Thomas Kearnes is a 34-year-old author from East Texas. His fiction has appeared in Eclectica, Night Train, Pindeldyboz, SmokeLong Quarterly, The Pedestal, Thieves Jargon, wigleaf, JMWW Journal and numerous other publications. Born on America's bicentennial, he is an atheist and an Eagle Scout.
A Common Seduction (August 20, 2010. Issue 20.)
He said he loved me when he never did. That’s all you need to know about Ryan Hammonds. That’s why I’m seated around a high-top table at one of those restaurants with posters of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean on the walls, seated across from Ryan’s boyfriend, Kenny. He slurps from his glass of whiskey and soda with a straw, making a rude noise as he hits the bottom. I ask him if he wants another. This will be his fifth, sixth drink. I’ve lost count. But I’ve been saving my money for this night, planning every detail since I scored Kenny’s number from one of my fuck buddies.
Of course, I haven’t told Kenny who I really am. I told him my real name, but not that I used to be Ryan’s boyfriend. When I told Kenny my name on the phone, arranging this date, telling him we had mutual friends and I was new in town, just looking for someone to hang with, no big deal, just a couple of drinks, he didn’t seem to recognize it. This stung me, I must admit, that Ryan no longer mentions me, all our months together completely forgotten. I wasn’t even a stopover on his usual list of all the asshole boyfriends from his past. And that’s the thing with Ryan: all his ex-boyfriends are assholes or creeps or shitheads. The world is against him, he told me, and probably told Kenny, too.
The loser gladly takes his next drink from the waitress and finishes half of it in one gulp. I’m still on my third one, must stay sharp, can’t let anything slip that might clue in Kenny to who I really am. Underneath the table, I feel his foot rub against my leg, and I know it won’t be long now before he asks me where I live, and I’ll say close by, just up the road, in fact only about two miles away from where Ryan Hammonds lives now, another welcome piece of intelligence my fuck buddy nailed for me.
I tell the dumb kid he’s beautiful, that his eyes knock me out, I’ve never seen that shade of green, would he be willing to pose for me sometime, nothing big, no nudity of course. I tell him I’m a photographer, that most of my work consists of bourgeois families with smart-ass kids and bored husbands, but on the side, I like to photograph men. Aren’t men beautiful creatures? I ask him. He smiles and nods his head. I wonder if he even understands what I’m saying.
This is my plan: seduce this moron Kenny, take a picture of him nude in my bed with my cell phone camera and send the image to Ryan, fuck you written in all caps. I’ve waited countless months for this night. Of course, Ryan hasn’t been with Kenny that whole time. There have been other boyfriends, flings. But when my fuck buddy described Kenny as an easy mark, willing to bend over for anybody who bought him drinks and treated him decent, the scheme presented itself like a pair of spread legs. Who couldn’t see the beauty of it, a revenge so pure it bleeds white?
He tells me we better not let Ryan know what he’s doing. He wouldn’t understand, Kenny says. No, I tell him, we won’t say a word. I ask him some benign questions about Ryan. I thirst for knowledge about the man who broke my heart: where he’s working, what he does on the weekends, did his father ever survive that bout of prostate cancer? But here’s the funny thing: I don’t even listen to Kenny’s answers. I’m lost in a reverie about my last night with Ryan, holding him against me in my cramped apartment, the blinds missing a few of their slats, allowing the moonlight to slip through. I see my ex-lover’s body tremble, feel him in my arms, me having no idea that it would be the last time, that he never loved me, not even in that moment.
Kenny pushes his empty glass toward me, says he’s had enough. Light-headed, he says. I caress his arm and he blushes. Do you want me to stop? I ask. He shakes his head.
I have lots of portraits hanging on my walls, I tell him. All beautiful men. Would you like to see them? Kenny nods. Let’s go to my car so I can kiss you, I say. We leave the restaurant. Emerging into the cold night air, I gaze up at all the stars, the first-quarter moon, and I’m thinking, Yes, Ryan, this is all for you. You fucking bastard, all for you. Kenny takes my hand and pulls me into the parking lot. Ryan, I say, aren’t you eager? My name isn’t Ryan, he says, looking hurt. But I just keep smiling and say, No, of course it isn’t.
A Reason to Live (July 20, 2010. Issue 19.)
I visit him once a week, after I get out of typing class at the junior college. I’m just a few months older than Greg but still trying to pull my life together. My mother gives me fifty dollars a week, which is just enough for cigarettes. I have a few bucks left for the rest of the week. Greg’s parents left him a little cash as well, at their last visit. I have no idea what they think he’s going to do with it. He’s trapped in this room with its antiseptic smell and white lace curtains.
Greg’s parents are clever. They know what he’s been doing these past few years, all the drugs and hopping from flophouse to flophouse in Austin. They know what led him to the Glengrove Retirement Home, where he sits in bed every day watching “Law and Order” reruns on the television bolted high on the wall. This was the only place his insurance would cover. The doctors removed Greg’s right leg from the knee down last month. All the shit he mainlined into his veins left the tissue in his lower leg dead or diseased. He turns thirty-three in three weeks.
“We should pool our money together and get a bottle of Mad Dog,” Greg says. He’s smiling at me, the left corner of his mouth hitched higher than the right. I’m a sucker for lopsided smiles. When I look through my cache of old photos of ex-boyfriends, that’s the common theme: a lopsided smile.
“I thought you were going to quit.”
“By the time we split it, it’ll barely be enough to get a buzz.”
“So?”
“So it only counts if you get ripped. This is nothing.”
I slouch in my seat. Back when he was still my boyfriend, before he broke up with me last month via a series of text messages, I sat beside him on the bed. We used to hold hands. Now, in his eyes, there’s a desperation that makes my stomach sink.
“I don’t even know where they sell it.”
“They’ve got it at the gas station just down High Street.”
“How do you know that?”
“One of the nurses told me.”
“The one who split a joint with you last week?”
Greg chuckles and nods. He can charm men into anything. I thought after we broke up that he wouldn’t want to see me as often. But it was he who called me at the start of that week, asking when I’d drop by. I try to push away the thought he only needs me to make booze r
uns.
He opens the bedside drawer and scoops out a couple of wrinkled bills. He reaches over and tucks the money into my open hand. It’s the first time he’s touched me since our break-up except for when I arrived and he embraced me in greeting. I’m going to miss all those small and incidental touches.
I leave the retirement home and drive the half-mile to the gas station. I’ve never drunk Mad Dog before, and Greg wants the green apple flavor. I pay for the wine and leave the store. Per his instruction, I hide the bottle in my satchel as I walk the sterile white hall to his room. Inside, I pull out the bottle and ask if I bought the right one even though I know I did. He takes it and pours half into a large blue mug already filled with chipped ice.
“You’ve been waiting for this a long time,” I say.
“You have no idea.” He takes a long swig from the mug and hands it to me. I take a small sip. It tastes too sweet and my lips feel sticky after I’m done.
“Come sit next to me,” he says.
“On the bed?”
“Well, I sure as hell can’t come over there.” He laughs and lightly rubs my shoulder. I ask him to scoot over then I join him in the bed. His stump rests on a pillow, acres of gauze wrapping it. We pass the mug of wine back and forth. It isn’t long before he has to refill it with the rest of the bottle. On the television, the last half of a “Law and Order” episode plays. The characters are in a courtroom. It’s a tense cross-examination, and the witness starts to cry.
“I’m not sure how often you want me to come over now,” I say.
He cocks his head, gives me a perplexed look. “Why’d ya say that?”
“Well, we’re not really going out anymore and—“
“You’re still my best friend.”
A smile twists my lips, and before I can stop myself, I say it. “You need someone to buy your booze.”
“Aw, c’mon man, you know it’s more than that.”
“I still think about you. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.”
“Things will look better once they fit you with a prosthesis,” I say.
“That’s what everyone tells me.”
“It’s true.”
“You coming to see me next week?” he asks.
“There’s only one sip left,” I say. “Mind if I drink it?”
“Sure, but only when you answer my question.”
I lean over and peck his cheek. I have enough money for a second bottle. We could sit here all afternoon and drink. I could pretend he loves me. We could do anything.