Archive: Hoo yeah. Clicked Up, Fresh Meat, Schillinger, my name at Poet's Corner.
Warnings: Ummm...bad language, implied sexuality. Hubris and predestination at work.
Notes: First in a series. A sequel to MY WIFE AND MY DEAD WIFE.
Discalimers: Tom, Tom, the piper's son. I stole your characters and away I ran, but not very far. Please don't send lawyers.

I've seen the nations rise and Fall
I've heard the stories, heard them all
And love's the only engine of survival.
     --Leonard Cohen, "The Future" (Lyrics used without permission)

"Mark!"
     The voice--deep, rough, a young lion's impatient roar, coupled with the repetitive rev of a motorcycle engine--tugs Mark Tsoulas up from deep sleep, a fish-hook to the solar plexus, with all that entails: Full bladder, jerking pelvis, half-hard cock. He fell asleep drunk after dancing the late shift at Pompeii (five to three every week-night, plus all the tips you can fit in your basket) and still feels half-looped, woozy, like he's swimming in a warm bath of his own slightly-nauseated juices: No dry-mouth, thank God, but he's having *distinct* trouble focussing his eyes...
     "*Mark*! MARK! Open up, baby, 's ME--"
     (Who?)
     "--Jan, Mark! Now open this fuckin' door the fuck UP!"
     (Oh...shit.)
     Mark scrubs a hand across his face and rears upright, stumbling for the bedroom window. Then realizes, belatedly, that he's still naked--or near as makes no difference, give or take the black nylon jock-strap.
     "Minute," he calls back, weakly, reaching for the nearest discarded item of clothing he can find--which turns out to be his winter coat, a purple fake-fur number with a *very* scratchy synthetic lining. NOT exactly comfortable...
     (...like so many other things about this situation.)
     And: You know, he finds himself thinking, uncharitably--he probably didn't actualy *hear* you answer, what with the noise of the bike, and all--
     From outside: "*Mark*! I can see you standin' there--you left the bathroom light on again, you dumb bitch-ass fairy! OPEN *UP*!"
     (Well. That solves THAT.)
     Mark sticks his head out the window; it's been raining, probably more a little than a lot, but the air's still full of moisture. A little heat lightning at the sky's edge, through the crack between the Dyshare building and Craven Trust. Jan's sitting on his bike underneath the nearest streetlight, staring up, blue eyes narrowed in the bright white glare, fresh-grown mane to his Army surplus-jacketed shoulders: A sandy blond glaze of eyebrow, stubble, archaic Musketeer-style moustache/goatee set. And revving that FUCKING engine, absently, over and over again--like he's stroking himself off, or something--
     Mark clears his throat, swallows hard. "Go *away*, Jan!" He yells back. Trying hard to keep his voice loud enough to hear, but not so loud it breaks.
     Jan just stares up, eyes catching the light, so pale they seem blind.
     (ARE blind. To whatever he doesn't *feel* like seeing.)
     As always.
     "Lemme in, baby," Jan repeats, quieter. "Mark, c'mon. I'm in some ripe fuckin' shit here, man. Need a place."
     Mark rummages for the phone, one-handed. Snapping, sarcastically: "So naturally, you thought of me."
     A shrug. "Naturally."
     OH yeah.
     'Cause you never forget your first, right? Even if he--
     (--*wants* to forget--)
     --YOU.
     Aaaaaauuuuugh.
     So why you keep do thees to youself, Marco? He hears his long-estranged mother's memory-voice ask, mournfully. And thinks: Ah, but which THIS are we talking about here, Mama? In particular?
     Get involved with boys, not men, no matter how bulky their build or luxuriant their facial hair--a restless 18 to my should-at-least-WANT-to-be-settled 26? Classic rough trade late bloomers, hog-riding outlaw bad-asses bent on kicking the closet door off its hinges before they're *quite* old enough to receive pornography through the mail? Fellow Narco Anonymous members, ex-addicts trading one shaky, painful high for another?
     Jan, former pin-up centrespread for bad custody decisions, with his painfully-keloided Juvie tats and familial legacy of purebred German freakiness--a born-again homo zealot with a body to die for and a home-life Mark wouldn't wish on Hitler. And Mark, all flirtatious finger-snap 'tude, lithe and glamorous in his black nail-polish and glitter eyeliner: Exotically alien, inventively and unabashedly "faggy". Not to mention being SO out and proud he made Jan's Chock-full-o'-Nuts Grandad practically gag on contact.
     When Mark had kissed Jan that first time, in the church parking-lot--heart-in-mouth potential basher-baiting, liberally admixed with a kinky dash of sacreliege--he'd felt him stiffen all over, bristling like a teased and beaten dog, a lone wolf gone feral from long neglect. And then...
     ...then, the slow melt. Such a *sweet* capitulation, rough and fierce and wonderfully inept. Jan knew NOTHING, and Mark had been more than happy to give him a firsthand guided tour of the new frontier: *There* ya are, baby--the keys to the kingdom, the real reason you used to drink and drug yourself insensible, snap at and beat on anything that got between you and what you THOUGHT you wanted. Go now, my cherry-busted one-night-stand, and prosper.
     (I said, *go*. GO, doofus.)
     What are ya, deaf as well as blind?
     *This--this changes EVERYTHING,* Jan had whispered, afterward, staring at Mark with those eerie fanatic's eyes. And Mark had agreed, at the time--happy, in a vague and comradely way, to see Jan *made* so happy by the almost accidental discovery of his own true nature--
     --but now, Mark isn't so sure volunteering to help Jan out himself was EVER such a brainstorm. Good--
     (well, make that *great*)
     --sex notwithstanding.
     Jan scowls, his forehead lowering suspiciously. "You got somebody IN there, that what's goin' on?"
     Mark, amazed: "None of your damn business!"
     "Fuck it's NOT! I *love* you, you slut!"
     Nearby, a light snaps on. "Shut the fuck up, faggot!" Some irate neighbor yells, from an upper window--and Jan just roars back:
     "You wanna come down HERE and say that? MAKE me, cocksucker!"
     (Oh, this...has really *got* to stop.)
     Mark hits speed-dial: 911. Tucks the receiver between ear and shoulder, and calls back, voice defiantly tremor-free:
     "I'm calling the COPS, Jan!"
     "Aw, *Christ*."
     "Seriously, Jan. You SCARE me--"
     (--and I love it. Not that I'll ever admit it.)
     Wondering, suddenly: "Ripe shit". What *kind* of ripe shit, Jan-boy?
     Not drugs, with his newfound convictions--and not petty crime, either; Jan'd sworn off, wanted to keep his record (relatively) free and make his high school graduation a mere year late, then go on to University...first male in his tribe to do so, if he did, and the mere chance of throwing THAT in Grandpop's wrinkly old fuck-face...
     ...ohhhh no.
     But: Memory's inescapable playback, intruding once more. Jan, again, transfixed by the idea--transfigured, in a scary, pre-martyrdom kind of way--
     *Hey, ya know what would REALLY rule? *Tell* the old bastard, just to see him squirm. Man, his fuckin' head would blow right OFF...*
     And when Mark had suggested, delicately, that the shock might be just a little much for the old guy's system, Jan had just shrugged, unsympathetically. Replying:
     *Yeah? Well fuck HIM, that fuckin' old fuck. He gives me any more grief about this than he has to, I swear to fuckin' God--*
     (--I'll *kill* the bastard.)
     Mark puts the receiver down, with numb fingers.
     "Jan," he says, aloud--too quiet, probably, to carry over the yelling and revving...the approaching, mounting sirens...
     Oh, Jan. Baby. What--the fuck--
     (--did you...DO?)
     But now it's too late, because the cops are already here.
     Jan sees them, barks some German curse, and shoots them the finger; kicks his bike's stand up, revving *dangerously* loud, and takes off at full speed, right towards them. The cop car--unequipped or -prepared for an impromptu game of back-alley chicken--swerves, screeching.
     *Baby*, Mark thinks once more--his heart jumping, unbidden. As Jan grins back over his shoulder, a grim hardcase smirk which makes him look EXACTLY like that yellowing newsprint mugshot on his old bedroom wall, cropped from an article on known prisoner  factions up at Oswald Correctional--and posed, inadvertantly, to eerily match that leached and crumpled Polaroid of his Mom and half-sister he keeps wedged between the frame and the mattress--
     --then swerves himself, jack-knifing sideways, as the alley's other end is suddenly blocked by yet *another* set of flashing lights.
     A distorted voice, P.A.-borne:
     "BACK AWAY FROM THE VEHICLE, HANDS ON YOUR HEAD. *NO* *SUDDEN* *MOVEMENTS*."
     Mark closes his eyes, feels something contract and twist inside, bright and brittle: A knife-blade, a glass-sheathed corkscrew. The quick, salt burn of unshed tears in his nose, his sinuses.
     So quick, so hot. And so--totally--
     --useless.
     Foregone conclusion. Jan's said it himself, too many times to count: One way or another, everybody he knows ends up in jail--
     (in OZ)
     So why should *he* be any different? Why should he even--
     (try)
     --to break the mold?
     (Dumb friggin' KID.)
     When Mark opens his eyes again, the cops already have Jan cuffed. One holds his arms, while the other starts his litany:
     "Jan Erik Schillinger, you are under arrest for the murder of Karl Schillinger Senior. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney..."
     ...the right to strike the pose and back it up, talk the talk and walk the walk. To follow the family path, all the way down that rocky road which leads straight to your inheritance, a life-sentence stint in the Merry Old Land of Oz...
     Oh *Jan*, Mark thinks, again. Knowing he'll never be able to match the kid's intensity, even if he wanted to; that this was just a fling for him, nothing less *or* more. While for Jan--
     --the last puzzle-piece, the final kick to the ass down a long and slippery slope. The straw that broke the Old Man's back.
     Jan throws him one last glance, narrow, sidelong. Pale blue as ice on milk.
     And growls, at the cop, in a MUCH older man's voice:
     "That's Schillin-GER."

End Prologue