hat do you got in the box? the stripper asks him.

A pigeon, he lies. It was hurt and I thought I could maybe help it.

In fact, it was not a pigeon, but a rat. Its back legs had been smashed somehow and it was dragging them behind it. One of its eyes appeared to have been burst and matted the ear all around it. The rat was in the street below the sidewalk, in the neighborhood of sex shops and strip bars. First, he’d knelt down to look at it.

Come on, Brian had told him. There’s nothing you can do.

But he’d wanted to try something. In an alley dumpster, he’d found the box. He thought pigeon would sound better than rat, though.

Maybe you should kill it, the dancer says, looking at the box. Step on its head. That’s the kind thing to do. That’s what they do to horses that get hurt, they kill them. I love horses.

I’m from Montana, he offers.

Down here for Christmas break?

Yeah, he says. I talked my buddy into coming. He’s got a brother who’s moved down around here.

Why?

Why’d he move down here?

Yeah, I guess. I mean, why did you want to come down here from up there?

Missing something, I guess.

Montana. Lot of horses up there, I bet.

Yes. He is a college student and grew up in the college town and has never touched a horse. Likewise, in that college town, he never saw anything like what he has seen today: Chinatown, with shrimps leaping feebly on beds of ice, with long fish swimming desperately in half full tubs; the smells of the wharf and the cry of gulls and small ragged men moving about; this neighborhood of streets lined with open-fronted shops who have as wares rubber cocks and walls and walls of pornographic magazines.

He says, Lots of horses, almost everywhere.

She stares at the box. Across from them, in an identical booth, his friend Brian is sitting with another dancer. A waitress in a tight short skirt is standing before them.

He looks at the dancer, who says, You seem a little nervous.

I don’t mean to, he says. But he knows he is nervous. He’s been nervous about the trip since he proposed it to Brian, and Brian had asked: What you think you’re going to find there? Why are you always getting itchy for something different? What more do you think there is?

The waitress is standing in front of them now. What would you like? She sets two red napkins down.

I’m fine, he says, remembering what Brian’s brother, who has learned the tricks of the city, has told them about the price of drinks in San Francisco strip joints.

I meant for the lady.

Yes, may I?

Yes, ma'am.

She pauses for a moment, then says, Champagne, please.

The waitress nods. On the stage a pale and pudgy girl moves to the music. He is afraid of the girl. He is, in fact, afraid of the dancer beside him, and the waitress. In truth, he has been afraid since arriving in this city, maybe since leaving Montana. Though he doesn’t know why. Though he wanted to come here and still believes there is something here for him. He glances at the dancer, just a girl, really, with a tight body and a lot of makeup. She looks the way dancers do on the television: tough but almost magic.

You’re nice, the dancer tells him. I mean that, really. You look like the country, like somebody who grew up with animals and trees and all.

It was kind of like that.

I got lucky picking you. I just started here and I haven’t had many nice people. You know what I’m supposed to do?

No, ma’am.

Sit somebody down and order champagne. See, that’s the trick. Then when she comes with the bottle she’ll ask for a lot of money. Most people are so surprised and pressured they just pay for it. I wanted you to know ahead of time, to be prepared. She leans back and releases his forearm from her grip. She says, I think it’s nice about the pigeon.

In truth, the box is empty. He has kept it in case he decides to go back and get the rat. But for now, he’s lost his nerve. He tells himself it would not survive the night, not to mention the return trip. He thinks of Amy, and the apartment they share in Montana. She’d said, I love you, not long before he left, but he had not returned it.

The waitress approaches with a bottle and a glass. Forty dollars.

I don't have that kind of money, he says. His hands are shaking and he feels sweat on his face. Just get a regular drink for her. That’s all I can afford.

The waitress stares at him for long moment, sees he’s not changing his mind, and leaves.

Sorry, he tells the dancer.

She squeezes his arm, but does not look at him.

The girl with Brian gets up and walks toward the stage. He buries three fingers in his hair and leans his head to one side.

I got to go, he says. He digs ten dollars out of his wallet and puts it on the napkin. Whatever is left is for you, he tells the dancer.

 

rian slams his fist into a parking meter. Fifty bucks, he says.

Yeah. He is looking down into the gutter, though this is several blocks from where they saw the rat. They got me too, he lies.

They are still in the area of sex shops: flashes of skin, of plastic, of rubber, of chain. Signs promise 24 Channels pornographic action. Girls stand outside of strip bars hollering at them, Hey, come over here, come in here…

This place is fucking depraved, Brian says. I’m going up to Little Italy to wait in the bar for Terry. I’ve had my fucking stomach of it here.

All right. I’ll go on by myself for a little while.

What are you doing? Is this what we come down here for, walk around the big city sex stores?

It’s just different here.

It’s bad. Christ. Are you looking to get laid or something?

No, he says. I just want to see what this all is like.

Shit, Brian says, I’ve seen enough. Enough. Hey, don’t you miss Amy?

Yeah, I do miss her.

Brian says, You’re fixing to take off on her?

No.

I don’t understand, though. Go away the day after fucking Christmas and come to this lousy city. Where it’s going to rain. You don’t hurry up and see what a good girl she is, what a good thing you got—you’re not careful, you’ll be alone, wandering around neighborhoods like this for kicks. That what you want?

I don’t know what I want.

Maybe you just need to be broken harder.

 

e pretends to be just walking by, but then he gets down on his hands and knees to look under cars. The rat is not there. He peers up and down the sidewalk. A cop approaches, staring straight ahead.

He clears his throat as the cop is passing. The cop does not turn. Then he musters it: Have you seen a rat?

The cop stares at him. He feels like the cop knows he has been in the strip club. He feels like the cop thinks even worse of him, that he has been in many of the clubs, that he has been in many of the little stores up and down the street. He says, Here, I mean. On the sidewalk.

The cop shakes his head and keeps walking. After three steps, he stops and turns back. What do you want with a rat?

Nothing. He walks away, stopping at the edge of an alley. It is dark and as he starts into it, he realizes a man is sitting against the wall with his legs jutting out. He steps back. Something beyond the man is moving through the newspapers, and he is certain it is the rat.

The man says, Hey, you got something for me? A little money? It’s New Year’s, isn’t it?

No, two days yet.

Well, Christmas then.

He digs a dollar out of his pocket and hands it down to the man. The newspapers are still. He is afraid to step over the man and starts back out of the alley.

Happy New Year’s, the man says.

 

t has begun to rain.

He has dialed his Montana number. Amy?

Hey. You made it?

San Francisco.

The air is cooling and the raindrops coming down harder.

You sound so far away. The trip was good?

Yeah.

Well, what are you guys doing?

Wandering around the city. Nothing. What are you doing?

Nothing. I’m holed up. There was a blizzard came in last night. Reading magazines, watching TV. That plastic you put on the windows is keeping things warm, though. Toasty. Your mom just called a little while ago.

How are they doing?

Good. Your dad was asleep already.

Cars splash by, drowning out some of what she says. Two men walk past, speaking a foreign language. One laughs and pats the other on the back. A wind starts.

I miss you, she says. Christmas was so nice.

Yeah, I thought so, too. He looks at the skyline, buildings poking up against glowing gray clouds. He says, I almost brought you a pet rat.

She is silent. Well, she says, I’m glad you didn’t. I’m afraid of rats. Maybe I never told you that.
I guess I knew that. Most everybody is. What about a pigeon?

Hey, I’m burning that candle you gave me, the one that smells like cinnamon and pine? It’s nice. And it’s burning really slow, so that even though I lit it an hour ago almost none of it has gone down.

I’m glad you like it.

Boy, is it snowing. Kind of pretty. I guess I’ll be tired of it pretty soon, though.

He can see it. He can see her sitting close to the window in the semi-dark. He can see the snow falling, and he can see the candle burning. He can even see himself there. Amy stands by the window. He is sitting in a chair. They are older. The room is warm, and the snow falls, and the scent pours off the candle. He is afraid of the warmth. He is afraid of her. He is afraid of himself. These are unexplainable fears. He wants to understand what it is that makes a man afraid of these good things, but he cannot.

She says his name.

Yes?

I really miss you. All day at work I thought how strange it will be coming home and you not here.
We’ll be back before too long.

I know. I love you, she says. I can tell that, especially with you away.

Maybe he loves her, too. He can’t tell. And he cannot say anything. The rain beats on his face, the wind blows across it. I’ve got to go, he says. But I’ll call tomorrow.

Hey, be careful.

Yeah, I know.

 

here's a box of tissues, a stool, and, built into the wall, a screen. He has deposited two tokens and watches the screen fill with flesh. He presses the channel selector button. Two girls. He pushes it again, and again. Two guys. Another indistinguishable smear of flesh. He thinks briefly of Amy, and pushes the button again. A blond girl and a guy whose face can’t be seen.

He unbuttons his pants. He is not sure what he finds arousing about the scene. The girl is not pretty. She has pimples. The close-up shows the hair around her asshole is slicked together with something. The pullback reveals that she doesn’t look like she is having fun, though she is grimacing and he can hear her grunting through the speaker. His cock is half hard and he strokes it without much expectation.

Then the door opens and a middle-aged Chinese man enters.

Hey, hey. He backs up trying to put his cock back in his pants, but the Chinese man approaches him quickly, holding an open palm out. Tokens, the Chinese man says in an accent, You want tokens?

No, no. His raises his hands as if to protect himself from a blow. He is much bigger than the Chinese man, but he is physically afraid of him.

The Chinese man nods and looks at the screen. He unbuttons his own pants and exposes his own cock. Small and dark, it points upward at an angle. He strokes it, and the head slips in and out of the skin, the hole on the tip of it large and glistening.

You want? the Chinese man asks.

No. He has taken a step back. The Chinese man turns to him and stares at his face. With his free hand, the Chinese man reaches for his cock.

Wait, he says, stepping back again, but he is now against the wall. The Chinese man has seized the head of his cock and is dropping to his knees. He puts it in his mouth.

No, he says again weakly. The Chinese man sucks with a pressure unlike any he has felt before. Amy rarely sucks, and he doesn’t know if he should ask it of her more often. One of her small breasts stands out of a spinning dark in his head. He looks at the screen but cannot tell what is going on there. He thinks in fragments of the night: the rat, the strip club, the sex shops, the rain and wind. He wishes he had gone back to the bar with Brian, where Brian and Terry are now getting drunk in a relatively clean environment, talking about Montana, probably, old, clean memories. They seem very far away and the wish seems impossible to keep, even if he could travel back in time and make his choice again. He feels a coldness throughout his body, even his balls. Only his cock is warm. He looks down and sees the Chinese man’s face, with eyes closed and cheeks pulled in. He listens to the loud sucking noise the Chinese man makes, and he feels hollowed out and colder than before. He sees his face in the plastic of the screen gone blank and it looks out of proportion and awkward like the face of disfigured stranger. He pushes against the shoulders of the Chinese man. The Chinese man looks up with small and bleary eyes.

Please, he says. Please stop. He doesn’t feel anything anymore. The Chinese man works a hand around to the back of his pants and then down them. The Chinese man begins to rub a finger over his asshole, and he says again, Please stop, but this time so quietly he can barely hear it himself. He squirms but feels he hasn’t the power to get away. Please.

Here, the Chinese man says, pushing him back. Here, turn.

What?

Turn. The Chinese man spins him and pushes him down so that has to take hold of the stool to stop from stumbling.

No, he says. He feels his pants and underwear yanked down to his knees. It is as if he is watching this happen on a screen to somebody else or some old self or some future self and feeling, distantly, the flush of it in his present body.

The Chinese man spits into the crack of his ass and he can feel it run down. Then the Chinese man fumbles for a moment. It hurts terribly at first. He cries out and tries to push the Chinese man away. The Chinese man leans into him, feeling heavy against his back, thrusting and breathing deeply. His asshole doesn’t hurt anymore but feels almost numbed and he believes it is almost over.

Then the Chinese man pulls out suddenly. He pushes him to kneeling and turns him halfway around and puts his cock in front of his face. Take, the Chinese man says. Take.

No, he answers, but without conviction. He can smell the shit. He wipes at the cock with his hand; it is smooth and wet. Then the Chinese man steps forward so the tip of the cock pushes against his closed lips. The Chinese man’s hand goes to the back of his head and pushes it forward, so his lips open and the cock enters. It is foul of taste and feels small and very hard in his mouth. He wonders if he’ll gag, but the cock is remarkably smooth and fluid in his mouth. The Chinese thrusts in and out for perhaps a minute, before he stills and spurts hot come. Then he feels the pain in his jaw, and the pain in his ass—the pain of resistance. The Chinese man pulls his cock out and wipes it with a tissue and leaves.

 

[END]

© 2003 J Eric Miller