In Search of Pretty Young Black Men Read online

  In his room, caped in bedsheets, thirteen-year-old Lamont bounced on his down-feather bed, determined to reach the ceiling while determining the age of the boy across the street, who himself was watching diligent moving men move museum-grade paintings and high-back chairs and a baby grand piano and fringed Persian rugs from truck to house.

  And then later that day, when the sun chose to set in its own tangerine, music poured out from the Grayson house. Music. Piano. Classical. Impressionistic. Ravel. Claire de Lune. Soft. Delicate. Quiet. Hypnotic. Passion. Falling feathers. The sound. And he knew. It drew him across the street, drew him closer. He found himself without knowing it moving up the long, ascending staircase. And from nowhere he was at the door where the soft and gentle music would not allow him to bat an eye. He raised a hand and slowly balled it, but could not knock. The soft and gentle music would not allow it.

  He found himself moving, floating, to the window, the large and sparkling picture window that had not yet been draped, although the drape he wore, the cape to fly, he did not even realize he was still wearing. All he knew was the music was the boy: the beautiful, beautiful boy, sitting at the piano, caressing the keys with gentle fingers.

  His own gentle fingers that had been balled to knock were now spreading wide open like sunflowers bathing in sunshine. Both his hands, soft and begging, moved up the glass to frame the face that was a hairsbreadth away from the wall that separated them.

  He stared long at him with those unbatting eyes, the eyes of the child that he was. His sweet aching was so softly electric, that the boy—the piano player—was drawn to look up toward the light beaming toward him.

  As their eyes met, music continued, fingers played on, open hands climbed the window, and baby’s breath fogged the glass.

  The piano player smiled. And Lamont saw the dimples…the dimples…

  They became puppy-lovers and friends, involved in a sweet mist borne from a similar urge and nature. What they did, what they felt, what they dreamed were the doings, feelings, and dreams of young boys in love, unfettered by the ills that hovered just above their heads.

  And so when Mr. Grayson found them naked and kissing playfully, intently, earnestly, uniquely perverted, he could do nothing but stare at first. He was stunned into silence. Then from a small distance the even tone voice of reason called out without any indications: “Lawrence.”

  And Lawrence Grayson climbed down off Lamont Lester-Allegro and pulled his pants up over his stiff little dick. His father walked over to him, looked at his face, then down at his dick, then down at the other boy, whose naked and shivering ass pointed toward the sky.

  “You. Get out. I don’t want to ever see you near my son again. Understand me?”

  Tears that streamed down Lamont’s face were shared with shame and sorrow.

  He ran from the room, through the halls, toward the door, down the driveway, across the street, into the house, toward the parlor, into the arms of Mrs. Jackson, the housekeeper. And the phone was ringing before Mrs. Jackson had a chance to ask him what was wrong. He couldn’t have answered her anyway.

  His crying was the hiccuped kind that snatched at every word attempted, staccato wailings washed in eye water.

  Doctor Abner Lester-Allegro answered the phone while Mrs. Jackson asked the crying boy kindly, “What’s wrong, baby? What’s wrong?” And then suddenly little Lamont could hear only his crying. The ringing had stopped. The muffled sound of his father on the phone had stopped. Abner’s stone-cold expression caused Mrs. Jackson to stop. The world had stopped while Lamont’s tears lived on.

  In a moment he caught himself. He sucked the last tear back with a baby’s pity. He looked up and his father was standing before him, looking at him with eyes that burned with righteous indignation and dignified disgust.

  “Mrs. Jackson, excuse us please,” Abner said to his employee without taking his eyes off his shivering son. Mrs. Jackson said “Yes sir” to her boss’s back as he led his son out of the kitchen.

  Up the winding staircase he escorted the boy as if to an execution.

  Lamont sat on the bed in his room. His father surveyed the space he rarely entered. He stood over his son with hands firmly behind him, feet planted Pershing-like, eyes burning down. Lamont could not look up. His eyes counted the swirls and the pegs of the mahogany floor.

  “I can’t say that I’m surprised,” Abner Lester-Allegro finally said. He then stared at the framed picture of Lamont’s dead mother hanging over the bed. “Your mother always wanted a little girl. I guess that’s what she got, God rest her soul.” He then went to the window and stared down at the house of the new neighbors. Containment would be the order of the day. “I knew it from the beginning.” He continued to stare out the window, his eyes now keen to the sky that blessed and cursed, but recognized him. “You cried all the time, like a little girl. Like a little bitch. If I thought I could beat it out of you, I would have, but the stain has set too long.

  “Nevertheless, you are my son. You are my child. Most important, you’re a Lester-Allegro and you will not disgrace me beyond this perverted nature of yours.” Abner moved away from the window and perused the room, looking for telltale signs, hints he dreaded finding but was brave enough to face and correct.

  “You will not think about boys in that way ever again. You will remove that from your heart. And if you don’t, God will snatch out your heart and feed it to the fires of hell.” And for the first time in his son’s room, he looked down at his son, forcing Lamont to look up at him. “I may not know what you’re thinking. But God will. He will be watching you and listening to you and knowing what you feel. You will not be able to hide it from Him. So cleanse your thoughts right here and right now. Or God will come for you and burn your sinful heart in hell.”

  And every day after that Lamont Lester-Allegro feared God’s knock at his door. But as much as he tried, he could not get Larry Grayson out of his mind.

  Within the month the brakes on the Graysons’ car failed and the car rolled down the driveway, striking Larry, killing him instantly while he fixed his bike. Lamont wailed and beat the ground with his fists and threw himself against the wall until he broke his arm. Then and there he knew that God had come for him, had come to burn his sinful heart in hell.

  The doctor did not say a word. He sat there while Lamont cried. Telling the story was telling. After so many years, speaking the words for the very first time was a healing. The pain was the pain of good surgery. After ten minutes of cleansing boohooing, Lamont felt drained and flushed out, an exhaustion that comes with a vigorous workout, and he could not explain the calm. The doctor was not about to explain it to him.

  They met weekly, the doctor and Lamont. Each meeting had less and less crying, more and more stories of fathers and sons who had neither wives or mothers to run to, to be sheltered by, to be told “It’s all right, baby;” fathers and sons who had crippled themselves in the absence of nurturing.

  Each subsequent meeting became less “woe is me” and simply asked “Why?” like Maggie’s first question. And the answer eased up: eventual, patient, not checking the clock, finally.

  Because that is how God made me. And Abner Lester-Allegro is not God.

  Over the years by the sea, Lamont was visited less and less by his wife singing Luther. He had come to see the “himself” he thought he had murdered so long ago. The face of Dorian had become his face. He felt compassion for that little boy that he now knew was him. Hints of the reasons and therefores began to appear from the haze, imperceptive still, but more promising then ever before.

  He was ready to go when they let him go. And yes, he would take control of the family business. The Lester-Allegro Group would continue to prosper under the reign of the newly sane son.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Well I’ll be,” Elaine said when she saw him in the Baldwin Hills mall. Her smile was a glance back at history. “Lamont Lester-Allegro. I thought that was you.”

  Now sixty, she was still beauti
ful in her own indelible way. Her tasteful, nonapologetic makeup didn’t hide what—on a less self-assured woman—would be considered a plain-Jane face of undistinguished features. She was still the hot black lady; she was still the real Miss Thing.

  “Elaine,” he said with a casual smile.

  “I heard you were back.”

  “Yes I am…”

  “…And looking as good as ever.” She looked him up and down. She had not lied. “How was life on the continent?”

  “You mean Santa Barbara.”

  “Santa Barbara? But I thought…I mean, your father said you were…”

  “Dad’s been known to confuse things.”

  “All this time, I’m thinking you’re in Africa, up to your chin in tropical medicines. I just knew you’d be the first to come up with an AIDS cure or something, prizes and things.”

  “Unfortunately not.”

  “All this time, you’ve been right upstate.”

  “Yep.”

  “And not a word.”

  “Yep.”

  “How about a drink?”

  “Sure.”

  “Serenity?”

  “Fine.”

  Serenity had changed very little in the many years that had passed since Elaine made deals for those in search of fun, relief, and/or comfort. All that was behind her now. The death of Dorian Moore took the fun away.

  But Lamont’s presence rekindled the memory of a time and the memory of a service. Seeing Lamont again made her think back to the early days, before Maggie, when she could’ve had a Lester-Allegro in her stable. What a coup that would have been. She could have made a fortune off him: a hot young bourgeois black beauty, home for the summer from his Ivy League college, selling good high-class dick to a finicky clientele. If only he had been willing.

  But what had been missed was gone for good. Still, she marveled at how fine and refined he still was, after all he’d been through.

  And no. Elaine Ramsey did not have to probe beyond the hushed rumors. Lamont had already cosigned them. He had not been in Africa all those years—he said so himself—but had indeed been hospitalized for a severe nervous breakdown shortly after Maggie’s death. Everybody in the know, which was a very small circle, knew where he was and, out of respect for Doctor Abner, went along with the dignified tale officially told.

  “How long has it been, Lamont?”

  “Ten years. Twelve. I lose count.” He was so much mellower than she would have expected. “You look great,” he continued, startling her. “Still.”

  “I guess,” she purred, unable to keep herself from eyeing his fifty-three-year-old bulge. “The kids are all grown and married with kids. Their kids have kids. I’m a great-grandmother now.”

  “You were always great at everything.”

  “True.”

  “I wish I’d been a better husband. I wish I hadn’t been a husband at all. That would have been so much better for the both of us.”

  “Now, now. That’s all water under the bridge. You both suffered through some unbelievable times and situations. We all did.”

  “Not you. You never suffered. You only made bucks.”

  “From bringing others pleasure? I could think of a lot worse vocations.”

  “Bringing the world carnal pleasure has always been your thing, hasn’t it?”

  “My, my. Extended vacations have made you judgmental. Did you find God? Are you saved now?”

  “Saved from what?”

  He was cool-snapping, going off in an offhanded way, reading in a lower register. The game was in play.

  “You never liked me much, did you, Lamont?”

  “I don’t know if I’ve ever given it much thought.”

  “You thought about it once.”

  “Did I?”

  “How quickly they forget…or choose to.”

  “Oh yes. Now I remember. Before the Ice Age. When I was a spring chicken.”

  “And now you’re just chicken.

  No, baby. I’m all beef. Finally.”

  Then out of nowhere Lamont snapped his fingers and Elaine didn’t get it. With everything on TV, in the news, on the streets, in the churches, she was clueless, still, at sixty.

  “You never understood did you?” he then said.

  “Understood what?” Her reply was rhetorical.

  “That I never wanted you.”

  “Never?” She preened incredulously.

  “When I was seventeen, I was just a boy. And what we had was just plain sex.”

  “Oh yes,” she purred, with it all coming wonderfully back to her. “You were just another pretty young black thing: young, dumb, and full of cum, looking to get your newly filled rocks off. It’s a shame you never needed me.”

  “Maggie needed you, Elaine. Not me. I never needed to pay for it. I never needed to get paid for it.”

  “What ever do you mean?”

  “I only hope that you treated her well.”

  “So all this time, you knew.”

  “You and Maggie were very close friends. You don’t pal around with a pimp without trying out the samples.”

  There was that snap again.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Yes, I knew you procured for her. I knew it as well as you know I wasn’t away in Africa.”

  “Santa Barbara, you said.”

  “Santa Barbara is a great place.”

  “It only happened once, you know.”

  “What only happened once?”

  “Finding Maggie pleasure.”

  “Don’t be silly, Elaine. Maggie liked you like a sister. You gave her pleasure often.”

  “You know what I mean. The boy trade. It only happened once.”

  “Sometime once is all it takes. She seemed happy after that, for a brief moment, and I was happy for her.”

  “Yes, I believe she was.”

  “I don’t think I ever found it, though it certainly wasn’t for not looking.”

  “Oh yes. Albee’s sister-in-law.”

  “Who?”

  “Has it been that long?”

  “Mercy…oh yes.”

  “Was that her name?”

  “Yes…the things I’ve done. The things I’ll never do again.”

  “Boy, was that a mess.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “So tell me something, Lamont. In all those years, did you ever learn to love?”

  “I’m still working on it…. If I had it to do all over again…”

  “You’d do absolutely exactly what you’ve done.”

  “No I wouldn’t.”

  “Yes you would. You’re a Lester-Allegro.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “You know, that’s all she really wanted.”

  “To be happy?”

  “Yes.”

  “And to be loved.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “So do I, Elaine…so do I…”

  “Hey lookahere Brothaman I have to write what I’m feeling and if what I’m writing is too much for them to digest well then maybe they need to find something more suitable to they digestive system like chicken see ’cause I write chittlin’ and a lot of people don’t like chittlin’ and that’s okay ’cause for the people that like chittlin’ they read my shit stand up and slap they mamma but for the otha ones fuck ’em and feed ’em chicken.”

  They were high again. Like old hippies in headbands and love beads, they sat on the floor before the fireplace, passing the joint back and forth, back and forth, forth and back, in slow motion, contemplating the mellow majesty of each swerving flame. The crackle that formed a symphony was just the kind of music they wanted to hear, so they sat silently, reverentially, hushed, sometimes frozen in midpass, while the embers sang before a stack of neatly rolled joints and a small hill of good coke heaped neatly on the glossy cover of Albee Mention’s thirteenth bestseller.

  “Guess who I ran into the other day?”

  “Who?”

  “Elaine Ramsey.”


  “She still got her homes?”

  “Yep.”

  “Was nothin’ ever dumb about Elaine Ramsey.”

  “Yep.”

  “She still pimpin’?”

  “Who knows?”

  If Lamont’s eyes weren’t so heavy with the high they would have sparkled at the observation, but instead, they sat as lazy as his lips, lips that only emitted a smiling “humph.” Lamont hadn’t smoked a joint or done coke in years, so when invited over by his longtime friend, he hit and snorted a few times, just a few. Just enough to glaze his eyes over and soothe him into a thing that made him think of love. And this time as he thought of it, it did not sadden him. In fact, it was this that made his lazy lips laugh, his lazy eyes sparkle, and his lazy heart beat.

  So do I…so do I…

  He heard himself say the words. He saw himself sitting there, across from Elaine, his dead wife’s best friend. He heard himself say what his wife must have said perhaps a thousand times. That’s what she wanted, that’s what they talked about. The happiness. And he too wanted the same—perhaps wanted it so strongly that it blinded him to the wants and the needs of a woman whose life he had most assuredly destroyed. Love, happiness, forgiveness. That’s what he wanted.

  Chapter Seventeen

  She woke many a night from dreams of her long-since-dead undertaker feasting between her legs, only to discover that fingers were all that she had. But the dream was there. All the years. All the times. And it was almost as good as the man. If she could only remember…only remember.

  Oh, she had a boy or two that she sugamammied every now and then. Young USC types from South Central with big black obedient dicks and plenty of time to ride an old girl around the track field. But there was no one like Dorian Moore to take her melancholied mind off Cameron on the j-o-b. And there was no one like Cameron to show her what life and love really meant.