Pretty Addict      John Calvi    November 2018

 

As I went into the store, I saw him crumpled on the sidewalk in a corner of store windows.  He had a hood pulled over his head and a small backpack.  I wondered then if I could buy him some food.  When I came out of the store, he was standing with his back to me.  He turned to face me and drew back the hood.  Can you help me out? he said.  

 

He was young and Hollywood handsome.  The eyes, the cheekbones, the jawline – the combination was stunning, flawless.  Do you need some food, I asked?  I need food, drugs, and cash he said seriously delivering this line straight into my eyes.  I laughed at his bold debauchery.  And when I laughed, he smiled.  I had gone off script, but he brought us back.  I could go with you, he said.  It was the perfect line for seduction and blameless adventure.

 

I don’t know his favored drugs, but clearly, he was late in getting them and ready to hustle.  He’d picked out a fat old queen coming out of the thrift shop to make his deal with.  But he was decades late.  In my very young days, I would have believed anything such a pretty face told me, believed and hoped to kiss that beauty soon as my part in the deal.

 

But this old queen has seen the pretty boys turned into wrecks of illness and dementia, empty and confused by the habit of addictions.  Not to mention the old queens who said yes and made a tear in their own lives, sometimes irreparable.  This was not going to be a sale.

 

Again, I looked at his face – amazing beauty.  His clothes revealed just enough muscle in slightly tight clothes, not too brazen, masculine.  I wondered was he from one of the gay porno shoots in another part of this valley?  Had he lost his employment along with his balance, using his beauty to stay high?  It was a hell of a trap.

 

While I was staring at his beauty, a voice in the back of my mind said, even a pretty addict is just another addict.  I couldn’t think of a way to help.  I don’t know anything about treatment in this desert valley and he clearly was not looking for healthcare.  I said I couldn’t help him and walked away.  

 

And hours later I am thinking of him and the guys I’ve met in prisons, in the AIDS wars, and on the streets.  What will the next part of the story look like?  He finds a fellow hedonist and has a great night followed by another painful morning?  He sleeps outside and is gay bashed, maybe to death?  He is tricked into treatment by a cop who later wants to date?  Yes, the pretty gets into my imagination too, always has.