Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 09:14:45 -0800 From: Tim Stillman Subject: Breaking and Entering in the Nighttime Hours Breaking and Entering in the Night Time Hours by Timothy Stillman Night was a mandolin, strumming, and it made Tag's heart full to overflowing. It was green and unshakable summer. It was night and the dark was magisterial. Tag was ten last month which was June. And summer baked round him. And his room hummed with the air conditioning that was centralized. So was Tag--centralized. A bud at the chrysalis of expanding, of growing. He lay amidst his cool white sheets in the darkness that hid his posters and his pennants and his model monsters and model ships. He was not addendum. He was not inclusion by dent of the world not having any other choice but to do so because he too breathed air and exhaled it. Tag was everything right with the world. He heard, above the mechanical intruder hum, the night outside. Lively sounds. Kady dids and Kady didn'ts, he would joke. And the firm stern big trees keeping everything in line, grounded and in order, that had a sound too. And the grass growing in the night heat and remembering the days of the sun, as well as the one to return tomorrow and the tomorrow after that. He was a small boy and he had a chipmunk face. His cheeks were a bit too full and the other kids accused him of harboring nuts, goober nuts specifically, in there. Tag was cute, had red hair and freckles that dusted constellation like across his small nose bridge, like Diedre's in "Silent Snow, Secret Snow." The night was fuzzy for him here as he looked at the dark, for his eyes were slightly farsighted, without his glasses. Which was okay with him. Fuzzy like a bath towel and the world seemed kinder then. It was a momentous night for him because Tally was coming over. And they would both stay and watch for the monster in the closet which Tag had named Irv, not the closet, but the monster therein. He thought with Tally along, then things would be okay, for he did not want to banish the monster, but wanted to befriend it. Because monsters should be befriended on occasion simply because they should be, no other reason need be added, for any other reason would be a lie. Tag lay in his briefs alone, and felt sexy, the hormones having kicked in a year before, and he knew things now he didn't know before the blossoming. He loved feeling his skin slightly sticking to the sheets. He loved moving his arms and legs and butt and groin slow and languorous like the summer night, in waves. He knew that Tally loved him with a love that was different. The currents of summer night said so, sailed it in quiet wind cliff harbors from a long distance away, maybe from a distance as far away as the stars above. Most of the boys at school, and they seemed to exist solely at school, to him at least, made fun of him because he was scrawny and because when they showered after gym class, they could see, and were not adverse to letting him know by word and grabs and demonstration, that his dick was far less impressive than theirs already were. Tally had entered the school from Detroit, or as they pronounced it down here, Deetroit, in February of this year. Dressed in sweatshirt, jeans, a haircut that could have been a boy's or a girl's, with a voice that could have gone either way, no one was sure which she was, and because she was lame in one leg, gym class was out for her regardless, so no one could tell that way either. Tally was always on Tag's mind, and when Tag rubbed his periwinkle penis, he always thought of Tally, and wished Tally was here with him, though he did not want to know which sex she or he was, because that would spoil everything between them. He could not be friends with her if she was a girl. He could not be in love with her if he was a boy. This was to be the first time Tally would visit Tag in his home. And without his parents knowing it, to boot. Tag was excited. Tag was frightened. Tag squirmed in his bed and put his hands to his warm stomach. He liked the feel of noclothes. He liked being almost naked except for his briefs. He could not envision doing this with someone else present. Even Tally. But she was to be present tonight. After Tally's parents were asleep. She or he would knock on his window and he would let his friend in and they would face the monster in the closet--together. He put his hands down his briefs and felt himself and was ashamed his penis was small and his balls were like tiny veined watery pebbles. He felt himself rising and it always tickled him deeply inside, a kind of Saturday night bathtub soft friendly feeling that made him seem as though his skin were being turned into cotton or rayon maybe, because he needed a material more than flesh. He didn't have enough flesh to cover him really, so he thought someone should knit him new skin stuff over his spare but demandingly sharp bones that any day now would cut through him. A boy alone is a curious kind of candle. He flames and he sputters and he is grand and magnificent. He is not self conscious and does not dread tomorrow. Because he is the world that will lie down for him. That will make way for him. And tomorrow would be a blue sky white cloud day. Like a perfect milk shake that would open with splendid red glow colors about five a.m. and would then proceed to blue and white and the sun a friendly yellow gentle clothes on the line breeze blowing in the hot tired air. And Tag would be alone no more. He and Tally would marry and would always be together and if Tally was a boy, then they would adopt the monster in the closet as their child. A child monster for a child human seemed right and parallel. Tag honestly couldn't say when he had begun not believing in the monster in the closet as much as he had or when he had believed in it at all, or if he had feared it on his own, or if one of his parents had told him about their childhood fears. And it was all just some matter of generational tradition that obligated him. He loved his body, when alone, and liked it, when alone, being small because he thought if things get too much for him, then he could hide under the cabbage leaves, wherever they might have been, where his mom said she had found him. He did not know if he had ever believed that, or if he had stopped believing it, or when he had come to a conclusion on it, fuzzy thought it was still, in one direction or another. He had begun to wonder about his penis and his balls, and it was true the other boys in the locker room and the showers at school and at the muny pool were much larger than he, so he had begun to believe even that was a failure, but it still felt so good to play with it like a new friend that made him feel all these new/familiar sensations that seemed not to be one thing or another but more than and always different from the time before Sometimes he apologized to it for being unappreciative of it. Not that it was his to do anything with but pee, and to rub and feel a happy clicking over in him, as he lay on his stomach on his bed and only had to do it against the sheet a very few times, then sigh, close his eyes, and feel like the fourth of July fireworks had just dispersed inside him way deep down. So if it felt good and it never shot whatever it was supposed to, well, then he didn't have to worry about any evidence on the sheets, now, did he? And why was that such a bad thing? He played his left hand fingers around the tiny head like a little space ship nose cone, and he thought of Tally, he had never thought of anyone before her, the sensation was good enough all by itself, and wondered if the monster, impressed?, was watching him though the closet was closed tightly, Dad always saw to that every time Tag was put to bed, demonstrated it with clear sure purpose and reason and always standing away to the side of the door so Tag could see him closing the monster in. Which Tag thought silly, but then again, that showed disrespect for the monster so he immediately thought what the monster would want him to say because like mom and dad and Tally and the preacher and the teacher, he knew they could read his mind, for they certainly read him like an open book, which was a phrase the teacher this year had used at him, always used at him, never to him,, all the time, like everyone said at him when they passed on their oh so superior wisdom, aimed vaguely in his direction. Who could read a closed book anyway? What was the big deal? It made no sense. Any fool knows that. And was a stupid phrase. It made them stupid, not him. He just endured them, like you endure such mosquitoes. He dreamed sometimes about being naked with Tally and playing doctor and feeling around and goofing with her. He wanted to be naked all the time. Even imagining himself in school naked turned him on and showing everyone that his equipment was every bit as good as theirs. It was the hormones kicking in and it was his great and given desire to be something more than a good boy, something more than a boy who did his homework, made good on his tests, did not cheat, was not into drugs, did not play violent video games, and all of that, which was the same thing about Tally who was also good and was also tired of being good. The monster in the closet was good. It was polite. It never opened the closet door. It stayed docile in it when dad closed the door and made a big show of locking it in. It could have, if it was any decent monster at all, burst through the door like King Kong. But it did not. It knew its place too. That's what Tally was always saying to him, repeating what her mother said to her time and again, "everything in its place and a place for everything," and how she was so sick of hearing it. Tag didn't have the balls to tell her his dad said the same phrase to him all the time too. Tag commiserated with her on that, but pretended his parents weren't quite that silly. He supposed for him to be naked in front of Tally and twist his little dinner roll butt cheeks at her and turn around and wave his williwag at her and be in front of her with his thingy hard, well, he did hope she was a she, and he did think of her like that, but he did wish she could be a boy too. She talked like a boy, looked like a boy really--they loved movies and TV shows that were westerns and gangster and mob boss and action pics, and they loved science fiction, especially Heinlein because he wrote about sexy stuff sometimes too. Her parents thought those were okay books because they had never read them and were just harmless silly stuff kids could safely read. His parents had read Heinlein and lots of other science fiction as well, knew what was in them, but tried to be progressive. Mostly though, Tag wished she was not blessed with either what he had or with whatever girls had. It just seemed to cause trouble. Boys and girls fought and girls were always catting around about this boy or that and boys would give each other the dozens, stay away from my girl or else, cause they had seen this stuff in movies and everybody wanted to use everybody else to be the big cheese on campus. Which was another thing everybody just took for granted as right. But Tag had begun to wonder why such things were just for granted. The monster in the closet for instance. His sole idea? Or placed there for him? Tag wanted her to be smooth all over, did not want her to be anything but smooth and sexy and friendly with a boy's body but not a boy's genitals, for then somehow she would never grow up and he would find himself never growing up, right along with her. Sometimes he would kneel by his toy box underneath his bedroom window, playing with soldiers, or putting together some monster models, and he would look out at the day. Which, whatever season it was, whatever time of day or night, whatever was good and whatever was bad at the time, the day or night was a huge soft comforting bed that went on to tomorrow and it was kind and soft to sharp bones and it liked Tag and was doing its best to get everyone else to like him too. Tag tried to remember being scared of the monster his closet. Was there a monster in the living room closet?, with its shelves that housed books, lots and lots of them, for his parents were omnivorous readers, as was he; they never were, his parents or himself, scared of this closet, for it seemed friendly, and he loved to browse there in the book and wood smell. And the fascinating mental taste of all those ideas between covers. Mars was there. And the center of the Earth too, I know, for I have been there, you can do it too. If so, then why did the monster reside in his room's closet alone?, and he thought the monster might be books which he loved. Might be books that spanned time and thought and were eclectic, that deliciously contradicted themselves and each other all over the place. Perhaps they were just waiting for him to be older so he could appreciate these gifts of books then given to him. Like in school, there were parts of the library stacks that were off limits till he was in the next grade. Or maybe he was meant all this time to see what was in the closet itself, since he never had before. Maybe his parents wanted him to. Though how could he be sure? It had always been a secret, fascinating puzzle of a place. He couldn't bring himself though to go into that dangerous dark closet. It seemed to exist with the sole purpose of baffling him. Though he couldn't wait till he could get to the formerly forbidden books in the school library. He thought, I'm doing wrong lying here, safe and sleepy and waiting butterflies in my stomach for Tally, and I'm not even thinking of the monster. Not even what it looks like or what it might do to me or how it might kill me or mom or dad and I have to watch out for them even more than for me. He tried to remember if he had ever imagined the monster, what it looked like. He could not remember. Mostly now it just seemed an excuse to get Tally over here. He did not want anything about her body but that it be sweet and soft and smell nice and her arms around him, and his hardness against her stomach. He wanted the night like this, star spangled, and slightly onion and peppermint leaves smelling even though the windows were closed and the a/c. was on. He wanted to be imagined. He wanted to be the monster in the closet. Tally had never said she had one, but he bet she did. He wondered if it was the same one, or if he had or a relative or clone or something. Did his look totally different than hers? Or other kids'? He had not considered all the children might have their own individual monsters. If the monsters were to all have a fight with each other, who would win? What did these things eat? Well, best not to ask that. How did they stay alive? Did they get claustrophobia being in there all the time or did they sneak out late at night and jog and stop by open all night Burger King or Wal-Mart for refreshments and bathroom breaks? Monsters in jogging suits, sitting down at Burger King for a hamburger, or checking the book aisle at Wal-Mart made him laugh. They bought books to while away the time. But what did they use for money? Did they have a route between children's bedrooms like a paper route sometimes and sometimes was his closet empty at night when he thought it monster full? Did they fill in for each other when one of them was sick? What kind of sick did they get? Tag verging on the edge of reality that would go about madly killing illusions. Verging on spoiling it all. But a long way from there yet. He did not know the name of the mayor of the town and could simply not care less. Tag certainly had not told Tally he was scared of the monster, or that he believed it even existed. Had just said his parents said there was one in there but that was so he would behave and not get out of bed because even if the monster came out of the closet, which it would never do, being locked in, and polite and all, then it could still not harm him if he was completely on the bed with no toes or fingers or feet or hands hanging off. So he would sleep straight as an arrow in his bed; his parents made the craziest stuff up, instead of just telling him what to do which would be simpler it seemed. And Tally agreed. And she did-not-laugh. The a/c. clicked off for a time and the night sounds came into his room. It was like an orchestra far away, measuring him and the day and the night that fit him so easily inside. Watching him like the monster behind the blue door with the wooden slats in the top panel so, Tag guessed, he could see out, or Tag could do what he would never do, look in. Tag rolling his BVDs down his legs. Raising his legs and kicking them off with his small feet. He tossed from side the side for a time, pretending he was Jim Hawkins on the getaway raft of wave bobbing ocean, from Long John Silver and his pirate cronies. He pretended he was on the ocean in the morning green with ocean sun, and somewhere deep below the ocean as well. That he could see up to himself and the raft and down from himself into the mirror water where he existed at the very same time himself in his raft on the ocean mirror, and looking farther deeper, way down there as well. He was naked and had suffered a virulent snake bite on his groin, right above his penis. There was a red nodule there. It did not hurt but a little. It itched a lot. His body felt so free in the sun that seemed to oil him with his singular sexual feelings, absolutely every cell of him was horny. And every bone and ligament and muscle. He was the sexin' machine. Better than anyone in the world no matter how big their goddam dicks. Yes, he thought, and a double goddam too. Unafraid. So odd the feeling of unafraid and not guilty. The red snake nodule seemed to be putting fire into him that he had not had before. He saw his penis grow bigger, taller, longer, thicker, and his balls seemed to inflate as well, and he was a mighty boy who was lusted after by all the girls on the far banks of Tahiti who worshipped him in their own mysterious integral curious girly ways, as he smelled bamboo for some reason now, as he felt all the world tied to him, as a junk went by, and Tag getting his corners of the world mixed up, but what better things are dreams for?, as on this junk were commands and orders shouted out in unknown word sounds. As he felt Tally naked and sexless and sexy as hell beside him. As he felt the hot hot shadow of her hand reach down to his boyhood bigger than the other boys' now for sure. His penis made an arch under her palm. Like a bamboo tree, under a commanding sirocco wind that was her giggling knowledgeable magnetic hand to which his penis strained. As she pushed it down on its stalk and then let it spring back up. As she began to curiously examine it, face close to it, breathing on him, thus rocking him, where no one should. And the clouds the boy stared up at had some sort of Oriental caste to them. As did Tally's eyes, now, that were, now, the color of jade. That were now warm purry cats' eyes. And she was just so sexy, though Tag would not let her know how impressed by her he was, and he was very impressed, and she leaned her unclothed chest against his, her chest with its stairstep ribs and her stalk waste curved and formed into a kind of a V made with her legs scrunched together, and her nipples were boy nipples and she played them against his as he held her in his strong oak arms and pushed his passionate cock into the smooth sexless place between her legs. Legs they now entangled, as he felt his body mount to shelves of something that was more than momentary, more than looking forward to three p.m. each school day so he could get to his room and take off his clothes and rub his penis on the bed till it jingled like a cash register made of magical happy fun flesh and then expounded and floated him down into a sea of feathers, soft and sleepy. This though, this was different, and he felt a current coming from somewhere other than from himself, and for the first time he realized he had always thought jacking was akin to going to the bathroom, you did it by yourself, you didn't think twice about that, that to do it with another person was dead wrong, but as Tally rubbed her body on his, like a bee rubbing on the nectar of a flower of summer repose, as she rubbed him with one hand and took him into her mouth so wetly and warmly and so incredibly fast, he never even considered such a thing possible, in such grand exciting guilty wrong and wonderful gusto, for the both of them, and he put his hands to her warm head of golden hair, both of them covered with sweat, and his mouth whispered and groaned and he lay back and he arched, his leg muscles and toes straining, and his face crinkled at the lips and under his nose, as it seemed he was pulling away from her to get free, though the case was exactly the opposite, and she seemed to know all about him, she read him like a book, and that made him feel good, the first time that phrase had. And he raised up and looked at her on him and he put his hand to her and he came and came and the whole earth was waiting as it had been from time immemorial for his little excitation that was to him the meaning of breaking the world apart and everything in it. And breaking him apart for Tally too. His heart and all of him. He didn't dare hope she felt the same. As the water lapped round them and the beasts in it were quiet and respectful and awaited his and her next command. Dreams are curious things. Tag's were to be sure. He rarely had nightmares. He called them nightmares but they were not that. Instead they were sad dreams, dreams that made him wake weeping as often as not. He would like some nightmares sometime. Just scary as hell all out horror show dreams. He would prefer them in place of the sad lonely ones that he could not really remember other than a rain of pastel on a watery canvass. They were of happinesses he had once had or happinesses he had almost once had that were now for some inexplicable reason cut off from him. He thought, this dream too is a nightmare for this dream too leaves me alone and feeling like the moron I am, with the loss over and again of a happiness I will never know, for she won't even come to my house tonight, with the moon shining full and the trees heavy with sweaty green leaves, or any night at all. Because she saw through my monster in the closet business. Knew I was scared of it. Knew I wanted her here so she could exorcise it from me. Forget befriending. That was just me kidding myself. Not thinking, till now, that in order for her to get rid of it, she will have to exorcise me as well, because for whatever reason, the monster is now in my mind and is somehow or other my own fault and no one else can share in its birth. Who wants to share in the birth of a monster, after all? And that will have to be surgically operated on. Said surgical operation being the saying of her to me, "good-bye forever, friend Tag, you're far too childish for me." He had had his eyes closed ever since he had cum, ever since the snake of green emerald on a forgotten desert brown oasis had chased after him, faster it than even John Silver and his band of cut throats, with their raised sun glinting swords and cutlasses, there in the dazzle me sun, and the raft on ocean foam the boy almost got on to before the snake bit him on the groin, right where he had had his hernia surgery last year. Forever after he was to think of the word hernia in a sexual connotation, no choice in the matter. It had gotten around school he had had hernia surgery, so, when they found out where that was on the body, everybody inculcated that into their trick boxes of hurt they used on him. The laughs. The taunts. O Tally don't leave me too I'll die if you do I will for sure. I'll endure all the monsters till the end of time and keep you safe from them if you just won't go away. I'll die every night for you, just please. Stay. And Tag opened his wet eyes in the darkness and tried to remember the blue sky and the cat like lithe grace of the girl, delicious mysterious parts she had hidden just so, on the raft with him, though he had been thinking for a time, if Tally was a boy, that could be sexy too; indeed, it seemed that Tally looking like a boy as much as a girl was one of the reasons he fell in love with her in the first place, though it's tough for a boy to admit that. If not impossible. He opened his eyes and felt the warm sweat on him. The a/c. clicked on. But instead of the cold gusting all over his body, he only felt it on his face, his upper left shoulder and his lower left leg and foot. Something blocked the fake cold air. Something on top of him and to the side of him. In his bed that had another form in it in addition to his own. He felt hackles raise though he had no idea what hackles were. He felt squeamy and his penis deflated and his balls went to hiding in their cavities. He felt scared like he had never been scared before. He wanted to leap out of himself. But he was paralyzed. He wanted to get up, to run, to leave, not though being able to move one single frozen muscle. He ordered his body to put clothes on because it was just not right to be naked when you're being picked bone clean by the monster in the closet, the monster now embracing you on your bed that dad said would be safe as long as nothing of you dangled off of, which meant that dad lied, and how can you possibly ever forgive him that or live in such a world where that could happen? Was Dad the closet monster as at Christmas he dressed as Santa? Were his parents at his door now? Looking at him and laughing? You even allow the slightest possibility for something like that and nothing is the same in the world ever again. He almost screamed. Falsetto. To hell with being brave and a boy. Something lowered quickly to his mouth and hushed him. A quiet hush, a musical hush that had its roots in him all along, as though they had been together since antiquity, the monster in the closet and he, and his eyes widened, and in the moon glow, he had to look, he had to see what the damned thing looked like before it sliced its claws or fangs through his arteries, and he looked at its face, the very last sight he would ever see. He looked in the shadow and the moonlight. Into the face of Tally. Tally smiled and pecked her lips perkily at his chipmunk cheek. There was such mischief about her. In her eyes even if he could not see them in the dark, he felt it. She held his penis in her warm wise small hand. With the other, as she leaned over, quietly giggling, like a purr inside her rumbling, and stretched such a long (why did she look so much taller naked and more to her than she did clothed?) fascinating heart stopping body, she turned on his soft glow bedside lamp. Tally smiled and was unclothed and he became scared in a different way, in a good way, and the summer was full, the night was theirs, home had come to stay with him, as he leaned up and embraced her as though he knew exactly what he was doing, and soon actually would, as he held the sweet warm fragrance of her to him, felt the daintiness of her, his hands warming at her hips and chest, and he felt her arms going round him, and he knew if she had a penis it would give them so much more in common and if she did not and was a girl, then he would love her every bit as much. It was Tally that counted. Nothing more. And later on, in the dim orange light, after they had begun to tentatively touch and explore, Tag noticed the bedroom windows were still down and that the closet door was wide open with only darkness inside and nothing more. She would leave tomorrow morning early. Parents would not find out anything. There was no doubt in their minds. This was too important for the 'rents to screw up. You stake your claim. You abide by it. It was as simple as that. Besides, he always locked his room door, and his parents had recently pledged to Tag his room was his own, and they would respect his rights of privacy. And in each other's arms in the beginning of July, very late night, Tag and Tally slept, her hand on his groin, a finger tracing his hernia operation scar, his hand on her hip, as they dreamed of each other and would wake to find their dreams beside them, real as real can be, and the night was like a mandolin, strumming, and it and Tally and all the time there was, time to be with each other, time to delight in each other and time in which to consider who was a monster and who was not, and why was it ever anyone else's business anyway?, what right did others have to say?, made Tag's heart full to overflowing. And the two sleepy books closed. Only to be opened and read by each other, for only they knew how. So good-night, Irv, and thank you more than you can know..