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If Rico ever slept, Joe never saw it. Every time Joe woke up in the middle of the night – which happened frequently, due to the sirens, and the constant groan and creak of the old dilapidated building they occupied, and the occasional screams and cries of the poor souls outside not lucky enough to live in such a dilapidated building as theirs – Rico would inevitably be out of bed, head pressed against the low radio.
Every time these noises would wake up Joe, he would catch Rico glaring at him from across the room with narrow, irritated eyes, or more often a mocking smirk. Look at Joe, the country boy still not used to the sounds of a real city. Joe would just role his eyes and try his best to fall back to sleep.
It was different when Joe was woken by his nightmares. It was obvious when these were happening – Joe would toss and turn, sweating and breathing heavily, fighting tooth and nail until he could finally manage to rip himself away from those horrible pictures in his head and, in a flash, sit up in bed, his consciousness rushing back into the apartment with Rico. In those moments he would automatically look to the corner at Rico, sitting with his radio, and feel a heavy relief in remembering that he was here in New York with him, not in Texas with those men. In those moments, Rico would look back at him not with irritation or mock. He would have a funny look on his face, something like concern, like the way Joe would imagine a mother looking at a fussing child. His narrowed eyes wide open. His hands clasping the arms of his chair, like he was ready to jump up and protect Joe from whatever was hunting him. They would look at each other for a long moment, Joe’s breath slowing down, until Rico looked away, feigning indifference, and Joe would turn onto his side and close his eyes.
In the daylight Joe would mock Rico’s sleeplessness. Eye him when he drank another cup of lukewarm coffee. But at night Joe liked knowing Rico was there. Even though Rico could barely walk and Joe towered him by a couple of feet, at night Rico was his protector.
Then it started getting cold. December was bad enough but January was a different story. On January nights, Rico would inevitably abandon his post in the corner and lie in his cot where, just like Joe, he would wrap himself in his blankets — each had two blankets, thick wool ones from the YMCA — and try his best to fall asleep. But rarely did either one of them accomplish this. Any burst of icy wind passed easily through the cracks in their windows and shoot straight into their hearts. Many time Joe woke up not being able to feel his feet. The only good thing about January was that there was no more room for his nightmares, just cold, cold, cold, the word repeating itself in his mind until it had lost all meaning, until Joe was sure this was the only way he’d ever felt, will ever feel.
On one particularly cold night, Joe looked over to Rico’s cot and found him shaking violently, his eyes half open, muttering things to himself. Delirious. His face twisted in pain. Gone was the protector in the corner, with his steady eyes and low radio. As Joe laid there, clinging to his blankets, he felt a tug in his stomach. Perhaps it was the same tug Rico felt when Joe was having his nightmares. He wanted in that moment only to protect him, to soothe him, to keep him safe. He wanted to fight the thing that was hurting him. But what could he fight? The cold suffocated them, they were up to their eyeballs in it with nowhere else to go.
Joe got out of bed, cringing from the cold air hitting the skin on his neck. He picked up his two blankets, walked over to Rico’s bed, and laid them on top of him. Before he could think about it too much, Joe crawled under the blankets and pressed himself up against Rico. The only heat he had was his own. It was something. It could work.
Rico’s body stiffened immediately. Joe was worried he was about to attack him. His eyes, half-opened, clouded with illness or hunger or exhaustion or any combination of the three, turned to Joe. And then his body relaxed, and he closed his eyes, and he moved himself closer. Rico clung on to Joe’s shirt and pulled him closer, until their legs were tangled together and Rico’s head was buried in the crook of his shoulder and he could feel his ribs against his stomach, and his short, uneven breaths.
Joe laid there, very still. Under their blankets, clinging together, they created their own warmth. Joe barely recognized it when it came, spreading from his chest to his face to his arms and the tips of his fingers. It was warmer than Joe had been in a month.
Soon, Rico stopped shivering, and his breaths became more even. It took a while for Joe to realize that he was sound asleep. It was the first time Joe had really seen him like this. His face, usually so twisted in irony or anger or fear, was simple and soft. He languished in his ability to stare at his like this, uninterrupted. There was another tug in his stomach, much stronger this time. But this one he ignored. Just like how he ignored their legs, twisted together like that. Just like how he ignored the growing tightness in his pants. He didn’t care all that much. As long as Rico was warm, and safe, and sleeping all peaceful like he was right there on his chest.
**
The next morning, Rico woke up first, slowly. It was one of those feelings he hadn’t gotten in a while, where he was having a nice dream and didn’t want to wake up quite yet. So he let himself stay in it, that warm, solid feeling, luxuriating all those thoughts he usually tried to push away the second they came into his head. Of being close. Of, finally, touching.
Then he realized there was daylight on the other side of his eyelids. Something was wrong – he never slept until daylight. Then he realized where he was, and who he was laying on top of, and he sprang out of bed as quickly as he could.
Joe was in his bed, waking up, rubbing his eyes. Oh Jesus, what had Rico done?
“What are you doin’ in there?”
“I just…you were shiverin’ and jumpin’, and you cold, so – “
“I didn’t ask you to do that. I didn’t – I didn’t ask you.”
“I was just tryna keep you warm. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Joe’s big dumb face, his wide puppy dog eyes. Rico turned his gaze away from it like he’d done a million times before. Jesus. All the time Rico spent forcing his eyes away from Joe’s face, all the time he spent avoiding even the least amount of touch, keeping his thoughts away from all the crazy things his thoughts kept turning to ever since Joe showed up in his life. It took effort and discipline. And then Joe goes ahead and gets in his bed with him. And now, no matter what he does, he’ll remember what that feels like.
“This is what I get for letting a fag in my house, huh.” The words stung coming out of Rico’s mouth.
Joe’s wide innocent face closed up in a scowl.
“You were the one climbing all over my like a monkey.”
Oh Jesus. Oh Christ. All that time and now Joe saw him acting like that, and now Joe would know. He would know the same thing his father knew, the same thing his classmates knew, the one thing Rico had been trying to hide since he was eight years old.
Rico turned away and went to the kitchenette, hiding the redness in his face, busying himself. He started making coffee. He knew that Joe was still sitting there looking all sore. He forced himself not to think about it. Joe said, in a small voice:
“You were shiverin’, that’s all.”
The rest of the day they spent in gruff company. They walked their usual route, lifting food and loitering in buildings with heat. Joe had stopped trying to approach classy ladies on the street, on account of his increasingly hollow cheeks and dirty clothes. There was nothing between them and the rest of the street urchins now, Rico knew that, Joe was just learning. It happened in the winter – all the scum of New York became so cold and hungry and desperate that their usual scheming was too much effort, and any far off dreams of a better life were put away in the back of their mind. In the winter they were all animals, wanting only to survive, and anyone who bothered to look at them new that instantly. There was a certain comfort to it, Rico thought. Knowing what to expect from the world. It was easier not to think of another life where things are easier. It was easier not to think about the warmth he felt that morning, with the sun behind his eyelids and Joe beneath his cheek. Because then he would need something he knew he could never get again. It was cold now, it had always been cold, and cold is at it would ever be.
**
That night it snowed, and temperatures dropped below zero. He knew Joe was awake – he could see the white of his eyes across the room. They were too cold to even shiver, there was no use. They laid there, still as corpses, while the cold sunk into the center of their hearts.
He hated Joe for putting all that shit in his head. Before, those thoughts were all theoretical, easy to push aside, popping up in peculiar dreams and the rare unguarded moment. Being held. Being touched. Being close to someone. To Joe, in that way. It wasn’t real. It was just another fucked up thing about him, another broken part like his leg and his lungs. Bad thoughts to go along with all his other ones. So what.
But now he knew what it felt like, and that wanting couldn’t be pushed away like it used to be. Now that he had that memory in his head, however vague and drugged with sleep it was, he couldn’t so easily forget it. Now he knew what it felt like. Perhaps if he had lied there that morning for just a few more minutes, the wanting wouldn’t be so bad. Why hadn’t he just savored it for a moment? It was closer than he’d ever been before, would ever be again. If he had a clear memory of it, maybe the memory of it would be enough to last him for a long time. One step further away from the dream, a real moment of reality he could cling to.
That’s what he wanted. A little more time. A good memory of it, then he could drop it forever, and think about it only in the quietest of moments only when he really needed it the most. All of the sudden he was on his feet, limping over to Joe, blankets in his hands. And he heard himself whispering, “Come on. Move over.”
Joe looked up at him.
“What do you want?”
“We’re going to freeze to death tonight if we don’t.”
Joe didn’t move.
“I ain’t no fag, you know.”
“I know. I didn’t mean it. Come on, I’m fuckin’ freezin’ over here.”
Joe stared at him for a long moment, cautious, waiting for the insult that never came. Then slowly, Joe moved to the side of his bed, and Rico climbed inside. They covered themselves with all the blankets they had, tucking in their feet, creating a barrier between them and the cold.
They laid back to back, still awake. Self-conscious. Neither let them willing to relax their bodies and lean into each other’s touch. But still, their space under the covers grew warmer. Rico laid awake, perfectly still, listening to the sound of Joe’s breaths as they slowed down and soon became even. All those hours sitting awake in the corner, he knew what Joe sounded like when he was really asleep. It was only then that Rico allowed himself to turn onto his other side, and face the vast expanse of Joe’s broad back.
He rested his forehead against it, softly so as not to wake him. And felt the heat of Joe’s skin, and the rise and fall of his breath. He held it there for a while. Here you go, this is what you want, isn’t it? He thought to himself. Remember this. This is all you’re going to get.
**
It continued that way throughout the winter. When it was time to go to sleep they climbed into the same bed without a word of discussion. After that night Rico never again allowed himself to touch Joe, even when he was asleep. He had his memory now, and he could survive off of it the same way he survived off the scraps and crumbs of food they had to eat that winter.
When Rico fell asleep first, Joe liked to look down at Rico’s face, suddenly soft and innocent, and feel that tug in his stomach and that heat on the back of his neck. Growing up Grandma Buck would smack him on the head for looking at other boys too long. Now, he relished in the ability to look and look all he wanted.
(One night, when he was looking, Rico opened his eyes and looked right back at him. Neither turned away. For half a minute they laid there, so close, looking right at each other with no fear, no cruelty, no snide remarks. Rico’s face stayed as open as it did when he was asleep, his eyes dark. Then he turned around, leaving Joe wondering if it had happened at all.)
**
The winter ended, somehow. Rico returned to his own bed. Their scheming resumed, Rico started talking about his dreams of Florida and beach cabanas again. Joe got his clothes washed up and a bit of food in him, and soon he got back to his hustling. When he got a woman, Joe would come back and tell Rico all about it, proud of himself. Some nights he came back with a few dollars and didn’t tell him where he got it. Rico knew better than to ask. As winter turned to spring Rico got better at pushing those thoughts of Joe away. And when he really needed to, he had his memories tucked away in a little box in the corner of his mind, like a precious object, there when he needed it.
Then there was the night in March, when it was raining, and Joe hadn’t gotten back yet. Rico was laying in his bed, worried out of his mind – he didn’t usually stay at ladies houses for very long, and his dealings on 42nd street never took this long. He pictured Joe’s stupid, wide open face, looking too long at the wrong person, following the wrong guy into the bathroom, getting a knife to the gut, dying in a storm drain somewhere. Image after image popped up his head, unrelenting. It wasn’t hard to picture the city chewing Joe up and spitting him out again. Rico was shocked it hadn’t happened yet.
And then, hours later, he heard his big cowboy boots clunking up the stairs, and door swinging open. Joe was soaking wet, with a big goofy grin across his face. Rico sat up in bed.
“Where were you?”
Joe slurred his words a little. “I was at some lady’s house. She gave me juice mixed with liquor of some kind. A lot of it.”
He was giggling, kicking off his boots and tearing off his wet clothes down to his underwear. Rico turned his eyes away.
“This lady was real fun, she gave me twenty-five dollars. How bout that, boy?”
“Good stuff,” said Rico, curt.
Joe sat down at the end of Rico’s bed. Rico pulled his feet away. Joe started talking a mile a minute.
“This lady was wild, I’ll tell you. She wanted all sorts of stuff, some stuff I’d never done before. But I supplied it, of course, the professional that I am. I had her hootin’ and hollerin’ like a banshee, I’ll tell you what.”
“That’s good, Joe. Very nice.”
“When we was done she said we should have a drink. She gave me brown stuff first, and I didn’t like it very much, so she mixed it with juice and it was much better.”
“Great.”
Rico hated him in that moment. Sitting on the end of his bed, almost naked, smiling his dumb cowboy smile. Every time Rico managed to stop thinking about Joe like that, Joe would give him another opportunity. He was thinking this exact thought when he realized Joe was looking right at him, all serious like.
“What you lookin’ at me like that for?”
Joe kept staring, quietly. No more grin. Then eventually he said, real quiet:
“I’m cold, Rico.”
“Well maybe you should put on some clothes then.”
“Are you cold?”
Rico stopped. He wondered if Joe was asking what he thought he was asking. After a long silence, Rico replied, as steadily as he could, “Yeah. A little cold.”
Joe got up, still a bit unsteady, walked over to the side of Rico’s bed, and crawled under the blankets.
At first they maintained an inch of distance, like they did in the winter. Rico turned his back to Joe, Joe was facing towards him. Rico opened his mouth to make a snide remark, call him a stupid cowboy, feign ignorance. Make sure Joe knew that this was his idea, that this wasn’t something Rico had asked for. But before he could, Joe was wrapping him up in his arms, and pulling his back into his bare chest, and wrapping his legs around his. Joe’s bare skin touching Rico’s. Being close, being held. Rico didn’t dare move a muscle, lest the spell be broken and Joe realize what he was doing, who he was holding. He must be drunk out of his mind, Rico thought. He must think he’s with one of his ladies. But then Joe said,
“I’ll get you nice and warm, Rico.”
“Okay.”
That’s when Joe started rubbing Rico’s chest, real slowly. Rico’s breath hitched. Remember this, he thought. Remember all of this. This was more than Rico had ever dared to dream about. This, he was already thinking, could last him a lifetime.
Then Joe put his hand under his shirt, and started running his hand over Rico’s bare chest. Running his fingers through his chest hair. Joe felt Rico’s heart beating through his chest.
Then he moved his hand down, past his stomach, to the edge of his pants. His fingers just barely went under the waistband, when they stopped. For a long moment they both held totally still, their hearts beating in rhythm. That’s when Rico realized he was waiting for permission.
Rico moved his hand to Joe’s arm and pushed into down further. When Joe’s hand reached his cock, Rico thought he might explode right then and there. His eyes fluttered shut, he gasped for air, he made some sort of animalistic groaning noise. Somewhere in his brain told him not to react, to not show Joe how much he liked it. But it was no use now. Nobody had ever touched him there, nobody but himself. And now Joe was tugging it, and making him squirm and convulse, and then he came, and it was over in a hot flash of bliss.
Ratso turned back to Joe and climbed on top of him. There was no more stopping himself, Joe knew what he wanted now, and maybe, miraculously, Joe wanted the same. Ratso buried his face in Joe’s shoulder, he touched his chest, his arms, his hair. Joe touched him back, ran his hands over his back, pulled Rico closer to him. They clung on to each other as tightly as they could, neither could get enough touch, neither could be as close as they wanted. And then someone, maybe Rico, started using his mouth, and his mouth was on Joe’s neck, and Joe’s mouth was on his ear, and their lips were on each other’s.
Somewhere along the way Rico grabbed Joe’s cock and tugged at it, and broke away from Joe’s lips to look at his face as he groaned and squirmed underneath him. They looked right into each other’s eyes, free for just a moment of any fear. Rico wanted Joe, and he didn’t have to push it away, and it didn’t just have to be a memory, because here was Joe right in front of him, wanting him back.