Page 1 of A Long Con

“Thanks for the blowjob.”

Not that it was an exemplary blowjob or even an above-average one. This bear daddy had been par for the course, all the way from his Georges Braque framed print on the wall, his “Gay AF” rainbow mugs, to his fridge magnet that declared, “I’ve Got A Little Seaman on My Fridge.” With a cartoon of a sailor.

I attempted to get the hell out of there, but Dub—Dum? Dud?—was in a warm and squishy mood. He gave off a sparkly lilac hue that really turned me off. Sure, he was your typical bear, all hairy back, grey buzz cut and recently forgotten gym membership. But spare me, this was Grindr, and I’d just chosen the guy closest to me, since I pretended to live in Lake Havasu City. Okay, I did bypass the guy looking for a steroid source, the one who knew he was hot, and the guy who sucked dick in the name of Jesus. Oh yeah, and the one who had taken more loads than a washing machine. And the sub who told me he was glad I had black hair because redheads are impossible to sedate. No, Dub was a single professional who wanted to live and die in Paris. Good enough for a blowjob.

“Cumon,” he cooed, rubbing my pec. He let a thumb drift over my nipple. “Let’s have another go. You seem the type who can get it up again.”

Indeed I could, but I had to get back home. Not that I wanted to, but I had to. “Someone’s waiting for me back at home.” I stepped into my boxer briefs, shoving my half-hearted erection up against my abdomen. Where were my jeans?

This didn’t crush Dub’s spirits. “Can we hook up again, Oakland?”

See, I’d told him my name was Oakland. When my real name was Berkeley. Funny, huh?

“Sure. I know where you are on Grindr. I’ll be in touch next time I’m at the Blue Oyster.”

Now he displayed his neediness. “Do you go there often? Are you new in town?”

I was distracted, getting on my knees to pull my jeans out from under the couch. That must’ve been why I told the truth. “No, I grew up here, but I recently returned. My mother’s health.”

Dub exhaled with relief. “Oh, sweetie, sing it! My mother in Oklahoma City has been needing so much help. Breast cancer, you know.” He could’ve bored a hole in himself and let the sap out.

I whipped my shirt over my head with even more urgency and shoved my phone in my back pocket. “Oh, yeah, that’s the worst,” I said dully, grabbing one black leather Dingo boot. I was almost panic-stricken to get the hell out of there. Why did I bother doing this? Was it worth it for a halfway tolerable cock smoking? I should’ve barebacked that daddy into submission. Instead, I was worrying about my mother’s house. The sun was sinking fast—I couldn’t see it in that windowless condo, but I felt it. The darker it got, the more creepers came out of the woodwork to terrorize and assault my mother. And she could feel that from fifty miles away.

“She’s Stage Three,” Dub yammered on as I headed for the front door.

He said a bunch more crap, but I was already out of there. I promised to message him again when I was at the Blue Oyster. Truth is, I wasn’t great at messaging. I can’t write. I typed the most basic kindergarten shit when hooking up with Dub. I can read OK, but I literally can’t write. That’s why I’m dictating this story to Hobie Cleminshaw of the Bent Zealots MC. Thanks, Hobie. [Editor: No problem, Berkeley. You owe me a salted cod.]

I sure as shit wouldn’t message Dub again, not even using both index fingers and spell-checking “cock” and “making your master happy.” I gave the bear one last glance before slamming the helmet over my skull. He was an all right guy. Most men would’ve gone back for seconds. But I was off the grid. No one could know who I was. Not knowing how to write was the least of the things I was hiding.

I ripped it up on my Harley Road King first up Havasupai, then continuing onto Kiowa. I passed inns named for the British Royal Crown as well as Shakespeare. The founders of this manufactured city were jizzing because they’d managed to fly the actual London Bridge, or one of them, over to be rebuilt brick by brick. Is that strange or what? I grew up smoking weed on the London Bridge. There was the Queen’s Bay Golf Course, the King’s Retreat, the London Arms Pub. Those were the only royal things about this burg, and this is coming from someone accustomed to the high and mighty atmosphere of art school in Queens, New York.

My Milwaukee-Eight engine had great pull as I lane split it around the highest bend of Kiowa in the Mojave Mountains. I knew it—twilight was turning the sky first rose then turquoise. Prime time for the scumbags to hit my mother’s midcentury house up in Rough and Ready, a planned community I’d grown up in. Before that was nothing but a wasteland of rocks, towers and pinnacles going on forever until they merged with the clouds. To my warped brain, the clouds were ever-moving, transforming into faces and body parts, animals who galloped across the jagged mountain edges.

There was never a dull moment being Berkeley Moynihan.

I have to tell you that I’m an acquired, or sudden savant. I suffered a traumatic head injury aged twelve falling off my roof. And yes, I was smoking weed at the time. My buddy John “Cloud” Jacobs had climbed down the ladder, saw me unconscious, and called 911, but not in time to prevent a massive brain bleed in the left anterior temporal lobe. When I woke up two days later in intensive care, I could still read just fine. But when the doctor asked me to put pen to paper, I was stunned to realize I could form only the most juvenile of sentences. I was writing at about a five-year old’s level. Crap like See Spot Run instead of Hey dude, did you see that dope dog cruising down McCullough wearing a hellafine jeweled collar? I was left with severe learning difficulties. But I had a fresh new talent from that day on.

I had an incredible ability to paint. Everything struck me as wondrous and cosmic. I’d never drawn anything more than the most basic, well, cartoon dog, and now I painted the walls of my bedroom in a frenzy using whatever materials I had at hand—play-doh, sugar, soap, tar, condiments. In a mania I covered my bedroom walls in what a shrink called a “postimpressionist style.” The centerpiece was two faces with images tumbling from them. Doors, tunnels, cubes, silhouettes, horses melting into rainstorms, blue cats with two different ears and eyes, blindingly colorful shelves of books, eagles wearing shades, I painted all these and more on my bedroom walls once my mother purchased me a real paint set.

I had never even picked up a paintbrush before.

When I moved onto painting our living room walls, the crowning glory was a horse with a blue candy cane for a mane as a mantel over our fireplace. My mother sent me away to New York to study art.

I’m glad I’m stupid. I would see too much reality otherwise.

That’s about all you need to know for now about my strange brain. The closer to Rough and Ready the more the sky tightened in on me, the more I headed for a panic attack.

My mother’s house was the House of Early Horrors.

As a boy, I had a globe in my bedroom. I thought that all the oceans, rivers, and valleys were already mapped, explored, and named. But after my accident, I saw that the earth is continually shifting in contour, pattern, magnitude. Its chasms expand, swallow other mountains. Subterranean plates grind, clash, create new ranges. It changed so fast, in fact, that I could wake up one morning and my entire existence would be balanced on a cliff. If I went back to sleep, I’d be eaten alive.

If I looked at a clock to tell the time, all I’d see was a round frame, a blinding glass, and one sweeping hand. I would paint it—while unable to describe what I was painting—but I’d fail to tell the time.

Nearing Watchtower Street, I thought of that poor globe, buried under tons of trash. Before I left for the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens, my mother Elaine started “collecting” things. One of her favorites was crap from secondhand stores. I saw no rhyme or reason to it. Piles of ceramic garbage grew—pumpkins, mushrooms, allegedly cute kids. There were stacks of kitchen gadgets—colanders, toasters, graters and can openers. But the worst was her collecting of cats. We had one when Dad left, a mean but mellow boy called Lazarus. I guess Elaine began feeding feral ones because soon Lazarus had dozens of kids. By the time I graduated and came home for the summer, at least thirty cats roamed, jumped, and romped among the piles of garbage. Litter boxes overflowed, and they began shitting wherever they damn well pleased. It reeked of ammonia in our beautiful midcentury home with miles of plate glass windows, A-frame roof, and Mies ven der Rohe coffee table. I thought maybe Elaine was symbolically shitting all over the architectural beauty her husband had loved.

I say “garbage” even though at least fifty percent of it was items. To me it was all garbage, because Elaine had always been a clean person when my dad had been around. But after years of beating us, my dad finally split when I was ten. This is why I claim I’m averse to martial arts. The slaps, the footfalls, the arms swinging—everything reminded me of Dad in a mysterious rage. When I went to dinner at John “Cloud” Jacobs’ house and sat at the table joking and talking about football, that’s when I knew my home wasn’t normal. I had to stop inviting Cloud over because it was downright embarrassing, the mess. Our stove was dangerously covered in bills and junk mail, you walked on a sponge of empty boxes instead of the floor, and stacks of stuff were always sliding down on you. I spent the night at Cloud’s house as often as I could, and even slept in people’s unlocked cars until I fell off the roof and hit my head. Then I sort of liked being at home so I could paint, after moving stacks of things aside, even into the backyard.

Bugger me. Those fucking bikers a few doors down from me were having a party. When bikers had a party, fucking believe me, it was a rowdy and loud affair. And it wasn’t even the weekend.