Bathhouse Blues
by Bernard Dewley
As my key clicks left, the door rattles open. The room is brisk, not cold but cool like autumn nights. My nose crooks up; the air is thick with bleach and testosterone. How many have been here before me tonight? Pulling down the mattress to sit, I unpack my pockets, full of necessities: my keys, a bottle of poppers, my cell phone, some lube. I place them on the table, geometric order, nothing astray. After all these years, my heart beats anxious every time I'm here.
Hanging my jeans on the hook hidden between the door hinge and a wad of gum hardened against the wall, I stuff my tee shirt into one of the pockets and line my shoes under the table. The trash can is littered with rubbers filled with manhood, tossed careless on top of tissues, red, brown and moist.
I wrap the rented sheet around the thin mattress as best I can; it is flat, not fitted. Pinching a towel around my waist, I wait, listening to the sounds that echo through the rafters. Footsteps. Doors creaking shut. Hurried zippers going up. The gurgled sounds and stunted breathing of someone going down.
Sneaking into the hallway, I glance over at the sauna toward the sound of purring water. Tugging close my door, I tip toe past my neighbor for the night. Naked on his stomach in a dimly lit room, his face is hidden in the angry shadows. Dignity is easy in the dark.
In the steam room, two eyes pierce through the thick gray heat. He is late forties, salt and pepper with pocked skin. His chiseled chest is broad with grief; survivor's guilt is cruel. I've seen him before, his face scarred with the rigor mortis smile of a lover left behind. Fending for himself, the embalmed memories of night sweats and dementia are as fresh as first kisses. For him, each morning is a broken promise, a flood of devastation washing down his own fistful of pills.
His towel is gone, revealing the prickly spring of sprouting black hairs, a second adolescence. Sitting, his legs wide, he beckons me....come on...come here...I'm ready...three full dates—roles negotiated, needs stated—all in the quick sideways jerk of his head. Wrestling down my need for release, I leave to search for someone better. Grabbing a smoke and my poppers, the door bangs shut, startling the hallway of half-naked men, each exorcising demons.
Outside in the garden, the night air is warm with swirls of smoke. A dozen toweled men hold lit cigarettes, silently watching as I move across the wood-slatted floor. Hopeful eyes entice then despair as I pass by, unwelcoming. Some are peering at the video while others are fixed in place, stone statues, gods waiting for a worshipful flock.
I sit near the bar, dry as a levee. Positioning myself to see and be seen, I lick then pout my lips, playing coy to the hard cruising shadows: faggots, queer married men, couples that play. I light with my left and drag with my right.
A dark haired man approaches near, his hair dripping beads of water down his taut smooth back. He is electric and I can feel his musty desire vibrating from across the patio. He crouches down, squatting carefully, hiding behind his slightly turned thigh. With olive skin and thick espresso hair, his eyes, flecked with shades of dull grays, are sharp and belie his boyish face. He stares just above my shoulder and to the left. Offering a crooked smile, I crush out my Lucky and dart my eyes...maybe later...I mean to say. Shaken, his bruised ego showing, he bolts up then towards the caverns, disappearing into the maze of corridors full of men combing the dark for ecstasy.
Three beats later, I follow.
Drawn in equal measure to his glistening back and his halo of sadness, I creep into the long narrow walkway to find him. Turning the first corner, I hear a chorus of heavy breathing; up ahead, three shadows, a frantic pace. A handsome couple stands shoulder to shoulder with towels draped over the thighs of a third. Hunched down, resting raw knees, he's giving each standing man equal time. Squeezing by, I brush away his hand, an unwanted invitation.
Midway to the end, I find the video room and slip inside. Sitting on the wooden bleachers bruised black and blue with too many memories, I see an elderly man spending time—a precious currency—here in awe of the discarded beauty that surrounds him. He sits near the center staring listlessly at the wall, his cane shocking the younger men not yet betrayed by their own bodies. In their eyes, he sees the strange bastard child of vanity and disgust. Running quickly to take shallow comfort in the nearest mirror, the boys don't mean to hurt him but they do.
He is in his seventies and wears white boxers, puffing and bulging at the hips..hiding diapers...I think, unmistakably. His face is devastated with thick wrinkles. In each bulbous line, regret.
Backing out, I snake along the hall into the mouth of a large open room with flickering candles. Eager hips thrust against the wooden wall, finding the warm soft lips of eagerness on the other side. His long blonde hair dances on his shoulders in rhythm with his body quaking near release. With the soft moan of pleasure, the fantasy cracks deep. Cleaning up quickly, he exchanges an awkward goodbye through the wooden wall. Struggling to fit the towel around his belly, he disappears around the corner, still fumbling for decency. Roaring with a deeper need, he is unsated, still thirsty.
In the far corner, I see three in a circle jerk, facing each other in a triangle of beauty. Their backs turned, I am left to watch from the unworthy shadows. Instinctively, I know to keep my distance and so, from the solitude of unrequited desire, I stare longingly as they grab each other, hands over fists, kissing each other deeply, passionately, smirking at the lesser men—me. In turns, they finish, and as the last one pulls his towel around his waist, they smile at each other and creep back toward the garden confident in their beauty, and I hate them for it.
Alone again, I wait.
It is now—in the dark of the quarter moon cool in the distance—that I lose my dignity. Slipping off my towel, I stretch out my arms, reaching up high as if for God, but no. Rather, it is a calloused hand, thick, with errant black hairs that finds me from the shadows. Offering if not comfort then distraction, he is warm and willing. Not turning to glimpse his eyes, the fantasy begins, his stubble brushing against my neck. As he pushes deeper inside me, I feel my belly swelling with a salty sorrow. It is nearly half past twelve and I'm aching for redemption but settling for this—a sweaty stranger, a bareback Xanadu.
It is raw. It is rough. It is a momentary salve for my loneliness and the reason that I am here tonight. And as quickly as it began, the passion fades and with no names, only a whispered thanks, we slip away, each into our own harsh night. Bodies spent, ghosts quieted.
Bernard Dewley lives in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami. His poetry has appeared in Get Underground, H/X, UniverCity, and Deluxe Design for Work and Leisure. He has been a featured reader at numerous venues, including The Wallflower Gallery (Miami), the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (NYC), the Leslie-Lohman Gay Arts Foundation (SoHo), The New School (NYC) and A Different Light Bookstore (NYC). Currently, Bernard is Managing Editor of Hand.Tooth.Nail. His work has also appeared in "Pinko Commies: The Art of War, Censorship, Politics and Freedom," a group art show at Altered Esthetics in Minneapolis.
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