Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 15:57:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: Robin Reed <any_mouse2003@yahoo.com>
Subject: Cafe au Lait: the Passion Pit

The usual disclaimers pertain. This is a copyrighted
work.

The Passion Pit

I woke the next morning with an erection. I blushed
when I thought about it and was running late and did
not get a chance to do anything about it but thrash in
the shower. In the water thrusting down from the
faucet I thought about what I had been thinking the
last time my dick had been this hard and came with a
shudder with the scalding water cascading down around
me.

I dressed in a hurry, chino slacks and a striped shirt
and rep tie. They liked us to look prep at the
Department Store, and I didn't mind. I thought I might
grow my hair out in the fall when I went to school.
But in the meantime I was happy to maintain a low
profile and slide through the summer.

Everyone else was long gone. The store didn't open
until 10:00, and they wanted us to open up by 9:45. I
had slept late. I poured some of the cold coffee back
in the top of the drip percolator and turned it on to
give it a kick.

Then I was out the door and buzzing in the little VW
down Westbrook Road to the Mall.

I made it pretty much on time and was at my place by
the register when the Nerd came by to check.

"I want you to push those new wheat-colored jeans," he
said. "And thank-you for your help with Alexander. I
think I will have to watch him, but he seems clever
and will do a fine job for us with adequate
supervision."

"I think you are absolutely right, Boss." He took it
as a sign of respect that I called him that. I don't
think he knew I was laughing at him, the pompous shit.
Alexander had more going on between his ears than he
ever would.

"I have made up a new schedule for you. For the next
week or two I am going to have you come in late and be
with him to close up at 9:00 each night." I could see
that he didn't trust the Negro to close up. But I
didn't mind. That meant I could sleep in till eleven
in the morning if I wanted to. It was a pity the only
thing mildly interesting to do in town was go to the
big double screen drive-in.

There was nobody to date and sitting alone in the car
drinking a purloined bottle of my father's homemade
wine was hardly my idea of a wild time. Still, it was
out of the house and the buzz was good. It didn't get
dark until then, and if I went to the theatre after we
closed it was still light enough that they were only
playing the dancing hotdogs trailer when I got there.

There were some truly awful movies out that summer.
But I must have seen "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance
Kid" about fifty times. I didn't mind seeing it over
and over and after a while I started to memorize the
lines and would recite them along with Robert Redford,
looking back at the Pinkertons chasing them down.

"Who are those guys?" I would say. When it was over I
let the rest of the crowd gather up their kids or put
their clothes back on, whichever category of people
they were. Then I would navigate sedately home,
lurching over the mounds of dirt that pointed the
noses of the cars up so they could see the screen
better, trying to avoid the poles where the speakers
hung down on the curly wires.

I had to wait patiently through the slow morning
traffic for Alexander to arrive. I decided that the
images I had of him were just private things. After
all, I had never had a black friend and with the
shortness of the season before we all moved on, it
didn't seem like this was anything more than a work
relationship. I was a little embarrassed by how I had
felt, thinking about the feel of him, when I jerked
off last night.

Private thoughts, private moment. Just be professional
and aloof. You can deal with the homo thing when you
get further from home.

That was pretty much how I felt, right up until
Alexander actually showed up for work.

He looked just as good as he had the day before. He
had a slim build that showed off his shoulders in his
Norfolk jacket with the little sewed belt in the back.
He had one of the big collar shirts and a wild floral
tie. He had slacks that were tight at the waist,
showing a suspicious bulge in the crotch and flared
nicely at the knee. There was a slight break to the at
the well-polished brown shoes. The whole thing was a
package of grace and elegance.

"Hey!" he said. "I hear you are going to rescue me
from the Nerd from here out."

"I'll do what I can. That means I get eleven hours
today to get onto the new schedule. I think the Nerd
doesn't want to stay late."

"And he doesn't trust the new guy- the Negro- right?"

"I'm sure that isn't it. You are just new."

"Uh-huh." He shook his head with a knowing look. I
think I blushed. I hate it when that happens.

"The Nerd says we are supposed to move the Wheat Jeans
today. Let's get the stacks sorted and get ready for
some selling."

"Yessir, Boss" he said. I gave him that look. "Don't
bullshit a bullshitter, Alexander."

"Yessir." Then he gave me that gleaming smile and hit
me on the shoulder and we started folding the jeans
and stacking them by size.

I felt relaxed again. This guy had a sense of humor
and his easy way with the jeans, the way he folded
them back into out-of-the-box condition, made things
go quickly. We yacked about a lot of stuff that day.
He didn't know much about the city, and though I
didn't know much more, I told him what I could. There
was not much of a black population in town, and they
seemed to keep pretty much to themselves. I told him
how far away the lake was, and which places sold beer
to the underaged with fake ID.

"Where do you go to drink?" he asked.

I told him about the field in back of my house. And
them I told him about the Drive-in."

"Oh," he said. "The Passion Pit."

"Not here," I said. "You would need a hot date for
that. I just like to go and drink in the car. No one
bothers you there, if you are quiet. The block-head
Dutch would never suspect there is anything going on
there except solid respectable people watching a
movi..."

"And young kids screwing their brains out!" he said,
laughing. "I know what it was like back home. I
thought it was funny, the way they would look at us
when we drove out to Glenn Ellyn and they thought we
had another five kids in the trunk."

"Did you?'

"Of course."

My ass was starting to drag around dinner time. The
nerd gave me an hour for a dinner break and I took it.
I had an idea. I drove home and got a gallon jug of
the homemade wine from the metal storage chest in the
garage and put it in the back of the VW. I stopped at
the Mickey-Dees on the way back and got a sack of
burgers that I shared with Alexander. We put them back
in one of the dressing rooms and munched them between
customers.

We got to the 8:30 slack time and started to do our
tallies. It had not been a bad day, and we had moved
some Wheat Jeans. The Nerd had been pleased before he
rushed out to have dinner at home with the wifey.

We held down the last half hour on our own. We dealt
with a crazy woman who had to have a pair of black
slacks for her husband and he was a 40-30. It's an odd
size. We had plenty of 40-34's, but she wanted them
right away and we had to look through everything. We
finally found one that was the right size but had a
mark on them. She wanted a discount and I patiently
explained we were not authorized to do that. She
sniffed and bought them anyway.

She wasn't happy, though, and let us know it the whole
time we made the sale. By the time she was gone and
the register tape was removed and folded with the
tally cards, the grillwork was coming down on the main
doors and the place was closed.

"Whew," I said. "I don't know why it always gets like
that at closing. Makes me all agitated."

"You handled it fine, Bob. But I would have just given
them to her. They don't have any inventory control
here. The Store would never have known."

I stood there, a little stunned. "I never thought of
that." Jeeze, he was right. And we wouldn't be minutes
late getting out of there.

He picked up his jacket and slipped it over his
shoulders. "Got any big plans tonight?" he asked. "I
am not looking forward to watching TV with my Aunt
until it is time to go to bed."

I smiled. This was fantastic. "Well, I thought I might
go down to the movies and catch Butch Cassidy again."

"Quite an original mind, Bob. I'm not much of a
western guy, but that is a very pretty movie. Mind if
I join you? I'll miss the bus, though, and you will
have to give me a lift home."

"I'd be happy to, Alexander. It will be fun to see it
with someone. The dancing hotdog reel for the snack
bar is worth the price of admission alone."

"You don't know the half of that," he said with a
smile. I didn't know precisely what he meant by that,
but I had a feeling I was going to find out.

Next: Who Are Those Guys?"