petey-petey

by Michael Fontana

Back in 1978, Petey-Petey shook his tambourine at me. “Drop a buck in here,” he said. He was twenty-five and stood about five-nine, with short ashen hair, hazel eyes, milky skin, and gangly limbs. The tambourine made him seem like a musician when he was just another beggar.

“I only have a quarter,” I said. I was the same age but shorter and heavier. My hair, eyes and skin were dark. Both of us wore ratty clothes, everything we owned on our backs.

“Next time don’t be so stingy,” he said.

We had known each other since second grade when I followed him into the ashbin behind the elementary school and we ate half-chewed candy that richer kids threw away. Days later we paraded through mud, soiling our clothes so the principal paddled our bare asses.

Mom wanted me to have nothing to do with Petey-Petey. “He’s a bad influence,” she said. I disregarded her advice like dad had disregarded us when he left. I hung out with Petey-Petey until just past puberty when one day we became lovers. Soon after, a hateful and distorted fear of queerness, taught to us by our elders, led us to view our lovemaking as evil.

Nonetheless my quarter fell into his tambourine. But it left me broke. So I went to the Presto Lounge, dropped my hat on the snow, and begged for change of my own. People who frequented the Presto didn’t have much money either. They weren’t going to sacrifice their liquor to give me a handout. I would have treated them the same. Poverty could be vicious that way.

Petey-Petey soon stopped by. I tried to panhandle him, and he laughed in my face. “Are we just exchanging money?” he said. “I ought to charge you a fee like a savings and loan.”

He went inside. I followed once I had more money. Part of the proceeds bought me a shot of Old Dan Tucker with a water chaser. I took the stool next to Petey-Petey. “I’ll pay my own freight,” I said to him.

“You do that,” he said, sipping a whiskey sour. “Just leave me the hell alone.”

But I didn’t. I kept needling him. I made sure my elbows bumped into his on the counter, my legs kicked his on the stool.

He kicked me back. “Leave me be,” he said.

“I can’t,” I said.

“Why not?” he said, slamming his glass so hard on the counter I thought it might shatter.

“Because I want to wrestle you,” I said. I spoke to him in code because we didn’t possess the right words for what we had once done together.

“I told you not to mention that,” he whispered, gritting his teeth as if the sourness of his drink became suddenly unbearable.

“Too bad,” I said, and kicked him again.

He kicked me back and this time toppled his drink onto the counter. He tried to wipe it up with his shirt sleeves. “You fucker,” he said.

“Want to make something of it?” I said, laughing at his discomfort.

This turned a few heads, waiting to see how this would play out, fear and excitement at the thought of a brawl.

“Outside,” Petey-Petey said. He had the barkeep tend to his tambourine.

We stepped out onto the snow-covered sidewalk. A couple of guys followed us to witness whatever we might do. I shivered in the cold. Petey-Petey rolled up his shirt sleeves, soaked as they were, and bared his arms. “You just made a huge mistake,” he said to me.

“I doubt it,” I said. I stretched my limbs to try and warm myself.

“Put up your dukes,” he said, fists already raised.

I didn’t put mine up at all, but dived into his legs, knocking him off-balance, driving him to the sidewalk and snow. The spectators clapped their hands and whistled.

“You fucker,” Petey-Petey said again.

I turned him on his back and sat on his belly, spread one hand over his face to blind him and used the other to pry open his lips. I wanted to put shit in his mouth, wanted him to taste how terrible the dirt and dust and detritus of life could be.

He resisted and finally rolled me off him so that I was now the one on my back, him on top of me. We sweated despite the cold. The spectators clapped and cheered, urging us to kill each other.

We didn’t. Instead we both grew tired of rolling around on the sidewalk and snow, tired of cold that made our muscles and joints ache, tired of contact with no release.

Petey-Petey relented when I clawed my way back on top. “Get off me,” he said. But when I did, he stayed there.

“Get up,” I said. “Let’s finish this.” I was out of breath, bent forward, hands on my knees.

“Go to hell,” he said. He panted hard, his breath forming clouds.

The spectators booed and then straggled off, some to the Presto, some elsewhere.

I lowered my hand to Petey-Petey and he took it. I raised him to his feet.

“I should have kicked your ass,” he said by way of thanks. “I need another drink.”

I counted my money. I didn’t have enough to buy him a whiskey sour like I wanted. He went inside to retrieve his tambourine. I followed him, my funds just enough to buy myself another shot of Old Dan Tucker. I drank it and stared at him as if I knew where he was going, what else he would do, as if we were once again lovers and I could somehow still reach him.

Photo of Michael Fontana

BIO: Michael Fontana is a retired activist, college instructor, and fundraiser, who lives in beautiful Bella Vista, Arkansas. Recent fiction has been published in Potomac Review and The Bookends Review and is forthcoming in Dark Horses Review.