Part II

7.

We’ve established thus far that I am a thief, as well as general misanthrope with issues perhaps of hatred-concerning my (so-called gay) identity directed at others, invariably ex-boyfriends. Why, after all do I feel this compulsion to, deface, steal & generally violate other’s property? & why must they be those who’ve been involved with me sexually?

I don’t think I want to examine the reasons why I’m compelled to do strange things, say defecate on other’s belongings, (or on them).

Because I’m the first to admit my guilt. But for a self-proclaimed nihilist, that borders on hypocrisy.

It seems hypocrisy was the crime of the last (2) centuries while outright stupidity must be the crime of the current one.

Lies, bigotry, disregard of others, irresponsibility, provincialism… Well, I’ve painted myself into a corner. But if I said I was a hypocrite that would just prove I’m no liar.

I’ve fleeced enough so-called paragons of wealth (& vice) that the dentist has been paid off, the rent paid, & now it’s time for a little breather. What I do with my time is my business, but I think it’s time to head south. Seasons come & go & so do my reasons for staying in this business. Besides, I need to feel whole person.

I sell some gold on an on-line auction. Gold sells easily, especially jewelry. It’s an anonymous enterprise. I’m fraught with escapist plans even as I’m dumping a jewelry box in the middle of my unmade bed, going through another’s beloved keepsakes. I’ll fly away & give the old adrenal glands a vacation.

There is that odd moment when you feel that someone will walk in on you. I remembered how I’d had to keep checking the doorway, expecting the facile figure of the homeowner (another tycoon) to materialize. But when I get into the apartment I set up these little ‘fail safes’—indicators that alert me to the fact that someone has come home. My favorite is to double lock the door from the inside, especially with the chain… I also tie a string to the doorknob & attach it to an object, which will make a noticeable sound when the door opens. It’s best not to be surprised. As for escape routes, well, if there is a window I am sure to go through it. Otherwise, it’s best to wait in a darkened corner with some weighty object raised over head.

If need be, the bastard will have to be clobbered.

There’d been no need to worry. I was sticking things in my pocket & examining the bookshelves at the same time. When I see books I’m impressed. Close to the heart of me & all that jazz.

“…masquerade serves primarily a narcissistic function in a theater which is predominantly private, not public.”

Heavy stuff. I’ll read it later.

 

8.

I decided it is time I went out & socialized.

I go to one of those parties where you leave your clothes at the door. Hello, anybody home? No trick or treating this time.

The surly black man who received my habiliments had an ass you could eat off of—that is, it was raised up like a shelf, a splendid shelf. Yes, I noticed that. I hadn’t seen a naked ass for awhile.

Although the place was dimly illuminated, I could sense an orgy in progress. I was hungry for contact & this anonymous grouping suited me fine. Perhaps I would like an intimate relationship with someone ideal, yeah, I would but who wouldn’t?

If I am not mistaken we all want someone utterly perfect in our arms. To make us forget. For the moment I was living in it.

Ok, proceed into the next room. I try not to feel self conscious, for god’s sake, but all I smell is sweat & cum & poppers, is it? Also pot & cigarettes.

All I hear is the sound of flesh slapping, muted whispers, groans &, what sounds like growling. My eyes peer furtively about like a tiger recently escaped from a circus. Alcohol is available as might be expected, along with some other goodies. A pair of naked men are smoking a joint in a corner. It would be nice. So I walk up, all gracious, maybe wheedling.

May I...? The blunt is passed to me without a moment’s hesitation, as well as the stares of those two. I suck up as much of it as I can, then blow the smoke into the face of one of them (the cuter one).

He understands. You come. My place. Now?

No, we’ll do it here, in front of everybody.

I’ll need a drink first. I am actually holding a drink (I told you, pot makes you stupid). I’m high & the inhibitions are melting away. You’d think I was alone, trashing someone’s apartment.

The window of opportunity presents itself. Dopamine must be copulating in abundance above... I’m standing here naked, with the drink in my hand. Then I feel a hand on me. Hands, actually. It’s dark enough that no one notices. I’m so ready I almost let go.

They take turns sucking me. I try to remember the tenets of tantric sex. Just don’t come, that’s it. The opposite of just do it. I think of how many days it’s been since I’ve shared myself with someone. It’s more like weeks. Or months.

When an anonymous mouth is around your genitals you’re apt to think of someone you know, but I make myself look down & take in his details. Curly brown hair, a prominent nose. Full lips. His eyes are closed. He’s in his own world. Fine, go to town. I’m swooning, about to let go. I’ll count backwards from a hundred... I let myself get lost in the panoply of feeling.

I come. He let’s go. I tousle his hair as he makes to stand up.

Thanks, I say.

 

9.

Of all the places I’ve been to, Lord Jim’s place is the most outlandish. Outdated, too. He earned the bon mot ‘Lord Jim’ because of his somewhat atrocious taste & his need to have zebra prints all over the walls, floors, etc. What the fuck was it with dead animals? Predictably, there were also titles by Hemingway conspicuously lying about. When I walked in (I had the key), I practically rubbed my hands together. I’ll enjoy this one. I found the ponderous gaze of a startled animal upon me. The thing was dead & hanging on the wall.

In this case the stillness was eerie. This guy lived in the Natural History Museum.

I was taken in by it all. In the city space is sacrosanct & this guy had plenty. I could work with it.

I imagine ‘Lord Jim’ wandering about in some spacious hotel lobby overseas. He’s picked up a young man & brought him back, a trophy, after a long night of hunting & cigar smoking.
Valuables lay everywhere. Artifacts stolen from indigenous peoples… & stealthily passed hand-to-hand from art dealers, to private collectors, generating wealth for each new seller. It’s obvious this guy is knee deep in another kind of thievery. Time to even the score.

I did not defecate nor did I deface property. Things were merely pocketed in robin hood fashion. I’d perpetuate the cycle of yours-mine-yours-mine, ad infinitum, truly. I tried to avoid the gazes of the African animals as I walked over to an obtrusive leather chair & sat down to compose myself, as was my custom.

What was there is to read this time? National Geographic, how touching. I looked at the name on the address label. What was his full name?

A Dutch name. Lots of V’s & Z’s in his surname.

Scattered in the basket were other magazines, none worthy of note.

What do you say we have a trial for the old prick? I say out loud as I rise.

Gallivanting in Amsterdam, smoking hashish & partaking of male whores in the red light district… This was a man who reeked of degeneracy, even from afar.

The animals are mute. Animals do not talk to people (especially when they’re dead).

The best thing that could happen would be for him to get bitten by a rabid squirrel, I muse, but perhaps one of these Aztec-looking artifacts might suffice.

I place the carefully wrapped Mexican figure in my large leather bag which I've brought for the purpose. It’s time I started collecting art. Having placed two items in the bag I lose my resolve. I need gold, not clunky stone objects, which will be impossible to sell… (selling a priceless artwork on the black market is the quickest way to lower its value).

His liquor cabinet calls out to me; & no wonder; its size rivals a liquor store. I might not find my way home if I'm not too careful. A voice urges me on: A double whiskey. The prick was a hard drinker, imitating Hemingway.

I got a glass, found some ice & poured. Then I sat in the grand chair. Where was I? For a moment I felt the pleasure of the all-dominating view of the city, the exotic animals scattered about me, who knows, maybe the house boy a mere whistle away.

‘What I say goes…’ I declaim.

This was fun. I lean back. Lord Jim had to bequeath me as much as he could, tonight. Because in real life he’d given me nothing.

Oh, there had been that trip to London a ways back.

London, Economy Class. & all the Brits had been snots.

Suck my bum, you British slags.

Lord J. ruled with an iron fist & his mouth had more in common with a vacuum cleaner than anything connoting rose petals.

Lord, that man could give head… Lest I be distracted by thoughts of sexual release, I look for something resembling a primitive weapon.

I must address the problem of the not-have’s. I spy one on a wall, hidden in a recess—a saber, a real one. I grab it; pull it out of its scabbard. This weapon, his wealth & his nauseous sense of attainment momentarily overwhelm me.

The lower class must overthrow the upper, I recall reading somewhere—through sheer force of will, hatred. & use of primitive weapons.

I do not destroy valuable keepsakes. Remember, that is not my way.

Instead, I seek out an object, an effigy as a stand-in for good ole L. J. I’m resourceful. If I didn’t have imagination I’d be lost in all this mess.

Time to unscrew the screws. It adds heat to the endeavor (of fleecing.) The doors are locked, the lights are blazing, a bottle of aged whiskey sits breathing.

The animals hang silently on his walls, not breathing.

In his closet (a walk-in closet resembling a hotel lobby), I find literally suit upon suit, all idiotically the same shade of sickening blue. I toss a suit into the middle of the living room floor & take the sword & stab at its heart, repeatedly.

Sounds Hemingwayesque, I know. I leave the sword sticking up in the middle of the blue suit (stuck in the tacky, thick carpeting).

—You’re dead, I say.

Then I get busy with the true work of the evening.

I may need a cup of coffee by now. I check his cabinets. All he has is tea. Real men don’t drink tea. I put my professional face on. The bastard is done for. I start with the furthest room. Everything is opened, anything with a lid or a handle. The search begins & many useful items transpire.

The animals in the living room must be spoken for, yet. All the ‘animals’ that Lord Jim has killed must be spoken for. & everyone he has slighted, used, buggered, or offended, including yours truly. I’m no longer in a playful mood. A sickness has overtaken me. I ransack drawers as if possessed by evil spirits, locating a metal box with a lock on it. The lock is coming off. I don’t have a lock clipper with me so I root about under the kitchen sink.

Real men have toolboxes… In a closet by the doorway.

Having located some tools, I whack the lock off with the hammer.

Inside, a literal Pandora’s box…

It began on a whim & ended with a bang. The weapon of choice turned out to be a service revolver, one of those things lying around from a previous war. The prick was stocked with enough stuffed heads & weapons to make you want to call in the national guard. A little weird since I wondered—well, why lock up a gun? Then I got it; the over-the-hill prick thought he might do a Hemingway, & thus was safeguarding himself against a possible future, desperate self. There were bullets in the chamber. I fired randomly about the place.

Just as in outer space no one can hear you scream; so to in a penthouse.

There was a balcony with one hell of a drop if you were grasped by those kinds of demons. The gun would be of no use to me since I was not that kind of criminal.

This left me opening yet more drawers & peeking into crevices.

The tightwad had been crafty. Besides defacing his property there was no way I could make the prick atone for his crimes (of excess). I knew I had to think & I knew drinking would help. Or coffee would help. Or perhaps some blow would also help.

His place was now a shambles. Valuables lay scattered, shattered, busted up; mangled prints (now worth nothing) hung off the wall. I’d managed to spill the liquor. I chose another bottle from the bar (Grand Marnier).

It looks like I’d have to lug away some choice objects, after all. Out of sheer perversity I lift pillows from the couch, toss things in the center of the room & can’t resist the fatal urge to ghetto-ize the place. Next to a zebra’s head I write in large block letters ‘You’re going to pay for your sins you uncircumcised faggot!’ Beside another animal I draw a thought bubble ‘You’re Next’.

Then, beside a stern-faced water buffalo head I write:

‘In your next life I’ll be you mother.’

Well, it looks like I’m down to vandalism & petty urges, as usual.

I check my watch. It’s Sunday & he’s not coming home for a while. I want something more personal from him, a trophy.

He may have sucked my cock once, but it had been perfunctory task (he’d washed his mouth out with mouthwash, afterwards, I couldn’t help but note).

My dick hadn’t been clean enough for him. The animals must not find any of this interesting, either. Too bad.

They’re all like that, I say; they want you, they want you, then they don’t want you. But slowly you become like them.

I am not my penis, I say out loud.

I am the sum of all my body parts, & desires.

The bathroom is big enough to house an elephant; I’m impressed. Does size matter?

I decide to put the revolver under his pillow & yes, there are bullets in it.

When he sees the place, my name might flit there for an instant, but with the volume of rent boys he traffics in, he’s apt to get lost in faces.

I’m standing in the middle of that grandiloquent place when an infantile urge takes hold. I grab a pen. Sniff my Ass I write. I’m on another roll.

On it goes. I let go; it’s therapy, like I said.

Jimbo eats ass! (It looks like Jimbo cats ass)—it’s really Jimbo Eats ass! The walls are scribbled with none-too-pretty epithets. A few more moments & I’ll set fire to the place.

I calm myself down. Perhaps I need to get laid more often.

He’d asked me to leave. This truth hits me over the head like a sack of hammers. What did he want, anyway…?

Money, power. Sex is the icing on the cake of their lives. & I’m always the maraschino cherry.

I lean back against the large leather sofa, exhausted. The animals with their blank expressions are understandingly silent. Relieved? Who knows.

As I’m thinking to myself, a sneer crosses my face. I need those accounts in Switzerland. What redress can a dead animal give me, after all?

I’m readdressing my rights. I’m playing their dirty games. I feel maybe I should open a few drawers & see if any mail alerts me to the presence of bank accounts spread far & wide.

I go ahead & open every drawer in the place. One room in particular, ‘the office’, gets a thorough going over. The screwdriver proves a godsend.

The drawers give easily. I sift through piles of papers. What I’m looking for are those goddamn account numbers, with addresses, & phone numbers of banks.

But mail has a funny way of being unerringly forthcoming.

I do not need deeds to houses, prenuptial agreements, or living trusts. So with that simple purpose in mind I rip through it all.

Everything.

I find one local account. I fold the sheet up, stuff it in my shirt. This is one oily bastard; I was right all along (thieves seldom are wrong). I pause for a moment to catch a breath. A picture of him (in a gold frame) stares back at me. Photos will only incense me. I’ll have to come back & beat those account numbers out of you I say to it.

It’s deathly quiet in here & now I understand why Jimbo travels. Who after all, can face a lengthy stay in a place that makes you feel like you’re sealed in a grave? Besides, this is hard work. The stereo produces superlative sound. Feeling sentimental suddenly, (the rage has flown like a chickadee) I find a classical music station which happens to be playing Albinioni’s ‘adagio for strings', the only classical piece of music I can partially identify. I feel united with Jimbo. In this moment I imagine I am him, as I goose step around his apartment with the lights blazing & for all I know it’s the 19th century & I’m dancing at some swanky soiree thrown by me, the plantation owner. The dancing helps me focus on those account numbers… I repeat to myself—every rich man has tons of cash lying around somewhere. You see I know how they think, thieves are just that way.

The music ends abruptly. I’m dizzy. I go into the bathroom & clutch the toilet bowl. I vomit, then curl up against it.

Again, I wake hours later. In fact it’s morning. The odd thing is that I’ve dreamt something. The money is in the back of his sock drawer. There is a stack of it. I stumble towards his bedroom but the sock drawer is on the floor, overturned. I lift it & sift around inside it. Nothing.

Dreams lie, too.

I pose myself a little riddle: If life is a dream, then what is death?

The answer is unpleasant. & I can’t remember what day it is.

Monday. He’s due back any moment. I can feel it.

I choose one more thing to take home with me.

A lovely Asian sculpture, also smuggled out of China when no one was looking. The authorities dutifully looked away after their palms were greased. I wrap it up carefully in one of his paisley silk robes, & exit laughing.

Just in the nick of time, too. For as I left I could hear the elevator making its slow & tragic ascent. I knew I was in hot water. As much as I wanted to thumb my nose at Jim, I quickly found the door to the stairway, scooting down its many steps. Breathing deeply after brushing past the doorman in the lobby I burst out onto the street with my bag in a fit of exultation. God exists & Lord Jim is going to hell. As for me, well after all I’ve been working hard down here… addressing the needs of the have-nots.

I feel proud of myself. I’ve done it again.

 

10.

One last vignette. & by far the smuttiest one.

Misha, who was born in the Mesozoic era, is another one with ill gotten gains whose accumulation of wealth is truly astounding.

Wealth is impressive, what can I say. & the less I have the more it impresses me.

I’m in his closet but nobody’s home. I'm professionally scouring. It’s a cleanup all right & I’m working quickly today.

The place crawls with mementoes from the living, as well as dead movie stars. The telltale fags are in evidence—Cary Grant, Tyrone Power, Montgomery Clift, Rock Hudson, & people I don’t recognize. There’s also a photo of Rupert Everett, but the photos look fake, like they were torn out of a magazine, then framed. Some are signed.

There must be a photo of him somewhere from some halcyon day, but I can’t identify it. After a while bric-a-brac is bric-a-brac.

His spread, I hate to say, is like a still from the movie Caligula or the inside of a velvet coffin. Everything is crimson-tinted or bloodstained. & there’s Roman sculpture lying around, with perched boys’ asses in your face whichever way you turn. I can imagine him reassuring himself—it’s expensive, nobody will notice (my focus on the male nude). He fails to perceive the fact that there is not one female in the bunch. True females are in scant evidence in this place but evidence of ‘the queen’ is rampant. God, how I hate classifying these details.

His slippers (no Roman sandals, these) are of a blood orange color—to match the décor. They are something a whore would wear. Soft, tufty. Likewise, there are women’s clothes lying about. You can’t help but notice.

Odd, I think at first. Perhaps he does like women. But instead of standing gaga in the midst of all this fag ephemera, I should be bustling about in search of gold. Because there’s always a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. My mother taught me that. Besides, no one likes to leave empty handed.

I may have to confront some unpleasant things along the way, that much I know.

The Caligula sensibility alerts me to the fact that obviously the branch hasn’t grown straight. I’ll have a look in the bathroom. It has enough details, one could probably write a book about them. I wouldn’t mind having such a toilet. I sit on the john to see how it feels.

‘Grand’.

The guy who designed the room must’ve also designed Versailles. & seeing as Misha is of a dinosaur’s age, I might not be wrong.

The room has nice qualities. Every droplet of water hitting the basin is magnified as if to remind you that you are alone, terribly alone, which I am. The pain of this realization brings forth a vandalous urge—I’ll urinate everywhere.

Very unoriginal, I know. But urine, like feces, has its place. I realize I’m on a scatological jag. Is that why undertakers are known to ‘violate’ corpses? Yep, I’m really going downhill.

Misha, you’d hardly recall my face. Because it was a brief encounter we had, too brief. You, who were into renting hustlers by the Baker’s dozen. But I’d gained access & once inside, the virus wreaks havoc. I was a risk worth taking, but aren’t we all…

Old men need to get laid too. God knows what’s so important about sticking your dick in some tight place where it’s never been before—(one ass is as good as another).

I’m losing time in this bathroom listening to the echoes my feet make. Very tasteful, I must say. Perhaps I’ll be creative & unhinge every screw in the place before I depart. That would have a nice effect on the old pecker, especially first thing in the morning. My face lights up in the mirror from afar. See? There is pleasure in small things, after all.

I like to believe I’ve left everything that is useless behind. But I’m beginning to feel that I’m one very deluded person. After all, how many rich fags have I knocked over, thus far?

I’m just getting older & seedier in my interpretations of every easy mark who comes my way.

I’m like them, I realize.

It seems the next logical step (in my logical regression) would be to become an arsonist.

Why don’t I just get married & cheat on my wife?

Have we forgotten that I’m ‘one of them’?

I don’t think I have to explain.

The bathroom, after an interminable time (actually 14 minutes) spent standing in it contains the usual medicine cabinet ( it holds Preparation H & women’s makeup) & there is women’s perfume as well. We’re not talking shit shoplifted from the mall, either. I move about the place pretending that I am—well not Mr. Mesozoic himself, but rather one of those debonair gents displayed in one of those impressive frames. Cary Grant did play a thief in several of his films, didn’t he?

As usual, sensory overload. The man collects anything with a price tag.

It takes patience but eventually I am rewarded. In a closet, behind several (archaic) stacked boxes of Scrabble lay the golden treasure, his jewelry box.

He has enough rings to start a jewelry company. Roman Emperor decadence did not become him. I checked to see that it was all there, then threw it into a bag. The jewelry box weighed about thirty pounds, but I am strong.

Having sated my gold rush lust I go into the kitchen to find something for my parched throat. There is champagne, as I expected. I pop a cork, & a 1961 Chateau Petrus is guzzled.
Sorry old goat, but to the swiftest goes the race.

I hadn’t liked him when I first laid eyes on him. But he had a reputation you see, & you couldn’t help but pay attention. I’d been assessed along with the others, like a calf being made ready for slaughter. He was hoary eyed & had exploited others for a long time from the looks of it. King Lear? I’d just as soon kick him into a ditch if he were my father. & he could’ve been my grandpa. His nervous, ticking eyes had gone over me in the ten seconds that it took—fresh meat, how fresh?

His tastes, I could tell, had grown increasingly debauched. He wanted the tenderest piece of tender loin his money could buy; he was a fetishist of youth. & as every gay man knows, a youth over age 22, just ain’t that young.

I was 23 at the time, no concubine in training. I’d been on my own since 11th grade & was a free agent. He’d waved us in with a delightful horny smile on his face & I’d cased his joint (It had been a hotel room, as he was trying to be ‘discrete’).

He stepped up to us one by one to determine each one’s redeeming qualities, using his rough hands to caress the youthful skin of each ‘devotee’. I may have appeared a little arrogant, which explains why he pinched my cheek, & called me a ‘tart‘. The pot calling the kettle black.

He also smelled bad, he’d salivated, his bones creaked. What other crimes could a person be guilty of? He liked to take them three at a time. We were summoned into a room where, he alone, with the three of us, stuck his nose into our private parts. Then he’d chosen his lamb. One of us would have to stick a finger up his ass while the lucky one got ‘goosed’. The truly lucky one (me in this case) would have his dick sucked by His Highness. At the time it seemed revolting. But who was I to have a higher moral sense? I could never imagine myself doing that in the future, even if I chose to. In retrospect it now seems almost interesting. These days, me plus two has a nice ring to it.

I endured his treating me like a commodity, as if, because I was young (& of the underclass)—I owed him something.

L’droit d’signeur…?

Think again.

I got out my dick & ‘watered’ the furniture.

Up your arse you Mesozoic douche-bag! I yelled.

We’ve been here before.

The photos of the handsome men seemed ready to say something.

Closets kill, I say; ask Montgomery Clift.

Down with cock sucking.

I drink the champagne & sashay about the blood-red split level. Who needed memories? I had gold. More specifically, someone else’s’ gold.

Oh shit, I hear the door open.

Then, suddenly I am caught red-handed.

What are you doing in here?

I’m having a look around.

I can’t believe this. Who invited you, how did you get in?

You gave me the key once.

I did? Well, I don’t recall... You’d better leave, before I call the police.

I was just leaving.

Wait...

What—?

I’m exhausted. I’ve been traveling for 12 hours straight. Stay put. I’ll take a shower. We could catch up on old times.

I wouldn’t mind, I say. I wouldn’t mind at all.

This place is a wreck...

Yes, it looks like you’ve had vandals...

Is anything missing?

How do I know—?

This is outrageous. Well, make yourself at home.

—I already have.

Outrageous.

His face, shimmering with sweat & exhaustion cast itself about the place as if only vaguely remembering it.

I’m still not clear why you are here...

I had no other place to go.

I see. Will you stay the night?

That was my intention.

Give me a hand with my bags, then, you gave me a fright standing there.

Imagine how I felt.

 

© 2006 Van Scott - Contributor's Bio