Heat
Dead hungry in the shower, I looked down and my gleaming clean penis and was thankful. Thankful that Tony had a shower at all, that he would stay home sick from school for me, just to open the door, to let me in while his mom was at work. He had told me before that he could just act like it was a spend-the-night but no, I wouldn’t let him. She might know my face I said. Even though it was over a month since it had been in the paper. Still. Still.
He had talked to me while I showered. While I rubbed his mother’s pink soap on my chest, rinsed it off. I noticed that he still had his bandana on. Saw it through the shower’s blur-curtain. I guessed he didn’t want the whole thing to seem too weird, to take off any articles of clothing while he was in the bathroom with me, leaning against the sink.
We went downstairs after and ate out of his well stocked pantry. Stirred some noodles on the stove, threw in the ground beef to kind of cook in the churning water. We ate the shit up together, sat at his kitchen table.
He tried to ask me why I had done what I had done. I looked down to a place mat and breathed out like a snorting horse. I asked what he meant.
“With the dog and all. It’s true, right?”
I noticed how greasy and black his hair was. How his eyes pressed to near his nose, as if berries on a twig. I didn’t answer.
“I mean, I understand. If you were cold and all. It was the middle of February. I just don’t know why it was such a big deal. I think you’re right to run.”
I turned over my bowl of noodles and walked to the front door.
I left and went to the gas station to try and get someone to buy me some booze. It was the first time I’d tried since they had put my picture out. It was the first time I’d been back in town. I thought that it was early enough in the day for me to get away with it. All of my mom’s friends were at work.
I felt relieved, standing at the brick wall next to my backpack on the far side of the station where the attendant couldn’t see me. It was the first time I had been this clean while standing outside of a gas station. I had spent three weeks smelling like crotch every morning after a fitful sleep in my overstuffed sleeping bag.
I kept trying, but no one would buy for me. Kept telling me that I looked old enough, that if I was too embarrassed to buy this early, that they weren’t going to help me out.
Sidewalk. I trekked back over to the other side of town, where no one knew me, and walked on down the street. Shuddered as I saw open fences, metal chairs on porches with no one in them. I heard an argument pouring out of one of them. I saw no one else outside in the neighborhood, so I sneaked up into the tall grass in front of their living room window and peeked in, only eyes visible.
The woman inside was screaming in dizzying circles around a man crouched over a desk, writing furiously. She screamed that she had told him of her affair more than three hours ago, and that he still hadn’t said a word to her. He just sat there writing furiously. She wanted to know what he was writing. She smashed a lamp. She wanted to know now. She said she hated the way he always did this, compacted every situation down into words. Hated the way he made it just words, not what it was. I pulled my oversized jacket tighter around me.
He kept writing. She started picking up the pieces of the lamp. He stopped, said ‘fine’. No apparent reason. He scribbled something on a new piece of paper and flung it at her. It had little dramatic effect, kind of floated then hurled itself in the wrong direction so that it hit the glass on the front window and settled down over my face. I could see the word written on it. ‘SEX’ in all caps.
I ducked down under the browned grass and heard her pick it up. ‘That’s all it was,’ he yelled. ‘that right there, that’s all you had. How can I care about that? How’ I heard her fumbling with the paper.
‘That right there, is most certainly not what I had,’ she said, teeth clenched audibly. I crawled away slowly, unseen. I got to the walk and hoisted my backpack up. The front glass shook behind me with the very force of suddenness.
Later, I met a man.
*
Eyes? Yeah, he had em. Eyes like gerbil's, two dark globes, too small.
No, maybe not. Maybe more like a wolf's. Well, at least his face was like a wolf's, covered with a thin fur like moldy velvet. Yeah, just like it. I kind of wish I had petted it now, in retrospect. Kind of.
But I know in the moment, it wouldn't have been possible. As close as his face was to mine, as much of his spit was on me, he didn't mean it like that. Didn't want me to touch him, I was sure.
He was up on the hill, the one that rose up like a one of those Indian mounds, right where the old dump used to be. Was probably one of those artificial ones, three inches of rolled grass over tons of trash, what would be dirt soon enough. I swear I heard it scrunch as I climbed up the hill, when I could just make out his head. Saw the light disappearing into his dark eyes, again: all black, all pupil like gerbil-wolf.
The hill stood against the side of the highway, the train yard right down the hill behind us. Tony had told me that this guy would be here. Said he used to see him all the time when him and his friends came to paint the trains. He was supposed to help me. Tony said this guy’d been living out on the streets for decades, he had to be able to help me. Help me do it as long as I needed to.
Binoculars swung from his neck, some prize from a happy meal. He wore a beige baseball cap, molded somehow into a safari style, one button on top, rim all around. I had no clue how he did it.
He told me he had found God, after a second. That he was with him, in his pocket. Said that God had given him the sight. Yeah, the sight, a specific thing, not just the gift of eyes. To my surprise, he tapped the binoculars around his neck. Said they helped him look out for the people that would take it from him. God. He reached in his pants pocket and took out a crack pipe. It stunk like burnt hairspray, seemed to eat through his hand as he held it. Said that it was his secret, but he would share it with me if I wanted it. Said that that was the thing they didn't want you to know. I asked what that was. That it lets you see God, he snarled. That's why they don't want you to use it. It takes your brain and leaves God. You can do whatever you want when you’ve got God, he said, but you still gotta look out. He patted his binoculars again. ‘Cause more than anything, they want to take God from you. They want to strap you down and drain Him out of your ear, make you forget what He let you know.
I didn't want to laugh. I wondered for a second if it were real. If he could be right. I looked over the highway, at the smatter of little headlights. I asked him about dogs. He looked at me like I was crazy. I tried again.
“No really, have you ever had one?”
He shook his head.
“They’re worthless, really. I mean, they can be fun and all, but when you need to use them, you should be able to.”
He licked his hard lips and, still looking at me, slowly picked his binoculars up, put them to his eyes and looked me over with them. “I don’t know whatchu mean, but you ain’t got God.”
I tried to remain still, as if it would help him finish his exam quicker. “I got God. I got God for sure,” I steamed out against the cold, patting my chest. “It’s just- I don’t think it’s all that big a deal. I had to-“
“What’s not? God?”
“No, the dog! The dog!”
His gerbil eyes reappeared, binoculars left dangling.
“Hrm, the dog, eh? The Dog?”
I nodded.
“Yer that boy, aincha?”
“That boy?”
“Yeah, one they found curled up in that dog over in that woman’s backyard.” His pale mouth was open, face tightening and rumpling skin. “Shit, I heard bout you. ‘said you was walkin all around in that dog, passed out in the snow right under her back porch. Man, might not have been big shit if it wasn’t a show dog. With fucking papers.”
I stayed still. Fucking gerbil eyed man living out on the edge, brain half gone, there was fucking snow outside. There was fucking snow. That thing had heat. Had steam all in it, kept it hidden with fucking fur, with papers, with wax skin, letters, teeth, whatever. I just needed that steam. I couldn’t go back home. Not with fucking dad there. God, he had more steam than anyone. Could’ve lived for weeks outside if I had him. But, I thought, I wouldn’t be outside at all if it wasn’t for him. That dog was ignorant, carried around heat and didn’t even know it, didn’t care. Shit, dog’s are there for us, I needed it. Shit.
He was staring into my open mouth, I had been about to speak. I closed it, and restarted, uncomfortable. Didn’t know what he saw in there.
“She shouldn’t have put it outside in that cold if it was a show dog,” I sat down. “Anyway, a dog is a dog is a dog. I had to fucking get that heat. Dogs don’t matter. It was the only heat I could have. Sorry if it was in a dog. Heats always been hard for me to get. Always on legs or in someone else, never on me.” I stopped myself and looked at him. His binoculars were back up. “and after that shit came out in the papers, wasn’t no way I was going home. No way I could go see Dad after that.” I could smell the trash now. Saw a dented spot where the gerbil man was sitting, all crunched down.
“Where’s yer heat now? “ He asked slowly, suspiciously.
“Right here in this coat,” I jerked at one side with my good hand. “I still got some in here.” I patted a guilty pocket. “I- I just ain’t got any heat of my own. I gotta take it all, always gotta steal that heat. Can’t help it. I mean, dog’s just a word, right? A word that’s got heat in it. That’s all it is.”
The cars tumbled by beside us. He kept his binoculars as his eyes, kept their lenses against me.
“You ain’t got God at all,” he started, mouth opening and closing like the flap at the top of a semi truck’s exhaust. “And you got it wrong. That dog wasn’t no word, just like God ain’t just no word. That ain’t it. You scared the living shit out of that woman. It was a show dog, with fucking papers. And man, you were curled up under her porch in it. Shee-it, you ain’t got god at all, at all.” He poked me with something. “But I can tell you ain’t here to take god from me. No no, not you. You may be cold, but you ain’t here to mess with me. You just need somethin.”
“Fuck you,” I started. I looked down at his outstretched hand.
“Here, you got yer chance,” he rasped, hairy cheeks sucked in.
I saw his hand, saw it with the pipe for one second, some kind of sticky modified pen body, then saw it empty, saw the pipe running out of my face like a bridge, lighter hot and raised. And then, then,
everything exploded like it never would again.
_---------------------------------_-----------------------------------------------
He had talked to me while I showered. While I rubbed his mother’s pink soap on my chest, rinsed it off. I noticed that he still had his bandana on. Saw it through the shower’s blur-curtain. I guessed he didn’t want the whole thing to seem too weird, to take off any articles of clothing while he was in the bathroom with me, leaning against the sink.
We went downstairs after and ate out of his well stocked pantry. Stirred some noodles on the stove, threw in the ground beef to kind of cook in the churning water. We ate the shit up together, sat at his kitchen table.
He tried to ask me why I had done what I had done. I looked down to a place mat and breathed out like a snorting horse. I asked what he meant.
“With the dog and all. It’s true, right?”
I noticed how greasy and black his hair was. How his eyes pressed to near his nose, as if berries on a twig. I didn’t answer.
“I mean, I understand. If you were cold and all. It was the middle of February. I just don’t know why it was such a big deal. I think you’re right to run.”
I turned over my bowl of noodles and walked to the front door.
I left and went to the gas station to try and get someone to buy me some booze. It was the first time I’d tried since they had put my picture out. It was the first time I’d been back in town. I thought that it was early enough in the day for me to get away with it. All of my mom’s friends were at work.
I felt relieved, standing at the brick wall next to my backpack on the far side of the station where the attendant couldn’t see me. It was the first time I had been this clean while standing outside of a gas station. I had spent three weeks smelling like crotch every morning after a fitful sleep in my overstuffed sleeping bag.
I kept trying, but no one would buy for me. Kept telling me that I looked old enough, that if I was too embarrassed to buy this early, that they weren’t going to help me out.
Sidewalk. I trekked back over to the other side of town, where no one knew me, and walked on down the street. Shuddered as I saw open fences, metal chairs on porches with no one in them. I heard an argument pouring out of one of them. I saw no one else outside in the neighborhood, so I sneaked up into the tall grass in front of their living room window and peeked in, only eyes visible.
The woman inside was screaming in dizzying circles around a man crouched over a desk, writing furiously. She screamed that she had told him of her affair more than three hours ago, and that he still hadn’t said a word to her. He just sat there writing furiously. She wanted to know what he was writing. She smashed a lamp. She wanted to know now. She said she hated the way he always did this, compacted every situation down into words. Hated the way he made it just words, not what it was. I pulled my oversized jacket tighter around me.
He kept writing. She started picking up the pieces of the lamp. He stopped, said ‘fine’. No apparent reason. He scribbled something on a new piece of paper and flung it at her. It had little dramatic effect, kind of floated then hurled itself in the wrong direction so that it hit the glass on the front window and settled down over my face. I could see the word written on it. ‘SEX’ in all caps.
I ducked down under the browned grass and heard her pick it up. ‘That’s all it was,’ he yelled. ‘that right there, that’s all you had. How can I care about that? How’ I heard her fumbling with the paper.
‘That right there, is most certainly not what I had,’ she said, teeth clenched audibly. I crawled away slowly, unseen. I got to the walk and hoisted my backpack up. The front glass shook behind me with the very force of suddenness.
Later, I met a man.
*
Eyes? Yeah, he had em. Eyes like gerbil's, two dark globes, too small.
No, maybe not. Maybe more like a wolf's. Well, at least his face was like a wolf's, covered with a thin fur like moldy velvet. Yeah, just like it. I kind of wish I had petted it now, in retrospect. Kind of.
But I know in the moment, it wouldn't have been possible. As close as his face was to mine, as much of his spit was on me, he didn't mean it like that. Didn't want me to touch him, I was sure.
He was up on the hill, the one that rose up like a one of those Indian mounds, right where the old dump used to be. Was probably one of those artificial ones, three inches of rolled grass over tons of trash, what would be dirt soon enough. I swear I heard it scrunch as I climbed up the hill, when I could just make out his head. Saw the light disappearing into his dark eyes, again: all black, all pupil like gerbil-wolf.
The hill stood against the side of the highway, the train yard right down the hill behind us. Tony had told me that this guy would be here. Said he used to see him all the time when him and his friends came to paint the trains. He was supposed to help me. Tony said this guy’d been living out on the streets for decades, he had to be able to help me. Help me do it as long as I needed to.
Binoculars swung from his neck, some prize from a happy meal. He wore a beige baseball cap, molded somehow into a safari style, one button on top, rim all around. I had no clue how he did it.
He told me he had found God, after a second. That he was with him, in his pocket. Said that God had given him the sight. Yeah, the sight, a specific thing, not just the gift of eyes. To my surprise, he tapped the binoculars around his neck. Said they helped him look out for the people that would take it from him. God. He reached in his pants pocket and took out a crack pipe. It stunk like burnt hairspray, seemed to eat through his hand as he held it. Said that it was his secret, but he would share it with me if I wanted it. Said that that was the thing they didn't want you to know. I asked what that was. That it lets you see God, he snarled. That's why they don't want you to use it. It takes your brain and leaves God. You can do whatever you want when you’ve got God, he said, but you still gotta look out. He patted his binoculars again. ‘Cause more than anything, they want to take God from you. They want to strap you down and drain Him out of your ear, make you forget what He let you know.
I didn't want to laugh. I wondered for a second if it were real. If he could be right. I looked over the highway, at the smatter of little headlights. I asked him about dogs. He looked at me like I was crazy. I tried again.
“No really, have you ever had one?”
He shook his head.
“They’re worthless, really. I mean, they can be fun and all, but when you need to use them, you should be able to.”
He licked his hard lips and, still looking at me, slowly picked his binoculars up, put them to his eyes and looked me over with them. “I don’t know whatchu mean, but you ain’t got God.”
I tried to remain still, as if it would help him finish his exam quicker. “I got God. I got God for sure,” I steamed out against the cold, patting my chest. “It’s just- I don’t think it’s all that big a deal. I had to-“
“What’s not? God?”
“No, the dog! The dog!”
His gerbil eyes reappeared, binoculars left dangling.
“Hrm, the dog, eh? The Dog?”
I nodded.
“Yer that boy, aincha?”
“That boy?”
“Yeah, one they found curled up in that dog over in that woman’s backyard.” His pale mouth was open, face tightening and rumpling skin. “Shit, I heard bout you. ‘said you was walkin all around in that dog, passed out in the snow right under her back porch. Man, might not have been big shit if it wasn’t a show dog. With fucking papers.”
I stayed still. Fucking gerbil eyed man living out on the edge, brain half gone, there was fucking snow outside. There was fucking snow. That thing had heat. Had steam all in it, kept it hidden with fucking fur, with papers, with wax skin, letters, teeth, whatever. I just needed that steam. I couldn’t go back home. Not with fucking dad there. God, he had more steam than anyone. Could’ve lived for weeks outside if I had him. But, I thought, I wouldn’t be outside at all if it wasn’t for him. That dog was ignorant, carried around heat and didn’t even know it, didn’t care. Shit, dog’s are there for us, I needed it. Shit.
He was staring into my open mouth, I had been about to speak. I closed it, and restarted, uncomfortable. Didn’t know what he saw in there.
“She shouldn’t have put it outside in that cold if it was a show dog,” I sat down. “Anyway, a dog is a dog is a dog. I had to fucking get that heat. Dogs don’t matter. It was the only heat I could have. Sorry if it was in a dog. Heats always been hard for me to get. Always on legs or in someone else, never on me.” I stopped myself and looked at him. His binoculars were back up. “and after that shit came out in the papers, wasn’t no way I was going home. No way I could go see Dad after that.” I could smell the trash now. Saw a dented spot where the gerbil man was sitting, all crunched down.
“Where’s yer heat now? “ He asked slowly, suspiciously.
“Right here in this coat,” I jerked at one side with my good hand. “I still got some in here.” I patted a guilty pocket. “I- I just ain’t got any heat of my own. I gotta take it all, always gotta steal that heat. Can’t help it. I mean, dog’s just a word, right? A word that’s got heat in it. That’s all it is.”
The cars tumbled by beside us. He kept his binoculars as his eyes, kept their lenses against me.
“You ain’t got God at all,” he started, mouth opening and closing like the flap at the top of a semi truck’s exhaust. “And you got it wrong. That dog wasn’t no word, just like God ain’t just no word. That ain’t it. You scared the living shit out of that woman. It was a show dog, with fucking papers. And man, you were curled up under her porch in it. Shee-it, you ain’t got god at all, at all.” He poked me with something. “But I can tell you ain’t here to take god from me. No no, not you. You may be cold, but you ain’t here to mess with me. You just need somethin.”
“Fuck you,” I started. I looked down at his outstretched hand.
“Here, you got yer chance,” he rasped, hairy cheeks sucked in.
I saw his hand, saw it with the pipe for one second, some kind of sticky modified pen body, then saw it empty, saw the pipe running out of my face like a bridge, lighter hot and raised. And then, then,
everything exploded like it never would again.
_---------------------------------_-----------------------------------------------