What We Do Is Secret by Thorn Kief Hillsbery Page B

moment.
    No!
    Punk rock!
    Oki Dog and fries!
    He jumps up. Though he doesn’t hit me or yell or anything. He must be in shock, I know I would be.
    Actually I guess I am. He jams for the bathroom and as soon as I hear water running I start flailing for my clothes to bail as fast as I can before he’s finished washing. But hanging my head down lacing my boots I just fuckin break down, why didn’t I up-front him, he’ll never pay now, I haven’t cried since Darby died but it makes me want to end it all, why can’t he live in a condo up high so I can take a dive?
    Into Swan Lake.
    AKA Death Disco.
    I can’t face Blitzer.
    I can’t even face the Dog Groomer to the Stars.
    But here he is, welcoming after a word with his wanker, handing me a warm wet towel. I start sniffling out sorries but no no no.
    “I should be ashamed of myself, giving a drug like that to a boy your age.”
    “Weed?”
    “Heroin.”
    “Heroin?”
    “With the marijuana. You’ve never done it before, have you?”
    “No.”
    “It makes you sick, the first time. I’m so sorry.”
    “It’s me who’s sorry, man. I ruined every—”
    “You didn’t ruin anything, Sid. You were fine.”
    He puts two bills in my hand, and a business card. He pats my shoulder.
    “You said all the right things.”

16
    So repeat after three, John Doe and Exene and Rockets makes trinity: the days change at night, change in an instant, the days change at night. Walking down Camrose to Cahuenga with Blitzer afterwards all this rockin’ world’s a stage and we’re on it fronting a band and the audience is cheering in English and French and German and Spanish and Russian and Dutch and fuckin Esperanto too and the name of the band is.
    Colossal Youth.
    No, wait.
    Young Marble Giants.
    Colossal Youth
is their record. With those statues on the cover Blitzer told me about, somewheres in the Holy Land I guess, Easter Island.
    And that’s it exactly, I feel tall enough to play statues on Easter Island. Partly it’s the hill being so steep we’re taking like giant’s steps to get down fast and our boots on the sidewalk sound like the British are coming the British are coming, or maybe it’s Marines making smoke down the halls of Montezuma. And with all the trees and flowers and bird bath-houses up here instead of parking lots and diesel fumes and minimalls it’s like breathing air that no one’s breathed before, like a drug but not the love drug, more the heaven-above drug.
    And Blitzer’s beside me every bit as amped as me, saying I’m his rabbit’s foot, I’m his four-leaf clover, singing,
Sugarlight
sugarlight I can’t believe, swallowing one bulb after another in the
city of electric light.
    “You were always like the mascot. The kid. Way the fuck back at the Masque. I guess I kind of quit looking at you or something. Then tonight—”
    He comes to a present-arms halt and huggy-bears me down to the grass in the strip next to the sidewalk and puts his lips next to my ear and whispers, “Tonight you opened my eyes.”
    He’s holding his weight off me with his elbows so he doesn’t crush me. But I want him to. I wrap my legs around his waist and force him down on me with my wrists crossing at the small of his back and all my bruises hurting hurting and we start this gentle rocking and he says, “Because you know what my problem is? You know what my fuckin problem is? I’m blind! I’m so fuckin blind I should be out there reading waffle irons with my fingers someplace.”
    And he kisses me, hard on the lips and deep deep past them, hard and long and let me, let me.
    Darby said.
    Let me teach you how to hold me and don’t ever stop.
    “You touched me first.”
    “Yeah, but when I came back, man. When I came back! You fuckin hit the bull’s-eye!”
    Darby said.
    You don’t aim for the eye of the target when you’re holding a machine gun.
    “But that’s not all. You’re smart! I mean I didn’t think you were stupid, how could I, but you fuckin know