Him I Wanted to Pocket
They wanted to go to the nearby gas station, the only place still open in our little town , for one last round of drinks. But we ended up at my favorite school-night spot: an abandoned DIY hut in the middle of a swamp. You’d drive half an hour down a dirt road, then step carefully over a path of stumps sunk deep into the muddy water.
It was ours. Nothing like it within at least a hundred kilometers. That night was one of the last times we went there, usually with a box of beers and a joint.
Later that year, someone decided we should throw a bomb at it and seal it shut — some older guys had started gathering there, leaving trash, and more than once, actual shit. It wasn’t just “someone,” of course, who came up with that crazy idea. It was him. He’d bought the thing years earlier from some guy at school and never had a reason to use it. It wasn’t a real bomb. It was improvised, in a Coca-Cola can, with a short fuse.
“Who’s gonna throw it?”
— “I will — it’s mine!”
— “Mine’s the car.”
— “Can you even throw that far?”
— “Just give me the lighter, you ass!”
— “How long should you count?”
— “Fuck, he said like ten seconds, and then throw!”
“Seriously, guys?!”
He lit the fuse. Everyone ducked.
Twelve seconds later — boom.
We all rushed into the car, when someone yelled, “Drive!”
Then, suddenly:
“Wait — did we even check if there was anyone there?”
“Fuck.”
We got out and went back to the hut.
Empty. Still standing. Even that shit didn’t fly.
Everyone burst into laughter.
We stayed over one last time.
Never went back.
I wouldn’t even know how to find it now.
He always came up with those ideas. Wild ideas. Ones that usually ended with him getting hurt somehow.
Back to that other night, one more I clearly remember, we cracked open the beers, lit the joint, thinking we’d only stay a short while. Not long into it, he stripped off all his clothes and jumped into the swamp. Everyone started screaming, then laughing, because we knew it was just another one of his stunts.
He came out clutching his dick and balls in one hand, using the other to inspect a cut on his leg, probably from broken reeds or something else sharp at the bottom. Bleeding and laughing. Cheeky as always. Then he saw the bugs all over his body and panicked, begging us to get them off him. We all thought they were leeches, but they weren’t. They were something else entirely.
I sat back down, watching the resolution of this whole ridiculous little story unfold in front of me. But for me, there was no resolution.
I fucking loved him. I did, intensely, for at least two years. Probably still do, nearly 25 years later. That longing has burned through my gay soul like acid. Drip by drip.
That night, I wanted to put him in my pocket and just leave. Travel the world with him.
But around the world, I went alone.
And still — my pocket is empty.
