Chapter 27
27.
The Longest Journey
“Love is not the cause of happiness—it’s a symptom of it.”
—Disco Witch Manifesto #29
At a casual pace it would take a sober-ish man approximately ten minutes to walk from the Promethean to the Meat Rack. Joe, drunker than he’d ever been and drawn by the most intense erotic desire he’d ever had, stumbled and swerved down the dark boardwalk for at least twenty-five minutes. In his mind he had been running, but he just couldn’t catch up to the mountainous muscle butt in the tight white pants. It was as if the boardwalk had turned into a conveyer belt going in the opposite direction. Sometimes he’d lose sight of the pants when they walked into the darkest shadows. Joe’s heart would sink, but then seconds (minutes? hours?) later the pants would reappear like magic. Twice, he dozed off while standing only to be awakened by his trumpeting erection beckoning him to follow. What the hell was in those Knockouts?
After five more minutes of stumbling after the white pants, he saw them stop. The Gladiator Man had reached the end of the boardwalk and the beginning of the Meat Rack. It was the perfect moment for Joe to catch up. But even as he tried to run, his lasagna noodle legs kept tripping while his erection grew more turgid. He readjusted himself so his penis pointed straight up in his pants, thinking it made him look less trashy. The next thing he knew, he was standing just ten feet away from Gladiator Man, a monument of masculine perfection, with intense dark eyes, a long Roman nose, and a small mole on his cheek, just above the beard line, like a punctuation mark on his sexiest of smiles—a smile clearly meant for Joe. Joe attempted to say something, but the words got caught somewhere between his uvula and Adam’s apple.
“I … um … I … um …” Frustrated by his inability to form words, he gestured to his heart and then grabbed his crotch in a sloppy dumbshow of lust.
The Gladiator Man grinned and tossed his massive head toward the Meat Rack. “Follow me,” he said in a low rumbling voice that literally caused Joe’s testicles to vibrate. He stumbled closer, his hunger and fear inextricable.
“I wanna …” Joe said, finally able to speak in words that felt as if they were being pulled from him. “I … so lonely. So empty. I need you.” The Gladiator Man moved closer. Joe felt his dragon hot breath on his cheeks. Were the man’s eyes glowing? His body odor was a mix of Aramis cologne and … horse sweat? Joe’s cock punched at the teeth of his zipper. “Kiss me!” he begged. “Please kiss me before I … oh, fuck.” His guts began to heave. He bent over and Lenny’s Bolognese came gushing out à la Linda Blair in The Exorcist —once, twice, three times. When the urge to expel subsided, he fell to his knees, wiped his mouth on his wrist, and gazed up at the Gladiator Man’s face, which had grown as tall as the treetops. “Do you still want me?” Joe asked feebly before his eyes grew so heavy and everything went black.
It seemed like only a moment later when he felt the warm calloused hands stroking his aching head. A faint glow from the dark blue and orange sky crept through his crusted eyes. The island birds were singing their sunrise chorus. Morning? How long was I asleep? Joe felt so comfortable on the cool wood of the walk, his head nestled in the strong but soft lap. Had Gladiator Man stayed with him at the edge of the Meat Rack the entire night? The man’s touch felt so warm and kind, so unlike what he had thought his sexy scary touch would feel like. He nuzzled his head deeper into the man’s lap and considered the possibility of living there forever. But then a wave of humiliation gushed through his veins. The Gladiator Man had seen him vomit his guts out. Instead of fucking him royally, Gladiator Man was cradling him like a sick infant. “Ugh, I’m so embarrassed,” Joe groaned.
“You okay?” the man asked. “You were out for a while. It’s almost five.”
Joe rubbed the muck from his eyes and mouth. The man’s voice was different from earlier—still deep but now with a thick Long Island accent. Joe’s eyelids opened, and he noticed the material of the man’s pants. The jeans were blue, not white like Gladiator Man’s, more baggy, not tight. The hair on the man’s arms was a different texture. It wasn’t Gladiator Man at all who was stroking his hair.
“What the hell, Fergal?” Joe pushed himself from the ferryman’s lap and floundered up to his feet.
Fergal, wearing a wrinkled but new Pines Ferry T-shirt, quietly got up from the ground and brushed the sand from his jeans. He too looked like he hadn’t slept the entire night. His thick, asymmetrical eyebrows twisted in a confused puppy-dog look.
“It’s a good thing you tossed your cookies,” he said. “You could’ve been a lot worse off. Here, drink this. You’re probably dehydrated.” He picked up a bottle of Frostie Blue Cream soda from the ground and handed it to Joe who downed almost half the bottle in one gulp. Then he took another quick sip, gargled, and spit the remaining foul taste from his mouth. Remembering he was still shirtless, he brushed off the bits of sick and sand sticking to his chest hair. “How long have you been sitting here with me?”
“A long time,” Fergal said. “Howie and Lenny were freaked out. Word is you drank one too many Knockouts. Those things can kill ya, by the way. They sent me looking for you. I found you stumbling down the boardwalk.”
Fucking Fergal, Joe thought. Chasing the Gladiator Man away again. But when? How long had Joe been blacked out? Could it have been Fergal’s hot breath he felt last night? Did he smell like Aramis and horse sweat? He leaned over and sniffed Fergal’s T-shirt. It smelled like beer, Old Spice aftershave, and something else. He took another whiff. The ocean?
“Why are you sniffing me?” Fergal laughed and stuck his nose into his own armpit. “Not so bad. I showered last night before I went out.”
“It’s …” Joe sputtered, his thoughts all muddled in his head. “Nothing. One of the Graveyard Girls said those Knockouts would make me feel warm and sexy.”
Fergal smirked. “You feel warm and sexy last night when you were spewing chunks all over the boardwalk? By the way, here.” He offered Joe a stick of Wrigley’s Spearmint gum. “For your breath.”
Joe grabbed the gum and shoved it into his mouth, chewing furiously. His best opportunity to hook up with Gladiator Man had been wasted by him getting sick in front of some arrogant, closet-case ferryman whose eyes, he realized, were the same color as the Frostie Blue Cream soda he was drinking. In the middle of his gulping, he felt another wave of nausea and promptly sat back down.
“Maybe I should get you home,” Fergal said, offering his hand.
Joe glared at the hand, which Fergal lowered as he continued to gaze down at Joe expectantly. “Why are you looking at me like that?” Joe bristled.
Fergal curled his wayward eyebrows until they angled toward the middle. That was when Joe noticed the ferryman’s Frostie Blue Cream eyes had fallen into shadow, darkening until they had become more of a navy blue, the color of the deep, deep sea.
“Well,” Fergal said, “I’m just wondering if you’re ever gonna thank me. I probably saved your life last night.”
“That’s a little dramatic. I was basically fine. Just a little too buzzed.”
“A little buzzed? You almost fell off the boardwalk, like, ten times, and you passed out three times. I tried to get you back to Howie and Lenny’s, but you insisted on going to the Meat Rack. I had to take care of you the whole night—you think that was fun? Everybody was worried sick about you. Some guy croaked last August from drinking too many of those Knockout punches—and you’re half his size. I almost had to call 911. Instead, I stuck my fingers down your throat and made you vomit.”
“No, you didn’t,” Joe stammered. “You’re making that up.”
“You really are an ungrateful little sonofabitch.” Fergal pointed to his foot. “See that? You fucking puked all over my new boat shoes. Know how much these cost me?”
Joe stared at the crusty ochre splotch on the leather. He couldn’t believe he had lost his grasp on reality that much. “Tell me something,” he snapped. “Before you shoved your fingers down my throat—uninvited—did you happen to see me talking with some big hot guy in white pants?”
Fergal, mouth agape, shook his head. “Shoved my fingers down your throat ‘uninvited’? Fuck you, Joe. Get yourself home. I’m done.” He turned and began heading toward the harbor.
A confused anger surged through Joe’s veins. “Hey!” he growled, stumbling to his feet, and clumsily jogging up to Fergal. “I still have questions.”
“What?” Fergal spat and turned to face him.
A dark presence suddenly overtook Joe’s body, and without knowing why, he shoved Fergal’s shoulder, causing the taller man to lose his balance, stumbling a step backward.
“What the hell?” Fergal looked more puzzled than angry. “Why’d you do that?”
Joe, in fact, had no idea why he’d done it. He didn’t want to hurt the ferryman—quite the contrary. He longed to feel Fergal’s warm hands gently stroking his head again. He wanted to crawl inside the ferryman’s long lean arms, wanted to kiss him even. But the more he wanted it, the more the dark muddle inside grew stronger. “Are you going to fight me or not?”
“No.” Fergal scoffed, turning to walk away again.
A panic filled Joe’s chest. “Hey! Wait!” he shouted, wanting to apologize for his confusion.
Fergal turned back toward Joe with a look on his face that said, “What the fuck do you want?”
Again, not knowing what strange force was moving him, Joe aggressively grabbed the front of Fergal’s Pines Ferry T-shirt to pull him in for a kiss, but instead tore a gaping hole that showed the entirety of the ferryman’s chest.
Fergal, clearly unaware of Joe’s intentions, twisted his eyebrows in fury. “This is my new work shirt!” He yanked back the remnants of his torn shirt, causing Joe to stumble off the low boardwalk and fall onto his butt in the soft sand. “Why the hell are you trying to attack me?”
Looking up at Fergal with the ripped shirt dangling around his neck, his bare chest, and the tree branches behind him forming a halo around head, Joe thought how much the man really did resemble the little figure on the merman clock. “I wasn’t!” he blurted, his head still in a hungover muddle. “That time, anyway. I was just trying to …” he began, trying to stifle his tears. “I don’t know.”
Fergal shook his head and again began to walk away. Joe dropped his head to his knees, and a huge sob heaved from his lungs. Seconds later, he heard the crunching of Top-Siders in the sand. He looked up. There, staring down at him, was Fergal’s sweaty, stubble-covered face inlaid with those glowing blue-blue eyes, looking simultaneously angry and sad.
“What?” Joe snuffled, feeling tears roll down his cheeks. “I’m sorry. I really wanted—”
Fergal dropped to his knees and hugged him, tucking Joe’s head against the warmth of his chest. For the first time since he could remember, Joe felt completely safe and protected. But still there was something more he wanted, but he was too frightened to ask for fear Fergal would stop holding him. Then, as if the ferryman was reading Joe’s mind, he took him by the shoulders and gently kissed him on his quivering lips. All the unsatisfied sexual hunger from the previous night rushed back through Joe’s body, and with a simple parting of his lips, the two men began hungrily going at it. The taste of Fergal’s mouth was sweet and unusually salty, causing Joe to plunge his tongue deeper like some sodium-deprived forest creature. But it wasn’t enough. He yanked Fergal’s torn shirt over his head and ran his hands across his tight abdomen, then up through the small patch of chest hair that formed a diamond just below his clavicle. He lifted Fergal’s arm and pressed his nose to the tuft of black hair in his armpit, then began lapping at the musty saltiness there. He wanted more.
“Kiss me again,” Joe demanded.
Fergal complied. Joe drank him in. Still not enough. It could never be enough. He desperately needed Fergal’s body even closer—he wanted him inside him. Again, like he knew exactly what Joe wanted, Fergal flipped him onto his stomach, and began to grind his crotch into the back of Joe’s jeans. He wrapped his forearm around Joe’s neck and used his free hand to yank Joe’s pants and underwear down, exposing his ass. Fergal dug into his pocket for a condom.
“Never mind that!” Joe arched his butt. “Fuck me now! Please , Elliot.”
Everything stopped. “Elliot?” Fergal repeated with disgust, and then lifted himself off Joe’s body. The chilly morning air blew across Joe’s naked back. He was confused at first, but then he realized what he had said.
“I’m really sorry,” he stammered. “It’s not like I didn’t know who you are. It’s just that Elliot was … he was …” No, no, he couldn’t tell Fergal, a stranger. He couldn’t. “Look, I just forgot your name for a second. It’s not a big deal. Who can remember everyone’s name on Fire Island, right?” He laughed nervously. “Hey, we can still do this …”
Fergal silently lifted Joe from the sand, pulling up his underwear and jeans as if he were someone else’s disobedient child. All the previous passion in his eyes had vanished behind a wall of blue ice. Joe wished Fergal would just say something, but instead the ferryman turned and started walking back toward the harbor.
“Come on!” Joe called out. “It was just a dumb mistake! Come on! Don’t be that way!”
Fergal’s body, like a study in perspective, grew smaller and smaller as it moved down Fire Island Boulevard toward some distant vanishing point.
Joe’s entire viscera felt as if it had been scooped out with a shovel. Sand and wind blew through the gaping hole. You are alone. You will always be alone. You deserve to be alone. Forever.