Browsing
Given that they’d only just met about an hour ago at the porn shop, that they’d both surely used fake names, that they were driving back to the parking lot to say see you later, David (not his real name) was surprised to hear Jesús (not his real name) say “I feel like there’s a connection between us.”
Jesús, in his faded jeans, long-sleeve work shirt, and a leather newsboy cap that David found curious if not pitiful when he saw him step into the Dollar Video the way one might step into a first AA meeting, kept his eyes on the steering wheel. Still, he was younger than the other men, maybe thirty, and slim, which communicated to David an attractive kind of regard for the body, rather than the abandonment seemingly signaled by the pronounced beer bellies of most of the others pretending to browse the floor-to-ceiling shelves of adult VHS and DVD films. David had only made his way here a couple of times, always leaving alone, lips dry after an uneventful night of nothing but quick glances, furtive even in that space of lone men, photos of naked flesh, and a glass counter with giant dildos behind it. The occasional boy-girl couple never spent more than a few minutes in there because they really were looking to rent a film. Some even exchanged pleasantries with the clerk at the counter, a tired, old woman in a mumu.
Eventually Jesús’s browsing led him to where David was browsing and David didn’t go find another area to browse. After a few glances and clearings of the throat, Jesús finally spoke.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” said David.
“You come here often?”
“Not really.”
And that’s how it went, both speaking in quiet tones, not quite whispers, as their hands reached for film boxes that they handled then re-shelved, as their hands then rested in their pockets for a minute before reaching for another film box to handle. Saying nothing that would compromise either one of them if the conversation were being recorded. Saying nothing that spoke directly of desire or need or want. Saying nothing that had never been said before inside a million other conversations. By now both were versed in subtext, even in silence, if little else.
Wordlessness, that’s what permeated this place, that’s what David had noticed the first time he visited, persuading himself at every step not to turn back and leave before reaching the entrance, knowing that he could make it in, once he touched the door’s handle. How little use there was for words. How sometimes they weren’t exchanged at all between these men. Sometimes it was just a matter of letting someone sidle up to you and not walking away, which meant something like yes. A cupping of one’s crotch, like a baseball player adjusting his cup, to signal something like interest. Then slowly ambling away to the back of the store where the numbered peep rooms waited side by side. The other following him into the tiny space the size of a closet with a chair, a 12-inch TV screen, and a slot for quarters to keep the film going. There was something primal or almost pre-lingual that both fascinated and saddened David.
Jesús’s leather cap was black and clean and had that full grain surface common in most leather goods David had seen at regular stores, and he wondered what Jesús might be aroused by, if he was like one of those men photographed in the backs of boxes wearing leather everything which in the end was hardly anything—harness, jockstrap, boots, crop. S&M, read the label on that shelf, and David had read about this fetish in books on human sexuality, because as a college freshman, that’s mostly what he’d done, read books. He couldn’t see or wouldn’t this fascination with pain, which he could only associate with rejection, given his memories of boys pushing him around and calling him names in every school playground, in every PE field. What if the crop felt like the word faggot? What then?
In any case, David did not intend to go to Jesús’s place, which seemed a prerequisite to indulge in elaborate fantasies—room, space—even if Jesús invited him. “Wanna go to the back?” asked Jesús. But David knew that, though this kind of thing was mostly tolerated in this place of business, it was technically against the law, and he couldn’t bring himself to break it, too unsettled by the mind’s image of a cop knocking on the peep room door, arresting him, knowing him a faggot, everyone he knew then confirming what he was.
David didn’t remember who suggested it, but they ended up driving around some clear, house-less land at the edge of town. “Is this okay,” Jesús asked more than once from behind the steering wheel, but all David saw was too much light from the post, no matter how distant it was. What he wanted was complete darkness—no houses, not even in the distance, no light posts, not even a paved street, a curb—nothing to remind him of the peopled world. He wanted a sky unencumbered by city lights, brimming with innumerable stars, silent except for the chirps of crickets. If there had to be witnesses, let it be only insects, he thought, and so Jesús had driven them around for a while, until David gave up and said “This is fine,” to an open field blocks away from the nearest light post blocks away from the nearest house. His hands trembled.
They didn’t kiss. Instead Jesús removed his cap, rested it on the dashboard, and suggested they step out of his car, and though unsure of what he had in mind, David acquiesced. Then Jesús was facing him, lifting his shirt, running his hands down his chest, as David, leaning back on the trunk of the car, looked around to make sure no one was visible, no one driving by, no one coincidentally taking a walk into that dead end of a road. Then Jesús was on his knees, undoing David’s zipper, lowering his pants so that his buttocks were exposed to the steely surface of the car itself, making David feel mischievous and uncertain in the joy of his own nakedness, marveling at the uninterrupted tactile presence of him from chest to thighs, his shirt held up at his armpits. Then Jesús was fumbling with his own zipper, wanting to pull himself out, though David couldn’t see clearly through the darkness. Then Jesús took him into his mouth, eagerly, in a way that David had never imagined, his heavy breathing through his surely flared nostrils revealing to David a desire so raw and overwhelming that David didn’t reach out to touch Jesús, to run his hands through his black hair reflecting the soft silver of the moon undulating there near the center of his body, but instead braced his hands against the car and closed his eyes.
And now, turning into the shop’s parking lot, Jesús was talking about a “connection” which evoked in David a kind of contempt for this man older than him who had serviced him and not even asked for reciprocation, who even so wanted more than what this moment could offer. The cars were so still, the night quiet except for the sound of gravel pressed beneath the slow rolling tires, David couldn’t understand why Jesús couldn’t just let this be what it had been. Wasn’t this how things went among men like them? Were the books wrong?
Jesús’s hands remained on the steering wheel, and David remained silent to communicate that the rules of the encounter had been clear—anonymous and singular—though he wasn’t sure if Jesús meant the word “connection” as something akin to potential emotional bond or simply code for let’s-do-this-again. And asking for clarification would mean revealing an ignorance, a lack of experience, that he couldn’t risk, so he didn’t let it matter. As soon as the car came to a stop, David said “Take it easy,” in a deliberately aloof tone, which was all he thought he ought to say, until Jesús responded with the same words but with what seemed like a tinge of disappointment. Then David thought he felt something like regret, perhaps shame at his performance of assent to the rules of this place, rules that at that moment might have seemed unkind.
After Jesús drove out of the parking lot and into the night, David turned to the side and noticed the abandoned nursery with its rows of dead and dying potted hibiscuses, and because he was a devoted student who had read a lot of books, this image felt like some sort of metaphor, the exact meaning of which he had no time for, busy as he was with the task of climbing into his car, the sound of gravel underfoot already a memory, and driving away.
José Antonio Rodríguez is the author of the memoir House Built on Ashes and several poetry collections, including The Day’s Hard Edge. His work has appeared most recently in The New Yorker and the newest edition of The Norton Introduction to Literature. He’s a professor in the MFA program at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley.
