Evan Hunter - Streets of Gold

“What happened?” my mother said,

“Nothing,” Tony answered.

“Nothing? Your nose is bleeding, look at your eye, what happened?”

“I had a fight.”

“Where?”

“At the Boys’ Club.”

“Who with?”

“Richard Palumbo.”

“Why?”

“Forget it, Mom,” Tony said.

“What happened, Iggie?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Somebody better start knowing,” my mother said. “What happened, Tony?”

“I told you. I had a fight. Now that’s it, Mom, so let’s forget it, okay?”

“Why’d you have a fight?”

“How do I know why?”

“Iggie?”

“I don’t know, Mom.”

“Where at the Boys’ Club?”

“In the locker room,” Tony said.

“I thought you and Richard Palumbo were friends.”

“We are.”

“Then why’d you have a fight with him?”

“I don’t know why. We just had a fight, that’s all.”

“When was this?”

“After we came out of the water.”

We have been swimming for close to an hour. We come to the club every Saturday, carrying woolen swim trunks and towels with us. We change in the locker room and then spend an hour in the pool, after which we dry ourselves and dress again and go home. Even in the summer months, my brother takes me to the Boys’ Club to swim because the public pool in Jefferson Park is too crowded. A man blows a whistle at the deep end of the pool, near the diving board, when it is time for us to come out of the water. That means our hour is up, and they’ll now let another batch of kids into the pool. In the summer months, they let us swim as long as we want because not so many kids are there. But this is April.

“You came out of the water...”

“We came out of the water, and we went into the locker room, and a fight started, and that’s it. I got homework to do, Mom. If you don’t mind...”

“Your homework can wait. You went in the locker room, and then what?”

“I told you.”

“You didn’t tell me!”

“We went in the locker room, and the guys started fooling around, and a fight started between me and Richard. That’s what happened. Okay? Can I go do my homework now?”

“Fooling around how? ” my mother asked.

“Just fooling around. The way we always do.”

“How?”

I can hear the slap of wet feet against the tiled floor of the locker room. My brother, who always dresses much faster than I, has gone to the office to find out when we have to renew our membership cards. My locker door is open, the smell of contained sweat assails my nostrils a foot from the bench upon which I sit drying myself. There is laughter in the echoing room, and shouted obscenities, and bellowed lines from popular songs. Someone yells, “Hey, Basilio, watch your ass!”

“Look, Mom, there’s a lot of fooling around goes on in a locker room.”

“This is the first I’m hearing about it,” my mother said. “What kind of fooling around?”

“Like they hide your clothes sometimes, or they tie your shoelaces in knots, or rub chewing gum in your hair... like that.”

“Very nice,” my mother said. “Is that what Richard did?”

“No.”

“Then what did he do?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why did you have a fight?”

I know the sound of a wet towel being snapped, and I also know the feel of that fiery lash against my backside. Being blind saves me from most childhood cruelties, but occasionally someone will whip his towel at me from behind, without realizing I am his target, and then immediately apologize — Gee, Iggie, I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was you.”

Basilio Silese is the target today.

“He was giving Basilio the towel.”

“What do you mean?”

“Richard. He was hitting Basilio with the wet towel.”

“Hitting him?”

“His ass.”

“His what ?”

“His behind, I’m sorry.”

“I still don’t understand you.”

“Mom, he was snapping the towel at him. Like a whip, like cracking a whip at his behind. And I came in, I was up in the office, and I told him to stop, and he wouldn’t, so I hit him.”

“Why did you butt in?”

“He was... hurting Basilio.”

I hear only the snap of the towel each time it connects with Basilio’s flesh. He screams and tries to run away but Richard, whose voice I now recognize, keeps crooning, “Watch your ass, Basilio,” and whick, the towel snaps out yet another time, and Basilio shrieks again, and there is the sound of bare feet slapping on the tiles as he tries to escape. There are more boys after him now, I hear towels snapping at him wherever I turn my head. I am becoming frightened. “Watch your ass, Basilio!” and whick, and another shriek of pain, and the sound of running feet, someone slipping to the tile floor, “Watch your ass, Basilio!” and someone shouting, “Richard has a hard-on!” and then all of them chanting the words into the echoing room, “Richard has a hard-on, Richard has a hard-on,” and then sudden silence.

“He was hurting him with the towel?” my mother said.

“Yes.”

“So you hit him, is that right?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“You’re lying, Tony.”

“I’m telling you the God’s honest truth, may I drop dead on the floor if I’m lying.”

Basilio is struggling. The locker room is ominously still except for the grunts that come from the floor not six feet from where I am sitting. “Hold still, you fuckin’ pansy!” Richard says, and Basilio murmurs, “Please, please don’t,” and someone says, “Give it to him, Richie.” Silence. A single sharp penetrating scream shatters the brittle stillness, and then there is the sound of labored breathing and another sound like the whimper of a wounded animal. From the jar end of the room my brother Tony yells, “Hey, what are you doing there?” No one answers. I hear Basilio sobbing. I hear Richard’s harsh rhythmic breathing. “Get off him,” Tony says. His sneakers are hitting the tiled floor as he runs toward the bench. “Get off him!” he shrieks.

“How was he hurting him?” my mother asked

“I told you. With the towel.”

“What was he doing to Basilio?”

“He was hitting him with the towel.”

“And that’s why you butt in?”

“Yes.”

“Tony, why are you lying to me?”

“I’m not,” Tony said, and began crying. “I’m not, Mom, I swear.”

“What happened? Tell me everything that happened.”

“He was giving it to Basilio in the ass,” Tony said in a rush, and then he must have thrown himself into my mother’s arms because his next words were muffled.

My manager, a man named Mark Aronowitz (who doesn’t call too often these days), is fond of describing business deals in sexual terms.

“Look, Ike, the offer is fifteen hundred a week, and that’s it. I can tell you they’ll go to three grand, but what’s the sense of jerking ourselves off?”

Or: “I know the Cleveland gig is a drag, you think I don’t know it? But it’s only for a week; am I asking you to marry the fucking joint?”

Or: “Don’t tell him it’s firm yet. Drummers are a dime a dozen. Feel around a little, decide whether you want to get in bed with him.”

Or (most frequently): “We’ve been screwed, Ike. Here’s the story....”

I sometimes try to imagine where Basilio Silese went from that day in the Boys’ Club locker room. Is he now a hopeless faggot wearing lavender satin gowns and mincing about in high-heeled slippers? Or has he gone the opposite route, screwing every female he can get his hands on in order to prove his own asshole is inviolate? It’s tough enough being a “man” in this country; Basilio certainly didn’t need a snotnosed thirteen-year-old locker-room stud seeding premature doubts before an audience of two dozen sighted kids and one blind bastard breathlessly listening to every grunt and moan. And what of Richard Palumbo? Did he ever consider his assault homosexual? Probably not. He was the man , you see, the bold attacker, the conquering hero till my brother Tony declared him villain of the piece. He was Richard Palumbo of the Mount- ees rather than Basilio Silese of the Mount-ed. He had cautioned, “Watch your ass, Basilio,” and in America that’s fair enough warning because if you don’t watch your ass, someone’s going to lay claim to it. “We’ve been screwed, Ike. Here’s the story...”