Slice

good worker. He loved his mother. But he had this problem. The idea of putting a stiff male erectile member into his bodily orifices got him crazy. He was smart enough to know if he wanted to keep his gig out at Cat's Paw he would have to act butch during the day. And he liked the bucks and so during the day Harmon Schmitz was a regular guy. No sly looks. No hand on the hip. All he needed was a palomino named Fury and he was Straight Arrow.

But with the coming of nighttime Harmon Schmitz underwent a wild and gay metamorphosis and Lon Chaney, Jr., became the wolfman under the lunar luminosity, but instead of getting hairy he got horny and instead of wanting to sink his fangs into somebody's neck he wanted to sink his lips onto somebody's beaver-cleaver. A total, God-help-me-Mary-I'm-coming, Hi-there-sailor, screaming, swishing, knees-to-the-men's-room-floor queer.

And he was in mortal fear day and night, not of being found out, he wasn't worried about coming out, he was worried about shagging a nice, virulent, unstoppable case of killer AIDS. Scared out of his wits. Frightened half to death. Not to the point where he'd stop cruising, you understand, but very seriously afraid. He already had three friends who were in some stage of the devilish disease. And it was all he thought about when he wasn't horny.

I mean, when you think about it, what's so wonderful, what's so exciting, what's so thrilling about the rubbery, cock-sweaty, tasteless taste of a penis? What was the big attraction about gobbling a few cee-cees of nasty, warm cum? Why couldn't he give it up? He didn't know. Harmon Schmitz just plain loved to suck the boys’ things and that was all there was to it.

He liked the humiliation, he supposed, of subjugating himself to another man. The way they'd look at him when he let his eyes travel down to a guy's bulging crotch and back up to look him in the eye and let him know. The way one of them was always dominant and one was always the more passive. He loved the passive role but he'd play it either way to get laid.

He liked it in the mouth in the butt in the hand, he would take it in his armpit if that's what got some stud off, but the important thing was the cruise. He liked finding it. The tingling and decadent erection that would threaten to rip through the front of his pants the moment he saw a guy. He liked all the numbers out there and it was then that his thoughts would be far from AIDS and the other dangers of the mean streets.

Harmon loved “dating,” which is the name he gave it in his mind. And when the number wasn't too rough sometimes they would date and it would be an even greater ecstasy in anticipation of the climax of the evening. But he liked the toughest trade too. Liked, hell he craved it. Craved the suicidal impulses and self-destructive urges that led a fellow down that path.

He loved the language of the game. The illicit kick of the stalk and the final moves. He loved the positioning of the belt buckle and the hip pocket handkerchief and all the lore and the secret mating signs and the self-advertising clothing and mannerisms of the gay brotherhood. He adored the rites of homosexuality. He got off on the ritual, like an inveterate pipe smoker reaming away at the dottle and dreaming about the sweetness of what he was going to be sucking. He could write a book about sucking.

In fact, that is exactly what Harmon Schmitz was thinking about when this hulking behemoth stepped out of the shadows and rumbled something at him and he turned and it was like a rowboat looking up at the looming Queen Mary but sometimes you take what you can get and with his caution switch on overdrive he turned and said something clever and the voice rumbled again, some nonsense about how to get somewhere and he was both relieved and mildly disappointed that this big thing wasn't a number just someone asking bothersome directions and he replied he didn't know and started off and the voice rumbled again, “Hey!” And he turned back, frightened, but then it spoke to him again and it wasn't menacing the guy just wanted to get directions and so he made himself stop and think for a minute and the man said, “Isn't that Scranson Something going east?” He didn't catch the name but when the huge Goliath pointed and said, “There!” so insistently, he turned his head to look to make sure, Oh that, he thought, that's only Kings Highway but he never got the thought enunciated because as he was turning back to speak a building fell on him and he died.

Nothing fell on him really, but when Chaingang turned back to his left, moving his right arm, that powerful killing arm, to his left to point in front of the victim, pointing out toward the street, his arm going right in front of the man's face where he'd have to turn and look, and as the man's scrawny, pencil neck turns Chaingang smashes that battering ram of an elbow back into the side of the man's temple, and as he fell to the ground he killed him then and went over to the waiting vehicle and packed him away and Harmon Schmitz died as he lived.

He died a heartless death. He died as a piece of meat is butchered. And one cannot overlook the perverseness of the irony that had Harmon Schmitz known that he would be killed so that a madman could eat one of his organs, he'd never in a million years been able to guess which one it would end up being.

Life is funny.

BUCKHEAD SPRINGS

She'd first told him about it that night coming back from Peggy and Jimmie's when they'd gone over for dinner and cards afterward. Lee not seeming as downbeat as he'd been and the evening a pleasant one, with no talk of the Job or any other subjects that might bum anybody out, and they were both in a cuddly mood when they drove home that night.

He loved the look of metropolitan Buckhead after dark. It always seemed to him to look like the best of both worlds, the familiarity and predictability of a small hometown environment coupled with the pizzazz and dazzle of a big city at night. Invariably Jack would recharge a bit at the look of the lights of the city skyline and the surprisingly big-town feel of a vast cosmopolis when he drove through South Buckhead and down Main toward Buckhead Springs, and saw that string of bright lights and all the glittering nightlife in the distance.

She rode close to him and her perfume was intoxicating. She seldom failed to arouse him up close like this, and as always, when he glanced over at this lady he could never quite fully believe was his, she stirred that kind of desire and admiration in him. Donna's scent mingled with the car interior making the vehicle smell newer, more luxurious than it was, and her nearness made the lights a little brighter. They had Laurindo playing on the tape deck.

“That's nice.'

“Just your basic unamplified, six-string, open-face guitar sandwich. He do play.'

“He play good, Laurindo do.'

“I play good too. Wanna play later?'

“Umm. And I wanna play Saturday too but not what you think exactly.” She snuggled against him. “I want you all to myself all day Saturday.'

“I'll have to look at my calendar. I have a very busy schedule. My dance card is very full at this time of the season. I'll check.'

“You do that little thing. Make room in your busy schedule for Donna. All day Saturday. Really.'

“Okay. Whatcha got planned?'

“Just something,” she told him mysteriously.

“I don't like surprises. Tell me.'

“I won't tell. You can do anything you want and I won't talk.'

“Are you saying your lips are sealed?'

“I won't go THAT far.” She giggled a womanly giggle. “I mean let's not get crazy here. I won't say that my lips are sealed but I won't spoil my surprise. Just be mine alone all day Saturday.'

“I'll see if I can clear the decks. Tell Racquel and Heather I just don't have time for them Saturday.'

“You're too kind to me. Whatta guy.'

“I know.'

When Saturday came she woke him up with kisses and fresh juice and coffee and they had breakfast in bed.

“I made you a card.” And she handed him a card with the legend HAPPY BIRTHDAY written across the front and then he remembered it was his birthday. “I hope you like homemade greeting cards because I couldn't find one I liked.” He told her he did and opened it and inside a drawing of a big heart she'd written his birthday message. He