Brett

I was thinking about Brett. Brett is one of two skaters I had over my apartment not too long ago. I had seen their add on craigslist - young guys, Brett is 18. There add was quite the same as that ratty kid you see on the street corner at 3AM trying to get picked up, but not quite sure how to approach a john. Something I'm sad to say I know something about, but not exactly from that angle - meaning I've neither been in that exact situation, though one quite close. Actually quite a few situations close and perhaps worse.

The point is their stipulation "Generous guys BIG +" was kind of a tip off, so I sent them a message. Now it should be said that I go to craigslist to look at the pictures - most of which are revolting, and to thank god that I have managed to avoid that scene - though again one would say I've been in worse scenes than that, which I suppose is true.

So I messaged Brett. Emailed him, sent him my phone number and said I was willing to be generous - in the neighborhood of $100.

Now I will also fully admit that such a deal tempted me extremely, I'm not claiming utterly honorable intentions, but before they arrived the next day I had come to the idea that I would give them the $100 and send them on their way.

They arrived, Brett was alright looking, my type more or less. His friend, well you know when you were a little kid and you saw an awesome toy on TV and just had to have it - got it and found it to be poorly made, cheap, ugly, and not worth much... well ya... harsh but true.

Once in my apartment they were both nervous. I too was shaking a bit, but for different reasons. I saw before me two youths who were walking a very fine line which once crossed can be quite destructive to one's soul.

I had The Departed on the TV, which is a bit of a reminder of home for me, Boston being oh so close to my home, and also being the home of my best friend.

They took up position on the couch and I say across from them. I quite liked Brett, I'll admit that, and I was tempted - I knew that I could do just about anything right then and it would be mine to do. Thats a powerful feeling, one that I at a time enjoyed - back when I was cold hearted - back when I was dead to the world around me, a long time ago it seems.

We talked, as we talked it came to light - not surprisingly - that they'd never done anything like this before. That they were just trying to get back to California, and they were out of money. Now these kids had been around, but not around the block. The 80s term was to "have seen the elephant" they hadn't seen the elephant. I've seen the elephant. 

As we spoke I knew I didn't want to happen to them so many of the things that could. They'd been careful - set up a separate email account, used a pre-paid cell. But they were still sitting in my apartment, alone in a strangers apartment, someone they met off craigslist, and they were there for money, which meant that I had an upper hand. 

If you don't know better, this kid Brett could pull down $600 for less than he thought he was going to get $100 for. And he didn't know better? How could he? He's innocent, and he needs the money. That makes things much worse, for him. His companion looked more the type who will end up paying for it in a few years himself, not worth a nickel to anybody. I do sound harsh, but I know.

So we talked. I explained without any detail that I'd been around. It pained me to see these youths sitting there trying to look calm. It pained me more to see that Brett had a solid resemblance to a boy I once knew who fell over the edge. A friend if you will. 

I asked them how much they needed to get home. I was given the number $600 in a somewhat dejected way. My generous $100 would have them seeing at least a few more guys, and I am quite sure that they'd have gotten themselves fucked up. It's not hard to hurt a kid. It's really quite easy. 18 makes you legally an adult. I don't give a shit, these were kids. 

I asked if they got the $600 if they would be posting any more craigslist adds. No. No more stranger's apartments? No. Good. I told them to stay - pointed when I did it - and went back and got the $600. I can't afford it, and I should be kicking myself. I should be. 

But I'm not. 

The things I have seen. The things I have done, been asked to do, been forced to do, that I have done because at some point I was just so numb... I wouldn't wish it upon anyone. I can say with utter truth, truth that you can't share unless you've had a loaded gun at your head, that I would die for my friends. I don't think I'd die for Brett, but $600 is a small price to pay at the chance of saving an kid's innocence. You can give things away, innocence, but having it taken from you...

The chance that they could have gone next to some stranger's apartment and gotten spooked, said No, and been pushed into something anyways, very likely. 

So I put an end to it. We agreed to meet again, and I emailed Brett that night and said No, because to be frank I don't trust myself to do the right thing twice.

Their being here effected me considerably. Brought back a lot of stuff I have neatly tucked away, on top of the stuff I can't tuck away no matter how hard I try. 

I knew they were safe with me because I have been unable to be with a guy in any regards in 10 years. I'm still bisexual, for sure, but there is so much pain. Too much pain. 

As to women. It's slightly different, but not really. I can be with a woman if I'm paid for it. If its business then I can do it. There's no pleasure in it, it's like flipping burgers at Friendly's. But I can do it, and do from time to time, did a lot back home, because the money was excellent and I tend to be too sick to hold a job. 

But no relationships. No touch, with anybody if there's a chance that it could be more. It has taken me the last 5 years to be able to shake hands with people without my entire body wanting to curl up into a ball. It took my father's death to be able to hug my family and the occasional friend again. 

When you want more than anything to not grow old alone, to be able to cuddle, or just sit close to someone, and yet you are terrified beyond words at the very idea of it. 

When the few people who know everything look at me its in wonder that I'm still alive, that I still function (more or less) and I have a hard time accepting that, accepting the "you're so strong" and all that. Because most nights when I lay awake like I am right now in fear of closing my eyes, I just wish it was over. 

That's why $600 is nothing. To prevent ANY of this, the chance to, is priceless.

I felt bad, Cam and Zero - two of my closer friends down here asked "Who were they" and I told them friends of friends I used to work with. It's not really a lie, because it's true.

There is a deception there, I will tell anyone I'm not gay. Because I'm not. No one here knows me well enough to know the correct question is "Are you straight". 

I had to be careful when I first moved here, careful about who knew what, and nobody knows that I know of, unless they read here. I haven't had to say to a friend "I'm Bi" in 7 years, I'm a bit out of practice and it terrifies me again that I might have to repeat the process at some point with those I care about down here.

As Promised, T100 pictures

My Dad's last bike, now mine. The top box and rear rack are my additions. After he died (back in July 07) I also changed the tank badges, and added 1" risers to the handlebars which he had wanted to do. This is now my soul (pun intended) set of wheels here in Phoenix (not including the Enfield which won't even be registered). This will be how I get to school, doctor's, groceries, and any trips I decide to take. I do believe I will be riding this bike for some time. God what a bike!

Triumph T100 and Mayo Clinic

So the T100 arrived this very morning. It's filthy and will need cleaned. Just as the truck that deposited my father's bike before me was pulling away the Fed-Ex truck with the key and title arrived to give me the greatest benefits of this glorious machine.

I will upload pictures later. I went back out and installed the rear rack and was saddened to discover the Corbin seat will not fit with it in place. As luck would have it the stock seat I had ordered arrived yesterday and I found it waiting for me in the office. That too was a quick install, and now I have the best of both worlds.

In not a long I will down my Belstaff trousers and my Barbour International jacket and make the long ride out to the Mayo Clinic for my blood work. I will bring with me a can of Pepsi - for after - and my Volume I of the Patrick O'Brian series. 

Make no mistake I have read all 20 books at least ten times apiece, but I decided to do so again in order. I began Volume I in December '08, and have since finished "Master and Commander" "Post Captain" "H.M.S. Surprise" and I am now working my way through "The Mauritius Command" which is also quite good though not one of my favorites. I am on page 1357, and the pages are thin as a bibles. What is most delightful is knowing that I have four more volumes of the series. All the same noble size as the first. It makes my heart glow - for reading about Aubrey and Marturin - it is like reading about old friends and old memories.

But now I must beg to be excused, I have to make my way to the hospital.

Before I go though, I will add a thought, an epiphany if I might say so myself. While I will copy and share posts between this blog and the old Xanga, the xanga is read by Brent - a somewhat nozy friend who likes to criticize my personal life and has even spied on it, and my Mother who all though all for my personal life being free and open - I would rather her not have an in depth look at it. 

So this blog will allow me to talk about boys and such without concern to the reader, as the stranger is as welcome to my personal thoughts as I welcome my mind. But friends and family members are outsiders to these things and must remain so.

Ok, off to the hospital.

Triumph Today!!!!

Sitting/Laying here watching The Blues Brothers, stretched out on the horrid couch. Granted I've never been high fashion, but this couch looks like it's going to crawl across the floor and attack someone - its like the wallpaper they used in the 60s and 70s. Has something to do with living in a former Hotel I think.

Here's the bike that's showing up today:

The upper picture is the seat used for touring (and dates), the lower seat is the one used for around town and grocery shopping. I can't wait - as you can clearly tell.

As I was scouting around my photobucket account I came upon a couple of long lost pictures.

This one I used to use on my very first Blog as my profile picture, that was 6 years ago. That's my kinda kid. Reminds me of me when I was that age.

Now this one is a bit more special:

That's Paul, Stevie, Kyle, and I back in 2005. Paul and Kyle were graduating that year, Stevie graduated in '03, I graduated in '02. The picture was taken in the tunnel under the main hall of Saint John's - leading to the bomb shelter - where we found cold war rations dated 1963 in perfect condition. What a crew! That used to be one of my favorite pictures. 

Only have to kill about 4 more hours before I can start expecting the bike and keys.

I also have to call the Mayo Clinic - seems today's blood work is scheduled for 9AM which I can't do. I had mixed up the appointments, the 17th is at 4pm. Damnit! So I have to move this one forward until 3:30 at the VERY earliest. I'll call them in 2 hours, that would peg me at 8AM which should be good enough.

Cory just left his apartment - lives next door - rather good looking 18 year old from Nebraska, he's in the morning classes which run 6AM - Noon. Barrett who also lives in that apartment, another hot 18 year old from Nebraska goes Noon to 6PM, and I go (when not on med leave) from 6PM till Midnight. 

My brother overnighted the key, so that will be here tomorrow at 10AM, and the bike will be here between 10-2, so I will finally have wheels again!!!! And Dad's bike, oh man, to have Dad's bike again. I can't begin to tell you what that means to me. 

Listening to Elliot Smith and contemplating food. I'm still living out of the gas station food wise which is BAD, but the grocery store is a haul from here on foot. 

I have to clean the old apartment up soon, starting to get hectic in here. Utter Clutter.

Cam came by earlier, checked his mail and such and has gone back to his apartment to tattoo himself.

Trying to slowly get back involved with www.gayteenforum.org which I was with from the start. It branched off from www.gayteenforum.net which was a home for a lot of us till the creator killed himself then things got a little crazy. I mostly post on GTFN because I have been doing so since mid 2005. But many of my friends from that site moved to GTFO so it's been hard to do the trade.

It's like blogs, I tend to be a one forum guy. Either this one or Xanga will probably fade from existence at some point. I wish I had that problem with bikes, but no.... 

In the last 5 years I've owned (just off top of my head)

2005 Ducati 620 Multistrada

1978 Yamaha XS 750 Special

1973 Triumph 750 Bonnie

2002 Royal Enfield Bullet

2004 Moto Guzzi 750 Breva

1976 Yamaha XS500C

1968 Honda Dream

1967 Norton 750 Atlas

1978 Ducati 900 GTS

2005 Triumph T100

1967 Triton (which I built)

1995 Kawasaki KZ1000P

2006 Suzuki SV650S

1973 Triumph 750 Tiger

1979 BMW R65

2003 Royal Enfield Bullet

and now I'm getting that 2005 Triumph T100 back, but still have the 2003 Royal Enfield Bullet.

The last 6 are just from July 2008

Can you say broke?

Man I am on fire today. This is my third entry today, and I wrote up a solid entry on the xanga, maybe two, I don't really remember. 

My stomach is growling something cruel, I think it is weary at being starved. I wouldn't be a bit surprised. It hasn't been getting near enough food. 

Dad's Triumph T100 arrives tomorrow which is perfect timing as I have an appointment with the Mayo Clinic in the afternoon that I was worried about missing. I'll probably have to hot wire it, that will be my luck, but we'll see what there is to do when it arrives. 

I am in pain today. My body aches and is overly run down. Some of thats food, but the rest is the same old game. It's the worst in the lower legs, and in the hands. knees hurt too. neck and shoulders. 

We'll see where this goes from here. God I'm tired. I'm going to take a nap then go find some food. I only have hundreds though, so it may be a trip to the gas station first then to the sub shop. 

Tomorrow I can go to the grocery store.

Ho Hum,

There will undoubtedly be lyrics in this one, 3 songs by a guy I very much respect by the name of Josh Ritter. I saw him live at the Avalon in Boston with my brother some months before Pop died - so early 2007. I won't post the whole songs, just the bits that I really dig. He's incredible live. 

My hair is coming back fast, it still looks like a buzz cut, but you can just feel more of it, the sad thing is that it makes the bald patches a bit more visible. That said I'm not as certain that I care at the moment.

I was good tonight, I almost spent $400 that I can't afford to spend. Oh it's so easy to do. New pipe, $250 - it's a really sweet pipe though... 

I mean common, you have to admit that's cool! It's Santa Clause, but if you lost the hat it'd be Poseidon - the God of the Sea, someone I have always looked up to - even if I don't believe he really exists.

Then $23 on a pipe reamer tool for cleaning the ash that cakes up in the bowl over time, $2 for pipe cleaners, $35 for 300g more Bombay Extra, and $60 for a stack of cigars.

Now I do need the tobacco, but not yet, and I can get it local, but it is unfairly priced local. The pipe I don't need at all, but it's so tempting, the cigars I don't need at all. 

I have to quit spending money, that's why I have about $3200 in a tin and about $30 in the bank. Can't spend it if it's not on the card. 

What I have to do is start building my body back up. 

This is the decaying form that my body has become:

That but with no hair, because I shaved it all off. So I now look somewhere between a crack addict and a cancer patient. Health wise that's not too far off, except my syndrome isn't terminal, it just hinders muscle mass, gives me a great deal of pain, the shakes, and a few other unnerving side effects.

That said I am on a gel that will allow me to rebuild myself. I never looked like that dude Shannon, who has muscles to spare, but I used to be quite strong, a stomach that wasn't so empty, ribs that weren't so visible, real shoulders, my legs and arms weren't like sticks. But that was 10 years ago. I ached less then. I wasn't as sick as I am now. 

I have to start eating right. Sleeping better - which is hard because I have terrible dreams, working out far more often. I have to get it together.

Ok fine, I'm still alive, that's good.

I made it to Phoenix, that's good too.

I kept it almost together while so many peeps I knew ended up in the ground, thats good.

But I haven't gotten stronger. I haven't built myself back up to who I was.

I have to do that. I have to build myself back up. 

Ok, lyrics:

I decided to go with the full songs and to bold the sections that hit me square in the soul. I truly think that anyone who has made it this far should find some way to listen to these three songs. 

I also strongly suggest his albums - The Animal Years, The Historical Conquests, and In The Dark - Live At Vicar Street. He is in his 20s and he is doing things with words and music that haven't been done since Bob Dylan. My Father's generation got Dylan, my generation is getting Ritter. 

 

Rumors:

Serenade me with rocks, love
No lullabies through the locks love
I locked myself in with the band
But the music's never loud enough

Decibels in the belfry
Hey what the hell if it helps me
I put a whip to the kick drum
But the music's never loud enough

So you're gonna have to show me
How that dance is done
The one where somebody leaves someone

My orchestra is gigantic
This thing could sink the Titanic
And the string section's screaming
Like horses in a barn burning up

He plays pianos with fistfuls
Of broken Belvedere crystal
And he's trying to forget you
But the music's never loud enough

So you're gonna have to show me
How that dance is done
The one where somebody leaves someone

He's impaling the front row
Fighting fires with arrows
And he'll act like he forgot you
But the music's never loud enough

So you're gonna have to show me
How that dance is done
The one where somebody leaves someone

Idaho

All that love all those mistakes 

What else can a poor man make? 

So I gave up a life of crime 

I gave it to a friend of mine 

Something else was on my mind 

The only ghost I¹m haunted by 

I hear her howling down below 

Idaho oh Idaho

Wolves oh wolves oh can¹t you see? 

Ain¹t no wolf can sing like me 

And if it could then I suppose 

He belongs in Idaho 

Packs of dogs and cigarettes 

For those who ain¹t done packing yet 

My clothes are packed and I want to go 

Idaho oh Idaho

Out at sea for seven years 

I got your letter in Tangier 

Thought that I¹d been on a boat

Til that single word you wrote 

That single word it landlocked me 

Turned the masts to cedar trees 

And the winds to gravel roads 

Idaho oh Idaho

Thin Blue Flame

I became a thin blue flame 

Polished on a mountain range 

And over hills and fields I flew 

Wrapped up in a royal blue 

I flew over Royal City last night 

A bullfighter on the horns of a new moon¹s light 

Caesar¹s ghost I saw the war-time tides 

The prince of Denmark¹s father still and quiet 

And the whole world was looking to get drowned 

Trees were a fist shaking themselves at the clouds 

I looked over curtains and it was then that I knew 

Only a full house gonna make it through

I became a thin blue wire 

That held the world above the fire 

And so it was I saw behind Heaven¹s just a thin blue line 

If God¹s up there he¹s in a cold dark room 

The heavenly host are just the cold dark moons 

He bent down and made the world in seven days 

And ever since he¹s been a¹walking away 

Mixing with nitrogen in lonely holes 

Where neither seraphim or raindrops go 

I see an old man wandering the halls alone 

Only a full house gonna make a home

I became a thin blue stream 

The smoke between asleep and dreams 

And in that clear blue undertow 

I saw Royal City far below 

Borders soft with refugees 

Streets a¹swimming with amputees 

It¹s a Bible or a bullet they put over your heart 

It¹s getting harder and harder to tell them apart 

Days are nights and the nights are long 

Beating hearts blossom into walking bombs 

And those still looking in the clear blue sky for a sign 

Get missiles from so high they might as well be divine 

Now the wolves are howling at our door 

Singing bout vengeance like it¹s the joy of the Lord 

Bringing justice to the enemies not the other way round 

They¹re guilty when killed and they¹re killed where they¹re found 

If what¹s loosed on earth will be loosed up on high 

It¹s a Hell of a Heaven we must go to when we die 

Where even Laurel begs Hardy for vengeance please 

The fat man is crying on his hands and his knees 

Back in the peacetime he caught roses on the stage 

Now he twists indecision takes bourbon for rage 

Lead pellets peppering aluminum 

Halcyon, laudanum and Opium 

Sings kiss thee hardy this poisoned cup 

His winding sheet is busy winding up 

In darkness he looks for the light that has died 

But you need faith for the same reasons that it¹s so hard to find 

And this whole thing is headed for a terrible wreck 

And like good tragedy that¹s what we expect

At night I make plans for a city laid down 

Like the hips of a girl on the spring covered ground 

Spirals and capitals like the twist of a script 

Streets named for heroes that could almost exist 

The fruit trees of Eden and the gardens that seem 

To float like the smoke from a lithium dream 

Cedar trees growing in the cool of the squares 

The young women walking in the portals of prayer 

And the future glass buildings and the past an address 

And the weddings in pollen and the wine bottomless 

And all wrongs forgotten and all vengeance made right 

The suffering verbs put to sleep in the night 

The future descending like a bright chandelier 

And the world just beginning and the guests in good cheer 

In Royal City I fell into a trance 

Oh it¹s hell to believe there ain¹t a hell of a chance

I woke beneath a clear blue sky 

The sun a shout the breeze a sigh 

My old hometown and the streets I knew 

Were wrapped up in a royal blue 

I heard my friends laughing out across the fields 

The girls in the gloaming and the birds on the wheel 

The raw smell of horses and the warm smell of hay 

Cicadas electric in the heat of the day 

A run of Three Sisters and the flush of the land 

And the lake was a diamond in the valley¹s hand 

The straight of the highway and the scattered out hearts 

They were coming together they pulling apart 

And angels everywhere were in my midst 

In the ones that I loved in the ones that I kissed 

I wondered what it was I¹d been looking for up above 

Heaven is so big there ain¹t no need to look up 

So I stopped looking for royal cities in the air 

Only a full house gonna have a prayer