Title: The Storyteller

Rating: R for sexuality, language, and mature content.

Summary: He could make you believe that your hands were tentacles and your nose had become a pickle if he so chose. But however beautiful his tales were they never ended with ‘happily ever after’. In fact, they never had the word ‘happy’ in them at all.

Warnings: Homosexuality, mentions of suicide, drug use, language, unfaithful lovers, etc.

The Storyteller

He was neither gnarled old man nor mysterious figure clad in cloaks and boots. He wore black hooded sweatshirts and faded band t-shirts with great gaping tears suggesting fistfights. For one so big in imagination he really was quite tiny and not particularly of any presence. That speech, when emitted, was soft and shy like a kitten’s mewl. The squashy middle of this man hinted that he might be slightly overweight with a respectable ass that no Latino had a victory over. A fluffy halo of dull brown was cut raggedly above his ears as if no one had any idea what to do with it. Spokes of hair were always in his eyes (purposely placed there hence he could fuss with them when he was agitated). That face was cherubic and if the doormen were asking for ID’s they surely would have demanded to see his. But what enticed me most were his eyes, which in the dim lighting of our first meeting appeared as wide and black as that of a doe. I later learned that they were, in fact, a shocking shade of slate.

The first time I ever saw him was in the pale carnival lights of a party. He was opposite me on the edge of the room, the white curve of his cheek like an albino apple with murky yellow spreading like a bruise. I didn’t know what drew my notice to him; he looked no better or worse than the countless other misfit band junkies littering the room like cigarette butts. He was not eye-catching like the rail-thin blond that had been slinking around the room resembling an animal stalking prey. Maybe it was the way that this stranger stood: slightly hunched as if afraid of being hit with his head inclined to the side in what I assumed to be curiosity. A bottle was in his hand and he was holding it close like a clandestine companion, every few moments winding a bit of hair around the fingers of his free hand or tapping out a restless rhythm on the barrel of his beer. There was no reason to stare. I mean, he was so not my type. Yet I did.

Jay, my best friend incarnate, was talking to the top of my head and swaying on his feet. He feigned dancing to the music but it was obvious he was drunk off his ass. The best thing for my pride would probably have been to listen to the older man dutifully, but my focus was stuck to the back of an elbow barely perceptible through the thick fabric of a sweatshirt. I was slightly grateful that Jay was inebriated, because I didn’t want to be discovered perving on Pugsley Addams. I would be single for the rest of my life if I did not stop nitpicking on every masculine stud-muffin that came my way. Shallow dating conspiracies ruled my love life.

But for all my effort to pretend I wasn’t looking, the pudgy object of my interest felt my gaze on him. Up came his head and around went his features, turning to look directly at me without so much as a second’s searching. My knee-jerk reaction was to glance away but there was no time and even less stamina to do so. Those beautiful eyes were black moons hanging high above the sewer pipes that had become my life. I wanted to reach out and touch them. Cup them in my hands and draw them down to me. The Storyteller’s eyes promised illumination.

I was only seventeen years old that night. In all honesty, I must have looked ridiculous as I tried to saunter over to this starry-eyed boy. I was in a band, yes, but the majority of the party guests were adult fellow musicians on the scene. Me? I was Lonny the baby. My destination’s size leveled off as I approached and I discovered that this guy was not much taller than I. I could tell he was plumper than my butterball self, but that hardly bothered me. I was never one for anorexic lovers. Of course I felt a bit dumb with my ugly brown hair and choir-boy face, especially because the person who had been conversing with Star-Boy was my much older, taller, and more mature bandmate Jim.

I’d had too many indulgences tonight and my tongue felt thick and useless in the dry riverbed of my mouth. I made an effort to appear jaded and sexy but thought I probably looked stoned. Or even worse, like my ordinary identity. Punk rocker by night, Catholic schoolboy by day.

“Hey, Lonny. What’s up?” Jim asked me (to rectify the awkward entrance I’d made).

I shrugged, feigning nonchalance, and felt like hitting myself with my beer can as the damn thing sloshed onto my hand. Misjudging movements when intoxicated and high is not a practice I recommend. A sound like a strangled goose skittered into the air at my right and when I turned Star-Boy was blushing at me with a shy little quirk in his mouth. I blinked, bewildered for a moment, when my brain at last processed that the honking had been my crush’s laugh. At this recognition I grinned and felt all the more inclined to fancy this tubby dude with messy coffee-colored hair. Hey, beautiful, aren’t you just a funny little fuck?

The music escalated and I had to yell to be heard amongst the blaring riffs and breakneck licks.

“I’m Lonny Payne.” I shouted, using this as an excuse to lean near his ear.

I could smell the pungent stench of unwashed skin and vomit from four inches back but somehow he looked too soft to reek so foul. His sweat had that sharp, searing quality that identified someone who wasn’t fond of showers. I loved to shed water with the best of them, but I was a hygiene freak. Nevertheless, I was not offset considering that the major percentile of people I associated with had the same alarming disregard for grooming. The smooth, full white cheek turned in to my voice and my lips came perilously close to brushing its surface.

“What?” Star-Boy screeched.

The pitch of his voice had rocketed up a few octaves. I repeated my sentence with determination, and a dimple sunk into the cheek I was speaking to. He was smiling.

“From Bone Dancers, right? You’re amazing!”

I nearly spontaneously sprung below the waist but stopped myself when I realized he was complimenting my band and not me.

“Thanks!” I continued in a bellowing tone that was lost amidst the thudding in the speakers. “Who’re you?”

Star-Boy shifted in my direction and three-quarters of his face came into view. It seemed mellow and flush with the promise of unfulfilled smiles.

“Dominique Woodard. I’m one of your fangirls.” The honk of his laughter was greedily consumed by the racket but I could see it happen in the shivering of his skin.

Fans always want to get in bed with the vocalist, I thought feverishly.

So summoned by my impulsivity and lost rationality, I yelled out: “You’re beautiful.”

“Oh gosh, thank you!” He looked like he couldn’t quite keep himself still and kept darting glances everywhere but at me. “My boyfriend’s the only other person that’s ever told me that.”

In my mind’s eye a guillotine blade fell and my beer can hit the floor rolling.

Sam Epstein had always been a good friend to me. He was older than I in various senses of the word and I had long looked up to him as a potential idol. Getbackers, (his band) predated my own by several years and had achieved quite a status as a household act. He was Emo king and local legend suspended in reverence for the memories he could recount. Everyone knew and loved the indie talent that was erecting the skeleton of the Virginia scene as one of America’s finest. He defined a panorama and a genre that I was ensconced in. The sickly, agony-eyed African-American held the parties that got people signed, the stage-diving that paraded them on high. Never the matter that Sam was a basket case with the voice of Adonis or that he was ill inside and ill at ease. The man was our messiah.

Yet I thought perhaps I could bring myself to hate him on the night that I met Dominique Woodard. The disease called ‘jealousy’ was consuming my internal organs with teeth born of torn beer cans and shattered bottles. Sam, tall, skinny, homely Mr. Epstein, had one hand on Dominique’s hip almost unconsciously as if it belonged in the folds of Star-Boy’s sweatshirt. The gangly vocalist manic-depressive chatted so casually as he drew Dominique round in front of him and slid his hands into the pockets that lay over the smaller man’s belly. Dominique, beautiful and perfect like a broken piano, leaned back against his boyfriend and seemed to lose focus on the world around him. How could Sam be so miserable and wounded if he held the heart of this glorious creature? Was he not as intelligent as I gave him credit for?

“So, what you do?” Kim Lee, resident grocery bagger, asked Dominique.

Dominique blinked for a moment and shrank back against his larger partner but then replied in his little voice, “I’m an artist. Like, you know, I illustrate children's books?”.

“No shit!” I exclaimed, impressed and smitten.

Sam laughed and placed a sugary kiss on his captive’s flawless cheek, rocking them from side to side a bit in affection or adoration.

“He’s brilliant. Teaches art to my kids every Monday and they just worship him.”

Sam’s day job was as a YMCA day care precedent. His patient intellectualism had always had me in fits of envy but now I was positively green. I could not blame Dominique for belonging to a man of Sam’s stature. If one got past the psychosis and medical concerns Sam Epstein was quite a catch. Definitely not like me.

“That’s sweet.” I commented, my knuckles delivering a playful strike to Dominique’s fleshy upper arm.

Sam’s hand migrated immediately, seemingly without conscious thought, to where I’d hit Dominique. As if he had the healing touch of a mother. Dominique’s slate-grey eyes flashed like silver beneath his lashes, focusing on me as if my touch had magnetized his gaze. Sweat broke in a line down my spine. Perhaps it was wishful thinking and the illusion of alcohol, but I could have sworn that I could see a coil of desire in those eyes.