Frisk: A Novel (Cooper, Dennis) (7 page)

Friday evening

Joe sprawled in Samuel's Datsun. They burned rubber. The freeway was empty. Occasionally one of Samuel's hands left the steering wheel, messed around with the crotch of Joe's slacks. Its wrinkles and creases would focus, unfocus, suggest other things, like a cloud did when viewers looked hard and long enough.

Honk, honk.

Samuel's apartment building was one of those beige stucco, two-story types rimmed with catwalks. He unlocked the door. 2E. Joe took a chair in the living room, hands folded casually in his lap. Samuel was hunched over next to a shiny mahogany cabinet mixing screwdrivers. Joe looked around at some artwork that didn't register.

Samuel handed him one of the drinks, clinked their rims.

Ding.

"I know you like violence," Samuel said by way of a toast, "but does that mean you're into S&M?"

Joe was taking a drink, which he gulped down in order to answer. "Well . . . " he choked.

"Anything I'm interested in doing to you, basically?" Samuel smiled, took a sip.

Still choking, Joe waved his left hand to mean Give me a second, then looked up to see if Samuel had gotten the message.

Samuel leered, sipping.

Joe set down his glass and tried to cough out the burning. No luck. He doubled up. When he felt a fist pounding his back, he made his lips mime the phrase, "Thanks a lot." Samuel kind of waltzed him through the furniture, down a hall, accidentally scraping walls, into an unlighted room. That felt dramatic.

Slam.

"I'll be honest with you," whispered Samuel's voice. It was moving around in the dark like a ghost's.

"That's nice," Joe said, not particularly interested. His voice was still kind of raspy. He cleared his throat, pulled out a cigarette, lit up, took a drag. "There. Sorry about that." He belly-flopped on the bed, exhaled smoke. "Ready."

"Okay, um ... here goes." Samuel's hands started scrunching and kneading the seat of Joe's slacks like they intended to sculpt something out of him. That felt okay, if a little monotonous. After a while they lifted.

"One second, yeah?" Joe stood, smashed his cigarette out in what he hoped was an ashtray, pushed his slacks and underwear to his knees, lay back down, and took a breath. "Go ahead."

The hands squeezed Joe's bare ass once, twice, froze there, then jerked away. "What am I feeling?" Samuel whispered. "Welts?"

Joe's cock hardened, maybe thanks to the shock in Samuel's voice. "Mm-hm."

"Is that what ... ?"

"Afraid so."

". . . you're into ..."

"Basically."

"... because I don't know if I can..." Samuel slapped Joe's ass lightly. "Like this?" he squeaked, and spanked Joe again.

Joe rested his cheek on the knuckles of one hand and relaxed. Slap. His ass stung innocuously. Up his asshole the feeling was much more complex and kind of itchy. Slap, slap. It made Joe imagine a beehive. Slap. Still, he tried not to focus because any image would soften the blows. Slap, slap, slap. He had to be right in the middle of it. "Yeah. Right. Higher, harder." Etc. Thud. Joe felt a very dull pain in his lower back. Thud. Another pain higher up. By the third he could tell they were fists. Finally. Thud ... thud, thud. Neck, ass, rib cage ... The violence petered out. "What's up?" Joe squinted over his shoulder. Samuel's silhouette was just visible at the foot of the bed, hunched over in the dark, a Rodin. "Why'd you stop?" Joe thought he tasted blood. So he poked his tongue around inside his mouth in search of rough spots or dents. "I mean, that was great." He couldn't find anything wrong.

Samuel shook his head violently. "I'm ... very, very .. . sorry."

"Look," Joe sighed. He arched his hips, tugging his slacks and shorts over them. "I guess I'm self-destructive. Except I don't see it that way. Because I tend to experience things, even weird things like violence, as forms of information about what or who I am physically." He finished zipping and snapping. "So don't think twice." He rolled over, grinned, snuck a glance at the bedside clock. 11:21. "Forget it ever happened, in fact." He held out his hand.

(Another thing about planes. When I'm stuck on one for several hours I tend to become more aware of myself from the neck down, probably because I'm so cramped in this seat. Usually I don't notice my body. It's just there, working steadily. I wash it, feed it, jerk it off, wipe its ass, and that's all. Even during sex I don't use my body that much. I'm more interested in other guys'. Mine just sort of follows my head and hands, like a trailer. I don't care if guys want to do things with it. Wait. Actually that stuff makes me very uncomfortable, unless I'm drunk. People I like must pick up on my tastes right away, since they almost never want to explore me. They just lie back, take it from me. But the way I'm contorted to fit in this seat makes my body ache. And it's strange to be forced to acknowledge my body exists because I'm sure I've neglected the thing for so long that it's totally fucked up and full of cancer or AIDS or something. Maybe if I stop writing this down, I'll stop worrying.)

(Later. They're starting the movie.)

Monday morning

The most interesting things in the office were charts showing human anatomy, one male, one female. Covering most of a wall, they showed lifesize, young-looking people whose flesh had been peeled off at various points. The purplish stuff inside the wounds made Joe think of a pair of pajamas he'd worn when he was seven, eight.

Crea-ea-ea-k.

Dr. Ashman, who'd been listening to a Walkman, oblivious, eyes scribbling on the ceiling, sat up and blinked at Joe. "What ... are you doing here?"

"I'm scheduled for a physical," Joe said, a little startled. The doctor looked blank. "Joseph Evans." Nothing. "From Sears?"

"Oh, of course. Sorry." The doctor tore off his headphones, sticking them into a baggy white pocket. "I thought you were someone else." He picked up a clipboard, flipped through its slight stack of pages. "So I ... see you've written here under medical history something about a ... `weird nervous system'?"

"Yeah." Joe nodded. "But I've got a question that's completely off the subject, if you've got a second."

Dr. Ashman squinted at his wristwatch. When he didn't look up, Joe guessed that meant go ahead. Joe slid the bone from the back pocket of his faded jeans, held it out. "I found this thing in my basement a few days ago. Is it human?"

The doctor took the bone, turned it over a few times, and squinted at the wall with the charts. "I think ...... he said, approaching the wall. He scanned the male figure. "No, I'm sure that it is human, yes. It's a tibia, or, in layperson's terms, the lower half of a leg. Here." He squeezed one of his calves.

Joe nodded. "Do you think somebody dismembered somebody?"

The doctor said something about that not being what he meant at all, but Joe couldn't quite hear. He was too busy staring off into the charts, fantasizing a guy about his age and looks, with one bone missing. The daydream burned off before he could build anyone in particular.

"Time." The doctor walked behind a partition, started washing his hands.

Joe took off everything but his underwear and hopped up onto the flimsy exam table, resting his eyes on the charts. The subjects' faces were a little too impish and sweet, but their skin looked realistic, if kind of colorless. He couldn't be sure if the visible parts of the skeleton and guts were correct. He hoped so, shivered.

The doctor reemerged, wiping his hands on a paper towel. His eyes froze on Joe's crotch, blinked, then darted over the rest of his body. "Do you-. . . want to tell me about those?"

Joe thought for a second, shrugged.

"Does this hurt?" The doctor reached out, pushed a lumpy bruise near the ridge of Joe's pubic hair. That felt okay.

"Not really."

"Could you lie on your back for me?"

The doctor began to examine Joe, starting up at some outlying marks near the lightly scarred shoulders and working down his raggedy chest. The older man's eyes studied his the whole time, watching, Joe guessed, for little pain-induced fireworks. But the touches were gentle and tingly, period. By the time they reached his lower legs, Joe felt so relaxed he got a fierce hard-on.

He raised his head, eyed the piss-colored tent in the front of his underwear. "That's not about anything," he said.

(I'm in a toilet. The movie was so dull my thoughts kept mutating. It's just some lame, flop, romantic comedy starring what's-his-name and Kathleen Turner. I tried to watch for a half hour, then my eyes naturally flicked to the boy again. His family had settled down. Maybe he'd fallen asleep. All I could see was a sliver of him along the edge of his seat. Sometimes that's plenty. I'm thinking of porn where a guy's body may be exposed but you're still only seeing an aspect of him. You still have to fill in a lot to desire him. For example, I've filled the Dutch boy's big lips with the words, "Kill me, Dennis," among other things. Obscenities. His eyes have grown dull and sleepy, or maybe hyper, or scared, but uncomprehending for sure, like I need eyes to look before I feel comfortable around them. His personality's mechanical and calm, bordering on nonexistent, like a tool. Otherwise he reminds me of every guy I've wanted to fuck and kill. Mostly Pierre at the moment. So Mr. Xerox of Pierre is standing here with his back to the door, looking down at my face, with vague curiosity, I guess. He's naked. I've made him hairless, pale, adoles- centlike. My usual. Now I'm at the part in the fantasy that always fucks me over. I want him, specifically his skin, because skin's the only thing that's available. But I've had enough sex in my life with enough guys to recognize how little skin can explain about anyone. So I start getting into this rage about how stingy skin is. I mean, skin's biggest reward, which is sperm, I guess, is only great because it's a message from somewhere inside a great body. But it's totally primitive. Take gold. Would gold be worth anything if there were a more complex, beautiful, similar substance around? I've got a choice. Either I can pretend I'm a psychic or palm reader and tell myself I understand some cute guy if his sperm leaves his body when I'm in his presence, or, as I find myself doing more often these days, I can actually imagine myself inside the skins I admire. I'm pretty sure if I tore some guy open I'd know him as well as anyone could, because I'd have what he consists of right there in my hands, mouth, wherever. Not that I know what I'd do with that stuff. Probably something insane ... spill the guts through my fingers like pirates supposedly did with doubloons or whatever. Except there'd be a smell, which I guess would be strong and hard to take. I can't imagine it. Maybe the odors of piss, shit, sweat, vomit, and sperm combined. I guess in a perfect world I'd eat and drink all that stuff and not just get nauseous. That's my dream. That's what I'm thinking about. I've got this longstanding urge to really open up someone I'm hot for. The Dutch boy in this case, because he's the latest example. The thought has me sweating and shaking right now. Arms, legs, everywhere. If he were locked in this toilet with me, and if I had a knife, I guess, or claws would be better, I'd shut up that minuscule part of my brain that thinks murder is evil, whatever that means. I'd stand up, or try to stand up, then cut him to pieces. But since I don't have the boy or nerve or weapon, I just sit here scribbling, jerking off. That's what my left hand is doing while this one is writing. But inside my head the most spectacular violence is happening. A boy's exploding, caving in. It looks sort of fake since my only models are splatter films, but it's unbelievably powerful.)

Monday afternoon

A few rows behind Joe a male silhouette sat down next to a poorly lit boy. Joe happened to turn his head, notice. When the house lights dimmed, the mismatched pair sidled into the aisle. He shadowed them past the snack bar, restrooms, up a flight of stairs.

Reaching the landing a few steps ahead of the kid, the man revolved, checked his protege's progress. "Hey!" The man's eyes veered to Joe, who was ten or so steps behind the kid. "Want something?"

The kid froze mid-step, craned his neck, and looked squarely at Joe too. He seemed twelve, thirteen tops. Ashen, anorexic. A small, battered face like a Halloween mask, with sweet, incongruous eyes.

"Maybe to watch," Joe said, nodding at the kid. "Do you mind?"

"No, I don't," the man squeaked in a voice that was obviously supposed to resemble the kid's. He was fiftyish, bald, overweight.

Joe shrugged. "I wouldn't mind, actually."

"Fine." The man waved them up.

The three stumbled onto a hazily lit balcony. It seemed deserted. The kid grabbed a seat on the aisle. Straddling him, crotch to uptilted face, the man hauled his cock out. It wasn't hard. The kid started licking its crusty tip. Joe eased down in the neighboring seat and positioned his face very close to the licks. "Why don't you make him undress?" he wondered aloud, squinting up at the man.

"Because he'd look like shit," the man said. "These kids don't eat anything. They're all junkies. Look." He grabbed a fistful of the kid's brown hair, yanked. "You a junkie?"

"No, ouch," the kid yelped, spitting the cock out. "Don't hurt me."

"You don't shoot?"

"No!" The kid shoved a knuckle between his front teeth and bit down.

"You take dick up your ass?"

"Shometimesh."

The man formed a huddle with Joe and the kid. "You'll french-kiss?" He twisted and yanked the brown hair.

"Ouch! Sure!"

The man winked at Joe. "Any questions?"

Joe was so entertained by this blatant example of cruelty, he had to shake off a touch of hypnosis. "Uh, I'll just watch, like I said."

"Your decision."

The man freed the kid's hair. It stayed sticking up in the air in greasy twists. From Joe's semi-aerial perspective it resembled a little haunted forest. "Wow," he whispered.

"Shit, man. That hurt," the kid mumbled. "I didn't do nothing. Fuck!"

The man nosedove at the kid, open-mouthed. They kissed. That involved so much tonguing and sucking, their faces deflated. Joe could see the exact contours of both skulls. They could have been any two human skulls in the world, more or less.