Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 21:29:14 -0800
From: Tim Stillman <novemberhourglass@yahoo.com>
Subject: "The Grapes of Ralph"

			   "The Grapes of Ralph"

				    by

			     Timothy Stillman


CA. country side, wet, is not pretty. Ralph, wet, was pretty.
Ralph's hair was matted down in the hard driven rain. He was
riding his Schwinn blue bike named Succotash down the dusty
country road just outside the city. He was ten. His bike, peeled
and faltering and dented, was fifteen. It did not ride well. Ralph
however at the crusty old age of ten rode exceedingly well.

As for instance, now. Here in gray rain and whistling wind. Past
all the men he would have been with more often, if time had not
been spent readying his geometry or history or English. For his
was an indecipherable lot. It was not sexuality per se. It was a
desire to be loved. That and truly and simply and exactly. He
was a runtogether boy with runtogether thoughts and a
runtogether life, there with Gram in the little white stucco house
on Terminal Ave.

Which is not a great name for anyone to live on. Especially not
a ten year old named Ralph. Who had discovered at the age of
nine and three quarters that there were lots of persons who
were not loved. He tried to look up the long ruler of the years
not happened yet for him, and tried to imagine what that must
be like, what the faces in the crowd did when even the crowd
was doing better than the anonymous faces in question, faces
winking out and smiling and then gone.

But he had himself and his whippet body and his sweet penis
and his warm balls and his tight ass and he showed all that
equipment in his blue shorts tight as tight could be, and here in
the summertime rain, he wore no shirt, and his tits were little
brown berries, and his chest was smooth and clean, and his
abdomen was rudder board strong.

He ran his bike and he ran his motor and he pushed his long
brown hair out of his eyes and he tried to signal to himself that
he was going to something important, something that had him
there in it somewhere. Something that included a boy named
Ralph Abernathy, and faith and begora, that would be him.

Sex in the rain was fun.

If the man wanted to have it there.

Sex in the rain was more fun if the boy he could have it with
wanted him with it too, but in that case, Ralph himself didn't
have to be there. For he would pretzel himself into anything the
boy wanted him to be and the boy didn't want him to be anyone
named Ralph because that was the name of a grocery store
chain and who can get their motors humming when they're
thinking about a clown in front of a grocery at three in the
morning, said clown holding up a sign and balloons advertising
the baloney price knockoff for the next hour you lucky dogs
you?

The road spewed up heat vibrations, little fun house mirror
things, and all of Ralph shook bone deep in the cold rain on the
dumpy frumpy country road, where the night was not yet but
the day was doing a fine imitation of it. What he was doing was
following the man's car, the man he was going to have sex with
wherever that might be, and Ralph thought it might be easier on
him and safer too, Officer Friendly had suggested many things,
but Ralph thought of this one himself, if he did not ride in the
car with the man, but instead followed him on Succotash.

Ralph was in the parlance of the time a hustler. He had been for
about four months now and he found that he was real only
when someone touched him, only when someone wanted to put
their hands down his shorts, wanted to roll his little weapon
around a bit and make a stiffy out of it. Because when they
pulled him from his clothes and he was naked with them, it
seemed as though for the first time he had clothes on for real. It
was impossible to explain, but he felt as though he had armor
on then, the molten kind, the kind that were impervious to pain
or loneliness.

Of his own and of theirs. Because they, the five men, and the
one boy, had been so kind to him it half way made him weep.
He had never known men and one boy could be that kind.
Could seem to worship him. Could stroke him and envelop him
and put their hands on his tiny firm butt and just smile and smile
and make it seem like they were performing a laying on of
hands, instead of just helping him jack.

The rain was a curtain and other cliches. The wind was not cold
but the rain made him goosebumpy and he wished a picnic in
the rain because it seemed as though hands involved themselves
more then with him, it seemed as though they wanted to find
hiding places inside him even more than when they were not
being rained on. Rainy days were best for sex, Ralph had
decided.

 And if someone wanted to see him golden shower in a rainbow
arc for their eyes and cameras or whatever, here, man, watch
this whiz, it will steammmmm.

Ralph was not from the Tenderloin and he was from Terminal
Avenue which was a terrible joke that kids and teachers never
got tired of razzing him about, but he was not from the
Tenderloin and he lived with his grandmother and he had gotten
a lamp from his mother two birthdays ago, sent from who
knows where, and he loved that little tasseled lamp with the
blue light bulb that came with it and had it on his night table in
his little dump of a room. He loved the blue light making
everything like blueboy's world on an old Dragnet rerun he saw
once. Cool and groovy and rad and all that jazz.

Even though he doubted his mother sent it, that it was his
grandmother who bought it for him as a cover for his mom who
probably was a street hustler and probably was dead by now if
you think about it, for she left him when he was two and she
was off to see the world after she dumped him on Terminal
Ave.  And he sent his mom a picture but his grandmom
wouldn't let him know the address, said she would mail it, that
it was a secret so he said okay, because he knew the score at
that point.

Damn, this was one long ride, where the hell was Fred, in that
old clunker of a van, going anyway? Yeah, he thought, Ralph
and Fred, names to conjure on and make juju forever more just
on the melodic sound of them, silver flute in the background,
and rain coming down in buckets though of course there were
no buckets for the rain which just came down free form and all
free as a bird.

He had met his first "trick" (it made him feel giddy to say the
word, like suddenly he was something and somebody) outside
school one fine day when this gasoline smelling biker guy from
the high school across the weedy lot had been on his hog and
straddled it right outside the grammar school and the biker guy
named Diesel, of course, started talking to him, and the kids
around him getting ready to board busses or get in parents' cars
or walk home were pretty damned impressed a biker with the
leather jacket and the leather cap and the black gloves and the
face that looked like broken concrete was talking to the little
wussie boy from Terminal A.

Wussie Boy's stock went up three points in that school for the
duration of Diesel.

The biker terrified Ralph at first, just talking to the guy and
Ralph had never known how shy he had been till he was around
Diesel, but Diesel knew things and Ralph wanted to know
things too. Like who hung the moon for this arrogant biker
prick and why was he glad handing himself by talking under his
leather jacket wing a little boy no one wanted except his
grandmother who let's face it got an extra check because of
him.

And Ralph learned and he read or looked at the pictures of
stroke magazines and he was told about his equipment, but of
course Ralph knew all this stuff already, and in no time he had
Diesel derailed and eating out of Ralph's delicate flowery hand
with the crinkle lines in it all freshly minted and the hands sweet
boy smelling.

And Ralph never misused his power with this lug name of
Diesel, but he knew how to taunt and to play and to hold back
and to rush forward and to rush backward again, and then toy
with his little boy tits and make Diesel's tongue fairly hang out
of that kind stupid sounding mouth, little mustache up there
making the biker so bold, ha-- thought Ralph.

Who had never wanted to be a child up till that point but to
have a high schooler a bruiser and widow maker (whatever that
was, Bruiser Diesel was fond of calling himself that and
laughing manfully at it), and suddenly Ralph knew he was in a
scene from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" and he
was the boy with the golden ticket, and he was worshipped by
Diesel--do you get it, bicycle name of Succotash?, he asked his
bike, slapping the headlight that did not work, with his right
hand, suddenly angry at being so happy.

Happiness tricked a person, so don't get too happy, for it's like
the box with the lamp in it from good old mom (wink wink)
sent from nowhere at all, and he rushed the paper off after he
stared at the handwritten card that said "from mom to my son"
(she doesn't remember my name) and he found that lamp and he
thought his heart would be the chest burster because from now
on mom would remember him every birthday, okay, skip one or
two, but she would remember eventually, he had no doubt or
fear.

Round the curve and more country roads to go, and Ralph
massaged his dick to a good hard stiffy, and he couldn't want
for the young man in that car up there just ahead (it was just
ahead, wasn't it?, he couldn't see the thing, now that he thought
about it, he hadn't seen the thing in some time, just poor
visibility, that was all)--

--to see him stiff and his balls tight and his little boy hand
jacking off that sweet pea thing, and one time the runtogether
boy had been dressed in a Superman Halloween costume, and
had his dick pulled out the slit the man had cut into the red
shorts area of the uniform, with Ralph (all tough and
determined looking) banging back a bean bag in the shape of
Bozo the Clown while the man took shot after shot and later
showed them to the boy and had him autograph them, and they
both had fallen down on the floor and laughed at how silly that
was, and then the man sucked him off while Ralph was still
costumed and it made Ralph kind of sad for he didn't know
what reason, but it was still kinda fun.

This guy here, the one up ahead, had answered Ralph's ad in
the classifieds of "The Advocate."

Christ, it had taken Ralph an eternity to save up for an ad with
so few words he had to spend three hours whittling everything
in it to the bare bone. It was weird getting the copy of it from
the paper, telling him when it would run, and for how long, how
long, hell? one issue, who could afford more? The classifieds
was where the money was with that newspaper. If they charged
him a fortune for a five word ad, my god, look at all those book
lengths ads they publish, all that walking on the beach in the
sunset and sharing my music with you--well, barf me with a titty
spoon, Ralph thought. They're sure cashing in on it.

He was at his mail box every day after school to get the mail.

He knew there would be tons of offers. He knew the code
words to put in the ad, and everything and after a month and a
half snail crawled along, here was his one crummy response.

The one man and Ralph could have hailed a taxi and gone to the
Tenderloin for real and had a dozen tricks in one night and
could have made money at it. He never charged his tricks
money though. Though he needed money desperately. He
looked like an elf, little pointy chin, ears a tender small human
retool on Frodo's in the movie and he was so limber he could
almost suck himself off if he wanted to,  with those long
seductive legs almost over his head, showing his entire pink
rosy ass hole to the lucky man watching him.

He knew how to use dildos now, and he knew what cum tasted
like and he knew it tasted different each time from each man,
and from the boys too he did not doubt.

Ralph stopped his bike. He got off and pulled his shorts down
his legs and over his bare feet. He doubled them in his hand, got
back on the bike and thought this was pretty cool and daring,
riding a bike boy naked, with his little grape nuts warm on the
seat underneath his warm butt, and his penis growing longer
and harder until it stood up at his abdomen.. He felt wild and
abandoned. He felt free and his butt crack felt good on the bike
seat, though a foam rubber bike seat would have felt nicer, still
this old one of fake leather was okay.

He pushed his legs up and down, his naked feet turning the
pedals.

The red and purple and pink streamers bedraggled in the rain
and wind, hanging from the bike handlebar. The baseball card
soggy now and not making its click click sound in the back
wheel, the card probably fell off back there a ways anyhow.

He liked being like this in the rain. He thought if that idiot up
there could see me now he would love me and love me and he
would not stop, his man's curly black hair would be under my
fingers and hands as I pushed him up and down on my dick and
that would be the whole world to that man and the boy would
sigh and moan and choke and cry and do all the usual things
boys do, he guessed, when they get their dicks washed for
them.  Like a car wash, a dick wash, and the boy laughed at
that.

There was no green on this day that seemed as though he was
on the moon.

Ralph wondered if he would ever see the sunlight again,
wondered if he would ever feel dry again or cool again, and he
was beginning to be a bit bored, and he had promised he would
let this guy fuck him if the boy wanted and he would be real
gentle honest because I've never been with a chicken before,
and Ralph did not quite like being called a chicken, but those
were the names of the game and so be it.

Ralph didn't really know why it came to him or how it came to
him as he stopped the bike again, his steady heart and pulses
beating faster, faster than the bike ride should have made them,
but suddenly like a cartoon light bulb, or like a blue light bulb in
a gray tasseled lamp that stood on his bedside table, the lamp he
always woke up to, the first thing he saw every morning, and
sometimes he would touch it with one hand, before he woke, as
though it was magic or something but we don't need mom just
cause she gave birth to me doesn't make her special, frogs give
birth too I don't see anyone holding a parade for them or
scorpions or salamanders or boa constrictors---

--Speaking of which, Ralph yelled out to the man who was long
gone for whatever reason, "Hey, Dad, hey you! Asshole! I got a
boa constrictor myself wanna come see? Diesel promised me it
was the tastiest little boy wigwam in the whole wide world, did
Diesel, and the other men they just fawned all over me, they
were trying to find their son or brothers who didn't exist or did
but not the way they wanted them to be, or one guy up in the
Palace Hotel he just held me on the bed and he cried into my
chest and he said momma don't go away again just please don't
I've looked for you everywhere and I can't give up trying. They
made me all their sadnesses and a window to open and get
through them somehow--with me, goddammit, with me. I
counted for that. I counted for something!"

But Dad, and now Ralph was sure that was his dad, did not
reappear, and Ralph was standing in the rain without his brief
shorts. And he wished he could go somewhere where people
weren't all the fuckin' time leaving you and not having the
fuckin' courtesy to tell you why the hell they were doing it or
where the hell they were going. He had found Dad, and maybe
Dad had figured it out too and Dad took the chumpville road
never to be seen again.

I'm loved, Dad, he thought to no one least of all himself, the
men and the one boy they adored me they lived for me and they
never betrayed me till they were through with me, and they held
me and wanted me to hold their dicks and whisper to them and
tell their dicks how ten year old boys want it up the ass
badddddd and they don't hurt me Dad, and they don't leave me
till they're onto someone else or the morning light shines in the
grimy hotel or motel window and a new day is starting and they
have to get to work and I have to get to school and Gran will
tan my hide for being out all night one more time.

Ralph wished he had a toke. Wished he had a man or boy
touching him and kissing him and sucking him and rubbing his
spine and telling him he was the greatest little boy who ever
lived, and he was Charlie Buckets at that time, from the golden
ticket in the movie and the rain was not coming down in
buckets so he could not be Charlie because a fellow named for
rain buckets was sore out of luck when there were no buckets
for the rain to come down in. Might as well name me after a
rainbow because that's not even real.

He lay his bike down on the dirty wet country road and walked
over to where the grass was, and he sat down and leaned
against a old bark torn tree that had been through god knows
how many decades of life, and he stroked his penis that had no
foreskin though two of the men he had been with did and that
did not intrigue him, because he liked his penis right there ready
to go, so you wouldn't have to unpeel it like a banana or
something. Ready for action at a moment's notice.

Ralph stroked himself and he remembered the men and gasoline
smelling dirty fingernailed Diesel who might as well have been a
man, no boy he.

And Ralph remembered all the chins on his chest and his legs
and his crotch as the mouths above those chins played him like
lonely guitar music after an off day at the tracks, and though
one man tried to get him to try a needle or two, Ralph pushed it
away, and the man said addictions come in all sizes, even small,
like you, and the man tongued the boy's tits hard and the boy
held the man's raging stiff penis and the boy put his hands on
the balls of the man and underneath them, and they felt all
dangly and hairy, and, for Ralph, wrong, but if these men could
see into themselves through him, then some of them, one of
them, might some day, accidentally, see him in them, or, more
important, see himself in himself.

Ralph came, sighed, rose on his hips a little, felt the rain and the
tickly grass and the tree bark he had ground himself into when
he came, and  he sat there for a while, dumbly, waiting
immeasurably waiting, and knowing his Dad had left him again
and it was a joke, just one stupid joke after the other and that's
all fuckin'  people were good for, leaving one another and never
coming back and making you the butt of their stupid jokes and
getting real mad when you don't laugh about it too.

When he was like this, when he put his hands all over himself,
when he remembered and imagined the men and boys of past
and future, jacking was the worse thing of all, the isolated
grubby silly feeling after the coming.  You feel like god's
laughing his ass off you right this second at you and only you.

I would have liked to have a rain picnic, and the food getting all
wet, no matter how well you wrap it in Saran Wrap, and I'd like
to lie on a checkerboard table cloth on the wet wet ground and
look for the Walrus and the Sea Turtle waddling over to meet
us as the man takes me in his mouth and it is so good to be in
that dark wet little hole of a mouth and I could look in there
and see if I'm right, see if my dad's really in there, and then
Terminal A won't count, and granma bringing me to church
every Saturday and making me sing ever goddam hymn word
for word, and my mother leaving and not remembering me, all
that will be worth it.

Because that man up there all up and gone like everybody else
was my Dad or could lead me to him or tell me where he is
hiding. That would not have been so much to ask, I don't want
to spend the rest of my life looking for him and I would have let
that man fuck me if he did it slow when I was on my hands and
knees and waiting for the feel of that initial thrust, whatever it
felt like.

I should start charging money, the boy who had a name he
couldn't stand, call me Killer instead, walked back to his bike,
put on the wadded up shorts, turned the bike around and
headed for home again. He hoped he wasn't lost out in this
tangle of country roads, but he knew he would wind his way
home to Terminal A, cause when you have a place that isn't
your home, it's like a magnet, it keeps drawing you back and
will never leave you and never let you leave it and its soggy
flower garden that looked like so many melted broken rainbow
colors once bright now vague and bland, and his gran who
dragged him to church.

Grandma who took photos of him, before the garden, in the
house, at church, wherever, in his ratty church suit with its too
big pants and its too tight shirt and tie cause he was her
precious precious, "smile your pretty boy smile at me now"
click click and she'd pinch his cheek and hold him against her
cotton print dress and the house would be hot as hell and he
would get yelled at for getting drenched today in the rain.

Might as well get used to it, Ralph thought. I guess they call
this life. One thing about it, I'm not a clown standing in front of
a supermarket, holding a sign, at three in the morning,  that
reads LOW PRICE ON BALONEY FOR ONE HOUR!!!!

But it was all baloney, Ralph knew, when you come right down
to it. Who the hell buys baloney at three in the morning
anyway? Do people set their alarm clocks, staggering with sleep
depravation, and get to Ralph's in the nick of time and hope for
the best deal? How crazy is that? I mean, would you want
people knowing that?

Ralph shook his head. The rain was slowing down. He would
pick a more reliable trick next time out. Every place every event
every moment of your life is so much like a school that can
really teach you important true things they don't dare mention
in phony baloney school?

Oh yes.