Chapter 13
Despite the down mood in which Coach Mac has left him, Sterling is still looking forward to the weekend. His parents will be away visiting his grandparents and plan to stay over Saturday night. Catherine and Pandely have wanted to drag him along, but he convinced them that two days off training, subjected to his grandmother’s cooking, would ruin his chances in next week’s boxing qualifier. They took the dog instead. So he and Sara would be home alone, more or less. However, she wants company – having lived away from Durham she was keen to catch up with friends – and had informed him they would be having a barbeque. They would invite a few friends over, maybe watch a video. Sterling may be unplugged, but Sara was still very enabled and as potential fiancée she had permission to operate the DVD in the living room. He had been instructed that he was prohibited from watching. The new Sterling had accepted the sentence. He was determined to live by their rules, his current life challenge.
No one else is home at the moment (Bucephalus is in the back yard tending to business), so this is the perfect opportunity to find a piece of mail that his parents have mislaid – his SAT scores. Back at the beginning of the month he had taken the college boards, now called the SAT Reasoning Test, formerly known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Unlike the IQ tests that required an examiner who is allowed much discretion, the boards were a mostly computerized test that he absolutely adored. Possible scores range from 600 to 2400, combining test results from three 800-point sections (math, critical reading, and writing). He had taken the Preliminary SAT as a sixth grader, the first year the school would let him take it, despite his earlier pleas (he had tried to register on line, only to be told to go through his school). He had scored, as expected, in the 99th percentile. As he told his parents it was the best 3 ¾ hours and $14 that they had “never wasted on me.” In the years that followed he had busied himself with taking the SAT subject tests ($21, one hour, multiple choice, scored on an 800 point maximum), which help with university admission but are unlikely to lead to the waiver of any curriculum requirements. By sophomore year Sterling had run out of subject tests to take. He had scored above 780 on all the tests he had taken and had received five perfect scores. The tests were on Literature, U.S. History, Mathematics I, Mathematics II, World History, Biology (both ecological and molecular), Chemistry, Physics, French and Spanish (both with listening). The rest of the tests offered were subjects he would not take: Korean, Japanese, Italian, Modern Hebrew, German and Chinese.
The Advanced Placement tests, which can lead to the waiver of college requirements, posed a bigger challenge. They are scored on a five-point scale, with 5 representing “extremely well qualified to receive college credit.” The tests are given over the first two weeks in May but the scores may not be available until July, since some sections have to be individually marked by subjective readers (Sterling had filed a job applicaton to the office in New Jersey to be a reader but was told to reapply in twenty years). Sterling is waiting to hear how he has done on: European History, English Literature, Statistics, Spanish Language and Microeconomics. In the previous three years he had received 5 on Biology, Calculus AB, Chemistry, Computer Science A, Physics B and French Language. He was awarded 4 (meaning “well qualified to received credit”) each on Macroeconomics, English Language and Environmental Science and U.S. Government & Politics. He has received his 3 (only “qualified” according to Sterling) on Calculus BC and had been so dejected that he resat the exam the following year and received a 5 for the effort.
For his upcoming senior year he had wanted to take only four additional APs but as a result of his conversation with Mr. Mac, he has for the moment decided to take the remaining six: Physics C, Comp Government & Politics, Human Geography, Spanish Literature, U.S. History, World History. That left the eight he would not take: Latin: Virgil, German Language, Japanese Language and Culture, Music Theory, Psychology, Studio Art, Chinese Language and Culture and Art History.
Sterling weeded through the pile of slick college brochures (actually two piles each over two feet high and a third that had recently grown to over a foot) looking for the letter containing his SAT scores. Why so many college brochures? From the moment back in the sixth grade when he had received his outstanding PSAT marks, he had been bombarded with college promotional material. They came from not just superior research universities and elite liberal arts colleges – types of institutions that someone with the boy-wonder’s scores would likely apply – but also from schools of every size, shape and location. Small Bible colleges, large state mega-universities, private on-line institutions and sundry diploma mills, they have all vied for Sterling’s attention. The most curious collection came from nursing schools. Just about every nursing program in the country wanted Sterling. Some were already offering money. In filling out a questionnaire accompanying the PSAT the boy had been asked about his educational ambitions and courses he might pursue. He was presented with a list, at least one of which had to be checked, the proctor had ordered, in returning the uncompleted form that Sterling had initially shrugged off. Immediately, he read this as a trap, the first tick toward a lifetime of junk mail. To stop this in the bud, he figured he’d tick off the one program for which he had no interest, nursing, and which obviously would have no interest in an eleven year old boy. It’s not that he hated nurses: his mother was a nurse, well, almost a nurse, a few credits short of completing her degree. But that was long ago, around the time Sterling was born; he had long suspected his arrival was the reason his mother had never completed her education. She may have even blamed him for her own inadequacy, he wasn’t sure. He felt no remorse, however, not for the woman who had brought him, kicking and screaming, to the pediatrician to have “a minor cut you won’t even feel.” Literally, an attack on his boyhood that the four year old fought against until he was successfully drugged into twilight sleep. When he woke up, he realized he had been maimed. This had been no Brit milah, the butcher no mohel (although in fairness the surgeon was Jewish), the conciliatory McDonald’s happy meal indeed no seudat mitzvah. Sterling had not been a compliant, unfeeling eight-day old shagetz but rather a more sentient being who had preferred his privates to remain, well, private. (That attitude disappeared with time.) Even then his mother, with his best interests at heart, was more concerned about the spread of diseases in some feared hypothetical future than the present mental health of her son. That was surely in the past; Sterling hardly continued to fret over the issue, although it did seem like yesterday; he could still smell the doctor’s office and he could visualize and even smell the purple lolly-pop that the nurse held out as a bribe. Indeed, the white-coats who had once been so eager to autopsy his brain, had originally conjectured that they had found themselves a hyperthymesiac, a person who possesses a superior autobiographical memory. But, when quizzed, the tyke Sterling wasn’t able to provide, for example, the weather conditions on specific dates from his past, or talk about earlier events as if they had occurred the day before. Disappointingly, he wasn’t their desirable subject; he was not a SAMy, they said. Those tests had been years ago; if the teenage Sterling, with his more mature brain, had been retested today the neurosurgeons would have found their subject a likely fit to the SAM construct. Scientists are just now beginning to understand this, there existing only a handful of individuals known in America to possess this extraordinary ability. Today, indeed, Sterling can relive his distant past, as if it were his immediate past, which is great when he mentally replays sexual intercourse but not to so great when he thinks about genital mutilation.
He finds the SAT scores – 800m, 790cr, 781w – not bad for a $47 investment. He would include it in the package he was preparing for Mr. Mac for when he argued his case for remaining in school for senior year. He had already obtained the necessary signature from the AP coordinator, who basically signed anything she was offered if Sterling submitted his most seducing smile. Mr. Mac would be a harder sell; he had already promi
sed to play lacrosse for the coach; what else could he offer? He’s all out of smiles. Sterling had left the brochures in disarray so he methodically puts them back into order, setting up divisions: research, liberal arts, religious, for profit, nursing, other. This is a routine he often goes through to keep his life in order; some might say he is a borderline obsessive and compulsive, but he would disagree. He’s just orderly.
He is about halfway into the task when Daryl arrives. Sterling offers him a business card, and Daryl calls the lawyer for a Monday appointment, which he coordinates with the train schedule. Sterling agrees to accompany him to Raleigh, since he needs to meet with his own legal team to find out the outcome of their meeting with the DA, from which he will be harshly excluded. He doesn’t like the way he’s been treated and has thought about just showing up at the Durham Courthouse for the lawyers’ meeting with Miles and Abernathy. That’s what the old Sterling would do, so he decides against that strategy.
As Daryl leaves, Sara arrives. Together they need to go to the market to prepare for the next day’s barbeque. While Sterling finishes arranging the catalogues, they have a half-hour debate of the pros and cons of the local markets, the closest being Food World. Sara prefers the Whole Foods just outside Duke’s East Campus. Sterling points out that: (A) Holy Foods is too expensive, catering to Dukies on large allowances from mommy and daddy who have no sense of the value of money, “kids who won’t think twice about paying $6 for a cup of soup;” (B) it is too far to walk to; and (C) it is an unsafe area for bicycles. How can it be unsafe, it’s the university, Sara wonders. Not unsafe for people, but very unsafe for bikes. Sterling says a biker needs his own personal security detail to keep a bike from getting stolen at this time of year. He’s lost two on campus already, both in the month of June; now whenever he bikes there, he chains his bike near to the guard’s booth. We can do that, she counters.
“There’s no way I’m going to bike there for the pleasure of getting ripped off,” he thinks to himself. He once did a price comparison for identical items and found a 28% discrepancy on paper products and common canned goods. On the other hand an inner voice is also warning him not to over-intellectualize this matter, reminding himself that he doesn’t need to win every argument in life, even when he’s right, which is virtually all the time. This is advice Susan had often given him, guidance he had hitherto rarely heeded. Sterling franticly searches his mind for a maneuver that will cost neither a loss of face – healthy stuff from WF, the rest from the discounters – when Sara counters by maneuvering her hands into his shirt, massaging his chest and then heading southward. A hour and a half later, still in the afterglow of a pleasant afternoon rumble, they are cycling to Whole Foods and to a butcher known only to BBQ cognoscenti. The final bill comes to $156.37 and Sterling has to make a return trip for the second lot, which are stuffed into the panniers with the excess bungied onto the bike racks. He holds no complaints: the best argument he ever lost.
When Sterling gets back, no one other than Brandon and Billy/William is in the gym. Brandon is jumping rope and William is admiring him, occasionally checking his phone. Sterling had once persuaded William to try to jump rope; he had promptly tripped and fallen on his face. That was when he was five years old and he has never jumped again. Grabbing the remainder of the shopping bags, William follows Sterling upstairs for a talk. He waves to Sara who’s occupied in the kitchen and then follows Sterling into his bedroom. Sterling quickly straightens the bed, which seems to have sustained tornado damage.
“Party tomorrow? Your parents won’t object?” Billy asks.
“They’re not here,” Sterling confirms. That might seem to come from the old Sterling, but in fact the new one rationalizes that the party is Sara’s; Sterling’s new role is to ensure it won’t get out of control, the role for the new Sterling.
“No beer, no drugs,” Sterling commands.
“No problem,” Billy says. He’s quite aware of the strict prohibition honored at the Eumorfopoulos’.
Sterling explains, in summary form, his visits to Professor O’Connor and to the Stacy James law corporation. Then, he asks his friend:
“Did you or Senior pay the retainer?”
“Not me. And Senior doesn’t know you’ve hired outside counsel,” William says, intending sophistication but offering pomposity. “Maybe it’s from your website.”
“It’s just come on-line. Whom am I kidding? The site will never generate much cash. I’m not sure how long I can afford all this, Billy,” he admits. “William,” he corrects.
“Good reason to take the deal they offer. It’s just going to be a slap on the wrist. What’s this other grand jury? Isn’t that like double jeopardy?” he asks.
“I’m not worried. It’s a witch-hunt for an out-of-state porn king. The feds can’t get me for something local, like public nudity. Indecent exposure! Do you believe that Mickey Mouse charge? You’d think government in this county would have more to worry about than a kid without clothes, like raising taxes or tapping our phones. You know how common this is on the web? If I had a dollar for each guy who showed his hard-on, I’d be richer than Senior!”
William studies him. Sterling really does see himself as completely innocent, a victim in what should be a victimless crime. Who is he fooling? William is supposed to be the naïve boy, but it’s his friend who keeps saying that Smiley Boy was no big deal. An indictment that could lead to juvenile hall or worse, prison, that’s a big deal in anyone’s book, especially William’s carefully constructed book, built on hours of worry. He doesn’t care to envision Sterling being held down in his cell by a bunch of tattooed, over-muscled men and then repeatedly gang raped, but that’s exactly what he does envision. He’s had that nightmare three nights’ running, which is what prompted his ultimatum text Monday as well as an unscheduled visit to his shrink. The irrevocable advice he has steadfastly offered Sterling is to contact a lawyer. This was also his psychologist’s advice, that from a woman who for years has warned William to keep his distance from “boy Eros,” the doctor-patient private euphemism for his friend. For two months, ever since the video first appeared on YouTube, seeking out legal counsel has been William’s nagging advice. It was also his recommendation that Jeremiah wipe out all traces of Smiley Boy from the digital world. That advice, fortunately, Sterling agreed to, if reluctantly, although William himself had to phone Jerry to get the eraser rolling. At this stage there’s little more that William can do, other than to lend a sympathetic ear. He’s been chastising Sterling for his exhibitionism from day one, but that rebuke still falls on deaf ears, or rather has gone in one of Sterling’s ears and out the other, skipping over his much lauded cognitive organ, which William refers to (only to himself and Brandon, and only when he’s in a sour mood) as a “puffed up piece of brain-shit.”
Sterling thinks of their relationship as one-way: William demanding with exigency, Sterling himself acquiescing with perturbation. Over the years, however, Sterling has often sought William’s help, almost always after some stupidity. On the day the video was shot, William had rebuked Sterling, who had come to him typically only after the fact. William had been asked to clean up the damage, literally. Neither with pride or shame, Sterling lowered his pants and produced his flaccid penis, painted with a yellow Smiley, or happy face, on the flat tip of his organ, a task only the circumcised half of the male population could accomplish. William stared in amazement and finally offered simply: “What have you done?”
“I didn’t know it was indelible ink. They should write that on the pen,” he said angrily.
“What? ‘Attention: indelible ink. Do not draw on your cock.’”
William, who lives most of his life in a miasma of nervous perturbation, is not occasionally without humor. Sterling continued:
You’d think they’d be regulation, consumer protection and all. Now it won’t come off. Tell me what to do.”
William took a few mi
nutes to survey the internet. His conclusion:
“There’s nothing to do.”
“You mean I’m scarred for life?” Sterling asked, his condition of stupefaction unpleasant because of its rareness.
“No, stupid. You just need to shed skin cells. A few days, maybe a week. Exposing it to air and sun might help, but that’s what got you here in the first place. If you kept it where it belongs, you wouldn’t be in this mess,” William said, a bit annoyed.
Sterling then proceeded to list a variety of compounds from baking soda to sulfuric acid and William dutifully checked the web for each, with the same results: indelible ink is, unsurprisingly, indelible. “If you put alcohol or anything strong near your precious meatus, you’re going to feel like someone just shoved a red hot needle up your prick. I know you know what the meatus is,” William concluded, referring to the urethral opening.
Sterling was meanwhile busy seeing if he could advance the flaking process, which grossed William out. He said angrily:
“Stop playing with yourself, Sterl. Put it away for God’s sake.” Rebuked, Sterling obeyed.
As William had predicted, the problem took care of itself in about ten days. One day in the shower, Sterling had looked down to notice not a trace of yellow, not even a vestige of the black curve and dots smiling back at him, although upside downly. He was elated and felt vindicated, but vindicated from what he wasn’t sure. He could at least start drinking water and using public urinals again and could go back to living the life of casual nakedness that characterizes the Eumorfopoulos household. Sara had not yet moved in and Bucephalus, who was always nude save for a collar, was not bothered. Bucephalus, however, had once been scolded, after he had aroused a sleeping Sterling with his licking, specifically his licking in a place he should not be licking except on his own body. From then on the boxers had clung to different ends of the bed.
William, despite his curiosity, never asked the particulars about why the happy face had been painted on his friend’s penis. This was weird, but then Sterling was not the least weird person he knew. The Smiley design, itself, had been around since the early 1970s; everywhere one could find the yellow circle with two black dots representing eyes and a black half circle representing the mouth. William could live his life without being privy to the details of Sterling involvement with the icon. He certainly didn’t need more involvement with Sterling’s phallus than he had already had (this was not the first time they had been acquainted). Later he had asked himself: was the Smiley Boy video’s theme Sterling’s brainchild or that of the porn producers? Introducing the Smiley to internet porn seemed somewhat sacrilegious, but William let that concern slide.
About a week after his first encounter with Sterling’s Smiley, William was accidentally reunited with the icon. By chance he had discovered the video while he was at school, in study hall, killing time before he would be excused for the day. He had browsed YouTube for recent popular releases and landed on Smiley Boy. Most of the videos with ‘boy’ in the title were masturbation videos with expected short YouTube shelf lives (they were yanked off as soon as discovered by management). William decided to take a gander before the video disappeared. He was viewer 90,273, an early bird. He had to view the clip three times before he was convinced that the boy in the film was indeed Sterling. The first time he was positive it was Sterling, but he hoped it was not. The second time, it looked even more like Sterling, but he hoped even more that it was not. The third view left no doubt; he rejected his earlier denials. In a state of hyperventilation he pleaded successfully for the study hall monitor to grant him emergency leave, then phoned and eventually caught up with Sterling in Chapel Hill after he’d finished a class.
Sterling was surprised that the video had made it to the web. He had done it, he had been paid, but he had not expected to ever see the final product, which was supposed to be for Indians – India Indians, not American natives. William was a bit perturbed that Sterling had not bothered to mention the video to him before, especially since their relationship was an open one, stripped as it were of secrets. At least William as BFF told Sterling everything; it now seems that the road was not two-way. The taping had simply been one of those life experiences, Sterling explained. “Hardly something to talk about. I put it in the past almost before it was finished,” he added. What Sterling didn’t mention, of course, was that for him the video was indelibly a part of his memory and would be lived over and over again. He had some control over this, but not total control because he could not forget: nothing, never, period. He could choose to forget, but that was problematic, indeed never successful. Once done, remembered forever. In truth, the video had not seemed at the time very important to Sterling. It was an experience; he had learned that he didn’t embarrass easily, in fact, he didn’t embarrass at all. He supposed that a vocational aptitude study should encourage him to be a porno star. Also, Sterling did not consider the Smiley Boy video to be pornographic, something defined by him to involve penetration. He was pretty truthful in what he had told the grand jurors. The whole world could disagree with him; his response would remain the same: de gustibus non est disputandum. As it turned out the unexpected result of the filming was his friendship with Babette. She was a person of interest, to whom he would be pouring out all the conflicting details of his sexuality. Even Sara is not afforded that privilege.
William is now fully acquainted with the seemy side of the Smiley Boy saga, and Sterling has updated him as well on its legal aftermath. Being a worrier, William has been given even more to worry about but he puts up a brave face to his friend. The BFFs still are keeping secrets: Sterling has not mentioned the Daryl turn of events, and Brandon seems to be a mutually acceptable taboo subject, Billy not willing to shed details, Sterling for once showing some tact in his unwillingness to pester out those details. That Sterling should reveal Daryl and his supposed involvement in his sister’s death would be expected, but Sterling has not sorted out the matter for himself. He’s suspending speculation and judgment. Ever since The Punishment and the severe dressing down from his parents, each in a personalized manner – his father’s curt harshness, his mother authoritarianism – Sterling has been as careful as possible not to act or even think heedlessly. “Take due heed” has become his byword and creed, a kind of background noise that wants to drown out all his spontaneity. He has become a cautious boy, one who earlier today refused to give Mr. Mac a usual false promise or equivocation. He has become careful not to be his overbearing, argumentative (a trait he once thought loveable) self. He had thrown in the towel and let Sara win the grocery match. So he’s treading lightly with William when the very subject needing treading – Brandy – arrives. He juggles three walnuts, showing off his skill.
“Can I use your shower, man?” he asks, not bothering to take his eyes off the walnuts.
“Mi casa es su casa,” Sterling replies without enthusiasm.
William beats Brandon to the door, enters and shuts it behind him.
“Sorry, number two can’t wait,” he shouts back to them.
“Turn on the fan,” Sterling orders, from experience.
Sterling, fresh towel in hand, blocks Buffeau’s path, unintentionally making him step with his back against the desk. With his quick hands, he grabs an ascending and descending walnut, leaving only the remaining walnut in Brandon’s hand. Sterling has a parlor trick he’d like to show Buffeau. He can take two walnuts in his palm, placing their soft sides together and then crack them to smithereens. Instead Buffeau retrieves back a walnut and shows the trick to Sterling.
“The real skill is to leave the walnut meat intact. Anyone with a little girl’s grip can make a mess,” Buffeau informs him. He scrunches the nuts in his hand. Two unbroken pieces of meat emerge from the wreckage. Sterling’s face fails to show that he’s impressed. He stares down into Buffeau’s cocky smile. Sterling still holds the towel; his other hand is down between them, actual
ly between their crotches, as it were. Sterling is going to have to step back to give Buffeau room to leave. He doesn’t move an inch.
“You know, I’ve been friends with Billy, who you call William, since, well, forever. Sometimes he’s sort of fragile, like your nuts here. I don’t want to see him hurt,” he says solemnly. “I don’t want to be the one who has to pick up the pieces,” he adds unnecessarily.
Buffeau doesn’t respond, but he steps forward, forcing Sterling quickly to remove his hand from between their crotches. He surrenders the clean towel.
Ahead of him Sterling faces two chores in the gym. He needs to tidy up and get the sundry equipment ready to engage the pee-wees, who will arrive with unruly enthusiasm Saturday at 9 A.M. And, more importantly, he needs to prepare both his mind and his body for next week’s bouts. In that regard he has mapped out a rigorous training schedule for the next seven days. He will start off each day with a ten mile run, followed by an hour workout. He will weigh himself several times a day and he will refrain from all stressful sexual activity. Father and son dispute this last point; but the new, reformed, accommodating Sterling has agreed to his father’s advice that he and Sara should bed in different rooms (the two sentence père-fils conversation was one about sleeping arrangements, not sex per se). These changes begin tomorrow; today, Friday, he’s still on vacation.
The Under-19 match in Charlotte eight days away could be an elimination match for the boy. An early loss could help flush his boxing career down the toilet. If Sterling advances sufficiently in the competition, however, he’ll qualify for future events, which lead to the finale – the 2010 Under-19 National Championships – which will be held in Cincinnati February 8-13. Since that event is open to athletes born between Jan. 1, 1992 and Dec. 31, 1993, Sterling will be in the younger tier of entrants. Some of the older competitors could well be more experienced, perhaps having competed the previous year in the Under-19. To qualify you must have at least five bouts excluding walkovers under your belt; that poses no problem for Sterling who has survived more than thirty amateur bouts, although not all of them might be deemed certifiable for qualification purposes. In the Silver Gloves competition alone, he has a history of twenty-two sanctioned bouts. Most boxers, however, have only more recent ring experience. If Sterling does poorly in the competition, he could well be eliminated from the Under-19, but not altogether from boxing: there is also the National P.A.L. Boxing Championships.
American boxing at the amateur level shares with its professional counterpart a confusing, but an even less comprehensible, complexity. Both share a defining characteristic: disunity that borders on disorderly, multi-stranded stratification. At any one time there is not usually one single American boxing heavyweight champion, for example. There are various champions, whose title matches are organized by different boxing entities, which can award championship belts across as many as 17 weight divisions. Titles can be held concurrently by the same boxer, but that’s often not the case. Five entities administer this chaos: World Boxing Association, World Boxing Council, International Boxing Federation, World Boxing Organization, and The Ring (the boxing magazine which does title promotion as a sideline, despite a possible conflict of interest). With amateur titles there is at least as much confusion, probably more. Unlike the relative sanity in the professional ranks, among the amateurs there is the additional stratification by age for national competition: Silver Gloves 10-15, Golden Gloves 16+, Junior Olympics 15-16, P.A.L 17+, and of course the Under 19 (complemented/succeeded by the USA Senior Nationals and the Olympics qualifications). All these national tournaments and feeder competitions involve their particular organizing committees, entry forms, and rules, some of which can be charitably described as arcane. In the Silvers, for example, the age groupings are: 10-11, 12-13 and 14-15. With purported fairness the rounds for all bouts are geared toward the younger boxer. In other words, if a 14 year old boxes a 15 year old, the round is 1½ minutes, not 2. There is often a consistency in the bizarreness of the rules, but paying attention to the fine print is well advised. In addition there are various invitational competitions for which, unlike the ones above which are characterized as advancing or elimination tournaments, their motto is: you pay, you box. Many of these, notably Ringside, are quite prestigious and attract crowds much larger than their advancing counterparts.
Thus, if Sterling fails at the Under-19, his next best hope is the National P.A.L. Boxing Championships. This competition, the 35th annual, will be held in San Antonio from 17-24 October. You just show up with your $10 and your USA Boxing Passbook. Leave it to the Police Athletic League to do something straightforward, one of the few times cops get to make all the rules themselves. Unfortunately, Sterling at 17 must now fight in the open division with experienced adults up to the age of 34. The three two-minute preliminary rounds mean a lot of punching to gain points. The opponents do not match defenses. In the past Sterling has done well in P.A.L., which has duly rewarded him by subsidizing the pee-wees. He won the intermediate division (age 13-14) in 2006 and got through to the quarters in the senior Junior Olympic division (15-16) the following year. He did poorly last year – a mismatch with Sam White who eventually won his division – partly because Sterling, as well as White, could not meet their weight and were both bumped up. It was an embarrassing loss and would have been an end-of-career bout for ordinary fighters.
It helps to have a boxer father to sort out all the sport’s idiosyncrasies. Sterling has always deferred to his father on matters of boxing. He may not be the brightest bulb in the room, Sterling reasons, but no one he knows knows the sport better than his father. Pandely plans his tournament schedule and does the necessary recon. Sterling believes that his time in the army, years which his father refuses to talk about, was in recon and spying; that’s probably why he’s so damn good at scouting and assessing his son’s opponents. Normally, Pandely unearths a tape or video of the opponent, often a film he’s bartered for one of Sterling’s Silvers. Sterling knows the name of next week’s opponent from the tournament’s handout, but his father has provided him no additional information. There is a DVD by the television; it is several poorly shot rounds of one of the tournament entrants, specifically the one who will be boxing Buffeau. It was certainly kind of Pandely to help out Buffeau, an imperfect stranger who the ol’ man has known for all of two days. He isn’t doing squat for his son, so that son believes.
Sterling studies the draw for the Charlotte tournament; a full complement of sixteen boxers. He recognizes two he’s already boxed (and beaten several years before), two he’s lost to within the last year, and three he’s seen or heard about. The rest, like Buffeau, are unknowns and appear to be new to the sport, or at least new to him. If he were not unmoored from the modern age, he’d check the web, especially YouTube, for some details. Informed or not, Sterling needs to get to the semis in order to qualify for the regionals in D.C. If all goes well for both he and Brandon, they won’t meet until the quarters, in other words the second round. Sterling learned this fact when he opened the envelope that arrived a few days earlier. Brandon, apparently, has known this information for longer, probably from before the first time they met. For various reasons he would prefer not to think of Brandon. Foremost Sterling should concentrate on the more immediate opponent, unknown except by name. Furthermore, since he doesn’t particularly care for Buffeau, he doesn’t want to think about him anyway. Worse Sara just invited William to the BBQ, and William asked if he could bring a “special friend,” which Sterling appreciates as code for Buffeau. And even worse, Sterling is preoccupied with the worry that William now has the balls – he uses the metaphor carefully as he’s never thought William’s testicles even found the courage to drop by themselves – to show off a boyfriend. What next will his friend try? Of course, Sterling knows his imagination may be running away from him, this a likely consequence of his having to go digital cold turkey.
Like so much in
life, Sterling has William so wrong. He’s not aware of how his conflicted friend lives his life. Sure, he admires William for coming out of the closet, with Sterling’s own help, he notes. He knows, through his friend’s boasts, that William was the initiator and founding president of his school’s Gay-Straight Alliance, and for his pains he got a write-up in the Times which characterized William as “the scion of Carolina tobacco wealth.” But Sterling pooh-poohs this extra-curricular achievement, saying that forming a heterosexual’s only club at William’s school would have been a far more formidable task. Still, he defended William to Senior, who threatened to ‘un-scionize’ his son if he ever again gives an interview without family approval. Inwardly, Senior was proud of his son’s internal fortitude, something he “confidentially” mentioned to Sterling, knowing it would leak back to his son, which it didn’t. Sterling, however, is especially not privy to William’s adventures into the gay world. Their trip to the adult bookstore did not leave William with much self-regard. In fact he felt humiliated, passing up an interesting experience with a man who obviously found him attractive. William vowed on the drive back home with Sterling that he would never make that mistake again. It was that vow, to himself not to Sterling, that was the moment in time when one could hear their descent and William’s discovery of his genitalia that Sterling so mocks.
About a week after the adult bookstore fiasco, William was packed off to Toronto to represent the Southern branch of the family at a distant cousin’s funeral. Being a Duke carries with it responsibilities but also a few perks. William stayed in a plush hotel and dutifully showed up at the graveyard for the obligatory mourning. He had never met these cousins and never intended to see them again after he had finished a very nice buffet he was offered at someone or other’s home. He had a day and night to kill in Toronto before his flight back. It was early afternoon and, with little else to do, he was flipping through the cable channels. He watched a rerun of Queer as Folk and an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. He thought about taking the hotel up on its offer of the five minutes of free porn, but figured that was not enough time for him to get excited, while all the time he would be worrying about whether a charge would somehow show up on the family credit card statement. He came upon another free gay channel. The topic under discussion was Toronto’s gay scene which the commentators made sound second in greatness only to San Francisco’s. They flashed on the screen the addresses of several websites for those who wanted more information. William, fortunately, had a pen handy; he had brought his laptop for a putative term paper on some worthless dead European; the hotel, naturally, was wired, actually wireless. An hour later, William was dressed casually, or as casually as the Preppie ever got, and with a map full of annotations and a wallet full of cash, went out on the town. He headed straight for a gay bar which ignored his youthful appearance once he had produced his foreign driver’s license (NC via PRC) and the $50 cover. The admission charge might seem a bit steep for a just a seat at the bar and a complimentary drink but the web had insured him he’d get more than he could handle. Once his eyes adjusted to the light, he found the unmarked door through which knowledgeable patrons exited. Loosened by the scotch he went through the door. Around the corner was a reception area, where valuables were checked. William was given a towel and locker key in exchange. He was anxious and breathing a bit hard, but he sucked it in and went into the changing room. There were a few men of various ages, shapes and sizes and levels of exposure and hormonal elevation. Modestly, not letting his eyes wander, and paying attention only to himself, he stripped and quickly donned the robe and slippers that came with the locker. On the wall was a notice admonishing and reminding patrons that public sex was strictly against Torontonian law. The appropriate local ordinance was cited. A man in his twenties came up to him, dripping from a shower. William pretended not to glance or notice how well the man was hung. Nevertheless, the young man seemed tired and invigorated at the same time; in any case he was on his way out, back to spend another boring evening with his wife and children. He looked William over and asked:
“First time?”
“Here,” he said.
“Anywhere?,” he asked with a smile.
William nodded in the affirmative, sheepishly. He had noticed the man had a Southern drawl; he could be Carolinian.
“Are you going for the arena, the rooms or sauna or the tubs?”
“I don’t know. What would you recommend?”
“Charlotte?,” the man asked, picking up on the drawl.
“Durham,” William replied in a single syllable – Durrmm.
“I’m good with accents,” he explains. “Just one other guy, right?”
“Yeah,” William replied, acknowledging the fewer the better. He was starting to lose his nerve. The young man approached closer so he could talk to William confidentially, older brotherly. In his mannerisms, this man could be Sterling’s twin. The rest of the men in the locker room were also interested in William and could not stop staring.
“I’m thinking the small sauna, number six,” William confided, having carefully planned the evening out.
“Nah. Go to the arena. You might get pawed, but just say no, firmly, if necessary. Canadian men are very well behaved. Twinks like us are held in very high esteem.”
William figured the man to be about seven years older than he, but he could not be sure. He nevertheless agreed that they both qualified as twinks.
“First, take a look at the glory holes. You might find something interesting.”
“What about the steam room?” William asked.
“Not if you want one-on-one. Try the private rooms. That way you can pick and choose. Don’t settle low. Here’s the law of supply and demand, and you are in demand, boy,” he said by way of a compliment.
“Thanks,” William acknowledged. The man slipped his name card into the William’s locker, through the aeration slit.
“I get down to Charlotte about twice a month on business. Call me, maybe we can hook up,” he said. He then did something quite bold. He ran his hands through William’s golden locks, not unlike what Sterling occasionally did, but only when he pretended to be playfully gay. This young man, his wedding ring now in place, was not playing. He was almost rueful and obviously conflicted, maybe more so than William, who didn’t mind the gesture at all. He instantly had wanted to object; his body had nevertheless refused to flinch.
“I wish I’d come an hour later,” the young man said. William agreed; he wished he himself had come an hour earlier. He sucked in some courage and headed off.
The evening for William proceeded downhill from there. He wandered aimlessly into the area they called the arena, well named, for this was indeed an amphitheater for gladiatorial combats, or maybe medieval swordplay. As he walked down the ramp, along “the Path of Glory,” in fact a wall of glory holes, the Durhamite felt like every lance in the place was targeted in his direction. Despite their infinite variety, no lances interested him, as he was unable to see their owners. The glory wall was just too anonymous, which was exactly its intention and the reason it was supposed to give a thrill. William had been determined to try anonymous sex. That was the reason he was here. He was much too timid to try this south of the Maxon-Dixon. And now that he was north of the 49th Parallel, more or less, and the lower fifty beneath him, he was still timid. He couldn’t get much further from home without venturing into another continent, or California, which was another world entirely. But William also realized that the distance that needed to be traveled had nothing to do with geography. It was all in his mind. In his current state of anxiety, there was total doubt William could perform, a fact that was perceived by everyone in the room and something which made everyone in the room that much hungrier to be William’s new BFF, for at least a few minutes. The less desirable he tried to become, the more desirable he became. He quickly escaped the arena, occasionally pawed, and went
into an empty sauna to recuperate. Unfortunately, William had already built up somewhat of a following. Although sauna number six was chosen specifically because its size suggested intimacy, it became apparent that a sauna built for four could easily hold eight. With a little more squeezing it could hold a baker’s dozen. William escaped through the naked humanity and out the door to the relative chill of the corridor, off of which were the private rooms.
If the door was closed, then there was activity in the private room. Otherwise, the occupant was looking for someone to join him so that activity could commence. Most of the doors were opened just enough so that William could peek in. But, even if the light was on (and it often wasn’t) he could rarely see the occupant clearly because he was positioned at an angle. For William to see him, he actually had to open the door wider and poke in his face. Some men were wearing hats so their faces could not be read. That would require William to step even closer to identify the features of the mystery man. Most of these fellows had enough flab on them to suggest they were certainly beyond twinkhood, probably well beyond. If William had gone in and closed the door, automatically sealing the deal, he would just be buying a pig in a poke. And he was pretty sure none of this pork interested him. William was not completely naïve: he knew that the general rule of thumb about the tubs and similar establishments was caveat emptor. As far as William was concerned he, as a twink, had better beware or he would find himself in a situation which he would definitely regret. William walked up one side of the hall and down the others, finding a lot of over-stuffed bread-baskets, but nothing that interested him in the least. Some of the room occupants insisted on lowering their towels to show their wares, effectively making William ever more squeamish.
As he was quickly dressing to leave (too scared to take a shower), William found the card of the mysterious young man with the sometimes missing wedding ring. His name was Harvey Della Nave and he was a salesman for a paper company based in Toronto with a regional office in Charlotte. Normally William was not the impetuous sort like Sterling. He stewed and stewed before he made decisions, as risk-averse as Senior was risk-hungry. Thinking clearly William would have never called a strange man, given his real name, involved his father, invited him to dinner and promised to buy a ton of paper. A few feet out of the club that’s basically what he did. William called the number on Harvey’s card. It went immediately to voice-mail.
“This is William Duke. Our paths crossed tonight. We need to order a ton of light weight, unsized 21.2 g/m2, 28% calcium carbonate and we’ll provide specs for the jute-cotton mix. Let’s hook up for dinner and my father can close a deal. You have my number on caller ID.”
And that was that. He went back to the hotel, picked up a tourist brochure from the lobby and called his best friend. Sterling was busy writing a paper. This was par for the course, William figured, as Sterling worked about 40 hours a week on schoolwork. William made up some stories about the great Tee-Oh and how he’d spent the entire day as a tourist. He rattled off all the places named in the brochure. Sterling didn’t pay much attention. “Bro, you gotta get laid,” he finally said. For once they were in total agreement and that was no secret.