23/4/08
He always wanted to be something other than himself, a little object maybe the size of the spherical end of the head of a ball peen hammer, but not as hard, de-flatable even. The only risk involved would be the curtailment of his desire to be this little object [and nothing more], a kind of coeval relationship with a sister object such as a pair of pliers whose head only too well conformed to the nature of it, opening to a larger hole than its usual smaller one, [intervening].

He knew well enough where the parameters lay in his desire but could not quite articulate them as he suspected he couldn't. Though spared this anxiety, he nevertheless pursued his goal of becoming this person, for indeed it was a person he had had in mind from the start. A certain girl named Molly he thought he knew was a man. She was the end of the head of the ball peen hammer, he was the hole in the head of the pliers. He liked to grip the head of the ball peen hammer and tap the end of the hammer's handle on a hard surface, preferably pavement or concrete. The pliers he liked [to peer through] to use to grip whatever it could get its grip around and then wrench it back and forth or turn the head from side to side, thus grinding the gripped object like a dog ripping a rag being tugged from the other end. Never one for a tentative grip, he was wont to go out of his way to plug holes with a butt bung. Whatever could be had. Crude renditions, however, were not tolerated and were even prohibitive.

One day he used the telephone to call her, the object of his desire. He swallowed it, in fact, and thought thereby to bung himself up as with a suture. This suited her fine, for then he could listen to her deep within his bowels, the gas burbling all the way up as in acid reflux and she could be there with him deep in the shit. A possible explanation is in store, to be used for purposes left unsaid, however present they may be in the pages of this fat lil' notebook.

THE EUCHARISTIC DONUT

The pastor came out of the church, turned round and in embarrassment ... because he thought the dampness of the pee (sperm?) on his black trousers' leg could be seen. It spread like an insidious stain of blood, the blood of a menstruating woman.

When was the last time he had had an erection? Was it the day before yesterday? He tried to forget it but it loomed large, the thought of it tugging his bikini underwear up to a pinnacle under the sheets while Fr. Dolan smelled like a bar in the adjoining bedroom.

Just at that moment, Mr. Sullivan, the choirmaster and organist, came out from the shadows of the nave and into the sunlight. He was not wearing his pointed shoes with Cuban heels to better play the pedals, but his Hush Puppies, so quiet they were when he walked, in contrast to the sound of the taps on the heels of his Cubans when he walked up the aisle to receive Holy Communion last of all the congregation. He was surprised before he saw the back of his head, like a rolled carpet sample, turn round to greet him lispingly.

--Did you like the Bach?
--Of course I did, Tom. I wanted to talk to you about the boys in the choir. There's talk you invite them for donuts after Mass. Is that true?
--Oh. Why ever would I?

Here is where the pliers begin to grate, the teeth of Fr. Crosser began to grind.

--I won't have your likes in my church. The implications are too frightening for the parents.
--What about the children? You silly fool, he thought.
--The cost of the donuts alone makes your actions ... on a par with the evil of interest charged to customers by the banks. Haven't you thought of that?
--I don't get what you mean, Father.
--Your ultimate goal is the hole of the donut!

Mr. Sullivan walked off in his mincing steps, his elephant butt wagging, steps which had a military authority, now with the thought in his head that he had bought jelly-filled for him, not ones with holes unless they were chocolate.

Tom Sullivan's hands were pudgy, so pudgy his knuckles were not prominent. They were perfect for playing,
and some of the boys knew they were strong. Sometimes during the Mass, when he was not playing the organ, Tom would take his favorite choir boy, a first soprano, aside in the stairwell at the top of the choir loft where they could not be seen, and clasp the boy's hands and force his fingers back, release them before hurting the boy, finally needling him in the ribs with his index fingers, in a quick, sharp stab.

Peter took a chance with Tom that morning and Tom took his chance with Peter. The six-thirty morning Mass was the one Peter usually had to serve, but was a chore because he had to, getting up in the morning, especially this cold winter morning when the frozen slush crunched underfoot and the ice on the playground pavement was particularly slippery for his smooth soled Sunday shoes. He preferred Fr. Dolan to Crosser because Dolan had a whimsical twinkle in his eyes despite his puffy lids after a long night of drinking. That odor redolent of what he didn't really know, after the short sleep and long sequestration from the normal perspiration during the day, in the early morning the alcohol began to seep from his pores, giving him a sweet smelling odor. Peter got close enough to get a whiff of his stinking breath of cigarette smoke that wafted above his head as he held the large, red missal aloft so Dolan could read the prayers. Dolan's face was ruddy and there was an irony conveyed by this hung-over priest that was lost on Peter and the distant congregation of spinsters, retirees and bachelors sparsely peopling the church. Peter was too young to understand the irony, only the juxtaposition of the signs of foul odor, occluded eyes and ruddy complexion indicated a benevolent ikon that would only be understood as iconoclasm were it not that the congregation was focused on the Latin responses. Dolan, like many priests, could conceal his little vices, those venal sins wafted up like ashes in incense whose odor revealed the darker sins beneath, or like the few single drops of water he added to the wine in the chalice, these venial sins only a small disturbance soon dissipated and diffused in the blood of life. Dolan quaffed the cup, a little way towards assuaging the headache of the hang-over. Crosser, on the other hand, always checked the store of wine in the little fridge before Mass to make sure none of the altar boys was imbibing before Mass, someone like Tom Fogerty or Steve Fogo. Peter never thought of taking a swig though. His mind was clear and ready to intone the liturgy of incomprehensible Latin words Sister Rosilda made him memorize. He recited them after Dolan, a kind of call and response of slaves picking cotton in the fields, his mind wandered to Martin Williams' book about the early history of jazz in New Orleans at the turn of the century he had been reading. However, the work of the field hands was neatly integrated into the work of his mind in recalling the automatic sequence of consonants and vowels not even vaguely adhering to English words, as the seeds to the cotton immediately plucked, but not to the meaning of the sounds--they were not even phones allied to phonemes or morphemes.

The coldness of the air stung his face. He was wearing his favorite navy blue serge coat with a double breast of large buttons and a belt he could tighten around his waist with a clasp. It was the very same Steve Fogo taunted him for wearing, "a girl's coat." For his indiscretion Fogo suffered the consequences of a repeated pounding of his head that Peter submitted him to on the playground pavement. Tom invited him for a donut at the donut shop after Mass. Peter trusted him whether implicitly or explicitly, it was in no stretch of his imagination illicit. It was a matter of being obliging and it was simply cold and his toes had begun to feel frozen, as he had not worn his boots. The cold was so cold it seemed as if it was Old Man Winter scorning him if he were to refuse. Tom had simply asked him if he wanted a ride home. He didn't know until he was inside his car that an invitation to the donut shop was in store. That was a small price for a trick Tom thought. He had "turned tricks" on other boys he gleefully smiled to himself. This one was thin and delicate, pliant like the grape jelly or apple sauce released from inside a round donut with powered white sugar all over the top. The snow had begun to fall, and lightly fall and stay, the shape of the flakes intact on the nap of his navy blue serge coat so much like a girl's.

--Do you like donuts?

Peter thought he was asking him if he had enough money to buy a donut. He hadn't a cent in his pocket.

--I can always spare a quarter on such a good choir boy as you.

Peter did not like his tone of cajolery, not knowing what it was to renege on flattery, however freely administered. Peter had no idea of an insect sexuality that needled his sides in anger at the talking he never indulged in in the choir loft. It was Paul Reid with the sad brown eyes, always red-rimmed they seemed, and big toothed grin that always talked. It was Paul who pulled that prank, perhaps, or was it by chance that Mr. Sullivan was caught seen by the choir boys with a long piece of thread hanging from the rear of his trousers that made it look like an elephant's grey, sagging posterior with its tail moving side to side? Maybe Mr. Sullivan took him aside because he was grinning for no apparent reason that Tom was aware of. His accepting the invitation for a donut was a droll repayment for his indiscretion.

Inside the donut shop Tom asked what kind of donut he wanted. His answer was crucial for Tom, for Tom considered himself a sugar daddy for his "girls," rough boys too impertinent not to hesitate to say "stick it up your ass, queer." He liked those boys nevertheless, but only took photos of them flexing their muscles, especially if he could get them to pose reclining on his couch in his apartment, their legs taut and held tight together, their genitalia as if offered to him, bulging out from inbetween the clamped thighs. The "girls" he liked to get them to hang from the chin-up bar he had placed in the doorway between his kitchen and bedroom. He would hold them by the torso from the back to give them a boost to reach it. He challenged them to do ten chin-ups and when they failed to make them, as they invariably did, he would clasp them around the waist and wrestle them to the floor, playing a game he called "sticky man," involving resistance to him which would make him "stick" faster to them. Finally, when he had them subdued, he felt the quick spurts of his pearly fluid released in his underwear. He relished the feel of the taut little buttocks of the "girls" like a doctor injecting a needle into a frightened child's tender buttocks' cheek. It was never usually a mutual feeling though. If a "girl" resisted, and he invariably did, Tom would grab his genitalia like a leech or lamprey clamping its jaws on its prey. He relished the feeling of helplessness conveyed to him in the "girl's" immediate docility as he reminded "her" his sticky grip would get tighter if "she" resisted.

--Do you want a cream filled or a jelly? Tom said when at first Peter did not respond.

--Cream.

He knew he was a cream-filled boy, pearly white with powdered sugar on top that adhered to the lips when eaten.

--Do you want to go home now? Tom asked, back in the car.

The bag of donuts sat on the seat between Tom and Peter who was puzzled that the cream-filled donut remained in the bag.

--Yes.

Peter gave directions to his house since he knew the route well, he having had to walk the mile to church many times to serve Mass and go to school. No evidence for any indiscretion could be given, especially when there was a donut only to be had but not given.