die catfish, die. - 14. shovel

Maybe next year I'll have no time
To think about the questions to address
Am I the one to try to stop the fire?

I wouldn't test you I'm not the best you could have attained
Why try anything?
I will get there
Just remember I know

TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB - WHAT YOU KNOW (2010)

** ** **

Eli shoved his hands deep into his pockets and walked along the frying-pan-hot sidewalks of suburban hell.

Over the past week he’d attacked and finished all of his mother’s big summer chores that she’d set aside for him: clean the garage, sort through everything in the attic, get all the planters in the yard ready for flowers, sort clothes for Goodwill.

He trundled up the driveway and stopped in front of the picturesque red door, giving the doorbell a quick press. Shortly into the second loop of the Westminster Chimes, Chet pulled the door open.

Chet turned around and screamed his brother’s name loud enough to almost perforate Eli’s eardrums. Holding onto the door handle, he turned back toward Eli and grinned. “He’ll be right up.”

Chase hopped up the steps, and as he passed his brother in the hallway, smacked him upside the head. “You don’t hafta scream like that.”

Chet covered his head with his arms and ducked away. “Oww. I’m telling.”

“Oww, I’m telling!” Chase mimicked. “Don’t you have a room to clean? Mom’s going to be pissed if it’s not done by the time she gets home.”

Chet scampered off.

“Sorry about him,” Chase said to Eli. He shouldered up to the door. “What’s up?”

“Not much. I’ve been thinking about things a bit.”

“Is that what that smell is?”

Eli scowled. “I meant about…” he went silent and pointed a finger back and forth between them. “If you’re serious about things, I’ll help you. I want to give things a chance,” he said quietly.

Chase nodded, taking a quick glance back. “What are you doing Friday night?”

“Not much. Want to come over? Maybe play some video games and rent a movie?”

“I think Deadpool is coming out on DVD this weekend.” Chase smiled. “No way I’d ever get to watch it unless it was at a friend’s house.”

“I still need to see it,” Eli said. “Maybe my mom’ll take us out for dinner again.”

“Maybe we could do something else, too.” Chase traced his finger down Eli’s chest.

Eli wondered what Chase was getting at. “Remember what I said last time.”

Chase dropped his head. “I promise I won’t freak out again. I think it was… I don’t know.” He shrugged and glanced back into Eli’s eyes. “Maybe it was Joey and all the crap he was saying about you. I don’t know. Honestly?” He blushed and lowered his voice. “It was kind of nice when we kissed.”

** ** **

Eli sat in the back seat of his mother’s car next to Chase as they turned into a nice neighborhood. He looked over at Chase. “I hope you don’t mind if Adelae comes along. I promised her we’d hang out for a bit before she went to Jamaica for a while. Mom suggested I invite her along.”

Chase’s expression remained neutral. “I don’t mind.”

The car stopped in front of a fairly nice, two-story house in the middle of the block. A spotless, black Mercedes sedan sat in the driveway.

“Be right back,” Eli said, popping the door open. He jogged up the driveway and rang the doorbell.

After a moment, a man who could have been a body double for Terry Crews pulled open the door. When he locked eyes with Eli, his face lit up. “Elijah, my man.” He gave Eli a fist-bump and a slap on the shoulder, shaking his other hand.

“Hey, Mister Jones. How are things?”

The first time Eli had met Adelae’s father, he was scared shitless; the man was extremely intimidating. After Mister Jones learned that Eli wasn’t after one of his daughters—that he was just some little random fruitcake who ran around with Adelae’s group—he was totally cool.

“Good, man. Living the American Dream. Little pink houses n’ shit.”

Eli giggled.

Adelae squeezed around her father.

“You’re not staying out late, right? We have an early flight tomorrow morning.”

“I know, Daddy.” She got up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “I still have to finish packing. We’re only doing dinner tonight.”

He nodded and smiled. As Eli and Adelae walked toward the Lexus, Mister Jones leaned out and waved at Eli’s mother. “Hey girl, what’s good? Keeping out of trouble?”

Eli’s mom, who had rolled down her window, let out a chortle. “I don’t even have time to get into trouble!”

He walked halfway down the yard. “Hey, we’ll be having a barbecue the weekend after we get back. You n’ Elijah should come by. My wife’s been wanting to meet you.”

“That sounds great. Is that the weekend after the Fourth of July?”

“That’s the one.”

“Have Adelae give Eli a call and get us the details. Let us know what we should bring.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He waved at the car and turned toward the house.

“I can’t wait to sit on the beach,” Adelae said with a smile, a certain lift evident in her voice.

Eli held the front passenger door open for her; she slid in and buckled up. He got in the back seat and shut the door behind him.

As she twisted to talk to Eli, her eyes lighted on Chase, her voice falling almost a full octave. “Oh, hey. It’s you.”

Eli felt the air pressure drop out of the Lexus.

Before anything else could be said, Eli’s mother jerked the car into drive. “So, tell me about your vacation!”

** ** **

Adelae had spent the whole meal giving Chase a look de muerte across the table; Eli had noticed her gaze was bordering on the murderous; maybe it had been a bad idea not to mention that he’d be bringing Chase along.

Chase had stayed pretty quiet the whole time.

Eli’s mom seemed to have been oblivious to what was happening but participated in conversation almost as if she was a teenager again. Eli was reminded of Amy Poehler in Mean Girls: Oh, you kids keep me young!

Chase excused himself from the table to use the restroom. He dodged people in the aisles and disappeared into the back of the restaurant.

Several moments later, Adelae did the same.

It was just Eli and his mother at the table. She shifted slightly in her seat. “What’s with them?”

Eli, who had been watching Adelae cut through the crowd, swiveled his head around. “Huh?”

“What’s the issue there? What’s going on with the two of them?”

Eli shrugged, humming I don’t know as a string of m’s.

“Well, I don’t know if I trust Chase that much, either, after what happened to you.”

He sighed. “Mom…”

“Mom, what? I think she’s worried about you running around with him. She knows something’s up with him.”

Eli crossed his arms. “Adelae is worried, or you are worried?”

She raised her eyebrow.

“I told you he didn’t have anything to do with that,” Eli said.

“Okay,” she said defensively, reaching across the table and plucking the dessert menu from behind the napkin holder. “Eli, if there’s something going on with him…”

The color drained from Eli’s face. “What do you mean?” he sputtered.

“With him and that other kid that the witness said he saw beating the shit out of you. We’re not done talking about that.”

“Do we have to right now?”

“Elijah, it’s been more than a month. Every time I try to talk with you about it—”

“Mom, there’s nothing to talk about.” From where Eli was sitting, he saw Adelae walk out of the bathroom and stop. She leaned against a wall. What the hell is she doing?

“There’s plenty to talk about, sweet pea.” His mother gripped the straw of her drink between two fingers, covering the opening with her pointer finger. She lifted the lower end of the straw to her lips and took down a small bit of soda. “I’d really like to know why you don’t feel like you can talk to me about things.”

“Mom…” He sighed loudly. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“Something has been bothering you for a long time. Not just with Jacob, but with all of this. I’m just worried about you. We used to talk about everything when you were little.”

Eli slumped back. Across the restaurant, he saw Adelae catch Chase as he came out of the bathroom, crossing her arms, talking to him quietly as Chase’s head drooped; it looked as if she was giving him an earful. “I’m not little anymore, Mom.”

“I know you aren’t.” She sighed. “Just know that I love you no matter what. And I’m always here if you want to talk.”

** ** **

Eli and Chase stood in front of the Redbox, scrolling through titles on the screen. Eli glanced at his friend. “What did Adelae say to you?”

Chase’s cheeks burned red. “Nothing important.”

Eli scoffed. “Bullshit.”

Chase stared at the sky with frustration on his face. “She just wanted to let me know that she hated me, that’s all.”

“She doesn’t hate you. She doesn’t even know you.”

He pulled his hands down his face and looked over at Eli. “She said she doesn’t trust me. She said she doesn’t like me. She said that if I ever hurt you that she’d make sure that she’d kick me hard enough that I’d never have children.”

Eli searched Chase’s face. “She said that?”

“Basically. She used a lot of big words.”

“When we sort out the whole Joey thing, maybe we need to let her in on some things.”

Chase’s jaw pulsed. “Dude, if my parents… Nobody can know about…”

They both jumped as a loud horn honked behind them. Eli could hear his mom’s muffled voice in the car, parked several feet back. “Let’s hurry it up, boys!”

Eli looked back to Chase. “We’ll talk about this later.”

** ** **

Eli sat with his legs dangling off the edge of the couch, his head propped up on several pillows so he could watch the movie playing on the TV. Chase sat on the floor between Eli’s legs, his head obscuring part of the bottom of the screen, his dirty-blond hair haloed in the orange hues from the scene playing out before them.

Eli could feel the heat of Chase against his legs, and somehow the smell of the shampoo Chase had used that morning and the fabric softener in his clothes cut through the air. Maybe it was that Eli was used to how everything in his house smelled, and here was his friend, a foreign thing in his personal space.

Chase, like Eli, was only wearing his shorts. Every time Chase’s soft, bare skin would brush against one of Eli’s legs, Eli’s insides would stir, stealing his breath away.

Eli rubbed his bare stomach and twisted his head around, popping a few vertebrae in his neck. He knew better than to expect anything from Chase other than an occasional fling; he didn’t want that. If Chase couldn’t take a kiss, Eli figured that it wasn’t worth pursuing anyway.

On the screen, Deadpool sat on the edge of a bridge, kicking his feet and singing along to Salt-N-Pepa’s Shoop. Chase giggled at his antics as he leapt from the bridge and landed inside the black SUV through the sunroof.

Eli held his breath as he felt Chase’s hand gently stroking his shin and the side of his leg. Instead of saying anything, he popped several Mike and Ikes into his mouth as if he were taking a fistful of pills.

Every so often through the movie, Chase would shift his weight around to get comfortable. Then, sometime before the end, reaching back behind his head, he put his hands flat against the outsides of Eli’s legs and ran them up to his knees, then continuing up the sides of his thighs.

Eli inhaled.

Slowly, Chase’s warm hands moved around to the tops of Eli’s legs, then back to the sides. With a gentle tug, he grabbed the cloth of Eli’s shorts and started pulling.

“What are you doing?” Eli giggled.

Chase turned his head and stared at Eli through the corner of his eye. He shrugged, and continued tugging.

Eli grabbed his waistband and tried to hold his shorts up, laughing. “Dude, stop! I’m going to be all naked.”

Chase snorted.

Eli’s weight wasn’t enough to keep his shorts in place; as they slid over his knees, he lunged for the blanket draped over the back of the couch and covered himself.

Chase jumped up and slid in next to Eli, draping one leg over Eli’s legs. He pinned Eli’s arms above his head and sat up on top of him.

“What are you doing?” Eli laughed.

Chase grinned and stared deep into Eli’s eyes. His face and smile softened as he leaned down slightly, the only thing between them: a blanket and Eli’s reservations. “I thought maybe we could mess around or something,” Chase said as he pushed his crotch into Eli’s stomach.

Eli could feel himself hardening. “Chase…”

Suddenly, Chase came down fully on top of Eli, pushing their lips together, swirling his tongue around Eli’s mouth.

Eli couldn’t hold it back. His head lost in a deep fog of lust and stupidity, he just nodded his head and said, “Okay.”

** ** **

Eli had walked Chase to his house before returning home. Chase had chores to do and couldn’t hang out. Not to mention, Chase had to watch his little brother while his mom did some church thing or another.

With his hands shoved deep into his pockets, he walked to the keypad next to the garage and entered his code; the door lifted slowly

Impatient, he ducked under and took three steps into the garage and stopped, eyeballing the snow shovel on the wall.

He scowled. It was an older shovel, one of the ones with a metal scoop and a long wooden handle that was thick and slightly bulbous on the end—phallic; it sent a dull jolt of pain through his bottom. His entire colon was still sore from the night before.

While there wasn’t anything extraordinary about Chase or the way that he looked, he was definitely bigger than Jacob. And, it was so hard that, while Chase was inside him, for some reason it reminded him of the snow-shovel handle: inflexible, girthy, and unforgiving—hard.

Jacob had been gentle, and while it hurt for a little bit, it had become pleasurable; he had felt connected to Jacob in a very intimate way. Chase was just so damn awkward; he’d just stuck it in like he was dunking his junk for another afternoon Fleshlight-fest.

To make things even more awkward, before the main event, Chase spent ten minutes examining Eli like one of his doctors: feeling, squeezing, touching, pulling back the skin; Chase had never seen an uncut cock before. Chase had leaned down like he might take it into his mouth but stopped as if it was just too weird looking.

That hadn’t stopped Jacob.

With Jacob, it was like a five-course meal, including appetizers and dessert. With Chase, it was straight to the meat and potatoes. No sucking, no foreplay, and no kissing during—just one-way, primal fucking. After Chase had cum in Eli, he collapsed back into the couch and barely stayed hard enough for Eli to finish himself before Chase went soft.

After that, there wasn’t much said. Chase didn’t even sleep on the couch with Eli; he slept on the floor. The next morning, it was business as usual.

Eli hadn’t been played; he played himself.

He stared at the handle of the shovel and glowered, flipping it off as he stomped into the house, slamming the door behind him. Of course, he would never have his way with a shovel; he wasn’t so hard up that he’d just put some random tool up his butt.

But for a few days after Chase, it sure felt like he had.