Quinn Roberts
Art by Brendan Lott
Images courtesy of Brendan Lott and Walter Maciel Gallery
Edson was in the middle of tuning his satellite radio when a curly brown-haired teenage boy entered the Lucky Day Massage Parlor, ten minutes before close. He wore cutoff denim shorts and a white tank top and carried a beat-up skateboard in his right arm. A bright, painful-looking sunburn crisped his face, shoulders, arms, and legs. A joke about lobsters crossed Edson’s mind, but he didn’t want to engage the kid. He wasn’t here for a massage. He must’ve been one of the hustler boys that cruised downtown Salt Lake City, which meant he wanted to pick up one of Edson’s clients.
The boy stepped closer to the front desk. “This is Lucky Day? You’re Edson?”
“Could be,” said Edson. “Depends who’s calling.”
“What’s with the lantern?” said the boy, pointing to the ceiling.
“What about it?” Edson had hung the orange Chinese lantern because of last month’s customer satisfaction survey. His regulars suggested Lucky Day could use some sprucing up, and they had a fair point. The cream-painted waiting room held nothing but the desk, a brown carpet, a row of three foldout chairs by the front door, a tattered curtain behind the desk that veiled the massage booth, and a framed portrait of Ollie, the Lucky Day masseur. In response to the survey, Edson purchased the lantern from a street vendor for seven dollars, then ordered a potted palm tree online, which had yet to arrive.
“Never mind,” said the boy. “I’m Ralph. A friend of Ollie’s.”
“Are you now.” Edson reached for the radio and turned the dial. “You heard from Ollie? He’s been out all day, and he’s not returning my calls.”
“Actually, Ollie quit.”
Edson looked up from the radio. This isn’t cute, he wanted to say. He hated these sorts of stunts. But Ralph stood so matter-of-factly, his posture slouched, his expression neutral, like a schoolboy trying to maintain his patience. Edson found no trace of deceit, no sign the boy would break his composure and burst into laughter.
“No,” he managed to say. “That’s not like Ollie.”
“Yeah, Ollie’s not himself lately,” said Ralph. “He’s going back to Oklahoma for a bit. Wants to get away from the whore stuff.”
“He’s not a whore.”
“He works at a massage parlor—”
“Ollie’s not a whore,” Edson repeated.
“It’s not a bad thing, dude.” Ralph put his hand on his hip. “Chill out. Anyway, he says thanks for being good to him, for being a good dude, whatever.”
“Does Ollie need anything?” asked Edson. “Does he need a ride?”
“Yeah, about that. He doesn’t want to speak to you.” The boy gestured to the portrait of Ollie. “It’s nothing personal, it’s, you know.”
In the portrait Ollie wore leather bondage gear, his blond hair teased with gel. He was glancing away from the lens, caught in mid-laughter, flashing his gap teeth unabashedly. Edson had shot the photo on Ollie’s first Lucky Day shift, his first week in Utah, on a Polaroid camera. The leather, Ollie joked, made him feel like a ninja. “I’m jailbait,” he said. “But ninjas can still be jailbait.”
“Ollie mentioned you might want a new masseur. I could use the cash, so here.”
Ralph placed a scrap of paper on the desk. Edson spotted a patch of peeling skin on his shoulder. “By the way,” said the boy, “why the radio? Just use the Internet.”
Brendan Lott - April 26, 2020 5:40pm
Once Ralph left Lucky Day, Edson flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED, drew the blinds and shut off the lights. He ought to call Ralph—the boy was worth a shot. But Edson worried he’d ask about Ollie. He wanted to know since when Ollie hadn’t been himself, why he hadn’t said goodbye, but Edson wasn’t sure he’d like Ralph’s answers.
Edson tuned the radio to his favorite talk show, Clean Out Your Closet! with Dr. Steinlove. Dr. Steinlove’s thick Bronx accent reverberated from the radio throughout the waiting room. “Today,” she boomed. “Meet the Philadelphia philanderer. Jason’s been married half a year and he’s got three secret baby mamas!” Edson sat in the dark while Dr. Steinlove yelled at the Philadelphia philanderer about loyalty. She said, “Men who cheat on their women are fifty times more likely to catch prostate cancer!” then cut to commercial break.
Edson felt grateful for the radio. It consumed the empty room with the voices of pathetic, irresponsible strangers. Edson understood, of course, that Dr. Steinlove’s guests had no desire to change. When he lived in Los Angeles in his twenties and thirties he’d met plenty of philanderers, kleptomaniacs, pedophiles, alcoholics, meth addicts. They were the types who broke down crying on the show. None of them believed in change or effort or humility. They wanted a brief moment of fame, just like every moron in America, even if afterward they plunged further into obscurity.
After Dr. Steinlove Edson locked up and hopped in his red Kia. The sunlight simmered through the windshield. He rolled down the windows, wiped a trail of sweat from his forehead and jammed his key in the ignition. As he drove out of the parking lot a toddler tugged the hem of his mother’s shorts and pointed to the Lucky Day storefront. The mother shook her head, gripped the toddler’s wrist and shuffled to the Dairy Queen next door.
Since he opened Lucky Day, most of the plaza’s tenants had abandoned their buildings. Wooden planks and faded FOR RENT signs concealed the interiors of what once held a Payless Shoe Store, an In-N-Out Burger, a Supercuts salon. Magazine headlines declared this the death of the American shopping mall, vanquished by millennials, the collapse of the free market. Edson liked to think, though, that he was in part responsible, that Lucky Day had repelled shoppers and businesses away from the plaza. It made him feel like a true entrepreneur. And anyway, his clients liked it better without the fear of encountering their coworkers, members of their ward, their wives and children.
Edson drove to the McDonald’s near his house, fifteen minutes from Lucky Day, in his neighborhood of one-story condos and dull green lawns and cracked, sunken sidewalks. Across from the McDonald’s stood a Del Taco and a tiny Mormon temple. The Wasatch Mountains loomed in the distance, rendered purple by the evening light.
Throughout Ollie’s two months at Lucky Day, Edson had treated the boy to a snack after work. McDonald’s on Mondays, Del Taco on Fridays. Today was a Thursday, and he’d kept turkey chili leftovers in the fridge for dinner, but Edson needed to indulge. He wanted to commemorate the fast food runs, this greasy ritual of theirs, as if a Big Mac and large fries would offer insight into Ollie’s departure.
Last Friday, Ollie had asked for an advance on his paycheck. He wanted to buy a bus ticket to LA for the weekend. “I’ve never been to California,” he said, swallowing the last bite of his burrito.
“It’s too short notice,” Edson told him. “Haven’t done payroll. Anyway, LA is overrated.”
“That’s the point.” Ollie wanted to study architecture in college, with a concentration in urban planning. “LA is built like a suburb but it behaves like a city. You don’t think that’s fascinating?”
Edson glanced at a smear of guacamole on Ollie’s bottom lip. He pictured Ollie in LA—taking acid on the beach, walking the Santa Monica Boulevard by himself, stepping into cars driven by tall, unfamiliar men. The sorts of games Edson used to play.
“I hate the pollution there.”
“Then why stay in Salt Lake? It has the sixth worst air quality in the nation.”
“Why stay?” said Edson. “You’re not thinking of moving, are you?”
Ollie leaned back in his seat. “Course not, Edson,” he said. “I’m not thinking of anything.”
At the drive thru Edson spotted two boys, one redhead and one shaggy blond, slouched on the curb. They were sharing a box of McNuggets, nodding their heads to the rap music that blared from a nearby car. From their denim cutoffs and tank tops and bright red sunburns, Edson could tell the boys were hustlers.
Before he’d hired Ollie, Edson found Lucky Day masseurs right off the street, in parking lots, at basketball courts, outside of drive thrus. Their stories were the same as Ollie’s: young men kicked out by their fundamentalist parents, couch-surfing and cruising for quick cash. Most wanted out, but a handful loved it. These were the boys Edson scouted.
The hustlers liked the sound of giving hand jobs for fourteen dollars an hour plus tips. The problem was they soon learned it meant coming on time, staying until close, a seven-day work week, schedules and rules and pay periods. They grew bored of Edson’s clients, too, those closeted, suppressed men, too chicken to cruise public restrooms and bus stops. After roughly two weeks at Lucky Day the hustlers collected their final checks and confessed that, in all honesty, they missed their freedom.
Edson considered waving over the hustlers. Asking them, though, would be a breach of Ollie’s trust. If the boy wanted out, away from the whore stuff, then Edson should let him go. He should try to, at least.
“Once, after they’d pulled apart, Ollie stared at Edson. ‘This is all I am here,’ he said. ‘A cum rag.’ But Edson didn’t make shrines for cum rags. He never treated the other masseurs to McDonalds and Del Taco. The difference was so apparent to Edson, so deeply and painfully obvious, that he’d assumed Ollie understood.”
On the drive home, Edson listened to the message his older sister Heather had left him the day before. She apologized for disrupting his morning routine—it was noon in Tallahassee, and she still hadn’t memorized Utah’s exact time zone—but little Luke had gotten himself suspended again. “It’s something to do with his father,” said Heather. “Studies show children of divorce are more likely to act out.”
Edson laughed. Of course Luke was acting out, that ADHD-addled nephew of his, and of course Heather blamed it on her alcoholic ex-husband.
“It’d be great, Eddy, if you’d pay us a visit. Also, I know you’re not so tech-savvy, but could you please set up your voicemail?”
He closed his cell phone. Every few weeks Heather left him a version of this message, with something new to say about her son or her ex or her credit card debt. She had never left their hometown, never strove for anything beyond the suburban Florida droll, and in the voicemails Edson could sense her envy.
At home, Edson watched the evening news. A forest fire was raging near LA, and two firefighters had died trying to stop it. A reporter pushed a microphone into a woman’s face, the skeletal frame of a house burning in the background, a crying toddler wrapped around her thigh. If only Heather could see this footage, he thought—it could give her some perspective.
Edson crumpled his McDonald’s bag into a ball, scooped a box of matches from between his couch cushions and entered his cellar. Here, on the concrete floor, he kept a three-foot circle of purple, cinnamon-scented candles, and in the circle’s center lay a photocopy of the Ollie bondage portrait.
He knew exactly why Ollie had left. Pretending otherwise at the foot of the shrine, in the presence of the portrait, felt disrespectful. He should have expected it. Ollie always said no, fucking his boss was past his limits. The consequence was clear, but Edson had been distracted by Ollie’s bony ass, the indent in his back, the freckles on his shoulders. When he pushed Ollie against the booth, gripping his wrists, it didn’t seem possible the boy would escape.
Once, after they’d pulled apart, Ollie stared at Edson. “This is all I am here,” he said. “A cum rag.”
But Edson didn’t make shrines for cum rags. He never treated the other masseurs to McDonalds and Del Taco. The difference was so apparent to Edson, so deeply and painfully obvious, that he’d assumed Ollie understood.
The cellar was cluttered with stacks of green tubs that carried Edson’s forty-eight years of life. Faded blue jeans, punk band T-shirts, cowboy chaps, black masks. Vintage hardcore pornos, yellowed Jim Thompson paperbacks, a signed copy of Madonna’s Like a Prayer. Postcards his parents had mailed before their deaths from nameless Mediterranean islands and distant Egyptian ruins. A photo album of his wedding, honeymoon and failed marriage to a man whose name then was Klaus but had legally changed it since the divorce.
Before the shrine, Edson spent his nights rummaging through the tubs, sieving through the remnants of his adolescence, remembering its sunsets and smog, its orgies and circuit parties, its ecstasy and ketamine. But Edson hadn’t opened the tubs in months, and he felt no urge to, no sense of longing or nostalgia. As he placed the McDonald’s bag by the shrine, he thought instead of Ollie’s laughter, the gap in his teeth, the shape of his lips. He lit the candles, one by one, and wondered how a boy from Oklahoma could make the past seem so inconsequential.
Brendan Lott - April 27, 2020 2:17am
When Ralph arrived the next morning, fifteen minutes late, Edson was listening to Dr. Steinlove scold an exotic dancer for her cocaine habit. “Jesus Christ,” said Ralph. “Everybody does coke. No way that lady’s a real doctor.”
“You don’t need to be a real doctor to give advice,” said Edson.
“Whatever. When do people start coming?”
“Any minute now.” Edson gestured to the curtain. “Why don’t I show you the ropes?”
“The ropes of whacking off strangers?” said Ralph. “How old do you think I am?”
Eighteen, maybe seventeen. Edson never asked the hustlers their ages.
Hour by hour, the Lucky Day regulars arrived and shook Ralph’s hand. “Another one,” said the bearded schoolteacher, shrugging his shoulders. “Life goes on,” said the potbellied insurance agent, nodding in Edson’s direction. The gray-haired bishop simply shot Edson a wide grin and followed Ralph to the booth.
Edson turned Dr. Steinlove to full volume. “Nine cokehead strippers out of ten never live past forty!” she shouted. Edson concentrated on Dr. Steinlove’s diatribe and the exotic dancer’s sobs and sniffs, trying to ignore the gasps and grunts that began to come from the booth. It did the trick for the schoolteacher and the insurance agent. The rustle of the curtain, the shifting footsteps, the moans and murmurs—none of it reached the waiting room.
But then the bishop. Edson had never expected it from him, this man who barely spoke, who must have felt his silence meant he wasn’t really there. Today, for the first time, the bishop yelped and panted, his screeching high-pitched and boyish, his cursing unintelligible. He heard Ralph too, the boy’s low growls, his muffled laughter. “You’re a faggot, aren’t you,” said Ralph. “Open your eyes, faggot. Look at me.”
Edson used to eavesdrop, but since Ollie he’d stopped. It was none of his business, frankly, what happened behind the curtain.
Fifteen minutes later the bishop walked out, panting, and Ralph followed. “I skipped breakfast,” said the boy. “Mind if I swing by the Dairy Queen?”
“That guy’s a tough critic,” said Edson. “You catch on fast.”
“I’ve been hustling since I was fifteen. It’s nothing new. Don’t you know how I know Ollie?”
The hustlers maintained an informal coalition of sorts. They shared cruising tips and clients, apartments and clothing, skateboards and cigarettes. Sometimes, out of teenage lust, they even slept with one another. Edson had heard stories from Ollie.
“I used to act as a kid, too,” said Ralph. “I turn it on when I need to.”
“Child star,” said Edson. “School plays?”
“School plays.” Ralph snorted. “No, I was on the Disney Channel. If you spend any time around little kids, you’ve probably seen me on TV.”
Edson used his television only for the evening news. He thought of the TV in Heather’s living room, of Luke watching those garish Disney sitcoms, a deck of Pokémon cards spread across the carpet.
“Those are the real pimps,” said Ralph. “The kiddie networks. At least hand jobs in creepy buildings are sort of cool.”
“Not everyone’s a natural, though,” said Edson. “Take Ollie. He was so timid at first.”
“Timid? That’s rich,” said Ralph. “Ollie is the sluttiest kid I’ve met in my life.”
“Oh, that couldn’t be true—”
“I’m serious. Everyone thinks so.”
Ralph’s posture was slouched, his expression blank, appearing again to be serious. But he couldn’t be, thought Edson. Ollie came to work on time, he steered clear of smoking, he wanted to go to college. Edson expected Ralph to crack a smile and admit that no, he could never say that about a friend like Ollie.
“Did he talk to you about architecture?” asked Ralph. “Ollie makes up all this bullshit trivia so you think he’s innocent. Like he’s this little baby geek who just stumbled into hustling by accident.”
“He’s not a baby geek,” said Edson, “but at least he’s honest.”
“An honest boy on his honest way to honest Oklahoma.” Ralph shook his head. “You really ate up his bullshit.”
On the radio Dr. Steinlove called the exotic dancer a sorry excuse for a woman. Edson cleared his throat. “How about,” he said, “you go eat up your Dairy Queen?”
Brendan Lott - April 9, 2020 6:41pm
Ralph’s first week passed, the plastic palm tree arrived, and his second week began. Edson placed the tree by the massage booth and issued a follow-up satisfaction survey. Each morning Ralph came in late, skateboard in hand, skin peeling. He closed the curtain, made the men moan, called them faggots, told them to open their eyes, to look at him, to bow down and beg for more. And the clients begged for more. Now they hardly acknowledged Edson, simply offering a “hey” and a terse nod, their eyes fixed on Ralph. In the follow-up survey they wrote that Edson had finally spruced up the waiting room, that yes, Lucky Day had atmosphere, character, aesthetic appeal. On Tuesday afternoon Edson asked the insurance agent, “It’s the palm tree, isn’t it?”
The insurance agent stared at him, then gestured to the booth. “Didn’t notice,” he said. “Sort of tacky.”
Heather left a second message, but Edson ignored it. The bondage portrait remained on the wall, but since Ralph’s arrival Edson had pretended not to see it. He hadn’t mentioned Ollie, either.
Dr. Steinlove blared from the radio, admonishing embezzlers and drug dealers and identity thieves. As Ralph brought the insurance agent to the booth, Edson sat at the front desk and thought of the fast food runs, the burritos and cheeseburgers, the searing heat inside his Kia. Most of all, he remembered one Monday afternoon, weeks before the departure, when out of nowhere Ollie had asked, “Why the hell is Kellyanne Conway on TV?”
Edson laughed. “She gets ratings,” he said. “The alternative facts thing. She’s fun to watch.”
“It’s fun to watch the White House spew blatant propaganda?”
“You shouldn’t take her seriously—”
“But facts are facts.” Ollie licked the tip of his chocolate McFlurry. “And she thinks we’re the ones ruining America. Even if I jerk dudes off for money, at least I don’t believe in alternative facts.”
Now the boy’s words had reentered his mind. They drowned out Ralph’s commands, Dr. Steinlove’s rants, the clients’ moans. Edson still disagreed with Ralph. Ollie was the furthest thing from a slut, but the only evidence Edson could conjure was that facts are facts. Utah’s air was polluted, LA’s forests were burning, Oklahoma’s water was contaminated. America exhausted Edson—this too was a fact, or so it should have been. It overwhelmed him with anxiety and restlessness and painful urges for sex. Somehow Ollie made it simple and straightforward, like a nutrition label on the margins of a McDonald’s menu.
Once Dr. Steinlove cut to commercials, Edson’s phone vibrated in his pocket. “Lucky Day,” he answered.
“You still haven’t added my number?”
“Heather,” he said. “I got your voicemails.”
“I’m glad to hear, Eddy,” said Heather. “How’s the office?”
“Just chasing those commissions.” Edson had told Heather he moved to Utah for a sales position at a call center. He didn’t bother with the truth. His sister must have thought massage parlors existed only on TV, in smut novels, in some pervert’s slimy imagination.
“Sounds demanding.” Heather paused, as if she was expecting an anecdote about cranky bosses or sarcastic coworkers. She worked as an aide, feeding demented seniors their dinners through a plastic tube, and Edson could tell she craved an office of her own.
“Luke’s right in the living room,” she continued. “Watching the Disney Channel. He’ll be back in school tomorrow.”
“What’s he suspended for?” asked Edson. “Is he fighting?”
“Not with the other kids. He’s throwing fits in class about the lavatory pass, wants to use the bathroom without asking.”
“The kids need permission to take a piss?”
“It’s junior high. They’re barely teenagers,” she said. “Anyway, Ed, I wanted to follow up about the visit. I know it’s a big ask, and you’re real busy, but I’ll pay for your airfare.”
Hadn’t Heather maxed out her credit cards? “Not sure if I could get work off—”
“Luke could use you around,” she said. “School’s rough, and I don’t know what to do. Maybe he could relate to your experience.”
Edson sighed. Twenty years after he left Florida, his sister still thought it was an “experience,” a cowboy phase he’d soon retire. The leather bars, the cocaine benders, the LA nights of his twenties and thirties—what did any of this have to do with Heather’s son?
He said, “Give me a few days to think it through.”
“Oh, Eddy,” she said. “Means the world to us. The weather here’s great these days.”
Once Heather hung up, the insurance agent opened the curtain, smoothed his khakis and walked out the door. At the edge of the booth, Ralph said, “Who was that?”
“My sister,” said Edson. “Back in Tallahassee.”
“Sounds like a drip.” Ralph smirked. “I’m from Atlanta. Sort of near Tallahassee.”
“How’d you do TV shows in Atlanta?” asked Edson.
“Mom and I went to LA when I booked stuff,” he said. “I don’t like California. Too many cars.”
Until today Edson knew nothing about Ralph beyond his Disney days. He hadn’t learned his hometown, or what he liked or disliked, or what current events he followed. Really, they barely spoke. The boy seemed to care only about his skateboard.
“So your mom knows you work at a massage parlor?”
“Well, she knows I’m a slut.” Ralph laughed. “It’s her fault, anyway, for whoring me out to Disney. Kind of like you and Ollie.”
“Ollie’s not a slut,” said Edson. “And I never whored him out.”
Ralph gestured to the bondage portrait. “Then what do you call this?”
“It’s decoration.”
“It’s false advertising,” said Ralph. “Why is Ollie still on the wall?”
“What are you,” said Edson, “an interior decorator?”
“I’m not an interior decorator.” The boy approached the wall, his gaze fixed on Edson, and ran his hand along the edge of the portrait. “And Ollie’s not an architect.”
Edson shuddered. Ralph could rip the portrait, the original copy, and toss the shreds in the air. “He used to fuck one, though. A dude from LA,” he said, “with the biggest cock Ollie has ever seen.”
Since Ollie’s first day, Edson had dusted the portrait, smoothed its creases, applied an anti-yellowing chemical the professionals used. As Ralph twirled his finger along Ollie’s mouth, Edson remembered the three-hour drive he’d made for the chemical, the hundred-dollar check he’d written, the uneasy look he’d received from the vendor.
“Size doesn’t matter to me.” Ralph pressed his palm into Ollie’s face. “I’m not greedy. But we know how Ollie feels about ten-inch horse cock, don’t we?”
Edson stood up. Should he restrain the boy? Was a forty-eight-year-old man supposed to scream, to fall to his knees in protest?
“I never said he was a saint.”
“Sure you didn’t.” Ralph placed his hands on his hips. “By the way, it’s sort of gross to hang pictures of underage boys.”
Brendan Lott - August 4, 2020 5:13pm
Once Ralph flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED, Edson listened to Dr. Steinlove accuse a painkiller-addled Iraq vet of fucking up his toddler son’s life. “Ninety-six percent of kids raised by asshole druggies end up in jail,” she yelled. “Can’t snort that so easy, can you?”
If Ralph was implying that Ollie had a boyfriend, then Edson refused to believe it. He tried to resist it. At least Ollie wasn’t a cokehead stripper. At least Edson wasn’t an asshole druggie.
But the possibility of a boyfriend. The fraction of a chance. Maybe it wasn’t the dude from LA, Edson worried, but a guy from Utah or Oklahoma. It could be a sleaze who chewed dip and never listened to radio and could care less about Ollie’s education. Crooked-nosed or bony-shouldered or bushy-browed, it didn’t matter. The man had a face and a body and a cock, and whoever he was, he took Ollie away from the whore stuff.
Edson had kept a tuna casserole in the fridge for dinner, but he left Lucky Day craving grease and salt and acid reflux. He pulled into Del Taco just as the sunset was spilling across the mountains, bathing the Mormon temple and the Mickey D arches in deep orange light. He planned to sit in his Kia and devour a burrito, toss the garbage on the concrete and speed home thoughtlessly. At the drive thru, though, Edson spotted two boys on the curb. They were the hustlers from McDonald’s, the redhead and the shaggy blond. They smoked cigarettes and passed a plastic bottle between them, taking quick swigs, scrunching their lips.
They might know Ralph, thought Edson. They might know Ollie. They might know the boyfriend. Edson parked the car and walked out, his gaze fixed in their direction. Soon the boys dropped their cigarettes. Edson approached them, cleared his throat and said, “Hey, you boys heard of Kellyanne Conway?”
The hustlers stood up, wobbling gently. “The Trump lady,” said the shaggy blond. “She punched a dude at the inauguration.”
“Yeah, her,” said Edson. “You think she’s fun to watch?”
“Conway’s a hoot,” said the redhead. “Comic book villain. She sells it.”
“The alternative facts, though. A crock of shit, right?”
The hustlers shrugged. Edson hadn’t done this in months, not since Ollie. Here in the parking lot, the routine felt callous and cumbersome—approach boy, make boy laugh, boy drops guard—but he wouldn’t stop.
“How about,” said Edson, “Jeff Sessions? I hear he’s got a nasty secret.”
The hustlers exchanged a smirk. Edson was in the clear. Later, after he asked about Ollie, he would apologize for his strange questions, for his embarrassing presence. For acting like a sad, old creep.
The redhead said, “Mr. Sessions loves double blowjobs.”
“That ole Southern hospitality.” The shaggy blond giggled. “And he pays good money for it.”
“Double blowjobs in the back of a car. That’s what Jeff Sessions wants.” The redhead grinned at Edson. “So, handsome, what do you want?”
“I’m glad you asked,” he said. “I’m trying to find a boy.”
“Well, you found us,” said the shaggy blond.
“No, a particular boy. Blond hair, gap teeth. He’s usually here on Fridays and at the McDonald’s Mondays.”
“That could be anyone.” The redhead took a sip from the plastic bottle. “What’s the difference between us and him?”
“I don’t want to fuck him.” Edson never raised his voice like this to Ollie, to Ralph, to any of his past masseurs. The hustlers dropped their smirks. He was startled that the statement, with its fundamental falseness, had captured their attentions so firmly. “The boy works for me,” Edson continued, “and he’s supposed to be in Oklahoma.”
“Oklahoma,” said the redhead. “Gap teeth. You mean Ollie, don’t you?”
“Yeah, he’s from Tulsa,” said the shaggy blond. “But there’s no way he’s there.”
“Then where the hell is he?”
“He’s in LA.” The shaggy blond nudged his friend. “That’s what he told Ralph.”
“He said he was starting community college,” said the redhead. “To study urban planning.”
“He’s lying again, though,” said the shaggy blond. “Right? He always talked about LA, but he can’t afford it, can he?”
“Not if he keeps up with the whore stuff.” The redhead snapped his fingers. “Simple as that.”
For this reason Edson hadn’t asked Ralph, hadn’t sought answers himself. He should thank the hustlers for their time, fold his hands over his ears, fall to his knees, collapse and cry—anything to shut these boys’ mouths.
“As if that’ll get him a degree.” The redhead laughed. “It’s dangerous out there, too. Things could get ugly.”
“Maybe we should stop him. Ralph won’t, now that he got Ollie’s old job—”
“Yeah, the Lucky Day gig.”
The sky’s orange glow faded, and the incoming breeze gave Edson goosebumps.
“Wait,” said the redhead. “You’re the Lucky Day guy, aren’t you?”
Edson nodded, his teeth chattering.
“You’re the creep who was forcing himself on Ollie?” The boy took a sip from the bottle. “I guess you really are obsessed.”
It was useless to protest.
“He wanted me to give you something,” he said. “To say goodbye.”
The boy stepped forward, his smirk slicked with vodka. Edson wanted to shove him to the ground, to spit on him, as if violence would somehow restore the Ollie he had once known—the boy who came to work on time, who never smoked or loitered or broke open container laws. The boy who deadened the world’s noise to a lone pulse inside Edson’s head.
That was when the redhead thrust the bottle forward. It hit Edson, the liquid drenching his chest, and skidded across the concrete. “By the way,” said the boy, “why go to all this trouble? You ever heard of Grindr?”
Brendan Lott - April 30, 2020 2:13am
Over the weekend Heather left another voicemail, but Edson ignored it. Instead he ate his tuna casserole and watched the evening news. Another fire had broken out in southern California, raged for days on end, tore through parks and playgrounds and baseball diamonds. He followed the coverage relentlessly, trying to distract himself from the thought of Ollie.
Once, a few weeks before Ollie’s departure, he’d asked the boy, “Have you ever had a boyfriend?” They’d just fucked in the booth, and Ollie’s face was flushed.
“Not really,” he said. “The guys who come here aren’t boyfriend material.”
“You’d be surprised. People are more complicated than that.”
“They’re assholes, Edson.” The boy stood up. “Everyone I fuck wants me to be this submissive little airhead.”
That day in the booth, Edson had wanted to tell the boy he expected too much. Men hated curiosity and intelligence. They were afraid of boys who refused to be diminished. But instead he stroked the boy’s sunburned cheek and smiled. “Ollie,” he said, “no man is boyfriend material.”
It took one more call for Edson to shut off the news, reach for his phone and say, “Heather, I need you to lay off on this trip.”
“Eddy, you don’t mean that,” said Heather. “You can’t lay off on family.”
“Don’t get preachy—”
“Luke was so excited to see you, too.”
Edson thought again of the nephew he barely knew, of the television in Heather’s living room, the Pokémon cards on the floor. “He doesn’t need a gay uncle. He needs Adderall.”
On the television, two newscasters declared it California’s worst fire since the 1990s. They spoke so clinically, Edson noticed, so detached from emotion. Facts are facts, they seemed to say.
Heather said, “Maybe you need more time to think.” Then she paused, as if she expected Edson to change his mind. As if his twenty years out west hadn’t changed hers.
Brendan Lott - May 16, 2020 6:52am
On Monday morning the radio dropped the signal. Edson placed the device on his desk, yanked the knob around, pushed the antenna back and forth, cursed the damn thing under his breath—but all he got was rough, choppy static. By the time Ralph arrived, Edson had spent twenty minutes searching for Dr. Steinlove.
“Heard about the Del Taco run,” said Ralph. “How was your burrito?”
Edson kept tuning the radio.
“My friends like you,” said the boy. “Think you’re cute.”
“They threw a bottle at me,” said Edson.
“Well, you lived to tell.” Ralph reached for the radio. “You’re too sensitive. Here, you’re doing it wrong—”
“Don’t.” Edson swatted Ralph’s hands. “I don’t touch your skateboard. I don’t criticize your attitude, I don’t pry into your life.”
“Jesus Christ, Edson, it’s not the radio. I’m trying to help.”
“I hired you to give hand jobs.” Edson stood from the desk, narrowed his gaze. “I don’t want your help.”
Ralph clenched his jaw. “Without me,” he said, “you wouldn’t have a masseur.” He stepped back from the desk, as if he wasn’t convinced by his own response. At last, thought Edson, the boy dropped his attitude. But once he opened his mouth—you’re not the boss, Edson would say, you’re a washed-up cumslut —in walked the bishop.
“Hey, buddy,” said Edson. “Can’t keep away, can you?”
The bishop looked at Ralph in silence. The boy exhaled, then led the man to the booth.
From there, Edson told himself, his job was complete. He’d hung up the curtain for a reason. But today, without Dr. Steinlove on the radio, he could hear the bishop more clearly than ever. The man gasped and whimpered, and Ralph called him a faggot, a bitch, a pervert.
Within minutes the bishop left Lucky Day, panting softly, but Ralph did not follow. The boy hunched on the floor, scratching sunburned skin off his shoulder.
“Ralph, get up,” he said. “It’s filthy down there.”
“That guy’s awful,” said Ralph. “The way he won’t say anything. Too good to talk to whores.”
“You have your little friends. What do you need to talk to bishops for?”
Ralph crushed a strip of skin in his palm and dropped the grinds on the floor.
“I like talking,” he said. “I like McDonald’s. Just because I don’t care about architecture doesn’t mean I’m retarded.”
“Look, I’m sorry I snapped.” Edson folded his arms. “But it’s not easy to lose Ollie like this—”
“Then I’ll shut up,” said the boy. “It’ll save you some trouble.”
“Can’t you tell me where he went? At the very least?”
“Maybe LA, maybe Oklahoma.” Ralph shrugged. “I can’t tell with him. He’s complicated.”
Ralph kept scratching his sunburn. Edson wondered if he should tell the boy no, that he was not being ignored—but like the plastic palm tree, like the Chinese lantern, it felt insultingly false.
“You know, Ollie hates the bishop,” said Ralph. “That should have been obvious.”
Brendan Lott - June 13, 2020 9:53pm
A third week passed and a fourth week followed. Edson had no voicemail from Heather, and he didn’t expect one. He trashed the Chinese lantern, pushed the plastic tree in front of the bondage portrait and issued another survey. “Back to basics,” he told the schoolteacher. “It’s been a long summer.”
The schoolteacher squinted at the portrait. The tree concealed Ollie’s face, but the boy’s teeth peeked through the leaves. “Good deal,” he said. “Ralph looks weird there.”
Ralph came in late, skateboard in hand. He closed the curtain and made the men moan, but out in the waiting room he stood upright, his shoulders turned away. Edson tried to catch the boy’s gaze, but he felt no urgency, no fear the boy would reject him. His mind lurched instead to the skateboard, the tales of Disney Channel, the rumors of horse-cock. No, he thought, none of it resembled Ollie. It was all a stunt, a joke told at his expense.
“That bitch is a crook.” Ralph gestured to the radio. “You should change the channel.”
“Maybe I should,” said Edson. “I’ll go to college for changing channels.”
The fifth week came and Ralph quit. He left no notice, no symbol of his departure, no clues to his whereabouts. Edson flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED and convinced himself that Ralph was safe. Maybe he was visiting Atlanta. He thought of the boy's head nestled on a pillow, his eyes drooping to sleep, a woman’s hands rubbing cream across his shoulders.
The evenings fell early, the mountains flushed violet. The hustlers’ sunburns were fading. They laughed at Edson’s jokes, shrugged at his questions about politics, agreed to swing by Lucky Day. The routine still felt callous, but in the boys’ faces Edson found no trace of suspicion, no sign they’d shove him back and burst into tears. Sometimes, just to see what happened, he bent forward and kissed them on the mouth.
In his cellar Edson lit the candles, one by one. His past notion of Ollie, of the boy who’d worn the leather gear and called himself jailbait—that boy was in the center of the shrine, smiling back at him.
Still nothing from Heather. Tomorrow, though, he might call her back. He might ask for Luke. He might tell his nephew that middle school sucks, teachers suck, homework sucks. The world thinks boys have it easy, Edson would say, that boys have it made.
On the first day, months ago, Edson told Ollie it didn’t matter if he was jailbait. “It’s not the point,” he said. “You’re mature for your age.”
He lit the last candle and placed the match on top of the portrait. It singed a hole through the middle, through Ollie’s forehead, then flickered out. How reckless he had been with Ollie, he thought. How covetous and selfish. Dr. Steinlove would have said take it. Take all the whore stuff, the throbbing urge for whore stuff—and store it here, at the bottom of the tubs, seven feet underground.
