yes,” Richard replied. Barely, he added silently.

The acid had left his mind fuzzy and his body worn out. The visions from the acid trip the night before still swirled in his mind. He didn’t know how he could face the day. Perhaps he’d just stay in and do nothing. Anton Black, his goons, the Hooded One, they could wait for another day. This city and lifestyle were wearing him out.

Even though it was past ten, he still lay in bed. He’d gotten maybe, three hours of sleep the night before. He didn’t even want to imagine what he looked like.

Richard had to struggle to focus on what the old woman was saying.

“This is Linda Jackson speaking, Tyrone’s mother. He had to go to work early this morning, but he said he’d meet you at your apartment as you had arranged. He just wanted to remind you in case you forgot and went out.”

“Um, OK,” Richard said, confused. They had arranged to meet? So much had happened since the last time they had talked, Richard couldn’t remember. And why hadn’t Tyrone called himself?

Probably because he doesn’t want to talk to you until you talk face-to-face. Oh shit, is he going to break up with me?

“Um, thank you Mrs. Jackson. I’m afraid I did forget. What time is he coming over?”

“Eleven.”

Richard leapt out of bed. “Oh, I’d better get ready then.” Then he remembered his manners. “And how are you feeling, Mrs. Jackson? The heat is pretty hard to bear.”

“Oh, it’s been so trying, hasn’t it?”

Tyrone’s mother then launched into a long monologue about how sweltering her apartment was, how it made her feel faint and sick, how it made her arthritis flare up, how the smog irritated her lungs. Richard nodded and said “uh-huh” to signal that he was listening as he stumbled around his bedroom searching for some clean clothes among the heaps of dirty laundry. As he did so, he caught a glance of himself in the mirror and was shocked to see how worn out and pale he appeared. He looked like he was suffering from some serious illness. He looked almost as old as Tyrone’s mother sounded.

“I’m so sorry you’re feeling badly, Mrs. Jackson. Now I really must get going. I need to have a shower before Tyrone gets here. The heat, you know.”

“Oh yes, well you run along then. It’s very nice to finally speak to you. I’ve heard so much about you.”

Richard cocked his head. “You have?”

“Oh yes. It’s so nice Tyrone has found a friend in Manhattan. The people can be so aloof down there. His work at the store always wears him out, so I’m glad he has a friend to visit in the neighborhood.”

Richard couldn’t help but smile at the mention of Tyrone’s “store.” If only his mom knew what he was selling in that store! But at the same time as Richard’s mouth was smiling, his heart was breaking in two. Tyrone had told his mother all about Richard—well, an edited version anyway—while Richard couldn’t even acknowledge Tyrone in public.

Richard said goodbye and jumped into the shower, the cold water mingling with his tears. He had just gotten dressed when the downstairs buzzer rang. Richard rushed over to the intercom and pressed the door lock. “Come on up!”

Tyrone didn’t respond. Richard neatened his hair and straightened his shirt, then opened the door at Tyrone’s knock.

“Tyrone, I’m sorry, I fucked up.”

Tyrone’s frown turned to shock. “What the hell happened to you?” he asked.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have ignored you like that. I—”

“I wasn’t asking about that. Have you gotten any sleep since I saw you last?”

Richard wanted to reach out and hug him, but something in his boyfriend’s manner stopped him. Instead, he slumped his shoulders and invited him in.

Sitting in the living room, he told Tyrone everything—the photoshoot, his visions, what the Knowledge Demon had told him. Tyrone listened without saying a word, growing more and more concerned.

Once Richard finished, they sat in silence for a minute.

“Damn, Country, looks like we have to fight these motherfuckers all over again. I guess we’ve been fooling ourselves thinking they wouldn’t try to bring the demon to Earth some other way.”

“What do we do?”

“First off, you need to stop helping them. No more drugs. It just makes you more susceptible. And you’d best get out of this apartment. That room is going to pull you back in sooner or later, probably sooner.”

“I have nowhere to go.”

“Crash on somebody’s couch. You can’t stay here. And get some sleep too. You’re a fucking mess, bro. Even if demons weren’t trying to possess you I’d tell you to get off the drugs, and that’s not something you hear me say a whole lot. You keep on the way you are, you’re gonna burn out.”

Richard hung his head. “Back in Missouri, all I could think of was getting here, and now I’m messing this whole thing up.” He looked at Tyrone suddenly. “Are you still angry at me?”

Tyrone glared back at him. “Hell yeah, I am, but we got more important things to do. We got to help Paco and we got to figure out what we’re going to do about that damn cult. I don’t have time to have a beef with you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that. But that ain’t enough. You’re on parole, Country, and you best not break it. Now let’s get going. Paco lives way out on the East Side.”

They rode the subway in silence. Inside the underground train, it felt like an oven and stank of stale bodies. The walls were covered with tags, the squiggly black lines seeming to merge and waver. Richard realized the acid hadn’t completely made its way out of his system.

Panic shot through his heart like an icy bullet. What if the Knowledge Demon formed out of these tags? What if the Hooded One appeared? So far they’d come to him while he was isolated and alone, but what if they appeared in a busy place? Would the other people even see? Would they call for the men in white coats if Richard started fucking beings that were invisible to them? Richard remembered the photos Anton Black had taken, the photos of him getting opened up by the Hooded One, but those only showed him alone in the shot. Even during the ritual in the park, when the barrier between the demon world and the human world was at its thinnest, Tyrone and his friends could only see the demons as vague shapes, like a faint mist that hinted at a humanoid form.

Richard clenched his eyes shut and rubbed his temples. This was all too much. He couldn’t stand it anymore. He tried to ignore the faint traces of color shooting across the back of his eyelids, tried to ignore the rising smell of brimstone that tickled his nostrils. His body shifted, and he felt himself falling …

He was jerked back to the real world when Tyrone caught him. The subway car spun in his vision, his stomach recoiling at the disorientation. Richard blinked his eyes and tried to focus. He found himself half on the floor, his boyfriend hauling him up. A couple of the other commuters snickered at him, but most looked the other way and pretended not to see.

“Shit, Country, you’re sick.”

“No, I’m just worn out.”

“I’ll take you back to your place.”

Richard shook his head, stopping immediately when the subway car spun again and a wave of nausea washed over him.

“No, I’d rather keep going. I need to do something sane for once. It’ll help me get my head together.”

They got off at Paco’s station and Tyrone bought him a bottle of orange juice at a newsstand. Richard sat on a grimy bench and took a grateful sip as the commuters rushed by. At least half of them jumped the turnstile rather than put in tokens. The orange juice was warm, but he didn’t care. He needed liquid that wasn’t alcohol.

Tyrone looked at him with concern.

“When’s the last time you ate?”

Richard shrugged.

Tyrone sighed. “Hold on.”

He went across the platform to where a couple of black men in long white robes and white skullcaps had a table where they were selling incense and pies. Tyrone bought a pie and brought it back.

“Eat this.”

Richard took a bite. It had beans inside.

“What is this?”

“A bean pie,” Tyrone answered. “Courtesy of the Nation of Islam.”

“Who?”

“The Nation. They’re black Muslims.”

“Did you tell them you were buying this for your white boyfriend?”

Tyrone laughed. “Might not be a good idea, Country.”

Richard looked at him. “We are still boyfriends, right?”

Tyrone paused for half a second. To Richard it felt like a year.

“Yeah, but, on probation, you dig?”

Richard nodded sadly and finished his breakfast. After a few minutes, he felt better.

“Let’s go,” he said, wiping his hands on his jeans.

“You sure?”

Richard looked around. He didn’t see any tracers and the graffiti here stayed on the wall where it belonged. The last of the acid seemed to have worn off.

“Yeah.”

Richard had been to a lot of crappy neighborhoods during his short time in New York City, but the one they saw when they came out of the subway scared him more than any other. Half the buildings were burnt out or collapsed, and the ones that still stood didn’t look much better. Ragged people, mostly Latino, but others from all races, walked the streets, eyes always alert. Even the children were tense, watching out for themselves and ready to fight off an attacker. The kids had opened up a fire hydrant and were laughing and playing as the water gushed out of it, soaking themselves and flinging water at one another. Even as they played they kept an eye on their surroundings, their innocence tempered with streetwise wariness.

“Damn, didn’t this guy used to work at an insurance company?” Tyrone whispered. “This is almost as bad as my hood.”

“Yeah, I think he was doing pretty well, but he got fired because, you know, they found out about his lifestyle. The only work he could get was as a short order cook.”

“Those cats get paid shit. Probably only got a part-time gig too. The bosses never want to put them on full-time because they don’t want to pay benefits.”

They approached a group of guys in identical denim vests smoking a joint on a stoop, a logo blazoned across the back of their jackets. As they stood up Richard saw it was a Day of the Dead skull surrounded by the words, “Latin Lovers—Chicano Killers.”

They squared up and blocked the sidewalk. Richard and Tyrone stopped. There were five, all bigger than either of them.

The leader glowered at Richard and then looked Tyrone up and down.

“You ain’t from this barrio. What are you doing here?”

“We’re seeing a friend,” Richard said..

“I wasn’t talking to you, gringo,” the man snapped. “I was talking to the spade.”

A flicker of anger passed across Tyrone’s face, but he was quick to hide it.

“We’re seeing a friend. He’s sick and we’re going to buy him some groceries and pay his bills,” Tyrone explained.

“What’s his name?”

“Garcia.”

“There’s a million Garcias in this barrio. What’s his first name?”

Richard tensed. Did Paco have a reputation here?

“His name is Paco Garcia,” Tyrone said, taking a step back.

The gang members’ eyes softened.

“Yeah,” their leader said. “He got hurt in that fire. You can pass.”

He glanced back at Richard and made a kissy face. Tyrone and Richard slunk away.

“What just happened?” Richard asked once they had made it another block.

“I think we just met the only gay street gang in New York City.”

They found the address. There was no buzzer, and the front door to the building lay open. A pair of old Cuban men sat outside on rickety, wicker chairs, a tiny table set between them with a chess board on top. They sat smoking cigars, absorbed in their game.

Richard and Tyrone passed up a creaking but freshly swept staircase to the floor Paco had told them he lived on and knocked on the door.

When the door opened, Paco and Tyrone recognized each other instantly. It took Richard a second more. He’d only seen Paco briefly, and the man had been vibrant and healthy despite his condition. Now he was drawn and haggard, with a loose sleeveless t-shirt that hung slack over his body. The man looked like he had lost a lot of weight in the past few weeks. Deep rings under his eyes showed he hadn’t gotten much sleep either.

He looks like me, Richard thought sadly. Except that I don’t have a bad case of smoke inhalation to blame for it. I can only blame myself.

Paco and Tyrone embraced. Richard felt a spike of jealousy. He tamped it down, knowing it was unworthy. Paco turned to him.

“You must be Richard,” he said, extending a hand.

Richard took it. “How are you doing?”

“I’m OK. I just can’t seem to shake this lung thing. I lost my insurance when I lost my job. There’s a free clinic here in the barrio, but they couldn’t help me much. Just told me to get plenty of rest. Well that’s fine, but how am I supposed to make a living?”

Paco led them inside. His place was a small studio apartment, with peeling paint and a cracked window. It was perfectly clean, though. Paco gestured to a couple of old wicker chairs as he lay back down on the bed, appearing grateful to get off his feet. Richard took a chair next to a large bookshelf crammed with heaps of books, both in Spanish and in English, mostly old library or thrift store editions. Scanning the titles, he saw a lot on politics, especially Latino and gay rights. There were a fair number of psychology and history books, too. A little kitchenette stood on the other side of the room, plus a door to a tiny bathroom. There was no television. On the bedside table was a pile of books and a fan that blew right on the bed.

“Can I offer you gentlemen some water? I’m afraid I don’t have anything else.”

“Sure, thanks. I’ll get it,” Richard said, standing up.

“I’ll take one too, Country.”

Paco smiled. “That’s your nickname for him?”

Tyrone grinned. “Oh, hell yeah. When I first met this cat he even smelled country!”

Richard came back with two glasses of water, and then went back for a third for Paco when he started another coughing fit. It only took four steps to get across the room.

“So what can we do for you, my man?” Tyrone asked.

“Some groceries would be great.”

“Done. How about the bills?”

Paco looked embarrassed. “They’re fine.”

Richard wagged a finger at him. “I went through a lot to help out people who’d gotten hurt in the Everard fire. You want me to have done all that for nothing?”

Paco laughed, coughed, and drank some more water.

“Well, OK, if you put it that way. They’re over there.”

Richard picked up the electric bill and the water bill. The water bill was past due and the electric bill was on final notice. He did the sums in his head and saw that there was enough to pay them and stock his fridge. There would even be some left over to pay for some more groceries next week.

“We’ll take these down to the city office and pay them,” Richard said.

Paco smiled. “You guys are great.”

“Is there anything else we can do?” Tyrone asked.

Paco thought for a moment and then said, “Yeah, could you listen to me for a minute and consider what I have to say.”

“Uh, sure.”

“Tyrone, have you ever dated a white man before?”

“You mean seriously, not just a hookup thing? No.”

“Well, Richard told me a bit about the problems you guys are having. I’ve mostly dated white guys because it’s hard to find men in the Latino community who are out of the closet. It’s especially hard for me because I’m a top and most Latino guys don’t want to take the passive role. They think that makes them weak and unmanly, even though we all know that’s untrue.”

“Same with the brothers.” Tyrone nodded. “I’ve only had a couple of serious boyfriends and both have been Latino, and both always wanted to be on top. That’s one of the things I like about Richard, he’s versatile, although he prefers being a bottom.”

Richard smiled at him. Tyrone smiled back, although there was still some distance and hesitation in his eyes.

Paco went on. “So you’ve never had a relationship with a white guy before, and Richard told me that you’re his first boyfriend. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that Richard has never even had a black friend before.”

“That’s true enough,” Richard said, looking at the floor. “My hometown is pretty segregated.”

“The way you dress, I can imagine. Now, Tyrone, you have to realize that Richard has made a major break with his past. He’s in the process of reinventing himself. His life now is completely different than it was a few months ago. He can’t get rid of all the bad influences his small-town upbringing has driven into his head in such short a time.”

“Now hold on,” Tyrone said with a frown. “You telling me I have to be patient? We’ve been patient with white folk for 400 years and look where it’s got us.”

Paco shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. OK, I am telling you to be patient, because Richard is working to improve himself, but I’m not telling you to just roll over and take it. If Richard hurts you with something he says or does, you have to tell him. And Richard, you have to be open to what he’s telling you. I bet you really hurt him when you didn’t acknowledge him the other day. You’re sorry about it, and I’m sure you won’t do that again, but you have to open your eyes and be more aware so that you don’t do something just as bad tomorrow or next week.”

Tyrone and Richard looked at each other.

“I guess we do come from different worlds,” Richard said. “We need to communicate more.”

Tyrone nodded, eyes softening.

“It’s not just your race and upbringing that are different,” Paco went on. “But you’re two different types of gay men. Richard, you’ve broken with your past and embraced the gay lifestyle fully, like I have. Tyrone, you’re living a double life. Richard tells me you’re in the closet up in the Bronx.”

“Hell yeah! A brother will get killed if he comes out in the hood.”

“Oh, I’m not blaming you. I understand. Before I lost my job, I lived in a middle-class neighborhood of Latinos. When word got around that I was gay, I got gay-bashed twice in two weeks. All those successful men in business suits turned out to be just as brutal as anyone in the worst barrio. I’m actually safer in this scary barrio than I was in a respectable neighborhood because there’s a gay street gang here that keeps the gay bashers away.”

“We met them,” Tyrone said.

“I’m not surprised. They’re thugs, but they do a good job scaring off outside troublemakers. They don’t want the competition. You’re lucky you’re both gay. Straight outsiders aren’t safe in this barrio.”

Richard reached over and took Tyrone’s hand. “I really want to make this work.”

Tyrone squeezed his hand. “So, do I, Country. But it’s not just the white bullshit. You’re partying too much, and then there are those other cats. You know, the ones we tangled with in the park a while back.”

Richard grimaced. While Tyrone didn’t want to openly talk about the demons and the cultists in front of Paco and sound like a lunatic, the message came through clear enough. Tyrone knew how attracted Richard was to that dark side of sex, and Tyrone was afraid he’d lose him to it. Richard feared that too.

“I’ll try to stay away. You know it’s hard for me, but I’ll try.”

“I’ll help you. We got to get rid of these motherfuckers.”

Paco looked curiously from one man to the other, but didn’t say anything, sensing it was a private affair.

“I guess I need to focus more on the healthy sex,” Richard said. Even though the other stuff attracts me more, he added silently.

Tyrone got a twinkle in his eye. “No time like the present. I think we should make Paco here feel better.”

Richard smiled. “You know what? I think you’re right.”

Paco laughed. “Now don’t you guys go starting something. I’m a sick man.”

The growing bulge in his shorts told them at least one part of his body had recovered.

“Starting something?” Tyrone asked. “We need to finish something, brother. We were having a fine time at the Everard before we got rudely interrupted.”

Richard stood up and tossed his Stetson to Paco.

“Put that on, I won’t be needing it.”

Paco put it on with a smile. “Hey, I’m a real vaquero now.”

“What’s a vaquero?”

“It’s Spanish for ‘cowboy.’ We were the first cowboys before the whites came to the West.”

“I didn’t know that. Perhaps I can teach you a thing or two,” Richard said.

With that he started a slow striptease. Tyrone joined him. Piece by piece they eased off their clothing as Paco lay on the bed, Richard’s Stetson on his head and a huge grin on his face.

Once they were naked, they slid onto the bed and slowly undressed their host. The Puerto Rican submitted to their gentle touch, retaining only the Stetson.

“That looks good on you, guess I got two Countries now,” Tyrone said.

“He’s new to all this,” Paco warned him. “He’s liable to get jealous.”

Tyrone turned and planted a kiss on Richard, who tensed involuntarily.

“Jealous?” Tyrone asked.

“No, I’m grateful you’re giving me another chance.”

“Where the hell else am I going to find a real-life Missouri cowboy in New York City?”

Together they planted kisses all along Paco’s brown body. Richard felt a pang of worry and sadness that he could see the man’s ribs. With Paco’s clothing off, he could see just how sick the Latino man was.

Tyrone must have thought the same thing, because he was as gentle as Richard. When Paco had another of his coughing fits, the couple gave him a massage to relax his muscles and bring him out of it. Once he had recovered, Richard took Paco’s cock in his mouth. Paco was uncircumcised and so it was a new experience for him. Richard played with the foreskin using the tip of his tongue, bringing forth a grateful sigh from the object of his attention.

It was obvious that Paco hadn’t gotten laid since the fire, his cock swelled and his balls tightened quickly. Richard eased off to prolong the pleasure while Tyrone kissed Paco all over the neck and shoulders.

“Want to help me down here?” Richard whispered to his boyfriend.

Tyrone kissed his way down Paco’s chest, following a line of short black hair from his naval down to his cock. With little pecks he worked his way up the shaft to where Richard was playing with the head. Richard pulled away and gave Tyrone a long, loving kiss. The kiss still felt strange and a bit weird, but he ignored that in order to show his boyfriend how he felt about him. Paco was right, this all was really new, and it would take some time to get used to it. In his eagerness to live a new life, he’d rushed in too quickly.

Together they ran their tongues along his shaft and head until Paco burst into a flooding orgasm. Semen shot all over Richard and Tyrone’s faces.

“Damn! You’ve been saving that,” Tyrone said, wiping some out of his eye.

“That fire left me with a bad case of blue balls,” Paco said, a satisfied smile on his face.

Richard wiped his own face, grabbed a towel hanging nearby, and started cleaning Tyrone’s afro.

“Touching the hair again?” Tyrone asked. “Why are white people so obsessed with black hair?”

“I’m cleaning cum off your fro.”

“Oh well, that’s all right then.”

“Nothing like a big shot of a brown man’s cum to bridge the gap between black and white,” Paco joked.

Suddenly he burst into a long series of hacking coughs, curling up on the bed. Richard rushed to refill his glass of water.

Tyrone gave Paco a concerned look. “You sure there’s nothing they can do about that cough?”

Paco waved away the question. “Nothing within reason.”

“What do you mean?” Tyrone asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied, taking a sip from the water Richard offered him.

“Come on, spill,” Tyrone insisted.

“No, you guys have done enough already.”

“Hey, man, we’re here to help,” Richard said.

Tyrone walked over to the bed and took Paco’s hand. “I ain’t no hero, but I could have gotten out of that sauna a lot quicker if I hadn’t been carrying your Puerto Rican ass. I don’t want to have done that just to have you die a few weeks later. Now tell me what medicine you need and we’ll get it.”

Paco sighed. “It’s some sort of breathing apparatus. I have the prescription here. A mask attached to a vaporizer that’s supposed to clear your lungs.”

“How much does it cost?” Tyrone asked.

“The mask is only twenty bucks, but the vaporizers are thirty bucks each, and I’m supposed to get three of them. One a day for three days.”

Tyrone and Richard looked at each other.

“How much is left after we pay the bills and fill up his fridge?” Tyrone asked.

“Sixty dollars. I can throw in another twenty,” Richard said.

“I can throw in another twenty too,” Tyrone said. He turned to Paco. “Can you scrounge ten bucks?”

“Go to that change jar over there. I was going to use that for groceries but if you folks are going to cover that you can take all of it for the medicine.”

They counted out the change and had to get down to the pennies before they got to ten dollars. As Richard looked at the few pennies left at the bottom of the jar he realized he had just given up the last of his own money except for enough change to ride the subway back home. It was OK, because Paco deserved it, but Richard’s fridge was almost as empty as Paco’s. If he wanted to eat tomorrow, he needed to make some money tonight.

Then he remembered his appointment with Mitch and the leather men was tonight. A mixture of relief and trepidation came over him, followed by a disturbing insight.

Was I so eager to give up my last dollar in order to have an excuse to go back to that place?