Journal

Danger-Boy managed to stay quite drunk for the entire 24 hours of his birthday, including when he was supposed to show up for work. Had we bet, it would have been a tough call as to who the winner would be. I said they’d shitcan him right there and then. He thought he’d work the entire eight-hour shift. What happened was they told him to go home and sleep it off, but don’t ever show up that way again.

Anyway, leading up to this, and later after he regained consciousness, we had the first tangle between the two "alpha-males" in the household. It’s the first of many no doubt, since we’re each used to being the leader of the pack.

He’s been exploring the boundaries of my tolerance, and he found them on Saturday. I was quite unprepared for his reaction though. Complete capitulation. He started packing! Running away with his tail between his legs.

It took a while to get things settled. Nothing really sunk in with him until he said that people were always turning on him, just as I had. I replied, words to the effect of, "Whaddaya think would happen if you just keep pushing people away. Eventually they get the hint and take off. Or when they push back, you take off. Either way you get what you want. You get to feel sorry for yourself and you have no friends. Is that what you really want?"

After he thought about that a while, he started to come around, and things settled right down. I helped him unpack.

During our negotiations, the phone rang. I saw it was Willie on the call-ID, but didn’t answer. I can always call back. Danger-Boy and I got things quieted down, but there was still a little tension in the air. Now I know why the city doesn’t allow more than one person in a studio apartment. There’s nowhere to go to cool down. You can’t go in the bedroom or anything like that, because there isn’t one. So I went over to Willie’s for a while.

I met Danger-Boy out on Monroe Ave an hour or so later. He wanted to finish out the day celebrating his birthday. I was just too damned tired and went home to bed. Next thing I knew, it was four or five in the morning and he’s tugging on my toe to wake me up because my snoring woke him up. And so it goes …

Sunday was quiet for a change. I got to just lounge around while Danger-Boy slept it off. Willie called in the mid-afternoon wanting to come over and tape some music. We were laughing, dancing and messing with the PC while the birthday boy slept on. (Strange how he can sleep through that, but not snoring.) Debbie called later to remind him it was visiting hours at the hospital, and he dragged himself out for that.

Seizing the moment, Willie and I quickly got down to doing what we do best. Of course, we really enjoy ourselves and generally take our time. Well, it has been a while and we apparently lost track of time and were caught en flagrante delicto by the returning Danger-Boy. Ooops! Gotta swipe a DND sign from somewhere! J

Take it from me guys, never, Never, NEVER listen to a fuckin’ rentboy when he says he wants to get his act together, get off the booze and the drugs and live happily ever after.

Wanna know how my day went?

Seven AM, his highness comes tippin’ in the front door. Shitfaced. He’s gotta be to work at 9:00. He proceeds to pass out on the couch after asking me, no, telling me, to call him at 8:30 to wake him up. Thirty-eight phone calls later, (call-ID kept count) I still can’t rouse the fuckin’ bastard.

He lost his job after showing up nearly three hours late. Of course I didn’t go into the full details of Saturday, but suffice it to say you got a VERY sanitized version, and so his job was in a very tenuous position. I also wrote a different version or that entry, which I’ll probably post later when I’m not so angry.

Noontime. I rush home to find the TV on, half a glass of milk on the coffee table, and no Danger-Boy in the place. I drop off his notebook, which he’d left in my car, so he’d have his lawyer’s phone number. Four-thirty he calls me at work. "I feel so bad. I lost my job because I was three hours late. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I think I’ll kill myself."

Too bad he didn’t follow through. Don’t cha just hate idle threats?

By the time I got home at six, (the construction on I-490 delayed me considerably) he’s off trying to get pussy from a prostitute (of the female persuasion, yuck!) named Trish. Forget his girlfriend Debbie who’s in the East Wing (psych ward) at Genesee Hospital.

I’m instructed to pick him up near the corner of Meigs and Pearl at seven to go "shopping." This is because the isn’t anything to eat in the apartment, and I don’t get paid until tomorrow.

Three grocery stores later, I get some produce and he gets a twelve-pack and about $60 of meat to sell. "I’ll be home by 10:30", he says. He bungles the sale and loses everything. But he still has my car, cell-phone, and of course, the hots for Trish.

He calls from Trish’s at 10:45, "I’ll be home soon. Have dinner ready." Dinner is ready by 11:00. No Danger-Boy. I call my cell-phone. "Oh, we’re on Monroe near the Village Green. She’s gotta make some money. I’ll be home by 11:30."

Eleven-thirty comes and goes. I wrap the dinner, put it in the fridge, and head for bed. Twelve-fifteen, he calls. "I’m really fucked-up. I parked the car and I’m at the Avenue Pub. I’m just drinking water." Should I walk over and get him? "No, I’ll be all right in a little bit. Then I’ll be home. I’m feeling horny. Wanna fuck when I get home?" Sure, why not?

One AM. Still no Danger-Boy. I’m less concerned for him than I am for my car. I’ve gotta get to work in the morning. So I hoof it the ½ mile down to the Pub. No car, no Danger-Boy. The bartender says, "He left some time ago to go to the Forum." Ah, yes. The Bachelor Forum, (what passes for a leather bar in here R-Town,) where it’s two-for-one on Tuesdays.

I hoof it back the ½ mile past my apartment and the additional ¼ mile to the Forum. My car is parked on the street. I unlock it, pop the hood and disconnect the coil wire. Then I go into the bar. Here he is. No shirt, carrying on with a half-dozen guys, (who interestingly enough, invite me to tie him to the pool table. An offer I decline.)

I proceed to cause a big hissy-fit scene in the bar. He damned near hit me. Face-to-face at only inches apart I told him to "Go ahead, make my day," and he backed down. I was steamed because my trust in him was returned with a total lack of respect for me. Then I told him to find his own way home, (like it’s a real challenge, being just a ¼ mile from the Forum,) and stormed out. Halfway to the car I remembered he has my cell-phone and keys. Back into the bar.

New hissy-fit scene. "Gimme the car keys and my phone." He wants to take it outside. Fine. On the way out I snare my phone from his back pocket. As I’m walking to my car, he says, "Wait a minute. Come back here." To which I reply, "I’ve been chasing your ass all over town tonight. It’s about time you chase mine."

I pop the hood of the car a replace the coil wire. And I ask again for the keys. He refuses again. I told him, "Go back in the bar and make some money." Leaving him standing in the street, I got in the car and wore several thousand miles off the Goodyears around the block and back home. (Eagle Aquatreads make a most satisfying squeal. J Did I ever mention the turbo-charged motor of my car?)

I’m well beyond boiling-point. I stripped the apartment of everything that was his, packing it in his bags. I even removed the "art" he’d drawn on the fridge with white-board dry-erase markers. It took a while because I thought a lot, and I enjoyed some of the beer he pilfered earlier in the evening.

Then, arming myself with two beers to go, and about half my Snap-On tool set, (just in case,) I went back to the Forum to lurk. To my good fortune, some poor (alone) guy pulled his mini-truck out of a spot 15 feet from the door just as I arrived. I killed the engine and the lights, parked, popped a beer and waited. Not much later, I popped the second beer.

Just before two-thirty, he comes out with two tricks. I announce myself, "I’m warning you guys, this hustler comes with baggage. [Danger-Boy's full legal name]!" From him, "Oh, shit." He wants to negotiate. "All right," says I, "I’ll trade you. All my keys for what’s in the trunk of the car." That’s when it sunk in that I was WAY more than pissed. The tricks scurry off. He gives me my keys, I dump his bags on the sidewalk in front of the Forum.

One of the tricks, comes back at this point. Silver-haired and silver-goateed guy in leather. I say to him, "I warned ya. This rentboy comes with baggage!" "No you didn’t," says he. Danger-Boy is nearly crying by now. He’s pleading with me, "Don’t do this to me, man." I reply, "I didn’t do this to you, you did this to me." I started the car, dropped it into gear and drove off.

Afterwards I realized he gave me all his keys, including those which weren’t mine. I stripped my keys off the keyring and went back to the Forum. No bags, no Danger-Boy, no tricks. I dropped the keys off at his friend Daphne’s, putting them in the mailbox, where a copy of this entry will go tomorrow, (actually later today) on the way to work.

Am I a fucking dweeb or what?

I ran into him Wednesday at lunchtime. I’d come home, looking for him actually. I drove around the neighborhood and finally caught up with him at the pharmacy on the way back to I-490. It was another one of those weird psychic moments when I knew exactly where to look before I got there. Of course, although my neck knew where to swivel my head, my foot didn’t know to move from the gas to the brake. A few feet past the entrance, I made an illegal U-turn in the middle of Goodman St.

The meeting was awkward, to put it mildly.  Each of us wanting to apologize to the other, but not wanting to yield any power.  Each of us trying not to let the hurt and anger from earlier in the day take hold and ruin everything.  He was with one of the guys he’d left the Forum with the night before.  As it turned out, they weren’t tricks at all, but rather a couple of guys who felt sorry for the way I treated him.  We put his bags back in my car and I promised to pick him up a couple of hours after work.

In this episode, we rechristen Danger-Boy as "Danger-Boy", Willie starts writing erotica, Mom meets Danger-Boy, and finally, Willie, Danger-Boy and me in a threesome?

This weekend has been both memorable and bittersweet. It could be either one alone, but somehow it seems better when they're together.

When Danger-Boy picked me up at work on Friday, he had just taken Debbie home from the hospital, cleaned her place up and had gone to the grocery store for her. By the time we got back there, she was gone. This put him in a real funk.

We drove out to my parents house where I had to pick something up. Then we got subs and other refreshments, and headed over to my niece, Jackie’s soccer game. It was there on neutral turf that everyone got to meet Danger-Boy. My sister-in-law, Cindy, took right to him, as did the kids and my brother. After we dragged Dad back to the car for a Labatt’s, he was cool too. This of course leaves the Ice-Queen, my mother.

I’m not sure whether it was Danger-Boy or me who blew her mind the most. I mean here he is, long raven hair pulled back in a ponytail, goatee, and because it was warm and muggy, wearing a tank-top which shows off his tattoos. My mother, on the other hand, makes Donna Reed and June Cleaver seem like streetwalkers. Except of course she has no emotion other than disapproval. And that’s on a good day.

That’s when I knew I had to rename him. Danger-Boy. I’m gonna get him a t-shirt that says that. J Suffice it to say, the Ice-Queen was far from bowled over by Danger-Boy’s charm. Man did we ever laugh about that! J J J J

Jackie’s team won. 7-0. We fold the chairs, pack stuff up and collect the kids. The Ice-Queen has become curious about Danger-Boy, and so, invites us back to the house. "Gee, I’m sorry Mom," says I, "We have a sunset to catch. Maybe some other time." She’ll be wondering about us for weeks!

We drove off in search of the sunset, which we found at the top of the bluff in Durand-Eastman Park where King’s Highway intersects Lake Shore Blvd. The sunset was both gorgeous and uninspiring at the same time. We went from crystal blue skies to thick overcast in the matter of about two hours. As the sun disappeared behind the cloud bank, the cirrostratus above us moved from white to crimson-streaked. Gorgeous. The uninspiring part was because this all happened about an hour before actual sunset. And so it goes …

We stopped by Debbie’s on the way back to my apartment. She wasn’t home. Danger-Boy’s funk gets deeper. Willie called asking if we were going to Muther’s. We’d been planning on it, so we agreed to meet at Willie’s and go out together.

Apparently Muther’s has won the legal battle and the Fire Marshall has raised their legal capacity to 189 patrons and 11 staff. This is still only about 2/3^rd of the number of people who used to crowd in there on Friday and Saturday nights. Still, its better than 94. The remaining issue it the patio. It’s still closed per the city.

The bittersweet part of the weekend started when I was sitting between Danger-Boy and Willie on the benches on the far side of the dance floor. It finally hit me. Here I am, the luckiest guy in the world to have two great friends as these. And they both like each other as much as they like me. And they’re both leaving.

Willie is leaving at the end of the month. He’s going back to Nicaragua after a month’s visit with his sister and her family in London. Danger-Boy is leaving in the next week or two. He’s turning himself in on his outstanding arrest warrants. I hope I’ve talked him into waiting until after my birthday this coming Friday.

There’s nothing I can do for or about either of them. I’ll have to find new friends while I mourn the loss of my current ones.

The US Government, in it’s infinite wisdom, granted Willie only a six-month work visa for a twelve-month job. So he has to leave when his student visa expires at the end of the month, because he didn’t get the job. I’ll miss him. We can keep in touch by phone and e-mail, but it won’t be the same.

Danger-Boy’s troubles with the law are self-inflicted. And he’s deeply troubled by them. I woke in the middle of the night Friday night to find him at the end of the bed, huddled in the fetal position, crying. When he turns himself in, he’ll do anywhere from six-months in the county jail, to several years in the state prison. We both agree he has to do this to settle his conscience. I'll miss him. We can keep in touch by mail and on visiting days, but it won’t be the same.

Anyway, Willie went off dancing, I found Johnny and we talked for a long while, and Danger-Boy cleaned house on the pool table. But of course he has a major advantage: Practice. The pool table is where rentboys spend their time. I guarantee you that there are rentboys to be found at every pool table at every gay bar in the world.

We slept very late on Saturday. We didn’t get up until mid-afternoon because we were each exhausted by the events of the week. Then after swinging by Debbie’s, (who still hadn’t been home,) we went to a party hosted by one of my co-workers. He left his hair down, and donned a short-sleeve oxford shirt for the party. Adding his trademark sunglasses, he looked like he belonged in a real soap opera, not just mine.

During the party, Debbie called. She’d been exactly where I knew she would be, and where Danger-Boy feared she would be. A crack-house. We picked her up after the party, they dropped me off, and went back to her place. He brought the car back and hour or two later.

We hung out and talked for a couple of hours before I took him back to Debbie’s. He was very relieved to find her again, and with that stress out of the way, we could talk about us. I am both frustrated and relieved by what we decided. I’m frustrated because he confirmed to me that sex is out of the question. And he’s sooooo hot. I have to masturbate in the bathroom every morning after sleeping with him. I’m relieved because with sex out of the picture, we can really focus on our friendship, which has become increasingly intense.

With the exception of Tuesday night, when I really didn’t sleep at all, I haven’t slept without him here in weeks. Although I missed him, I got the most restful night’s sleep in over a month. I packed in a solid 13, almost 14 hours, arising just before three. I called Danger-Boy, and he said he’d walk over later towards evening. I’d no sooner hung-up with him when Willie called asking to stop over later. I decided I needed a nap until one or the other showed up.

Willie got here first. We hung-out, talking and listening to music. Danger-Boy showed up about an hour later. He wanted to borrow the car to get groceries for Debbie. Willie and I each contributed to the list, and Danger-Boy promised to be back by eight so we could drive out for the sunset.

Tonight’s sunset was magnificent. It was mostly clear, an few wispy cirrus clouds for interest, and just enough humidity to put real fire in the sky. Danger-Boy stayed at the top of the bluff testing the sonic limits of the car stereo, while Willie and I climbed down the bluff to the beach.

Geologically, it’s not a bluff, but a drumlin which has been eroded back by the lake. If you didn’t look up drumlin last time I mentioned it, well, too bad. Look it up now.

After the sun extinguished itself in Lake Ontario, we headed back to the city. I dropped Willie off at his car and Danger-Boy came in for dinner. Just before I started writing, I took him back to Debbie’s.

So where’s the threesome I going to tell you about? Well, don’t think Wille, Danger-Boy and I make quite a combo? And it got you to read the entire entry too. J