A novel by David Buffet
Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
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Chapter 3.0
Todd was a case. That was for sure. Only twenty-nine and he was already deep into a mid-life crisis. Bo smiled at the idea. Usually, jobs like Todd were wrapped in dumpy, sagging packages. But Todd wasn’t bad looking at all. Bo’s original assessment had been right: good raw material. Todd just needed a little work.
Bo stood on the sidewalk outside Todd’s house watching the icicles hang from the dormers. The sun was brilliant, but impotent. The fleece lining of his coat felt friendly about his neck.
Todd was kind of mousey, but in a cute sort of way, Bo decided. Sad, brown eyes, closely set, he had a thin face capped by a good mop of auburn hair with a truly awful haircut. Bo would have to make him go to a better barber. His frame was small, too, but clearly he could hold muscle if he worked at it. His chest was good for someone who paid no attention, and his waist was still relatively slender.
He noted surreptitious movement behind a window. Bo grinned. Did Todd really think Bo didn’t know that Todd knew that Bo was there? The games people play! A gust of wind hit him as he exhaled. He watched his breath drawn out in eddies.
And Todd’s smile, on those rare occasions when he showed it, was appealing. It crept across his face, almost despite itself, shy, self-conscious, and toothy as a chipmunk. Yes, he’d be fine by the time Bo was finished with him.
They never believed in magic, Bo thought, leaning back against the tree between the sidewalk and the street. That’s most of their problems right there. Bo understood, though. If you didn’t believe in magic, what would be the point? Bo was always upfront with them from the start. They’d always laugh it off and assume he was just playing them. Todd did that, too. It didn’t bother Bo. He knew. Most of the time, it made it easier for him to work.
Todd really was a funny guy, despite the pall of sadness he wrapped around himself. Bo had nailed that one, too. He didn’t get a lot of the jokes Todd made, but he knew they’d be funny if he understood them. He smiled now, thinking of when they had gone out to dinner the night before.
“What’s Todd short for?” Bo had asked.
“Nothing,” Todd said, shredding his napkin with his fork. “It’s long for Taw. You like steak?”
Todd had driven them to a steakhouse a few miles outside of town. The bartenders wore cowboy hats almost as large as the cleavages sported by the waitresses. They had been seated in a booth along the back wall. Todd found himself directly under a large, stuffed, and mounted bull’s head.
“Sure I like steak,” Bo said. “Who doesn’t?”
Todd motioned upward with his eyes. Bo laughed.
Or later in the evening, after they’d each had a few beers, the conversation was flowing more loosely, and Bo suggested Todd ride the mechanical bull.
“Is that what you’re calling it, now?” Todd asked with a dry sigh. Bo giggled.
“That one ain’t mechanical,” Bo said around his grin.
“Bull,” Todd answered. Bo laughed outright.
An older woman left her house three doors down and began walking up the street toward Bo, eyeing him suspiciously as she neared. She had a polyester-pantsuit businesswoman persona about her. Mid-level Human Resources, Bo decided. Too much make up, lunches at TGIFridays, church on Sundays, but only to be seen. She slowed as she approached Bo.
“Do you think,” Bo asked, as if he had been in deep contemplation the whole time, and she was just the woman to solve his dilemma, “if I parked…I don’t know…let’s say, a moving van, here, people would take notice?”
The woman frowned. “Yes,” she said, crisper than the air, “Yes, young man, I’m certain they would.”
“How about a plumbing truck?” Bo asked hopefully.
“I think if you parked anything here, people would take notice.”
Bo nodded contemplatively. The woman spent another moment memorizing his face, then walked on.
“Thanks for your help,” he called to her receding, tight ass. “Any big public meetings coming up?”
She fumbled in her purse for a phone. Bo watched her dial as she turned the corner. He grinned.
There was a difference between playing people and working. It was subtle, but it was important. When you played someone, it was to get what you needed out of them. But work was to help them get what they needed out of the universe. It didn’t matter if they understood it or not. That was part of the magic of it. Misdirection. You had to waive your left hand around while your right hand hid the quarter.
And just like any good magician, you had to be clear about what you were doing. Kind of, anyway. At least you had to be honest about some of it. You had to have a patter. You had to say, “I’m about to do a trick,” then get them to watch while you did the trick. It made the magic all the more impressive when you warned them first.
Bo had given Todd plenty of warning.
“You’re nice,” he had said over a big plate of nachos they had ordered as an appetizer. “I’ll like staying with you.”
Todd guffawed. “You’re going to be staying with me?”
“Sure,” Bo answered as if it were obvious. He scarfed a large chip laden with the works. Bo was a sloppy eater, but somehow that just added to his charm. It was difficult to be annoyed watching someone who savored each mouthful like he had never tasted food before and was never going to eat again.
“Good to know,” Todd said dryly after pulling a swig from his beer. “Will you be needing full linen service? A mint on the pillow when your bed’s turned down, perhaps? Shall I restock the minibar?”
Bo laughed and scooped up a large cheese-infested glob of guacamole onto another chip. “Thanks very much,” he said, mouth full of Velveeta and green, “I’ll just stay on the couch.”
“Oh, okay,” Todd allowed. “But tell me, if you please, and I’m just running this up the flag pole to see who salutes, mind you, but can you explain to me why…and this is just me thinking out loud, you know…why I’d invite a perfect stranger—granted, a very charming one, but a stranger nonetheless—why I’d invite him into my home to…I mean, at very least, don’t I run the risk of…oh, I don’t know…his ripping me off or something?”
Bo raised his eyebrows. “Why?” he asked with a gentle laugh. “Whad’ya got worth stealing?”
“Touché,” Todd answered, dryly. “But still…”
“Listen,” Bo said, dropping his new chip back onto the pile and licking his fingers clean. “It’s okay.” He took a mouth-clearing swig of beer. “This is how it’s gonna go down. I’m gonna show up at your door tomorrow morning, and you’re gonna let me in, and then you’re gonna invite me to stay with you for a while.”
Todd looked on in wide-eyed disbelief. “All that’s going to happen tomorrow, is it?”
Bo nodded, “Bet’cha anything. But look,” he went on as if he hadn’t said anything extraordinary. “We don’t gotta worry about that now. Now it’s just a good meal, and good conversation, and some good beers. We can have just a good dinner, ’k? Tomorrow’ll take care of itself.”
Todd had to admit the kid’s innocent self-confidence, while intellectually annoying, had a kind of disarming allure. And while there was no way in hell he was going to let Bo through his front door the next day, the kid was probably right. It made sense to try to enjoy the evening for what it was—a pleasant meal with an exceedingly handsome young man.
“Fair enough,” Todd said. “To good conversation, then.”
“To good conversation,” Bo echoed. They clicked beer bottles.
But of course, all the time you’re explaining just what you’re doing, your other hand is busy, unnoticed, hiding the quarter in your pocket.
It took about ten minutes for the police to arrive. Nothing flashy, just a plain squad car trying to seem like it was on rounds, it slowed as it turned the corner onto the block on which Bo stood, coming to a stop just as it pulled alongside. The window rolled down.
“Good morning, officer,” Bo said, leaning on his elbows on the top of the doorframe. “Beautiful sky, huh?”
The cop looked up out of the windshield, thought about it a moment, and nodded. “It is, actually,” he said.
“You don’t get this kind of blue a lot,” Bo said, his head turned sideways and up to view the sky in front of the car where the cop was looking. “It’s got to be real cold and clear to get this kind of blue.”
The officer studied Bo’s profile. He looked like a nice kid with an open, warm face. He didn’t seem like he was on anything.
“You live around here, son?” the cop asked.
“Nope,” Bo said, turning his attention back to the occupant of the car. He sniffed against the cold and wiped his nose with his sleeve.
“Mind if I ask what you’re doing here?”
“My friend lives in that house,” Bo said, pointing backwards towards Todd’s place. “I think he’s still asleep; I was waiting for him to wake up. We were out pretty late last night. I didn’t want to wake him, and it’s so pretty out. I thought I’d just hang out out here for a while. Is there a problem, officer?” Bo was the picture of innocence, what Norman Rockwell would have painted if you had commissioned “Sincerity.”
“You mind if I go have a talk with your friend?” the cop asked.
“Sure,” Bo shrugged cheerily. “You might be waking him up, though.”
“I’ll risk it,” the cop said. “Can you stand away from the vehicle, please?”
Bo straightened and stepped back onto the sidewalk as the policeman got out of his car.
“Todd,” Bo said.
“That your name, son?” The cop asked.
“No,” Bo shook his head. “It’s his.” He gestured to the house, then shoved his hands into his pants pockets to warm them.
The policeman walked up to the door and rang the bell.
Rocking on his heels, Bo quietly hummed to himself as Todd came to the door and he and the cop engaged in a conversation Bo couldn’t hear. Todd looked fairly exasperated. Each gestured toward Bo a couple of times. Bo smiled amiably in reply.
Finally, Todd disappeared inside the house for a moment, returning with his coat on. He escorted the policeman back to the curb.
“Sorry to bother you, sir,” the cop said to Todd as he got back into his car. “And you too, son. You both have a nice day.”
Todd and Bo looked at each other in silence after the cop drove off, Todd’s lips pursed, Bo’s spread in a wide grin.
“I suppose you’re cold,” Todd said finally, a bit grumpily.
Bo nodded vigorously.
Todd sighed. “Okay. But just for a little while ’till you warm up.”
People were very predictable, Bo thought as he dumped his coat in the closet, stretched languorously in the warmth, and headed into the living room like he owned the place.
Well, they were mostly predictable, anyway. He hadn’t predicted where the conversation would have had lead once he brought up Ryan last night.
“Tell me how you guys met,” Bo had asked over the entrees.
“When we met, or when we first saw each other?” Todd asked, enjoying the opportunity to be the obtuse one.
Bo shook his head in confusion. Todd allowed himself a self-satisfied grin.
“When we met, then. Well…I was just out of graduate school,” Todd began. “Came home for a couple of weeks just to relax, you know? Wind down after the licensure and everything. I was in the coffee bar at Aunty’s bookstore over in Spokane and this guy walks over and sits down at my table. No “may I join you,” no “do you mind?” Nothing. Just comes over and sits.”
Bo was delighted. “Nice balls! Were you cruising him before he came over?”
“I wasn’t looking at him at all! I mean, I knew he was there, and I knew he was hot, but I was just reading the paper.”
“So you were cruising him,” Bo grinned. Todd looked up from his coffee, confused.
“Sorry,” Bo allowed. “Go on.”
“…so anyway, we started talking, and it turns out he’s really intelligent and he’s just got this job at Hannaford as an engineer and…and that’s it. That’s how we met.”
“Then what?” Bo asked.
Todd took a sip of his beer, closed his eyes, and watched the past on his eyelids. “Then he was charming for a while, and I heard all about what Stanford Engineering was like, and what growing up in a big Irish family was like, and about all the important entrepreneurs who had offered him positions, and about the time his high school band went to China.”
“Sounds like an interesting guy.”
Todd nodded.
“Was he hot?”
Todd nodded enthusiastically.
“You guys have hot sex?”
Todd bit his lower lip, then slowly, emphatically, nodded once.
“Nice,” Bo said.
“We just clicked,” Todd continued, becoming rapt by his own nostalgia. “It was weird. It was incredible, but it was weird. Completely turned me around.”
“Whad’ya mean?” Bo asked around the large piece of steak he was chewing.
“Like, I had just come out back at U Dub a few months before.” Todd was talking to his coffee cup again, but in an uncharacteristically animated way. Bo leaned back and watched him. “But I wasn’t really ready to do anything about it, you know?” he continued. “I was busy with my thesis defense, and licensure, and graduating and all that crap. I thought I’d come home, get my head together for a few weeks, then move to some big city and trash it up for a while. Play the field. See what was out there.
“But then, bam!” Todd slammed his hand down on the table, startling the couple next to them. He nodded at them in perfunctory apology, then continued, a little more quietly. “Bam—I meet a guy out of nowhere. And here of all places! I mean, how fucking likely is that?”
Bo shrugged non-commitally. Todd continued, enjoying the roll he was on. “So, he invites me back to his house, right? We get there, and there’s no talk, no preliminaries, no nothing. We just went right at it. Did it on his kitchen table. Right there on the table! We couldn’t even wait ’till we got to the bedroom. And when I came…” Todd lowered his voice and leaned forward. “I shot into the sink!”
“Nice aim,” Bo said happily over a mouthful of French fries.
“That’s not the point,” Todd offered, still in a conspiratorial whisper.
“What’s the point?” Bo asked, leaning forward and joining in the cabal.
“I was on the table. The sink was, like, five feet away.”
Bo’s grin infectiously spread to Todd. “Good one,” Bo said.
“Got a 9.8 from the Russian judge,” Todd reported, proudly. “Got marks for form, distance, and hygiene!”
Bo laughed.
“Anyway,” Todd said, calming down a bit after the high of a good punch line, “yes. The sex was hot.”
“So you found yourself a winner,” Bo said, swigging his beer.
“…Incredibly hot,” Todd said.
“How long before you moved in together?”
Todd looked up, pulled from his private memories.
“Half a year. He had a great job down at Hannaford, and I could set up practice anywhere. So we bought the house in Yakumwa.”
“And you were together, what…?” Bo asked.
“Four years,” Todd said, absently.
“Huh,” Bo said.
“What?” Todd asked.
“I thought you said you’ve been a shrink for six years.”
“I have. And it’s a therapist, not a shrink.”
“And you met Ryan right when you started shrinking…sorry, theraping?”
Todd pursed his lips. It was difficult not to indulge Bo’s grand illusion that he was cute since he was, in fact, so cute.
“That’s right.”
“And he just died last summer?”
“Yes. August.”
“So you were together for six years,” Bo said.
“Right. Six years. We were together for six years.”
“You said four years.”
“No I didn’t,” Todd said, “Six. We were together for six years.”
“Okay,” Bo allowed. They sat in silence for a few moments, Bo chewing the last bits of meat off the strip of charred fat he had cut away from his steak, Todd sipping the remains of his beer.
There was something about Todd that didn’t make sense. Bo couldn’t figure it out. Sure, he had the whole widower thing going on, and that explained some of the sadness, but there was something else Bo couldn’t quite pinpoint. It’d take some research.
“Is that it, then?” Todd asked as Bo stretched out on the couch and grinned enigmatically at him.
“Is what it?” Bo returned innocently.
“You’re just going to lie there and look alluring? That your plan for the afternoon?”
“It’s hard work looking alluring!” Bo protested with a smile. “You think this is an accident?” He struck a playfully exaggerated centerfold pose, pulling his silver Underarmour shirt halfway up with one hand and the beltline of his pants down just enough to expose some pubic hair with the other. Todd grunted half-heartedly in reply. “Besides,” Bo continued, breaking the pose, “you’re not interested. That’s what makes you so interesting.”
“Don’t you think that could be considered just a wee bit arrogant?” Todd asked.
Bo shrugged his shoulders. “All I do is tell the truth, dude,” he said simply.
“So every guy automatically has to be attracted to you?” Todd asked, taking the chair across from the sofa. Some part of his brain registered their configuration. It was therapy.
“No. Not everyone. But most guys are. You are. That’s the fun part. You’re attracted, but you’re not interested. Gotta figure that one out.”
“I see,” said Todd, leaning back into the chair and crossing his legs. “What makes you think I’m attracted to you?”
“’Cause you don’t look at me,” Bo said.
“And that means I am attracted to you?” Todd asked, shifting his gaze from the window back to Bo.
“Oh, ya.” Bo answered confidently. “Even more than if you did look at me.”
Todd smiled despite himself. “So if I look at you, I’m attracted to you, and if I don’t look at you, I’m more attracted to you?”
“Now you’re gettin’ it!” Bo beamed.
“I see,” Todd intoned with mock gravity. “Well you can’t beat that logic, I suppose.”
“Truth’s truth,” Bo said. “Ya can’t have opinions about truth.”
“Any other pearls of wisdom you’d like to share?”
“Sure,” Bo said. “You’re going to invite me to stay the night.”
“And what makes you think that?” Todd challenged.
Bo shrugged again. “Magic. But you will. I was right about your inviting me in, wasn’t I?”
Todd pursed his lips.
Bo was quite invested in the truth. He never lied. That was another difference between playing someone and working. Sometimes he had to hold a few things back, of course, or add some color to the truth, but he never outright lied.
Like when Todd had finally gotten the balls to ask him about his work. It was over dessert. Todd was sipping a cup of coffee while Bo had ordered an enormous hot fudge sundae.
“Tell me about alchemy,” Todd said, putting his coffee cup back in the saucer. It had been a good meal, and both of them were full, except for Bo.
“Wha’d’ya want to know?” Bo asked. “You want me to give up my guild secrets?”
Todd grinned. “Nothing so drastic.”
“So, shoot.”
“Well, I assume, when you say you turn lead into gold that what you really mean is...well...” he tried to gather the grace to present a wholly ungraceful thought. “...Would it be more apt to suggest that you...err...turn wood into gold?”
Bo laughed heartily. It was an easy laugh, free from shame. “I get it,” he said, swirling his spoon through the thick puddle of fudge he had uncovered. “You want to know if I hustle.”
Todd flushed, but nodded.
“Well,” Bo began, “let’s see. All the pieces of hustling are there, I guess, but no, I don’t hustle.”
“What do you mean “the pieces?””
“Well, I fuck guys. Guys give me money and a place to stay. Sometimes they buy me things.”
“Like dinner?” Todd observed.
Bo toasted with his spoon, then slid it in his mouth before the gob of fudge that hung from it could escape. “When you put those pieces together, you got a hustler, right? ’Cept I do all those things, and I’m not a hustler.”
“You’re an alchemist.”
“I’m an alchemist.”
“So what’s that? A hustler with an advanced degree?”
Bo laughed again. Despite the rich baritone of his voice, the laugh was almost boyish.
“Man, I’d have gone to that school!”
Todd pursed his lips. Bo grew serious. “What?”
“You haven’t given me one straight answer since we sat down,” Todd said. “You’re charming, don’t get me wrong—but I still have no idea who you are.”
Bo put down the spoon. Leaning forward, he halved the distance between them, and trapped Todd with his eyes. He lowered his voice for emphasis and spoke with deliberate gravitas. “I’ve been totally honest with you. Everything I said has been true.”
“What, that you live here, there, everywhere? Are you saying you’re homeless?”
“I’ve never been homeless except when I’ve wanted to be,” Bo said.
“Where do you live now, then?”
“I’m between homes, right this moment. I expect I’ll be living with you.”
“With me?”
“Sure,” Bo said, scrunching his chin and nodding as if to indicate the matter was settled.
“But I haven’t asked you to live with me,” Todd pointed out.
Bo gave an unconcerned shrug, picked the spoon back up and returned to the ice cream.
“I see.” Todd’s eyebrows were beginning to go cross again. An unflattering look, Bo thought.
Todd considered his next question a while before asking it.
“Where did you live before?”
“Before you?” Gravity had freed Bo from its grip. His tone returned to airy as easily as his spoon returned to the ice cream.
Todd nodded.
“Somewhere else,” Bo said.
“Somewhere else?” Todd parroted sarcastically.
“Ya.” Bo said taking another spoonful of ice cream without rising to the bait.
“Where’s “somewhere else?””
“On Stanley Street.”
“An apartment?”
“A gentleman’s address,” Bo said savoring the coldness as it went down.
“And before that?”
“In Seattle.”
“An apartment?”
“A different gentleman.”
“So you go from John to John to John? You are homeless.”
Bo leaned forward again, elbows back on the table. Todd realized his upper arms were large enough to convey possible threat. “Greg to Louis to Todd, actually. Look,” he added, an undertone of finality in his voice, “you don’t want to go disrespecting my friends. You got that?”
Todd nodded, recognizing the power that would be available to him should Bo choose to use it.
“Good,” Bo said, smiling again. “Look, I get it. You’re trying to figure me out. Fine. So here it is. I like to travel. I like to go from place to place and meet people. I’m not homeless like you’re thinking of homeless. I don’t live in the street or panhandle or anything. I’m pretty much home where ever I am. But I don’t have an address. That changes. Sometimes every few days, sometimes after a few months.”
“But isn’t that the definition of homeless?”
Bo shrugged his shoulders. “The guys I stay with, they’re very nice to me,” he continued. “It’s not so hard to be nice to me—I’m a really nice guy.” Todd swirled the grounds in his coffee cup as if trying to divine their secrets as Bo spoke. “I like them. If I didn’t like them, I wouldn’t be staying with them. And I want to be nice to them, too. Sometimes I fuck them. It’s not like it’s a chore or anything. I love to fuck, and it’s what I’m good at. They feel good because I’m doing something nice for them, and I feel good because they’re doing something nice for me.”
“Sorry,” Todd said to the swirl, “but isn’t that the very definition of being a hustler?”
“It may be the definition,” Bo said, “but it’s not what it means.”
Todd considered this for a moment. There was a difference between what people said and what they meant. That was the very foundation of therapy.
“I don’t think I understand,” Todd finally allowed.
“I don’t think you have to,” Bo answered. Todd pursed his lips. “Okay,” Bo said, trying another tack. “So let’s say I’m hustling you…”
“Aren’t you?”
“Am I?”
“Well, let’s look at the facts, shall we?” Todd said.
“Sure.” Bo put his spoon down, cupped his hands behind his head and leaned back, elbows as wings.
“I invited you to stay the night, and now I’m buying you dinner. There’s a fact.”
“Yep.”
“And you’re telling me not only that, but I’m going to be asking you into my home tomorrow, and, furthermore, I’m going to be inviting you to stay with me for the indefinite future.”
“So far I’m with ya,” Bo said lightly.
“But I don’t even know you. I don’t know what you do, I don’t know where you’re from, I don’t know what you’re doing here. For all I know, you could be an axe-murderer.”
“What if I was?” Bo said, grinning at the idea.
“You could kill me!”
“So what? You could kill you.” This earned a chortle from Todd.
“All in all, I’d rather do it myself, thank you very much.”
Bo shrugged. “Look,” he said, leaning forward again and looking serious, “do you really think I’m going to beat you up or anything?”
Todd thought about it a second. “No,” he finally said.
“But you think I’m going to rip you off or something?”
“I don’t know,” Todd said.
“Look at me,” Bo said, trapping Todd with his eyes again. “If I wanted to play you, I’d have done it already. I could have taken whatever I wanted this afternoon while you were in there doing your meditation thing. But I didn’t. Did I?”
Todd shook his head.
“You know why?”
Todd shook his head again.
“Sure you do. Think about it a sec.”
They were staring into each other’s eyes. Bo’s had flecks of gold scattered in the field of deep green. The openness of his face, the relaxed repose of his eyebrows, the gentle, natural smile that sat on his lips when he wasn’t thinking about it, it was impossible not to fundamentally trust him, even as intellectually, Todd knew all those clues could be traps.
“Because you’re a nice guy?” Todd asked.
Bo’s grin spread wide. “You figured it out! Todd gets an A!” His smile was the very definition of appealing, Todd decided. It was also what appealing meant, he added to himself.
It was all truth. At least, it was all a version of truth.
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