Guess what I did tonight?”
“Does it involve Eagle Studios porn?”
“No,” Brendan turned to Dena. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring that up again.”
“Sorry,” Dena said. “I was just playing.”
Brendan didn’t say anything, and then he told her, “Well, I helped Will Klasko get dressed for his date with Dena.”
“I didn’t know you guys were friends like that.”
“I didn’t either,” Brendan said. “You know, I don’t really have that many friends.”
“No one does, you know,” Dena said. “People just… People want to be liked so bad so they always go ‘My friend this, my friend that.’ I don’t think you have any less friends than anyone else.
“But I wish I did. I mean,” Brendan explained, “I wish I did have more friends. I’d really like that. I think… It was fun tonight. You know what Will said to me?”
“Hum?”
“He said that I had it all together. That I was different from him because people thought I was cool, and I had you, and I was… Together. I’ve never thought of myself like that until tonight. Heck. I don’t think of myself that way now. Dena, do you think we really see ourselves the way people see us?”
“To tell you the truth,” Dena said, “I never really see myself at all. And I don’t really have much of an inkling of how folks look at me. If they do.”
“They must, Dena. You’re smart. You’re pretty. I might not know that much but I do know I got a prize. I know people look at me and wonder, ‘How did he get her? Hot as she is?’”
“Stop.”
“No,” Brendan squeezed her shoulder.
“And then they look at you and they know, ‘Because he’s hot too!’”
Brendan snorted.
“That… I don’t believe.”
“I didn’t get the part with the peanut,” Layla said as they walked to the car. “You know… I thought I was very refined. I’d still like to think I am.”
“I know you are, Layla,” Will said. “You’re what my granddad calls quality.”
“Shut up,” Layla laughed. “Besides, “I’m not quality enough to know what the hell the peanut means.”
“Well, I didn’t understand that. Or the woman floating away on the balloon.”
“Oh, my God!” Layla remembered something. “Did you see the movie I’m Not There?”
Will laughed. “I got it out from the library last week.
“All right. Be honest. How did it make you feel?”
Will chuckled and told her, “Like I wasn’t there. I didn’t know what was going on!”
“I know. Me neither. No, I mean, I got what was going on. But the cover of the movie said, seven people, and they’re all Bob Dylan. And I was alright with that. I though they were going to be, you know, like Bob Dylan at different times in his life. Only it turned out that none of them was Bob Dylan.”
“Everyone was supposed to be someone else who was Bob Dylanesque, right? Like they embodied some Bob Dylan quality.”
“Which,” said Layla, “is not the same thing as being Bob Dylan.
“And then they had the one with Heath Ledger where he was an actor who played a singer who was someone like Bob Dylan. What the fuck was that?”
Layla burst out laughing. “I’ve never heard you say the word fuck before.”
“I’ve never had to say the word fuck before,” Will said. “But that movie changed me. “
“And then the Richard Gere thing— where he was Billy the Kid but not Billy the Kid and Billy the Kid was Bob Dylan—”
“Oh, shit! I know. And then I watched the commentary.”
“Did you, Layla? How? I wanted to, but the movie took too much out of me.”
“I thought the commentary would explain it more. But they were talking about how Bob Dylan was so complex they had to do him like this. Well, I just turned the DVD player off after that. I mean…. I could follow Gandhi, and Gandhi was, well…”
“Gandhi.”
“Exactly. And I could follow Jesus of Nazareth, and he was Jesus. But Bob was so complex they had to make a crap movie like that.”
Will was laughing so hard he was doubled over now.
“Well,” Layla said. “I just couldn’t except some bullshit like that.”
Will kept laughing and Layla opened her mouth, but now she was laughing too. She just repeated, “I couldn’t. I couldn’t… I couldn’t accept that bullshit. I didn’t understand, and I knew I didn’t understand everything. But I also knew I was being bullshitted.”
And then Will said, “But that’s what I like about you?”
“What? That I cuss too much?”
“No, Layla. Well, yes actually.”
“And can’t stand bullshit?”
“Well, definitely that too,” he said. “But really, it’s how even though we might not get something… it doesn’t stop us from giving it a try.”
Before he came to, there was that deep throbbing in him. Way deep. Asshole deep, and he squeezed himself together like an accordion and savored it. But with consciousness came the sickness and the disorientation. Things were beginning to piece themselves together. Just enough. The hallway was emptier than before. Music was still loud. His head was throbbing. Everybody spoke too loudly. Bursts of red and blue were in his eyes. Where was he? Wasn’t he? Derek Everett was deep fucking him. Where was Derek now? Blindly, Johnny stumbled through the house looking for someone he half trusted. Anyone he had let himself really like would be too fucked up to help him.
With as much care as possible he came down the stairs to the burst off screaming noise that was the main floor, that was the place they usually worked. He looked from face to face, from body to body. And then, there he was, tall and narrow, plain and good natured with his camera, filming. That filmmaker Guy had hired. He staggered toward him.
“Todd!” he croaked.
Startled, Todd Meraden let the camera drop to catch Johnny. Johnny opened his mouth to say, probably, “Thank you.”
But instead he turned his head and threw up.
“I’m usually much more sophisticated than this,” Johnny’s voice came from the pillow his face crushed into where he lay on Todd’s bed.
“I try to maintain,” he began, and then moaned, “Owwww…”
Todd stood over him solicitously. “I’ll get you some water. Can you handle water?”
“Actually,” his words came out more imprecise, the more precise he tried to sound, “Water is pretty much all I can handle.”
“All right,” said Todd. “I’m just going to go to the sink.”
As the water in the little bathroom ran, Todd said, “I had planned to go home and come back tomorrow. I don’t want to leave you here,” he said over the running water. He came out.
“Here you go, Johnny.”
“That’s my stage name,” Johnny said, taking the water.
“Oh.”
“My real name is Paul Anderson.” As Johnny Mellow drank the cup of water, trickles escaped and ran down his chest. The cowboy hat was gone so all he had on was white briefs.
“I never tell anyone that,” he said, reflexively. He belched.
“I’m sorry. That was so. I’m so…”
“I’ll get you more water,” Todd said.
He came back a moment later, and Johnny drank. The music from down below thumped up into these white carpeted rooms Guy had set aside for Todd.
“Thank you. You’re really kind,” Johnny told him.
“Johnny, Paul… uh…”
“Who’s Paul?” Johnny said.
“You just said,” Todd began, and then said, “Johnny. You’re really not well. I’m going to take you home and bring you back tomorrow.”
“Oh, I can’t leave.”
“Well, you can’t stay here. Not the way you are.”
“I’m,” everything Johnny Mellow had said was slurred and stupid. Nothing had come out right. Now as he said, “I—” his voice caught on something. He leaned over on his side and threw up again, for a long time.
Todd looked on, helplessly, and when the retching was done, he said, “We’ve got to get some clothes for you. Where are your clothes, Johnny?”
“I dunno.”
“I should find some clothes. I should take my camera. Hold on Johnny.”
Johnny was on his side. Todd pulled his underwear band and looked inside.
“Medium. I’d guess… size thirty-four. You a thirty-four, Johnny? I’ll be back. It’s so many naked folks around here there’s got to be someone’s clothes lying around.”
As Todd left the room, heading back to the party, he heard Johnny in a sing song voice murmuring: “Roun’ roun’ roun’’
London bridges falling roun
Falling roun
Falling round
Longdon’ bridges falling roun
My fair lady
No, Johnny remembered, falling down.
London bridge is falling down.
My fair lady!
There it was!
Johnny Mellow put his hands to his damp head and realized his cowboy hat was gone. His wonderful, sexy cowboy hat. He was so sexy with his briefs on, with guys running their hands up and down his chest, touching his package, cupping him there, touching his ass, winking at him, murmuring about how he’d fucked the life out of them. Not like this, not crumpled up, high and sick all over the place. Not without his hat. Goddamn, he’d been so fucking beautiful.
“All right, Johnny, get into these clothes. I need you to get into these jeans. Can you do that? There you go.”
Todd had the jeans halfway on Johnny, and was pulling the tee shirt over his head when Johnny said, “Todd, you’re so nice. You’re so good. You’re just like my grandpa. Not old like him. Or dead like him. But like I think he was when he was young. You’re so nice. Are you gay? You can’t be gay. Gay guys are assholes.”
“My boyfriend thinks I’m very gay. I can assure you,” Todd said. “People are people. Some of them are assholes. Now come on and help me help you get these jeans on.”
“I’m an asshole,” Johnny said, reflexively at first. And then he burst out, “I’m an asshole! I’m an ASSHOLE.” And began weeping.
FENN HOUGHTON did not want to answer the knock at the door because it couldn’t mean anything good. Todd had a key to the house, and no one else should come knocking past midnight, hell not past nine. Anyone who might would have had the sense to call first. So, at the knock, Fenn stayed in bed. In fact, he crawled deeper into the covers.
The knock came again, and Fenn thought, “It could be the police with news about Todd. It could be some woman trying to escape being raped. Like the woman I heard about in New York. She kept screaming, but no one would come out of their apartment to help her, and so she died.”
Carried away by Christian duty and an overactive imagination, Fenn hopped out of bed, pulling his housecoat over him, and ran down the steps, into the living room and over the carpet to answer the door.
“Todd!” And then he looked at the man slumped in his arms.
“Who the fuck is this?”
“Johnny Mellow.”
“Johnny who?”
“Would you just help me?”
“Ah!” Fenn remembered himself. “Give him here.”
Together they brought him through the door, and in a slurred voice the boy, for that’s what he was, Fenn observed, declared, “My real name ish Paul Andershin.”
“Well, my real name is Fenn Houghton, and we’re going to put your ass to bed.
“This,” he said to Todd, “is turning into the crazy ass end of a long ass day.”
“We’ll take him to the back bedroom,” Todd said.
“The hell we will. We’ll put him right here on this sofa. Um, over here,” Fenn lurched him across the living room. They let him go gently. Johnny Mellow groaned.
“There you go, deadweight,” Fenn said, stretching out his arms and rubbing them before turning to Todd.
“Now, are you going to tell me who the hell he is?”
“He was at the party.”
“The party you were taping for your movie? At the porn place?”
“Yes.”
“So what’s Alfalfa over there doing hanging out with pornstars?”
“Fenn, he is a pornstar.”
Unimpressed, Fenn turned to look at him and still remained unimpressed.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“I thought they were cuter than that. Not that he’s bad, but… It’s a thousand white men just like him here in Rossford.”
“Well, not really,” Todd differed. “He takes off his clothes and has sex with people. I saw him do a movie today. I taped it.”
“Jesus God,” Fenn murmured.
“He’s not bad. No matter what you think.”
“I don’t think anything,” Fenn said. “Well, I do think… What the hell is in him? Do we need to get him to a hospital?”
“No, apparently this is sort of a frequent thing. Only, I couldn’t leave him there in the shape he’s in.”
Johnny Mellow yawned and stretched out on the sofa. Then turned around and went back to sleep.
“Well, he can’t just sleep in his clothes,” Fenn said after awhile.
“Those aren’t his clothes,” Todd said. “When I found him… Well, he found me. He sort of collapsed on me… He only had underwear on. But it was that type of party.”
“You say it like I’m supposed to say, ‘Yeah. That type.’ What type?”
“One where pornstars in their underwear pass out all fucked up on drugs.”
“Oh.”
“Say, I’m really, really tired, baby.”
“Um hum.”
“We’ve got to be up and back in Port Ridge by about noon, so do you think you’ll be able to wake me?”
“Yes, my dear. I’ll wake you just the way you woke me,” Fenn yawned. “Let’s go to bed. Uh… wait…”
Fenn went down the hall into the closet, and brought back an old blanket that smelled of cedar.
“There we go,” he said, and draped it over Johnny Mellow.
“You won’t believe the day I had,” Todd said.
“Well, as of now, sense I put a pornstar to bed on the good sofa, I think I will.”
“But this has been the lightest part of it, Hought.”
“Well, I think I can top you. Not in nudity, but certainly in tragedy.”
“I just brought some coked up kid who was naked when I found him into our house. Top that for tragedy.”
“I just found out the playhouse is going bankrupt and we lost our star because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.”
“Oh,” Todd said, and then was silent for a minute as they headed up the stairs.
“That does kinda beat me.”
“Um hum.”
