Portrait of a young con artist

 

Chapter 10

 

Risk

 

 

 Ralph tried to sneak out with the crowd-- the same old shadowy Ralph, Kenny remembered from Grammar school, with the same dark head of greasy hair giving him away. The oval face looked shocked when Kenny grabbed him.

 "And just where do you think you're going?" Kenny asked, struck by some oddity in the boy's eyes. Not the dorkish doe-like expression. That always been a trade-mark of Ralph's and part of ritualistic mockery suffered at the hands of his class mates. He actually looked hurt Kenny had recognized him. "You don't say hello to old friends?"

 "I'm sorry, I mean..." Ralph mumbled, brushing the wrinkles out of his jacket left by Kenny's grip. Four years since graduating and the boy looked exactly the same, only bigger, with the same dorkish clothes that seemed to have grown with him.

 Outside the glass doors, the marquee lights winked on, indicating a change of shift. The candy lady and ticket lady stared out from their respective glass gages wondering what trick Kenny was up to this time, debating what they would put in their report to the manager.

 "Well, the least you can do is say hello," Kenny said.

 "Hello, Kenny," Ralph said softly, his face flushing with embarrassment.

 "So you do remember me? I thought maybe you were peeved at me or something."

 Kenny couldn't recall their last meeting, though there had been many opportunities during their long friendship for offencee. Childhood pranks that had gotten Ralph into deeper water than the boy had intended.

 "I'm not angry," Ralph said. "I just didn't want to bother you."

 "Bother me? Damn it, Ralph. I thought you were dead. Last I heard your mother sent you off to some school out of state."

 The boy nodded. "I graduated last month."

 "And you came back?"

 "I'm just visiting," Ralph said. "I go to seminary in September."

 "You're going to be a priest?" Kenny said, startled into silence. He remembered Ralph mumbling this after Grammar school. But those things didn't mean much. Kenny had wanted to be a judge. "And here I thought your mother would find some sappy little girl to marry you."

 Something soured in Ralph's eyes. He started to say something, but the theater manager shouted Kenny's name across the lobby, breathing his usual fire.

 "Can you wait a minute or two?" Kenny asked. "We can walk home when I get off."

 Ralph nodded dumbly as Kenny went to face his boss, still struck by something wrong, but couldn't put a finger on it.

                                                       ***********

 Ralph had grown quieter over four years. He'd lost his whiny voice, and didn't even complain when Kenny proposed to take the tracks home. But he hadn't grown any more coordinated, struggling to match his pace with the uneven spacing of the ties, missing them as often as he hit. He looked like a drunk, constantly attempting to regain his composure. Yet the other thing lingered, too, like a mark that didn't show under his neat hair and perfect tie.

 "Why are you looking at me like that, Kenny?" the boy asked.

 "You've changed. I'm trying to figure out how."

 "You've changed, too." Ralph giggled, then grew serious again, his gaze studying Kenny's face before jerking away. He stared down into the valley beyond the tracks where workmen in green uniforms snipped at weeds near the corner of the DPW yard. A forest of yellow plows lined the asphalt looking utterly alien in the rising heat. When he looked back at Kenny, his eyes seemed bruised.

 "What's wrong?" Kenny asked.

 "Nothing," Ralph mumbled.

 "Don't give me that!" Kenny said, twisting him around by the arm. "I know you too well for that."

 Ralph seemed to wither, shoulders sagging into his suit as he pulled his arm free. "You won't understand."

 "Of course I'd understand, we're friends, aren't we?"

 "Not friends enough for this," he said.

 "Damn it, Ralph. What can be so bad you can't tell me?"

 Again he stared away, over the DPW lot towards the brook and the playground and the kids running to and fro on the basketball court.

 "Let's just forget it, Kenny," Ralph said, pushing on. "I shouldn't have come home. I should have spent the summer at school and gone on from there. There's nothing but bad memories left around here anyway."

 "So now I'm a bad memory?"

 "Oh not you. Other people. Everybody else. I never fit in. But I thought I should take on more look around before I went off and..."

 "As usual you're not making any sense."

 "I know," he said. "I just didn't figure on you still being around. Not after all your talk about California."

 "I'll get there sooner or later," Kenny said. Leaving had been harder than he'd thought as a kid. Things kept cropping up that kept him here.

 "By working in the theater?"

 "By putting away something out of my paycheck every week. You want to donate to my escape fund?"

 "Not me. I need everything I have for school."

 "But priests are supposed to take a vow of poverty."

 "I'll still need money."

 They walked for a time in silence, Kenny aware of the changed air around them, the smell of something sweet floating up from the brook-- though if there were flowers among the stony sides, he didn't see them.

 "So if money isn't your problem, what is?" Kenny asked suddenly.

 "I'm gay, Kenny."

 Both boys stopped. Kenny had heard talk of this kind whispered behind Ralph's back as a kid. Many people had avoided him because of it. A few like Kenny had not.

 "Bullshit!" Kenny said.

 "But it's true."

 "You've had sex with boys at school?"

 "No."

 "Then how do you know?"

 "It's the way I feel."

 "Which is?"

 "I want to."

 "Or think you want to. You had the plague once, too, remember. And mono and the measles, and...."

 "This isn't like those times. This is not a disease."

 "Neither were they! They were just your imagination. What does your mother have to say about all this?"

 "Mother doesn't know."

 "She must have some inkling or she wouldn't be making a priest out of you."

 "Being a priest is my idea."

 "You think you can hide there?"

 "Yes."

 "Goddamn it, Ralph!" Kenny shouted. "This is the craziest thing you've ever done."

 "Kenny, please, don't advertise."

 Down below, the workmen looked up, shading their eyes against the sinking sun.

 "But it's crazy, Ralph. You're no more gay than I am."

 "Wouldn't I know best?"

 "No. And I'll prove it."

 "How?"

 "By changing your outlook on life."

 "I don't understand.

 "You will," Kenny said and grabbed his arm, leading him down the gravel path to the DPW lot. They skirted the fence, the workman eyeing them as they paused from pulling weeds. A small concrete foot bridge led to the play ground and the park.

 Ralph yanked Kenny to a stop.

 "What exactly are you doing?" Ralph asked, a history of earlier adventures quivering in his eyes, of times when Kenny had dragged him back to his mother in wrinkled clothing and bloodied brow, sirens wailing behind them from some small act of mischief.

 "Calm down, Ralph," Kenny said. "We're just going to do some boy things -- you never got a chance to do as a kid."

 "Like what?"

 "You know. Mountain climbing and motor cycling and floating on a raft."

 "We're going to float on a raft?" Ralph said, looking around in alarm.

 "No. But you've gotten into some bad habits since I last saw you. It's making you think wrong. That's all got to change."

 Kenny glanced around the park. Even though he had passed here every day to and from work, it had been years since he had played here. It seemed to have shrunk, the concrete and asphalt reduced to one small patch between the street and the DPW with the weedy parkway property bordering its far side. The rusty chains to the swings creaked to the giggling movement of a little girl. Only the basketball court remained as Kenny remember, though the hoop had long ago lost its cotton net. Two boys lobbed lazy foul shots, missing as many as they hit. Neither looked up when Kenny approached.

 "How about a game?" Kenny asked, dragging Ralph out onto the court with him. The boys-- who couldn't have been older than fifteen-- eyed them doubtfully.

 "I don't think this is a good idea," Ralph whispered.

 "Just let me handle it," Kenny hissed back. "I know what I'm doing."

 "You're a little old for us," one boy said, wiping strands of sweaty brown hair out of his eyes.

 "We'll give you points," Kenny said, wondering if anyone had beaten his record for consecutive foul shots here. The number, which Kenny couldn't remember, had been etched into the concrete near the curb as part of local legend.

 The two boys eyed each other then nodded.

 "Eleven points," the other boy said.

 "Eleven? We're not that much bigger than you. And my friend here has never played before."

 "Eleven points or no game," the first boy said.

 "All right," Kenny groaned. "But we get the ball first."

 The second boy tossed the ball to Kenny and backed away. The rubbery surface felt good in Kenny's hands. It was one of the things he'd missed most about growing up. He tossed the ball to Ralph.

 "Take it out."

 Ralph looked at the ball, then at Kenny. "Out?" he said.

 "You mean you don't know anything about the game?" Kenny asked as the two kids giggled behind him. "You must have picked something up watching us."

 Kenny remembered Ralph's curious nose sticking through a hole in the fence near school, as Kenny and the others clashed in banns games that more closely resembled tackle football than basketball.

 Ralph shook his head.

 "And we gave them eleven points?" Kenny moaned, then shook his head. "We'll just have to teach you things from the ground up. Go over there and throw the ball to me."

 "Why can't I throw it from here?"

 "Because I said so, Ralph!"

 "All right," he said and slowly walked across the faded white line that marked the boundaries of the court. His shoulders sagged in an unathletic imitation of Charlie Chaplan, lacking only the thick makeup and rounded hat.

 "Throw it!" Kenny yelled, waving his arms in front of his two smaller opponents. Ralph clutched and weakly tossed in Kenny's direction, but it bounced at Kenny's feet and one of the younger boys grabbed it, dribbling down the court before Kenny could react.

 "Not to him!" Kenny screamed as the ball wished through the net-less hoop. "You were supposed to throw it to me."

 "I tried," Ralph said. "But I told you I'm no good at this sort of thing."

 "Twelve points," he mumbled, his own voice strained. "I don't suppose it makes much difference. Just pay attention next time, all right?"

 "I'll try," Ralph said.

                                                      ************

 "Nothing," Kenny said, stumbling away from the court slightly shocked. "I don't believe it."

 Ralph followed silently as the boys giggled behind them.

 "Come back any time," they said, eyeing Ralph like a third team member.

 "I'm sorry, Kenny," Ralph said softly.

 "You didn't even try," Kenny said, refusing to look at him.

 "But I did!" Ralph protested, pushing his shirt back into his pants. Dust and sweat stained both. His knees had two brown stains from where he had fallen into the weeds chasing the ball.

 "I suppose you did," Kenny mumbled. "But I'm not giving up on you, Ralph."

 He stopped at the parkway fence. He and Ralph had come here many times as boys, always to stare at the faces of commuters as they rushed back from work, the long lines of cars gushing southward in a mad manic Kenny never quite understood. There were more of them now, the years giving birth to new generations of bored faces. He and Ralph used to laugh and wave. But Kenny felt no urge to do so now, picture Ralph as one of them, locked into the daily ritual of coming and going-- like a robot.

 "I don't need any more trouble, Kenny," Ralph said, poking his fingers into the links of the fence.

 "And you think I'm going to get you in trouble?"

 "You always used to."

 "For Christ's sake. You can't still be afraid of your mother."

 Ralph's fingers stiffened as he stared out into the sea of moving metal, his gaze following the line of pitched roofs showing on the far side.

 "I just don't need any problems with her."

 "Then maybe you shouldn't have come home after all."

 "I didn't want to but she begged me."

 "Why?"

 Ralph's lips rose, but the smile seemed sour. "She wanted one more summer to talk me out of being a priest."

 "Then what does she want?"

 "Grandchildren."

 Kenny laughed, then ceased. Something painful stirred deep in Ralph's eyes, like a caged animal banging at its bars.

 "Come on," Kenny said, putting his hand on Ralph's shoulder. "I'll walk you home."

                                                       ***********

 "Was that the McDonald, boy?" Ralph's mother asked when the porch door closed, with the same harsh rasp Kenny remembered from four years ago. Ralph's breath sucked slowly through his teeth with a whistle. Kenny stopped just inside the hedges. Ralph's silhouette showed through the window, head tilted down towards where the love seat was.

 "Oh, mother," Ralph choked. "What are you doing sitting out here?"

 "Waiting for you? What did you do to yourself?"

 "Do?"

 You clothing's all wrinkled and your hair's a mess."

 "I fell," Ralph said.

 "It looks like you were pushed."

 "Oh mother! You're not going to start that again, are you?"

 "I thought we agreed you wouldn't see him any more."

 "That was four years ago, mother. Things have changed. I wish you wouldn't treat me like a child."

 "How else am I supposed to treat you when you come home looking like this?"

 "We were playing basketball, mother!" Ralph said sternly. "As unlikely as that may sound to you."

 "It's a wonder you didn't break your neck. McDonald always inspired the worst in you. Is that what you mean by being a priest."

 "I ran into him by accident, mother," Ralph said with a sigh. "I'm too tired to explain it all blow by blow. All I want to do is take a bath."

 "Do what you want, Ralph. I'm only your mother."

                                                       ***********

 Ralph appeared at the theater doors minutes before the matinee, waving at Kenny from the far side of the glass.

 "I can't stay," he said, when Kenny pushed open the door. "I just wanted to..."

 "Not now, Ralph," Kenny said, staring over his shoulder for the manager. "But come in. I'll talk to you when I'm finished locking up."

 The ladies in the candy and ticket booths eyed Kenny's breech of rules, their eye brows rising as Ralph slipped into the lobby. The manager would hear reports of it later and Kenny's pay would be docked the cost of a full-priced ticket.

 "I just wanted to say...."

 "Inside," Kenny said, indicating the gold doors that led into the dark interior. "I'll be there in a minute."

 Ralph looked at Kenny for a minute, a sparkle of suspicions registering in his eyes. "Okay," he mumbled and sauntered towards the inner doors. A minute passed. Kenny stayed near the glass doors staring anxiously out at traffic. The girls appeared in a rush of clothing and breathlessness, wiggling their fingers when they saw him waiting-- giving another rise to the brows of ladies in the two glass booths.

 Kenny let the girls in, too.

 "I'm sorry we're late," Eleanor said, popping her bubble gum. "But we missed the first bus. The son of a bitch driver saw us, too, and wouldn't stop. Is your friend here yet?"

 "He just went inside," Kenny said.

 "Who gets who?" Suzy asked, her bright jealous eyes looking over Kenny like a new car owner. Both girls wore tight tank tops and leopard pants, and might have been sisters except for the shape of their faces. Both wore the same thick makeup. "You're not going to dump some dog on me, are you?"

 "I wouldn't do that to you, baby. He's cool."

 "Then why does he need you to fix things up for him?"

 "He's gonna be a priest," Kenny said. "I figure he needs a little something before he gives it up for good. You dig me?"

 Suzy's eyes widened a little. "God! I've never done it with no priest before."

 "Well, go wait for me inside and you'll get your chance," Kenny said. "I'll join you both when I've finished up out here."

 Eleanor popped her bubble gum as both girls wiggled their way across the lobby, following the same worn path in the rug Ralph had taken. Kenny flipped the closed sign around, twisted the lock, and winked at the candy lady as he turned to follow the girls.

                                                       ***********

 Ralph looked stunned, staring at the girls as if he couldn't make the connection.

 "One of them's yours," Kenny said again, his own arms hooked on theirs, pressing against their soft breasts. "Take your pick."

 Ralph's mouth opened but nothing came out.

 "Damn it, Ralph! It's not like we've got all day."

 The manager's door was only a few feet away and the man inside didn't always sleep through the matinee.

 "He likes me, I can tell," Suzy suddenly said, detaching herself from Kenny's arm to embrace Ralph-- who stepped back in open-mouthed horror.

 "But..."

 "Come on, Ralphie," she said with a wink to Kenny. "We'll go up into the balcony and make whoopee."

 "K-Kenny," he stuttered. "C-Could we talk?"

 "Not here, for God's sake," Kenny said, casting another nervous glance at the manager's door.

 "Please!"

 "All right, Ralph," Kenny groaned. He motioned the girls towards the stairs. "Wait in the upstairs lobby. We'll be with you in a minute."

 They grinned and giggled and waddled up the curving stairs, leaving Ralph and Kenny at the bottom.

 "What is your problem, Ralph? You don't like Suzy?"

 "It's not that," Ralph said, glancing cautiously around. "Don't you remember on the tracks?"

 "I remember. This is part of the cure."

 "But I didn't ask to be cured!" he shouted.

 "Keep your voice down, damn it," Kenny said. "You want my boss to hear you?"

 "But those girls...." Ralph said and shuttered.

 "Look here, Ralph. Suzy's no slouch!"

 "That's not what I meant."

 "Okay, so your nervous. We all get that way the first time. But you don't have to do anything. It's all arranged. Just sit back and enjoy it, boy!"

 "I'm not sure I want to...."

 "I know what's good for you, Ralph. Just do it."

 "Now you sound like my mother."

 "I'm not your mother, Ralph. Neither is Suzy. Now come on before the girls find some dirty old men to replace us with."

 Ralph clutched Kenny's arm. "Couldn't we-- sort of break into this gradually."

 "No, Ralph. You've got to throw yourself into it like you would with swimming. Once you get the hang of it you'll never want to stop."

 Ralph looked dubious, but Kenny dragged him up the stairs, the thick scent of the girl's perfume hanging in the air ahead of them. Both girls waited at the top, chewing bubblegum and checking their makeup. Suzy smiled and took possession of Ralph's arm. He struggled to free himself again, but her sharp red nails dug into him.

 "Don't be so skittish, honey. I'm not going to bite your head off," she said and led him up the ramp towards the waiting, unoccupied balcony. Ralph glanced back at Kenny briefly before he disappeared with the expression of a man going to his own execution.

                                                       ***********

 "Damn it, Ralph. I was doing you a favor!" Kenny said, kicking at the stones along the side of the track, sending small rock slides down into the DPW yard where they struck metal.

 Ralph said nothing.

 "Now I suppose you think I ruined your life, kept you from ever becoming a good priest?"

 "I didn't say that."

 "No, but I know how you think. Just don't try and tell me you didn't like it."

 "Can we not talk about it?"

 "It's not like I didn't have a reason, Ralph."

 "You mean the cure?"

 "She was part of it."

 "One more manly thing," Ralph muttered.

 "That's right, Ralph. But you're spoiling it with your attitude."

 "I think I'm beyond your cures."

 "But did you like it?"

 "Sort of."

 "And what exactly does that mean?"

 Ralph stared straight down the tracks, through the gap that marked the parkway trestle, sunlight shimmering off the moving cars, flashing in his eyes. "I was thinking of you," he said

 Kenny stumbled on an elevated tie, staring sharply at Ralph who had not slackened his pace. Kenny hurried to catch up and walked beside the boy for a few paces more. Then, with a sudden motion, hit Ralph's shoulder with his fist.

 Ralph howled in pain, fingers of his other hand closing around the upper arm.

 "Kenny!" he pleaded. "I didn't...."

 "Put up your dukes, Ralph!" Kenny said, weaving and bobbing in front of Ralph in a white-faced imitation of Casius Clay.

 "Look, Kenny, we don't need to fight. I'll go away. You'll never have to see me again."

 "You don't have a choice, Ralph. Either fight me or I kick the shit out of you."

 Kenny swung and connected with Ralph's other arm.

 "Please stop, Kenny. You're hurting me."

 "So hurt me back, Ralphie-boy. Show me what kind of man you are."

 Ralph closed his eyes with a sigh, then slowly folded his fingers into fists. "This is crazy, Kenny," he said when he opened his eyes again.

 "I'll be the judge of that," Kenny growled. "Now hit me as hard as you can."

 "All right," Ralph mumbled and took a stumbling step towards Kenny, his fist elevated as if to pound on a door. "But I'm not good at this either."

                                                       ***********

 Ralph clutched the screen door handle with both his hands, squeezing it as he squinted back into the twilight at Kenny, the stain of blood still evident around his nose and mouth.

 "I'm sorry," Kenny whispered. "I was just trying to..."

 "I know, I know," Ralph said, holding a weak hand up. "Just leave me alone, all right?"

 "But I didn't mean to..."

 He let the screen slam behind him.

 "Ralph?" his mother called, lights coming on from inside the house, spreading like fire across the dark lawn. Kenny eased back into the hedges where he had hidden the day before. He could see the woman through the window as she stepped out onto the porch.

 She looked older, her brown hair streaked with gray. She had lost weight, her thin arms devoid of fat like pale fabric stretched over wire. But her gaze remained as hard as he remembered, like gray stones pressed deep into her face.

 "Ralph?" she said again. "Are you hurt?"

 "Kenny beat me up," Ralph mumbled.

 "What? Why I'll call the police on that..."

 "No, mother, please. He was only teasing. He just doesn't know how strong he is."

 "Teasing my foot!" the woman said. "Lay down here I'll call a doctor."

 "I'm all right, mother. Honestly."

 "You don't look well, Ralph. That McDonald boy has never been good for you."

 "I agree."

 "Then you won't see him any more?"

 "It would be foolish if I did," Ralph said with a husky laugh. "His cure just might kill me next time."

 "Cure for what?"

 "Nothing, Mother."

                                                       ***********

 Kenny scratched on the screen till Ralph appeared, feather duster and apron making him look less priest than housewife.

 "Go away!" Ralph hissed.

 "Why? Is your mother around?"

 "Mother's at work. But she still wouldn't like you here. Go away."

 "Open the door, Ralph or I'll break it down."

 "No."

 "I mean it."

 Ralph emitted a long and frustrated sigh, then glanced nervously towards the houses on either side. He flicked off the hook inside the screen door and pushed out. Kenny eased through the opening.

 "What time's your mother due home?" Kenny asked.

 "Five. Five thirty. Six if she's busy."

 "It's only four now. That gives us plenty of time."

 "For what, Kenny?"

 "Your cure, Ralph."

 "Forget that, Kenny. I'm already black and blue."

 "I won't hit you any more. I have something else in mind."

 "Like what?"

 "You'll see," Kenny said, peering around Ralph into the house. "Can we use that table?"

 Ralph turned and went pale. "That's my father's oak table," he said. "Mother would kill me if..."

 "It's just a table, Ralph," Kenny said, pushing passed the boy, drawing out a deck of cards from his shirt pocket. "We only need it for a little poker."

 "We can't do that here."

 "How will she know?"

 "She'll know," Ralph said. "She always knows when things are disturbed."

 "Bullshit," Kenny said. The room smelled of cleanser and dust. Dim sunlight edged through the closed blinds, creating an odd twilight that reminded him a funeral parlor. The sofa and chairs were stiff with plastic coverings as if everything had just come from a show room. Yet a sense of age pervaded the place. Of something preserved. "Clear off the table, Ralph."

 "Not here," Ralph said, trying to stop Kenny from pulling out one of the chairs. "We can use the kitchen."

 "But I like it here,"Kenny said and sat and studied the room more closely: a china closet shimmered with enclosed bottles of what looked like booze. He shuffled the cards and motioned Ralph towards the seat across from him.

 Ralph sat heavily, still wearing the apron, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down like a cork, and his expression grew exasperated when Kenny drew out a pack of cigarettes.

 "NO!" he roared and tried to snatch the pack "Not here!"

 "It's only a cigarette, Ralph," Kenny said, tapping the end on the table before lighting it.

 "But she'll smell it and know someone was here."

 "Would you prefer I go outside every time I need a smoke-- outside where your neighbors can see me?"

 "At least let me get something for the ashes," Ralph said, stumbling as he scrambled towards the kitchen. He returned with a saucer in time to catch the ash before it fell.

 "So where's your money?" Kenny asked.

 "Money?" he said, still staring at the cigarette and the near catastrophic ash now firmly in the grip of the dish.

 "You don't expect to pay without it, do you?"

 "Look, Kenny, I'm not...."

 "I know, Ralph. You don't seem to be good at anything. But you're going to do this, or I'll really beat the shit out of you."

 "But I only have what I saved for school..."

 "Perfect," Kenny said, grinning. "Go get it."

 "But..."

 "Get the money, Ralph!"

 He swallowed again and climbed the stairs and by the time he got back, Kenny had gotten glasses from the kitchen and the booze out of the china closet, and was pouring drinks.

 "Hey!" he yelled, dropping coin and bills onto the table in a clatter. "Who said you could touch those?"

 "No one," Kenny said, re-stopping the bottle and pushing a glass towards him. "But it's obvious no one else has used them in a very long time."

 "They're my father's," he whispered and stared, as if Kenny had taken the chalice down from behind the alter, or wine from the priest's private stock.

 "He won't notice us having a little," Kenny said.

 "My father's dead."

 "Then he certainly won't notice anything."

 "But my mother will," he moaned. "My mother's kept everything here the way it was before he died."

 "Sounds morbid," Kenny said and sipped his drink-- the taste of expensive whisky lingering on the back of his tongue as I swallowed. "Drink up, Ralph. We don't have all day."

 "I can't."

 "I'm not drinking alone, Ralph. That would give you an unfair advantage. Drink it or I'll pour it down your throat."

 Hate flared into his eyes. And perhaps at that moment, he could have hit Kenny. But the fire died almost as soon as it came and he sagged down into his seat, hands wrapping around his glass as if it kept him from falling to the floor.

 "Drink, Ralph."

 And he drank, his face screwing up over the taste.

 "My God! It must be bad."

 "Oh contraire, it's the best."

 "But it tastes like iodine!"

 "That's the way it supposed to taste. You'll grow used to it. Drink up."

 But Ralph shook his head. "This is crazy."

 "Drink, Ralph! That's rule number one in this game of ours. Now you do want to deal or shall I?"

 He waved weakly and Kenny shuffled again, the cards snapping to life beneath his fingers. He felt like a magician as cigarette smoke curled around his face. He flipped five cards face down in front of Ralph.

 "Pick them up," Kenny said, feeling his thoughts beginning the slow unwinding alcohol always brought. Ralph's glazed eyes said he was experiencing the same.

 He remembered how to play from an earlier incarnation, but Kenny had kept up the practice and Ralph hadn't. His high school had been too straight-laced to believe in poker. And slowly, his money became Kenny's. Finally, Ralph shook his head, anger boiling up in his eyes.

 "No more," he said and threw down his cards.

 "Quitter."

 "I don't have any more money."

 "So?"

 "So you said we couldn't play without it."

 "We could bet something else," Kenny suggested.

 "Like what?"

 "If you lose you quit this priesthood bullshit and come with me to California."

 "I couldn't do that!"

 "Why not?"

 "It would crush mother."

 "You said she didn't want you to be a priest."

 "That's not what I meant."

 "You mean being with me would hurt her?"

 "Something like that."

 "That's bullshit, too. She wouldn't like it. But she'd get used to it over time."

 "And if I win?" Ralph asked, his drunken gaze searching Kenny's face, leaving behind an dark sense of doom.

 "I'll go and never darken your door again," Kenny said.

 "But what if I want something else?" Ralph asked.

 "Like what?"

 "You know."

 "Damn it, Ralph!" Kenny shouted. "We're supposed to be curing you, not turning me into a...."

 "Quitter," Ralph said, grinning over the top of the table.

 "I am not!"

 "Then deal."

 Kenny flubbed the cards as he issued them, his fingers feeling as thick as thumbs. Ralph watched, doe-eyes hardening into a gambler's. But they gave nothing away, as if a curtain had been drawn across the mirror Kenny had used to win against him earlier.

 "Don't look at me like that!" Kenny hissed.

 "Like how?"

 "You know."

 "No, Kenny, I don't," he said, taking three cards to my two. Nor did his face give anything away when he turned up those cards one after another: ace, king, queen, jack, ten. Not all in the same suit, but deadly just the same.

 He pushed back his chair and rose.

 "Look, Ralph," Kenny said, shoving back as he tried to escape-- Ralph circling the table, not exactly smiling, but somehow satisfied in a way he'd not been before.

 "You made a bet, Kenny," he said softly. "You're not going to Welsh on a bet, are you?"

 "I didn't agree to it."

 "But you played. And you would have made me come to California if you had won."

 "No, I wouldn't have. That was all a joke."

 "I'm not joking, Kenny," Ralph said and reached Kenny, and shoved lightly on his chest, forcing him back down into his chair. Kenny didn't watch the hands, only the eyes-- terrible, hungry eyes that now showed little of the embarrassment they had in the balcony. His blunt fingers probed at Kenny's belt, unbuckling it, undoing the zipper the way Suzy had his.

 A cruel smile touched his lips as he glanced down. "You're not as immune as you think," he said. "Perhaps you should take your own cure, eh?"

 Kenny tried to speak, but his head swirled around and around, more drunk than justified by the booze, in a whirlpool sucking down into the part of his anatomy that Ralph's mouth greeted, and Ralph like a vampire slowly drawing him dry.

 "And what exactly is going on here?" Ralph's mother asked from the door. The booze made a blur of her, or maybe it was the sweat pouring down into Kenny's eyes, her purple, enraged face floating in the haze of the room like a descending hawk. Ralph had not heard her, still on his knees, his mouth like a child's seeking a tit upon which to suck.

 "Ralph!" she howled and Ralph stopped, his dreamy expression changing instantly into one of utter horror. He leaped to his feet and wiped the moisture from his mouth with a sleeve.

 "Mother!" he spurted.

 "Good for you to have noticed," she said.

 "I can..."

 It took Kenny a moment to stagger to his feet, gathering himself in, rezipping his pants, finding his dignity somewhere in the confusion. Ralph bubbled but said no more.

 "Out!" his mother told Kenny. "If I ever see you around my boy again, I'll kill you."

 Kenny nodded and staggered towards the door, hearing the whimpering Ralph behind him like another ghost.

 

 

Portrait Menu/next chapter

 

Main Menu

 

Email to Al Sullivan