“Any other notes?” I asked.
“Don't run away from me.” He put his hands on my arms,
suddenly serious.
“Never again.”
“Never again,” he said. “Because I'll just follow you.”
“There's no escaping a happy ending,” I said.
The overhead lights flashed and the manager made an announcement that the store would be closing in three minutes.
Fletcher wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me close, kissing me hard on the mouth, recreating in exact detail the final kiss from the show.
“And curtain,” he whispered, his lips warm against my cheek.
SANDWICH ARTIST
Shane Allison
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I stole the keys out of Ma's purse. It was a damn shame that I was still living at home. My sister got out early at the sweet age of eighteen. She couldn't take the curfews and the beatings that came if she was a minute late. I never could get it right. I should have left for New York as soon as I finished junior college. Yet, had I done that, I never would have met Armando. I waited until they'd gone to bed, fighting off fears in their nightmares. The road I live on was slick with mud, the holes overrun with rainwater from last night's storm. I hate the house with its leaky roof, its cobwebbed corners and bad childhood memories. I've cried in my plate of chicken and rice, bled in the sweet ice tea. They try to keep me away from Armando with barred windows. But nothing's gonna keep me away from my baby. I put the car in NEUTRAL and pushed it with my weight out of the carport, up that slick road, through the barking of vicious pit bulls and puddles of muddy water. I'll do anything to get to him. Streetlights of white light my way through this ravenous night
up Woodville Highway. I'd made it; I'd escaped the bear claws of my folks. I'd rather have run the streets like a Frenchtown whore than live with them another day. I was invisible anyway, a ghost caught in limbo between the heavens of freedom and the hell of slavery. I followed the yellow dashes that led me closer to Armando. Chris Isaac's “Wicked Game” was playing on 98.9, Armando's favorite song. I was hoarse from all the hollering. Ma had given me that
As long as you're in this house
speech. “You ain't go'n stop 'til you don' run me outta here,” I yelled. “Well, goâ¦go'n then,” she screamed. So I'd be going, hauling ass and never darkening the door of Charlie Ash Lane again. They'd be sorry, those venomous bullies. Why couldn't we have been the Bradys? Why couldn't they have been Claire and Cliff Huxtable? I felt like some C-list child star. Armando and I were so close. One more paycheck and we'd have enough money to get our own place. I'd already picked out some sofas and end tables. We had our eye on this posh apartment in Verandas Villas; pricey, but nice. We'd be graduating college in three months. We were already looking for full-time jobs. We had to get away from my bible-beating parents, and his drill sergeant dad who's a staunch supporter of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
I screeched into the lot of Jimmy John's Sandwich Shop. Armando was stocking chairs on the tables, smearing a wet mop across a linoleum floor. The moon was full and orange. Cars whooshed down the streets of South Magnolia. Armando was alone. The bell that hung above the door tolled as I walked in. The shop was redolent of sharp spices and baked breads.
“Hey, babe,” I said. He stopped cleaning and walked over to give me a hug, cute in his uniform of green and black. Tufts of black hair escaped the brim of his cap. Elvis Presley sideburns ran along the sides of his face. He's a lean Italian with a skate border waistline, a body decorated with tats.
“What's wrong?” he asked.
“Nothin',” I said.
“You look mad about something.” I lifted my glasses to wipe my face. “Is it your folks again?” Armando asked. “What the fuck did they do to you?” I didn't want him to worry. Armando goes off the deep end when he knows I'm upset about something. “I jus' got into anotha knock down, drag out with my mom again.”
“Goddamn them,” he said.
“It's no big deal,” I said, taking his hand in mine.
“No, fuck that. Look, I know you love them, but your folks are assholes.” My white knight and Prince Charming all rolled into one.
“Forget it. Jus' leave it alone.”
“Are you hungry? Have you eaten?” Armando asked.
“Jus' a chicken biscuit from Chic-Fil-A this mornin'.”
“Let me make you something. What do you want to eat?”
“I been wontuh try that new chicken Parmesan ya'll got.” Armando's shirt was stained with who the hell knew what. SANDWICH ARTIST was embroidered in yellow on the top lefthand corner of his shirt. He wiped his wet hands dry on his pants.
“We gotta get you outta that house,” Armando said as he yanked a pair of plastic, transparent gloves from a box next to the register. I looked at the name tag pinned to his chest.
I remembered the first time I laid eyes on Armando. It was right here at J.J.'s. I was sick of burgers and greasy Chinese food, and it was the only place open. My weight was another thing me and Ma fought about; I got sick of Ma preaching to me: “You need tuh cut back, boy.” Armando had been the only one working that night when I walked in. I ordered the corned beef on wheat. I don't remember how the conversation started, but Armando and I started talking about comic books and horror
movies in film history. We both agreed that
An American Werewolf in London
kicks ass. He had a beard at the time, but still looked boyish. I watched as he sprinkled my sandwich with lettuce, pickles, banana peppers. I glimpsed the sliver of a tattoo on his furred chest through the open top buttons of his uniform. I paid for my food with a twenty.
“Keep the change,” I told him.
“Are you sure, man?” he asked.
“Consider it a tip.” I watched him watch me, the two of us reflected in the glass door with the store's hours plastered across it. I couldn't stop thinking about him on the way home that night, with that movie-star smile, those eyes that could melt glaciers. I became a loyal customer. I tried every sandwich on the menu: from veggie to tuna and I hate fucking tuna. I would come in some nights just to see if Armando was working. Usually there was some girl with a bad dye job working, so I'd only buy lemonade or a cookie. I heard later she told him about this black dude with glasses who kept coming in and asking about him.
“All he ever bought was a cookie.”
I ate a shit load of corn beef subs before I grew the balls to ask him out. After a while, I didn't want to have nothing to do with anything that ended in
sandwich.
But Armando and I grew to know each other very well.
My parents found out about Armando when Ma overheard me talking to him late one night. Life had been hell since I came out to them when I was nineteen.
“I would rather be dead than for you to be gay,” she had said. I thought telling her that I was bisexual would soften the emotional blow, but she didn't care. I was going to hell either way. Daddy didn't speak to me for weeks and often referred to me as a
sissy
when he thought I couldn't hear. “Freaks,” he had said. He was pissed that the family name would stop with me,
his freaky, sissy son. Ma tried to get me to go to church.
“I want you to get saved like your sister.” She started crying when I refused. Her preacher said that I was just running from Jesus. She stormed into my room after she so rudely eavesdropped on my conversation with Armando.
“Get off th' phone, an' come in me an' yuh daddy room.” If looks could kill, hers would have skinned me alive.
“Hey, lemme call you back,” I told Armando. Pearls of sweat dripped from my pits. Daddy just lay in bed with his back turned, disappointed that I was not a pussy-loving high school quarterback like he was in his heyday.
“As long azhoo in this house, I âon' wan'choo talkin' tuh that boy.”
We fussed and fought for months. I wanted to tell her to go fuck herself, but lost the nerve. Still, nothing was going to keep me away from Armando. Nothing and nobody. They put me on ten o' clock curfews, but I would always sneak out. That house was like a jail cell, a dungeon in an evil castle. If I had a dime for every scrape and scratch I'd endured to meet my Armando, I'd have enough to pay the rent on our villa apartment for the rest of the year.
I watched Armando slice the Italian herb-flavored bread.
“Did you deposit your check yet?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Did it yesterday.”
“I'll be getting paid this Friday, and that oughta be enough for the security deposit and first and last months' rent.” He put four pieces of breaded chicken on a sheet of wax paper and placed them in the microwave.
“We're almost there. Think I should start packing my stuff?” I asked.
“Yeah. We gotta get you from under your parents' roof. Enough's enough. If they put their hands on you again⦔ I'd
told Armando the cuts and scratches were from my bedroom window, but I didn't think he believed me. I studied Armando's fingers as he covered one side of the bread with slices of provolone. The microwave sounded. He pulled the chicken out and onto the bread. He didn't need to ask what I wanted on the sandwich. Armando squeezed out mayo and a little mustard. Too much can ruin a sandwich. He finished it off with a decoration of green peppers, pickles and my favorite, jalapeno peppers. Armando grabbed the Parmesan, always the final ingredient, but the shaker was empty.
“I got some in back, babe,” he said. My dick began to twitch in my shorts to the image of pants riding between the crack of his ass. Armando came back with the powdered cheese and a canister of fresh black olives. He knew I liked extra. He took a handful and dressed my sandwich.
“Baby, can you do me a favor?” he asked. “Could you turn the sign on the door?”
I locked the door and switched the sign to CLOSED.
“I gotta take a piss,” I said, making my way to the crapper.
“I'm cleaning that one right now,” he said. “Use the employee bathroom in back.”
I sauntered past the big bread ovens and empty cardboard boxes. I didn't really need to go. My dick was at full salute but it wasn't because of a full bladder.
As I forked it out of my cutoff sweats, I began to think just how lucky I was to have someone as great as Armando. He's my prince. And believe meâI've had to kiss a shitload of frogs to get to him.
“Your sandwich is on the table, babe,” he said, as he started to break down the boxes. I stood in the doorway watching him work while I caressed my dick, fingered my balls.
I admired him from behind as he bent and pulled cardboard.
He had a black boy's ass. I cleared my throat to get his attention. I turned toward the toilet and stood in front of the mirror, fondling myself while watching a reflection of Armando's every move.
Armando moved closer to see what I was up to. He pressed the door open to get an eyeful of me working my dick.
“What are you doing?” Armando asked, grinning.
“What does it look like?” With my shorts down around my ass, and my dick thick and curved outward, I roped a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him in, giving him a warm kiss of the French persuasion. Armando's tongue tasted like pink lemonade. His lips were supple against my own. He ran his hand beneath my T-shirt, fingers traipsing through chest hair. I released a hot sigh between our bodies, as he started to jerk me off.
He paused. “Hold on,” he said. “Follow me.”
I tailed him around the sandwich shop, erect and anxious. Armando closed the venetians then took a chair down from one of the tables.
“Have a seat.” He ran his fingers along his crotch. I couldn't wait to release that
thing
from his pants. What he doesn't have in girth, he makes up for in length. I heard Italian boys were big, and with Armando, I'll be damned if it don't ring true. He unzipped his pants and reached in to pull out his dick. The head was pink, with a shaft of muscle, veins and tender foreskin. People could see through verticals, but I was hoping the closed sign would keep voyeurs away. I took Armando's dick and tilted it up to my mouth and began to lick along the slit. I have no gag reflex, so I was able to take as much of him as I wanted down my throat.
“Look up at me,” he ordered. He likes to look into my eyes while I'm sucking.
His groin was ripe with all-day crotch sweat, mixed with the scent of onions and bell peppers. I worked the head, lapping at Italian flesh.
“You know what to do,” he said. I turned my attentions reluctantly from devouring his dick to sucking his balls.
“Yeah, that's it, right there.” He ran his hands over my head, toying with my ears. He shaves down there, so there's no hair to get in the way. Armando lifted up his shirt, exposing that chest I adore so.
“Do it,” he said. I tweaked his nipples, so sensitive under my fingers when I pull at them. My own dick was throbbing like a heart. He took off his shirt and tossed it. We didn't care where. I moved back to his dick to give him proper thanks. I was a bruised boy and he was my savior.
His legs quivered. I kneaded his flesh like dough, running my hands over his beauty-marked hips. Spit rolled along his dick as I feasted. The sandwich, wrapped tightly in paper, was within reach as well as the meat, mustard and mayo. I was hungry, but not for any sandwich.
“I got an idea.” Armando looked down at me. He was annoyed I'd stopped worshipping at his altar of dick.
“Come behind here,” I said, leading him by the arm, his dick wet and full. I slid my sandwich off to the side.