Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 23:01:00 +0000 From: Timothy Stillman Subject: "The Only Other Boy I Knew" The Only Other Boy I Knew By Tim Stillman Thanks, Fran, for the idea (Any response is deeply appreciated) He wasn't much really. But he had those sad eyes. Like he could see the future for himself. He was quiet and kept alone. He was the loneliest kid I had ever seen, save for me. Lonelier maybe. His hand cupped his chin and his pale eyes looked through a distance of inches at me. He smiled. One of those has to smile. He was lost, it seemed. I reached out to touch him, but then pulled my hand back. On my knees, on my bed, naked. Offering him my erection. I had discovered it about the time of him, and believed he had forgotten it and everything else. It was cool Autumn. Early October. I believed in him and felt silly for the saying of it. I had not noticed him before. There on the play ground. Intimidated. Eyes downcast. Hands fluttering round his waist. Not knowing he was there. That was the worst thing. He didn't even know that. Which was why all day long I could not wait to get home from school and show him--me. I wanted him to be impressed but he was vaguely someone else. As everyone was someone else to me. I leaned back on my calves and I stretched my body back from him, like a bow in an arrow, going backwards to me. I didn't think he had to say anything. I knew I could not take off his clothes. But I had taken off mine. And pinched my tits for him and rubbed the small amount of pubic hair and waved my dick at him, hands free. I wished he would smile more. I told him I was sorry I had gone all this time not seeing him. It seemed terribly wrong. That I had not. I had come to make apology. I rubbed my pink penis and it felt trembly. His eyes were on me. I was afraid I would lose my hard on if he saw. If anybody saw. We were brothers. He took the hits for me. You shouldn't be brothers and take the hits for one. Both should be there standing with the world in view, each defending each. I heard him at night sometimes. It woke me up. His weeping. I tried to comfort him. But he was far away in being so close. I didn't want him to wear that stupid pale vest today and the pale long pants and that stupid tie. I didn't want him to have those dreamy eyes that I could not make into mine. I had a Jerry Mahoney doll when I was a kid. Paul Winchell was the ventriloquist who I loved. And Jerry was his dummy. I would sit for hours in the rocking chair over there, here in the attic, with Jerry on my lap and try to throw my voice, through instructions from the booklet that came with it. I never could. But it wasn't from want of trying. I wonder whatever happened to Jerry. I wonder whatever would happen to my brother. The other me who was not me. The only boy I knew who I did not know. It's what happens, I guess, when you are even a little distant from someone who used to be close. I thought sexuality would do it. Would make him feel better. Would make him want to be like his big brother. Would give him hope. Hope, I had recently discovered, was the greatest thing in the world. And I guess so was exhibitionism; though this was the first time I had done such a thing. I played with my little chipmunk ping-pong balls and felt them hot in my hand. I wanted to take his hand and put them there. I wanted him to avoid what would and what had befallen me--the terrible molestation of not being touched or noticed or acknowledged at all, save by adults who didn't care--I wanted to show him how my face was when I masturbated--how I would close my eyes, and the tip of my red tongue would stick out between my teeth. How my body would shake its rickety self and tremors of electricity would go through me, through my nipples and my penis and my abdomen. It would be as if I was in another world and when I came the all of me came and I shuttered the world out. Told IT to keep away. Other than the other way round. I had never felt so sexy as I did when I was doing this for him. I wanted his hands on me. I wanted him not to cry himself to sleep at night so much. I wanted him to not live in a dreamland all the time. They say dreams are for free. Well, both of us know they are not free at all. They cost a helluva lot. You may never stop paying for them. They also say, whoever THEY are, THEY never seem to be around so you can tell THEM how full of it they are, words can never hurt you. But of course they can. And so can silence. Silence I was to come to know was far worse. It was silent for my younger brother. Not that he was deaf. He was sightless, too. Not that he was blind. He was what he was and he didn't know I was here. He didn't know tomorrow. And I thought that a good thing. And I came and I spurted and I came and I spurted all over his face that remained motionless. That remained contained. And I closed my eyes and I tried to feel him on the bed with me. His clothes not seeming nailed on. His smile not for something neither he nor I could see. It was close to six now. Mom would be home soon. Dinner to fix. The air coming in the raised attic window was nice and early Fall taste breezy. I tried to comfort him as I lay down next to him. I tried to tell him I would look up someday and find him taller than me. But I knew he was destined to be my shadow or me to be his. And sometimes I found him a mute mockery. I wished he would stop staring at me and would rub my butt and tell me it was a nice one. I wished I could be there that first day he discovered masturbation. I was. But I was not what he wanted me to be. I find him still looking sadly at me. I find myself angry at that smile that was closed because he had ragged teeth and was ashamed of them. I lay there with him for a time, and when it got colder, and closer to six, I told him we had to get dressed and go downstairs. And it was a failure. The whole enterprise. The whole experience. I was nothing more than a fake. He was real. He was the one looking out for me. He was the one who kept me company in my bed. He was the one who looked out for me as the school days and then the holidays ran me through the gauntlet. He was the brother who said I was not "not noticed." That someone would see me soon. That he would be there even when they did. He would call me away through the years and bring me a book from my childhood and say, hey Barry, remember me? The little kid with the great big broken heart of Autumn and how you wanted to have someone say they loved you. I love you, kid, and that adult me up there somewhere would hold that book we both loved, from the school or public library, a copy of which I had found at an out of print book seller. And I would cry for the both of us. I would say, holding the book, and him tightly to my chest, I failed you, I kept failing you and I'm sorry. But he would say, you didn't, you did okay, you did, and once upon a time, we made love together and you held me and you masturbated for you and me said the words I wanted so to hear, and I did, and you did hear them. It was real. You were wrong all this time, bro. Be happy. Keep me warm. Neither of us ever let the other one down. But that was for years later. For now, I dressed, young teenager, and put the photo of myself, age 8, back on the wall over my bed. I sat there for a minute. Then I heard Mom's car in the driveway, and went downstairs to help her with the groceries. And that was how it was with me.