Guide, p.16
Guide, page 16
“Aren’t you Dennis?” Oh, right, it’s Luke’s friend, what’s-his-freaky-name? Coffee. The boy with the shit in his face. “Luke’s over there,” he yelled.
Did I fuck Leonardo DiCaprio? Is that possible? A friend of mine, Taylor, who claims to be friends with DiCaprio’s dad, says the actor is definitely straight. Normally, I wouldn’t care. I mean, he’s a movie star. He’s fodder for dreams, period. It doesn’t matter who he fucks in his day-to-day life. But for the sake of this argument … It was two years ago, when DiCaprio would have been nineteen. That seems right. The boy was kind of affected. That fits. He wouldn’t tell me his name. Check. Based on the nude scenes in Total Eclipse, there’s a tentative match on the physical front. Point is, if that was Leonardo DiCaprio, I’ve blown, rimmed, fucked, and shot my come on the face of one of the world’s most desirable creatures. If that wasn’t him, I had some fun with a beautiful boy who could easily be dead now, for all I know. Okay, it was Leonardo DiCaprio. I think.
Sniffles hears something, looks. It’s the door creaking open. Guy enters. Warmth, not exactly sure why. Oh, him. Right.
“It’s me,” someone whispered. He pulled Sniffles’s covers down, rolled the boy onto his stomach, and climbed onto the bed.
When Sniffles is facedown, his ass looks okay. In any other position, it looks like a dinosaur jaw in a bag.
“It’s okay,” someone whispered. Then he fucked Sniffles hard. No condom, nothing. When he shot up Sniffle’s ass, he felt incredibly evil. Nice.
Scott made it home. By then he was extremely depresssed. To make himself feel more depressed, he slumped his shoulders and shuffled around the apartment. Like a sad cartoon character. That made Scott feel more centered. I.e., it put a cutesy aesthetic sheen on his misery. Sort of like his art. Real happiness, in the classical sense, was beyond Scott, except when he had an orgasm, of course. Later for that. He sat down at his worktable, pulled out the “Luke” “comic,” read a few frames, realized it was shit, and refiled it. Then he pulled out a blank sheet of paper and did an erotic ink drawing of Daniel James nude. Daniel was hairless and thin, with a gigantic dick and a flat, girlish ass. Then Scott drew a bed around Daniel. Then he drew himself nude, standing next to the bed. He added two voice balloons. In the one by his head he wrote, “Hey, you want a blow job?” And in the one by Daniel’s head he wrote, “Shit, yeah. Then I want you to fuck me really hard without a condom.”
“Luke,” I yell. He’s sitting with a few of his trend-enslaved friends. That’s a generalization, but it orients me.
“You made it,” Luke yells. He stands, hugs me. That feels so sweet, I can’t tell you. “I just saw Michael,” he adds. “I’m about to go stalk him. Are you okay on your own for a while?”
“Sure.” Luke’s friends are studying me. Like I said, they’re like a trend with a multipart consciousness, so the attention feels goofy. “So which one’s Michael?”
When Daniel James scratched his head, the girl licked his left armpit. “Whoa. Ben,” he said. “Check this out.” Ben was getting a hand job. He checked in with Daniel. “Dude,” he said. “Score.” They grinned back and forth. Daniel knew armpit-licking was cool if Ben thought it was cool. “That’s enough,” Daniel said, lowering his arm. The girl switched to his chest. That was cool. Time passed. “This girl’s weird,” said Ben’s voice. Daniel checked in with Ben. Ben was getting a blow job. He looked sort of worried. “She’s weird,” he repeated, and checked in with Daniel. “Is yours weird too?” Daniel looked at his girl. She was blowing him too. He looked at Ben’s girl. She was definitely weird. He looked at his girl again. “Oh, shit,” he said. “Ben. Hey.” Then he checked in with Ben. “Mine’s weird too, dude.”
“Dennis,” yelled a voice. I’m deep in the club now. When I turn, squint, it’s that Coffee kid. “Can I ask you something?”
Coffee had five little barbells through each eyebrow, one through his bottom lip, a heavy hoop hanging out of his nose, and several tinier hoops in each ear.
“You’re not going to kill Luke, right?” he yelled. I think he’s kidding. “Because some us are concerned.” Guess not. Then he turned a crazy ear to my mouth.
“No way,” I yell. “Look … I’m like you. Only you put scary decorations on your outsides, and I put scary decorations on my insides.”
Potassium consists of a bar, an enormous dance floor, a DJ booth, and a stage. Being an indie-rock kind of guy, I’ve gravitated toward the latter. Occupying the lip of the stage is a long, hyperactive, amateurish chorus line of what appear to be ultra-stoned clubgoers. They’ve climbed onstage, turned, and faced the crowd, laughing, galloping insanely in place, and pointing excitedly at the people below in perfect counterrhythm to the music. No one’s paying the slightest attention to them. It’s bizarre. One of them is the star—to my mind, anyway. He’s tall and thin, maybe twenty at most, with floppy hair, a boyish face, and extremely loose, wobbling clothes. Unless I’m imagining things, he keeps pointing at me. I mean, over and over and over. Me, me, me. So I point back at him. Him, him, him. After the fifth or sixth mutual jab, he jumps down from the stage, bullies his way through the gyrating crowd, puts his pretty face right in my face, and says, “Hi.” He’s totally fucked up on Ecstasy. Perfect. I know just what to do with him.
Luke’s dancing wildly. It’s sort of a ruse. Sure, music’s great and all that, but at the moment it’s pure camouflage. You know, like the Trojan horse.
DJ: kwllppcbtst …
Michael had reddish blond hair, limpid eyes, a wiry torso, pierced ears, and … something else. It transmitted a vibe only Luke could receive.
Luke is edging toward Michael. The closer he gets, the weaker he feels. The weaker he feels, the more transparent he grows.
The boy’s name is Sun Roof. I’ve just led him into a stall in the men’s room. Sun Roof says he’s from Cloud. It’s a Radical Faerie commune in San Francisco or something. He thinks UFOs are God’s eyeballs. He thinks the diminishing number of UFO sightings means God’s losing interest in us. Me: “So there’s no reason not to kill people.” Sun Roof: “Wow.” He can see my point. This is fun. I’m totally into the way his delusions add shading and depth to his beauty. Sometimes I kiss him. He’s interested in being kissed. One, it makes his skull feel electric. Two, brotherly love is the UFOs’ message. I just slid my hand down the back of his pants. Nice ass. He doesn’t care. That’s peripheral. I’m not real. I don’t even think he can see me that well. I’m the invisible man. He’s the ultra-visible man. Something like that. Anyway, we’re an interesting couple.
Luke is staring at Michael. Cool, okay. If he concentrates hard enough, Michael will look at him. This is the ultimate test.
Michael was staring at nothing, the op-arty lights, the blurry crowd. Now he turned his head slightly and looked right at Luke.
DJ: vhkpzzwqqbw …
Luke’s dancing wildly. I mean, for real. The magic stare worked. He can’t wait to tell me. Michael isn’t the point. He was just like a cross.
Luke is thinking of me. Michael’s three feet away, cruising Luke. Across town, Drew’s sleeping. Mason is watching him breathe. It’s nice. Scott just came. Tinselstool is getting laid. Pam and Sue are in separate rooms being grilled about Goof. Sniffles is sort of unconscious. I’m in a toilet stall kissing that club kid. I’m thinking sex. He’s thinking … God only knows. It’ll all come to nothing, I’m sure. You can basically forget us.
Dennis Cooper, Guide
