Rule Number One: Pick the right location.

Dale sucks at hiding his excitement, like always. He tilts back and forth from one foot to another, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his skintight jeans. Tonight, he says, he’s the teacher (guess that makes me the student.)

Gay clubs are the best place, he always says, and today he complimented himself on “finding a sweet ass one” right here in Chicago. Two hours ago he ran into our motel room, swinging a flyer for the club in front of his face. Tonight we eat. Tonight we get drunk. Tonight we might even get a car.

Rain pours down by the gallon and the boys in the line duck under a half-awning, avoiding the falling drops, shivering and cursing out the doorman.

“Fuck this shit,” Dale crosses his arms, chewing an old piece of gum with his mouth wide open.

Spitting the gum across the street, he stomps to the front of the line and stops face to face with the doorman—a huge guy with shoulders as wide as he is tall. He whispers to the man, who stares straight ahead at the rest of us. No one but me looks down to see Dale’s hand rubbing the front of the doorman’s pants. The doorman closes his eyes, and nods. Dale nods me to the door. On the way in I count the eyes on my boyfriend’s ass: Blue and green, brown and hazel, behind pink fashion glasses and shadowed by visors, they bounce along with each step he takes into the club.

“Club Legion” is like every other gay club we’ve been to. Attacking strobe lights, wandering armies of colored lasers, cool and sweet smelling clouds of fake smoke. From Texas to Oklahoma, through Kansas and Montana, every club copies the one before it; the only things that change are the Marks, as Dale calls them. He doesn’t like that I call them targets, but that’s what they are.

We walk right to the bar and Dale orders a Corona, flashing one of the ten IDs from his wallet. With fresh beer breath, Dale kisses me and I can’t breath around his moving mouth. Before he lets go, I check my back pocket to make sure the packet is still there. It crinkles in my hand.

“Now watch,” he says, “We need more cash than last time so we’re both working tonight.”

I nod, no need to argue with him like I did back at the motel. He rips his shirt off and jams it into the back of his jeans. His stomach tenses and twists, his chest expands as his arms move up into the air. He winks and turns around and dances away from me.

 

Rule Number Two: Find your Mark.

In less than a minute, a man notices Dale. The Mark wears a baseball cap and big square eye glasses that rest just above a round nose and bushy mustache. First, he stands there and watches Dale move. Turning in circles, his feet stepping in and out of time with the music, Dale inches closer. The Mark takes a few steps in. After some more teasing my boyfriend slams his back into the Mark. Contact. Success. The Mark swallows Dale’s neck in his mouth. My stomach turns, but the feeling goes away with deep breaths. It always does.

The Mark stumbles and Dale slows down to help him regain a sense of control. Dale’s eyes meet mine from across the dance floor.

 

Rule Number Three: Make sure your Mark is drunk.

Dale nods, and I move my head a little. He turns to the man and whispers into his pierced ear. A smile pops out from under the mustache. Dale takes his hand and leads him to the bathroom, weaving in and out between the dancers.

 

Rule Number Four: Get your Mark out of the crowd.

I turn to the bartender; he’s wearing a cowboy hat and matching black leather bracelets. I order a gin and tonic and tell him to start a tab. My ID is one that Dale got for me. I don’t think I look anything like Jonathan Sinclair of Topeka Kansas—his brown hair so different from my black spikes, but the bartender doesn’t care. No gay club bartender really has.

“You here by yourself?” He asks, pushing the drink in front of me.

“No, with my boyfriend.”

“Ah, too bad for me. Cute accent… you on vacation?”

“Yeah,” the bathroom door opens, three guys come out, none of them Dale, “we’re from Texas.” Even though my ID says Kansas.

“Well shit, maybe you should wear my cowboy hat then.”

The bathroom door swings open and Dale walks out. His eyes dart around him.

 

Rule Number Five: Make sure no one sees you.

“Excuse me,” I leave the bartender and my drink behind, walking quickly to Dale. “How’d it go?”

“Two hundred twenty dollars, Jakey. That’s better than the first three I nailed last week.”

I smile like I’m proud, any other face and he might get angry. “Where’s he now?”

“He fell asleep on the toilet with his dick in his hands. Come on, let’s go sit down.”

 

Rule Number Six: Leave twenty bucks in the wallet and stash it in a couch.

“By the time the owner finds this thing, you and I will be so far away from this city,” Dale says, “your turn!”

I don’t move.

“Jakey?”

“I can’t, Dale. That’s your thing. I’m not even cute enough.”

“These guys are so drunk, it doesn’t matter what you look like.”

Ouch.

“No, I don’t feel good.”

Dale grabs my wrist and slams his nose into mine. “I said it’s your turn. Unless you want to stay back here and sleep on the fucking street and I’ll send you a postcard from New York, get the fuck out there.”

The asshole. One second he’s excited and sweet, the next he’s about to punch me in the face. My mouth trembles and he looks me right in the eyes, not blinking. I peel off my shirt and put it in my jeans. Closing my eyes, I pretend I’m still doing Go-Go at Mitch’s Rainbow Bar in Texas. Back then I danced for strangers; this is no different. In fact, now it’s more important than ever.

When I turn around Dale is gone. Someone crashes into my back; his body is wet and warm. My eyes close tight, since Dale never made a rule about eye contact.

I grind into my Mark and he meets me with more force, bouncing me forward. His hands catch my body and pull me against his stomach. They crawl all over me, the hot skin on the pads of his fingers sticking to my stomach.

When I open my eyes, Dale’s face takes up the whole screen of a closed circuit TV against a wall. The cameraman pans back to show a blonde guy in a green tank top with his arm around my boyfriend. The boy holds out a tiny spoon and Dale sticks it in his nose, lifts his head, and wipes his nostrils. His eyes roll in a circle and he laughs.

My Mark’s hands creep down my pants. I yank them out but stop myself from running away from him. This has to get done. I go to lead him into the bathroom. He yanks my arm and I turn to him, trying my best to hide the panic.

“Whoa whoa, where you going?” He asks. I laugh and turn for the door again. He whips me around. “You want something, cutey?”

“I…I thought we could go to the bathroom.” I can’t look him in the eyes, so I focus on a part of his nose close to them.

“I don’t fuck dancing whores,” he says.

My face burns.

I let his hand go and look past him at the screen: Two different guys dance on a speaker. Before I have a chance to look for Dale again the Mark shoves his mouth on mine and I have to grab onto his shoulders so I don’t fall. His breath is sour and smoky.

I rip myself from his arms, lifting my hand to slap him. He catches my wrist before I hit his face.

“Cute. Get out of here before I kick your slutty little ass,” he pushes me into a wall, my breath flies out of me when I smack into it, “Fuck off. Don’t let me see you again, dickhead.” And The Mark walks away. Failure.

I gather spit to dilute the taste of his sour breath in my mouth.

It takes me five minutes to find Dale. He’s sitting on a couch in a small room hidden in a dark corner away from the rest of the club. Either no one knows about this room, or they don’t care that it’s here. The volume of the music weakens this far from the speakers.

When I see Dale I have to close my eyes and breathe deep again. His pants lie around his ankles, the shirtless blonde boy’s head bobs between his legs. He rubs his hand through the kid’s yellow hair and gives me another wink.

Another boy in the room offers me blow from a vial. I shake my head no. Dale’s so far gone he probably doesn’t even remember sending me off to get more money. But that coke wasn’t free. I wonder how much cash he has left from his amazing work before.

“Do you want a cig?” The boy not blowing Dale asks. He takes a pack of Marlboros out of his pocket and flips the top. I look at the pack and then at Dale.

Dale said my smoking would kill him. He thinks it’s gross. It’ll give me cancer and emphysema and make me impotent. It tastes like shit, smells even worse.

But I take it anyway. Yeah I’ll stay in the motel when Dale tells me to, and when he asks me to not drink so much or to lend him money, I do it. But I’ll be fucked before I let him stop me from slowly killing myself.

Gentlemen, start your tumors.

I take a heavy drag and blow the smoke out of my mouth in a long string.

“Thanks,” I tell the boy, “I’ll be right back.”

“Hurry,” he says.

I leave the room and go back to my bartender friend.

“Hey, you left your drink,” he says, “want me to make you another one?”

I feel the packet in my back pocket again. So close. But I chicken out.

“Nah.” But then I catch the blonde boy again. Dale doesn’t even notice that I’m gone. He leans back and forces the kid’s head up and down faster and faster. This is the first time I’ve seen his dick in weeks, and it’s in some other guy’s mouth. I finish the cigarette, drop it on the floor and stomp it out. Watching Dale, I finally get the courage. The feeling of now or never is so strong.

“Can I get you another one for free instead?”

I grab the packet again, rub the foil with my thumb.

“Sure! Who can turn down a free drink?”

The bartender grabs a new glass from a rack above his head. “What are you in the mood for?” He snatches a dollar bill from under a glass next to me and slides it into his pocket.

“Something blue, and blended.”

The bartender grabs ice and Curacao and pours some bottles of whatever into a blender, turns it on, pours it into the glass and pushes it in front of me. “We call it Peggy’s Pussy.”

I look up at him and smile, leaning in to whisper as I put my hand over Dale’s drink, and then stir it with a toothpick: “That’s disgusting.”

He laughs and walks away to help someone else. I throw the empty packet on the floor under the bar and head back to the little couch room.

The kid who offered me coke before shoves it up his nose and rubs his hand on my chest. I don’t stop him and he spins me around and sits me on the couch next to the guy who’s blowing my boyfriend. The kid grabs me through my jeans. I let him go at it. I want Dale to freak out, to rip this spiky haired stranger off of me. But he doesn’t. He just gets his blowjob, his hands on his own ass, pushing himself deeper into the other guy’s mouth, his eyes focused on his dick plunging in and out.

I put the drink on a table and reach behind the sweaty back of Dale’s new best friend; his shoulder crashes into mine every time he comes up for air. I slip my hand into his back pocket, rubbing his ass first, until he lets out a faint “mmmm”. He’s too busy to catch me as I nab his wallet. Flipping it open, I find a couple of twenties. I take three of the five bills there, and drop the wallet on the floor. I stand up and spin my guy around, putting him on the couch and sticking my dick back in his mouth.

I look over to see if Dale’s watching yet; he isn’t. I close my eyes and pretend I’m enjoying the blowjob.

I stare at Peggy’s Pussy on the table. More doubt. Questioning myself. No. No more what ifs. I close my eyes again. Dale and me are desperate now. Worse than we’ve ever been. We stole shit from convenience stores all week. Dale promised he had plenty of money for the trip when we first left Texas, and so buying drugs here and there was okay. But then the money disappeared and we had to shoplift. Then we got caught, arrested for a week, so we had to come here instead. And already I know that our money is gone, up Dale’s nose.

“ Did you get any cash?”

My eyes fly open. Now my guy is sharing us. Switching back and forth between Dale and me every few seconds.

“No. What about you?”

“I got my share. Get back out there and get yours. “ Now there’s no doubt. I want to rip his dick off. Or maybe I could kick the kneeling kid in the jaw, leave him with a bloody mouth full of my boyfriend. Dale rubs the inside of my palm with his thumb. He goes to kiss me, but my lips don’t move.

“Did I do something?” He asks.

“Not everything is about you.”

“I love you Jake,” he says. Those words worked before. As we went from hotel to motel to someone’s house to the fucking street, it worked. They could have worked earlier tonight. But now, when my dick can only touch Dale’s through some stranger’s mouth, those words stop dead inside of me.

A tear runs down my face. It’s fake, a trick I taught myself in cracked motel bathroom mirrors and in the supermarket windows.

“ I love you too, baby.” I never call him that.

Suddenly his eyes expand, his head shoots back as he moans. I look down at the boy who swallows every last drop. I tuck my dick into my jeans before he can get back at it and he shrugs his shoulders and goes to join blonde boy and his friend on the couches.

I pull myself closer to my boyfriend, pressing up against him as he tucks his dick back into his jeans. His eyes are mirrors, big as hell, too. What else has he had tonight? He’s almost done, I’m sort of doing him a favor anyway. I lick his ear, my tongue getting inside. Dale pulls my face away. He looks like he’s studying me, but he’s way past gone. His face goes into the crook of my neck and he’s licking under my chin.

“I want you,” he gasps. Now? Too late.

I grab the drink from the table. It freezes my fingers.

“I was going to finish my drink first. Do you want to wrap this one up?” I ask.

The blue stuff is out of the glass and heading down Dale’s throat before my hand lets go. In his eyes I see a brief spark, as though he’s caught on. But I know he hasn’t. Just another dying brain cell.

I noticed over the course of our trip that drinks are the ultimate weapon. A club bomb. In the gay clubs we stopped at, I saw liquor thrown in faces and across outfits. Dale and I watched as guys smashed empty glasses and bottles, grabbing for the sharp pieces before going after each other.

Now my own club bomb explodes in Dale’s stomach.

 

Step 1: Drug Dale

“This shit’s good,” he slurs. I save him the embarrassment of further messed up words and stick my mouth on his. Now that I started everything, I almost feel bad for him.

You can’t smell or taste Roofies, but you can see them. They used to be colorless when you stuck them in drinks. But then the government made the drug companies change the chemicals so that they would turn liquids blue. I learned all of this weeks ago when one of Dale’s discarded boys stayed back with me in the motel. So, when the bartender went to make my Peggy’s Pussy, I took the foil package out of my back pocket. I popped out two pills and used a lighter to grind them up. I made the drink bomb under the bartender’s face as we flirted with each other.

This all started a week ago. Dale’s discarded guy and I sat on the motel bed in each other’s arms. I told him I wanted out. I wanted to get away from Dale and get to New York by myself. Or maybe just go home to Texas. I just wanted out. Things didn’t turn out the way Dale promised me they would. When I ran away from my parents with him so he could get to New York where a producer was waiting to make him famous, everything looked perfect. But it only took a few weeks for it all to go to shit. Dale looked a lot better with five feet between us when I danced above him at Mitch’s. But when we ran away, it didn’t take long for me to find out who he was, what he was doing to me. I was going to stay until we got to New York, but then I realized I couldn’t.

The guy sold me the pack for thirty bucks, kissed me and wished me good luck, and said he might meet up with me in New York.

Step 2: Get Dale out of public

Dale smacks his head against the doorframe on the way into the bathroom. This crash spins him around in a circle and throws him to the floor.

“Aw thuck, Jakey. I’m tho wathted.” He laughs as he says this, his eyes blinking one at a time. Then he grabs his stomach. The guy said Rohypnol takes 10 to15 minutes. My watch says it’s been five since Dale swallowed the drink. Until then I have to watch him.

“Whafs wong?” He stops laughing and looks up at me with those eyes. The same eyes that looked up at me three months ago at Mitch’s Rainbow Bar.

You're cute, he said, why have I never seen you here before?

I’m new, I told him.

Dale’s eyes blink faster and faster. Dale tries to balance again. It hurts to see him like this, even though I hate him. Suddenly I feel alone. Afraid of leaving here without him.

“Jaaaarker?” He gets up on his knees to stand up. Spit spills out of his mouth. His hand grazes my wet cheek. He falls forward and lands on his stomach with a loud slapping noise. His mouth opens and closes but nothing that makes sense comes out.

I drop to my knees, coughing, squeezing my eyes shut to keep the tears in. I put a hand on his heaving side and rub his chest.

“I’m sorry, Dale. I’m sorry.”

More weird sounds from his lips.

“I…” I cry and can’t talk any more.

“Waaarber! Mran lo phunk!” he lurches up yelling at me, grabbing my neck with both hands.

I shake my head and push him off of me, his body’s as heavy as a full keg and he hits the floor again. Puke flies out of his mouth and right in front of his face, and he wipes the stuff off with a three hundred pound hand. He lifts his head up but it falls back into the puddle. His body shakes and he tries again. I can’t move. I watch as he changes from the guy that caught every eye on the line outside to this crippled joke.

 

Step 3: Wait until Dale’s unconscious

And then, like that, his body stiffens. His eyes stay open, unblinking, staring into his throw up.

I’m crying and wrapping my arms around him. I wish for him to come back, to blink, to say he’s okay. But it’s too late. This had to happen and I didn’t expect it to be easy. Breath comes back and I shake my head out.

Step 4: Clear Dale’s pockets

I count a couple hundred dollars from Dale’s wallet. He has five credit cards and three bankcards with pin numbers attached on sticky notes; I take those too. I turn his body over, pushing until it flips with a wet smack. The smell is disgusting, so I breathe through my mouth. There’s another few hundred dollars in his front right pocket.

Something sharp stabs my hand. There’s no cut, and no blood. I dig back through the pocket and find it—a set of car keys.

The door to the bathroom swings open. Dale’s blonde guy looks down at us, his two friends from the couch room standing in the doorway behind him.

“Hey. Is he okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, he’s just really fucked up.”

“That sucks, get him on a couch,” my guy says, walking past me to a stall.

I wait for my head to stop spinning and then stand. One strong pull lifts Dale’s skinny body up.

 

Step 5: Get Dale back into public

I drop Dale into the corner of two intersecting couches in the small, empty room. His body bounces, his head swings back with his chin pointing straight up. Underneath him are all the wallets that he stole tonight, twenty bucks left inside each one. Two of the stolen credit cards poke out of his pocket. With this done, I straddle his lap and stare him in those blank eyes.

 

Step 6: Say Goodbye

“I want you to see me,” I shout over the crazy bass coming out of the speakers, “I want you to wake up and realize that I’m gone. I want you to fucking cry about it. I want you to be fucked like you fucked me. I want you to see that I fucked you for once!” I’m crying, hitting his chest, my tears splashing his cheeks.

I kiss him again, ignoring his vomit and liquor breath because this is it. Fuck, hate is so complicated. He got me out of Texas and I never could have left without his help. But that’s all he was good for. I know he’d leave me the second we got to New York, he basically left me while I was still here.

But he’s still as beautiful as that first night at the Rainbow Bar when he tipped me 100 dollars for a kiss. He looks just as sexy as when I looked over from the passenger seat, Texas getting smaller and smaller in the rear view. But, beautiful as he is, he’s no good for me. Not any more.

Dale’s head lolls to the right when I lift myself off of him. His eyes still look in my direction. Dale’s discarded boy told me that people on Roofies aren’t knocked out, they just can’t move. His mind is working and he realizes everything, but his body is dead.

For once I feel powerful. If this is what Dale felt like every day, I see why he liked it so much. I leave one wallet right on Dale’s lap, and one in the couch cushions next to him so people can see it.

 

Step 7: Frame Dale for theft

I walk away and out of the room. A loud pop and hiss explodes behind me as a smoke cannon fires, Dale disappearing behind the white. I go back to the bar one last time.

“Hey! Is that kid your boyfriend?” The bartender scratches his hair under the cowboy hat and points at Dale.

You're cute, he said, why have I never seen you here before?

I’m new, I told him.

“No, my boy went back to the hotel an hour ago.”

“Too bad, you should have brought him over to say hi.”

“Maybe next time.”

“Sounds good. Can I get you something?”

“No, I still have to drive back to the hotel!”

“Ah,” the bartender looks at Dale again, “What’s up with him?”

“Got me. But he’s hot, gotta give him that.” We both laugh and I kiss the bartender on his stubbly face. “You should check up on him, he does look like shit.”

“Good idea,” the bartender says and, before I can leave, hands me his phone number. “Give me a call before you guys head back to Texas, okay?”

“You got it, partner.”

I throw the slip of paper in the garbage before I get outside.

In the parking lot, I click the keyless entry button on the keys, pointing in different directions. Click. Nothing. Click. Nothing. Click.

Beep beep.

A 2003 Ford Taurus comes to life. I walk to the door like it’s my car and not some car Dale stole the keys to. Inside, the strong smell of cigarettes eases me. Two packs of Camels lie on the passenger seat; the tank is full and there are CDs and maps in the dash. It’s like Dale picked this car with me in mind. I pull out of the parking lot and turn down the first street I find.

I think I’ll go to New York. First I’ll drive the car to New Jersey, then hop a train to New York City. And there I’ll just get lost in the billions of faces. I can Go-Go at a bar to get cash and meet some friends. I’ll just take it step by step.

 

Step 8: Leave Dale behind

What will it be like when Dale wakes up to find that he’s being arrested for theft and drug possession? The fingerprinting, the jail time, the memory of me framing him while his body couldn’t move. He’ll blame me. But no one will ever find me. Jonathan Sinclair from Topeka Kansas left his ID on the bar, and disappeared into the night. Plus, who’s to say that Dale didn’t just take the wrong drink from the wrong guy? Sluts do that sometimes, it happens.

I smack the pack of Camels against my hand and unwrap the cellophane with my teeth, spitting it out the window. The first drag is Heaven. The next ones are a hundred times better. I hold my hand out the window and let the wind ash my cigarette for me.

When I light my next cigarette, I’m already on the highway. The smoke trails behind me as the road opens up in front.

“This one’s for you,” I say as I exhale Dale’s smoky sworn enemy out into the night. His body is still on that couch. They won’t even bother with him until the club empties out and the janitor notices someone never left. Or maybe he’s sitting in a holding cell, screaming and cursing me out, grabbing guards and demanding they let him go. Or maybe the Rohypnol wore off and he got out of there before they could find him and take him in.

He’s not gone forever. But, whether he starts chasing me in three days, or he’s stealing a car and just a half hour behind, I still have a head start.

“Come and get me, dickhead!” I shout.

I open all four of the windows, and step on the gas until the speedometer reads 75. Singing to the radio, I leave Chicago, and Dale, in my dust.

 

Step 9: Start my new life.

 

© 2005 Justin Buchbinder - Contributor's Bio