He'd only talked to this guy a few times online, which wasn't anything new to Shawn. He'd done this too many times to count: responding to a profile and meeting shortly after, sometimes within the same night. The summer before, back at his parents house, he'd met a guy a week, sometimes more frequently. Over and over, he'd meet strangers anywhere looking for a boy to connect to, someone that didn't want to cheerlead or fuck him for no good reason. Most of them were ugly too and they'd just want ass regardless of who you were. Maybe if it was a cute guy…
Artificial white light enveloped their booth in a searing brightness that caused Shawn to squint to look at the unimpressive Alonzo. Well, he wasn't too bad. His wife beater hung from his bony shoulders; he was really skinny (probably another druggie) but toned; veins tunneled from shoulder to wrist. Shawn couldn't see his hair because of the Kings cap, but it was probably short and curly. The brim of his cap all but masked his eyes, which peered from dark gaunt sockets. He sat there and studied Alonzo's face, waiting for the small talk to pick up again. They'd already gone over it all—major, year, date of graduation, post graduation plans, have you met anyone else from the internet from around here? Yatta yatta. Soon they'd part awkwardly and never speak again. That's the way these blind encounters usually went. The guys would usually look him over once and he could tell whether or not they wanted him, whether or not they were interested in even talking. Regardless, they'd still talk for at least twenty minutes to be polite before making an excuse to leave. Even though those guys were usually ugly, that unspoken rejection still hurt, as if the small group of people that were suppose to appreciate Shawn didn't see him as adequate. He had a feeling that his conversation with Alonzo would end soon (awkwardly).
"You had a lot of boyfriends?" Alonzo pursed his mouth to an indiscernible grin.
"Naw," he mumbled looking off out the window at the florescent rainbow of Burger King lights across the street. Alonzo's gaze followed Shawn's out the window. "You?" he reciprocated politely.
"Yeah." His gaze was back on Shawn, muted and unreadable. "Use to rave a lot. You ever been to L.A.?"
"Use to live there."
"You ever been to Narnia?"
One of those cheese ball raves they had each year. Obviously another druggie. He goes to those raves, does his E, finds some other cutie boy with glow-sticks and lollypops, puts on his latex and gets his evening blow. Shawn wanted someone to come home to at night, not drug love. Maybe he'd settle for what he could get.
"Naw."
"It was so funny last year. They had it under some overpass in some desert town. There were fifty cars parked in the breakdown lane and the cops gave them all tickets for parking illegally and we were all there under the over pass bumping the music and everything. Then the cops came in a helicopter and kept shinning this light around and we had to keep shutting off the music and huddling together so that they couldn't see us. It was so ghetto." Alonzo trailed off and looked towards a ketchup stain on the table. Shawn laughed politely.
"So, you're a raver huh? That's cool." His interest in Alonzo was quickly waning, maybe because Alonzo wasn't looking at him anymore. He didn't know why he cared whether or not Alonzo found him attractive. He probably wouldn't have talked to him if he'd encountered him on the street or had him in a class or worked with him, but it was different being there in McDonalds with him, knowing that he was gay without asking. There was some kind of comfort about it, a peace knowing that he wouldn't have to make fun of himself around Alonzo the way he would around his straight friends. But Alonzo sat quietly now, maybe avoiding the pending question, and still wasn't looking at Shawn.
"Use to be. Not really anymore though."
"That's cool." Silence again. They'd finally tapped out all the possible small talk and Alonzo was probably thinking of an excuse to leave. But Shawn beat him to it. "Hey, it's nearly eleven and I have to go all the way back to my apartment and get some sleep before my test tomorrow. We should talk again though huh?"
"Yeah." Alonzo seemed bored and uninterested. Not that Shawn really cared.
"I'll talk to you later. You can call me or something." He jotted down a number on a napkin knowing that he wouldn't really call. It was like a necessary bluff.
"Yeah." He took the napkin and got up to leave. "Later."
"Nice meeting you."
"Yeah. I'll call you."
"Right."
Again Shawn walked across the overpass, car headlights reflecting against him as the cool kids drove to their parties with their boyfriends or girlfriends and did whatever it was that people did at night. It was amazing how unimpressionable Alonzo was, just like the rest of them, another face, another lifeless personality. Why couldn't Shawn be a lifeless personality though and not give two shits about anything other than his next hit of E or crack or whatever it was that made Alonzo so skinny, skinny enough to make him feel fat. He needed to start doing his crunches again to get rid of the cushions of fat in his undeveloped chest. Maybe it would make his cheekbones look sunken and athletic and sexy. He wanted to look sexy. And be with sexy guys.
Sexy guys. Wouldn't that be a change of pace? Guys in general. Interested guys. Guys that weren't losers—drug addicts and whatnot. Maybe when he got a car he'd go down to the Castro district or something, hang out in San Francisco, ride the street cars, eat a crab and sour dough by the water, and watch the boys, and they'd watch him back and admire him and talk to him. He'd be normal and acceptable to them.
Was he acceptable to Alonzo? It didn't matter. He really wasn't half bad though. Lean, gaunt, and yeah, cute he had to admit. Definitely the cutest guy he'd ever met from online. It wouldn't be the end of the world to do a drug addict would it? If Alonzo was high, he wouldn't know how ugly Shawn was. Even if they just made out, and Alonzo was high, and they could just lie down next to one another and let their breath ease into each other's mouths.
After coming back from his British Literature night course, he had flopped onto his bed and now listened to the senseless conversation between his roommate and his current fuck of the week. Mike was hot, especially naked, which Shawn got to see every so often when Mike was in a hurry for swim team practice and couldn't make it to the locker room to change. Only a medium sized cock, but man, he had a six-pack, a tight ass, and a stalwart complexion that he got from constant swimming and tanning. He had beautiful hair dyed red with highlights (whatever, some look), but it was silky, all the colour of his hair and body was melded together like polished brass.
He'd think about Mike and his girlfriend at night going to bed, Mike's body pounding against her flailing legs, her screaming like a siren. He'd get off on imagining them in bed, Mike's hips moving back and forth, back and forth.
But he hated listening to them talk on the phone, talking about a bunch of people he didn't know who always seemed to be doing the same uninteresting things—she does pot now, he's into her, I feel like we should ease up, want me to come over tomorrow? Yawn.
At least they were finishing up for now. Mike rattled the phone back onto the receiver irritably and walked out of the room leaving the door wide open. Shawn didn't want to get up to close it. Too tired. But then the phone rang, probably that chick again calling to bitch at Mike or make up with him or wanting to fuck or whatever. He got up to answer it, and it was Alonzo.
Perhaps it should have surprised him, and it did in an immediate sense, but nothing deep within him felt that the call was out of the ordinary.
"I didn't call too late did I?"
"It's only ten."
"Yeah."
And Alonzo told him about his day, his boring classes, how he was glad to be graduating soon, how he found a place to work full time, and how cute he thought Guy Pierce was in Momento. Shawn agreed that Pierce was easy on the eyes and was glad to have seen him fully nude during the shower scene.
"Even his looks couldn't hide his melodramatic acting though," said Shawn in an authoritative tone, as if he were writing another movie review for the school newspaper.
"I thought the whole movie was trippy."
"It was. And confusing."
"Hey, you doing anything tonight? Cause I was thinking that we could do something."
He had homework, a test tomorrow, a paper due soon, he was tired from work—all these excuses flew through his head in a quick panic; but for some reason he didn't choose one. Alonzo wasn't that bad looking.
"Where do you want to go?"
"Come to my place for a while and we can decide from there."
It would still be awkward meeting him again. They had nothing left to talk about and it wasn't like they were going to do anything.
Eleven thirty already. At least class wouldn't start until the afternoon. He'd been waiting in his apartment complex parking lot for ten minutes or so waiting for Alonzo to pick him up. He didn't want to have to walk to his place, and he didn't want to invite Alonzo into his apartment in case he'd give away that he was gay. Mike would probably react badly. It didn't seem as though Alonzo would say anything though; he wasn't a queen like a lot of the other guys he'd met. But he wanted to be on the safe side.
It wasn't until a half hour later that Alonzo pulled up in his sardine-can-sized Geo Metro, the small hood slowly pene-trating the orange circle of light that Shawn was sitting in. He got up from the curb, went over to the dented passenger door and got in. He sat on the mounds of ripped upholstery and wondered why he'd decided to meet up with Alonzo again. After a moment of silence, he looked over at the side of his sallow cheek, eyes shielded by the brim of his cap, his mouth a straight line, a kind of half-frown half-grin.
"We're not going to my place," said Alonzo glancing over at Shawn. "There's a party going on, and they're using my room."
"How come you aren't there?"
He pulled forward, turned around and headed out of the parking lot, making a right on Central Covell.
"I don't really want to party. I'm sick of partying. Always the same thing, and it kind of sucks because there aren't any gay guys there, you know? It's like, you have to go to San Francisco if you really want to party, or a rave."
"You aren't afraid of people stealing your stuff?"
"My roommates' are there. They have more expensive stuff than I do. Besides, I don't feel like watching a bunch of guys get drunk and screw their girlfriends."
Silence. The oncoming headlights shone over their faces in a rhythmic pulse and they both stared through the windshield at the road ahead, the passing lights, the trees.
"Where are we going?" Shawn asked finally.
Alonzo lifted his fingers off the top of the wheel and shrugged. The dashboard jiggled making a strained rattling sound that grew louder every time Alonzo hit the gas. The windows were caked in dust and water spots that looked like large uneven scales. Alonzo started rolling down his window letting the valley breeze into the car, flushing out the smell of sweat and french fries.
"My lighter is in the glove box. Could you get it?" he said while taking the cigarette from behind his ear and placing it between his lips. Shawn gave the lighter to Alonzo. "Want one?"
"Naw," he said almost inaudibly. He'd never smoked or gotten drunk or anything—just wasn't interested in it. He'd always feared those things, feared becoming addicted and losing himself in them, escaping through something when there was no escape. He didn't want to end up like his mother, lying in bed every night with her vodka and pills while watching another episode of The Practice or ER or whatever was on TV, welcoming her son home at Christmas drunk off her fat ass, "you look good honey," she'd said slurred.
They had turned onto a dark road and when the town behind them was out of site, Alonzo pulled over and stopped. Why? Were they going to make out? Things seemed still and quiet as Alonzo flicked the stub of his cigarette out the window and looked over at him. They stared at one another for a moment until Alonzo's gaze went back to the road ahead.
"You're different from anyone I've met," he said, staring at something distant. "You listen well, you know?"
Shawn wasn't sure what he meant. They hadn't really talked about anything important, and he wasn't sure how to respond to a sudden compliment. Maybe he was trying to hint at something. Were they going to do it? What was he supposed to say? He had no idea, so he looked out the passenger window at the silhouettes of hills on the horizon.
"I have AIDS."
Shawn looked over at him without changing his expression, studying his coffee eyes that pierced through the darkness.
"It's been a year. I mean, I can't ever have sex again unless they have AIDS too." He stopped for a minute, looking out his open window into the night, and Shawn felt the immense sadness, the disappointment, the indifference, the pity. He heard him sniff, but could only see the back of his cap through the shadows. Shawn reached over and touched his skeletal shoulder. They sat that way for a moment, or a minute, or however long it was before Shawn opened his door and stepped out into the grass. The moon overhead cast faint light onto the car, and he walked over to the driver's side, opening up Alonzo's door.
"C'mon," said Shawn motioning for Alonzo to step out. He wondered what it would be like to walk around every day realizing that it really could be your last. He didn't think that way. When he went to class or work in the morning, he'd grumble about how pointless it was, but would think of it as an obstacle, something to overcome in order to reach something else. Once he finished school, he'd be a lawyer or a writer and he'd have money—everything was a goal, a destination. But Alonzo lived differently, realizing that any future was a gamble, any day it could all end, everything you worked for. But how was that any different from anyone else? Anyone could drop dead at anytime; hell, Alonzo could quite plausibly outlive him for all he knew. Life's funny like that, a giant Russian Roulette game.
He looked down at Alonzo who now stepped out of the car, rose and stood in front of him. A single stream was next to his nose, the water in his eyes shimmered with the moonlight.
"I'm not trying to be depressing or anything," he said while taking off his cap and rubbing his hand over his crew cut.
"You'll be just fine." He leaned toward Alonzo and buried his nose into his neck. Shawn turned his cheek onto his collarbone staring off into the stars. He saw one that flashed different colours—blue, orange, red, blue, white—a twinkle, all the colours pulsing quickly, merging into one image. Such distant beauty, never touched by humans. No one could ever touch it, the ball of gas—a white dwarf, a red giant—deadly, unattainable, like so many things. But it shouldn't hurt to try.
Shawn turned his gaze back to Alonzo and started unbuttoning his pants.
