In Praise of Caesar

IN PRAISE OF CAESAR BY MICHAEL MORAN

The following is a work of fiction. If you see someone you know, it isn't them It's just a coincidence. The story is copyrighted. In fact, there's a screenplay on file with the WGA. Just a little heads up there.

In Praise of Caesar was written four years ago. It was thought to have been lost after a catastrophic computer crash. Good fortune prevailed when it was re-discovered on a thumb drive in a junk drawer and here we are.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my good buddy, Cy, for keeping the story in the back of my mind for all this time. Sorry I didn't get it to you by Christmas, bud.

If you like this, look for Jury Duty, An Idol of Millions, The Armored Car Guard, Epifanio, John, and Saturday Night Stakeout on Nifty.

This one is lengthy, but I hope you like the guys and their story. I promise the next one will be more drenched in sex.

Comments may be sent to TServo6119@gmail.com.

People like to use the term "life altering" to describe events that changed the course of their lives. It's usually something really big: something so monumental that it stands out as if to say remember what you're seeing before you. Remember what you're hearing. Remember what I'm saying. Remember what you're feeling at this moment. Remember me.

What is time? Ask a hundred people their definition of time and you're liable to get a hundred different answers. Why? Maybe it's because no two people are affected by it in exactly the same way. Time is the great unanswerable conundrum.

Some wear time like a mask that shows every second, minute, hour, day, week, month and year they've been alive. Every hurt, failure, disappointment, hardship and excess is right there for all to see. They're like walking billboards.

Others, seemingly immune to it, can wear a measure of time once and throw it away as if it never existed. They skate across the lake of life, over the same thin ice as the rest of us, and arrive at the opposite shore looking no different than when they started out.

It's also a confluence of contradictions. For some time is a soulless, slippery beast: a shark devouring everything in its path leaving no survivors. To others time is a soft warm blanket of pleasant memories neatly folded and ready to comfort them when the nights are cold and lonely.

Right about now you're probably saying to yourself, "What the hell is this guy going on about... What does time have to do with me getting my rocks off?" I'm getting to that. Be patient.

There was a guy on local TV: a man who went by the name of Criswell. He'd sit behind a big desk and stare ominously into the camera while making weird off the wall predictions regarding man's fate.

If you've ever seen "Plan Nine From Outer Space" Criswell is the guy who bookends Ed Wood's befuddled example of film making gone horribly awry. Some have used his closing line; "We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives," to drive home the need for strict helmet laws.

Meager as Criswell's prognosticating talents were a few scrambled gems managed to sneak through. In 1968, for example, he predicted a flood of perversion across this great land: a flood leading to the rise of "homosexual cities" with churches, restaurants, stores and organized orgies that would put the Greeks and Romans to shame.

The door to a brave new world opened as his words sank in. I already knew that nothing brought a party down faster than a disorganized orgy, but I never dreamed that such things would become a function of city government. Visions of a jock strap clad police force and a leather bedecked fire department filled my brain.

"My God," I thought as I pictured myself inspecting the ranks... closely. "Sign me up for a one bedroom apartment."

Boston, Columbus, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Dallas, Miami and San Francisco were the designated sites with, presumably, more to follow. The homosexual capital would be Des Moines, Iowa, Pasadena the bisexual capital and Erie, Pennsylvania the seat of all things heterosexual. Des Moines... Why Des Moines and not San Francisco? Don't underestimate the power of the corn cob industry.

I was entertaining myself thinking of what the news of an entire police force made up of homosexuals do to L. A. Police Chief Ed Davis's blood pressure when I got to thinking of Caesar. How different would our lives have been if such sociological wonders had existed when we first met. How's that for an unlikely segue?

It was in the spring of the year that I turned eighteen that I met Caesar. It had to have been early in the spring because my family moved out of the neighborhood on the first day of summer in 1959.

It was on a Saturday. I know that for a fact because Saturday was the night that the Lamori brothers, Vinnie and Epifanio, Jim Beck and I went to the show at The Jeff.

We were creatures of habit. No matter how bad the movie, we could be found sitting in the top row of the narrow balcony, smoking the cigarettes Vinnie'd lifted from his old man's bedroom, and talking about the sexual adventures we'd read about as if they'd happened to us. God, but we thought we were hot shit. For the price of a fifty cent adult ticket we were the four coolest guys on the face of the earth.

The night that I met Caesar began in much the same way as any other Saturday except earlier. The last complete show was scheduled to begin at seven rather than eight thirty. Our routine had been shattered and Jim, for one, was really ticked off.

"It's just fuckin' stupid," Jim growled while we waited at the curb for Vinnie and his brother to join us. "Why'd they gotta do something like that?"

His words drifted into the cold twilight sky on peppermint scented puffs of white steam. A moment dragged by.

"So what's the big fucking deal?" I demanded impatiently. "I thought you liked getting away from your family."

As a demonstration of his disgust, he hawked up a ball of phlegm from the darkest province of his resentment. It made a wide steaming arc and landed in the middle of the street.

"That's the problem. It doesn't count if they're still awake when I get home. Now I'll have to answer all kinds of dumb questions about how the movie was."

"Just give 'em some kind of bullshit answer and go to your room."

"It's not that easy. Soon as they find out it was a horror movie they'll be going on about how my morals are being corrupted and how they don't make movies like they used to."

"Yeah," I said with a derisive laugh. "They make 'em with sound now."

"You're lucky. Your mom doesn't bug you like mine does," Jim observed smiling and shaking his head.

If having a parent who got home from work at six and was dead drunk by seven was lucky I was the luckiest cat in town. On the other hand, she'd had a rough life. How could I fault her for dealing with it the only way she knew how? Still, it wasn't cool to defend the enemy: even if the enemy was your mother.

The conversation had taken a somber detour which, according to the unofficial bylaws of our little club, was strictly forbidden. References to anything not specifically tied to the pursuit of a good time were limited to brief exchanges between no more than two members. Getting a case of the reds over anything other than a member of the opposite sex was also frowned upon, so the arrival of the Lamori brothers was a welcome relief.

They weren't twins but they looked as if they could have been and usually dressed as if they were. Vinnie was older by eighteen months but to the uninitiated eye they were identical right down to the cleft chin that made all of the girls east of Washington Square weak in the knees. Summers spent working for their Uncle Donnie's construction business had endowed them muscular, well defined bodies but very little in the way of cash. Both were right around 6'1" and both kept a fighting weight of, roughly, 190. I say roughly because the only time any of us got weighed was at the start of spring training.

In a pinch someone who didn't know them well could tell them apart by the layers of clothes each wore. Vinnie seemed impervious to the chill in the air and seldom broke out the jacket until after Halloween. Epifanio was the exact opposite and always needed an extra sweater to protect him. Other than that, the only sure fire way to know which was which involved getting one or both to drop his drawers.

Vinnie's pointed down and to the right. His brother's pointed up and bent just slightly to the left. In the spirit of this story, I'll add that, at a healthy nine inches, each was hung like a fucking horse.

A guy who lived down the hall told me that there'd been an incident back in '55: the year before I moved to the neighborhood. He wouldn't go into the ugly details: only that Vinnie had found his brother being "used" by four thugs in the basement of a brownstone over on Eighteenth Street. Beyond that all he would say was that all four required a lot of medical treatment and that two of them were never "quite right in the head" when they got out of the hospital.

Although the incident left Epifanio relatively unscathed, with only a few very minor injuries, Vinnie appointed himself unofficial bodyguard and babysitter. His brothers friendly, perhaps too much so, disposition and relentlessly cheerful outlook made him an easy mark for those who couldn't tell the difference between "simple minded" and "good natured". Watching his younger sibling like a hawk became a full time job: and not just for Vinnie. All of us took it seriously.

Jim was less complicated. His family was from some tiny eastern European country, I never could remember which one, and had moved here right after the war. The first thing they did was to change their surname from something impossibly long with a shit load of consonants to Nash.

Like the rest of us Jim was tall, over six feet, and built like he was born to play football or something that involved knocking people to the ground. His hair, which this particular year was cut in a flat-top, hovered between blonde and brown and perfectly accented his deep set green eyes. Except for the fact that he looked nothing like his parents, who were dark and looked like two little porcelain dolls, there was nothing particularly unusual about him. You could pass him on the street and Jim would impress you as just another All American jock. He probably measured in at a fat, healthy and uncut eight.

I once asked him how it was that he looked so different from his father. Okay. I admit it wasn't the most sensitive question I could have asked, but I really didn't mean anything by it. It was just something I happened to notice.

"My mother says I look exactly like him," he replied after a moment of thought.

It was one of the few times that his deep, slightly gravelly voice betrayed an accent. Having committed those observations to print, I realize there was more to Jim than I knew at the time. That's just how it was back then.

Then there was me. At 6'4", I was the tallest kid in a twelve block radius, but it was my hair and the color of my eyes that set me apart. I had golden blonde hair that frequently turned almost white in the summer sun and a cowlick that drove the neighborhood barber nuts. Vinnie used to say that I looked like Dennis the Menace before he got busted by the cops for petty larceny.

My dad, a conductor on the old 4th Avenue IND, met my mom back in 1938 when she was a dancer at the Roxy Theatre. Sometimes after a couple of drinks mom would tell me about how dad hung around the stage door for two weeks before getting up the nerve to talk to her.

"It was a good thing too," she'd say. "Some of the girls were starting to get the creeps seeing him there every night."

The story always puzzled me because it didn't sound like the dad I knew: the one who helped me with my math homework and sometimes let me ride along when he'd take his train over to Queens for its safety inspection.

The dad I knew was always so confident and full of himself that it would never have crossed his mind that she might not be interested. Granted, he never did anything without a good deal of thought but even that didn't jibe with the picture mom painted of him as a lovesick fool. Heaving sighs and worshiping from afar wasn't his style.

This, in turn, led me to believe that mom or I had been doing something very wrong for a very long time. How long? What had he allowed it to eat at him before he decided to walk out the door one morning and never return? Twenty years would slip by before I had the answer I needed.

At first Mom seemed to take it in stride, but it wasn't long before she started drinking heavily. She went back to work: this time as a seamstress at Radio City. She was always careful not to let the alcohol affect her job, but more often than not she'd be passed out before the eight o'clock news.

That was how I fell in with Vinnie and the guys. We were four guys from widely diverse backgrounds brought together by the fates to blunder our way through adolescence.

Epifanio glanced at the darkening sky and laughed nervously as he finished zipping up his jacket. The moment had passed.

"Well, gentlemen. Are we ready to be scared shitless?"

Vinnie nudged him in the side and snorted derisively. It was a standard Vinnie response.

"Sorry, boys. My brother's gone ape over this flick. He hasn't talked about anything else all week."

"So shoot me," Epifanio whined. "I heard it was good."

"Yeah... Who'd ya hear that from?"

"I don't remember. It was somebody. He said that said the skeleton is real and they got this thing..."

"Don't be such a nosebleed," Vinnie interrupted. "They ain't gonna have any of that spooky crap hooked up to The Jeff."

"But downtown they..."

"In case you ain't noticed, this ain't downtown and The Jefferson ain't the Paramount. They just keep that stuff in the ads 'cause they know that boobs like you will fall for it."

"Drop dead twice," Epifanio snarled sullenly.

So far as Vinnie was concerned this was all just friendly ribbing: part of a game with rules they made up as they went along. Those who knew him well understood that the only thing he took seriously was giving his younger sibling a hard time. It was fun, but he also knew when to back off. Seeing how upset Epifanio was becoming, he threw his arm over his brother's shoulder and hugged him tightly.

"What, and look like you? Right guys?" he chided, looking to us for backup. "Right guys?"

Jim disliked confrontation nearly as much as he loved a good argument. He glanced at the sidewalk.

"I don't know. I guess I never thought about it," he mumbled. I remained silent.

Vinnie sighed and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. "Okay I give up. Maybe I'm wrong but we'll never find out if we stay here warming the sidewalk."

The four of us broke into a brisk trot. The first of a long line of street lamps blinked on to light the way.

I've never understood why some details about that night, like the exchange between the Lamori brothers, remain as sharp and clear in my mind as if it all happened a couple of hours ago. Another is the sight of the Jefferson marquee as we rounded the corner from Third Avenue.

Although its spot on my list of all time wondrous sights would slip very soon, it was right up there at the top for the next few minutes. It's strange that the passage of all those years has done nothing to diminish that. It still ranks in the top ten. I can still see the four of us standing transfixed before the riot of swirling neon colors and flashing incandescence.

"Wow," I heard one of my cronies exclaim. "When do you suppose they did that?"

"I don't know," I replied. "Maybe it's always looked like that."

"Nah. I'd remember if it did," Jim ventured. "They must've spent all night doing it."

However the trick had been accomplished, it seemed as if every visible inch had been scrubbed and shined. Even the three stained glass panels in the mezzanine window above the marquee seemed alive and glowing.

"Holy crap!" Epifanio exclaimed pointing toward the big center panel. "They got three movies. Lookit! Lookit!"

Saturday night Scream Into Spring Scare-a-thon.

"The Tingler" in Percepto.

"House on Haunted Hill" in Emergo.

"Plan Nine From Outer Space" with B. Lugosi.

Be there or be squ_re.

Since we all knew that the missing "a" was on the top shelf in Vinnie's closet, a souvenir of a blustery March evening back in 1957, we overlooked the obvious gap in what was otherwise a masterpiece of planning. Our compadre pointed with undisguised excitement to a pair of cardboard cutouts of Vincent Price waving in the breeze at either end of the garishly lit canopy.

"You guys can't tell me that's not spooky," he exclaimed proudly.

Being older, the rest of us were bound by unwritten "grown up laws" not to show our excitement in such an obvious manner and nodded condescendingly. At the same time we'd have had to be dead from the neck up not to have been secretly swept up in his enthusiasm. Mister Winsett, the Theatre Manager, had truly outdone himself.

When I think back on that evening, it's little things like the smell of ozone beneath the brightly lit canopy as we approached the box office, that I like to remember. I get nostalgic over the peppery smell of freshly shampooed carpets and the hot buttered popcorn and the cloying aroma of Milk Duds softening under new 45 Watt bulbs.

What comes to mind most often, the part I remember with the most clarity and fond attention to specifics is the moment when I saw him for the first time: the moment when I first laid eyes on Caesar. A day hasn't gone by that I haven't thought of him.

We were standing in line directly in front of the big glass windows of the Jefferson Bar and Grill. Anticipation was high as we counted down the minutes until the doors opened. Rumors regarding the exact nature of "Percepto" made the rounds. Some faceless smart ass who sounded an awful lot like Carmine Pagliani had it on good authority that it was an usher crawling under the seats and shoving a live wire up patron's asses.

Not to be outdone, Anna Maria Altamonte swore on a stack of bibles and her sainted, still living mother's grave that she'd seen no less then Vincent Price sneak in through the side door. He would personally do the honors.

It was amid the hoots catcalls her pronouncement elicited, that a strange new voice was making itself heard.

"May I have your attention please? This is the line for ticket holders only. If you do not have a ticket you should not be here," the voice shouted.

It was distinct enough, with one of those weird not quite identifiable accents that were always popping up in our neighborhood, that it got my full attention. Somehow, probably out of boredom, I'd landed in a staring match with the wife of the bar owner and I was losing the contest... badly. As I recall her name was Rina... or Rita... and it had a Maria in the middle. She was seated in a booth by the window with a bottle of cheap Chianti for moral support. I turned away in defeat to seek out the voice of authority.

"Please make sure you have your tickets ready," he called out as he emerged from the far side of the morbidly overweight but kind hearted Moroni twins and stopped.

"Is that your ticket?" he asked, pointing his flashlight at the sidewalk.

I met his questioning gaze with a blank stare that got me zero points on the intelligence scale. By the time I realized that I was the one being addressed others, including my friends, were starting to take notice.

"I hope your mother sews your name in your shorts," he muttered as he stooped to retrieve my ticket from the concrete.

He tucked it into my pocket, smiled and continued down the line, leaving me red faced, fully erect and at a complete loss as to what had just happened.

The subsequent minutes until opening crept by like hours. Only Jim, who when it came to needling me, couldn't keep his trap shut to save his life, saw fit to comment on my brush with brain death. I don't remember exactly what he said but I clocked him upside the head and fixed my attention on the ready-to-split seam of Jeff Moroni's dungarees.

"Shut the fuck up," I growled, still puzzled by my inflated dick.

While my little drama was playing itself out to an increasingly disinterested audience, Epifanio was talking a blue streak about Percepto. Somehow it had replaced Emergo as his gimmick of choice. His eyes were glazed: his speech rapid and almost incoherent. He was a kid possessed by the lure of Hollywood hype.

Those who couldn't walk away were forced to endure the relative merits and failings of the numerous theories being tossed about. In the end he was no closer to the truth than he'd been when we first arrived and those within earshot no longer gave a shit.

"Fer chrissake!" a voice called out. "Somebody put a sock in this retard and shut him the hell up!"

An appreciative snicker rippled through the crowd. A dark cloud passed across Vinnie?s eyes.

"He ain't no fuckin' retard," the three of us responded in unison as Vinnie flipped him the bird.

"Ya know," he added quietly as the line lurched and moved forward a little. "The guy up front might be right. Now that I think about it that usher that just came through here sure as shit looked just like the kind to get his kicks by slipping the goose to some babe."

"Yeah," Jim added. "I heard someone back there say that there's only one. The chances of you havin' the lucky seat might be a million to one."

Epifanio just took it all in stride and dutifully straightened the dog- eared corners of his ticket.

"Then it'll be mine," he whispered softly as if to convince himself. "I know it will. It's gotta be."

Just then the etched glass doors swung open to a round of thunderous applause. People began to disappear into the theatre and our turn was coming up fast.

"It looks like we're about to find out," I said wiping the sheen of perspiration from my forehead.

While it's obvious in hindsight, at the time it was happening my reaction to the impossibly good looking kid standing at the door had me baffled and, I'm ashamed to say, terrified. With five hundred patrons, anxious to be scared shitless, at my back I had no choice but to move forward. I shuffled through the litter of cigarette butts and Zagnut bar wrappers prepared to take flight if he so much as looked at me funny: or vice versa.

I wonder what I'd been expecting him to do once I got to the front of the line and held out my sweat drenched ticket at arm's length. Should I have been disappointed when he didn't bat a limpid brown eye? Was it resentment I felt when I looked briefly into his perfect face and saw only calm where there should have been turmoil? Why didn't his voice break when he advised me that smoking was permitted only in the last five rows of the balcony? What about his hands? Why didn't they tremble when he ripped my soggy ticket in half and returned the stub along with a piece of tightly folded paper?

"Th-thanks," I stammered and promptly tripped over an untied shoe lace.

Humiliated and disgraced beyond any hope of salvation, I waved off an offer of a helping hand up and limped off to retrieve my dignity.

"What the hell is wrong with me?" I wondered aloud as I turned my back to the tide of snickers and stared into the poster case.

It was old, as I recall, and didn't match the one next to it. Some of the fancy gold leaf plaster stuff around the edges was missing and had been filled in with gold paint. Inside, a letter, signed by none other than THE William Castle, was stapled to the faded crushed velvet lining, draped with fake spider webs and flanked by dusty, limp artificial funeral palms.

It guaranteed "death by fright or double your money back". Did his empty promise make sense? Hell no, but it did bring a smile to my lips when I thought of Mister Winsett showing up at our front door with a check signed by the film's director and producer.

"I'm sorry," he'd say when mom opened the door. "Your only son died of fright along with four hundred sixty seven other wimps. Here's two dollars to help with the burial costs. By the way your son's a fag."

The smile faded and I was back at the Jeff drenched in a cold sweat while my stomach did back flips for an unenthusiastic audience of one. It didn't matter that the words were all in my head. If a truth had been spoken it was one I was unprepared to face. So far as I knew I wasn't, and had no desire to be, a queer.

There were the regular circle jerks with Jim and the Lamori brothers, but that was different. As far as we knew, there were only three girls in a twelve block radius that put out: and they only did it with college men. What else was a guy to do? It didn't mean I was a fag.

What about the times when I woke up in the middle of the night with a big hard-on and the shadow of a dream of Jim's cock in my mouth? They didn't mean anything. Neither did the occasional fantasy of a three way with the Lamori brothers. They were damned good looking guys. What was so strange about imagining my cock sliding in and out of Epifanio's hot, tight ass while he sucked his brother's dick?

I was willing to bet that, under the right circumstances, even a big ladies man like Rock Hudson would be tempted. Hell, I was just as heterosexual as he was.

I wasn't a friggin homo. I didn't wear Capri pants and makeup like the fruits on the Upper East Side and I didn't wiggle my hips like a 42nd Street hooker when I walked. I didn't prowl the streets looking for little boys to molest and my wrist sure as shit wasn't limp.

Fantasizing about something didn't make it real. Why, if I was none of those things, did I get a hard-on when I turned and saw the new guy watching me? What was I so damned afraid of? What scared me more: that a fruit had just slipped me his phone number or that this strange and beautiful man hadn't? There were no answers: only more questions waiting for their turn. Perhaps a sounder mind would have given it more thought before doing what I did and unfolding the dreaded document. Curiosity had prevailed over sound logic.

"Well I'll be damned," I thought to myself as I read the contents. Then, just to be sure, I read them a second and a third time. Relieved, yet strangely disappointed, I shoved it deep into my pocket and started toward the front door to thank him.

"Hey goof ball," Jim shouted over the din of the crowd. "We don't have all night."

"Bite my crank Bozo," I snapped as I climbed the shallow ramp to where my friends anxiously waited at the auditorium doors. Of course I didn't mean anything by that. It was just an expression.

PART 2: EMERGO AND THE TINGLER ONLY SOUND LIKE SEX TOYS.

If there's one thing that I've learned over the years, it's how easily the passage of time colors and distorts our memories. Too often I've sat down to watch rental tapes of films that scared the crap out of me when I was a kid, only to be disappointed, and perhaps a little ashamed, at how easily I'd been taken in by the hype.

It's easy to look at these things through the eyes of an adult and realize that not every movie monster can be "the most terrifying of all time". If every horror film in the fifties and sixties that promised to "haunt your dreams forever" actually delivered the goods we'd have been a nation of very cranky and neurotic kids.

All of this stuff comes to mind when I think of how excited my friend, Epifanio, was that night at the Jefferson. He was the ultimate consumer: the one for whom "better tasting" and "new and improved" were written. Schlocky horror films with cheesy special effects and hapless heroines with big heaving boobs and tiny brains were made for people like Epifanio.

When the marketing geniuses came up with the idea of wiring seats with small jolts of electricity and calling it Percepto, they must have had a picture of the youngest Lamori brother in front of them.

My first order of business was to get my friend planted in one of the twenty some odd rigged seats scattered across the orchestra floor. It shouldn't have been easy, given the size of the crowd.

"Follow me men," I said after a furtive another glance at the list.

My friends were skeptical. Jim was the first to voice his doubts and spoke up first as I led them past what were supposed to be the best seats.

"Come on, Daddy-o," he whispered. "What gives with you tonight?"

"I don't follow you," I replied flatly.

"What's the word from the bird?" he persisted.

"Daddy-o? Word from the bird? If I didn't know better I'd swear that you've been making the scene with the hep cats in the Village. We in America now. Talk English."

Jim glanced back at the Lamori brothers. They'd stopped half way up the aisle at the end of a row of seats reputed to have "an extra jolt" or whatever the code word was.

"I mean Epifanio," he replied urgently as they moved on. "You know how much this means to him. Are you sure you know where you're going?"

"Absolutely positive."

"And you came upon this information how?"

"I've got friends in high places," I answered as we reached the designated row and stopped.

"Bullshit. You got no friends outside of this neighborhood."

"Yeah," Vinnie added, warily eyeing the less than perfect location I'd chosen.

It was about ten rows closer to the screen than any of us were used to and, like I said before, we were creatures of habit.

"Half of the people in line are upstairs checking out the seats. If we hurry maybe we could..."

"What's the point? We're already too late." God, but my logic was dazzling.

"But we should at least..." Epifanio whined as he saw his big chance slipping away.

"We're staying here: end of discussion," I said with all of the determination I could muster.

"Trust me. These are the rigged seats." As a long time straddler of fences it was so out of character for me to take such a resolute stand on anything that my friends had no choice but to comply.

According to the clock above the right exit door it was five minutes to show time. The thrill seekers in the balcony, having figured out that they'd been misled, began to trickle into the orchestra section.

"It's starting to look like high tide at Coney Island," Vinnie observed as the surge of humanity began to fill the empty seats.

"Huh? High tide?" Epifanio asked, turning in his seat. "What're you talking about? Did someone take a leak?" he asked innocently.

Vinnie sighed with exasperation. "No... Ya see when the tide comes in it fills up the... Oh screw it. Just forget I mentioned it."

His brother flashed a dazzling Pepsodent smile and went back to watching the flow of humanity.

"All I see's a bunch of people," he replied.

The house lights dimmed at precisely fifteen minutes beyond the posted starting time. Of course there were the inevitable late arrivals who either didn't know about the early starting time or didn't care. The surge continued well into "Plan Nine from Outer Space" and Criswell's opening monologue.

Poor Epifanio had worked himself into a sort of self-induced hysteria. Each time some guy in the back row took liberties with his date and she squeal in response, he'd jump out of his seat thinking that the Tingler was loose.

"Christ on a cracker," Jim muttered after brushing popcorn from his lap for a third time. "How many times do I have to tell you? This isn't the one."

"But she just..."

"Look. Just because some guy grabs some tit doesn't mean there's something on the loose. If there's a monster in the back row it's between some guy's legs."

Epifanio nodded as if he understood. "Sorry," he said brushing a lock of curly black hair from his forehead. Of course we all knew it would happen again... and again.

The film was even worse than anyone could ever have imagined. Even as early as 1959 we knew crap when it was being paraded across the screen. Unfortunately when a movie is that bad, people look for other things for entertainment. It seemed as if that night, in that audience, everything came together in a way that kept my friend out of his seat for most of the following sixty seven minutes.

"Plan Nine" lurched to an end amid a chorus of hoots and hollers and shower of Jujubes, popcorn and paper cups. The lights came up and those who hadn't already relieved themselves under the seats raced to the can and pay a visit to the concession stand.

Then the lights dimmed. The recording of "1001 Strings Play Broadway's Biggest Hits" faded but, due to a chronic short in the sound system, never completely went away. Like every film to have played at The Jeff for the last five years, The House on Haunted Hill would have a Rogers and Hammerstein score.

Epifanio gripped the arm rest and pressed his knee against mine: sort of like the way a puppy seeks out his mother when he's afraid.

He shouldn't have worried. Not only was "House on Haunted Hill" not the scream-fest it was cracked up to be, it was also a bore. As the creaky tale of murder and mayhem in a haunted house labored on, it was clear to everyone except Epifanio that Emergo would have to be a knockout or there'd be dire consequences. He'd already made up his mind that it would be a life changing experience long before the first severed hand appeared.

"Hell," Jim grumbled. "I've seen scarier shit floating in the East River."

I glanced at the clock and nodded. The worst part was that the film was very near to the end and it was beginning to look as if Vinnie was right about the gimmicks. If there was anything to be seen flying through the air, it had been paid for at the candy counter and the audience was getting mean. It seemed like a good time for me to hit the can.

As I remember it, the scheming nightgown clad wife had just been pushed into a vat of acid by the walking skeleton of the husband she'd just murdered in exactly the same way.

How the audience was supposed to notice the big coffin shaped box hanging to the side of the screen was anybody's guess. The allegedly dead husband emerges from a closet on the far side of the basement and he's got this whirligig contraption with enough cables and wires to hold up the Brooklyn Bridge strapped to his chest. So he turns this big honkin' wheel, the coffin lid flies open and a skeleton emerges as if he's controlling it. It flies back and forth across the room a couple of times and returns to its lair: end of story. That's how it was supposed to work: and probably did... at The Paramount.

Not so at The Jeff. The coffin lid opened, but only enough for one skeletal arm to fall limply from the opening. While the audience waited with breathless anticipation for it to emerge, Vincent Price was in the process of reeling it in. With the timing now off, the effect was hopelessly ruined. There were now six hundred disappointed patrons, left in the lurch armed with objects they'd saved to throw at the hapless skeleton, looking for a new target. A disaster was in the making.

The cavalry arrived in the nick of time but, in terms of human dignity, paid a terrible price. A lone figure, clad in a cheap glow in the dark skeleton suit, emerged from behind the curtain and was greeted with a barrage of Dots and Jujubes. Clouds of Raisenetes and dripping globs of soggy buttered popcorn dregs followed him like swarms of angry bees and yellow jackets as he jumped from the stage and began waving his arms like a lunatic.

He got to the base of the center aisle, hesitated and slowly backed up until there was no place to go but into the old orchestra pit. Personally, I'd have hauled my ass back up on the stage and gone out the back door. No amount of money was worth suffering the slings and arrows of unfortunate outrage that awaited him if he chose to run up that aisle.

The fact that I was literally on the edge of my seat had nothing to do with a film that wouldn't have been any good even if the Emergo had worked. Carol Ohmart was a dish but she was no Barbara Stanwyck and I'd seen the faithless wife story done a million times. It paled in comparison to the drama being acted out not more than twenty feet away.

Vincent Price and company were forgotten over the course of the next interminable seconds. The missiles had stopped and words began to fly as arms grew tired and stockpiles were emptied.

"Yo Santini!" someone shouted from the back. "You still there?"

"Yeah, we're here."

"Hey. Five'll get ya ten he don't make it to the lobby."

"Carla don't want me bettin' no more," Santini replied with an edge of sadness in his gruff voice.

"Dibs on the mask," another called out.

"Screw the mask. I want the head," a high pitched, almost childlike, voice announced.

"Didn't I tell you about that Bartolucci? You don't want THE head. You want to GET some head."

"Maybe that's why he wants THE head," someone suggested from the balcony.

"Screw you Wolfmier," the kid yelled back.

The guy in the crappy Halloween costume made his move. Suddenly he was sprinting up the aisle, dodging outstretched legs and knocking aside hands grasping at his mask.

With the exception of Epifanio, who was dutifully watching the film, the right side of the audience was on its feet. Some cheered him on with words of encouragement. Others saw him as being their one opportunity to get revenge for being deprived of a cheesy thrill and flicked pennies at his butt with painful accuracy. He never stopped or looked back as he ran bobbing and weaving toward the safety of the distant exit. He just kept going.

The doors on the other side of the auditorium burst open and the guy in the skeleton suit began his return trip.

Son of a bitch," Jim exclaimed. "I hope he goes to our school. I want him on the team."

This time the element of surprise was on his side. He'd leaped gracefully on to the tiny stage and had ducked behind the red velvet curtain before anyone realized that they'd been given another shot at him. People around us settled down to catch up on the part of the movie they'd missed.

"What if it's not a guy?" I asked playing the Devil's Advocate.

"What're you talking about? Of course it's a guy."

"Maybe... maybe not. Maybe he doesn't play football."

"With moves like those... Of course he plays football."

"Maybe not, He could be a dancer."

"A...a dancer?" Vinnie asked incredulously, having just tuned in on the conversation. "Not at our school he isn't. Hell, a fruit wouldn't last five minutes at Saint Bernie's."

I thought of the usher and shrugged noncommittally. There was no sense going down that road.

"Yeah I guess you're right."

The house lights came up and the stampede for the concession stand began again with Jim and Vinnie leading the charge. It was only the fact that I had other things on my mind that kept me from noticing that Epifanio hadn't joined them and had moved two seats over to save their places. He was staring off into space in the vicinity of the partially opened black box.

"Hey," I said reaching across the seats and punching him lightly on the shoulder. "I'm sorry about the skeleton."

"Aw it's no big whoop. I sorta figured it wouldn't work."

"So what's with the long face?"

"I was just thinking about what Jim said. You know... about the fruit thing."

"What about it?"

"I like to dance."

"So?"

"Does that make me a fruit?"

"Hell no! Gene Kelly's a dancer and I've never heard anyone call him a fruit."

Epifanio leaned closer, his eyes glittering under the new pink lights. His voice dropped.

"Maybe he's never got caught. Ever think of that?"

In spite of my discomfort at how closely the conversation mirrored the feelings I had raging inside, I met his gaze. My voice quivered but I don't think he noticed.

"To tell the God's honest truth, I've never thought about it at all. Okay. What's all of this fruit stuff about?"

"It's just that... I mean what if I'm one? You know about what happened, right? What you don't know is that Vinnie was the one who got upset. I sorta liked being touched... and doin' some of... that... stuff."

I looked around uncomfortably. Every block of seats had been staked out with a guard, but they were too busy warding off interlopers to be listening.

"I... uh... I don't think you want to be saying things like that so people can hear."

He went on unfazed by his surroundings and intent on making his point. His eyes had a hint of a glaze that told me there was no stopping him.

"God, I think Vinnie would go fucking nuts if he thought I was a fag."

"Listen," I said motioning him closer. "I think you've got Vinnie all wrong but you know him better than anyone else. If you're... you know... one of them, so-the-fuck what? I'll never stop being your friend. You got that?"

The house lights dimmed. Wheels and pullies that hadn't been used in maybe thirty years squealed and protested loudly as the water stained curtain was drawn into the wings. The skeletal arm was slowly being withdrawn into the black box. Epifanio was especially interested in that and respectfully waited until the lid had eased shut before heaving a gentle sigh.

"Yeah. I've got it. I'll never stop bein' your friend either. I promise."

His heartfelt response was just the kind I should have expected. It still took me by surprise.

"Why shouldn't he always be my friend?" I thought to myself angrily. "Hell, he's the one who thinks he's queer."

I should have called him on it. You know: the usual defensive bullshit where you ask the other guy to elaborate and you end up with more hurt feelings than answered questions. I didn't, though it wasn't because of any great flash of wisdom and insight on my part.

More than anything else, it had to do with his rapt fascination with what was on the screen. That was the problem with having a conversation with Epifanio and a big reason why more people didn't do it. It was hard to know when he was finished.

Sometimes you'd be going along and he'd just stop talking. You'd wait for him to say something else and, when he didn't, you'd figure that he didn't have anything else to say.

Then, like from out of the blue, he'd add something to what he'd said but by then you'd forgotten what you were talking about and it wouldn't make sense or there'd be other people around so you couldn't respond.

A lot of people thought it was deliberate but not me. I just figured that a conversation with Epifanio had to unfold at his pace and wasn't over with until the other shoe dropped. There were rules that had to be followed and there were no extenuating circumstances or exceptions.

The short subject and most of the Woody Woodpecker cartoon were old news by the time Vinnie and Jim returned loaded down with RC Cola, popcorn and enough throw able candy to keep the janitor busy for months to come.

I glanced disapprovingly at the box of Necco wafers that Jim dropped in my lap on his way down the row.

"What's this shit?" I demanded. "You know I don't eat this stuff."

"Who said anything about eatin' it? I heard that Mister Bones might do another lap around the track and I want us to be ready," he replied casually as he attacked his greasy buttered popcorn.

"Or you can save them for that guy at the door," Vinnie added.

"What... what guy at the door?" I asked, suddenly nervous.

"The one you couldn't stop looking at."

"You're full of shit," I snapped sinking even farther down in my seat. "He looks like someone I used to know. It doesn't mean I've got the hots for the guy."

"Never said ya did squid. Don't get so defensive."

Epifanio nudged my arm roughly. He sounded pissed.

"How's about you guys shuttin' the hell up or takin' it outside?" he said in a raspy whisper "The movie's started."

I looked up from my shoes and blinked. I'd missed the best part: the part where Woody made a fool of another adversary and emerged, triumphant and annoying as ever, as he flew into the Technicolor sunset.

This got me to wondering why life couldn't always be like it was in the movies. It didn't have to be in color or Cinemascope but it had to make sense and all of those loose threads that complicate things had to be trimmed off in two hours or less.

My life, up to the moment when I saw him, had been pretty much a straight forward black and white "B" movie. Even with the inconvenient little domestic plot twists like the old man taking a powder I was doing just fine. Why didn't real life come with a rule that all surprise twists and turns in the story still had to make sense and would eventually lead to a logical explanation?

I stared distractedly at the surrealistic credits as they slithered across the black screen and felt a twinge of resentment. Even with Percepto and The Tingler to complicate their lives, the people in the movie had everything carefully plotted out for them. Everything would be explained eventually.

My jaw tightened when I glanced over at Vinnie. He was my friend: maybe my best friend in the world next to Jim. He loved me almost as much as he loved his brother and anything he said was just good natured ribbing. I knew that for a fact yet half of me wanted to knock his block off. The other was more logical and forgiving and wanted to let it slide.

"I've gotta take a whiz," I muttered and abruptly scrambled out of my seat without looking to see if anyone had heard me. I stomped up the aisle, determined to put some distance between us before I said something that might jeopardize our friendship.

There was a clock above the candy stand that was identical to the one inside the auditorium except that the neon ring around the face was red instead of purple and it sometimes ran ten minutes fast. At the moment it read 10:17 and I paused just outside the auditorium door to survey the lobby: still unwilling to admit why I was doing it.

The cashier was closing out the box office under the careful scrutiny of Mister Winsett. The rest of the staff had gone, leaving only a young girl behind the stand. I nodded in her direction and started down the long flight of stairs to the lounge to do some thinking. Knowing that even as I looked around hoping he wouldn't be there, I was hoping he would be was strange.

I dropped on to the threadbare, slightly damp divan, trying not to breathe too much of the noxious aroma of piss, old vomit and Easy-Off Upholstery cleaner until I'd fired up a smoke to mask the odor.

"Son of a bitch," I whispered as I let out a cloud of smoke and shut my eyes. "Son of a fucking bitch."

Somewhere in the dark labyrinth of corridors that ran the length and width of the old theatre, a door opened and shut. It made a heavy dragging sound like metal against old dry cement.

I didn't pay much attention to it, figuring it was the janitor arriving to get an early start on cleaning up the mess. I took another drag and exhaled slowly.

I watched distractedly as it drifted upward in a long thin stream of smoke and gathered in a pool at the ceiling. From there it slithered over the cracked and peeling paint until it came to the flickering light fixture and vanished between the two surviving panels of acid etched glass. When there was nothing more to watch, I headed for the restroom to stake my claim before the janitor arrived with his mops and buckets and his bottles of Lysol.

The only stall that wasn't locked from the inside, probably by some sadistic fucker with a warped sense of humor, was the one without a door at the far end closest to the wall. I'd no sooner wiped the pee from the seat and dropped my drawers than the outer door burst open in a flurry of oaths: not all of them in English.

"Cono! Sadistic bastard! Eres un borde idiota! Hijo de puta estupido" I was pretty sure it was him: the guy at the door. His back was to me as he struggled with the skeleton suit but his voice was familiar.

After a short debate with the part of me that was deathly afraid of him, I cleared my throat to let him know that he didn't have the room all to himself. The string of oaths died abruptly as he whirled around and I was able to get a good look at his face. He was flushed from exertion, and his hair was pressed down against his forehead in strange ways, but there was no doubt in my mind that it was him. I coughed.

"I'm sorry," he said suddenly quiet. "I didn't know there was anyone in here

"I'll be out in a second," I replied shakily. "Then you can get back to your swearing." Was I the picture of cool or what?

"No. You can stay. I'll be done here in just a minute."

He stayed off to one side and discreetly out of my line of sight. The only way I could get a good look at him was to lean forward at an awkward angle and risk making a scene as I fell off of the toilet seat. That's not to say that I wanted to, you understand. It's just that I could have.

"So... uh... so you were the skeleton guy. I mean I guess that's pretty obvious what with you being the only one here wearing a costume."

"Yeah. It's not one of those golden moments that I'll look back on with fondness."

"So I heard."

"You understood that?"

"Some of it's universal. The rest I can guess. At least they had a backup plan in case that other Emergo thing didn't work."

He sidled over to the mirror, still struggling with the string ties. He cursed softly.

"Cono!" he muttered. "Hey. Um... I hate to ask but would you give me a hand with this thing?"

My throat went dry. My palms broke out in drenching sweats.

"Help? Me? Oh... yeah. I mean I guess..."

Would I? Hell, if there'd been a speed record set somewhere for yanking up your zipper and pulling up your pants I'd have broken it.

While on the subject of breaking records, the same could be said for erections. I looked down and there it was in all its glory with absolutely no conscious effort. Even I, the master of instantaneous, insistent and ill-timed boners, would have been impressed if I hadn't been so damned scared.

If talking to this guy was going to give me bone, what was touching him going to do? My best defense, in fact my only defense, was to stay calm as I wrestled my subconscious into my shorts.

Unlike me, he was no longer struggling when I emerged from the stall. He stood before the water stained mirror. Whatever was behind the demolition derby number being done on my libido seemed to have absolutely no effect on him.

In his struggle to free himself he'd turned the simple string tie into a hopeless mess that stubbornly resisted his best efforts. It didn't help that my hands were like two wet wash rags as they fumbled with the knot. The dampness only made the fabric shrink into itself.

"It looks like I might have to operate," I said with a nervous laugh.

"No. This thing has to go back at the end of the week. Mister Winsett would have a cow if he had to pay extra."

A faint sulphurous odor brought tears to my eyes seemed to rise from the costume with each movement. I blinked hard to clear them.

"It's rented? You mean they want it back..." I asked incredulously.

"Yeah, " he replied.

"But it smells funny: like rotten eggs."

"That's the stuff they paint on it to make it glow in the dark. Anyway, cutting is out. Maybe if you stood closer? "

"If I stood any closer I'd have to... I mean I can see fine. Maybe I can prick it apart with something p... pointed... Heh-heh."

What had started out as an awkward little slip of the tongue was growing into a full blown disaster. The fantasy was losing altitude fast.

"It never worked," he said into the mirror.

"Huh?"

"That Emergo shit. They got it to work once this afternoon. Only I didn't know that until the very last minute: just before they pushed me out on the stage."

"Don't move. I think I've got it. I don't think I'm following you."

"I was supposed to be a sort of emergency plan just in case it didn't work: which of course would never happen. They said I'd only have to walk back and forth across the stage and maybe jump at someone in the audience. So I'm standing there like a dork in a cheap rented Halloween costume, waiting for the skeleton to fly out of the box, when Winsett's son tells me that I have to run all the way up to the lobby and back or I don't get paid."

The string began to loosen. Gradually, it was giving up the fight.

"I didn't know Winsett had a son," I interjected.

"He probably doesn't. Ever seen his wife? Talk about round heels. Anyway, I did just like the son-of-a-bitch told me to and ran the full course and out the stage door to the alley where he was supposed to be waiting: only he wasn't. The son of a bitch is probably up there right now playing dumb and griping about how you can't trust a Cuban to do anything right. I'd still be freezing my ass off if I hadn't remembered that they keep a key hidden above the door."

"I'll forget I ever heard that."

"Tell all your friends. Put it on a billboard over Washington Square. As for me, I've got to go back up there and smile nice and pretend I'm not pissed. Hey you did it. Thanks."

I'd been so taken with his voice that I didn't realize that the top half of the costume was hanging down like an apron over his waist. My hands were resting someplace they had no right to be: on broad, muscular, and bare, shoulders. Alarmed at how easily my fingers caressed his warm skin, I pulled them away and shoved them in my pockets where my fingers encountered a firm, persistent barrier.

"N... n... no problem," I stammered. "Glad to help. Well, uh... I guess my friends will be wondering about me."

Our eyes met in the alternate universe of the mirror: a universe where my instinct to take him in my arms wouldn't have gone unheeded.

"Me too," he replied as the moment passed and the real world intruded.

"Yeah," I repeated. "Me too... and thanks."

"What for?"

"You know: for the seat numbers. Hey if that other shit didn't work..."

"Don't sweat it. It works. I wired the seats myself: even tested it a couple of times."

"You didn't use Mister Winsett's son as a guinea pig did you?"

"No. Why?"

"It might explain why he has it in for you. Well... I gotta go. See ya."

"Yeah... see ya."

This time I got as far as the door before I stopped and turned and caught him watching me, his hand hovering just over his crotch. I pretended not to notice.

"Hey, you want to do something this week?"

He looked at me questioningly. His handsome face was totally blank.

"Do something?"

"Yeah. You know: hang out and talk. Maybe they've got something going on at the teen center. Whatever you want to do: just as long as it doesn't involve wearing a fucking costume."

He sat on the edge of a wash basin and seemed to be giving it an awful lot of thought: so much so that I half expected him to turn me down. Then, just when things were looking darkest, he nodded and shrugged.

"I guess: but I don't have a lot of money."

"Whadda I look like: Nelson Rock-e-friggin'-feller?" I asked trying to sound cool with my best Vinnie bravado. "This ain't no date."

"Then sure. Why not? I'd give you my number but there's no place for a pen in this thing. Are you better at remembering numbers or names?"

"I'm as good at numbers as I am at untying knots."

"Okay. Remember Plaza 75803."

"Plaza... That's uptown. I thought you said you didn't have any money."

"Who says I do? It's my old man who has the bucks."

"Okay. Plaza 75807," I recited.

"02," he corrected.

"I thought you said 03."

"I was testing you."

"So was I. Hey, you'd better get dressed before someone finds us down here with you half naked and gets the wrong idea."

Having said it, I realized how lame that must have sounded. By then the words were out and couldn't be taken back. Just what kind of wrong idea could anyone have gotten?

What was wrong with finding two not faggy guys in the restroom, one of them shirtless, shooting the breeze? What could be more innocent? On the other hand, hadn't I just spent an inordinate amount of time watching his hands as they hovered around his waist? Did I expect him to throw modesty aside and finish getting out of the costume while I stood and watched?

If so what did I expect, or hope, to see? Why was I disappointed when he retrieved his uniform from the janitor's closet and ducked into the stall I'd just vacated?

"75806," I called out as I grasped the door knob and the smell of damp carpet swept in.

"75803," he replied in mock exasperation. "Jeez, you've got a worse memory than my Uncle Arturo: and he's 87." We both laughed and I quietly closed the door. Another one was about to open.

LIFE AND ITS INTRUSIONS

"Took you long enough," Vinnie whispered across the row as I settled into my seat and extended my long legs into the aisle.

I glanced at the clock on the wall and frowned knowing that the Jeff being The Jeff, it was probably unreasonable to expect accurate time keeping. Still, I had to admit I was as flummoxed as I was surprised.

If the word of a neon lighted time piece was to be taken as the gospel, thirty minutes had gone by without my realizing it. It was a good thing that I wasn't given to explaining myself because I had no reasonable excuse: leastwise not one I was willing to accept myself.

"You the official time keeper now?" I asked sullenly.

"Somebody farted and I just thought of you."

"I ran into someone. So did I miss anything or were you too busy sniffing people's asses to notice?

"Nah. Epifanio's still waiting to have his butt zapped. So who'd ya see?"

Vinnie wasn't the kind to let well enough alone. This wasn?t going to be easy.

"Just a guy: nobody you know."

"I know everybody."

"Not him. He just transferred in from... Saint Betty?s."

"Oh yeah... I know some guys from Saint Elizabeth. One of them's got..."

Whatever it was that he, or she, was lost amid raucous whoops and appreciative hollers of the audience. Up on the screen a blonde, obviously a floozy, with big knockers poured into a slinky dress cut down to there, planted a wet one on her boyfriend while her husband watched from inside the house.

Now the male audiences in our neighborhood were nothing if not appreciative of chicks with big gazongas and normally I'd have been among them. On this particular night, however, my mind and libido were preoccupied with dangerous and confusing thoughts.

I couldn't stop thinking about the flawless, god-like revelation who, even in the harsh unforgiving light of a fly specked forty watt bulb, was about as close to perfection as anything I'd ever seen. He was there each time I shut my eyes... naked to the waist: his broad, symmetrical chest... utterly hairless... rising and falling: silky skin so warm to the touch.

"Jee-sus," I groaned inwardly as my prick took my unwelcome thoughts as a call to action.

It jumped to attention and slowly inched its way down my inner thigh. I was at its mercy: powerless to do anything except watch it happen and hope I didn't have to get to my feet any time soon.

I look back on that night and I think of the time I was standing at the corner of 33rd and 3rd when a truck carrying bottled water ran the light and broad-sided one carrying a load of Fizzies.

I knew it was going to happen; they were going too fast for it not to. I remember standing back from the curb: not so much to escape possible injury as to get a better view. Just like my expanding manhood having its own way, it was inevitable that the whole intersection should become a hissing, foaming bubbling mess of grape... and cherry... and some crap they called lemon-lime... bubbles.

If I hadn't just disappeared without explanation for thirty minutes, I could've gone back to the restroom, whacked off and nobody would have said a word but that was different. When you're seventeen people expect you to beat off at the drop of a hat. It was part of the package: like pimples.

Another trip to the can was out of the question. If I couldn't take matters in hand, literally, I'd have to resort to figurative measures and haul out the heavy artillery.

Never underestimate the power of an over-active imagination. As I was quick to discover, nothing will send your own personal Tingler scrambling for the safety of your Jockey shorts faster than Tor Johnson, the giant zombie from Plan Nine, prancing around in the kind of clingy silk kimono I'd always pictured Shirley MacLaine wearing on our wedding night.

My swollen cock quickly retreated, but it left behind a set of blue balls and the horrible suspicion that I may never again look at Shirley in quite the same way.

All things considered, I put on what I thought was a pretty good front, laughing at the appropriate times and even contributing a few well phrased zingers. Still, I had to admit it was a hollow performance. My heart wasn't in it. Beneath the joking faØade I was still a guy obsessed with a stranger: someone whose name I didn't even know.

"Shit," I thought to myself. "How am I going to call him if I don't know his name?"

On the screen the creature had just escaped from the apartment of a guy who'd just scared his wife to death. Anticipation ran high as the scene shifted from the tiny little apartment to a theatre downstairs where a silent movie kept a small but appreciative audience entertained.

Cut to the projection booth where the projectionist is gleefully dragging some kind of gardening tool across the surface of the film strip. The Tingler, clearly into film preservation before it became fashionable, attacks him but is thwarted at the last second by his high pitched girlish scream. The film stops and everything is plunged into darkness.

Cut to the auditorium where the creature is seen entering through a vent. As it runs amok, Vincent Price urges the audience not to panic but rather to scream as loudly as possible. This, we are told, is the only way to defeat the monster.

Pandemonium reigned as the line between fantasy and reality blurred. Of course there were subtle differences in the reactions of the real and the make believe audiences.

On screen #1: "It's over here!"

Jefferson #1: "What the fuck?"

On screen #2: "No it's over here."

Jefferson #2: Holy shit!"

On screen woman: "Ahh! It just touched my leg!"

Jefferson woman: "Arnie I swear to God-if-you-touch-my-boob-one-more-time I'm gonna break yer friggin' hand off."

On screen #3: "Ahh! It's under my seat!"

Jefferson #3: "Hey what's that I smell... I think my butt's on fire."

The on-screen Vincent returned from a cigarette break just as the projectionist recovered his wits and remembered there were no night shots in whatever movie they were showing.

The on -screen silver screen flickered to life and Vincent made a half- assed stab at mollifying the now fear paralyzed audience. His assurances that the monster that just tried to eat them was dead, and they were free to enjoy the rest of the movie, were falling on deaf ears. Enjoy the movie? Fat chance.

When the lights came on at The Jefferson, they came on to a scene of utter devastation and misery. People could be seen wandering the aisle trying in vain to find items they lost when they jumped from their seats. Others wept quietly, ignoring threats of violence if they didn't put a sock in it.

Worst of all was the unmistakable odor of urine that seemed to originate from the next seat. Considering where we were, it might have gone un- noticed if Epifanio hadn't looked so damned guilty and uncomfortable.

The poor guy looked like he was going to bust out in tears. So far I was the only one who'd noticed it, but pee has a bad habit of making itself known the longer it sits. Sooner or later the prevailing draft would shift.

"Hey guys," he said draping his jacket across his lap. "I think I gotta go."

"You know where it is," Vinnie rasped. "It's downstairs. You want me to go along and hold your hand or something? " The toxic cloud was making my eyes water. At least the other guys hadn't caught wind of it.

"I don't think that's what he means," I said once the first shimmering wave dissipated. "You know, I'm not feeling too hot. You guys can stay if you want. I'll make sure Epifanio gets home in one piece."

Their offers to also call it a night might have been taken as genuine if they hadn't been giving the eye to Betsy and Carol Jean Turturo at the same time. In the end, it was raging hormones that won out over a night out with the guys but I didn't mind the intrusion. Epifanio sure as shit wasn't going to make a big deal out insisting that they also leave. All he wanted to do was to get out in the open air.

"You don't have to leave on my account," he whispered as we trotted up the aisle. "I'm not a little kid you know."

"Who said you were?" I replied sharply.

It hadn't come out quite the way I'd meant it to. I was undeniably on the verge of being in a mood that had nothing to do with him. I pushed the door open, noting the numerous handprints marring the freshly lacquered panel as it caught the light.

"Don't worry about it," I added softly.

Millions of tiny yellow and blue specks swirled and danced across my field of vision while my eyes adjusted to the light. Epifanio self- consciously turned toward the wall as a gaggle of kids piled out behind us and headed straight for the candy stand.

"Are they gone?" he asked.

"Relax. Nobody's paying any attention to your crotch," I said directing mine toward the entrance.

I caught my breath. There he was: standing alone at his post, dressed in a neatly tailored usher's uniform that elevated him to a level of beauty not achieved by a skeleton suit.

"Come on," I said as casually as my unexpected attack of giddiness would allow. "Let's split."

We were almost to the door when the usher turned and smiled. My heart leaped. "You guys aren't going to wait for the Three Stooges short?"

"My... my friend isn't feeling too well. There must be too much excitement for him."

"Yeah. That skeleton was pretty scary stuff," Epifanio added almost in a whisper as he slipped past me and made a bee line for the sidewalk.

My eyes dropped unexpectedly to his crotch. "Thanks again for everything," I said nervously.

"Don't mention it. Oh by the way, you dropped this on your way in. I thought it might be important."

He pressed something into my hand and smiled knowingly. I unfolded it carefully and breathed a sigh of relief.

"You're right. Thanks."

"You're welcome... Miguel," he replied in a sort of insinuating way that not only made me blush but also go a little bit light in the head.

As a parting shot, lest there be a shred doubt that I'd reverted to the goofy, clumsy kid of my youth, I cracked my shoulder on the door on my way out. Gone was the worldly sophistication that three years of high school had bestowed on me.

Epifanio, who'd been watching from a safe distance where nobody could see the dark patch on his trousers, waited until we'd crossed 14th Street before venturing a typically astute observation.

"At least he didn't laugh when you walked into the side of the box office."

Zits, long dormant under a strict regimen of Clearasil twice daily, awakened refreshed and ready to play havoc with my face. I tripped over a high spot in the sidewalk.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I replied stiffly. "I was leaning on it."

?Sure you were. After you ran into it what other choice did you have to keep from falling on your ass?"

"I wasn't going to fall on my ass either."

He sighed and fished through his jacket pockets until he found his pack of smokes. He always smoked more when something was on his mind.

"If that's your version of the story I'll go along with it. After what I told you I'm sure as shit not gonna tell anyone different. Only..."

"Only... what?" I asked offering my windproof Zippo.

"Nothing. Just forget it," he muttered. "I never know what I'm talking about."

"That's right, you don't."

Pangs of guilt immediately swooped in and perched on my throbbing shoulder. Epifanio's unswerving loyalty deserved better treatment.

The fact that he'd entrusted me with secrets even Vinnie didn't know about had to count for something. We'd gone another block before I replied.

"I'm sorry Eps. I just don't know how to talk about this. It's never happened to me before."

It worried me a little that he didn't say anything for a long time. He just kept walking: staying in the shadows whenever we encountered people but usually just staring at his feet. Once in a while he'd take a drag from his cigarette and immediately blow it out. I thought of all the times the guys had teased him about how he smoked like a girl afraid to inhale.

I never razzed him, though. I knew he really didn't like smoking: that he did it to be like everyone else. If it meant doing something that wasn't right for him, so be it. In our neighborhood nothing was worse than not fitting in.

"Since we're playing Twenty Questions, mind if I ask what happened back there?"

"You mean with me pissing my pants? I guess I got so caught up in the movie that it was happening before I could stop it. God I feel like a big baby."

"It's no big whoop. Shit happens."

"Thanks."

That was the last time the subject was discussed but its effects were anything but over. A chain of events had been set into motion that would have far reaching implications.

The lights in the Lamori apartment were out when we arrived shortly before eleven. A cold wind that had followed us home bullied scraps of paper and dead leaves down to the end of the cul-de-sac and back as we stood at the foot of the stoop.

Epifanio dropped a half smoked cigarette, his second since leaving the theatre, on the sidewalk and ground it to shreds with his heel. He watched with just a hint of a smile as the wind picked up the remains and carried them off.

"Well," he began softly. "Since you're not feeling good, I guess you want to get home."

"I'm better now. It must've been the paint smell at the Jeff that was making me feel sick."

"Yeah. I mean that's good. I... uh... I should be getting out of these pants before they start to stink."

"You're too late," I said moving a few steps up wind. "You're starting to smell like one of the urinals at The Roxy."

"Oh... yeah. So... uh... thanks for walking me home."

"Hey, no sweat. You'd do the same for me."

"No I wouldn't. I got my fuckin' pride and the smell of puke makes me wanna fuckin' piss," he snarled.

Once again, Vinnie had popped up in conversation. Even Epifanio's impression reminded me of Vinnie when he was in one of his moods. It was an uncharacteristic display of humor that took me by surprise.

Epifanio was known for a lot of different things to a lot of different people but being able to make them laugh just wasn't one of them. His mind didn't work that way.

The fact that he was imitating his brother made it just that much more surprising because he didn't do impressions. This was 1959 and everybody and his brother did at least one of four impressions: Jerry Lewis, Jackie Gleason, Marlon Brando or, if all else failed, Ed Sullivan. Epifanio did none of them and had given up trying at the age of fifteen.

"Wow! That's so good it's spooky."

His face brightened noticeably. "Really? Thanks. I learned to do it last summer when Vinnie was grounded for a month. See, every night we'd lock the bedroom door and he'd sneak down the fire escape while I stayed and did my homework. That way if dad came to the door to check up on him, Vinnie'd always be there. I used to..."

He stopped abruptly as if embarrassed at catching himself telling tales out of school. Epifanio was like that.

"You won't say nothin' will ya?" he added.

"Hell no. Well, thanks for an interesting..."

"You wanna jack off..." he blurted out.

"Huh? Jack off?"

"I can change out of these pants and we could go up on the roof."

"I don't know. I've never done it with just one other guy. I might feel strange."

"Why?" he insisted. "The four of us have done it before."

"That was different."

"How?"

"Suppose someone came up and saw us? What would your dad think?"

"Probably the same thing they'd think if they found the four of us guys with our cocks out. He'd tell me to say an extra 200 Hail Marys on Sunday and forget all about it. You never worried about that before. Why start now?"

I knew how lame what I was about to say was going to sound. I was compelled to forge on.

"I just don't want anybody getting the wrong idea and think we're fags."

"Nobody's gonna think that. Anyway, the whole friggin' building's asleep. You've been carrying that wood around all night. I'll bet you're so hard right now that you can't wait to get home and pound your pud. C'mon... before Vinnie and Jim get home with the same idea."

After a brief struggle with common sense I followed Epifanio to the front door, taking the chipped cement steps two at a time.

Sure. Why not?" I muttered

UP ON THE ROOF

The Lamori family lived on the top floor of what had been a single family townhouse with large rooms and windows. It overlooked what used to be a park, but that was back around 1900 or some shit like that.

When it was split up into apartments, back in the early twenties, the large rooms were divided into several smaller ones by paper thin walls. As a result, all comings and goings were a matter of public record: as were family spats, casual discussions and sex. It was for that reason that Epifanio felt the need to whisper once we reached the top landing.

"You go on up to the roof," he said touching my arm lightly. "I'll be there as soon as I change clothes and clean up a little."

I nodded and continued on down the hallway to the back stairs, never giving any thought to why he needed to change into clean clothes just to sit on the roof and whack off.

There was a metal fire door that led to the tar and gravel roof: heavy, with crusty tin plates. Mister Lamori said that they rubbed against each other because it was put in when the building was converted to apartments and it didn't line up or something.

If you didn't open it just right it made a sound like a gun shot. Even when you did everything right, it creaked and groaned on rusty hinges: kinda like Mister Kraskow in 3B did when the weather was cold. That was the problem with living in those old buildings; you couldn't do anything without drawing somebody's attention.

We had a secluded spot set up on the far side of the air shaft that had an obstructed view of the neighborhood. A fancy cast iron railing went across the back half of the building. The rest of it had fallen victim to the war effort and ended up in a pile of scrap metal to be turned into guns.

On nights when there was nothing to do, one of us would liberate a six pack from under the kitchen sink. The four of us would go up and drink and talk about sex until we were all so horny that our nuts were about to burst. Then we'd draw straws to see which of us would be the first to take it out: like it was a big fucking deal to see your best friends hard.

I fired up a Newport and carefully walked to the edge of the roof. The wind had shifted and was carrying with it a blue funk.

"Just one more step," I whispered as I stood at the edge of the abyss. "Just one more step. You'll fall and nobody'll be down there to catch you."

It's funny how I should remember that after all of these years. What else was I thinking as I looked out across the forest of antennas and sagging clotheslines? The idea that I could have been so terrified of what was going through my head seems ridiculous now, but 1959 was another world. It was okay to get all goofy and spastic over a girl but never a guy.

I'd become so involved in whatever else I'd been thinking that I didn't hear Epifanio coming up behind me. I damned near jumped out of my skin when he touched my shoulder.

"Christ on a crutch," I rasped. "Don't ever sneak up on someone like that."

"You looked like you was about to jump."

"I wasn't. I was just thinking."

"Yeah, well don't do it there. My dad says the bricks are weak along the top. He's tried to get the Super to do something but he keeps getting the same old run around."

I crushed my cigarette into the gravel and carefully stepped away from the brink of eternity.

"So... you still want to?"

"Sure do," he replied easing himself on to the crunchy roof. "I even brought a couple of beers... and a church key."

I chose a spot a couple of feet away and extended my legs. "It feels strange," I said as the cans were opened.

"What does?" Epifanio asked.

"You and me... alone like this."

"I sorta like it," he replied softly. "I mean... having so much room to spread out," he quickly added.

I took a long swallow of lukewarm beer and burped loudly. "That's okay. I knew what you meant."

I didn't, but I was a cheap drunk. The beer was already giving me a buzz.

"You... uh... want to draw straws?"

"Huh?"

"You know... to see who goes first."

"Nah. Let's skip that bullshit," I replied as I pulled down my zipper, opened my pants and hauled out my hard cock. "I'll go first."

My eagerness to get down to business came as somewhat of a surprise: not only to Epifanio but to me as well. Subtlety was out the window.

"That sure didn't take long," he whispered nervously.

"So what're you waiting for: an engraved invitation?"

"I... uh..."

"This was your idea, pal. Stop gawking like you've never seen a guy's boner before and whip it out. I want to see that pretty Italian salami."

There I'd said it. I'd actually come out and admitted that I'd looked. Not often, mind you. Who gives a rat?s ass what your buddy's cock looks like when his hand feels so good wrapped around your pud? Right?

I never exactly understood the reasoning behind it, but the cardinal rule in circle jerks was that you never looked at the other guy's dong while you stroked him to orgasm. Epifanio seemed stunned by my willingness to break with tradition.

"I... uh..."

"C'mon Eps," I implored. "Take it out."

His hand dropped to his crotch and hesitated for a second before slowly popping open the buttons on his fly. A noise from the street drew my attention away, but it was only for a few seconds. When I looked back he was on his back, legs spread with his big uncut dick pointing toward the North Star. His right hand traveled caressingly up and down its length several times before he could tear his eyes away from it.

"It is kinda nice, isn't it?"

"Uh huh," I replied, pushing his hand away and wrapping my fingers around the warm shaft.

It might have been the beer, or Caesar or just the fact that I was looking at what I was touching, but giving my good buddy a hand job became a whole new experience.

"Mike?" he asked as he grasped my dick and languidly ran his thumb around the head.

"Yeah?"

"Remember what we was talking about?"

"When?"

"You know... before."

"Oh... yeah. Cripes! Are you still on that?"

"Uh huh."

I tightened my grip in the hope it would distract him. No such luck.

"What about him?" I sighed.

"You gonna do it with him?"

"Do it? I don't know! Hell, I haven't even called him."

"But when you do, are you?"

"How do you know that's what he has in mind?"

"He does. I saw the way he was watching when you left."

"Before or after I ran into the box office?"

"Both. He likes you. I could tell"

"Look, Eps. Lots of people like me. Maybe he just wants to hang out."

His hand strayed downward along my shaft until it came to rest at the base. His little finger was resting on the underside of my balls.

"You're a neat guy but you're not all THAT great to be around."

"Are you saying I'm boring? Is that what you're saying?"

"No, but you're no Tab Hunter either."

"Screw you: and screw Tab too," I replied shifting my weight to a more comfortable position on my side. "I can be exciting when I want to be."

"I didn't mean..."

"I can be the most likable mother fucker on the planet. I can be..."

"You mean like now?" he interrupted.

"Fuck you," I grumbled.

Epifanio released his grip on my cock and scrambled to his knees. His hard cock waved in the cool night air.

"Don't get sore. I'm just giving ya shit."

"I'm not sore," I replied, feeling very defensive.

"Yeah you are. You look pissed off."

"And you look pretty fucking stupid on your knees with your dick poking out."

He looked down, stroked it a couple of times and grinned. "Maybe... but it's a nice dick, isn't it?"

I sighed and turned over on my back. "I don't know... I guess... yeah, it's a nice dick."

"Damn right," he said scrambling to his feet and stretching.

At first I thought he was going to walk away and leave me lying there with my softening cock flopping in the wind. Then he dropped back down, this time straddling me between his knees.

"Why's it a nice dick?" he asked, practically waving it in my face.

I tried to throw him off. His grip was too tight.

"Because you said it was, mother fucker. I was just being agreeable."

"So you're saying that it's not a nice dick? Is that what you're telling me? Is that what you're telling me?"

"You keep waving that in my face and it won't matter if it's nice or not. I swear I'll..."

He backed off a little. It was never to the point that he would risk loosening his grip.

"So what're you gonna do big man? You gonna bite it off?"

"Why are you doing this?"

"Just answer the fucking question."

"Okay. I admit it's a nice dick."

"You're just saying that to be nice."

"No I'm not. It's... it's pretty."

"And?"

"It's pretty and it's nice to touch it... and I like the way it feels in my hand... okay?"

"What else?"

"What do you mean what else? There's nothing else. Look, Eps. I don't know what's gotten into you, but you'd better knock it off or else..."

"Or else what? You gonna throw me off the roof? You gonna beat the shit out of me? Maybe you just want to..."

I knew what he was about to say. I stopped him with a glare that made him shift his weight from his knees to my legs.

"Don't," I said ominously.

Even with his face partly obscured by shadows, I could see that whatever had come over him had been replaced by the realization that he just might have gone too far with that particular tactic. It didn't, however, mean that he was giving up.

"Don't be mad. I'm just trying to help."

"Help with what? I don't need help with anything."

"I can see that he's really bugging you."

"No, you're the one who's bugging me. He's just kinda gotten under my skin."

He rolled off of my legs and on to the crunchy gravel. He was still hard as a rock and, after a surprisingly short time of being ministered to by his strong hands, so was I.

Epifanio resumed stroking it while resting his head on my shoulder. His strokes were sure and strong.

"Mike?" he said softly.

"What?"

"Have you thought about what it'll be like?"

"Huh? You mean..."

"Doing it with another guy."

"What's it going to take to get you to shut the fuck up about this?"

"The truth."

"If you tell anyone I swear to God I'll beat the crap out of you."

"Scout's honor."

"Maybe once... or twice... I guess," I said raggedly.

His big brown eyes widened in amazement. At last the truth.

"No shit? When? Us... Alone like this?"

"I've never been alone with you like this."

"I mean when it's the four of us sitting up here jerking each other off."

I shrugged in response and realized how much I really did like the feel of his hard cock in my hand. It felt... right.

"Not always. Sometimes I want to..."

The length of his strokes shortened and he moved close enough to kiss. I think I wanted him to.

"Yeah? What do you want to do?"

"Knock it off, will ya? This isn't easy."

I tried to sit up. The gentle pressure of his firm hand against my chest kept pushing me back.

"This is too weird."

"I've heard you talking dirty with Jim and Vinnie."

"That was about chicks," I protested.

"And this is about other guys. C'mon. Pretend there's nobody else here."

"That's hard to do with you pounding my pud."

"You want me to stop?"

"Fuck no," I replied quickly. "I don't know... stuff... like what those guys did to you."

His expression hardened at the mention of the incident in the basement. If it was a poor choice of words it was, in light of our earlier conversation, an understandable one.

He'd said that he liked some of it. It wasn't my fault that he wasn't specific as to what part he was talking about.

"I'm the only one allowed to bring that up," he said quietly.

"Hey, I was only... I'm sorry Eps."

"No harm done, I guess. I'll start it out for you. You're alone in your room... in the dark. The radio's on and they're playing Mack The Knife on the radio. You stretch..."

"I hate that song," I interrupted. "How about Mister Lonely?"

"Oh fuck it," he grumbled. "Go home and whack yourself off."

His hand felt so good. I was so close to shooting my wad that I couldn't have left that rooftop if the building was falling down and my life depended on it.

"Okay... okay," I said raggedly. "I'll play along... only don't stop."

He looked skeptical but only for a moment because he trusted me. He trusted me just like I needed to trust him to keep his yap shut about anything I might say. It didn't even bother me his head was resting on my chest and that the Wildroot CrSme Oil in his hair would probably stain my last clean shirt.

"Okay," he began, his hand once again running up and down my shaft. "You stretch out on your bed and stare at the lights reflecting on the ceiling. Your mind is racing and your dick is as hard as a rock... like it is now. You think about him and what you want to do to him... and you're so horny that it feels like you're going to explode if you don't get off..."

It seemed as if I'd interpreted a brief pause as my cue to continue. I scrambled for words.

"I... uh... my hand... uh..." I stammered out before falling silent again.

Clearly, I wasn't cut out for talking dirty for the edification of others. Not that it would have made any difference since Epifanio had picked up the ball again and was racing down the field like a bat out of hell. All I had to do was sit back... and enjoy being drawn into his fantasy.

"It's late and you've got school tomorrow but you can't fall asleep no matter how hard you try. Your balls ache for release and your hand slips under the waistband of your shorts like it has a mind of its own. You know you shouldn't? your brother is asleep just a few feet away. You can't help yourself.?

My eyes closed. My breathing became regular. His voice was hypnotic.

?Once your fingers touch your dick it's all over. First you close your eyes and imagine his soft lips on your mouth. He's kissing you... whispering your name in the dark. His hand touches your chest?teasing your nipples... making its way downward to where your fuck pole waits impatiently for its turn.?

"Yeah," I whispered.

"You turn to face the wall and push your shorts down around your knees. You have to be careful. Vin? There are others nearby... others that might hear and you think of how wonderful it must be not having to worry about what he?they might say. I... you wish... you could throw yourself on top of him... and be naked... and feel his body pressed against you. Your hand moves faster as you wonder what he would taste like if he let you suck his cock. Would he laugh at you and call you names if you asked?"

Something warm and wet touched the tip of my blood engorged cock. I didn't open my eyes. The mood was perfect.

"Would he hold you down while others beat the crap out of you for telling him how much you wanted to have his cock in your mouth? If he'd only let you bury your face in his crotch. What would he smell like... down there? You're breathing hard... getting close. You imagine him sliding his cock up your butt. You wonder what it would be like to have him inside of you... to feel your hole being stretched by his beautiful big cock. Would he turn you over on your stomach so he wouldn't have to look at you? Would he have you on your back so you could look deeply into his beautiful blue eyes? You think of him ramming his dick into your fuck hole... again and again... hard and deep... faster and faster.?

I started breathing faster as I was swept into Epfiano's fantasy.

?Your cock is so hard that you think it's... gonna break. Maybe he'd like it so much that he'd want to fuck all night. You want him so badly that it hurts. Just the thought of his cock buried in your ass... being inside of you... fucking you senseless... You think of being inside of him... fucking and pounding his butt... You've always loved the sight of his ass; it makes you weak. You wish to God you were there beside me.

You'd... He'd be squirming with pleasure as you brought him close to orgasm. Maybe his cock would be leaking all over your hand. He'd be begging for more... begging you to stop... begging you not to stop... begging for release...begging you to make it last. He'd thrash around arching his back and groaning until you shot your load... again and again until your hand is covered with his creamy white jizz.

It wouldn't be over, though. You'd be tired of being thought of as the tag-along jack-off buddy. In those last few seconds, just before you popped your load, you'd imagine your pud being engulfed by the warmth of his mouth... how you'd lace you fingers behind his head and fuck his face. All you think of is much you long for the joy of watching your big uncut dick slide between his lips. Just when you reach the point that you can't hold back any more your balls start to empty... and you... you... oh fucking shit son of a bitch... You... you explode all over in a shower of white stars."

Then it was over. We were back on the roof; just the two of us beneath the overcast night sky.

"Jeez, Eps. That was great," I whispered. ?I didn't realize I had all of that going on in my head."

Epifanio laughed self-consciously. Suddenly he couldn't look me in the eye.

"That's twice in one evening," he said with a half laugh.

"Huh?"

"Twice that I've gotten... carried away," he replied as he produced a clean white handkerchief and hastily wiped the cum from his hand and my softening dick.

I raised my head and looked at him questioningly. The moment had passed.

"I'm sorry: honest I am. Please don't get frosted."

"Don't tense, man," I replied after a ragged breath. "That was a large charge. Only..."

"Only what?"

"Only you sounded like, I don't know, like... different."

"What do you mean by different..."

"Just different... like you knew what you were talking about. I've never heard you talk like that before."

"Everybody thinks I'm some kind of shoemaker but I've got thoughts too. Just because I don't bullshit was well as Vinnie doesn't mean I'm stupid."

"Cool it. Hell, I don't think you're stupid," I countered while shifting my butt to dislodge a chunk of gravel that'd gotten trapped in the waistband of my jockeys.

Epifanio wrapped his fingers around my limp dick and squeezed it gently until a single drop of white fluid emerged from the slit. He teased it into a long strand that glistened in the light from an open window across the street. He studied it with his usual intensity until it was snagged by a passing breeze and carried away.

"You've always treated me like I was normal."

"You are normal, Eps. It's the rest of the world that's fucked up."

"I'm just a hot spook in a fucked up world," he mumbled after a long silence that, in itself, should have spoken to me in volumes.

Looking back, I wish I'd had the wisdom that I have now. Regardless of what I might have said at the time, I wasn't ready for the stuff he was laying on me. I had problems of my own: problems that were destined to plague me for years to come. Yet there I was trying to reassure my beautiful sensitive friend. God, I was just a hub cap but I sure thought I was hot shit. Worse yet, so did Epifanio.

"Well black time's here, termite," I said scrambling to my feet and awkwardly shoving my dick back into my pants. "I should hit the road before my mom comes to and gets worried."

There was a knack to looking cool under all circumstances. I was positive that I'd mastered it.

Epifanio wiped his eyes with his shirt tail and watched intently as I pulled myself together. Granted, some would have called it a clear breach of the circle jerk ethic that demanded reticence at any cost but I didn't mind. In fact I sorta liked being watched and went to great lengths to arrange the goodies just right.

"Mike?"

"Yeah?"

"About what just happened? You know... about what I said. You and me; we're still tight aren't we?"

"You'll always be my favorite goofy Dago. You going to see me to the sidewalk?"

"I think maybe I'll... you know... hang around up here 'till Vinnie gets home."

"I don't get it."

"He's gonna have a hell of a case of blue balls once Betsy Turturo shoots him down. When he doesn't find me in bed he'll come up here."

"Jeez, Eps. You sayin' Vinnie can't get himself off?"

"Sure he can but... he likes me to do it for him. I don't mind."

"In that case I'll see myself out. You sure you're okay..."

"Couldn't be more bitchin'. Hey... uh... thanks for everything."

"Negative perspiration, little Daddy-o. Glad to be of service."

I tugged the door open and was about to step inside when Epifanio threw his arms around me in an overt display of affection that should have taken me by surprise but didn't. He gripped the lapels of my jacket and buried his face in the folds.

"I wish it was me," he whispered so softly that I didn't know if it was something I was meant to hear.

If I'd been the introspective type I might have asked. As it was, I didn't give it much thought until I was half way down the second flight of stairs and almost to the door. By then it was too late; the moment had passed.

The stoop outside of the Lamori's building was higher than those to either side and offered a clear, unobstructed view up and down Third Avenue. Everything was quiet and, with the exception of some new construction at the end of the block, exactly as it was supposed to be.

"Nothing stays the same forever," I muttered as I started down the marble and concrete stairs. ?Things change just like people change.?

New York was supposed to be the city that never sleeps, but you'd have never known it from where I stood. Everything was dark and locked for the night. There wasn't another soul around except for Loopy Louie, the requisite neighborhood nut case.

He lived near the corner of 17th and 3rd but spent his waking hours next to the lamp post outside of Field's Bakery. He'd swear to anyone who'd listen that the post was the final resting place of Tube Steak Tommy, his sidekick and, as some claimed, boyfriend who disappeared way back in 1949.

He was harmless and sometimes I'd even stop and shoot the shit if I had nothing better to do. That night I crossed the street. The last thing I needed, as I set out on the short walk of three and a half blocks to where we lived, was hearing the disjointed ramblings of a crazy old pansy who never got over being dumped. Sure it was sad and, if the stories had truth to them, tragic but if giving in to my urges meant ending up like Loopy Lou I wanted no part of it. Not me; I had things to do and being part of a public works project wasn't one of them.

I was nowhere near a resolution by the time I arrived at our apartment on Rutherford Place, between 17th and 18th. I sat on the curb and fired up my cigarette for the night.

"Damn it, Eps," I said on the exhale. "Why'd you have to go and say that?"

I went over the events of the evening while the un-smoked cigarette reduced itself to ashes. I thought of a shirtless Caesar standing like a magnificent animal trapped in a cage that smelled of Lysol and old piss.

I thought of Epifanio: my handsome sweet tempered jack off buddy who'd suddenly become wise beyond his years. Why couldn't there be a rule that you weren't allowed to fall for someone you've jerked off with? Gradually the faces of Caesar and Epifanio merged into a single creature of such unearthly beauty that it was turned my soul inside out hung it up to dry. One I could handle. Two was pushing it.

There was also the very real possibility that I wasn't a fruit and that my initial reaction to Caesar was a fluke that would never show itself again. Maybe I would call the number and find that all he had in mind was to go somewhere and make the scene while cruising for babes.

It was on that note that I flicked the filter into the middle of the street and got to my feet. I yawned, stretched and checked my pocket just to make sure I hadn't lost the number. Then I went inside where I jerked off again before falling into a troubled sleep.

************************************************************************* CAESAR... AT LAST! *************************************************************************

Two weeks sped by before I picked up the phone to call Caesar. First Mom got sick with a new strain of flu that was going around. Then I got it and was flat on my back for three days. Then there was a shit load of assignments to be completed if I was to get into a half way decent college.

This is not to imply that I hadn't thought about Caesar. I thought about him a lot, but I'd also talked myself into believing that there was nothing even remotely queer about me. The night of The Tingler had been a fluke and I was once again on the road to becoming the man's man I'd always thought I'd be: a staunch heterosexual like my heroes Rock Hudson or Tab Hunter.

Between getting sick and endless hours in the library, there was no time to be social. In fact it wasn't until the end of the second week that I was able to have lunch with the guys and shoot the shit. Initially our discussion centered on the fact that The Jeff was holding House on Haunted Hill over for a third week.

"Who wants to see that piece of crud again?" Vinnie groused between bites of his Twinkie. "I heard they gave the Emergo the bum's rush after the first week."

Epifanio picked a thick sliver of wood from the lunch bench and broke it in two. "What about the skeleton guy?"

"Huh?" Vinnie demanded. "What about him?"

"I mean he'll be out of a job, won't he?"

"Who the fuck cares?" Jim added. "It's not like it's a career with a future to it."

"You don't have to get sore. I was just wondering out loud."

Vinnie popped the last of the Twinkie into his mouth and washed it down with a gulp of milk. This was followed by his signature belch.

"That reminds me. We never did find out who he was... did we Mike?"

I was still thinking about what Epifanio had said. What if he wasn't working there? What if he'd moved? Something that I recognized as panic began to well up in the pit of my stomach. What if I'd waited too long? I tuned back in to the conversation in time to hear my name.

"What? Huh?"

Vinnie frowned. He preferred an attentive audience.

"This is Earth calling Ur-Anus. Come in, Ur Anus. Over."

"Get bent," I snapped. "I was thinking about something."

"I said we never found out who the skeleton guy was."

"So?" I demanded sharply. "If I can live without knowing, why can't you?"

"I was just wondering. Jeez, don't get pissed at me. It was Eps that brought him up. Go yell at him if you're gonna..."

"Hey, I just remembered," Jim chimed in. "Know what I heard??? I heard the skeleton guy got into it with the Assistant Manager right in the middle of the lobby... with busted noses and blood all over the place."

A fight at The Jeff was no big deal, but when it involved someone of authority it was big news. Vinnie leaned closer hoping for more dirt.

"No shit? What happened?"

"All I heard was that the Assistant was giving this usher a bad time about being down stairs sucking off some clown when he should have been changing out of the skeleton suit. Then he told him that if he was going to suck dicks in the bathroom he could do it on his own time in someone else's theatre. That's when the shit hit the fan. Man, I wish I could've been there. That must've been so cool."

Vinnie eyed me suspiciously but the prospect of a bloody ending to the story got the best of him.

"Yeah. So what happened?" he asked with one eye still on me.

Jim's voice always went up a couple of octaves when he was excited. He'd nearly worked himself up to soprano as his account came to its finale.

"So the guy says they was only talking and then the Assistant Manager calls him a fag and a sleazy good for nothing wetback. That's when he got knocked on his ass and the fur started to fly. A guy said he thought the Assistant's arm got broken."

Even if the story was only partly true, which was probable, the thought of Caesar's beautiful face getting banged up made my stomach do flip flops.

"He didn't seem to be the... the fighting type," I ventured hesitantly.

Epifanio took a break from his demolition project. He stretched his legs beneath the lunch table and scratched his crotch.

"I guess you can't always tell what somebody's like just by looking at them. Everybody's the fighting type when you're being called names."

"Sure ya can," Vinnie insisted. "Dad says the Commies are out to control the unions."

Jim took a swipe at him from across the table and missed. He usually missed when it came to taking swipes at Vinnie.

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"He's seen 'em hanging around outside the union hall trying to start up conversations: waiting for their chance to get a foot in the door... says he can spot one by what kind of suit he's wearing."

"And you believe that?" I asked incredulously.

"Hey. My Dad's a pretty smart guy... for a keeper."

"Your Dad also saw a flying saucer over the Chrysler Building last fall."

"Nah, that was my Grandfather. Ain't that right, Eps?"

"I guess."

"I guess? What's this 'I guess' shit? You know it was."

"Okay... okay... yeah... Gramps saw a Martian and Dad can spot a pinko by his suit and his stink."

"Whoa! Get a load of you all of a sudden."

"I got things on my mind," Epifanio snarled,

His eyes were glued to the table. The tan enamel paint reflected back on his solemn face.

"This is your fight... you fight it."

"Sure," Vinnie replied sharply. "I've been fighting for everybody else... time I started watching my own ass... fighting my own fights. Right little brother?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Epifanio demanded angrily.

"Jeez, Vinnie. Why'd you have to say that?" I injected.

He turned his head sharply and leaned across the bench. His eyes blazed.

"This is none of your friggin' bees wax. It's between Epifanio and me, so butt the fuck out.?

Our milk cartons jumped in unison as his fist came down hard on the table. Coming from anyone else such an "attack" would have been my cue to launch a major counter strike.

Thankfully, I had the good sense to use restraint instead of my fists. We'd all said things that we didn't mean when we were mad. Pounding the crap out of him, no matter how satisfying the experience, would have achieved nothing except maybe landing us in Mister Patton's after school detention. I'd done that once and had no intention of repeating the miserable experience. I'd swallow my pride in the interest of peace. I drained my milk carton and tossed it into a trash can twenty feet away.

"Whatever you say, ape man. Sorry I mentioned it."

Back then, when I was almost eighteen, acting like an adult was something that didn't come easy under the best of circumstances. The thought of Caesar being hurt because of me made it damned near impossible. It was driving me nuts yet the only one I could trust enough to let my feeling show was sitting across the table from me looking sullen, dejected and on the verge of tears.

Vinnie, being nobody's fool, tapped his brother lightly on the shoulder. At least he had the sense to realize what a dick wad he'd been.

"Hey... we're cool," he grumbled.

Coming from Vinnie, that was a heartfelt apology. Outwardly, Epifanio neither accepted nor rejected the olive branch and kept his eyes riveted to the bench. It was only at the instant Vinnie looked the other way that the corners of his mouth turned up in a furtive, enigmatic smile.

"Damn," I thought to myself as I watched the smile fade. "The son of a bitch is getting a kick out of this."

In all, the whole exchange couldn't have taken more than a couple of minutes but it changed my whole day: and not for the better. Now there was Vinnie to worry about.

What was with that look he gave me while Jim was describing the fight? Did he suspect that I was the one Caesar was talking to or was I reading too much into it? If he did suspect, what else did he think we were doing and how did it relate to the uncomfortable exchange with his brother? I left the table more confused than ever.

Scholastically speaking, the eternity that stretched between the end of lunch and the three o'clock bell wasn't the finest of my academic career. The trouble began as I sat down in my fifth period Biology class.

"Maybe I'll call and he won't remember who I am and I can forget that any of this bullshit ever happened," I thought as I picked up a scalpel and began to take out my frustrations on the hapless frog.

Sixth period English Lit rolled around. Maybe and what if had turned into the three most important words in the English language. I forgot everything I ever knew about Hemingway as I began planning exactly what I'd say when I heard his voice.

It was just a little after seven when the course of my life changed forever. That was when I picked up the phone, carried it to my room and slowly dialed the first digit of a number I'd long since committed to memory.

"Well... here goes nothing," I muttered to myself.

After a brief pause, the phone on the other end began to ring. A woman answered after the sixth ring.

"Hola'," she chirped brightly.

"Hi... I mean... hello... Is this Caesar? I mean is Caesar there?"

"Si. Caesar esta' aqui."

We were off to a good start. "May I speak to him please?"

"Who is this?"

"I'm a friend of his."

"He has many friends. Which one are you?"

"Tell him it's Michael," I replied, hoping he didn't know many guys named Michael.

"A moment," she grunted. Her attitude was no longer as cheerful as it'd been when she first answered the phone.

In the ten, maybe fifteen seconds that followed, I heard the sharp rap of high heels on a wood floor followed by a door opening and her voice calling out.

"Caesar! Telefono!"

More time passed, maybe as long as a couple of minutes, before the door at the other end slammed and the sound of running feet could be heard.

"Hi Mike," he said in a voice that was huskier than I remembered.

"Oh... um... hi. We met at..."

"I know who you are. You're the Mike at The Jefferson."

"Uh... yeah. So... uh... how's it going?"

"Things are okay. And you?"

"Okay," I replied flatly and immediately lapsed into silence.

Things were falling apart. I was sure that he thought I was some kind of a 'tard.

"I'm sorry I didn't call before," I blurted out without thinking.

"It's cool. I really didn't think you'd call."

"Oh yeah? Well I did."

There was no longer any doubt in my mind. I had screwed things up beyond repair.

"Well, I'll see ya around."

"Hold on," he laughed. "Is that why you called?"

"Oh... Uh... No. I guess it was just to shoot the shit."

"So shoot. You know I'm not at The Jefferson any more, right?"

"Uh huh. I heard you got into a fight."

"That's an understatement. Brawl is more like it. So what else did you hear?"

"Not much: just that he was accusing you of some stuff."

For a guy who couldn't dance I was doing some pretty fancy footwork. On some level I would have done anything to avoid what I was afraid this was leading to.

"What kind of stuff?" he persisted.

"You know how things are. By the time a rumor's been around the block a few times there's not a lot of truth left to it. Don't sweat it."

"He was being an asshole."

"Listen, Caesar. You don't have to explain. I was there. I know what didn't happen."

"At least your reputation is safe. He thought I was with someone else so you can still go back there with your friends."

"Screw that shit. Are you okay?"

"He's not a very good fighter. I walked away with only a couple of scrapes. I guess this changes everything."

"How's that?"

"It might be dangerous to be seen in the company of an accused pervert."

"Why? Nobody's come to take me away for hanging around Vinnie and the guys."

"So... you want to get together and do something? " "Sure... I mean I guess... yeah."

"When?"

"I dunno. How's Saturday?" I suggested without hesitation.

"I've got to see the family off in the afternoon but the evening's good. You want to come here?"

The prospect of having to explain my way around a mother passed out on the living room sofa wasn't one I relished. Another hurdle had been dodged.

"Sure... Yeah. I'll come there," I said before realizing that I still didn't know where "here" was.

"Okay"

"Are you going to tell me where HERE is?" I asked.

"Will you remember it? You want to write it down?"

"I remembered your phone number, didn't I?"

"One West 72nd Street... at Central Park West. Apartment 6-A."

"That's a pretty ritzy neighborhood. Don't I need shots or a printed invitation or something?"

To me it was obviously meant as a joke but, judging by the silence on the other end of the line, he didn't see the humor: lame as it was.

"Bring a passport but I doubt that anyone will bother you. I have to go. I'll see you about seven."

"Sure. Yeah... seven will be good." I replied.

"Great. Oh... and Michael?"

"What?"

"I'm really glad that you called."

I hung up and breathed a huge sigh of relief. With the worst was behind me I could get down to some serious agonizing. On top of everything else that a guy my age had to worry about, I felt like the guy in the cartoons who kept opening doors and stepping into space without a parachute. The difference was that cartoon characters always survived the plunge.

I've learned a thing or two in the lifetime separating the man that I am with the boy that I was. Two things come to mind in recounting this story. First is the truth that good things come to those who wait. The other is that the worst part of waiting for something to happen is the fear that it won't.

There were so many flies circling around the ointment. What if mom had a relapse and couldn't take care of herself? What if I had a relapse? What if I got there and somebody did bother me? Would my big baby blues and winning smile get me past the front door?

Then there was the matter of what I was going to tell the guys. I could pretend to be sick but it would be my luck that they'd choose that night to drop by to cheer me up only to find me not there. I envisioned mom standing at the door, dressed in her terry cloth robe, bitching to my friends about how I'd gone off and left her on her death bed.

Lying about a girl from another school was out of the question. Vinnie would insist on details like her name and why I'd forgotten to mention her before. Nope. That wouldn't work. That left only one option: the truth. God help me. That was the only solution.

It was Friday before I got around to being honest. We were sitting in the quad basking in the hazy early afternoon sun and Vinnie was going on about the new bill at The Jeff. He was especially enraptured by its being a double dose of Sandra Dee.

"So we'll all meet outside of Mike's house and go from there, okay with you guys?"

The moment of truth had arrived. I cleared my throat and flattened my sweaty palms against my thighs.

"Uh, actually I have plans. You guys'll have to go without me."

In the race to see who could look the most thunderstruck there was no contest. It was Vinnie who took an early lead by treating the news as if I'd just announced my candidacy for Grand Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

"What? But... but... we always do something on Saturday."

"We still are... only not together."

Vinnie stared at the ground. His face darkened with each silent moment that passed.

"I don't get it. We always go to the movies on Saturday," he muttered.

"What's the big deal? I missed last week," I insisted.

"That was different. You were sick. So who is it?"

I didn't like being put on the defensive: especially by somebody who'd have no problem ditching me for the first chick who promised him a hand job and a feel.

"It's the son of a woman my mom works with. They just moved here from Philly... and he doesn't know anybody... and his mom asked my mom if I'd mind showing him around."

"So bring him along," Jim suggested. "We'll help you to get him acquainted."

I shot him a contemptuous glance and took another bite of my fish filet sandwich to kill time while I came up with a response.

"He's shy," I practically blurted out. "Listen, I really don't need your help. I know people I can introduce him to."

Vinnie raised one eyebrow suspiciously.

"What's his name?"

"Why?"

"Just wondering."

"His name's C... Sid. Sidney I guess."

"Sidney. He sounds like a fag. You sure you want to be seen hanging out with a fruit?"

"How do you know he's a fruit?"

"He's got a fruity name, doesn't he?"

It was getting difficult to control my anger. It was mostly out of fear of being sent to the principal's office for fighting that I kept my cool.

"You tell me, Vinnie. You're the one with a feather up his ass about fairy names."

Vinnie started to answer back, then seemed to reconsider. He turned to his brother for back up.

"Ain't I right, Eps? Sidney's a fairy name, right?"

Epifanio shook his head. A lock of hair fell into his big brown eyes.

"No, Vince. You're not right. It's not a fairy name."

Vinnie dismissed his brother with a snort and a disgusted wave. The atmosphere was turning dark and stormy.

"Aw, why am I asking you? You don't know a damned thing."

"I know that you're making a big deal out of nothing," he countered in a soft monotone. "Jesus, if Mike wants to do a guy a favor and hang out with him, let him. The three of us can still go. Hell, if it'll make you shut your damned yap we'll go on Sunday and again on Monday. We'll spend the whole fucking week in the back row smoking cigarettes until we're coughing our lungs out! Just shut the fuck up, will ya?"

Having said his piece, Epifanio withdrew just enough for Vinnie to make up his mind. He could back off or take things to a level that would have gotten all of us thrown into detention for the rest of our lives. Thankfully he made the right decision.

"I guess it won't hurt if you miss one Saturday. Forget I said anything. Just don't make a habit of it. We've got a tradition to uphold. Right?"

I was more than willing to let the whole matter slide, though I wasn't so sure about the tradition part. Still, in the interest of friendship I nodded in agreement. The four of us went back to our lunches acting as if nothing had happened except that Epifanio was still awfully quiet.

It was later, as we cut across the north west corner of the athletic field to the unofficial smoking area, that Epifanio pulled me aside. He looked, I don't know, sad, I guess.

"You called him."

"Yeah: right after I heard what happened."

"I thought you might. Was he surprised? or excited?"

"I don't know. It was hard to tell over the phone."

"Oh... yeah. I guess it would be."

"Yeah... so... like... what's with you and Vince?"

"What do you mean?"

"The way you guys are always one tick away from knocking each other's block off."

"I'm just tired of him pushing me around... telling people what to do... n' stuff."

"He didn't used to get so mad when you don't take his side," I offered. "What happened?"

We were almost there. Epifanio stopped walking and fished a Marlboro out of his inside jacket pocket.

"Everybody thinks there must be something up between me and Vinnie because we're all the time getting into it. Nobody ever asks about what's up with just me. Don't pay any attention to what Epifanio thinks. He'll get over it."

"Hey, come on Eps. I never said..."

"No but you don't listen either," he replied, thoughtfully studying the brown filter of the unlit cigarette.

He rolled it back and forth between his thumb and forefinger and broke it in half. This looked bad.

"I think I'm going to lay off these things. I heard they're bad for you and cause your dick to shrivel up."

I looked around and saw that Vinnie and Jim had already staked out a spot by the fence. They were blowing smoke rings at the clouds.

"You say that like they're two different things," I laughed.

"Maybe they are. You know, I think I'll go walk around by myself. Tell the guys I'll see meet them after school."

"Uh... sure. I'll catch ya..." I started to say but he'd already turned and was walking toward the school building.

Looking back on the moment, there are so many things I wish I'd said or done differently. Shoulda? Woulda?

Saturday arrived, for most, with the threat of rain. Everywhere I looked, people were running around from one place to the next bitching and grumbling about the weather as if a little water could spoil an otherwise glorious day.

For me it wasn't a threat but a promise. I loved the rain. If there hadn't been so much to do, so many chores to be finished and errands to be run, I'd have liked nothing more than to sit at my bedroom window and watch the clouds pike and roll as they came in from the North East.

"Bring it on," I'd say to myself.

Every so often I'd stop whatever I was doing and think about Caesar. I'd wonder what he was doing or if he was as giddy with excitement as I was. Each time I'd decide that nobody could be as excited as I was. Once in a while, like every time the bell at Saint Elizabeth's rang, I'd think of calling him just to make sure nothing had come up. Each time I picked up the phone I'd chicken out.

I was setting myself up for disappointment: there was no question of that. With the times being what they were, he could get cold feet and not answer the door or I could get there and have my own second thoughts. What was to stop me from running for the relative safety of Central Park after dark with a million doubts in hot pursuit.

Why, with an invitation to disaster lurking around every turn, was I so determined to throw caution, and possibly my future, to the wind? The answer came to me as I stepped out of the shower with my sixth roaring hard-on for the day. It was all about sex and nothing more.

Every hour of sleep lost was because of it. Every waking moment spent worry was over it. Every second spent in agony over whether or not I might be a fruit was because of it. Every fantasy, every last boner and woody was about my being sexually attracted to just one guy: not the entire NYU football team.

It didn't mean I was queer. It was just one guy: Caesar. In the process of pulling on a clean pair of shorts I thought of the fantasies I used to have before Caesar moved into my subconscious for an extended visit. Most of them were heroically heterosexual: so staunchly straight that, in retrospect, even I was impressed at how normal I was.

It didn't matter that I wanted to stop and jerk my gherkin whenever his name came to mind. I was whacking off two, three, sometimes four times a day long before I met him. So what if I got an instant penis in erectus when the Lit teacher mentioned Julius Caesar?

For every thought of him naked there was one of Connie Stevens begging me to fuck her pussy while Sandra Dee watched in adoring silence. Each obscene thought of how big his cock might be was eclipsed by one of me sliding my dick between Mamie Van Doren's, or Jayne Mansfield's, tits.

It was only sex and, as I systematically went through every shirt in my closet, the crowd in my crotch meant nothing. Of course I was fascinated. He was nothing more than an unusually good looking guy that I met under unusual circumstances. Who could blame me?

It was only sex that put a rise in my Levis as I entered the 14th Street Station on the second leg of my journey. My dad used to say that a teenage boy is a walking erection with every other thought being of his cock and what to do with it. I sprinted down the stairs to the platform just as the I Train pulled up in a rush of air that smelled like old motor oil and musty terry cloth towels.

"There you go. That's the whole thing in a nut shell," I said to myself as I allowed myself to be carried along with the crowd as it surged forward.

The doors slid closed and the train lurched and the 28th Street Station slipped away. It was only sex. It had nothing to do with the odd feeling I got in the pit of my stomach when I thought of who was waiting at the end of the line.

That was the last thing I remember before slipping into a hormonal coma that held me in its grip until the train was about to enter the 77th Street Station.

"Son of a bitch," I said once I realized I'd overshot my stop and was about to miss another. "Shit," I exclaimed loudly as I raced for the door. "Shit... shit... shit!" I recited like a mantra from between clenched teeth. I encountered a human blockade of slender Puerto Rican women who were every bit as determined to hold down their spots as I was to get past them.

"Excuse me... perdon... coming through... lo lamento mucho... coming through... sorry about that... perdon..."

Nothing worked until, having exhausted my vocabulary of Spanish words that could be repeated in mixed company, I resorted to being obnoxiously pushy. That was something everyone understood.

It was not until I was safely on the platform, watching the train speed away, that I felt as if I'd just run the whole distance from 14th Street to 77th.

"Shit... shit... shit," I repeated, glancing at my watch.

It was 6:37 and I still had five blocks and Central Park to cross. If that wasn't bad enough, there was a shit load of soggy people coming down the stairs.

"This is wonderful... just fucking wonderful," I muttered as I trudged upward toward the street... and the rain.

Anyone with any sense at all would have caught the next train back but not me. In fact it never crossed my mind until I'd run practically the entire distance back and was standing at the intersection of 72nd and Central Park West drenched to the skin.

Nothing could compare with how stupid I felt at the moment I remembered that the trains travel in both directions. I was ten minutes late. In as much as I was standing in a puddle of oily water, it came as no surprise that my shoes squished when I walked.

The rain had plastered my hair so tightly against my skull that I looked like I was wearing a shower cap for the occasion. The annoying trickle of water that had been running down the back of my neck since 74th Street had grown into a rampaging river that flowed under my collar, down my spine and into the seat of my pants.

With all things taken into account, my chances of making a good first impression had plummeted from poor to about zip. Then, just when I thought I was feeling about as low as I could get, I looked across 72nd Street.

"Oh crap," I groaned once I saw the address I was looking for.

To the best of my knowledge, I'd never known anyone who'd been any farther inside the Dakota than the front desk. That was where deliveries were made and, in those days, the people I knew had jobs delivering things. I sure as hell didn't know anyone who lived in the Dakota or anything comparable to it. Rich people and movie stars like Humphry Bogart and Boris Karloff lived there. The closest to notoriety people from my part of town achieved was an occasional mug shot on the post office wall.

I wonder how I ever got the nerve to leave the safety of my puddle and cross the street. Part of me wants to think that it was an innate sense of adventure that motivated me. Another, perhaps more practical part chalks it up to a desire to be out of the rain: even if it was just long enough to be thrown back into it.

I still remember how intimidated I felt standing on the sidewalk beyond the main entrance. There were no cracks in the concrete: no missing chunks in the curb. There were only long stretches of pristine cement that, even if it hadn't been pouring, would have been unmarred by anything so esoteric as chalk hopscotch squares and bubble gum.

A taxi pulled up and a very old lady appeared at the window with a yapping dog tucked under each arm. Within seconds the doorman materialized carrying an enormous black umbrella to escort her to the big arched entry. God forbid something as common as rain water should touch her precious little pooches.

She was no sooner swallowed up by the building than another car appeared. Once again the doorman came to the rescue. All of this took only a few seconds but for someone standing out in the cold without protection against the elements it was like an eternity.

I waited, shivering but determined, for the first break in the action and marched up to the door as if I belonged there.

"May I help you?" the doorman asked with icy disdain from behind the door.

He had a deep rumble of a voice that managed to sound fruity and ominous at the same time: no small accomplishment given his size. He had to have been at least 6'8". Anyway, it dawned on me that my fears were coming true and the son of a bitch wasn't going to let me in without a fight.

"Uh... yeah. I'm here to visit someone in 6A," I replied, practically shouting to make myself heard over the whoosh of traffic at my back.

Was it just my imagination or had everything about the Dakota been designed to keep "us" away from "them"? He gave me the once over and he sure as shit didn't like what he saw.

"The name?"

"Caesar."

"Caesar... what?"

"Look, pal. How many Caesars live in Apartment 6A? Now c'mon. It's wet out here."

"I'll have to call," he announced grandly. "Wait there."

"Where else am I going to wait, Einstein: the middle of the street?" I muttered.

A tiny cloudburst dumped the contents of Central Park Lake on my head. After some thought I came to the realization that the middle of the street was exactly where he'd have preferred I wait. More time dragged by until the doorman poked his head outside.

"He'll be right down."

"Hey. Maybe I could wait in..." I began but it was too late. I was alone again: alone, cold and getting more pissed off by the minute.

My expedition into the unknown had blundered into quicksand and I was sinking fast.

"You've got five minutes and then I'm gone," I said, swiping angrily at a glob of water and snot hanging from my nose.

The door opened three minutes into the countdown and there was Caesar looking every bit as beautiful as he did that night at The Jeff. His hair was wet and slicked back and his white tee shirt stuck to his torso like he'd just come in from the rain.

"Hey. Good to see you could make it."

I remained frozen in place as my shoes slowly filled with the water running down my leg.

"Yeah. Uh... you too. I mean it's good to... uh... Hi."

"So... you coming in?"

My foot broke the suction and I lurched forward. God, I was animal grace incarnate.

"I don't know. I was kinda starting to wonder," I replied.

"That's my fault. I forgot to leave your name at the desk."

I glanced to one side and saw the doorman watching us with disapproval as if I was violating the Dakota's sacred walls with my presence.

"That's okay. Nobody bothered to ask," I responded pointedly. "Sorry I'm late."

"I figured you'd be running late. People always do in the rain." I wasn't going to tell him about missing my stop and running the whole way back. I'd save that bit of information for another time.

"Yeah... I guess... So... Nice place you've got. Lived here long?" I asked looking around the lobby.

"About a year. Come on. I'll show you around."

He led me toward the elevators, indicating another set of doors at the far end of the room.

"Those lead to the courtyard and the other elevator lobbies. We can see it if you want."

Droplets of water scattered everywhere but most landed on the polished wood panels as I shook my head emphatically.

"If it's all the same to you, the only thing I want to see right now is a towel and someplace to warm my butt. Maybe later."

"Oh...sure. Right. What am I thinking?" he replied as the elevator doors parted and we stepped inside.

The little man at the controls looked down at my trail of water, frowned and pulled the gate shut behind us. Caesar nodded and the car began its ascent on well-oiled cables.

"Nice place. Oh... I already said that."

"Yeah you did."

"Wow. So... uh... You actually live here."

"Don't tell me you're surprised.

"No. Well... yeah. A little I guess. Do your Mom and Dad..."

"Work here?" he interrupted. "You think just because they're from Cuba they're part of the staff?"

"No!" I said with self-righteous indignation. "I'm just surprised that..."

"Surprised? Surprised that what? We've only talked twice and you're already making assumptions about me."

"Jeez! Is everybody in this hunk of concrete on the frigging rag tonight? I'm too wet and cold to be assuming anything about anybody except about that ass hole at the door who was making some pretty large assumptions about me. I was about to ask if your parents did a lot of traveling."

"Oh... I guess they do. Why?"

"Don't take it personal, but you said you were dropping them off today and I assumed it wasn't off the top of the Chrysler Building."

"They're sailing for Europe on The Queen Mary. Listen... I'm sorry about jumping down your throat like that," he said with an embarrassed shrug. "I forgot I mentioned anything about that."

Not only were we off to a pretty bad start, but my instincts were telling me that what was said next would have a profound influence on the way the rest of the evening. The elevator came to a bumpy stop.

"May I ask you something without putting my head at risk?"

"Sure."

"What if I had thought that? How could you blame me? I mean if your parents can afford this place, why parade around in a crummy skeleton suit? Why tear tickets at a broken down grind house like The Jefferson?"

"Simple," he replied as we stepped into the hallway. "My Dad owns it. In fact he owns the whole block... along with several others in the East Village."

"That still doesn't explain a damned thing."

"It's a family business that, presumably, I'll inherit someday. Dad's a big believer in nuts and bolts and getting to know everything from the ground up. To make a long story short, he arranged for me to get the job through someone who owed him a favor. Not even the Manager knew who I was. Dad didn't want me to get special treatment and I sure as shit didn't. Come on. We're down the hall to your right."

Someone not accustomed to such genteel digs, someone like me for example, might have described The Dakota as daunting. I knew from the moment I stepped away from the elevator landing to follow Caesar down the long corridor that I was out of my element.

Where were the wide corridors paved with linoleum for roller skating on rainy days? Where were the peanut butter and jelly smears on the walls and how was a guy supposed to read if there wasn't an emergency light bulb he could borrow from the fixture just outside the door?

The halls of The Dakota were narrow, heavily carpeted and dimly lit by crystal fixtures hanging from eighteen foot ceilings. The dark wood paneled walls bore a few dents and scrapes but had never seen a rousing game of handball or absorbed the smells of untold numbers of dinners cooking on the stove.

"Do you ever get the urge to run in the halls?" I whispered.

"People don't run in The Dakota," he replied.

"But what if you have an emergency or need to see someone fast..."

He stopped and turned. Then, as if realizing what I was getting at, smiled.

"I guess you leave a few minutes early."

"The first thing I want to do is get you out of your clothes," he announced as he turned the key and I was ushered inside.

I looked around nervously as the door was shut and locked against the Dakota's drafty halls.

"What's the big hurry?"

"This isn't The Jefferson. We can't have you dripping all over my Mom's carpets. Wait here while I scrounge up something for you to wear.?

It occurred to me as he worked his way down the hall, opening one door after another, that maybe Epifanio had gotten him all wrong and, in turn, so had I. Hadn't his mother said that he had a lot of friends? On the other hand, what mother would admit to her son being a social misfit?

"So... uh... Your Dad must've been pissed when you got canned," I called out while inspecting the gleaming paneling of the tiny foyer.

Receiving no response, I got down on one knee for a closer look. It was real wood: not the cheap Formica crap I was used to. I laughed softly as my attention was drawn to the lamp table. Caesar appeared at my side holding a large terry cloth bath robe.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

"I was just thinking that this table must be worth more than all of the furniture in my whole apartment building."

"I guess so."

"I'm telling you. They don't sell reproductions of this quality at Sears."

His eyes widened. In the subdued light I couldn't tell what was behind the shocked expression.

"How do you know it's not real..." he demanded as if expecting the Designer Police to smash down the door and haul it away.

"The real thing's at the Metropolitan Museum. This is a good copy, though."

Caesar shook his head in amazement. I was pretty sure a point had just been made for my side.

"Mom paid a shit load of money for it when we first moved in and she still swore up and down that it was a steal."

Unaware of the puddle of water collecting at my knee, I peered under the drop leaf like I knew what I was looking for.

"It was if she paid less than two grand."

"Uh oh. You're right. Dad had it appraised. I guess this'll have to be a secret between the three of us. You know what? I wouldn't have guessed you to be the Museum type: not in a million years."

It felt good to have the assumption shoe on the other foot.

"Really? What type would you have guessed me to be? A mechanic? A Janitor?"

"No. You're definitely not the kind who likes to get your hands dirty. I don't know what I assumed, but I assumed wrong. I'm sorry."

"Yeah... well... just watch it, okay? I'm not like anyone you've ever known."

"You wouldn't be puddling all over our hardwood floors if I did," Caesar replied as he tossed the heavy robe over my shoulder.

He got down on his hands and knees to wipe up my mess.

"You can wear that while we put your things in the dryer."

I handed over my jacket and shirt and started to remove my pants.

"Oh yeah? Are we staying in with the help tonight?"

"I gave the help the night off," he replied softly. "It's just us."

"Oh..." I turned toward the wall as I peeled off my dripping wet pants: mostly to hide my erection. The woodwork was polished to such a high gloss that I was sure he could see everything in my reflection.

"I'm dripping all over the floor. Wouldn't it be better if I did this in the bathroom?"

"You're not shy are you?"

"Yeah... I mean Hell no. I mean I guess not... Jesus, I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"I'm sorry because I'm babbling on like a frigging idiot. It usually takes me an hour or more to make a fool of myself."

"If it's of any help, I'm nervous too."

I let my pants drop to the floor and pulled the robe shut but the woody hadn't gone down. If anything, trying to hide had the exact opposite effect. It seemed to make it just that much more noticeable: at least to me. I wasn't sure if Caesar had noticed.

"Really? No shit?"

"Really. Want me to say something stupid to prove it?"

"Don't bother. I believe you."

"I'll say it anyway. I was so excited about seeing you that I thought I was going to barf when I got up this morning."

"I've got you beat. I've been sprouting a stiffie ever since... oh shit. I didn't mean it like that. I'm not... I didn't think we were going to... Fuck! I guess I'm one up on you now."

"Not for long. I've been doing the same thing."

The already tiny entry hall seemed to lose about three feet on all sides, and as the walls began to close in things got very quiet. Things were being said that couldn't be taken back with lame, half-ass explanations. That didn't mean I couldn't give it one last shot.

"I guess that sort of thing's going to happen with a couple of horny guys like us: right? Heh heh... bring on the dancing girls!" I replied with a nervous laugh.

Just call me Mister Smooth Talker. Caesar looked disappointed.

"Oh... yeah. Well I sort of thought we'd just hang out and listen to tunes but if you'd rather go out and..."

"No," I answered emphatically: maybe too much so. "Hanging out's fine. Look, I'm feeling just a little weird standing here wearing somebody else's robe."

"Oh yeah... um... You're still dripping."

I glanced at the floor and blushed. There was no easy way to break the news that I'd removed everything I could and that the dripping had nothing to do with the rain. I made a big show out of drying my legs but my only shot at coming out of this not looking like a pig was to keep moving. Our fingers touched as I handed back the towel.

"So how's about a tour of the place?" I suggested.

Surprisingly, neither of us jerked his hand away.

"A... tour?" he asked as if the question had been posed in a foreign language.

"Yeah... a tour... you know... as in this is the entry hall and over there is the living room and to your left..."

"Oh... sure thing. Just let me throw these in the dryer first. Make yourself comf... I mean..."

He turned and practically ran down the hall.

"Should I follow you?" I called out.

"I'll be right back," he replied over his shoulder. "Feel free to explore if you want."

He was back before I could do too much looking around but the phone rang before the tour could begin. He touched my arm and indicated with a jerk of the head that we'd begin in the room to my right. I nodded and he returned his attention to the caller while I cautiously opened the door.

"Hi Dad... okay... doing... I'm just hanging out. No, it's raining here too. I don't know: about seven I guess... I haven't talked to her today... I'll call her tomorrow... So how's Mom doing?"

I had to laugh at what sounded to me like a typical long distance phone call between a parent and a kid who was doing something he probably shouldn't. I wondered what his Dad would say if he knew I was there and how I was dressed. It was wrong for me to be listening but I just couldn't help myself.

As it was, most of what I heard was so familiar that I could fill in the blanks based on his end of the conversation.

"Yeah Dad. I know... uh huh... I'll call them on Monday... No I won't forget. Dad, there's someone at the door and this is costing you a bundle. I'll be okay. Send Mom my love... gotta go... bye."

Caesar appeared troubled as he entered the living room and closed the door.

"What's bugging you?" I asked once he'd joined me next to the fireplace where a small fire crackled and sputtered.

"It's my parents. They trust me with the day to day operations of their buildings, but they're scared to death of leaving me alone in the apartment."

"But you're not alone."

"That's my point. Don't be surprised if a neighbor drops in to check up on me. Oh well. What do you want to see first?"

The warm air from the fireplace was blowing across my testicles and reawakening my erection. I pulled the robe tighter and stepped away but it was too little too late. The tent remained.

"Surprise me," I replied softly.

As it turned out, Caesar was an out-and-out font of knowledge on the subject of old buildings. Given my appreciation for all things esoteric, it shouldn't have come as a big surprise when I discovered that his nervous rambling was turning me on.

We reached the dining room and I was thinking of ways to draw attention to my state of arousal; the very thing I'd been trying to hide. Finally, in a last ditch effort to get things moving along, I resorted to letting the robe fall open as I stooped down to inspect the section of inlayed hardwood floor Caesar was calling to my attention.

"You can see it down there at the baseboard," he was saying as I got to one knee. "It was back in the forties, I think, when a lot of these old buildings got cut up into smaller units. See the way the walls and floors don't quite match up? Most of the time they'd build a couple of walls down the center of the room and you'd get three small rooms with eighteen foot ceilings... or... d...doors leading n... nowhere."

I didn't have to look up to know what was distracting him to the point that he was forgetting what he was going to say. I smiled as I ran my hand over the molding.

"Yeah I can see what you're talking about."

Caesar cleared his throat.

"Actually The Dakota got off p... pretty easy. Compared to some of the others, the damage isn't too bad. Did you know that The Osborne on 57th Street used to have a mote and the apartments had stained glass windows? " "Uh-uh," I said, getting to my feet. "I didn't know that."

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. The tour continued down a long narrow hall lined with family photographs. Caesar turned around, somewhat abruptly, as we were about to enter a bedroom.

"Did you know that the River House used to have its own boat landing?"

"Didn't know that," I replied shaking my head while straining to see what lay beyond the door.

"And did... did you know that your robe is open... and... that you've got a... Madre de Dios...big fucking boner?"

I crossed my arms nonchalantly and leaned against the wall. Damn I was cool.

"That I knew."

"D... Don't you think you should cover it up?" he asked, taking a step in my direction.

"Do you want me to?"

"Yes," he said shaking his head slowly from side to side.

"Make up your mind. I can't keep it hard like this all night."

I couldn't believe this was coming from me. Caesar moved another step forward.

"I'll bet you could with the right encouragement," he replied in a low, husky voice.

He placed a trembling hand on my naked chest. I remember thinking to myself that we were going to do it. It was really going to happen.

"We really shouldn't be doing this," he whispered.

Now there was no turning back. I placed my hand over his and moved it down until it was resting on my stomach.

"Maybe you're right. Let's finish the tour. What's in the room behind you?"

He blinked and looked taken aback but he didn't remove his hand.

"That's... uh... my bedroom... but you don't want to see that... do you?"

"Yeah...I do."

"You're sure... I mean it's..."

It was at exactly 7:37 that my patience officially ran out. The weeks of agonizing and worrying had taken their toll and it was time for action.

I grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back against the wall: not so hard as to scare the shit out of him but hard enough that he knew that I wasn't horsing around.

"No more games. Are we going to do this or not?"

A mist of fear, and maybe a little anger at being manhandled, darkened his face. It was only for an instant and when it was gone his whole face seemed to light up.

"You bet your sweet ass we are."

He twisted from out of my grasp, took me by the hand and led me into the dimly let bedroom. We stopped at the foot of the bed. Outside, the rain continued its steady barrage, pelting the big windows with drops of cold molten glass.

"What do we do now?" I asked with absolute sincerity.

He stretched languidly. Looking me directly in the eyes, he scratched his balls.

"I think I run to the closet and put on every piece of clothing I can find. Then you get dressed and we roll around on the floor and talk dirty until one of us shoots his load and then you go home. You've done this with girls, haven't you?"

"I've never really gone past a hand job," I muttered. "I guess it's the same."

"I guess it is," Caesar replied following an awkward pause.

"So I'm supposed to kiss you?"

"I don't think it's mandatory but you can... if you want to."

"Should I undress you first?"

He glanced at the robe on the floor and nodded. "Since you're already naked it would probably be easier that way."

A cold wind was blowing in from the East River. It beat at the thick outer walls of the Dakota searching for a way in. Call it the musings of a hormone crazed adolescent about to lose his virginity, but I could have sworn I could hear it rattling the sashes as I undid the top button of Caesar's jeans.

Call it anything you feel is appropriate but by the time his shirt had dropped to the floor and he was standing naked before me, I'd have sworn I heard the wind howling in the pediments.

I think my own life altering moment came when I held Caesar in my arms and kissed him. For the first time in my, then, young life I knew what I wanted. The kiss was probably more awkward and badly executed than I remember, but it felt like a complete man.

I'd seen guys in the shower room after gym class that had more muscular bodies, but there was always an imperfection. If it wasn't arms that were too short, it was legs that were too long or it was shoulders covered with zits.

Not so with Caesar who seemed to have dodged the booby traps of adolescence. The body pressed tightly against mine was as flawless as his pale skin. Add to that the high cheekbones, full sensual lips and huge brown eyes that burrowed into my soul when he looked at me and he was in a class by himself.

It was during one of those lingering kisses that my hands found their way down his back to his ass. It was a real guy's ass and I liked the way it yielded without getting all soft and squishy like a girl's. It was Caesar who broke the kiss.

"That feels nice," he said tightening his grip around my waist.

"What does?" I asked, taking his rigid cock into my hand.

"The way you're touching me. So... you want to get on the bed?"

"The... the b... bed..." I repeated stupidly.

"Yeah... that thing next to your right leg. You want to take this to the sheets?"

I was being dragged down before I had a chance to respond one way or the other.

"You're shivering," he whispered. "We can get under the covers if you're cold."

My right hand wandered lazily up and down his back while the left tightened its grip on his butt.

"I'm fine. I don't want to miss anything."

"Don't worry about that," Caesar replied with a soft laugh. "You won't miss a thing."

Starting at my throat, he progressed to my shoulders and, surprisingly, my armpits. The pits came as somewhat of a shock. I'd never heard anyone say anything about that, yet there he was and there I was liking it a whole lot: especially when he buried his nose in the tangle of hair and blew softly.

What amazed me the most was the ease with which he moved from one thing to the next and always at exactly the right moment. If I needed a break from having my pits licked, he'd move on to my right nipple where he gently sucked it to erection.

Then he'd move to the right side while keeping the other one hard with his thumb and forefinger.

"Oh God," I rasped. "That's so... Oh man."

"So you like having your nipples worked over, huh?" he whispered.

"Nobody ever sucked there before."

"I think nobody's ever done what I'm going to do to you," he replied as casually as if announcing that he was going for a walk.

He went back to turning me inside out and I was left to wonder what else he had planned for me. I didn't have to wonder for very long. The sound of the rain beating I closed my eyes, availing my body to whatever he had in mind, and smiled knowing I could add the sound of rain to the growing list of things that gave me a boner.

Caesar followed the treasure trail downward to where it ended in a tangle of pubic hair.

"He's gonna do it. He?s gonna suck my cock." I thought to myself as I watched the top of his head move closer to my prick.

I know it's a clich,', but time really did seem to stand still while I waited impatiently for him to make a move.

"Is something wrong?" I asked. My voice sounded thin, raspy and edgy after holding my breath for so long.

"Uh-uh. I was just looking at your cock and balls. They're nice."

"Oh..."

"Don't be so impatient. You'll get what you want."

"I was just wondering."

"This is my first time too. I want to always remember them like they are right now."

Why anyone would want to remember a pair of blue balls and a cock that was leaking pre-cum like a son-of-a-bitch was beyond my understanding.

"Knock yourself out," I whispered, though grudgingly.

I'd about convinced myself that I really was the center of the universe when I began to see stars. I looked down just as my cock disappeared into his mouth for a second time and damned near passed out from the enormity of what I was seeing. It was happening at last.

"Damn that feels good," I rasped. "Don't stop sucking that cock. God your mouth is so fucking hot.

I rested my hands on back of his head and applied just enough pressure to convey the message that study time was over.

Aside from a couple of close calls with the dread gag reflex as he tested his limits, Caesar was a born cock sucker. Gradually the poking and prodding of his fingers became more insistent. As his confidence grew, so did his sense of adventure. He began using his tongue and the near misses with his front teeth all but disappeared and all was right with the world.

"You ready?" I heard a distant voice ask.

"Ready for what?"

"You want to try it... You don't have to if you don't want to." Unlike the one raging outside, the storm in my brain subsided enough that I was able to form rational, albeit disjointed thoughts.

"Fer chrissake," I snapped impatiently. "What the hell are you talking about? Try what?"

"Sucking my cock."

I didn't have to give it a second thought. If sucking my dick was giving him such a charge, there was no way I was going to miss out on the fun.

"Sure thing," I replied.

Caesar shook his head and placed his hand on my belly as I moved to get up.

"There's no need for that," he said while shifting his position. "I saw this in a book once. It's called the 69 position."

Suddenly his crotch was in my face, his hard uncut dick so close to my nose that I could smell its musky scent.

"Damn that's a nice looking pecker," I whispered though at first it seemed strange having another guy's cock and balls up close like.

I felt no compunction about taking the plunge. I simply grabbed it around the base and popped it into my mouth like I was one of those cock suckers down at the wharf who'd been chowing down on dicks all of his life.

Too late, I realized I hadn't been following the action between my legs quite as closely as I should have. I don't know why but it made more sense for me to simply lay there with his dick resting in my mouth than to ask for instructions and look like a fool in the eyes of someone I'd been trying to impress.

"Something wrong?" I heard him ask from the other end of the bed.

"Muffing at awl," I managed to reply: no small task given the size of the dick filling my mouth at the time. So much for adolescent coolness.

Caesar was a lot more understanding than I might have been had the situation been reversed.

"Do it like this," he whispered without a trace of reproach.

My dick slid easily between his lips but this time I was determined to pay close attention to everything he did. Not surprisingly, my resolve faltered once he tightened his lips around its swollen head and began to work his magic up and down the length of the shaft.

"Nothing to it," I thought as I set out to copy every nuance of his technique. Before long I was throwing myself into it with more enthusiasm than I'd ever dreamed of.

"Oh yeah. That's it," he whispered in a soft exhale of breath. "Now you've got it. God it feels so good, Papi."

My adolescent fantasies were history. I had one finger crammed up the butt hole of a beautiful man who was licking my churning balls and making me a very happy camper.

I still don't remember making a conscious decision to put it in there. It just seemed to find its way in as a natural extension of what we were doing. I wasn't especially comfortable poking around his bung hole, but Caesar took to it immediately.

"You want to fuck me?" he whispered. ?I want you to. I want you to put that big cock up my tight ass.?

"Gosh I don't know. Shouldn't we... I mean I've never..."

"You think I have?" he asked impatiently. "Come on... put your cock in and fuck the hell out of me."

"But what if it hurts?" I asked thinking of the rectal thermometers of my childhood.

"Let me worry about that. I want your big pinga inside me."

"But your hole... It's so small," I said, now acutely aware of the tightness around my finger.

"It's supposed to be small," Caesar replied, pressing my dick against his cheek. "I trust you to be gentle."

"Sure you don't want to jack off first?"

He slid up toward the headboard and positioned himself on my chest so his prick was resting on the tip of my nose. He smelled like Lifebouy soap.

"No, I don't want to jack off first. I've wanted you to be the one since the night that I first saw you at the theatre. I've fantasized about it while I was awake and dreamed about it at night and I don't want to give it any more thought than I've already given it."

"No shit? You really dreamed about me?"

Caesar grinned as he reached back and squeezed my rock hard dick.

"Yeah... except that in my dreams you didn't give me any grief about it."

"Hey it's your funeral."

It was a piss poor choice of words that I regretted from the moment I said them. On the other hand, we were about to do something that had all the trappings of a major disaster.

"So... uh... what am I supposed to do first?

"I think there's a jar of Vaseline in the bathroom," he said as he vaulted from the bed and trotted across the room. "I don't want to take that monster dry."

Once he'd left the room, I made a brief inspection of "the monster" and smiled. While most guys liked to at least think themselves to be hung, I really was: though not in the sense that they talked about in dirty dime novels. Sure there were a few guys who had a monster cock as big as a ten pound salami, but they were always black and their pictures were in cheaply printed magazines that you bought, at five pounds for a dollar, by mail.

At a thick healthy eight, mine was nowhere close to that but apparently he saw it as being large enough to hurt like a son of a bitch without something to help it along. Hearing that was good for my ego.

Caesar uttered a whoop of triumph when he returned a short while later, the familiar jar with the blue label held high over his head like a trophy. He sprinted across the room and flung himself on the bed between my legs, briefly engulfing my rigid cock with his warm mouth.

"Damn," he said once I was seeing stars and on the verge of blowing my load. "If I'd known that sucking dick was going to be this much fun, I'd never have..."

The sentence went unfinished and was, in the heat of the moment, put aside until I could ask him to elaborate. A troubled expression clouded his face as he rested his head on my thigh and idly flicked his tongue at my hairy ball sack as if contemplating what to do next... or a dark secret like how he was going to finish that sentence.

"I've never touched a guy's hair before," I murmured while running my fingers through his hair and marveled at how soft it was.

"So... uh... are we going to do it?"

"That's a unique segue: from hair to fucking," he replied, unscrewing the lid as he repositioned himself.

His eyes were locked on mine while he scooped out a big glob of the thick oily jelly and spread it along the entire length of my rock solid cock.

"Yeah we're going to do it. You're going to fuck the cum right out of my balls. Then I'm going to drain you dry. How's that sound?"

When put in those terms, how could I not have responded the way I did? I nodded enthusiastically while my cock jumped and twitched in his hand. Why I didn't shoot my wad right then and there I'll never know.

"I like it when you talk like that," I rasped.

"Like what?" he asked as if he didn't know. Hell, he was trying to draw me out.

"Dirty... like the way Ep..."

He shook his head and placed a silencing finger on my lips.

"Uh-uh. I'm the one with the cock up his ass. Tonight's about just you and me. Okay?"

"Sure... that's fine... Sorry."

"Don't be sorry," he replied. "Just... don't... move."

Caesar's perfectly chiseled features shifted into a mask of intense concentration as he lowered himself toward my greasy dick. His dark eyes were totally void of expression as he stared deeply into mine: not blinking... not even registering so much as a flicker of pain when my blood engorged cock disappeared into his anus in one swift movement that left me breathless.

"Jeez-zus," I screamed. "My fucking cock is inside you."

The hot, moist walls of his rectum closed tightly around my shaft. I was afraid to move in fear that I'd pop my load too soon.

"Oh my God! I'm fucking your ass."

"Yeah... I know," Caesar replied after taking a couple of deep breaths in rapid succession. "Give me a minute to relax."

The pain in his eyes belied the calmness of his voice and I began to wonder why on earth anyone would put himself through being on the receiving end.

"Okay...now. Push your big cock all the way inside me. Fuck me; breed my ass.

"God, your hole...it's...it's so hot," I panted.

"You like fucking my ass, big man?" Caesar demanded.

"Fuck yeah. I'm gonna fuck your ass hard," I growled as my cock swelled inside him.

I pushed my rigid pole upward, grinding it inside his hot hole until it tightened around the base of my cock as if to hold me there.

Caesar bounced and squirmed on my dick, gradually picking up speed: his hard pole bouncing up and down, slapping loudly on my abdomen.

"Oh God," he cried out. "That feels so good, Mike."

I released my grip on the sheets and grabbed his hot, throbbing cock and began jerking him off. Caesar closed his eyes and let his head fall back.

"Don't make me cum yet," he whispered as he disengaged. "I want to try something else.

Caesar flipped over on his back and spread his legs wide. This time I needed no further encouragement. I centered my cock head on his ravaged hole and rammed it deep inside until my balls slapped against his butt.

"Take my cock, Caesar," I grunted. "Take it all the way"

"Oh fuck yeah," he replied with a dreamy look in his eyes. "Ram it in there. Use my hole. Fuck me hard."

I looked down into his beautiful eyes, in love with the moment, and complied. I didn't want to stop, and the deeper and harder I thrust, the more determined I was to make it last.

Sweat poured down my body, on to Caesars flat stomach and on to the sheets where it mixed with his in a soggy tangle of sheets. For that moment in time there was only the sound of our young bodies slapping together in counterpoint to the rain pounding against the windows.

"Suck this," Caesar demanded as he stuck his middle finger in my mouth. "Get it good and wet."

Not thinking to question what he had in mind, I spread his legs wide and redoubled my thrusts. The world at that moment began and ended with the tight hole that was receiving my punishing cock.

I was vaguely aware of something prodding my virgin hole, but I was too far gone to raise an objection. It made its way in, slowly, until the walls began to relax.

"Fuck yeah. Finger fuck my hole," I grunted.

Caesar's eyes flew open and his breathing became rapid. At the same time, I felt a tightening in my balls.

"Fuck me hard, Michael," he cried. I'm gonna cum. Jack me off."

I spit in my hand and wrapped my long fingers around his throbbing pole. Caesar's head whipped from side to side.

"Cum for me," I demanded. "Shoot that load."

"I'm cumming," he screamed. "I'm going to fucking shoot."

As if on cue, his cock released a torrent of pure white cum into the air and on to his chest until he grabbed my hand, urging me to stop. He opened his eyes and stared lovingly into mine.

"Now you," he said with a grin. "It's your turn to cum."

He stopped me as a positioned myself to pull out. Shaking his head, he grasped my butt cheeks and pulled me tighter.

"No. I want you to cum in my ass. Give me your load."

My balls immediately tightened and my legs began to shake. Grasping his shoulders for traction, I pulled myself tightly into his still trembling body.

"Motherfucking hell," I growled gutturally.

My balls released their load, and two months of agonizing, deep into his abused butt hole. I continued pounding his ass until there was no more to give up. Then slowly, with great care, I pulled out and rolled over on my side.

"That was fucking wonderful," I whispered.

Caesar propped himself up on his elbow. He leaned over and kissed me with more passion than I would have thought a eightteen year old was capable of.

"We have all night," he replied with a gentle smile that promised so much more.

That was how it all started. In the month following that stormy night at The Dakota Caesar and I spent a lot of time together: at least three nights a week and sometimes more. I suppose you could call it an affair.

Mom didn't care and my friends assumed I'd found the perfect girl: big tits, no morals and absent parents. Only Epifanio knew what was really going on but he never said a word about it: even when it was just the two of us.

While I was happy, it was clear that Caesar wasn't. He tried to hide it but sometimes I'd catch him staring at me with a faraway look in his eyes. He always made a joke of it but I knew that something was wrong and somehow I was to blame.

I don't remember how the subject came up, but we were sitting in the Dakota's central courtyard watching the clouds as they drifted across the big blue square over our heads. It was Saturday morning and we'd just spent the night fucking like there was no tomorrow. Since his parents were due back the next day, I foolishly assumed that to be the cause.

"What's bugging you?" I asked, not expecting or wanting a reply.

"Have you ever thought of what might be waiting for us?"

"Waiting?"

"Yeah... in the future."

"I guess I thought I'd move in here with you. Of course my Mom would have to..."

"I'm serious, Michael.?

"Uh-oh. You only call me that when I've done something wrong."

He smiled as he ran his fingers through the still water of the fountain. His eyes filled with tears as he shook his head.

"No. You haven't done anything wrong. I'm the one who fucked up."

"Hey, if it's about getting tickets for Ben Hur," I began.

"I didn't try to get them."

"What?"

"I said I didn't try."

"Oh. Well the lines at The State are pretty long. Maybe I can..."

"It had nothing to do with the lines at The State. I haven't been completely... on the level with you."

"Oh yeah? How's that?"

"Have I ever told you about Gina?"

I thought about it for a minute. Nothing came to mind.

"Nope."

"I should have. Ya see, Gina's my... fianc,. We're getting married."

My throat went bone dry. My eyes began to water.

"When?"

"In June. I'm not sure about the date."

"No. I meant... when were you planning to tell me?"

"I thought I wouldn't have to."

"Why not?"

"I figured we'd get together a time or two and fuck and I'd get it out of my system and you'd forget all about me and there'd be no harm done."

"You figured all of that out, huh? All by yourself."

"I guess I figured wrong," he replied sheepishly.

"You sure as shit did. So did you? Get it out of your system?"

"No," he whispered. "I didn't."

"Then why get married?"

"I have no choice. You don't know how it is, Michael. Cubans are funny about... that... sort of thing."

"Yeah, funny. S'a fucking laugh riot," I whispered.

"I'm sorry you're mad."

As much as I wanted to haul off and sock him in the nose, I couldn't bring myself to raise a finger any more than I could raise my voice. I was numb, hurt and more confused than I'd ever been in my life.

"I'm not mad. I just don't know what I'm going to do now."

Caesar wiped a tear from his eye. Now we were both crying.

"It's not like we ever had a chance. I mean what kind of future would we have?"

"None... I guess."

"None... absolutely. You'll be going off to college soon."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Only that you won't have the time to sneak around," he replied slowly and deliberately. "You'll meet all kinds of people and I'll start to look pretty dull."

"You don't have a very high opinion of yourself, do you?"

"Not when it comes to... this."

"Jeez. Would you listen to us? We actually sound like we know which end is up."

"Yeah... almost like adults."

Both of us laughed a little but the conversation sort of petered out from there. We sat for a long time with me mostly staring off into space.

Neither of us wanted to be the one to say the words that had to be said to break the uncomfortable silence that hung over the courtyard. It was a silence as dark as the shadows that surrounded us.

"I guess I should... you know. I guess..." Caesar began haltingly, though I knew what he was trying to say.

"I... I left my jacket upstairs," I muttered as I got to my feet and took one last look at a world I figured I'd never see again.

It seemed inappropriate to walk any closer than arm's distance as we started across the patch of browning grass.

"You want to do it one last time?" he asked once we'd reached the elevator landing.

"One for the road for old time's sake? I don't think that's such a hot idea."

"I suppose you're right," Caesar replied, still on the verge of tears.

Everything, from the hum of old metal gears to the gentle creak of the walls grated on my nerves as we rode the little wooden box to the sixth floor. Each breath felt as if someone was sitting on my chest, bouncing up and down daring me to cry.

"I'll wait out here," I said once the car came to a shuddering stop and we started down the long narrow hall.

"It's on the foot of the bed."

Although I pointedly kept my back pressed tightly against the wall once we arrived at his apartment, I don't think I ever wanted anything as much as I wanted to follow him inside. Then I remembered the first time I saw him opening the door and I knew it would only make it more difficult. Better a clean break than a messy parting of the ways.

An elderly couple crept slowly down the hall on their way to the elevator. Their smiles as they passed me were tentative and fearful. The tiny old woman clutched her purse tightly to her chest. I wondered if they'd still be afraid of me if they knew why I looked so unhappy. Caesar appeared a short while later looking every bit as miserable as I felt.

"Sorry I took so long," he said handing over my jacket. "There was a phone call from... That's not important."

I wasn't sure if I should nod or shake my head in agreement, so I just stared at a small threadbare spot in the carpet.

"Well, I guess I'd better hit the road. Th... thanks for..."

My words died in my throat. Thanks for what? Thanks for a great time? Thanks for a hot fuck? Thanks for making me see what I was really like inside? What should I thank him for other than breaking my heart? Then I remembered what had brought us together in the first place.

"Thanks for the seats," I said as I turned to walk away.

"Don't mention it," he replied and quietly shut the door at my back.

It was just before eight when I slapped my two bits down on The Jeff's marble ticket counter. There was a new guy at the door but I didn't pay any more attention to him than I did to the countless guys that preceded him. It was back to business as usual. I raced up the stairs to the balcony and found the guys just where I hoped they'd be: in the top row smoking cigarettes.

"You guys have room for one more?" I asked as I made my way down the narrow row.

"Well lookit who's here," Vinnie called out.

"What happened?" Jim added. "She throw you over for a bigger dick?"

"No," I replied as I kicked his legs out of the way. "Your name never came up. So what's the movie?"

"The Giant Gila Monster and Teenagers From Space," Epifanio replied, eyeing me suspiciously.

"So really. What happened?" Vinnie asked.

"She's... uh... getting married," I replied as I draped my long legs over the row in front of us.

"For real?" Epifanio exclaimed.

"Aww. That's so cute," Vinnie added. "Our little boy's slipping the bone to an almost married woman."

I was in no mood to be explaining anything. They could think what they wanted.

"Get bent," I snapped as a tear came to my eye.

Epifanio, who always noticed such things, patted my shoulder in an unspoken gesture of friendship.

"You want a smoke?" he asked.

I started to refuse, then remembered that it no longer mattered that Caesar didn't like it when I did.

"Thanks," I said as I lit up and blew a smoke ring at the throw of light from the noisy old projector.

********************************************************************** EPILOG ***********************************************************************

Our little group sort of broke up once we were out of High School. It's funny how lives that'd been so intertwined can suddenly go off on such divergent roads when faced with the realities of the real world.

Vinnie got drafted almost the day after he got his diploma. While stationed in Germany he met and fell in love with a pretty, albeit hefty, woman with enormous tits and returned stateside a changed man. They've got three kids and a thriving accounting business in Miami.

Jim made an unsuccessful run at college followed by a more successful run for the Canadian border when higher education proved not to be his strong suit. The last I heard, he'd slipped back into the states back in 1986 and is living under an assumed name in Missouri.

Epifanio wasn't so lucky. He had what they euphemistically called an episode in 1961. Without Vinnie and me there to take his side, he spent some time in the state hospital where they did more damage than good.

After his release he kicked around the old neighborhood for a while doing odd jobs before disappearing into the heart of the city. In spite of his parent's frantic efforts to track him down he stayed lost for almost five years. It might have been longer, maybe even forever, if I hadn't thought to search the alleys and dives around 42nd Street.

I found him turning tricks out of a seedy little hole in the wall bar where he'd blow anyone with the money for a beer. The years of heroin had made him virtually unrecognizable.

As for me, there's not that much to tell. Afraid that I'd run into Caesar and reopen old wounds, I left town right after graduation and kicked around while trying to find myself. Eventually I ended up in California where I went back to school and got my degree.

I would try to get home to see mom whenever possible, but the years of drinking made her more and more difficult to deal with. Eventually I just said, "fuck it" and never went back until she died. It was during what was going to be my very last visit to the old neighborhood that I got a glimpse of Caesar.

He was standing outside The Jefferson and looked every bit the landlord as he inspected some recent concrete work outside the box office. Married life had padded his beautiful body somewhat and he'd taken to smoking cigars but the face was just as I remembered it. I crossed the street before he recognized me. I haven't seen him since.

They tore The Jefferson Theatre down in 1997 after allowing it to sit forgotten and desolate: a grime encrusted dowager with pigeon droppings in her eyes. When the end came, the coat of cheap white paint covering her cracked and weathered terra cotta skin did nothing to hide the multitude of sins that time had committed against her.

I heard somewhere that the Jeff had been a major Vaudeville house and that a lot of famous people had polished their acts on its stage on their way to Broadway. Of course it was a much different neighborhood in those days. I don't remember where I heard that or why.

To those of us who spent our Saturday nights smoking cigarettes in the balcony, the Three Muses that cavorted across the ceiling over the proscenium were just three dusty half naked, smoke-stained chicks.

Maybe it was a blessing in disguise when the urban demolitionists descended with fleets of roaring bulldozers and good intentions and rescued her from her ignominy.

Perhaps she breathed a final sigh of relief when her stained glass windows exploded in a pastel deluge on to the twisted remains of her once glorious marquee.

One last thing. It turns out that Loopy Louie was telling the truth after all. They found some human bones when they tore up the street outside of what used to be Field's Bakery. That was sometime in the 80's and Louie, along with everyone who'd heard his story, was long gone. I like to think that somewhere, he was smiling when they made the discovery.

The handsome Italian man put down the manuscript and brushed a strand of thick black hair, flecked with gray, from his big brown eyes and nodded appreciatively.

"I think I'd rather you not include the part about me doing blow jobs for beers," he said with a smile.

His friend and lover of almost forty years pushed back from his computer. He stretched his long legs and yawned.

"Warts and all, nobody escapes unscathed," he said matter-of-factly.

"I guess you're right but did you have to mention how I pissed in my pants?"

"Absolutely. If we hadn't left early and had that talk, who knows where we'd be today?

The tall blonde man lovingly touched his shoulder. He smiled and kissed his ear.

"Well, Eps, it's late and I have a class tomorrow. Let's get to bed."