The Trestle

The Trestle
Normally we avoided Boardman Lake and the river water cause for decades factories had been dumping toxic waste into it. It wasn’t safe for swimming, people didn’t even water ski on it.
Supposedly the lake was being cleaned up but there was no way of knowing plus the sewage plant was still there dumping its fecal juice into the river, and that you could see. At the jetty near our beach the river leaked brown water out into the blue bay. The current carried it along the shore in front of our house where the waves washed ashore green.
The trestle was well hidden from the public eye by the trees and bushes that surround it down to the river’s edge. We could do whatever we felt like and we did without bothering about being seen. We’d strip down and jump naked off of it. We knew the water was gross but the fun of being naked outweighed any worry about contamination.
Franklin Six
At night the Franklin Six slept there, under the trestle, on the sandy side. The Franklin Six were a gang of Indians whose territory was the stretch of Franklin Street all the way from Jack’s party store and the bay at the north end to Dean’s party store and Boardman Lake to the South. They were drunks and availability of alcohol defined the perimeters of their world. They moved en masse and although one or two would die off every several years there were always six.

We fucked with the teenagers but not with the Indians. They were unpredictable and any one of them could switch from harmless to murderous in an eye-blink. For them madness came in a bottle.
They’d had a car once but had driven it full speed off the Clinch Park boat ramp. I heard they were dead silent as they went into the water with just the roar of the engine as soundtrack to what appeared to be a group suicide attempt. The engine sputtered to a stop before the car was completely submerged. I’m sure it was a spontaneous idea but it didn’t surprise me. It was hard for me to imagine that any part of their life made them want to live it.
I knew of another carload of Indians who had tried to end it all by driving off the cliff at Peterson Park. It was a long drop down to lake Michigan, a couple hundred yards at least. They made it about halfway. The car’s carcass was still there, rusted.
Teen horniness is not a crime
Teenagers had sex on our side of the trestle after dark. We didn’t see them doing this, but we’d find their discarded underwear and condoms. The same stuff pretty much that they left behind in the wrecks. I didn’t understand why they didn’t remove the evidence. I got that they were in a hurry, they were always at risk of being caught by the cops, but why not come back the next day and cover their tracks.
In a way I admired the teenagers for their pursuit of lawless activities in the face of communal condemnation, but I also thought we were better than them. They were in the spotlight with attention beaming down from parents and police, everyone really. We moved about unseen or if we were, we were never called on it. We did whatever we wanted.
Teenagers were deviant only in what passed for rebellion was really just horniness. They roamed in packs during the summer and drove around the Front/State streets loop downtown and screamed out of their windows.
They laughed like hyenas and I was embarrassed for them. It wouldn’t be long before they were their fat parents. Us little kids ran under the radar, we could do just about anything and get away with it. I never once got arrested before the age of fourteen.

Waiting on the Acton van.

I'd never been to Skid Row but had read a lot of Bukowski and what he portrayed sounded similar to The Tenderloin in San Francisco, rundown hotels and seedy bars, sidewalks crowded by bums and hustlers and whores, but it wasn't at all. It looked clean, and quiet, as if everything that breathed had been vaporized, probably by a toxic cloud.
I saw a cloud mushroomed over downtown L.A. once, it was green. I knew that it was the after effect of the earthquake that had just occurred, otherwise I would have suspected some sort of biological chemical warfare result. They were always trying to solve the homeless population problem and what better way than just disappear them with some poisonous cloud of gas.
Red and blue pup-tents livened up the gray backdrop but it was otherwise bleak and completely void of people. The buildings looked empty and I wondered why they didn’t just stick the tent dwellers inside them.
The tents appeared to serve as portable tract housing for the homeless, and none was any larger or smaller than it’s neighbor. I wondered if they had a limit on number of occupants. Instead of cars in the driveway there were grocery carts parked alongside.

The cab dropped me off in front of a white one story cinder block building surrounded by a very tall chain link fence. I got out and realized the cleanness was an illusion created by the layer of smog dust that covered everything with a matte veneer. Sunlight did not reflect down here, it absorbed, and I wondered if the same grey glow shone day and night. A patriotic colored banner hung from the flat roof, American Outreach United. I found the name of the place not comforting but suspicious. I imagined myself wandering around some flat vista wearing a torn and singed faux military Scientology looking uniform, my eyes blank with Thorazine.
I checked in with a friendly black woman sitting behind a battered wooden desk with nothing on it but an old phone with a cord. She told me it would be awhile and to have a seat.
The waiting area was made up of a couple of couches and overstuffed chairs. Thrift shop rejects filled with decades of dust mite carcasses I suspected.
One of the chairs was occupied by an ancient lady wearing monochrome clothes, everything was peach. AN unrolled to the chin ribbed turtleneck was tucked into the high waisted flared slacks. Over this was an ankle length sleeveless vest. She had soft suede zipper sided platform boots, also peach.
I dropped my bags and sat across from her on an orange couch stained with grease where your head would go if you sat back.
The lady didn’t look like she wanted to exchange hellos so I didn’t. She was staring into a tiny address book and since she didn’t seem to take notice of me I watched her do this. I don’t like people staring at me, I doubt anyone does, but if she wasn’t aware of it she couldn’t mind.
She had tiny reading glasses perched at the end of a long nose. Her copper-colored hair was coiled up tightly into a cone that peaked at least eight inches above the top of her head. She looked like a Star Trek bartender and I wondered what kind of noises would come out of her mouth if she spoke.

Roadrunner, Indians, Sharkskin suit

Roadrunner
One night my ride left so on my way out of the lot I stole a Roadrunner. It wasn’t planned, I was going to hitchhike, but as I passed by I saw that the windows were open and the keys were in the ignition.
It was an old school muscle car and I knew that whoever owned it loved it. Hood scoop and spoiler, big fat tires, rear end in the air, green metal flake paint job with wide white racing. I don’t know why it didn’t have a stick, but it didn’t so I had a ride home.
But I didn’t want to go home, driving it was too much fun so I passed through Traverse City and headed North, up M22 into Leelanau County. The road was empty and I was going as fast as I could. When I got to Northport I turned South. I slammed the pedal to the floor and It went right through it.
Directly in my path was a house and no obstructions between me and it. There was no way I could make the curve going as fast as I was. I shifted into neutral and the car spun out into the ditch on the other side of the road. The motor was screaming and I was afraid it would blow up or something so I jumped out and ran into the woods. Just like the Torch Lake Indians.




Indians take to the woods
Gabrielle and I were hitching up to our friend Nancy’s cottage on Torch Lake when an overloaded station wagon picked us up. It was filled with four of five generations of an Indian family. Not all of them I’m sure, but some from each. Gabby knew some of them. She liked to hook up with native guys. Anyone third world looking really.
We barely got a mile when smoke started billowing out from under the hood. The car pulled over and without a sound everyone piled out and ran into the woods. I considered it some sort of primitive reaction to the dysfunction of the white mans mechanical monster. They disappeared and we were left standing there. Gabrielle grew up on a farm and had some know how that I didn’t. She popped the hood and started throwing handfuls of sandy dirt onto the engine. I quickly joined in and we got the fire to go out.
A pick-up truck pulled over and the driver got out to help us. By now the engine had quit smoking but the Indians were still nowhere in sight. It was like they had vaporized. I wondered if they were still running, the fiery car a heaving monster in their minds, roaring through the woods behind them.

Sharkskin suit
I stayed in the woods too, for fear of being caught. The car was still screaming and there was the house right there. It was dawn now and I was wearing this shiny sharkskin suit. I was also wearing Beatle boots, this was my look at the time. With both of us being foreign objects in the area I’d immediately be connected to the car.
I started walking in the general direction of Lake Michigan. I thought this was what the Indians had been doing too, an instinctual pull towards water. If the world caught on fire, water would be safe harbor. At least you could see your enemies coming.
It was not a lush forest with a soft bed of needles underfoot. These woods had a lot of underbrush and the suit was getting snagged on branches. I was stumbling along for quite awhile when I glimpsed pavement between the trees.
I didn’t know what road it was or where I was but at this point I didn’t care. If a cop came along I’d just feign ignorance. I don’t know what you’re talking about, I could say.
I was so tired and dehydrated I would have drank from a puddle and slept in a ditch but I didn’t have to. I saw the trail to Vicki’s Place, and knew that if I made it there I’d have a bed to sleep in.

The Shed

Every warm day we spent on the beach. My brother and I set up this huge canvas tent on the sand and we’d sleep there at night. My sister was too small. Between our house and the river was a giant Willow tree that had three or four trunks. During the day we’d play under it. I’d create highways in the dirt where my toy cars would have horrific accidents.
At night we kept our distance from the tree cause bums would hang out under it drinking, we’d find empty bottles of cheap wine and Sterno cans in the morning. One night there was a loud ruckus and my mother came down to the tent with a flashlight in one hand and a big kitchen knife in the other. She told us we had to go up to the house. Shortly after, the cops showed up and I guess took the bums away cause it was quiet after that.
A friend of my mother’s helped us build a Tom Sawyer type raft; logs tied together with twine and rope. It weighed a ton but we had a lot of fun on it until a storm busted it up. We soon found replacements in a shed a few houses down. There were five houses along this stretch of beach. One of the houses had a long low shed behind it. It was about the width and length of a double-wide trailer, only it wasn’t. It looked really old with peeling paint and windows so filthy we couldn’t see through them. We were really curious what was in there and since we never saw any activity around the place we decided to check it out.
The end facing the water was comprised of double-sided doors connected by a rusted padlock. One night, me and my brother along with a neighbor kid went over there and smashed the lock off with a hammer. When our eyes adjusted to the dark we saw that the place was filled with coffins. They lined the walls and looked to be the cheap kind you imagine poor people are buried in. I saw a pile of lids and got an idea, “We can use those for paddle-boards.” We each grabbed one and dragged them down to the beach where we hid them under some bushes.
The lids were heavy but floated, although they were always an inch or two under the water. We spent the rest of the summer paddling around the bay on them. I liked to go way out and just lay on mine, soaking up sun.
We pretty much ran wild all summer but sometimes we had baby-sitters. One of them was this kid Bobby, he was fifteen and the son of some friends of my mothers. Most of the time he just played with us like another kid but one day he told me to come with him, he had something to show me.
We went into the shed behind the last house on the row, on the other side of it was a park. The shed was small and filled with old furniture including a couch which I sat on.
“Check it out” Bobby pulled out his dick and I stared at it. I’d never seen an adult one and was sort of grossed out by the hair.
“Not that” he said, “over there.”
He pointed at the wall behind him where the sunlight through a little window was casting a long shadow of his limp penis. He started wagging it around and we watched the shadow move. I didn’t know what to make of this, it wasn’t very interesting.
“Cool” I said.


A couple weeks later a friend and I were standing in the doorway of that same shed flicking lit matches at an old overstuffed chair. Whatever it was stuffed with turned out to be super flammable cause when a match finally made direct contact it ignited immediately.
The shed was gone before the fire truck could even get there. Everyone knew we did it and the cops questioned us about it, but we lied and nothing ever came of it.
My parents were separated during this period but shortly after we moved to Illinois where my father had been living in a large walk in safe. His apartment, the safe, was located in a creepy old mansion on the Fox River. It had a tower and an observatory. His room had no windows of course. I don’t know how he did it, lived there.
He told me later he suffered from lifelong claustrophobia due to closet imprisonment at the hands of his mother. Maybe he was always drunk in the safe, or had company. I wonder if you’re still claustrophobic if you’re with other people. Probably but the distraction must help.
Some of my childhood pastimes seem pre-serial killer in retrospect, but the arson didn’t continue and I never tortured animals.
Bobby the babysitter did end up a killer. He murdered a prostitute when he was still a teenager and did a couple of decades in prison.

The Nova

Monument
For whatever reason the Nova was still fucked up after I bailed it out, it would never run right. It sat for a month while I paid off the garage that worked on it. I may have as well been a girl to the mechanics for as little as I knew, but they couldn’t rip me off, I had no money. After awhile they just wanted it gone.
I didn’t really have to buy it in the first place, after all I was only test driving it. I just thought I should. It would have been crappy if I didn’t, although the guy was knowingly selling me junk. Aside from the mechanical failings I liked the car, the look of it. I liked it even more after the accident. It looked like it’d been bit by a shark.
I erased its mustard color with flat black spray paint. This was dumb because it drew heat causing more and new engine problems, but it looked good. I flipped the tires to hide the unsightly white walls and if no one knew how small the motor was it looked menacing.
Down the road from PC was this thing that I wanted to drive to the top of. It looked like a giant upside down planter or Devo hat. From a distance it appeared to be carved from rock but up close it was just hard dirt. It was difficult to figure how or why, or even when it had been constructed. I didn’t care, I wanted to sit on top of it. My sister was coming out to visit so I thought I’d take her there.
I was living at Beas boarding house at the time and got my sister a room there too. I had to even if it was only going to be for a couple days. Bea insisted on separate lodging. I don’t think she thought Dianne was really my sister, and she didn’t encourage cohabitation. She didn’t even rent to girls.
Beas was a big old house in the canyon at the top of Main Street. It defined ramshackle and like all the other old structures was Victorian era. I liked living there and had moved in after the mess with Tony lost me the condo. I could climb out of my window onto a roof pitched just right for tanning. I still hadn’t started using sunblock anywhere but on my face, and had atrocious spots of damage on my shoulders and upper arms. I looked bad, as in awful, but I liked it. I fit the car.
I didn’t really leave the immediate vicinity of Park City much, unless it was to go down into SLC for shows at the Indian Center or shopping at the mall. There was no reason plus I tended to get harassed by the police.
A friend and I had driven East to Wyoming once to register his van and stock up on cheaper beer. You didn’t need proof of insurance over there and they had real beer, not 3.2, for real world prices. The Mormons had it all jacked up, liquor wise. They didn’t believe in consuming alcohol but they did believe in fleecing the people that did.
We turned off the highway. The thing could be seen in the near distance. I’ll call it The Monument, it had to be one of some kind, like Ayer’s Rock. I wondered if anyone died at it. I wondered if we would and started laughing at the drama that would ensue if we did. Dianne looked at me but I couldn’t share the thought, it was too stupid.
There was nothing of any significant elevation near it, although far off was the ever present mountain vista, topped by snow. We climbed out of the car and into a cloud of dust we’d stirred up. We both coughed, and waved our hands around in front of our faces like old women.
The ramp to the top was little more than car width. Medium sized American. In order to stay on track I never unturned the wheel. I think we maybe made three revolutions before reaching the top. I stopped, pulled the emergency brake on and we got out. No one else was up there but I already knew that. You would have been able to see them from ground level.
We sat on the roof of the car. The sun hung low in the sky casting long shadows behind the cactus and rocks. Its rays reflected dimly off the water of a manmade lake a few miles to our south. This lake wasn’t made for recreation, and it was in no way scenic, it was simply the byproduct of some never finished industrial excavation. A slick surface surrounded by rock outcroppings. It was long, you couldn’t see the far end.
Locals did windsurf on it, and I’d been over there a couple of times. When the wind was up it was perfect for that but no matter how hot the air was no one ever went in without a full wetsuit. The water was murky green with foam piling up along the shore. It never got shallow enough to see the bottom. Fish had been planted decades before but you never saw anyone fishing and from what I saw of the dead ones I can’t imagine the kind of freak that would eat one. Or maybe I could, The Hills Have Eyes had been filmed nearby. The mutants would eat these fish. I’m sure animals wouldn’t though, they can tell when stuff’s not right, like Indians…

Deer Killed by Beauty Van

Not working was always a key element in my philosophy of life, but every once in a while, lacking in regular cash, I'd have to pick up some dumb job. I had no marketable skills but I did have a driver’s license and that was enough to get me hired delivering beauty products.
My route was on the other side of the state, the Lake Huron shoreline, The Redneck Riviera. I’d never been over there. I thought of it as the wrong side of the state but I considered anything more than thirty miles away from Traverse City wrong. For me wrong meant ugly scenery sparsely populated with rednecks. I didn’t see myself as a snob; I thought Traverse City was a dump too, just that these outer realms were worse.
My vehicle was a big brown snub-nosed van. I'd load it up with shampoo, dye, chemicals and electronics then head north and east stopping at house and garage based salons along the way. These beauty shop ladies were creepy and my favorite drops were ones without any social interaction.
If I needed a signature I was out of luck and would have to field their nosy questions, Was I married? Did I have a girlfriend, children?
They seemed stupid and it occurred to me that they might be experiencing brain damage from inhaling perm solution and nail-polish remover all day. These women were accidental huffers. Later of course I realized that they were collecting gossip fodder to pass on to their homebound associates and possibly a visit from the delivery boy was a highlight of their day. I had a friend who delivered flowers and he was always getting frightened by sexually aggressive housewives. Some of them were not hideous but he was afraid that if he had sex with one he’d have to have sex with them all. Word would get out.
It was a dull drive that was easily enhanced by liquor, so I started drinking on the way home, usually when my route was almost over. This was when I still thought drinking and driving was a safe practice and I guess it was, I had no repercussions from it, until I hit the deer.
I was driving south through pitch black woods. I had one more stop that I knew I would never find. Not because I was on my second bottle of Lambrusco but because I’d never been there before and it was remote. A town called Higgins Lake. I didn’t know if it was a town even, it could just be a lake. The drop was tiny anyway, a couple bottles of toner, so I planned on skipping it. I passed by this XXX drive-in theater that always distracted my imagination. It was off in the woods, and aside from the sign by the road all you could see of it was the top of the screen. What I imagined was what kind of people patronized it, the beauty shop ladies for sure, what sort of vehicles they used and what they did in them. I was just getting into that last bit, trying to gross myself out, when a big animal face blotted out the road.
There wasn't much to the front of the van and the deer was up and across the windshield almost before I could blink, long enough though for its bulging eye and rolling tongue, its little teeth, to be imprinted on my retina. Later when I retold this story, my memory enhanced by time I'd envision the animals head ripped from its torso, blood veined eyeballs popping out of its skull, thick black lips curled back revealing razor sharp teeth. A monster born of the woods.
I hoped it was dead and not crippled but I didn't get out to look, I didn't want to and as it turned out I didn't have to. It was November 14th the day before hunting season opened, and the woods were already filled with hunters horny for a kill. My view of these men as freaks was reinforced as I watched a handful emerge from the mist at the edge of the woods; swamp muck sucking at their boots as they sniffed at the air.
Drawn by the squeal of tires and the smell of blood, they lurched towards my van like movie zombies. One of them approached and seemed to be trying to speak so I rolled down my window. He was fat and gasping for air from trudging thru the woods or, it occurred to me, in anticipation for the dead deer and the promise of sexual release it held. I looked down to see if I could spot an erection but his trousers were all bunched up and I couldn't tell.
“It gawn blow!” A newly dead deer will bloat with gaseous fumes and explode if not gutted immediately. This was what the hunter was trying to tell me. He wanted the deer and I said “sure”, glad to have it removed from my sight while I waited for the wrecker.
I watched through the busted windshield as he unsheathed a huge knife. He bent over, exposing an ass so big it almost dwarfed the deer, and with some difficulty slit open it’s belly. Blood flooded the pavement and settled into a dark pool. Steam rose up as the heat of the animal met the cool night air.
They're gonna fuck that thing, I thought, watching him and another man drag the carcass off the highway and into the woods. I rode to a nearby gas station in the cab of the tow truck. The driver owned the station and told me that although the van still ran it wouldn't make it back home without a replacement radiator. He would see if he had a used one around.
I checked into a nearby motel and then walked to a party store for beer. Across the road from the store was a bar, a roadhouse advertising music and dancing. I wondered if they had food and what kind it would be, I was hungry, but eating food in remote places like this could be risky. I was served a plate of rotted meat at a restaurant in the U.P once. It was just like this one, stuck in the middle of nowhere. When I told the waitress it tasted weird she asked if I was from the city, that I probably wasn't used to wild meat. I tried to imagine what a wild cow might look like? Maybe it would resemble the bony ones with horns from Texas; Longhorns.
I walked back to the cabin and lay on the bed drinking beers and watching scrambled porn on the TV. I thought about what I'd do if I lived over here, and couldn’t come up with anything. I became filled with boredom and wanted more beer so I decided to walk back to the store. The land was flat and the woods just sort of took off into nothingness on either side. I knew there was water off to my left cause the motel cabins were on the lake but I couldn't see it. No glimmer of lights in the woods no signs of people. It was creepy but not scary really. Scary were the hunters earlier, and where they might be now, lurking behind trees, waiting for midnight, or getting hammered at the bar.
They were getting hammered at the bar, a handful anyway. The store was closed and I was still hungry and only half drunk so I walked over to the roadhouse. I would order bar food, it was frozen, came from elsewhere, and was deep fried. It was safe. Earlier I'd hung out at the garage for a bit with a couple local guys while I waited on news about the van. That's when I found out I'd be there over night. If there's been more than just me and at least one girl it could've been a set up for your average strangers off the main track horror movie. Young people stranded in a town filled with ominous uglies. Someone would have sex and then they would be killed, horribly.

One of the guys from the garage was at the bar so I walked over and sat next to him. “What's with the whores?” I asked by way of greeting. There was a trio of sluttily attired women around a table by the dance floor. I wasn't worried about insulting anyone's sister or mom, I'd noticed the short bus version of a Winnebago in the lot. It was not a rig locals’ or even hunters would drive. I had no personal knowledge but had heard that these mini-campers were the chosen ride for the hunting season hookers.
“Oh” said my friend turning to look, “They fuck the hunters” he tells me what I already know but appreciate the validation of a local.
“The hunters come up here to kill and the women follow to suck their dicks for money” he adds succinctly.

“Gross” I say thinking They suck the cocks of the killers! Would be an interesting movie ad blurb.
“I don't know why they don't just stay where they are and do all that”
This makes so much sense that I take another look at the guy. He's maybe my age but at first glance looks older, growing out haircut under a trucker hat; quilt lined plaid flannel shirt and indefinable brand jeans. His baby face poorly hidden under raggedy facial hair. I thought he was a rube and he looks like a rube but clearly he isn't. He just doesn't care about appearance. I'm tempted to offer him some beauty products but don't want him to stop talking to me. I have a compulsion to kiss him on the lips but quash it when I catch him looking at me oddly. He probably saw it in my eyes. I don't know what came over me, probably the beer. Right now we're cohorts, and I'd like to keep it that way.
“Don't you need their money?” I ask under the impression that places like this depended on outsider influxes of cash.
“Not me, I'm on welfare, I just need the bitches to pay their taxes and vote democrat” I like this guy.
“What was your name again?” I ask.
He tells me his name is Ronnie and points out one of the hookers, “I think that's a dude,” he says.
He could be right, boxy of shape and wearing an obvious wig, she's holding court with her chair tilted back, legs spread, longneck in hand.
“Go find out” says Ronnie.
“No, you”
“I live here, you'll be gone tomorrow and I'm gonna be running into the dude all weekend, I could end up with my ass kicked, or worse”
This makes sense so I think about it, how to do it without instigating some extended interaction. You talk to a stranger in a bar and it can turn into a short term relationship.


“Okay” I decide “I'll ask her for the time but I won't refer to her as sir or mam, I'll call her Mrlady” I don't know how this is going to resolve the mystery but I think it's funny. So does Ronnie.
Mrlady and her table watch me approach. To her left is a stringy haired woman with a shiny face and drawn on eyebrows. If she had an expression it would be rage. Across from her is a small pink ball of a woman, a girl, with a short pony tail sticking out the back of her head like a dart. Up close our Mrlady's got a big female-sized rack but it's stacked on top of an equally dense roll of fat. Her face is heavily made up even under the dim bar lights but so are her buddies. I look close and see no sign of beard stubble trying to bust through.
“Excuse me Mrlady douyouhavethetime?” I blurt out. She points over my shoulder in the general direction of where I know there's a clock above the bar. Her expression reads as non-plussed, maybe even pissed off, which turns out to be correct. As I turn to walk away, our question unanswered but at a loss for a follow-up, I’m stopped short by a deep bass voice barking, “Get back here Asscrack!” I assume this is me and turn around.

“Listen you little weasel, if you and your boyfriend at the bar there think you can fuck with me you're dead wrong, and when I say dead I mean that the coffin is empty and the lid is open,” she grabs my wrist, digging in so hard one of her nails pops off, “Got it, fuck?”
“Yes mam,” I say heading back to Ronnie and the safety of the other side of the room.
“He’s a dude” I tell him, “and she’s scary”
“She made it clear she’s got her eye on us both” I point at my eyes and then his for emphasis. I decide to leave.
“I gotta go,” I grab my sack of fried food off the bar, “I’ll look for you when I pass through again, hopefully you’ll still be mobile.”
I left the next afternoon, stopping at the store for a bottle of wine to lessen a hangover headache. As I drove past the roadhouse I spotted an orange vested hunter on his knees outside of Mrlady’s Winnebago. Vomit was pouring out of his mouth. I wondered if she had some deal with the bar owner, setting up shop in the lot like that.

Rehab Nipple

There always seems to be some old queen hovering around the all male rehabs and at Harbor Hall it was Walter. He was the money man and when he was around we were supposed to pay attention to him, be grateful I guess, I spotted him as a predator early on. He liked to hug the better looking and/or younger residents. When he moved in on me the first time I blocked him by extending my hand between us as a rigid barrier. He had no choice but to abandon his intended flesh-press and grab the hand for an awkward shake. The aborted embrace left our faces no more than a couple inches apart. I briefly glimpsed my own reflection in his rheumy eyes then looked over at JD to see if he had caught the maneuver. His smile indicated he had. He’d told me that the old man had blindsided him with a hug that’d quickly turned into a discreet dry hump before he could break it off. I told him about the hand trick and that I’d demonstrate it for him if I got a chance although I wasn’t sure if I was in his target group. Turned out I was.
Walter had a sort of gentlemans farm outside of town where he and his wife lived. He would choose one rehab guy to work a couple days a week as a sort of farm hand. I was offered the job and accepted. I could use the money plus anything to get away from the Hall was cool. The wife always made me a super white person lunch of a bologna and mayo sandwich, a couple of cookies from a bag and a glass of milk to drink. It was a lunch you'd send your kid off to school with back in the day.
Walter wanted me to wear overhauls at the farm, so I did. I decided this was a whores job and I would treat it as such by doing whatever Walter, the trick, needed me to do. I never wore a shirt and always left one strap undone allowing for a glimpse of nipple here and there.