A wave of regret hit me, and I gasped for air. If I was going to cheat on Woody, couldn’t I summon up some pleasure, make this worth the guilt? But the guilt was in charge, a hidden overseer keeping my mind full of chatter and my dick at half mast. Rick finally pulled away from me, letting my cock—fluffed, but definitely not hard—bob out of his mouth. He looked up at me, his too-close-together eyes questioning, and I shrugged my shoulders. He pointed at his hard-on, and then back at me, mouthing, “You suck me?”
I shrugged again. “Okay. Sure.”
What I should have done was leave, get out while I could still salvage some sense of having resisted, but that didn’t seem fair to Rick. Of course, staying and continuing wasn’t fair to Woody, but there you have it: the inverse logic of infidelity.
So I crouched on the toilet seat, positioned as if taking a crap in the woods, and I let Rick guide his skinny brown cock down my throat. Out by the urinals it was silent again, and I guess Rick felt safe enough to speak. He said, “Jamie, this might be the last blow job I get for months,” and there was something so earnest, so grateful, in his voice that, unexpectedly, I was galvanized. I stopped thinking about confiscated luggage and delayed flights and STDs, and I stopped worrying about whether or not I was going to tell Woody about this, and I gave Rick some grade-A head, something he could remember when he was jacking off in Nepal a month from now, a lonesome traveler out on the road.
“Here it comes,” he hissed.
I pulled my mouth away, but not quick enough. My lower lip took the first big blast, my shoulder the second. I managed to redirect the rest toward the floor. I threw my attention to my own hard-on, which somewhere along the line had decided to join the party, and finished myself off. Sploop, sploop, sploop onto the tile. When I looked up, Rick’s eyes were full of admiration. He leaned down and sucked his cum right off my shirt, then off my chin. Without warning he kissed me on the lips, and I tasted his spooge on my tongue, viscous. I’d be worrying about STDs after all. But the kiss felt good, and I let it linger.
“Thanks, buddy,” he said.
“Happy trails,” I said.
Alone again, I wanted a cigarette. Or a sleeping pill. I wanted to call Woody and confess, I wanted him to absolve me. But that was as ridiculous as hoping the clock would spin backwards so I could rewrite the last hour.
I had a window seat and a pillow, but even after two cocktails I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t get back into Kerouac, either. The book felt tainted by its association with Rick. So I pulled my father’s San Francisco souvenirs out of my bag.
Among the items I’d salvaged was a slim, hardback book called How to Enjoy 1 to 10 Perfect Days in San Francisco. I found an inscription from Aunt Katie inside the front cover:
December 1960
Dear Rusty,
I am sending this book in case there are some corners of the city, you haven’t discovered yet, and as well, it is a Christmas gift. Plus, the writer is from New York, so, you can trust him! With this $5.00, I suggest, an all you can eat prime rib dinner at House of Prime Rib, which you can read about, on page 30. Or use it for a long distance phone call, or two! Mother says don’t spend it on liquor! Thanks for writing, because we miss you, and everyone wants to be sure you are well. (Even Papa.)
Love,
Your sister, Katie
Squeezed into the space at the bottom of the page was another note:
If you hear from that brother of mine tell him if he don’t want a good swift kick in the keester tell him he better write soon, before Mama has a heart attack from worrying.
From,
Angelo
I turned to page thirty to confirm the House of Prime Rib description, but what caught my attention was a description of the city’s nightlife on the facing page:
If you have ever visited New York’s Greenwich Village, you will take San Francisco’s Beatnik Land in your stride. One suspects that the bohemians of the Village in the ’30s produced more genuine talent and creative accomplishments than today’s beatnik community. This is probably because the really creative beatniks have long since disassociated themselves from the over-organized movement. In fact, by the time you visit San Francisco, Beatnik Land might be completely relocated in Venice, California.
In the margin, my father had written defiantly, “Says You, Square!”
Clearly this was not a book of any use to a twenty-year-old with hepcat ambitions of his own. (Poor Aunt Katie, all good intentions and misplaced commas.) I was touched by this youthful defensiveness—no, touched isn’t strong enough. It was remarkable to me: my father as defender of the San Francisco underground.
After flipping through the book, I discovered, wedged inside the back cover, an unmarked, sealed envelope. It was literally stuck there, as if the binding glue had softened and then reset around it. I tugged it free and sliced it open.
It was a letter, written in my father’s hand.
November 1, 1960
Dear Danny,
Or should I say, “Dear Incredible Vanishing Friend?” Just pulling your leg, but I sure hope this letter gets forwarded to wherever you are, otherwise I won’t get to say Happy Birthday, pal!
The news here is good-bye “Rusty.” See, nobody calls me Rusty here. They call me “Teddy.” It just happened, when I first met Don Drebinski, the guy who runs the Hideaway, I said my name was Edward and he said, How about Teddy? And that’s how he introduces me to everyone. Guess I’m ready to be “a new man.” You should be here instead of mopping floors in Los Angeles. You could be anyone you want to.
I have it in mind that I’ll be a painter. But not as they say a “Sunday Painter” which is what a fellow called me at a party. I went with Ray, remember I wrote about her, the Jewish brunette with the Natalie Wood face and the damn husband. I thought about keeping away in case the old guy shows up with a shotgun, but she’s irresistible! I could eat her for breakfast, lunch and midnight snack. She’s a painter, and planted the bug in me, having seen my sketches and knowing I was very moved by the Richard Diebenkorn paintings last year. She showed up at my door Saturday to lure me out into the night and I said, “I got to fix my hair first,” and she said, “No, don’t, you look funk.” Which melted me like wax. Funk being hep language for what we would call “cool” on the West Side. We got a lift in Mike Kelsey’s T-bird convertible. This is reason for jealousy, because he’s another young fool like myself under the spell of the married beauty, but a heck of a nice guy so as its hard to feel meanness and rivalry toward him, and who can resist the convertible? It is a glorious way to travel under the Frisco night sky, where the fog turns orange from city light reflecting up.
In the car we drank whiskey and drove all the way from my place near the ocean to North Beach (which isn’t a beach at all, or anywhere near the beach). Ray is between us on the seat and telling stories of all the great characters we will meet tonight, possibly some Negro musicians fond of that smokable tea. But wouldn’t you know when we get there Ray disappears with her gang of lady painters which includes the supposedly famous Jane Chase, a tough broad never seen without her own jug of liquid brown poison. My rival Kelsey is smoking a damn pipe which smells like Irish Uncles sitting around telling stories and stinking up the house. I’m eventually drunker than a Roman at an orgy, except alone, when some creep says, “Ray claims you’re a Sunday Painter.” And the one next to him says, “A real plain air type.” I know an insult when I hear one so I tell him “Watch it, I can knock you on your behind.” One of them called me “Bruiser” and the other one nearly died laughing. So I swung at them. More like I stood up and fell onto them. I was damned drunk and bang, down I went.
Ray came running over and I said “What’s the idea talking bad about me to those jokers” but she just gave me a kiss and said forget about them. She made Kelsey drive me home, and he practically killed us driving in the wrong lane on California Street and making some poor