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When I left, the psychic gave me a CD recording he had made of our conversation. I took it home and smashed it underfoot against the tile floor in my kitchen. If for no other reason, I regretted our meeting because from then on I had to wonder about the absurd notion that the three of us had been linked in our past lives. Had we been husband, wife, and son? Siblings? The Three fucking Stooges?

I planned to see another psychic in town for a second opinion, but my credit card company called to ask if it had been stolen. There had been some very strange charges in the past few weeks, they said, and the card was over its limit.

58

THERE WAS A MAN I SAW AT THE ARCADE A FEW TIMES, a tough-looking white thirtysomething, whom I had pegged as military. I entered a booth to find him with three other men. The military guy was naked, but the other three men were half dressed, their pants around their ankles and their shirts lifted from their stomachs and pinched beneath their chins. When I walked in, he was going down on them in turn. I watched him do that for a while. Then he stood and turned away from the men so that their wet dicks were now at the same level as his ass.

He leaned close to me and whispered, “Can I?”

Then he raised his arms like he was going to hug me.

I understood that what he wanted was to lean on me. So I let him. He put his arms around my neck and hung his head so that the top of his skull was against my cheek. The three guys were behind him, grabbing his dick and theirs.

“Are you gonna let me?” one of the guys kept saying. “You gonna let me?”

The military guy appeared drugged or as if he was having a religious experience. His face was three inches from mine. “Should I let him?” he whispered.

“Do you want him to?” I whispered back.

“Don’t ask me. It’s up to you.”

“Yes, you should let him.”

He nodded, as if a grave finality had been reached. “Okay,” he said over his shoulder.

I can’t remember whether or not the guy put on a condom. I couldn’t see what was being done to the military man. He was leaning on me with most of his weight. I could tell when the man was inside of him. That guy finished quickly, then another of the men did it, and he got off fast too.

I wanted to go, but the military guy was holding on to me. “Don’t leave until it’s over,” he said.

While the third guy fucked him, the military guy looked straight into my eyes with his arms around my neck. Then the third guy left, and we were alone.

When the other men were gone, he seemed to come out of his spell a bit. He dressed himself slowly.

“Thanks for being there,” he said.

“Sure. Thanks for letting me watch.”

He left the booth, and I walked out a minute later, after standing in the smell for a while, taking it all in.

I walked around the hallways feeling drunk and uneven. Then I saw him in the opposite corridor, cruising another guy. I’d assumed he had left. I couldn’t imagine what he was looking for or when it would be finished. I watched the two of them go into a booth, and I followed them. I pressed against the door, and found it unlocked. Though they had only bumped into one another two minutes earlier, when I opened the door, I saw the military man bent over and the other man behind him licking his ass.

A couple of days later, by chance, I ran into the military man at an electronics store. We were on opposite sides of a display when we noticed one another. At first, I didn’t remember how I knew him. But then I remembered his blissed-out eyes as those strangers took him from behind. We lifted our chins at one another. Guys like that, you don’t know whether to pity them or what. People would say the same thing about me if they could have seen me in that booth, maybe, even though I was only watching.

Normally, I only pushed against the door of an occupied booth when I knew exactly who I would find inside, but I suspended that rule when it was clear that it was occupied by a group of men rather than an individual. When I could manage to be included, groups at the arcade were my best-case scenarios. As someone who mostly watched, it meant a chance to see a lot more than I might otherwise have seen. As long as my dick was out of my pants, no one cared that I wasn’t participating as much as the others. I’d let them touch me a little, but when they tried to suck me or direct me to their rear ends, I’d shake my head no. No one minded as long as there were plenty of alternatives present.

At the arcade, sometimes you’d knock on the door of a booth filled with people, and they’d open it a crack, take a look at you, and then grant you entry like nightclub bouncers. Sometimes they’d just leave the door unlocked and when they saw who it was coming in, they’d all nod their heads like, “Yeah, man. Come join the fun.”

Sometimes, I’d walk into a booth and recognize that everyone was looking at me with a who-the-fuck-is-this-guy expression. Or they wouldn’t let me in at all. Sometimes, I’d be the only man out there not crammed into a single booth with the rest of the crowd.

It sometimes happened that, having pulled into the parking lot to find it half full, I’d buy my tokens confident that I wouldn’t pass the evening alone. But, upon entering the hallways, I’d discover only one red light lit. Though I could hear several people inside, I’d press against the door and find it locked. Confident that there must be others that I hadn’t yet come across, I’d walk around seeking other possibilities. Then, finding none, I’d circle back and test the door again to see if it had been unlocked in the interval. In desperation, I’d try the doors on either side and find them locked too, even though their lights weren’t lit. Some perverts were already in there watching everything under the wall.

59

THE NEXT TIME MR. GRATE AND BENCH CHECKED IN, everything was as usual. He asked, as always, to borrow one of the irons and miniature ironing boards we kept at the front desk. Actually, he didn’t have to ask. I remembered to give it to him without prompting, which I hoped would help my case somehow.

He didn’t say anything about the job or about his pregnant employee before he went to his room. And I was alone again in the motel lobby, the fishbowl room where people looked in from outside and saw me at all times, reading, eating, and watching bad television on the tiny TV set beneath the counter.

He had to give me the job. I’d treat it with wry irony, but really it would be the end of shame for me, the way an action hero backed into a corner has to use whatever is at hand to make his escape. At the end of the film it doesn’t matter that he wore a dress for five minutes to blend into a crowd. What matters is that he is free and has completed whatever task he set out to complete, even if in an unconventional and unexpected way.

I’d buy new clothes with the money. Expensive shoes with leather soles. If you can afford them, you actually save money in the end. Maybe I’d hire a stylist who would understand what looks good on me. I’ll feel silly at the time, but I’d always remember his sharp observations about what fits and cuts most suited my build, his tips about the best way to roll up my shirtsleeves. I’d learn which brands were scoffed at by people in the know.

I’d subscribe to all the magazines I wanted and pay for two years up front to get the biggest discounts. And I’d have nights free to read them and to become a smarter and better-informed version of myself. Maybe I’d take private lessons and learn French or something even more frivolous like Swedish.

I’d go out to dinners like a normal person. I’d run into my clients, who would appear in the landscape of the city as if materializing from nothing. They would have been there all along, of course, but now that I knew them as serious consumers of high-quality outdoor products, they would stand out from the crowd.