Chapter Five
As I drove home, I thought about the three hot North boys and the fun times I had with them. The twins are too young for me, but their half-brother, Alexander, was a perfect age. With all the summer traffic, it was a long ride home, and because of my time on the boardwalk, I was a few hours later getting home than expected. The house was empty when I walked in, but there was a note on the kitchen table telling me my folks were next door for a cookout and for me to join them.
After unloading my stuff, I cleaned up, changed my clothes, and checked my texts and emails. Ha-ha, there was a number from the twins already. They'd gotten home hours before me because the ride to Delaware was much shorter than my ride all the way to western Pennsylvania. The twins' messages were silly, but there was a great email from Christian. He'd made a "friend" (wink wink) which is code for a girlfriend. I hope she'll keep him occupied and away from the booze. He wanted me to think about coming out to see him, and he described how he loved his new job and how he had a fabulous townhouse with a bedroom made up for me. I'd love to visit except I've got a seven-week summer job that I start Monday.
After trying to get my hair just right, I headed through the gate to the neighbor's yard. I could hear them talking loudly so I knew they'd been pounding down a few beers. The first person I see is Edward who was flipping fat steaks on the grill. He's a year older than me and I'd had a crush on him a few years ago. My infatuation with Edward started when I was sixteen. He'd always been a chick magnet and quite the heart throb all through high school. He's six-feet-three with a 'jock' build. Very dark brown hair with that real light complexion and the bluest eyes I've ever seen. Great winning smile, too.
Looking at him just now, he is still special. Edward has had his problems though; for example, it's common knowledge he knocked-up Barbara O'Reilly in eleventh grade. My first month in the new High School, it was obvious to me that Edward was the top dog on campus although he was known to display obnoxious behavior at times, and was quite impressed with himself. He was lucky too. Barbara mis-carried. Edward is going into his Junior year at West Chester University in the fall and acts like he's the neighborhood celebrity. I can hardly stand now and can't imagine crushing on him back then.
At the sound of a squeaky gate hinge, he looked up and saw me coming into his yard. He hesitated a second, like he didn't recognize me, then said, "Jesus H Christ, Nickerson, what do you call that haircut? It is so faggy." Then, with a grin, "Come here and say hello, little dude, I haven't seen you since Easter break."
I walked over with half a smile on my lips and my hand out to shake hands. Best not to get into any kind of conversation with this pompous ass. Instead of shaking my hand, however, he got his hairy arm around my neck and bending me at my waist, gave the top of my head a nookie with his knuckles, like you'd do to a ten-year-old.
My hair was totally messed up after that, and I could smell BO from his armpit and a strong beer smell on his breath, with a back-ground smell of onions and garlic. After the nookie he roughly twisted me around and pulled me backwards up tight against his chest. The back of my bare neck pressed into the thick chest hair at the top of the Vee in his short-sleeve Hawaiian shirt. One hairy arm up under my chin with the long, curly hairs tickling both my cheeks. His other arm around my hips pulling my ass up tightly to his crotch.
"What ya been up to Oliver? You find a girlfriend yet? You remember our game, don't ya? Wanna play it later for old time sake?"
Ignoring his slurred mumblings and using both hands I managed to push his arm just far enough away from my neck to slip down, and out of his hold. I felt his hard boner rub against my back as I stumbled awkwardly out of his reach. He muttered, "Asshole."
"What's going on boys" asked my Dad as he quickly walked toward us. Edward turned back to the grill, so Dad didn't comment on my red face or my messed-up hair; instead, he asked, "How long have you been back, Oliver? I'm glad you FINALLY made it." We walked to where my Mom was sitting, me glancing back at Edward with a sneer. I tried to fix my hair using my fingers as a comb while I told my parents a lie about why I was so late getting home.
A little later, I turned my attention to the food. There was corn on the cob dripping in butter, burning-hot baked-potatoes from the grill with lots of sour cream and salt, big fat, juicy Jersey tomatoes, and steaks cooked medium-rare over a char coal fire. The food was great. I drank lemonade and thought about me and the twins peeing in the ocean when we'd drank too much lemonade on the beach last week. Edward glared at me from time to time, but didn't come near me till later that night when he was even drunker. He came up behind me and whispered to me, "You didn't use to want to squirm out of my arms, ya little cunt."
Then he stumbled and tripped over the leg of my lawn chair, slurred, "Fucking chair," then staggered away. Huh? What'd he say? I don't remember ever being in his arms. I'd fantasized about it for a year, but that's all there was to it. There were some other kids at the cook-out, but none were around my age except for the girl from across the street who had a girlfriend with her. Not having much choice, I spent most of the time doing the boring conversation topics like that with the two girls, Jenny, and I don't remember her friend's name now. If I was straight, I still wouldn't be interested in either of these two girls. Both heavier than they should be. Ugh! I broke away around nine o'clock with the lying excuse I had to work the next day, which is Sunday. I start on Monday.
The food had been good so at least I had a full stomach as I watched TV in my room till I finally fell asleep around midnight. Sunday, I skipped church with my parents, and hung out around the house doing nothing. After two weeks of constant activities, doing nothing was cool.
At dinner, Dad had talked me into combing my hair down flat across my head instead of combing it up like Alexander had intended when he cut it. It looked like nothing special combed down. Dad said, "Look professional on the job, son. I work there, too, you know. I want to be proud of you." He also insisted I wear a tie even though I would be working in the stock room. "Don't forget, Oliver. I got this summer job for you, so whatever you do is going to reflect back on me."
That was my lecture. Then, Dad insisted he drive for the first couple of days until I got familiar with the routine. I felt like a dork walking in to work with my father, but he thought he was helping and I didn't want to hurt his feelings by telling him he's making it more difficult. He took me through the huge office building to the Human Resources Department which I could have easily find myself. There were directional signs for every department all over the place. Dad walked with authority down the halls, me rushing to keep up. It was all very silly and unnecessary, Dad acting important when he didn't even have a management position. He's an Underwriter in an insurance company, not high up the prestige ladder.
We walked right into the Human Resources department and Dad announced to the pod of desks there that Oliver Nickerson was reporting for work. I was mortified, but tried hard not to show it. A nasty-looking gray-haired woman with a hint of facial hair looked up from her front desk and said, "Say what? Who are you?" She was not impressed when my father told her he was an Underwriter and that he was here to bring his son in for my first day of work.
Omigod! Thankfully, no one paid us any mind after the nasty lady said frostily, "Wait behind the divisional wall till you're called, if you don't mind!" and nodded her ugly head that we should go back out to the 'waiting' area. I felt sorry for Dad because it was apparent that no one in Human Resources knew him nor did they care one twit that he was bringing his son in for the first day of his son's Summer job.
We backed-up six feet and Dad whispered, "This kind of thing would never have happened at Gold & Burns. You'd better sit here and wait, Oliver. I don't want to be late at my desk. You going to be alright?" Jeez, Dad, just fucking GO! That's what I wanted to say, but what I actually said was, "I'm fine, Dad. Thanks for bringing me up here."
He looked a little better after hearing that. A minute later, I heard a youngish-looking girl at a side desk snicker into her telephone and I could tell she'd overheard our conversation. My face got bright red and my eyes stung as I sat there in the waiting-area on a long hard bench. Nothing else to do but sit and wait. While I waited, I couldn't help thinking about why my Dad had an underwriter's position here instead of his Underwriting Manager position at Gold & Burns. I was the reason. We had to move when Tyler died because of none-stop negative feedback after that barely believable swimming pool death. It made me very sad to think about it, all of what happened makes me feel very sad and sorry for my weak behavior to this day.
"Oliver Nickelson?" I heard someone say. I stood and walked over to this tall, good looking black woman with an Afro hairdo that was retro, straight from the nineteen-seventies. "I'm Oliver Nickerson, Ma 'am". She told me to call her Violet and she was sorry she got my last name wrong. I shrugged and then filled out a lot of papers and had a cup of coffee and waited. Lots of waiting on my first day, but I didn't care because I was on the 'clock' at $9.10 an hour. Pretty God damn good hourly wage for someone with no skill and no experience.
I don't know how long it was before an old fellow comes up to me and without so much as a "how-do-you-do," he says, "Loose the tie, kid. You're not in management yet. Follow me and don't touch anything."
I thought, fuck, this is going to be a lot of fun working for this old ball-buster. I slid my tie off, unbuttoned my blue dress shirt collar and followed Mr. Personality all the way to the other side of the building and down two flights of stairs, without the old guy saying a word.
He was maybe fifty years old with gray, longish hair combed straight back from his high forehead, with a neatly trimmed mustache on his pie-pan-flat, sunburned, face and a big flowery bow tie to go with his dark suit. There was a very officious manner about everything he did and I got the feeling that dealing with me was distasteful to him, but it was something that had to be tolerated. He said, "You're working on the loading dock. Do whatever Rocky tells you to."
While giving these limited instructions he didn't even look at me and then off he went. And, what kind of shit does an Insurance company have to unload, anyway? I'm not working at a warehouse, am I? I expected to be shuffling papers around on my own personal desk, or taking inventory or something 'clerical', certainly not 'heavy lifting', for God sake. Later I found out that the company is replacing all its office furniture, desks etc. There was a professional moving company handling 90% of the change-over, but that other 10% would be done for specialty items by the part-time summer hires.
This blows, and the first box I pick up to move off the truck was almost too heavy to lift and when I dropped it I noticed a long, greasy streak on my dress shirt. During the long morning that followed sweat soaked through my shirt and I ripped it in two places carrying "specialty" shelving. My tie got pulled out of my pocket somehow and I finally noticed it under one of the boxes. I pulled it out and threw it in the trash. I hadn't yet seen Rocky.
I noticed a shiny, aluminum-sided truck pull up to the loading dock selling all kinds of breakfast drinks and food. I was thinking it has to be lunch time by now so why the breakfast stuff, but all the people who came out of the building were interested only in the breakfast sweet rolls, coffee and cold OJ drinks.
These people all worked on the basement level and were the Company's blue-collar types, men and woman. Cleaning people, supply room, mailroom, and stock room people. I looked at my cell phone and was shocked to see it was ten o'clock. I'd been working for only an hour? You have gotta be shitting me! If I saw it was twelve-thirty I'd have thought the day was dragging by. I bought two bottles of red Gatorade from the shiny truck because I was sweating so much, I felt dehydrated.
The temperature on the dock was up in the eighties already and it was still early morning. This job is worth a lot more than $9.10 an hour. Drinking Gatorade, I sat alone and felt sorry for myself. I looked around at the thirty people milling about on their morning break, all talking with each other while eating and drinking the stuff they'd bought. They looked like a normal, mixed group of people.
Ever since I was ten years old, I've been on the lookout for hot, cute boys, so to cheer myself up I scanned this crew hoping to spot a special looking boy. After a close scrutiny it was obvious there was no one under twenty-five in the vicinity. This will be a long seven weeks.
I'd just finished my second drink, and there he was, walking around the corner. Wow, a teenaged-looking boy with very light-red hair that's very bright in a longish brush cut, or maybe it's an old-fashioned flattop hairdo. I wanted to run my fingers through that red hair because it looked so soft, so cool. He was my height which is almost five-foot-ten and he was as slim as me, too. Pale blue eyes behind round tortoise shell framed eyeglasses.
His kid has a very clear complexion, without the freckles you see with so many red-headed boys. I was feeling better just knowing he worked here, somewhere. He looked to be about my age, but he acted confidently as if he'd been on the job for quite some time, so perhaps, he's a little older than me. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, sneakers on his feet. No one paid him any attention. I stared at him with my eyes pushed painfully to the left, while keeping my head positioned so it appeared I was looking the other way.
This can cause headaches if done too long by amateurs. I'm a professional boy- watcher so I can do it for up to fifteen seconds before the headache comes on. God, I hope this kid's name is "Rocky".
After that morning break, I didn't see the red-headed boy, or anyone else for the next two and a half hours. Two and a half hours of unloading boxes of heavy stuff. It seemed more like eight hours. The old grumpy, officious guy who had fetched me from Human Resources reappeared and said, "Where's Rocky?"
I wanted to say, How the fuck would I know, you old, bow-tie wearing asshole. But what I actually said was, "I don't know, Sir." He snorted like it was my fault Rocky wasn't here and after looking around, he said, "Is this all you two have unloaded ? What the hell you been doing, playing monopoly? Tell Rocky to come up to my office post haste!"
He didn't wait for a reply stalking off, but then, remembering something he hesitated and yelled back over his shoulder that it was lunch break, "Forty-five minutes. Don't be late getting back here and tell Rocky you guys have got to pick-up the pace out here, for Christ's sake!"
I stared at his back as he quick-walked around the corner and disappeared. What a jerk-off. Jeez, I expected someone to at least eat lunch with me the first day. On the way through the building this morning I'd seen signs pointing toward the cafeteria, so I back-tracked and easily found my way to it. Grabbing a tray, I got in the fast-moving lunch line. Lots of choices, but I settled for a cheeseburger, fries and a coke; something familiar.
I carried my tray to an empty table and thought about the cafe on the University Of Pennsylvania campus where those three students just sat down with me, uninvited. That was nice and I wished someone would join me here, too, but no one did. Feeling self-conscious eating alone, I gobbled down the fries and the cheeseburger and drank most of the coke as I headed for a trash barrel to dump my paper plates and the rest of my coke. Total lunch break was less than ten minutes.
I had nothing better to do so I went back and sat down under an over-hang that provided a shady spot on the loading dock, my back up against the side of the building. My plan was to rest for the last half-hour of my lunch break. My arm muscles and my lower back ached. I couldn't help but think, "This job sucks the big one!" Then I made myself think about the red-head boy and I started trying to form a plan for the next time I saw him.
There has to be a way to casually meet him without me making an ass out of myself. He looked special with those round, Harry Potter eyeglasses. It was fun to daydream about making out with him, his glasses getting askew as I bumped and pushed them with my nose trying to lick and kiss that pale, clear skin all over his face. He would look even cuter if he had a few freckles like the twins have, just over the bridge of his nose. It's fun to fantasize about, but I hear. "Hey, you. Are you one of my new assistants?"
The question interrupted my daydreaming. I stood, looking in the direction of the voice, squinting my eyes because now that I was standing, the sun glared brightly from that direction. There stood a short, stocky, bald guy about thirty-five years old.
"Rocky?" I asked.
He walked toward me as he said, "No shit, Einstein. Mister Rocky to you. Which one are you?" As he got closer, I could smell booze on his breath. He made it official as he, right in front of me, finished off a nip bottle of VO, tossing the empty in the trash barrel. It clanged off the side of the metal barrel and landed quietly on top of my tie, me staring stupidly after it. I must have looked startled or something because he said, "It's for my cough, the VO, but keep it between us, Howdy Doody, okay?" I nodded like an idiot and answered his original questions, "I'm Oliver Nickerson, Mr. Rocky. And, I'm not goofing off. I'm on my lunch break till one-fifteen, according to that tall, older gentleman with the bow tie. He didn't say his name."
Rocky didn't appear to be paying any attention to me as he coughed and then blurted out a laugh with a lot of phlegm rumbling in his throat, which he hacked-up and spit past me off the dock. An ugly-looking greenish splat landed on the back fender of the truck I was unloading. I stupidly stared at that. Rocky fired-up a Pall Mall cigarette, coughed again, and said, "I was only kidding about the 'Mister Rocky' shit. Call me Rocky. That bow-tied motherfucker's name is Mr. Brittle and he does insist on the "Mister" part of that. What a consummate asshole he is. Is that a word? Consummate? Whatever...."
I took that as a rhetorical question, and didn't respond. Rocky took a long drag on his Pall Mall and scratched at his crotch before continuing, "Mr. Peanut Brittle is my boss and I'm the dock foreman, in case you're a retard and haven't figured that out by now. Brittle is not only my boss, but also the mailroom supervisor, Art Hower's, boss as well as the dyke in supply, Jessy Finn's, boss. Jessy is a dyke, but she's good people, and she can probably beat up half the fag men working here so nobody gives her too much shit and you probably shouldn't either. Plus, if you want anything from supply you got to keep on her good side."
Rocky sort of ran out of breath and energy after that, and stopped talking. I guess what he said represented as much of my informative indoctrination speech as I was going to get. He just dragged on the cigarette again and really got into scratching his crotch. "God damn crotch crud itches like to drive me mad. You ever get that? Crutch crud? What'd ya say your name was?"
I told him again and he became alert once more and told me I'd better get back to unloading the truck. He said his crotch crud prevented him from doing any type of heavy lifting. Even though I had time left of my lunch break, I shuffled over to drag another box off the truck while Rocky watched me, saying, "Mr. Peanut Brittle was supposed to have two boys helping with all this specialty unloading job, so where is the other one?"
He looked at me as if I should know. I just shook my head slightly and he stared at me a second more, then abruptly said, "I got to take a shit. If Brittle shows-up, tell him I need to talk to him." He went off in the direction he'd come from earlier. I suddenly remembered I was supposed to tell him that My Brittle wanted to see him, but Rocky was already around the corner. I went back to unloading the truck.
Rocky sauntered back in an hour and a half or so and said, "Al, it's time for our afternoon break. Come on, I'll buy you a soda or a coffee."
We didn't go all the way back to the cafeteria though, just to a little room off the loading dock with a small refrigerator, a microwave, and a soda, snack, and coffee machine. Rocky called it the 'cafe'. He told me that this cafe was the 'break' room for us and the lesbo's group. I nodded as if I knew what he was talking about. He bought me a coke and he poured a coffee for himself. Then he poured some of the coffee out of the paper cup into the sink and replaced it with VO from another one of those nip bottles. "Like they give you on airplanes," he said holding the empty little bottle up for me to gawk at. "This god damn cough, though."
As we drink our drinks, Rocky tells me he had been a star High School baseball player back in the day, but he'd fucked-up his knee in an automobile accident and never got a chance to play semi-pro ball. He told me he'd started with this "piece of shit company" right out of high school and worked his way up to loading-dock foreman. He went on and on about how the company sucked, but he was really funny about it and pretty quickly I was laughing my ass off. I could tell he wasn't a mean-spirited or bitter person, just maybe not the world's most conscientious employee.. Of course, I also couldn't help but wonder if the company sucked so bad why he was still here after eighteen years, but I didn't say anything about that. He enjoyed complaining.
He told me that Mr. Brittle was a real prick and I should be careful around him. We were to "have each other's back' as Rocky put it. I took that to mean I was to cover for Rocky's absence when Brittle showed-up unexpectedly. There was a "regular" loading dock crew of two men who worked half the time in the supplies department and then on the loading dock the other half the time. Rocky was in charge of them too. He was their boss. He was also the boss of the night cleaning people. And, now he had to supervise two summer part timers in addition to everything else. He acted like it was a huge load to handle. All his complaining was over-the-top and tongue-in-cheek and funny. I liked Rocky right from the start.
He's one of those people who isn't curious about the world around him, mostly interested in his world, so he didn't ask me anything about myself.He did tell me to wear real casual clothes tomorrow, even shorts or jeans and a T-shirt, and definitely sneakers. After a little over a half hour he said, "Well, Artie, I guess we've used up most of our fifteen-minute break so we better get back to unloading that fucking truck."
Rocky wouldn't be going directly back to the truck with me. He was "going to hunt up that dip-shit Brittle" to find out what "that loser" wanted and also to find out where his other kid was. I could sure use the help. I hope it's the red-head kid! Sure, wishful thinking. I went back to unloading heavy stuff and daydreaming about young Red.
The day was finally over and being totally wiped-out, I fell asleep in the car as Dad drove us home. He was surprised to hear that my job is manual labor, but couldn't do anything about changing it, so I resigned myself to lifting heavy things for seven long weeks. I went to bed early and next morning Dad let me drive myself, so I was on the loading dock bright and early, and so was the red-headed boy. My heart went bump, bump, bump, and so did my dick. Now, if only he's in the ten to twelve percent minority of males who is gay or bi. I'll settle for either one at this point.
As soon as I stepped out on the loading dock the redhead came over to me and said, "Excuse me, are you Mr. Rocky? I'm to be your new assistant. Mr. Brittle had me cleaning out the overflow toilets in the ladies' lavatory yesterday. It was a mess with all those, you know, doo doos. Disgusting too, with those soiled sanitary pads."
Up close I could see how earnest he seemed with a little frown to go with a little bit of a nervous twitch. He had his blue eyes opened wide behind those round eyeglasses and he continually bobbed his head as if he were constantly reinforcing his willingness to follow instructions. The tip of his pink tongue showing between his bow shaped, puffy lips. Is he too good to be real?
I put on an exaggerated serious look and said, "What's your name son?"
"Frankie Swallows, Mr. Rocky." He squeaked back at me. I didn't know who was putting who on, so I said, "That your real last name, Reds, or your hobby?" And he said, "Don't call me Reds, Pal" and I said, "Don't call me Pal, Reds".
I had my eyes wide open now, too, and a smile on my lips as he said, "We should do some Three Stooges shit now, slapping each other's face and making strange noises, don't ya think? Or hit each other over the head with a fucking frying pan or something."
"Who are the three stooges? Laughing, Reds put his hand out and said, "I'm Frankie Nerney and I know you're Oliver Nickerson because I saw your name on Peanut's work schedule. Nice to meet ya, Oliver!"
"Likewise, Mr. Swallows," and we shook hands smiling. As it turns out, Frankie is the same age as me, nineteen, but he worked here last year after graduating High School and that's why he seemed so comfortable when I watched him yesterday. Frankie confirmed my belief that Rocky was a great guy. Frankie told me that Rocky doesn't lift anything heavier than a nip bottle of VO and he's funny with a dry sense of humor, and bizarreness.
"Damn, Frankie, this job is already a lot better now that you showed up." He smiled and goosed my ass, mumbling, "Let's get some coffee" and off we went to that little cafe room. Earlier someone had started a pot of coffee and it smelled good. I adjusted my crotch walking behind Frankie trying to move my boner sideways in my pants. That was a nice goose Frankie gave me, but do I dare hope I hit another jack-pot?
We're sitting at a little table in the cafe with our coffees and Frankie takes out his pack of Marlboro Lights cigarettes and offers me one. I shook my head while he lit his with a Bic lighter and told me told he only smokes here on the job during the summer. The reason being that so many of the employees smoke that he joined in to be one of the guys. It looked funny seeing that cute, baby-face smoking. I said, "On second thought, I want to be one of the guys, too. He holds out his pack, I take one, then imitate him lighting up, but unlike Frankie, I began coughing like crazy because I also imitated the way Frankie inhaled. Man, smoke feels like a burning log in your lungs. I started smoking like a girl with the little puffs, Frankie snickered and coughed out, "Cunt" every time I took that little drag. I had to laugh at him every time he exaggerated the cough/cunt sound.
After finishing the cigarette, I felt dizzy and slightly sick to my stomach even though I hardly inhaled at all. What a disgusting habit! No matter, I'd bonded a little with Frankie and I got another nice goose from him on the way back out to the loading dock after our coffee, maybe because of that cigarette.
The job took on an entirely new feel with Frankie here. It was fun and I loved looking at him close up too. For laughs we imitated Rocky's negative, complaint-filled outlook by harshly criticizing everything associated with this, "dip-shit, loser company." During the week Frankie and I dropped a lot of the boxes we were unloading because we were laughing so hard at one another's pretend complaints. Stuff like, "Leave it to this dip-shit company to order boxes of inferior cardboard. Fucking losers."
That would be said, for example, after Frankie dropped a box off the six-foot loading platform onto the blacktop below. He'd dropped it because I goosed him while he was lifting it. The box spit open and we blamed "inferior cardboard. No matter what we did wrong it was always, "This fucking loser company hires the most incompetent employees."
Mr. Brittle came down to check-up on us one of the few times Rocky was actually on the loading dock with us. Frankie and me biting our lips and red in the face trying to keep from laughing as Rocky wipes his bald head with a rag as if he were sweating from all the unloading. He sighed and says, "Good morning, Mr. Brittle. How they hanging?"
"Don't be crude, Rocky. Please give me a progress report." Rocky made it seem like we'd worked around the clock catching up on the unloading and when he finished with his amazingly adroit bull-shit line Mr. Brittle looked here and there trying to discover a screw-up, but he couldn't find one. He was impressed, but what he didn't realize was an entire truck load had to be sent back because it hadn't been inventoried at the home office before getting to us. Mr. Brittle assumed we'd already unloaded that, too.
His inspection complete, Mr. Brittle while shaking his head slowly in disbelief, finally he had to say, "Great job, Rocky. We're ahead of schedule it seems. He checked his computer print-out sheet again and told us that another load of shelving was coming in next week, so it's good we were almost done with this one. "Sure thing, Boss. Well, we better get back to work boys, this fucking back of mine is killing me." Rocky muttered out loud enough for Mr. Brittle to hear. Rocky groaned, pretended to move one of the boxes that Frankie had just unloaded.
Not caring a bit about Rocky's supposed bad back, Mr. Brittle looked around one last time, then waved at us in a dismissive way and fast-walked off. Frankie and me burst out laughing as Rocky headed swiftly into the air-conditioned cafe for another break.
Frankie and me were doing goosing and ass-grabbing all the time and with Frankie I'd goose his crotch or his ass and sometimes get a little of both with one grab. Frankie was an expert at just getting my balls in his fist and his big smirking smile accompanied each successful grab. Jusus, I had a semi-boner most of the time. Frankie was big on hugging, too. Big greeting every morning, and then tight two-arm hugs for every success we had with each job we completed, making a big deal out of it. I, of course, was already an experienced 'hugger' after the two weeks of hugging with the cute twins. I loved all of Frankie's craziness and reciprocated in full, looking forward to work every day and the first two weeks flew by.
Unfortunately, I couldn't hook-up easily with Frankie on the weekend because we lived in opposite directions from the office. It would be over an hour drive each way between our houses. When I mentioned getting together on the weekend, Frankie never really seemed to be very excited to do that, so I was disappointed, but other than that life was great on the job.
After work, I rode my bike on those long road trips and I spent time texting with the twins and Alexander. Alexander would send emails, too. Some of them got me so hot as he reminisced about our mornings together in Wildwood. He said he missed me a lot and asked me to jerk-off at a specific time, so he and I would be doing it together. He wrote the sexiest emails, giving me boners reading them, but his telephone calls were even hotter. Oh my, Alexander is a sexy boy! We had a couple mutual wack-offs on the rare occasions that we were both alone, on the phone, in our houses at the same time.
After all our sexy talk Alexander then wanted mostly to talk about his hair salon/barbershop opening. Lots of work getting it ready for an August 15 grand-opening. I really missed the sex with and spent many nights in bed wondering who I missed the most, Alexander or Christobal. Both of them gave me so much pleasure and they both were so much fun, too. I felt lucky, but horny too. Once I'd had that sweet sex with Christobal, sex by myself has never been real satisfying by comparison.
There were other concerns for me. I also had to field telephone calls from Pattie Reynolds and one of them led to me taking her on a double date with her best friend and that girl's fat, constantly farting, boyfriend. A couple of other nights Pattie and I just hung-out at her place as she poked and grabbed my body. Ugh! We'd do the same making-out that she and I did after that party before Wildwood. Double ugh! I ran into my almost-buds, too, the swimming team guys, Robby and Marty. We hooked-up for a Pirates game one night and hung out at Burger King a couple other nights. They wanted to know if I'd gotten in Patties' pants yet. Ha!
In addition, there were a couple of responsibilities around the house I had to take care of, like cutting the lawn and taking the trash to the town dump and other stuff that came up. All in all, I had plenty to do after work, but the most fun I was having now, by far, was at work with Frankie. One day during the third week we were resting inside one of the half empty trucks, sitting on boxes having a cigarette and I could feel Frankie staring at me. I looked at him as he looked back at me for ten seconds and then I said, "What?" Frankie said, "There's something major-league wrong with your hair and it's been driving me crazy since day one, and I just figured out what's wrong with it."
I mutter, "Duh? What is it?" Frankie tells me that my hair is cut in a "faux hawk" haircut and it's supposed to be combed up from either side. I said, "No shit, Sherlock, but my Dad says it's unprofessional-looking." We both got a good laugh out of that because how professional is our job of unloading trucks?
Frankie says, "Fuck it, man. I'm going to fix this." and he takes out his pocket comb and tells me to, "Sit-up straight on that god damn cardboard box!"
I do that in an exaggerated way. "Good, Oliver. Now don't panic, but I'm going to spit in your hair to wet it. Just my clear, clean, bubbly saliva." I shrug, my dick bobbing a little in my jockey underpants and he spits four times. This is so stupid I couldn't help but grin, while at the same time, it's pretty goofily sexy. Frankie makes me feel sexy without him even trying. I feel his spit soaking onto my scalp as he begins combing my hair, each side toward the middle, like it was cut to do in the first place. And, by the way, it's a goofy-looking hairstyle, but I do not give much of a shit about my hair. More spitting and more combing. "I need more spit," Frankie says, "But I'm all out." He combed it a bit more and, exasperated, he said, "We need more spit. Here Oliver, put some of your spit in my mouth." He leans his head down and I see his big grin so I know he's not serious. Frankie never turned the grin into a laugh, though. Instead, he puts his parted lips on mine. My heart beat fast, pitter-patter, pitter-patter and I gulped.
Frankie stayed where he was so I took a chance and my lips parted. He has such a nice, natural smelling breath, and those very pretty eyes of his with his eyeglasses fogging up from both our hot, moist exhales. Damn, he's cute!
I tried to look him in his eyes, but we were too close and my eyes cross. "Nice look, Oliver." Frankie says with a chuckle. Move your mouth onto mine." I move my head forward an inch and his lips covered mine, so I blew some spit into his mouth. He says, "More," but it's hard to understand because our mouths are together.
Frankie's head is sideways to mine as he was bending down that way, and our noses were pressed into each other's cheek. His face felt fine, and even with perspiration, his face smelled clean and sexy. I did a long inhale through my nose to capture as much of Frankie's scent as I could. My boner was poking straight up in my jeans as I scraped wet, drooling saliva from my tongue up and off against the bottom of his front teeth. Some of Frankie's saliva dripped in my mouth, too. My boner leaked as some of our combined spit ran down Frankie's chin when he started to laugh. He moved away with a little chuckle and spit quite a lot of our mixed saliva on my hair. Right away I felt its wetness on my scalp, there is so much of it now. Oh, do I ever want to pull on my dick. Frankie's laughing and combing my hair and saying what a couple of dip-shits we are.
The entire procedure took longer to describe than it took to do it. Our mouths were together for maybe three seconds. Still, I can't catch my breath and breathe normally. I can feel myself getting close to hyperventilating. Frankie seems cool and calm with his laughing and chuckling and his wise-ass comments. "Okay, Oliver, now your hair is nice and wet. It's going to be stiff as hell too when our spit dries on it, but it will stay in place, and smell good too! Haha."
I gasp, "Thanks," and he combs my hair for a few extra minutes. I wish he would do it for a few hours. Oops, then I noticed a wet spot on the front of my jeans. Casually putting my hand over the spot, Frankie's saying, "Isn't this retarded of us, Oliver?" Everything is a joke to Frankie. I manage to ask, "Do you need any more of my spit?" Frankie says, "Damn, Oliver, you taste good, but we got enough spit."
All I can think of is, "I'm covered in Frankie's spit and I'm going to blow a huge load in my pants any second now." Frankie mutters, "You know what, Oliver? Now that you mention it, I do have a touch of dry mouth," and just like that he put his mouth on mine and we licked tongues for a full minute. He pulled away and says, "Shit, Oliver, you're the most fun, most outrageous kid I've ever known. I'm glad you're working here this. summer."
He sounded excited saying that, but he's always playful, while I was trying not to moan in sexual arousal. It was so sexy having his spit in my hair, and in my mouth. Oh fuck, I know I'm going to blow a wad in my pants. I was doing fast, short breathing while he was laughing and combing his own hair now, in all its redness, it standing up straight. Oh my God, I needed to jerk off.
Frankie said, "If we had grown-up in the same neighborhood, we'd have been best buds for sure. You are just as wacky as I am and that's really saying something. I never expected to find anyone as nuts as me, but you may be even nuttier. Come on Oliver, let's take our afternoon break early. Damn, that was funny."
Muttering, "Uh-huh, it was fun," I followed him to the cafe, still hiding my wet crotch with my hand as best I could. I sat down at the round table to hide my wet spot feeling lucky that it was Frankie's turn to buy our drink and snack. My hair and scalp were still wet with spit. When Frankie's back was to me I croaked out, "I'll be right back, Frankie. I gotta pee pee."
I stiff-legged a walk to the lavatory and went right in the first stall, locked the door and wacked off, five quick strokes and a hard thin stream of cum splattered off the wall above the toilet. I let out the breath I'd been holding along with that moan I've been trying to conceal, then shot some smaller squirts of cum. Then, I had to turn around and collapse on the toilet seat because I felt so weak after that cum explosion. Then that indescribably delicious feeling of 'cuming' rolled over me and I moaned again with pleasure and relief. Oh, this job rocks the best!
Back in the cafe, with my sexual relief complete, I'm able to enjoy my coke, my peanut butter crackers, and the hot, sexy Frankie. He was joking about how much better I looked with my hair combed up and he talked some about his longish red hair combed up in a long brush cut and how he was going for a haircut after work. He wanted it short on the sides, what he called a "fade." I don't know much about haircut styles, but I told him about Alexander and how he's opening his own salon. Of course, I didn't say anything about Alexander and me screwing and what-have-you, just about the haircutting. Frankie said, "Cool!"
He could talk about any subject and with a lot of enthusiasm, too. He made things exciting and fun, and generally, put a lot of energy into whatever we were up to. That jerk-off had really hit the spot for me and I was in the best mood ever. I enjoyed looking at Frankie and listening to him. I was very attracted and attached to him already. It's how I got attached to Christobal and Alexander real fast. I had no idea if these quick attachments were normal for a nineteen-year-old, or was it weird of me. No matter, I liked how it felt to really care for a kid my age. My wet spot dried during our break. Everything is going so right for me lately.
As far as Frankie was concerned, I had a hard time evaluating what the spit swapping meant. It was definitely a tongue kiss, at the very least, but Frankie seemed immune to the sexual side of it. Everything was one big yuck to him. He considered us wild and crazy guys who were up for anything as long as we got a laugh out of it. To further confuse me, the next afternoon Frankie says, "Oliver, my mouth is so dry in this fucking heat. How about lending me some of your saliva, if you got any to spare? I'll pay you back when I have an excess."
With Frankie I never know if it's serious or if it's a joke so I looked at him half ready to laugh and half ready to get a boner. He asks, "Well, you got any spit for me today, Oliver?" I nodded my head and he stepped in front of me and put his tongue in my mouth.
Boner time again. At first, we just pushed spit back and forth with our tongues, but it soon turned into a full-fledged make-out. After about a minute, Frankie said, "Okay, thanks, that's enough spit for now. My mouth is much more better." And the laugh that follows because of the baby talk." He laughed and jostled me around a bit while I tried to hide my latest boner. I just had a smile on my face looking happily into Frankie's beautiful blue eyes and thinking to myself, "If he does this again those little round glasses of his are going to be askew just like I fantasized would happen between us when I first saw this red headed boy my first day here. I think I may be in love again. Damn, what's wrong with me?"
Making out, which Frankie called swapping spit, became something we did for two or three minutes in the morning and two or three minutes in the afternoon. Frankie would say "Yum yum!" or "Ain't this a pisser?" or "We are so fucking cool!" or "Why must you stalk me?" or anything goofy he could think of. Everything is fun-and-games with Frankie, and I was always on the verge of blowing a load in my drawers. I'd wait for Frankie to start it and then we'd go at it. His glasses were more than askew by the time we were done. He never combined the making-out with sexy bodily touching though. He held my head with both his hands or put a hand on each of my shoulders. I'd have my hands lightly on his waist. It was surreal, but none-the-less, I couldn't wait for Frankie to initiate our make-outs.
When we were done the kissing, licking and sucking we made no other reference to the make-outs. Instead, we acted as if they never happened. We always did the make-outs far back inside the truck bed behind boxes or behind whatever was available. Once I tried to pull Frankie's body against mine during the kissing, but he made an obvious negative move to counter that, so I didn't try it again. He just liked the make-out part, I guess.
After that first make out afternoon, Frankie had appeared next morning with the 'fade' haircut he'd talked about. Very close cut on the sides and back faded into longer hair near the top of the sides. I could see his pale scalp all around the sides and back of his head. It was the sexiest thing to me, but I couldn't tell you why. His red hair still stood straight up on top, but it was only about half as long as it was before the haircut. To me, Frankie looked like the definition of sexy/cool. His round glasses and that innocent baby face hiding a mischievous, exciting attitude. I was happy to know Frankie Nerney.
We were in the cafe and he says, "I'll show you my hair-on-fire trick. It helps the illusion to have red hair like I have. Take a drag on your cigarette and blow the exhaled smoke into my brush haircut at my hairline. Go ahead, Oliver, do it." I shake my head in amazement because with Frankie, it's always something unexpected! So, I start to blow smoke in his hair, but he says for me to put my lips right against his forehead at the hairline and then blow the smoke into his hair slowly near the roots. I press my lips against his forehead and close my eyes, my hands holding his head steady.
His hair smells nice, not like shampoo, just clean hair. I took my hands off the sides of his head and ran my fingers through that silky red hair, marveling how it stood straight up from his scalp. His forehead is so smooth and velvety under my lips, but shortly I can't hold the smoke in my lungs any longer so I have to exhale it into his hair. I'd like to lick and kiss his forehead, but I don't. Frankie says, "Look at my hair." I pull my head back and sure enough, smoke drifted up from his hair all over the top of his head. It looked like it was on fire or at least smoldering.
Frankie said we have to do this just before Brittle made an appearance and we'd cry out, "His hair is on fire!" Frankie laughs while all I wanted to do was put my lips against his forehead again, but I managed to smile at the thought of Brittle thinking Frankie was on fire. Smoke was still drifting out of Frankie's hair when Rocky sauntered into the cafe and said, "One of you ladies get me a coffee, please. What a fucked-up day. Um, Frankie, FYI, your hair's on fire."
I hustled over to pour Rocky a cup of coffee while Rocky scrutinized a paper on his ubiquitous clip-board. Frankie said, "Hey, boss, what's on that fucking clip-board that's so important, man? It's freaking-up your fourth afternoon break here." Rocky said, "Fuck you, Nerney," but he said it in a funny way. Rocky can say "fuck you" and you have to laugh. I don't know how he does it. There are people who are naturally funny.
When he's done writing something on the paper that's clipped to his clip-board he sat back and tasted his coffee. "Perfect, Nicky! You make the best fucking cup of kerosene I've ever tasted." He goes on to tell us about Mr. Brittle's supervisors meeting that Rocky had just come from. The meeting concerned an up-coming employee "Attitude Survey" and how the company wanted to see positive results. In other words, "Make sure your fucking employees are happy and I don't give a shit how you do it."
Frankie and I nod as Rocky continues, "The meeting was finally over except for brown-nosers who keep asking Mr. Peanuts questions. The meeting was then cutting into one of my afternoon breaks, as you pointed out Frankie boy." Rocky tells us he'd raised his hand hoping to put an end to the questions by throwing everyone off the subject. So, apropos of nothing, he'd asked if Mr. Brittle was of French descent.
Rocky was enjoying telling his story, "Brittle looked confused, but said that, yeah, he is. So, I tells him that I heard a thing from an Army pal and since Brittle is French, he might be interested. The Army guy had said that a fireworks display at Disneyland, outside Paris, caused the French Army garrison stationed nearby to drop their weapons and surrender to a busload of Swedish tourists."
Rocky wondered was this something Brittle had heard of, him being a 'frog' and all. According to Rocky, who was laughing at his own story, Brittle had snorted, "That is a very old and very offensive joke." The other supervisors had done their best not to laugh at this put down of the French people's propensity for surrendering in world wars, but it had put an end to the meeting.
By the end of the third week, I tried again to get Frankie over my place for the weekend, or I'd be happy to go to his house for the weekend. We had to get together. It didn't work out though, and instead I had to go to a party with Pattie who was introducing me as her 'boyfriend' now. Jesus! She wasn't anywhere near as cute as Frankie and I don't care if you're gay or not, you couldn't dispute that fact. When I picked Pattie up for the paty though, I did see someone who was very cute. For the first time since I'd been going to Pattie's house, her seventeen-year-old brother, Myers, was home. He's shorter than me and slightly stocky like his sister, but something about his eyes and mouth was so sexy I found myself staring at him.
I was waited for Pattie to come downstairs and this kid with short, spiked blond hair introduced himself as Pattie's brother. He had the beginning of a blond mustache, and when he smiled, very shiny white teeth and wicked cute dimples. There were two zits on his forehead that amazingly were somehow sexy. I couldn't help staring at him and he stared right back at me in a bit of an arrogant way. After a few seconds, he put a smirk on his face, lifted his eyebrows, and nodded as if to say to himself, "I knew it".
With a puzzled look on my face, Myers pushed the tip of his tongue out through his lips. Mesmerized, I made an audible gulping sound and he wet his lips in a slow deliberate manner, never moving his eyes away from my eyes. I shuddered involuntarily and my dick stirred in my pants, then the mood was broken when Pattie stomped down the stairs talking in that too loud voice she always uses. "Sorry to be late, Oliver. Oh, don't you look cute tonight! Oh, did you meet my little brother, Myers?"
Myers and I nodded, Myers continuing to stare at me as I walked past him with Pattie to go out the front door. I took a few deep breaths outside, wondering, wondering what the fuck was that all about?" That kid had turned me on and he did it on purpose. There is an outside chance I may be over-sexed, and this is not the first time that thought has entered my brain. I'm thinking about Myers, as Pattie babbled on about her day. Myers is getting in the way of me thinking about Frankie.
And when I was done thinking about Myers and Frankie I could concentrate on thinking about Noah, Nathan, Alexander and Christobal. Damn, I better look up the definition of slut and hope I don't see a picture of me there. After all the years of wanting a gay friend, the last three months have generated a bunch of them. Did you ever see a dog eat? They'd eat continuously, way past the need to satisfy their hunger. They'd keep on eating as long as there was something to eat right up until they fell over. I'm beginning to think that's the way I am with cute gay guys. Gorging myself on them till I collapse.
That concept worried me initially, but I did get to know the two boys I've had sex with, before we had the sex, sort of. I can't include Frankie as a guy I've had sex with; not yet. Sure, I drool over strange boys on the street too, but I don't have sex with them. I need to become friends first, and maybe the friendship slips into sex. I'm on a lucky streak with gay boys, that's all. After saying that, I'm not at all sure Frankie, Noah or Nathan are gay. With Myers, how would I know? More likely they're all merely teasing me a little or just experimenting or something like that.
Plus, perhaps it seems like lately everyone I meet might be gay, but that's not true. I meet ten or twenty people before I meet one who I think might be gay. I don't talk about the other uninteresting guys I meet I concentrate on the gay ones, more or less. At least I can be sure about Cristobal and me because we say we're gay. I'm positive Alexander is gay too, but I'm worried he might be too gay for me. Gee, life is never all that easy, is it?
To be continued...
