Lookin’ back -- I could tell, even then, I wasn’t all that up on joinin’ ‘em. The little bells were still chimin’ in my brain, givin’ off the idea that I was makin’ a mistake. That I oughta go home to my wife, get a good rag goin’ an’ wind up fuckin’ her. An’ Connie, she had a lot of good things about her. I mean, it ain’t many chicks’ll stick by you through six years in prison. She even got me some jobs on sets -- carpenter an’ crap like that -- but then things’d quieted down an’ she had to fight to get jobs for herself. Oh, she could’ve made it okay if she hadn’t had this big dick of a husband draggin’ her down, but she never said nothin’ ‘bout me gettin’ lost. Except when she was pissed, an’ even then it was more like, “pull your own weight, asswipe.” So I had an idea, even then, I was tossin’ aside somethin’ I really needed -- no, wanted. But like the big dumb log-headed idiot I am, I just sort of drifted along with ol’ Lenny an’ Wayne, sniffin’ after a brewski an’ a couple of bills. Driftin’ just like I had my whole life. Driftin’ straight into hell.
What a fuckin’ idiot.
Chapter Two
I walked with them over to Lenny’s place, that turned out to be Wayne’s, too. They shared this townhouse or duplex or whatever you want to call it in West L-A, where the parkin’s the worst an’ parkin’ enforcement’s mean as a gangbanger after a week in solitary. It wasn’t a fancy place on the outside -- I mean, from what I could tell in the dark -- but even with the nearest street lamp half a block away an’ the night clouded over, I could see they kept it up. The two inches of front yard they had was covered with roses an’ this thick kind of ivy-like stuff reachin’ over the cement blocks beside the steps an’ up the cement walls. The place was square with a flat roof -- not good in LA in the summer; makes the house hotter -- an’ a yellow light was on by an iron gate of a door. The windows had bars over ‘em, too. Reminded me of my six years at Mid-state, though this was a little cozier lookin’.
Inside, it was all done up in the best queer taste -- big solid antiques all over “draped” with pillows an’ afghans an’ flowers in vases or plants in pots, knickknack shelves an’ big-framed pictures coverin’ “tastefully subdued” wallpaper, windows that had what Connie once told me were “treatments” to give them “character” -- making it just scream “faggot hole.” Most of the pictures were of smooth naked guys posing like girls with pouty lips an’ arms stretched back. Like any real man’d think that’s sexy. Made me want to laugh an’ puke at the same time.
What is it with fags buyin’ into everybody’s idea of what a fag is like? Girly shit everywhere that no girl’d have in her place. Connie’s big into nice things an’ decoratin’ an’ makin’ a place to her taste an’ all, but she never had crap like this around her. She went for clean an’ simple an’ easy to keep up an’ comfortable, things that make a room a home an’ not some overdone shit you find in a decorator’s window. But these two? They’re the type that gives all fags a bad rap an’ keep it goin’.
I knew a couple of fags at Mid-State who were as much like a guy as me. They were in for drugs -- possession, I think, but it might of been more -- an’ didn’t seem all that bright; but hey, look at me -- I ain’t exactly a poster boy for higher education. But these guys, they were okay. Couple of regular mutts, not overbuilt, not smooth skinned, not bitchy or faggotty, just a couple of...well, I guess they sort of fit into the stoner dude life an’ they just got off on each other. That don’t mean they couldn’t fight if they had to. One of ‘em knew Aikido an’ showed it off on a couple of vatos who thought he’d be funny on his tummy; the other just fought like a street punk, mean as shit an’ nowhere near as fair. You could respect both of ‘em, even if they did like to suck dick.
I figure there’s lots more like ‘em all over the place. But since all you see on the TV an’ in movies an’ in the news an’ shit is the weird ones, you think all of ‘em are weird. An’ guys like Lenny an’ Wayne buy into the weirdness, too, an’ keep it goin’...just like most of the guys in queer town.
But at least Lenny made good on his word -- a dark ice cold Beck’s. I dunno what it is, but black German beer makes me happy. An’ horny. Maybe it’s the bite to it. How it don’t just pretend it’s beer, like that piss-water from Colorado, but first it lets you grab it an’ then it grabs you right back, like it’s sayin’, “I ain’t gonna play around, asshole; I’m the real shit.” I once thought that I wouldn’t mind goin’ queer if I met a German faggot who owned a good brewery an’ was built good an’ liked it up the ass. But most of the Germans I’ve seen look like sneaky rabbits, an’ I hear none of ‘em’s cut, so I
