Mean Guy

Mean Guy By R.W. Clinger Jamie’s an asshole when he asks me, “Why are we working our rumps off today, moving all these boxes and furniture, when we both know your aunt can afford a professional company to get the job done?” He wipes sweat away from his forehead with the back of a muscular arm. “It makes no sense to me, Ricky. I’d rather be doing something else. Watching paint dry would be better than this crap.” “I’ve already told you three times that my Great Aunt Sassy doesn’t like any strangers touching her things. You’re not a stranger. Plus, she has Alzheimer’s and needs it done. Can’t you just keep quiet and help her, and me, out?” We each haul a cardboard box of cozy mysteries into an elevator, huffing. Both of us are in shape, but exhausted because of the last four hours of moving my aunt’s belongings. “Whatever,” he says, again being a mean asshole. We set our boxes down, and he presses the number three on the elevator’s interior wall. I tell him, “Stop being cranky, Jamie. This is our last load for the day. We’ll finish the move tomorrow.” The elevator doors close. “f**k tomorrow, and f**k this move,” he says. “You need to find someone else to help you tomorrow. I’m not available.” He’s lying. I know it, and he knows it. We’re monkeys who move pages of insurance claims from one side of our desks to the other for Cassidy Insurance, and we have the day off. Plus, he won’t be playing soccer with his jock friends tomorrow morning because of a bi-week from his amateur games. Jamie Oakley doesn’t have anything else to do but help move my aunt’s things from her cobblestone mansion to an apartment overlooking Lake Erie. Case closed. “We’re both available,” I correct him. “You might be, but I’m not. Don’t even think I’m helping you.” The elevator rises, stops, and its door slides open. We exit in silence. Aunt Sassy’s lake-view apartment in Radbury Place is everything I want in the city of Templeton, Pennsylvania. She has two walls in the studio apartment that are all glass. The view is remarkable: small schooners, Squirrel Island in the distance, and choppy blue-green waves. As for the apartment, the place looks comfortable and big enough for her: kitchen, living room area, bathroom, two bedrooms, and a few closets. It’s not the mansion on Ruyard Court Road where she grew up as the daughter of a beer tycoon, but it will suffice now that she’s eighty-nine and in a secure building with every essential comfort one can imagine. An in-house spa, library, theatre room, casino room, fountain room, conservatory, and other rooms add to her ease. Also, she has a staff of nurses to care for her physical and mental needs. Money buys good things. Great Aunt Sassy isn’t an exception to the cliché. As sweet and sugary as Great Aunt Sylvia Sassywoma is, Jamie is her opposite, a complete jerk, bitter, and sour. Although the thirty-seven-year-old man resembles a Hollywood star with his blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and chiseled jaw, he’s an ass. How can a man at six-one with a rock-hard body and a flawless face be so hard? I will never understand. Talk about being negative about everything: the weather, activities, food…everything. No wonder I dislike him at times, even if he has a beautiful exterior. How Jamie and I get mixed up together to move my great aunt’s things feels unreal. Great Aunt Sassy demands I help her out. No one else. But I need some muscle to move her bedroom and living room sets out of the mansion and into Radbury Place, where my mother, Ruby, currently is making her aunt live since Sassy is beginning to suffer from dementia. Long story short, Jamie owes me a favor for hooking him up with one of my acquaintances, a fireman named Rico Dae. Our deal was simple at the time: if I introduced him to Rico, setting him up on a date with the hot and muscular daddy-stud-fireman, Jamie would have to do me a favor. Today, I have cashed in my favor: to help me move Great Aunt Sassy from one end of Templeton to the other. The move goes well until he drops his box of paperbacks to the floor and strips out of his canary yellow tank. He releases the cotton shirt, and it falls to the floor by his feet. “I’m crazy hot. Is there anything in the fridge to drink?” “I’ll get us some water,” I say, but don’t move. My gaze fixes on the blond’s firm chest: rippled, golden-brown flesh, hard n*****s, constricting abs, and strings of spiraling hair beneath his navel that create a beautiful treasure trail. He laughs at me. “What are you looking at?” I shake out of my intoxicated state, no longer numb because of his perfect body. Arrogantly, he asks, “You want to touch one of my pecs, don’t you? Every fag does. Not that I blame him.” “I don’t. You’re not that hot.” It’s a total lie, but whatever. He continues to laugh. “Stop fooling yourself. I’m a god, and you know it. You’re like every other guy on the planet. You want to kneel down and slip my c**k into the back of your throat.” I roll my eyes, disgusted with his reeking ego. “That’s not me, Jamie. I’m a one-man guy. You know this. I don’t go from one c**k to the next.” “I’m the only man you need.” He pulls down his Nike shorts to his ankles, showing off his six-inch limp d**k, blond triangle of pubic hair, and furry sack of balls that hangs between his thighs—massive junk. Jesus. He’s gorgeous. Think Thor or Aquaman. Think Hercules or Neptune. Just beautiful. No wonder he’s an arrogant asshole. I’d probably be the same way if I had a body like his. He strokes his tool with his left hand. “Get over here and suck it, Ricky Farr. You can have it if you want. I’ll try not to gag you with my load.” “Pull up your shorts, Jamie,” I instruct him. “I’m not blowing you.” He waves his free hand at me. “Stop joshing. We both know you want to eat it, and I want to get off. So get busy and get the job done. Make us both happy.” Typical Jamie Oakley. Always thinking every queer wants him. Always ready to have s*x. Always too involved and absorbed with himself and not the rest of the world. I’m not surprised. Again, I tell him, “Pull up your shorts, guy. You’re not getting off because I’m not sucking you.” He waves his semi-hard d**k at me like a flag, holding it by its veined base. “Come on. Feel me and thrill me, Ricky.” I shake my head and begin my exit. “I’m making one more trip of boxes with my truck. I’ll see you tomorrow at eight.” He pulls up his Nike shorts, covering his privates. “I can’t make it at eight. Change it to nine. I’m going out to Pete’s Palace and expect to tie one on. I’m hoping two studs take me home and have fun with me.” Pete’s Palace is a queer bar with dancing queens, hot bartenders, and sexy construction workers who pass out lap dances like Tic Tacs. All the gays in Templeton hang there in the evenings and get wasted, laid, and experience a good time. I’m not one of them, preferring my ass on a sofa, an action-packed movie, and iced water. “Nine then,” I tell him. “Nine,” he replies, and follows me out of the apartment, closing its door behind us. * * * * On my drive back to Great Aunt Sassy’s mansion to pick up more boxes (paperback books, a few knickknacks, and oil-on-canvas paintings) and tote them by myself to Radbury Place, I realize Jamie and I are severe frenemies. We’re sort of friends, but we constantly battle each other. For the last three years, we’ve acted this way: in each other’s faces, always combative, and never happy with each other. We can’t seem to be on the same page, and we’re constantly at each other’s throats. I begin an argument by asking him a question that he’s not comfortable with, and he usually explodes on me, telling me to f**k off. We’re toxic together. Friends who aren’t really friends. Don’t get me wrong, I like Jamie. But, sometimes, he’s just too much to deal with: his cranky mood and his negative bursts. Haters are going to hate, right? Right. The difference between he and I is simple, though. I’ve never been a hater and never will be. There’s something about Jamie that irritates me when we’re together: his lack of compliments for people, his overwhelming sense of selfishness, his brutal honesty, and his tasteless arrogance. It all drives me mad, sending me over some pier, and plummets me into an invisible state of misery while in his presence, always unable to handle him. This is just one of the many reasons why I stay away from him. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, right? Right. Well, distance can make the friendship stronger, too. Avoiding Jamie makes me like him better. I know this sounds ridiculous and callous, but it’s the truth. I purposely keep out of Jamie’s life so I can feel better and not worry about him being a jerk around me. Birds of a feather flock together. Another over-used cliché. But in my case, it’s precise regarding content. Jamie and I aren’t together. And surely we’re not from the same flock. It’s nice being distanced from him. I still like him, though. Always have. Even if he drives me crazy. Of course, I mind when he crosses a line by being an asshole in front of me. Of course, he embarrasses me in front of others. Jamie’s difficult like this. Always. A nuisance. Temperamental. Rude. Vulgar. He’s the type of guy who makes you shake your head and whisper to your best friend, “I’m glad I don’t know him.” But, none the less, he’s my friend. Even if he causes me to roll my eyes. Even if he is trouble in my life. Even if he’s annoying as s**t, way too into himself, and doesn’t give a damn about anything else. The guy’s my friend. Someone I have learned to hate. Someone I have learned to like. Someone I can deal with in doses. Small portions only. Maybe it’s true friendship. Maybe it’s not. I’m not sure. Can anyone honestly determine if it is?