Long Way Out, page 10
“Besides, Bryan couldn’t have caught it from me anyway... because I don’t have fucking herpes!” Russell snatched up a soiled plate and ran steaming water over it only to let it go, sending it clanging back into the stainless steel sink. “Oh, my god!” he exclaimed. “This is exactly like that kid on the debate team in high school, Jerry Silberoth. He picked up some skanky chick from Chattanooga at a forensics tournament, came home, gave his girlfriend crabs, then told her he’d got ‘em from a toilet seat in a public bathroom.”
“Does that mean you have some idea where Bryan might have been exposed?” Russell had waltzed right into this line of interrogation. Of course, he knew precisely how this transfer of pathogens must have taken place. Now, once again, he found himself faced with a decision as to how much of the truth he could, or would be willing to, reveal. So, instead of addressing Tess’s very direct question, he attempted to skirt around it.
“I’ll get to the bottom of this,” he told her. “You can count on that.”
“So, there’s no chance, right?”
“No chance of what?”
“That you have herpes. Or, that you gave Bryan herpes.”
Russell wanted desperately to reassure her by revealing that, three months earlier, in April, he had gone in for a complete STI blood panel and emerged with a 100% clean report. That can of worms, however, had to remain tightly sealed. Still, he was able to articulate one truth with confidence: “There’s only one way I could have caught herpes, Babe.”
“From me, right?” she asked, sheepishly.
“Exactly,” he said, twisting his lips into a forced smile. “You don’t have herpes, do you, My Love?”
“Fuck you,” she said, her pinched expression surrendering to a semi-smile of semi-relief. Russell, however, wasn’t feeling any of the same relief. Bryan might as well have been stabbed him in the heart a thousand times with a rusty railroad spike. The irresistible object of Russell’s fantasies, the gorgeous, charming Bryan had scapegoated him and thrown him under the bus. And, in his tormented mind, Russell couldn’t help but wonder, to what purpose? “Hey,” Tess said. From her familiar, suggestive tone, Russell knew where she was going. “Wanna do it?” With verbal communication intractably lodged in his throat, Russell looked at his wife, standing there, still oblivious about his sordid, secretive, second life. David was wrong about the elephant, he told himself. If there was a pachyderm in the room, Tess was blind to its presence.
Russell lost it. Tears gushed. He collapsed against the counter top, his entire body convulsing in howls of grief. Tess shuffled over to comfort him. “What?” she asked, placing a gentle hand on his bicep. “What is it?”
“I love you so much,” he muttered.
Their hug lasted for a full 90 seconds. As Tess released her embrace, she whispered, “I’ll be in bed. Naked.” Then, she gave his wet, salty lips a quick, affectionate kiss before padding toward the stairs.
“Okay,” Russell responded. Then, as much to himself as to her, he muttered, “I’ll be up. Soon as I finish these dishes.” A flood of gratitude flowed into Russell’s heart. For too long, he’d been looking at his life as an unfulfilled, shambolic dance. All the while, he’d forgotten to consider how much he had to be thankful for: his comely, trusting, smart-as-a-whip wife, two healthy sons, a handsome house on a cul-de-sac growing in value, year after year, a job that provided purpose and paid the bills. And (so far, at least) no sexually transmitted diseases. As he filled the dishwasher, tears continued to trickle down his cheeks. Now, however, they rolled over a pair of smiling, contented lips.
Then, a voice from earlier in the day echoed in his head. David’s voice resonated: “It’ll all come out in the wash. It always does.” Russell pondered, acknowledging the Zen-like truth in this statement. But what, he couldn’t help but wonder, was the “it” in this banal, yet never-untrue aphorism?
TWELVE
The anticlimactic fizzle of the Pirates’ once-promising season could have been chalked up to several factors. Although Monday-morning quarterbacking can never change the outcome of games already played, time offers clearer perspective on the what-ifs and the if-not-fors that conspired to truncate what was to be Henry “Hank” Deacon’s last summer in a Little League uniform and his father’s disappointing third and final managerial campaign.
Conspicuous at the time was the abrupt absence of the team’s best pitcher and most reliable hitter. Without explanation or warning, Carter simply stopped showing up for practices and games. This left Russell scrambling to adjust his line-up for the penultimate and conclusive games of the regular schedule and a pair of lackluster performances in the playoffs. Bryan was missed as well. But the truancy of this always accommodating volunteer proved to be a mixed blessing for Russell, who had for most of the summer found his helpful assistant’s blue eyes and alluring smile a major distraction. Without Bryan there to divert his concentration, Russell should have been better able to focus on making savvy game-time decisions. Instead, Carter and his dad’s abandonment of the team only added hot sauce to the simmering emotional stew already bubbling in Russell’s gut. The bilious concoction’s most active ingredient was anger — anger about Bryan blaming Russell for his herpes outbreak; anger that an egocentric father would, for his own self-preservation, deprive his talented son of a potentially triumphant ending to his Little League experience. But, ultimately, the most barbed anger affecting Russell lay in the vitriol he directed at himself, for his own lack of resolve, his repetitive caving in to lust and impulse, and the increasingly shaky foundation of duplicity upon which this pattern of behavior was constructed.
By season’s end, Russell was paddling a teetering raft of self-recrimination across a deepening, now overflowing pool of guilt and shame, and without his manager/coach role to bolster his sense of purpose. This left a sinkhole the size of Yankee Stadium under his already eroding equilibrium. And, hovering ominously over this bleak landscape was an ever-darkening cloud of depression.
≈ ≈ ≈
Aside from receiving two blowjobs — the first superb, the second less so — Russell had thus far managed to placate his same-sex cravings without touching or being touched by another man. That dam, however, was about to burst. The initial breakthrough came on a Wednesday afternoon in late August. Russell had just completed a particularly disheartening group presentation for a company that served to store and/or shred documents for other companies. Performing his dog-and-pony sales routine for executives was challenging enough. Asking the labor force to voluntarily accept an additional deduction from their paychecks to cover a supplementary layer of insurance demanded the combined tap-dancing skills of Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and Sammy Davis Jr.
After fielding a barrage of semi-hostile questions from the company workforce, Russell stepped out of the downtown warehouse into the sweltering late-summer heat. Suffering serious adrenaline crash, it was as though he’d gained 50 pounds in a single laborious step. As he dragged his concrete shoes toward his car, his testicles began to tingle. This familiar, entirely involuntary sensation had been triggered by a sudden realization... that the return route to the office would take him directly past a certain business, one that had been piquing his curiosity for some time. A quick glance at his watch — it was 3:37 — elicited a familiar rumbling in his lower belly. This natural, automatic physical response, in turn, served to cue the internal negotiation and ultimate self-justification upon which a double life relies. Rationalizations passed through his head in the following order: My work day is basically finished. I really have no pressing reason to touch base at headquarters. Nobody would care if I took the remainder of the afternoon off. And, if anyone asked, I could always say the sales presentation had run longer than expected.
The building’s location, at the junction of two major highways, made The World’s Largest Adult Book Store a particularly alluring and convenient stop for horny truckers and business travelers motoring through town. Russell had driven by numerous times on his route to and from sales appointments, chuckling to think that any establishment would tout itself with such an audacious, unverifiable claim. He entered the upper level into a vast, warehouse-sized area housing rack after rack of triple-X videos and DVDs for sale or rent. Through a beaded curtain at the far end of the top floor were 30 or more video booths. A stairway led to the basement level, which comprised a sex-toy shop and two movie theaters, one screening straight porn, the second featuring gay films.
Russell had completed a self-guided tour of the layout when a certain VHS case piqued his interest. Cover graphics for the video Bears in the Woods 29 depicted a pair of naked fellows, both expansive in girth and exceptionally hairy, engaging in 69 on a blanket, under a massive evergreen tree. As his soldier chubbed in hopeful anticipation, Russell detected a shadow thrown by another person. A quick, over-the-shoulder glance revealed a large, bearded fellow, heavy-set, with a swarthy complexion, hovering approximately six feet away. Russell’s immediate inclination was to turn his head to avoid eye contact. As he placed the video case back in its place, the large gentleman cleared his throat suggestively. Russell swiveled his head to take a second look, this one sustained long enough to discern the real-life bear cocking his head subtly in the direction of the video-booth area. Then, continuing to gaze directly into Russell’s eyes, he reached down to touch the crotch of his jeans before pivoting on his heel to stroll casually, hands in pockets, toward the beaded curtain. As the real-life bear reached out to part the curtain, he checked back over his shoulder. Seeing that he hadn’t lost his audience of one, he beckoned Russell with a reprise tilt of the head, this one more overt than the first. By this point, Russell’s heartbeat was pummeling his rib cage like a prep cook with a meat hammer. He felt dizzy and a tad nauseous. “No,” he murmured to himself. “You cannot do this!”
“Excuse me?” inquired the cashier, a thin, 60-ish, red-lipsticked woman, with an overly exposed and quite wrinkled cleavage. Russell didn’t recall walking from the display racks to the counter. “What can I do ya for?” she asked.
“A roll of tokens, please,” Russell heard himself say. His hand, which seemed to have a mind of its own, plunged into his trouser pocket. There, his index finger bumped against the tip of a hardening, bloodthirsty rod. Paper currency appeared in his palm, extended toward the cashier. He snatched up his purchase. No turning back now. Any opportunity for reason or reflection had slipped away. Russell no longer commanded the motor movement of his body. His legs were answering only to their aroused middle brother. This trio of mutineers proceeded to carry Russell back through the beaded curtain and into the dimly lit video-booth area.
Russell’s heart was pounding so loudly, he couldn’t imagine that it wasn’t audible to any ear within 20 feet. A half-dozen other men, in a variety of sizes, skin-colors, and ages, leaned against booths, most of them smoking cigarettes. The bear that had lured him there, however, was nowhere to be seen. As Russell shuffled past one open booth door, a breathy voice came from inside. “Hey.” A chill shiver rippled through his shoulders. He stood peering into the open booth, transfixed, as if his shoes had been nailed to the floor. “Come on in,” the bear entreated. Russell remained paralyzed. “Really, Dude. I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Russell attempted a response but his voice failed. His second effort — “Can we just talk for a minute?” — blurted from his lips at a disproportionately loud volume.
“Jesus!” ribbed one of the loitering smokers, “take it inside, Mary!” Another chuckled mockingly.
Russell found himself standing conspicuously at a three-pronged fork in the road. He could remain a spectacle, a laughing stock, lingering outside the booth, attempting to converse with the man inside. He could skedaddle and made a quick escape. Instead, he picked option number three by taking two brisk strides into the booth. Then, with a shaky, sweaty hand, Russell hastily yanked the booth door closed and turned the lock.
≈ ≈ ≈
Fifteen minutes later, Russell exited the booth disheveled, with a proverbial euphoric “I just got laid” grin radiating across his flushed face. He didn’t care whether anyone else noticed or cared. He was still aglow from the playful roughhouse foreplay and — even with contact limited to hands only — the most luxurious and satisfying cum shot since glorious Blowjob #1. And, unlike the immediate aftermath of that years-ago encounter with David, Russell wasn’t attempting to put the whole thing out of mind by quickly depositing it in the bin marked, “Been there. Done that.” He was buzzing from head to toe, wallowing in the immersive pleasure this Wednesday afternoon had brought him in the intimate privacy of a video booth at The World’s Largest Adult Book Store.
As he strolled out onto the brightly lit main floor, Russell felt weightless. Rounding the corner at the end of the hallway, his shoulder bumped against the shoulder of another man at the top of the stairs. “Sorry,” Russell chuckled, still so lost in rapturous reverie that he neglected to glance at the person with whom he’d just collided. Instead, he proceeded to bop blissfully down the stairs. To no one in particular, he quipped, “Maybe I should watch where I’m going.”
“Rusty Boy?” the man asked. Russell halted in his tracks on the fourth stair down. Hearing someone say his name was alarming enough. That the voice matched the unmistakable timbre of one particular person, however, abruptly cranked up the alarm to the cusp of panic. That feeling of weightlessness? Gone. Russell was suddenly being yanked down by the gravity of Jupiter. Reluctantly, hesitantly, he turned around and looked up. There on the landing stood the last person in the world he would ever want to run into under such circumstances. “What are you doing here?” Mike Terzian asked. Oddly, Mike’s tone wasn’t threatening and lacked any hint of the derision Russell had come to expect from the workplace bully. Rather, this inquiry sounded friendly, genuinely curious, almost naïve.
“Well, you know...” Russell stammered, overwhelmed by equal parts embarrassment and incredulity. Most folks, he was thinking, would find it mortifying to encounter a co-worker at an enterprise that peddled porn. Mike, however, didn’t appear to be the slightest bit disquieted. Russell’s mind, which had, until five seconds ago, been busy replaying the thrill and pleasure of his bear-wrestling encounter, was now scrambling for an answer, one that would explain his attendance in such an establishment, while sounding casual and non-specific enough as to avoid provoking further suspicion. “I’ve always...” he improvised, “you know, sorta wondered, I guess, about this place.”
“Fuckin’ hell, Dude!” Mike exuded, as if drooling over the buffet at Golden Corral after a three-day fast. “I mean, this place is awesome!” This same review could easily have come from a 13-year-old kid raving about the grand opening of a new paintball arcade. Russell returned a bemused, pursed-lipped nod. This clueless dolt, he ruminated, has exactly zero awareness of the down-and-dirty activities underway at this very moment, in pretty much every corner of this “awesome place.”
“Looks like you’ve been having some fun,” Mike observed, with a suggestive wink.
Up until now, Russell’s post-hook-up bliss had distracted him from devoting any attention to his state of dishevelment. Noticing several damp stains near the zipper of his wrinkled trousers, he quickly pulled his half untucked shirt down to shield the mess from view. “Guess I should tidy up a bit,” he said.
“No shit!” Per usual, Mike’s quip was boisterous enough to be audible to the entirety of Davidson County.
“Yeah. I was just on my way to the restroom,” Russell said. “You know, to...” It didn’t seem necessary to finish the sentence.
“Well, Dude,” Mike said. “Rock on! And, keep clear of the fags.”
“Oh, for sure,” Russell answered, forcing a smile, as if cementing the two rival co-workers’ newly kindled male bond. Trundling down the remaining stairs, a wave of self-recrimination washed through Russell’s chest. Why in the world had he felt obliged to patronize an ignorant, homophobic chauvinist like Mike Terzian? Why had he allowed “oh, for sure” to slip out from between his lips? The utterance of those three syllables left him feeling even more soiled than the pasty stain dampening the crotch area of his trousers.
A minute later, Russell stood staring at a reflection in the men’s room mirror. This was someone he scarcely recognized. Hair sticking up and out in random ways — a do Rod Stewart might have spent hours and a gallon of product to accomplish — pale cheeks dotted with blotchy amoebic patches of pink; ears a shade shy of purple; lips severely dry and chapped. Mike had been correct about one thing: Russell most definitely looked like he’d been having some fun.
THIRTEEN
Prior to September 13, 1994, whenever Russell was asked to describe Hell, he was always ready with an answer. “Hell,” he’d quipped on numerous occasions, “is being stuck for eternity on the It’s a Small World ride at Disneyland.” However, the afternoon of his younger son’s tenth birthday introduced him to an even more torturous picture of everlasting torment. “Hell,” Russell concluded after that fateful day, “would be a never-ending child’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese.” A popular purveyor of cacophony, chaos, and cardboard pizza, this enterprise invites children to crash virtual race cars, fire laser beams at slimy alien monsters, and slaughter slavering Jurassic Park dinosaurs. Here, innocent babes inhabit the avatar of their favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle for the purpose of blowing grotesque, malformed monsters to bits. And, for exercising their most violent tendencies, they are rewarded with tickets redeemable for tacky, plastic trinkets imported from China.
For Russell, the sensory input in this environment was mind-numbing: bells, beeps, squawks, skidding tires, crashes, explosions, garish, clashing colors, and bright, flashing lights, a hundred children howling and screeching; packs of unruly savages streaking maniacally from one game station to another like beheaded chickens, careening into anything and anyone impeding direct and immediate access to the next station on their crazed, improvised itinerary. This, Russell theorized, is where young male humans learn how to exhibit their most obnoxious behavior, where a lad reaps positive affirmation (from parents and peers) for his least appealing impulses. In this setting, normal decorum is willingly checked at the door, all etiquette is jettisoned, and absolute insanity comes disguised as fun.
