TRANSPORT by Zipper Bird xgort@yahoo.com
FORWARD
There's no sex in this story. I'm sure you can relate though, because unrequited love is far more common than other forms. This story, unlike my others, is all true. Want more sex? Go to the authors page and follow a link to my other stories. -------------
The sky over Binghamton is black and I look up to see if I can find the moon, hidden behind thick clouds, but it is not even a dull glow in the opaque night. As I set out from the warmth of the library, walking fast, to be assured of being early enough to get a place on the bus, the frigid moisture-laden air blowing across campus makes my neck cold. It is ten degrees below zero, and windy! I shiver and pull my collar points together, holding them in front of my chin with one hand. "I should have worn a damn scarf," I think to myself as the cold wind bites my neck.
The street lamp near the student union is out. If it weren't for the light shining from the front door of the building, I wouldn't be able to see the three busses lined up at the side. I have bad night vision. I should eat more carrots.
The city bus stops running at 7:00 PM. These are college-run busses, driven by students. They go to nearby Johnson City, Binghamton and Endicott, neighborhoods where students live. Ordinarily, I would never stay until 9:45 PM in the library. It is winter finals week and everyone is studying furiously. I spend most of the evening trying to find books for a German history paper. My planned topic is "Gypsies in the Holocaust" but it changes due to availability of books.
Instead, I decide I'm going to write about Hitler's relationship with his niece Geli Raubal. They probably had an affair. It is just like me to have the intention of doing serious scholarship but end up delving into conjecture and quirks. At least I'll get to mention the rumor about Hitler's supposed monocryptorchidism - - having one testicle. Maybe I'll conclude that it is the reason for Geli's suicide.
"Where's the other one!" she screams, and ends up taking an overdose of sleeping pills that very night.
Maybe I shouldn't make their relationship the central topic of the paper but concentrate on the theme "Hitler's ball" and how it leads him to genocide. He can't draw a human figure, because his own body is not whole. A simple prosthetic testicle would have gained him entrance to the Vienna Art Academy and spared the lives of millions. Anne Frank would be alive and known as the Voltaire of Holland. Art schools should have open admissions. Everyone who wants to be a painter, should be one.
I have a legitimate reason for this topic choice; all the books that mention gypsies in the holocaust are checked out. Perhaps dealing with Hitler trivia is more down my alley anyway. I find only one book though, with a thin chapter devoted to Geli's relationship with Uncle Adie. I'll have to fabricate my other sources for the footnotes, making titles up in German, since I don't think the teaching assistant who grades the papers knows German very well. I'll tell him I belong to a German book club -- a Book-of-the Month Club about Hitler's peccadillos and proclivities. It'll be okay, everyone likes sex. Sex sells.
Already there are about 25 people on the bus but I get an aisle seat near the back. It is almost too dark to see the girl sitting next to me. She is wearing a snorkel coat with the hood on. Everyone is too cold to talk, just waiting for the bus to fill up and go.
It's times like these when students at Cornell jump into the gorge, but this is Harpur College, and most students feel a little less pressure about finals.
I think about Anne Frank eating rotten potatoes and fighting with Mrs. VanDam. I see her starving and ill in the concentration camp, her eyes luminous with intelligence, as in her school photographs, and then resigning herself to death with the hope of an afterlife. Such thoughts make me feel calm, and lucky to be facing a crowded bus ride back to a warm apartment, not several days to a death camp. This thought also calms my anxiety about writing a stupid paper. So I have to fabricate a few sources, so what.
I shift my thoughts to plans of what to say if teacher confronts me on my sources. "Okay, I made it all up," I'll say. "I can't fathom the reality and horror of the Holocaust at this point in my life -- I can't even get laid." Well, I probably won't say that.
I'll fix myself an egg when I get back to the apartment. That's what I'll do. I wish I could fix an egg for Anne.
Students file on the bus in a steady stream now and I wonder if they're going to turn anyone away. I don't see how they could. It is too cold out. Many people have no other way of getting home since this is the last bus.
A lighter thought comes to mind, of college students of yesteryear cramming into phone booths. Of course, they did that for fun, not to get to a phone. I wonder if any of them near the back or bottom of the booth were suddenly gripped by sheer terror. Usually the thought of being crushed up against other people on a bus ride is unpleasant but tonight I look forward to the body warmth and can hardly wait until they all get in and the door is shut.
The amiable student driver gets up and shouts "Okay people, move it on back, we got a lot of guys to fit on still."
People groan at the inconvenience. With all of the seats filled and the aisle filled too, the students begin to double up the line in the aisle. It's the only way to fit this many people on a bus.
"This transport must be filled to capacity," I imagine a phantom voice say in German. I feel increasingly lucky to have a seat as people crush past me filling every available inch of standing room. I notice a person oozing toward me who looks like Barry, although it is dark and I'm not sure. I know Barry's name but he doesn't know mine. Usually Barry drives a bus, but tonight he is on as a rider, just another regular student.
I have had a mild crush on Barry for a year, although he isn't in any of my classes, and I can't believe he is being squeezed closer to me and that he is going to end up right next to me. He does. In fact he is pressing against me and as the bus starts to move, he grabs on to the back of my seat and leans over me. He is practically covering me. His leather jacket is open and I am inside it. My head brushes his chest as the bus jerks and jolts its way down campus drive.
The street lights provide an intermittent source of unearthly yellowish light and as the bus passes under one, I turn my head to look at Barry's torso, which is inches from my face. Of all the 5000 students on the Binghamton campus, there are only about five I'd want to be this close to, and Barry is on the top of the list.
I am facing Barry's full crotch, packed in the jeans he always wears. I breath deep slow draughts of air and feel the warmth of his breath mixed with the smell of his leather bomber jacket.
My thoughts drift back to the previous summer when I saw Barry nude. Bob, a straight friend who seems gay, and I camp out at Lake Empire for a week. Bob reads a lot, has an excellent mind, and loves to argue. The lake is in a remote area, 30 miles from Binghamton, and it is owned by the college. Most of the students don't wear clothes at the lake, at least while sun bathing or swimming. The surroundings are lush and secluded, miles from the nearest house. It's a bit awkward seeing people you know, nude, but it is also liberating. Americans are uptight about nudity but we are students, more liberal and open than most, and among each other, willing to be natural. Plus we like to see naked bodies and swim without anything between water and skin.
Bob and I stay up late on Friday night drinking beer, playing cards in the tent by the light of a lantern with Meg and Niki, two girls we know from school. We argue whether Gore Vidal is a great writer. Bob thinks he is. I ask what is his great work, his L'Etranger, his Tom Sawyer. Bob says it is yet to come. Yeah, "Myronia Breckenridge III."
The next morning, we drive into Owego for breakfast. When we get back to our tent and begin spreading the blanket on the lawn, I notice Barry is near the water, sitting on the grass, playing cat's cradle with a guy -- probably his cousin I figure.
I know Barry only from seeing him on campus, and that he drives the campus bus a few nights a week. I get to say "hi" to him on the night I stay late for orchestra practice. He says "hi" to all the passengers as they get on the bus. All the drivers do. I sit in the front seat, behind and across from him and watch him as he caresses the steering wheel, shifts gears, spreading his legs to depress the clutch and brake. He is beautiful driving the bus. I like studying his profile and looking at his body. I fall in love with him because of his looks and the way he moves, when standing, when walking, when driving the bus. He is second only to my cat in the beauty of his movements. My cat sleeps on my pillow, probably waiting to get old enough to suck the breath out of me.
I ask a few gay guys about Barry, if he "is," and they say he "isn't" and that he has a girl friend, but I've only seen her a few times.
Men are presumed straight until proven gayuity.
I assume he is straight though. I assume I will never be able to make small talk with him nor will I ever get closer to him than when I am a passenger on a bus he is driving. With women especially, I can be witty and charming but my infatuation for Barry has left me permanently tongue tied in his presence.
At Lake Empire, I lament not having better vision, or maybe binoculars, although they are frowned upon. Certainly, I would be willing to hide behind a bush with them to get a better view of the parts of Barry that I had heretofore only imagined. However, when he stands up to leave, he turns around to pick up his clothes and I am awestruck at seeing his whole body. He has a lot of body hair and the best pubic hair I have ever seen. It is thick, lush, like the surrounding forest, and it extends to his navel, as the trees on the other side of the lake grow to the water's edge. His dick is very long and beautiful.
Barry is Jewish. Had he been born in Germany in the 30's, he could have died in a gas chamber, joining the likes of Anne Frank. All gay people love Anne Frank and mourn her death. She, like us, was trapped, but she made the best of it, facing her circumstances with dignity, something we all must do. And, after all, being gay in this age is not like being Jewish in a Nazi occupied territory during WWII.
Now Barry's Jewish orchids are inches from my face, in jeans though, and it is a sublime moment in my life and I am fully aware of it. My head is inside his parted jacket near his chest. He doesn't seem uncomfortable in this position. I think he likes me, or knows I like him and doesn't mind it. It is possible he is not aware of me. This thought occurs to me but seems unlikely. I enter a dreamy state bordering on ecstasy. I forget my paper, the Holocaust, Anne Frank, a hungry kitty waiting for me at home. I get on the bus expecting another mundane bus ride and instead reality has turned into a sensual dream. What should I do though. I know what I would like to do. I am too afraid to reach out and place my hand on his inner thigh or touch his nipple as I would like. And I know I will think of doing this over and over, and other more sexual things too, when I get home.
I hope that through mental telepathy or sheer atomic vibration, he will sense what I am feeling, and respond. As we cross the bridge to Johnson City I realize my stop is coming up soon. I don't want it to end but a few people get off and the aisle is no longer as crowded. Barry stands upright, no longer bending over me. I decide to skip my stop and get off where Barry gets off, but I'm uncertain where that will be. The bus goes by my stop. I feel funny, not getting off there as I always do. I am not going where I thought I was at all. Fortunately, his stop is only about 12 blocks farther and I get off the bus and stand by the curb under a street lamp, as if I am waiting for a ride.
I have to walk left, as he goes right. I stand there and watch him walk down the street. I watch as his figure fades in the distance. He doesn't look back.
END