Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 07:09:20 -0800
From: Tim Stillman <novemberhourglass@yahoo.com>
Subject: "Just Don't Let Joel Find Out"

		       Just Don't Let Joel Find Out"

				    by

			     Timothy Stillman


 A fever is a fragile thing. It's sort of like friendship. You
want to keep it around. But you fear it's finding out all your
secrets as well. Not that I'm in the CIA or anything. Just that
when you're 13 or so, you want to fight something. You want to
show them something, even though there's no one to show and
you don't know what you're thinking about half the time. You
just want to die. Though of course you don't want to die. Cause
that would be dumb and you wouldn't show anybody anything
doing that, even if you knew what you wanted to show anyone
and you don't have anyone to show.

 So here I am, laid up in bed. Thinking of getting laid. I've
noticed that more and more. Those thoughts. Like ragged bats
flying around the belfry which has become my brain. The world is
at tilt at the moment. There are flying catfish in my dreams. My
dreams seem pregnant these last few days. What with my fever
and all. I wish I could just step out of my body till my fever's
done. I wish this wasn't my island and my family was not here. I
wish I was not sick when I'm at our magical cottage where the
magical surf laps almost to the side of it. I wish the house would
float into the ocean and everything would be carried away
including me. So maybe I could go to a land where I could show
somebody something and they would tell me what I showed.

 "Well, he sure showed us, didn't he?"

 "Can't deny that."

 A show me island. Where the show me people sit at my
feet and are amazed and the sky is blue and I'm not burning up
and sweating poison and have all this salve on my chest and up
my nose and don't say it where else it's up. I want to jack off. I
need to. Need it, man do I ever. But my body's a bow string that
manages to be taut and manages to be flaccid at the same time. I
wish somebody would drop by. That cute boy three sand dunes
over would be nice. I would like to show him things. I would
much rather he show me things. I wish I could just climb out of
this bed and run naked down to the surf and let the water eat at
me. Even a shark attack would be better than this.

 I'm in love. Blush and sigh and round the town. But I
don't know who I'm in love with. Joel down the beach three sand
dunes away I guess. I mean if I had to pick someone or
something. I only see him in the summer when we're on our
island. I don't think about him at all the rest of the year. But here,
when we're flying in (yep, dad is Mr. Hardy and I'm one of the
Hardy Boys and we are off to fun and adventure and mystery
every other week--NOT) I think, good deal, Joel's here. And Joel
is 14 and cute as a bug and he knows where the star fish are
beached and we go and look at them. There might even be a jelly
fish or two beached also. We stand on our long legs and look
longly down at them. While I try not to be moony and look at
Joel longingly. Longingly? I read books. So kill me. I can't help
it.

 Now that I'm over my sneezing fit--thank god for
Kimberly- Clark--but the wastebasket's getting awfully full--I
turn my heavy head to the window. There aren't sea gulls out
there now. But there are at times. I wish I could tell Joel I love
him. I wish I could be disgraced. I wish he would laugh at me. I
wish my arms would stop hurting. I wish I could stop saying I at
the beginning of every damned sentence. It would be nice to swim
with him in the ocean. Not that old scaredy kat mom would ever
let her precious little boy swim out there with all the ocean
creatures or anything. Maybe Joel and I could re-enact the
beginning of "The Blue Lagoon." Maybe Joel could bring his girl
friend to the beach right outside my window and do the side by
side calculus that I've been hearing about at school. One plus one
equals ADVENTURE INTRIGUE and most of all SEX. I used to
pray the sex thoughts would go away. So I could show God. That
I'm not going to be ruled by my gonads like every other boy in
the world. Because I'm--goooooddddddd.

 "Well, he really showed me, that kid down there, what's
his name?"

 Mostly I'd like to show Joel. I'd like to show him my
package. I have one, you know. Sorry. Stole that from Ellen De
Generes. I wish Stephen King would stop having these oh so
obvious boy characters in his books and come out of the closet. A
friend pointed that out to me once and we had a big laugh about
it. I wish I could show Stephen King I know where he steals his
material. Hint: start with Richard Matheson. I wish Joel would
come along. In his red hot bikini bathing suit that scoops down
just above his pubic hair, makes such a glorious maddening show
of his smooth chest and hard muscled abdomen and a belly button
you would die for, and rides just a whisper up to his balls,
cupping them and his outlined penis--that sometimes I swear
turns to a boner--that I try not to stare at-- mostly it lies tame on
the left side--so neatly, and that all but screams his lovely strong
gotta grab it ass to perfection, including the outline of his crack,
sorry, declivity, with the beginning Word of God that is the
bottom of his hips showing. I wonder if he has pubic hair. Subtle
way of finding out:

 "Say, Joel, pubic hair coming in okay? Mine is. Wanna
trade?"

 Not. He's sleek. If he was a porpoise he would be the
greatest looking porpoise in the universe. But he's not. He's a
boy. Which makes him the greatest looking boy in the universe.
So why don't I think of him when I'm off this island and back in
Islip doing my homework and watching summer die, Fall turn to
winter and winter turn to snow? I don't know. I'm superficial,
okay. But I don't think of boys at all when I'm back home. I do
the old one two with my hand and that's enough. I guess I save
the jangly stuff for when I'm close to HIM. And I don't mean
god. Or maybe I do.

 Speaking of jangly, will someone get that phone? It seems
to be ringing in my head. Makes these pretty red stripes in front
of my eyes when it rings. Maybe my bones are ringing. Maybe
I'm radioactive and the crab monster giants are right outside my
house ready to devour me, last survivor in the world of no longer
humans or something. Okay, I watch too many old horror movies
too. So sue me. Or screw me. Or take off your clothes and undo
me, Joel. Girls aren't everything, I could say to him, they don't
have that miraculous little handle that you can crank up and let
some of the love juice out. Okay, I read the occasional porno
novel too. So Ha your own self.

 It would be nice seeing him now. We've been here four
days. I've had this damned fever for two of them and I haven't
seen him once. Have my parents figured it out at long last and
sent him away? Don't get paranoid. It's the fever talking. His
flesh must taste beautiful. It must touch like velvet. He's slender
and wise and has gray eyes and he has hands that are always
painting invisible miracles in the air in front of me. He gets carried
away and has a brain that runs like a sonofagun. He knows where
the secrets of the ocean are and plans to excavate them some day
soon. His girl is Larie. She is summer too.

 Joel and his family stay on the island all the time. They
are, he says, "lifers" and get to the mainland hardly at all. He says
he ENVIES me getting away from this place. He says it's fun
here in winter when it snows. I can't picture it snowing here
where it's always summer. He says there is time for weenie roasts
(I won't make the joke) and cuddling round a bonfire with his girl
(me me me) and warming each other with their heavy coats and
their bodies. He never gets crude or anything but boy howdy love
a duck I wish he would. I just wish he would unload on me (I've
noticed this double entendre thing for the last year or so, teachers
and other kids haven't picked up on it yet, so I'm lucky there) but
man I wish we could make love.

 I wish we could strip and dive into the ocean and just feel
the water warm on surface, colder down below, just caress us and
kiss us and envelop us and our arms around each other and his
penis hard and bobbing in the foamy blue and our chests colliding
and our mouths stabbing at each other. Course then we would
have to breathe, and break the surface, like two porpoises of sleek
and noble and efficient and poetical design rushing up to the sun,
breaking out of the top of the world, volcano boys rushing to
meet forever. Be nice in other words.

 I guess I can jack off about five times a day. I mean in
summer when I have the time. Always loved summer. Always felt
there was something about it that I should be noticing, but I'm
not. Like I should be doing something. Be reading something or
thinking something I'm not thinking. It all seems important but
it's beyond me what is important or why. I'm a pretty good jack
off kind of guy. I can mimic making love, you know, the F thing,
when I'm doing it. Watching myself in the mirror as I'm humping
a fuzzy rug. Seems a good thing in summer. Not as good in fall or
winter. Don't know why though. Sun out there hot and buttery
and the beach so close by our house that is shingled and on stilts
underneath which the shadows and the mud kings reign. I'm
twisting the covers with my hands now. Wearing my stupidsucker
pjs. Body flushed. And if life is like this I'd like to flush the thing
away for good and all. But then where would I be. Like I say, a
good cum is a noble animal. Well I said it somewhere or other. I
just enjoy it so much. I wish Joel and I could do it. I wonder if he
gets that same sad sweet sob in the center of his abdomen and
chest that I do when I cum. And I do cum. I want that clearly
noted and for the record.

 I wish I hadn't read all my comic books on the plane. I'm
a fast reader. I'm also a fast jack off artist. I'm also quick with the
eyes so I could take fleeting indelible snap shots of Joel when he's
not looking at me or noticing, and that's almost never anyway.
But I love his profile against the sun. Like he's a Mayan god or
something on a great yellow sunny beaten gold coin, all noble and
bare and with his arm extended to the ocean as though he knows
the secrets of himself and it resides in the deeps. And all my life I
will be exploring the deeps to find him, to find the island boy who
never notices how beautiful he is. How rapturous he is. His
golden hair to his shoulders. His body like a warm parfait you can
buy in summer and it cools you off in all sorts of satisfying ways.
I wish I could buy Joel in summer. I wish he could be my slave. I
wish I could tell him things and show and tell him things. I wish I
would just break out into hives and the bees could come and live
inside me and make honey all day that I could give to my true
love.

 Hey, come on, I'm sick as a dog. I'm doing the best I can
here. Give me a break. I never have broken a leg or an arm. I
don't know a boy back home, yes, I know, I don't really know
any boys, who hasn't broken an arm or a leg at one time or
another. What is wrong with me? Am I not a boy as well? Do I
not have a fever? Do I not need to go to the bathroom and
piss?--yes, piss, not pee pee, we're grown ups at heart here after
all--but I ache and throb and almost pass out--note I did not say
faint--George W. faints--real men pass out--and I'd rather let my
kidneys take the road trip test and see how long they can manage
to hold it in.

 Horrible thought--Joel's not on the island anymore. He's a
male go go dancer at the Chandelese Bar (who knows?, made it
up) and he's dressed only in feathers under red and blue and
green hot spot lights in all that gray smoky overheated sweaty air
and he's bucking and grinding and undulating and caught up in his
own sexiness and he's imitating the old one two one two and he's
almost exposed with all the other go go boys with who he is
simulating sex (or the real thing, hurts to know it is with someone
else not me but I figure I better get used to that hurt, live with it,
hello heartache, sit right down, how's it goin'?) and the music is
congas or something and a subwoofer is throbbing along with
Joel's now naked featherless body, exposed exposed for
everyone--save me--to see, and his pubic hair is black, forms a
neat little curvy of thrush--why you Miss Clairol liar you-- and
there is the prize of the gods--his hard on he's pushing back and
forth to the crowd, his hands on it loving it and the balls beneath
which are nothing to sneeze at--which of course, at the thought,
makes me sneeze-- with everything going crazy. and the other
boys are up against him and pressing their dicks against his legs
and his belly and he's doing the same to them. Group grope.
Group sex. Sigh.

 As they all start jacking off and their tongues are out of
their mouths licking their own and others' lips and they are
leaning on each other and rubbing each other and their legs get all
entangled and they are feeling up each others' thighs and legs and
butts and one boy is kneeling down to suck the dick of Joel and it
all goes on to the beat of  Barry Manilow signing "Copacabana"
(okay a little joke to lighten the load--well, there he goes again,
Ronnie Wilson Reagan--I know a lot about Presidents too--ha ha)
and they're getting it on. Some are on the floor and they are
writhing like snakes and they are pressing their mouths
everywhere and there is on that grimy bar floor all this stuff going
on and it's somewhat grody if you want to know the truth but hey
sometimes grody works. Anyway. Enough of that. Can't get a
boner if I tried. And for me, that's really saying something.

 I wonder if I've got the mumps. I wonder if I will die
before the summer's out. I wish the scene outside my window
wasn't so beautiful. I wish the sun was not so hot and the day so
gorgeous. I wish my mom and dad didn't love me as much as they
do. I wish they wouldn't buy me every damn thing I ask for, and I
ask for a lot, and think that shows me how much they love me. I
wish they didn't have fights more and more all the time with each
other. They wait till I'm in bed asleep, though I'm not asleep at
all. They throw invectives at each other like javelins. They get to
screaming sometimes, then they remember me, and their voices
are turned lower. I think Dad's seeing someone on the side. I
think that's why Mom cries all the time. Though she pretends she
doesn't and that she's feeling good. But those dark shadows and
bags under her eyes aren't Samsonite luggage that she's packing
to go away on a trip. Though maybe she's going on a trip after
all. I wonder who I will live with. I wonder if I get to have a say
in it. I wish Joel was here. I couldn't talk it over with him. I just
wish he was here. I wish I didn't have the epizoodics or whatever
it is I have. I wish the sunshine wasn't as thick and bright and hot.
I wish I was anybody else but me.

 I wish Joel and Larie would drop by. Sit on the sides of
my bed. Joke with me. Make me feel like a big shot. Or a little
shot. I wish I had a shot glass and in this shot glass I could put
Scotch or whiskey though I have no idea what either tastes like. I
wish I could get drunk or could get high. Toby's the main drug
connection at school. He sells the stuff pretty cheap. You know
who are his biggest buyers? The honor roll students. The goody
goods. The heads of all the clubs are the biggest heads in school.
Toby joke: "See all those bumper stickers that read  'my child is
an honor student at fill in the blank school' ? I want to have a
bumper sticker on my dad's car that reads 'my child is your honor
student's drug connection at the fill in the blank school. And he's
got a lot more money than your kid'll ever have.'  Law of supply
and demand, my friend. Ha."

 I'd like to get really wasted. Let my secrets spill. Just get
wasted with Joel and Larie and maybe they could make love on
the beach, get all sandy and everything and I could just sit there
beside them like I'm a boy god or something. It would be sad and
nice and funny and fun and sweet and maybe we could make it
stay night and warm and the surf washing up friendly like and
musical and chimes in the soft night currents of air and they could
hold each other after it's over and I could hold the both of them.
And it might not even be sexy for me. It would just be close to
me. And I could be a part of something. Okay, book title stealing
here, a member of the wedding. I'm tired of being Frankie, and
not a member of anything. I want my own green and crazy
summer. And I want it to be this one. Hey, Stephen King's never
this honest about his thefts.

 Where every day is like a paintbox turned over and
making the greenest grass and the bluest water and sky and
summer itself having a color, many colors, that are the variegated
colors of the things of summer but with colors of its own that are
separate and apart from the other shades and hues and blendings.
A summer color that cleaves your heart and makes you feel
you're at the center of something more than running barefoot on
the beach or darting around man o wars washed up and waiting
for the kill before they too die, or lying in the tall wild grass
watching the heavy bright light big white clouds drift on their way
to no where in particular in the sky high way. A color that means
parents don't hate each other and think you're so dumb that you
haven't figured this out by now, how they really do hate each
other and how they would like to just split and not have a
memory of each other again. But hello me. The bug in the carpet.
The lug in the center of the room. The son they have to do
something with. Who is causing them all by himself to go through
hell. What an ingrate. What a loser. What a bed jacking off no
account he is. He should go down to the ocean and wade out into
it and meet Tadzio and they could both look for heaven together
and he should go deep into the ocean and get on the down
elevator which makes you go up at the same time, so they say,
senseless stupid adult things they pretend make sense. Horrible
thought--what if these insane things really do make sense to
adults? God what a world to grow up in. Check your brain at the
door.

 Joel's parents could adopt me. I could threaten to tell him
about his feather dance at the bar. Course they might be all right
with that. But not to his having hot group sex to the tunes of
Barry Manilow records for god's sake; that would be the Ace in
the Hole; no parent could endure the shame of that. I could say,
Joel--god I'm hot--no not that kind, fever hot--but of course he
really doesn't dance with feathers, though I'd pay to see it, how's
about yourself?, and you can't use a stupid day dream as leverage
cause I'm sick and that's so lame I should throw myself out of
your apartment window in Islip; we're on the sixty third floor,
drop by sometime and watch me drop out).

 I just wish he would come by and Larie is a nice girl. She
always treats me well. I wish Joel and I could be the Hardy boys,
god, to be Joel's brother and live with him, that would be better
than being married to him, playing pin the tail on the donkey,
Skittles, Go Fish or Monopoly, (like with my parents who still
think I'm three) and we could sleep in the same room and I could
jack off real silently and he'd never know, as I look at his profile
sleeping in the darkness with the city glow coming in the window
just making these most intriguing shadows on him and that'd be
pretty cool and one night while I'm doing it, not looking at him, I
would feel the mattress with an extra weight on it and I could
turn over--real scared like, but it's my dream so I'm not
scared--and Joel could have his left knee on my bed and he could
be leaning over and would say, "let me help with that." Yeah. I'd
have a better shot at that with Barry Manilow and don't you dare,
Barry!!!!!! Christ, what a pissy little first name that is. I pity
anyone named that, fool.

 Mom and Dad are at the beach now. I think I can hear the
house breathing. Don't laugh. Houses do breathe. Listen to them
sometime. This is a great time to jack off. But my little willie's
left the building and I feel like hell and the fever is taking over and
burning me up and I will burn to a cinder any second now,
internal conflagration of the soul of a boy trying to get to the
ocean so he can go swimming with Joel and Larie who is sexy
too, in a different way from Joel, and already has nubbins on her
chest which I would not mind seeing and to tell you the truth
sucking on, sorry, I mean suckle, just a little, god what a sicko I
am, and we would just swim out there forever and find our own
little island where there is no tension to cloud the beauty, no
sadness and anger and fights to scrawl up the perfect blue sky
days of us and we wouldn't let adults push us around anymore or
try to pretend they are young again or any of that crap. Using us
like we are their own personal toys or something. Though I don't
know, Joel's parents and Larie's seem nice when I'm around
them, joking and friendly and all, but you can't tell anything by
that because so do my parents when other people are around.

 I don't know. I just have to get up to go to the bathroom,
fever land locks a person so, or piss the bed and my stupidsucker
pjs. But I can't work up the energy to move. I feel like dead
weight. Like I'm caught inside a dead beached whale and no one
will let me out. I'm having trouble breathing and it feels like there
is an anvil on my chest. My arms and legs feel like cotton. I'm
lost and scared. And that's been happening for a while, fever or
not. So I piss the bed. I never have been a bedwetter, not once in
my life. I've never had a wet dream either. Talk about repressed.
They should invent a new word, cause repressed ain't the half of
it. It feels silly pissing in bed. Like I'm that naked little boy statue
pissing in the fountain in wherever it is. I feel dumb and stupid
and it feels good too. Like I'm pissing all this warm wet in my
pjs, on the sheets, on the covers, on myself, and I bet if you put a
mirror in front of my face, I would see I have a shit eating grin.
Like the Mona Lisa, the big deal of which I've never understood.
Whose expression always looked to me like she had just farted
and hoped no one noticed. Or now, I think, who is pissing herself
and wants someone to notice.

 Like Mom and Dad, when they come home. And feel
sorry for me because I never would do this unless something was
really bad wrong with me. And they'll rush me to the little island
hospital and they won't be mad at each other and I will pull
through and pull them together to me and they will see that I'm
their salvation and not their albatross. Oh god, this feels yucky. I
can't stand this. I am the biggest dork in the universe. I have to
haul myself to the bathroom and clean up. Course I won't be able
to do anything in time about the sheets and the mattress. God, I
pissed a geyser. It must be floating the mattress down deep too. It
won't bring them together. This is not a "Lassie" movie ending.
They'll yell at me. Mom will say she didn't come here this
summer to be a maid to me and how embarrassing and she should
put this stuff outside so everyone could see what a jerk I am. She
would show Joel and Larie. She gets to show them. Not me.

 "Well, Larie, guess she showed us."

 "Yep, Joel, guess she did."

 "What a drip."

 "I heartily concur."

 "And to think we were going to do it with him tonight."

 "Ra-ther."

		I hate life. I gotta tell you, I really do.


				  the end