The City That Never Sleeps

themselves, like I see its figure just walk over to the rock and fade out.”

  “Shut up,” Josh said, not believing him…or not wanting to.

  “I’m serious, Josh…” Birth said, looking right at him. “Dead…serious…” then he wiggled his fingers in Josh’s face and made ghost noises. “Woooo-ooooo.”

  “Stop it, dude,” Josh slapped his hand away but Birth’s goofing around persisted. They started wrestling around on the couch.

  “You better stop it dude,” Josh said, laughing the whole time. “You’re going to freaking burn this place down with all these candles…”

  Birth kept wrestling, managing to get on top of Josh and pin him down. Josh was quite surprised with how strong Birth was, and pleased. Josh had a submissive side, it turned out. Josh was hard and it was certainly no secret from Birth now. They stayed still, no longer fighting, just staring at one another, enamored.

  “Why did you really want me to come out here?” Josh asked.

  “Because…it’s the only way I can get you alone. You think we can do this at your house? With damn Stokey and Lyle around? And everywhere we go we’re followed.”

  “Is that why you bought this place?” Josh fought hard not to grin. But he did have a bit of an ego and… “Tell me that’s why you bought this place.”

  “Yeah…I bought it so I could fuck you in it.” Birth sounded appeasing, but Josh didn’t care. He believed what he wanted to believe like anyone else.

  A few more seconds passed before they kissed. Josh always pictured himself on top of Birth in his fantasies, but this was better. Birth smelled like the beach and tasted like orange juice. After a minute they stopped kissing and Birth sat up – clearly freaked out by what just happened.

  “What are you thinking about?” Josh asked, sitting up. Birth laughed a little.

  “I don’t know, I’m wiped out.” Birth rubbed his eyes with his hands.

  “Yeah…” Josh said.

  “I just don’t know what to do,” Birth said, desperately. Josh thought he meant them, what just happened.

  “About…”

  “My dad. Like can I really get a restraining order against my dad?”

  “You’re an adult now, Birth, you can do anything you want.”

  “That’s scary, isn’t it?” Birth said. Josh nodded.

  “Its funny how they never seem to think about us growing up, you know? Our parents, they never think that the tables will turn and we’ll be the ones in control and maybe they can be in our lives or maybe we can shut them out.”

  Josh stared at the flickering candle, then up at the twinkling stars. The only steady light was in Birth’s amazing eyes. Then suddenly Josh felt something crawl over his foot and jumped up on the couch.

  “WHAT WAS THAT WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!” Josh screamed and was acting like a scared little girl, which made Birth laugh uncontrollably for a straight minute.

  “Seriously dude! Something was on my toe, seriously! It felt big.”

  “Seriously?” Birth mocked jokingly. “It was a crab. They get in with the sand every once in a while.”

  “You have crabs?!” Josh yelled. Birth kept laughing.

  “Yes,” Birth was on his knees now, gripping his stomach that was hurting because he was laughing so hard. He’d never seen Josh freak out like that, ever.

  “You have crabs in your house! You have sand, crabs and ghosts in your house!” Josh squalled.

  “Its okay man, sit down,” Birth tugged on Josh’s pant leg.

  “Where’d it go?” Josh asked, looking around. Birth ran his hand through the sand and felt a prickly leg and pulled it up, still experiencing spurts of violent laughter.

  “What are you doing?!” Josh screamed and jumped over the couch and ran down the hallway. Birth followed him halfway until he was laughing so hard he couldn’t move. He dropped the wiggling crab and let it go its own way.

  Josh had stopped running because he was sure he heard something downstairs.

  “Okay,” he walked back to the Sand Room, “I can’t stay here – this is like some Hitchcock place.”

  “Josh, seriously,” Birth tried to stop laughing and coerce him back to the couch. “You need to get stoned.” Birth sat down and Josh lied down so his head was in Birth’s lap.

  “I think someone…I heard something downstairs.”

  Birth shook his head.

  “Dude, you’re freaking out,” Birth giggled.

  The only things that happened over the next few minutes were stars twinkling and Birth rolling a joint, tracing his pointy tongue across the rolling paper, and Josh realized something. This was all he needed in the entire world right now.

 

  16 “Its Something”

  “Hey,” Nathanial tried to get Tiffany’s attention in the crowded restaurant. She definitely looked overwhelmed.

  “Oh hey,” she said, managing to smile.

  “Hey, sorry but my other friend wanted to add to the order – just an avocado salad.”

  “Okay, sure.” Tiffany was still very uncomfortable over what Jimmy had done.

  “You okay?” Nathanial asked. She thought about telling him that his friend groped her, but she didn’t need anymore problems right now. Her boss was here and watching her every step. If she got another order wrong, she could lose her job.

  “Yeah, its nothing,” she said.

  “Yeah well…its like the law that when a girl says ‘its nothing’ they mean ‘its something.’”

  She couldn’t hold it in any longer. She looked up at him.

  “Your friend, the one with the disgusting hair and glasses? Touched my ass.”

  “He…Jimmy?”

  “I don’t know your names,” she said, rather coldly. “Listen, I know you’re probably a nice guy, but I’ve had a very long fucking day of feeling like worthless trash and I’m about…ten minutes away from getting fired.”

  “Whoa, whoa,” Nathanial almost touched her, just on the arm, but figured that would be unwelcomed at this point. “I’m sorry, my friend’s a creep. I don’t – he’s not even my friend, we’re just doing him a favor, giving him a lift to Wisconsin…”

  “Yeah well,” she started to turn away. “I feel like calling the police – he…” Tiffany fought back the tears. There was nothing worse than crying at work. She tried to see the garbage on the table, the dirty plates waiting to be cleared, but her tears made everything blurry. How desperately she wanted to run. She wanted to be far away from this place. These people. She managed to calm down.

  “I think you should drop him off soon – he’s a creep – and…” she looked up at Nathanial. She could see goodness in him. “There’s something that looks like a bloodstain on his shirt,” she added under her voice. She could feel her boss staring. And the people at the table were waiting for her to take stuff away and drop off the check. No appreciation ever, only more expectancy.

  Nathanial stayed where he was as Tiffany walked off. He looked back at Jimmy, who’d gone back to staring at the table, seemingly unaware of anything around him.

  Nathanial’s skin stung with panic. What had he done? Who was this guy? Nathanial noticed Jimmy was wearing the same clothes he wore to the show at Galapagos. As he went back over to the table, he looked the clothes over and noticed a few spots of what looked like blood on the cuff of Jimmy’s shirt.

  Clair looked up at Nathanial.

  “You get the salad?” she asked.

  “Its coming.” Nathanial sat down and stared at the table.

  “You okay?” she asked. He just nodded and looked up at Tiffany as she came over with their drinks. He had to do something or say something. He felt it was his responsibility.

  He watched as Tiffany carefully placed their drinks down. To have to wait on someone who did that, how degrading.

  “Wait,” Nathanial called out before Tiffany could walk off. The call was alarming and everyone looked at him. Nathanial turned a heat
ed stare to Jimmy.

  “Did you get a chance to grab her ass?” Nathanial confronted, disgusted. Jimmy looked stunned. But then he grinned.

  “You know, like last time?” Nathanial added, so pissed off his legs were trembling.

  “You did what?” Marisa gasped.

  “I didn’t do that,” Jimmy nearly spat. “I didn’t do anything like that,” he said to Tiffany, just staring up at her shamelessly.

  “You have a sick imagination – a whore’s imagination,” Jimmy went on. Tiffany was too upset to say anything. Jimmy got up and walked off.

  “That’s it,” Clair said. “We’re leaving – we’re leaving him here.”

  Nathanial didn’t know what to do. He watched as Tiffany ran off.

  “I’m game,” Jeremiah said.

  “Nathanial?” Clair said. “Move, let’s go before he comes back.”

  Nathanial realized she was right. He couldn’t go back to Brooklyn and decide not to bring Jimmy along, but he could do this, he could leave him here.

  They wasted no time looking back as they walked through the crowded restaurant to the front door. Nathanial had never felt this nervous, not before a show, not when he was homeless and had to spange on the streets of New York – never.

  They hurried across the gravel lot and piled into the van. Nathanial started it up the very second everyone was in. His heart was pounding and his mouth was dry and he couldn’t bring himself to look out of the window to see if Jimmy was coming over.

  Part 2

  Nothing But The Howling Wind And Fake Vampire Teeth