The Legend of the Ditto Twins (18 page)

When
spring came, things got more interesting. President Clinton was finishing out
his first term, Dad went back to work, I started on the memoirs again, and
Clark and I were making love every night in front of the Rialto mirror.

My
brother and I couldn't wait for another summer at Clay's. Of course, Mom fought
us every step of the way, but we stood our ground, and Clay offered me such a
hefty raise that even she couldn't argue. Her only win during those
negotiations was that once again Clark would remain at home to work in the
dairy. She knew it was a Pyrrhic victory: We were still "joined at the
hip."

To pacify
her somewhat, I had agreed to come home more often, and the first weekend of
that second summer at Clay's, I took the Greyhound bus back to the dairy farm.
(The Mazda was still not up and running.) Of course, Clark and I were desperate
to see each other; it had been a long week, much more difficult after the whole
school year of seven-nights-a-week togetherness. Dad appeared genuinely glad to
see me, but Mom was as difficult as ever. The simmering tensions soon boiled
over—Saturday night after dinner, to be exact—when Dad took out his cigarettes.

Without
thinking, I said, "May I?" and took one, too.

That's
when Mom lost it.

"This
is Clay's doing, isn't it?" she demanded.

"What?"
I said, blowing smoke toward the ceiling.

"Well,
I won't have it. There will be no smoking in my house." She turned to my
father. "And that goes for you, too. From now on, smoking on the back
porch only."

"Sure,
Mom." I stood. "It's your house."

My father
followed me onto the porch.

Mom
turned to Clark. "Don't you ever start. It'll kill you. You see what
happens when you leave home."

Clark
stood. "Mom, you're the one who sent him away to begin with." Moving
onto the porch, he bummed a cigarette from Dad. That left Mom sitting all alone
at the head of her smoke-free table.

My father
finished his cigarette, savoring every drag. "Respect her wishes,
guys." He pitched the butt into the grass and watched its dying tail of
smoke. "My last cigarette. I shouldn't have started again. It's not worth
it."

The
second summer passed far more rapidly than the first. After that disastrous
first weekend, I didn't go home at all. As before, Clark came to us each Friday
via a prepaid Greyhound ticket. Weekdays didn't get easier, but the weekends
almost made up for the forced separations. From Friday night to Sunday
afternoon we were inseparable.

There was
always something to do. We spent hours on the Mazda Miata; we repaired the
latticework on the porch; we got our learner's permits; we watched every single
one of Clay's porn films (certain ones twice); we read every page of
Human Sexuality: 100 Most Frequently Asked Questions
(certain ones twice); we began to expand our sexual
vocabulary (discovering, among other things, that sixty-
nining
was the term for what we'd been doing all along); and, needless to say, we made
love every chance we got.

Lily had
finally acquired our fake I.D.'s, only a year after she'd said she would, and
Clark and I were both looking forward to going to our first dance club.
We'd
even splurged on new stone-washed jeans and duplicate
iridescent yellow tank tops that Lily had assured us were the latest thing.

"I
really don't want to wear underwear," Clark said as he slipped on the
skintight yellow tank top. "But maybe we should, you know, in case we get
run over or something."

"Lily says no one wears underwear to a disco."

"That settles it, then." He started to pull on his
new jeans. "Geez, these are snug."

I laughed. "Lily says, if you've got it, flaunt
it."

I had a hell of a time squeezing into mine, too, and when I
checked in the mirror, my eyes went straight to my crotch.

I let out a wail. "Look. You can see everything."

Clark giggled. "That's the idea, isn't it?"

"But what if we get a hard-on?"

"There are ways to make em go down," he snickered.

"Shithead! Not at a disco."

"You never know. In Chicago's dens of iniquity, anything
can happen. Ask Mom."

Once we were ready, we checked ourselves in the mirror on the
door of the old walnut chiffonier. It wasn't as big as the Rialto mirror, but
it was wide enough to allow both of us to stand side by side and enjoy the
view. We hadn't dressed in matching outfits since we were kids, and the effect,
I had to admit, made quite an impact.

"Not bad," I admitted. "We're starting to
tan."

"You don't think we're too skinny to wear tank tops?"

"You look perfect to me."

"Ditto. It's just—I don't want to embarrass Lily."

"Are you kidding! Besides, who's gonna be looking at us
with her boobs hanging out all over the place?"

"Fags." Clark always got to the heart of things.

Lily was waiting in the living room, her designer jeans even
tighter than ours, her blouse cut
lower than ever.
Standing
beside her was an Italian body builder who kept flexing his muscles, completely
unaware that he was doing so—kind of like a nervous tic. He was wearing short-shorts
and a silvery tank top that barely contained his hairy barrel chest. This was
the aerobics instructor. His name, we soon learned, was Mario. I swear he stole
a quick glance at my package as we shook hands.

"Don't wait up," said Lily, kissing Clay lightly.

"I
never do," he replied and turned to us. "Gentlemen, there are only
two rules for
fellas
who go out with my crazy
daughter: One, if you drink, don't drive. Two, no hard drugs." He pulled
me close as we locked a handshake and whispered, "Take care of my little
girl." When he let go of my hand, I realized he'd left a hundred dollar
bill in it.

Our
destination was a disco called Another World, and was it ever! A dark cavern of
a place, as big as an armory, it pulsated with ear-splitting music while mirror
balls, fog machines, and strobe lights sprayed over the crowded dance floor.
We'd never seen so many people under one roof.

"No
drinks yet," ordered Lily. "
Someone'll
cop
em
soon as we start dancing. And I want to dance!"

She
grabbed Clark and pulled him onto the dance floor.

"Mark,
you wanna dance?" Mario asked.

"Is
it okay?" I tried to be as casual as I could. "I mean, is this a gay
club?"

Mario
pointed toward the dance floor. Half of the dancers gyrating there were
same-sex couples. "Unisex. C'mon."

He
grabbed my hand in his beefy paw and pulled me through the sweaty swarm to the
dance floor, where he pulled off his tank top and started to bump and grind
like a demented go-go boy. Soon, he closed in and began to perform just for me.
Producing a little yellow capsule, he cracked it under my nose.

"Deep
breath!" he shouted over the music.

I caught
my breath, and in doing so, inadvertently inhaled a whiff of the stuff. I
thought I'd been electrocuted. Suddenly, the music was louder, the lights were
brighter, and the floor was vibrating under my feet. I could feel my heart
pounding in time to the beat and a rush of blood surging through my temples, my
chest, and, yeah, my dick. It was such an unexpected sensation that I barely
noticed Mario stuffing the capsule up one nostril and inhaling deeply. I
clutched his shoulder; he just laughed.

"You've
never done poppers?" he asked in amazement.

I didn't
know what to say, but he didn't seem to expect an answer. No wonder he and Lily
got along so well. The music segued to a slower number; I began to come down
from wherever I'd been; and he dropped both his arms on my shoulders. I tensed,
not expecting bodily contact.

"Welcome
to the Windy City," he leered. "Y'know, you and your brother are
gonna be a big hit here."

"'A
big hit'?
Whaddayah
mean?" I shouted.

"Do
you have any idea how hot you two are? Especially together."

I just
stared at him as if he were speaking Swahili.

"You
could have anyone in the place."

"Oh,
c'mon."

"Hell,
if you play your cards right, you could even give the Hudson twins
a run
for
their money."

"Who
are the Hudson twins?" I asked, trying to mark time with a series of
half-baked dance steps.

"A
pair of models. Dead ringers just like you two. They make big bucks hawking
toothpaste on TV and the sides of buses. They're lovers. Very open about
it."

"No
shit?" I replied.

That's
when he hit me with his next verbal grenade.

"Do
you and Clark fuck?"

I froze,
electrocuted again. "Of course not."

He stood
still too. "Hey, man, be cool. It's just... Lily was wondering. I said I'd
ask."

"Lily
was wondering?"

"Well,
sure. You two always seem to do everything else together. Why not fuck, too?
It's—
whaddaya
call it?—a natural assumption. Did I
offend you or
somethin
'?"