COMFORT Chapter Five "Tears and Studly Comfort"

Chapter Five

“Tears and Studly Comfort” July 6, 2010

East Village, N.Y.

 

On March 14, 2010 Steve worked on a client named Brad Johnson. Johnson was in his

mid 40’s with short brown hair and a beard. He was about 6’ tall and 180 lbs. He

made an appointment for 11:30 P.M. that evening. During the massage, while he was

prone, Steve oberved he had hemorrhoids and fecal matter around his anus.

There was also a horrid stench stench emanating from him. At the end of 60 minutes, Steve said, “You can take your time, here’s some alcohol if you’d like to remove any excess oil.”

Johnson lifted his head off the massage pillow and stared at Steve.

“I want you to fuck me,” he said.

“I’m sorry but your time is up” Steve said and left the room.

Moments later, said client emerged from the massage room, fully clothed.There was a

word or two exchanged and in heartbeat, he inched toward the door and ran out without

paying. Steve called his number and Johnson answered in a shrill, bad imitation of a

woman’s voice. “New York City Police Department.” Then he hung up. Steve called him back leaving several messages in his voice mail; first asking nicely, then trying to reason with him. “What you did wasn’t right. I gave you a great, full-body one hour massage.” Johnson refused to answer, then texted a few vitrolic messages about how Steve’s ass sagged and that he had to prepare for the experience by drinking two bottles of wine! Senseless.

It took a few months to process all the anger. It was especially disconcerting because

Steve thought he saw the massage thief a number of times around his ‘hood

the following months. It was only toward the end of the year that he could recall the

experience without being blindsided with rage. The sheer audacity of the man. “It comes

with the territory” his Foot Slave’s words echoed in his ears.

 

On July 6, 2010, Steve returned home from his five-day retreat at The Garrison

Institute. Through the experience, he gleaned that he was more of a California Buddhist than a

dedicated acolyte of the Yongey Mingyur school of Buddhism. They seemed lost in their dogma;

so and so number of bows a year, so and so number of required meditation per day along with the mandatory teacher and the endless levels of classes. Being a Buddhist involved keeping obsessive score cards and lots of money. It was expensive to be enlightened. For him, simply writing was both a meditation, and an affordable way to express and document his style of creativity and life.

            To mark the occasion of his retreat experience, he decided to buy mala beads. He needed something physical he could carry with him to remind him of his initiation into the Vajrayana ceremony. He wasn’t entirely sure of its exact meaning, but the young guru had blessed him, along with hundreds of others on their final day of the retreat in a ritual ceremony. This was a culmination of the five days of lectures and innumerable hours of seated meditation. The ceremony involved lots of incense and Buddhist chanting, which sounded like frogs burping. It was nothing like the lofty, sensual and melodic music of Palestrina. He was given the Zen magic blessing as he bowed his head standing in front of the young holy man, who was not at that moment clearing his throat or coughing. Five days.

On the Metro North train home, he’d been telling some strangers about it.

“How was it? How do you feel?”

“I feel empty and a lot less angy, in a good way.” He didn’t mention his Mother dying, their complicated relationship or the hot-men-in-Speedos-on-the-Hudson-River fantasy. Part of the guidelines that Yongey had mentioned that first day, included no alcohol and no sex with other retreat participants, Steve had no problem with those rules at all. Hard core daily meditation along with being out of the city naturally diminished his sex drive.

The day after he returned home, Steve walked into the shop called “Beads of Paradise.”

The color orange was everywhere with large, glass cases full of strands  of glistening

beads, and necklaces There were glass counters full of gems, stones, and beads of every kind. On

the walls masks, robes; and countless Buddhas of every conceivable style, material, color, and size reigned. The place was a California Buddhist’s wet dream. But he remembered his

discipline, he wasn’t here to shop. He remembered too when the store was a tiny hole in the wall

on St. Mark’s Place, its window displaying 3 or 4 large-beaded necklaces starkly pinned to a

two by four foot material of plain, black velvet. Now the store was a corporation, almost a mall by itself, albeit a pseudo religious one with Buddhas and beads being served up as the main dish for any curious shopper or spiritually-materialist consumer. He walked to the back of the store, he noticed a tall handsome man with long hair involved in what seemed a very important discussion with a pretty woman. It seemed like a pickup. He turned his head and caught the eye of a bald man behind the counter, a few years his junior.

 

Smiling, the man said, “Can I help you?” Steve suspected he was gay, he didn’t know

exactly why. Perhaps because his head was shaved, and he wore a mischievous half-smile.

“Yes. I need some mala beads. I just finished a retreat and, well I want something

not too expensive, but the real deal. I want to mark the occasion.” The man walked with Steve

across the room to a large glass case. He slowly opened it and first took one strand of beads off

the hook, placing it in Steve’s hands, then several others. There was an easy elegance to the

way the beads felt in his hand, as if they were massaging him, as if they belonged there.

“These are nice, they’re pure sandalwood” said the clerk. Steve lifted several of the

strands to his nose. The subtle aroma of sandalwood rose from them as if from the petals of a

flower. The scent whispered seduction, without being gaudy. It didn’t force or suffocate. It was

pure sensual spirit. Steve’s cell phone rang. He bent his head carefully to the side and with his

free hand put the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Steve, it’s Mom. I got the test results back. They found nodes on my liver and

pancreas.” She sounded almost happy, as if she’d run a race and won.

“Pancreas” said Steve, wow, that’s like lightning,” he said. He knew from his four years

at Calvary that pancreatic cancer was one of the fastest and most savage of all the cancers with

the survivor rate being among the lowest. Then he cried. Some tears landing on the gorgeous

strands of sandalwood beads he was holding in his other hand. This seemed right, as if he were

blessing the beads with these tears of innocence and sorrow. He’d forgotten what it was like to

feel this vulnerable. He thought he was incapable of this feeling. But here it was and here he

was, caving in. Again it occurred to him that she sounded almost happy. And she was dying.

“Steve I need you to be strong for me now.”

There was a moment. He breathed in. He stopped the tears. “OK Mom, Ok. I’m in a store

right now. Let me call you back in like ten minutes, OK?”

“OK son.” They hung up. Suddenly he felt very close to her. Her ending had begun.

 

He approached the counter and the salesman with the strand he’d chosen. It was one with

the hundred and eight beads of heavenly subtle sandalwood now blessed by his tears. He’d marked the chosen strand, and made it his own.

“That was my Mom, she’s got pancreatic cancer,” he said to the man. The man gave him

a strange kind of smile, looked down, and murmured a hushed “I’m sorry.” They completed the

transaction. Steve wanted something from the man. “Oh you’ll be OK” or “That’s awful.” Maybe something gay and dramatic, funny or ironic even. Steve dawned his new Mala beads. He took a beat, touching the beads to his nose and inhaled. Sweet.

He biked west on Seventeenth Street. He wanted to get to the Hudson River. He needed to be near water. It was hot and sticky. He began to cry as he reached Fifth Avenue, and as he picked up speed, the warm wind blew his streaming tears down his cheeks and chin. He couldn’t stop them. Her news unlocked something inside; emotions, images and feelings were rushing out as if through a broken damn. His heart was breaking open, and the tears felt good in the sticky, city heat. He was embarrassed but he felt alive. It was good to have his heart showing in his eyes, to feel his tough urban armor cracking as he rode west on the hot grey and black, ugly, stinking streets. She was the closest person to him in his life and now, she was dying. Her days were suddenly numbered, her time here, suddenly precious, because now it was limited. All the things that should have been said were now being condensed into one big moment in an unimaginable future, her last breath. Soon, she would cease being. That person, Pauline, his Mother, the one that gave him life, would stop being, and become a memory. His whole body began to rock and heave. He wept more as he paused at a stoplight on Eighth Avenue and Seventeenth Street just blocks from the Hudson River.

             He got to the West Side Highway and the end of Chelsea piers. He dismounted and sat on a large rock, dusty, red gravel underneath his sandals. A straggly tree above provided no relief from the wet, hot sun. A dark man drifted past overtly staring at him. His mean, piercing eyes invited a cruise, or a snatched wallet. Steve ignored him, waited a few moments, and called her again. After a brief exchange, his tears came again. "Steve" she pleaded, "this is a special test. I need you to be strong for me."

            “I will be Mom, I will,” said Steve. “I love you.”

            “I love you too son.”

            Steve stared at the Hudson River. It was always so weird to see it up close in the summer; and to feel imprisoned in such ungodly heat and humidity but unable to just jump into the cooling waters of the river, the way kids did years ago. That’s what New York was though. You see, you experience, but you hold back, you disengage and save your reaction until later when it’s OK to feel and be with someone who’s safe. Meanwhile the detachment, the indifference of people on the streets; that suave, sickly sophistication was a constant sign that you belonged, you had learned how to turn off your feelings and be cool and sophisticated. You wore your blasé mask, fitting into the anonymous indifferent crowd, for that was part of the essence of living the NYC lifestyle.

Grey, hot water out there, dusty grey gravel underneath his feet; a stranger passing by and looking like he either wanted to fuck or fight, and his Mother dying. Tears came again, hot like the hot air on his body. It would be so awfully fucking hot in Tucson now. Fuck! Why is this happening? It’s so damned inconvenient. Why couldn’t she have chosen some other, any other time of the year to get sick? Not in the summer, when it was 100 plus degrees for God’s sake. This is just like her. God I don’t want to go, he thought. And for a few moments, he felt rage at her for the sexing experience; he thought about the heat out west and he actually saw himself stopping everything right now. I won’t go. The thought shot through his head. She doesn’t deserve me. Look how she’s fucked with my head. Look how hot it will be. I can work on my social work application and go to Fordham, even part-time. I can get out of this fucking sex massage business; I can make myself over. Change can happen. I’ve been wanting it for more than 20 years! Yes, run away from the awful heat of Tucson in July, run away from the memories of her cunt and from dying and cancer and pain and the inevitable end of life that she was introducing to him now. Here was the temptation; the urge to escape, run, flee and deny.

            But no, here was the teaching. She was teaching him now about death, the same as she’d taught him about sex. And he realized he couldn’t and wouldn’t run away. He would face the heat. He was up for meeting the challenge. Yes, he would meet this horror head on that she was serving up to him now, because that is also what he’d learned from his fucked up father. They both taught him to be strong. And they both taught him to care, to love in a ferocious way, even though it seemed a strange kind of love. A Mother’s love was the strongest in the world and also the most twisted. He had to care. He had to face the music. And so, he would.

            After the piers, he biked home to the East Village. His Long Island boyfriend Joey came for a visit. Joey was black Irish, a black belt in karate and built like an athletic porn star. He was totally hairless and lusty as a panther in heat. He had the handsome, square face of a slightly imperfect movie star, action hero and a nine inch cut cock worthy of the worship of any sacred whore. The NSA sex with him was always fabulous and free. Steve was always begging to take Joey's picture, but Joey refused.  He was also hesitant or vague about the exact whereabouts of his house, forget about being seen in public together. He did though, love having Steve take pictures of his ass hole and his cock, anything so long as it didn’t show his face. After more than two years of their fuck-buddy hood, Joey had recently, nervously, revealed where he lived. Steve didn’t remember it now. So, so many of his clients that paid to get their rocks off were on the DL. They called the session a massage even though it was clearly much more. And when they revealed their paranoia about being found out, they came off like pussified pansies.

The fucking was electric, detached, user-friendly and unemotional. Words seemed redundant. As soon as Joey arrived, they got down to business. But it wasn’t business, it was a kind of free love or a sport fuck for both. Steve loved worshipping Joey’s stellar eight-inch cut cock. It had a power of its own and was always hard. Steve fucked Joey while Joey sat and rode him. “Fuck you bitch! I’m fucking your fucking hole you cunt” Steve said, slapping the hunk’s butt. Joey was passive but completely involved, he just took it. When he shot his load, Steve heard that good, old, familiar “Oh my God!” from Joey while Steve came with a kind of Indian war-hoop-yell-scream. A fun workout time was had by all.

            After the sex, Joey put his work clothes back on and sat at the kitchen table. Steve sat across from him in his Speedo-like thong. He knew these “after moments” well, sitting at the kitchen table together. It was the closest thing they would ever come to intimacy.

“My Mom has cancer, I just found out”.

“Wow, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of weird too, because there was abuse. I had memories before, but with this happening now, things are coming back stronger and clearer. I can’t seem to stop it. I thought I’d forgiven her and let it go.”

“If that was my Mom, I would have crossed her off my list a long time ago” said Joey.

“I can't do that,” said Steve.

            Joey looked away, and then looked back. “I never told you. I had a baby sister. Her name was Cindy. She was five when she was killed by a couple of fucking doctors.”

“What? Jesus! I’m sorry man. What happened?”

“Yeah, she had to have her tonsils out and she was admitted to a hospital on Long Island; it was supposed to be a routine operation. But the doctor and the anesthesiologist fucked up and she died. And it was just her tonsils.” Steve was watching Joey.

“I was eighteen then. It changed everything; I changed after that, I shut down.”

“I’m sorry man,” Steve said. He would have touched Joey’s hand, but it didn’t seem right to do that. This was a side of Joey he never knew, and a side that revealed more of the man.

            “My Mom is real powerful, she doesn’t let things go. She went on a letter-writing campaign after it happened; she’d vowed that those responsible would pay. Every day she left hand written letters in the mailboxes of the doctor and the anesthesiologist. A month later, the doctor killed himself.”

            “Jesus.”

            “Yeah, about a week later the other one-the anesthesiologist-threw himself off a roof.”

Steve thought of power, of karma--a mother’s revenge. They said goodbye then. Joey’s visits never lasted more than an hour.

            Over the next few days, Steve talked to his Mother almost every other night over the phone, usually around 10 P.M. or later. “Should I fly out now?” he kept asking. "No wait," his Mother said,“There are more tests.” So he held off, waiting until after the Cat Scan which would reveal more about her condition. One night their conversation went beyond tests and the events of the day. His Mother’s voice, as usual was slightly slurred from the Vicodin.

"I don’t know. I don't feel God. I just don't feel spiritual. I keep asking myself what did I do to deserve this?”

“Mom” Steve said, “That was the first thing that came out of my mouth to the young doctor at Beth Israel Emergency Room in 2009 when I found out I was having a heart attack. Why? Why is this happening to me? The doctor just looked at me. He touched me and said “Sometimes we just have to accept.”  

“I don’t know,” said his Mother, sounding very far away.

 “Mom, I realized on that retreat that the more I let go of my beliefs and expectations in everything; that I started to see that this moment now is all we have. Right now, that’s it. Everything else is a distraction from being in the moment, here and now. There’s no God. No heaven, no hell, there’s just now.” Steve heard only silence on the other end of the line. But he noticed something; that in this simple exchange they were more in the moment than they’d ever been before. She didn’t feel it necessary to lecture, warn, fix, or offer opinions to him about anything and he wasn’t trying to fix or change her. They were just sharing and listening. Probably for the first time in his life, he was talking to his Mother as a person. He remembered something he’d heard in a lecture at Calvary on end-of-life care. How do you support the absence of faith in someone who's dying? You just be with them, in the room, and listen to them. Maybe you sing to them, or cry with them. But most of all, you just listen and be. You become their witness. Then you leave the room. Toward the end of her call, he couldn’t help it and cried again. Again she reminded him to be strong.

“I know Mom, I know. I love you Mom.”

“I love you too son.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight now.”