Chapter 2 

 

The sun had long ago set and a thick and grey cloud covering, which subdued the normal black of night, replaced the clear blue sky of the day now over. Nick was standing in the dark against an abandoned warehouse, no more than a silhouette. He smoked a cigarette, causing a subtle orange glow to illuminate his face every time he drew the smoke deeply into his lungs.

 

These visits to the warehouse had originally been occasional with a purpose, a purpose that was solely about money. Things had gone well beyond Nick’s expectations and considering the rewards under the circumstances, he had begun to return on a regular basis. Over time, another reason for his appearance at the warehouse had begun to emerge. It was an urge, an innate need of sorts and yet it was something he did not fully understand. Nick simply knew he needed to do it. It made him feel differently about the man he was, which also made him feel more in control of his life.

 

Nick was gay and he did not doubt it but his self-acceptance was confused and tied in knots, based on his past. There were no degrees to his sexuality. He knew it was men he was attracted to but even though he had long ago realized he was gay, he struggled to give it freedom. Something inside of him fought with him and suggested it made him less of a man. He knew where that inner voice came from because it belonged to the teenage boy he had once been. Though the man did not believe the voice of the inner boy was right or true, still the war presided and so his response to the voice was consistently appeasing, with blatant displays of aggressive masculinity.

 

On each occasion prior to and including that night, Nick always arrived early to the warehouse. He spent the time standing alone, thinking about what lay ahead and focusing his mind to be aware and disciplined. He needed his mind to be capable of making his body an unstoppable force. It was almost the same routine he ritualized before taking to the field for a game, except at the warehouse it was more dangerous. On that night however, Nick’s mind was elsewhere.

 

There was one person on the football team who always consumed Nick’s thoughts. It was Eric but because of his wife, Michelle, Nick believed that Eric was an impossible desire. His belief that Eric was straight was the main reason but it was also Nick’s moralistic nature that influenced him. It was a feeling and thought of principle, suggesting the coveting of someone who had a partner was a cruel and thoughtless choice. Irrespective of his morals, Nick often fantasized about Eric in bed at night but when his guilt regarding Eric’s wife got the better of him, he would turn his fantasies toward James or Tyler. Eventually Nick had begun to look at those alternate fantasies in real life. He wondered if he could have a chance with either of them and if they, too, could be carrying a secret like him. Unfortunately, Tyler always had a different girl hanging off his arm and every now and then James would have a girl sitting in the grandstand at the game.

 

Nick’s age had little to do with his sexual and emotional immaturity. He had in the last year, only just begun to venture toward sex with men. On every occasion it had been anonymous and faceless. Penetration had never been involved and where that particular experience was concerned, Nick could only imagine. In addition, he had never had a relationship of the intimate variety and he had only tasted love once, an experience that took place innocently while still a teenage boy. When it came down to the fundamentals, he really had no idea at all. His inexperienced ignorance was the reason for why he was somewhat of a lost soul. It was also why his sexuality existed vicariously through his imagination.

 

Hot men with great bodies were the pictures in Nick’s head. Eric, James and Tyler from the football team or even just strangers he saw on the street; they were men he imagined being with but he did not know the first thing about what to do or how to initiate. He did not know what signs to look for or how to approach the situation, regardless of whether it was applicable or not. These things and the fact that in his mind, Eric, his most yearned for desire, was not a viable option sexually or emotionally, were the reasons why Nick’s focus had turned to Jack.

 

Jack was very attractive with a nice body and he always came to the games alone. It did not necessarily mean something but to Nick, it became a reason for why Jack could be gay. Jack was Nick’s last resort fantasy of the men he actually knew and so having never seen Jack with a woman, made him seem like a possibility. This season in particular, Nick had gathered the courage based on his growing needs, along with his changing attitudes about the man he needed to be, to try and talk to Jack and to get to know him. He was not successful but Nick had unknowingly begun to allow the fantasy to become an obsession.

 

As he stood alone at the warehouse waiting, he was thinking about what had happened after the game in the shower. He was thinking about Jack and his mind was rolling around his confusion as to what the man’s actions had meant. He was thinking about how in the four years he had known him, he had never seen Jack with a woman. For a moment he wished he could just forget about Jack but then he would once again picture his naked body in the shower and no sooner had that vision taken hold, Nick’s mind was lost again.

 

The warehouse was located in an industrial area and where Nick was standing was dark and only dimly illuminated by distant streetlights. Around the corner at the side of the warehouse, a single spotlight shone on a small dock area. It was odd because there were no other lights within or around the warehouse. Perhaps it was on a different circuit or perhaps it was on a timer and was the only light that had never been switched off. There was no one around in general and the site had long ago been vacated. Security vehicles made occasional passes through the entire area but the patrols were few and far between.

 

It was the echoes of footfalls that caught Nick’s attention first. Minutes later, amidst muffled voices, Nick caught sight of a group of men walking toward him. Within minutes Nick was joined by the group and like wolves, they were a pack. It was an unsavory looking group, the sort that most people would avoid. They emitted an unsettling air of social defiance and rebellion. These were primitive men that embraced aggression and violence as sport, with blood and pain a hungered reward. This was one of the nastier and unseen sides of Detroit.

 

Though they stood with Nick, they were not really with him and a small space separated him and made his distinction obvious. Soon after, another man, also alone, walked toward and joined the gathering. He was recognized by all except for Nick but he also was one and apart from the pack.

 

There was some whispered talk amongst the group and money changing hands, as another man arrived. The new arrival was a short man with unkempt, brown hair who had a constant nervous look in his eyes. Everyone knew him as Jonny and he silently acknowledged both Nick and the other man and then began to take bets.

 

Nick walked around to the spotlighted area and once in space, he turned to face off against the other man, who followed him closely behind. The clump of dark clothed men began to part and then also following, they formed a very large circle around the two.

 

While more men continued to arrive and join the circle of the pack, Nick and the other man stood eyeballing each other for minutes; the other man bald, slightly older and slightly shorter. He dragged his shirt from his body in an arrogant manner, revealing an overly large chest, back, shoulders and arms. He stared at Nick, attempting to intimidate him with not only an aggressive expression but also with muscle flexing and chest pounding. He was covered with tattoos and the disconcerting shapes of dark ink rose up his neck and onto his scalp. He was an angry and violent man that most people would not want to meet in a dark alley.

 

Contrasting the other man in every way, Nick stood staring at him but something in Nick’s eyes was detached and disconnected. He may have been huge but he did not look like he belonged in the position he was in. He was wearing a t-shirt, shorts and runners, his appearance so casual he could have been at a picnic in a park. There was something distracted in Nick’s demeanor and many of the surrounding men looked at him with doubt-filled and questioning eyes. With his handsome face, his black hair and his spearing blue eyes, despite his size and height, to newcomers he did not seem a chance.

 

There were now at least thirty men surrounding them and the air seemed filled with aggressive anticipation. Just for a moment and completely out of character, Nick’s eyes glanced toward an unexpected noise, as one of the late arrivals dropped something onto the concrete. It was foolish and Nick knew better but in that split second, the tattooed man took a step forward and his fist collided with Nick’s jaw. There was a whispered gasp from the mob but it had nothing to do with the punch, it was because Nick barely shifted from the impact. His eyes flashed to the other man’s eyes and before the man knew what had happened, he was on his back with blood dripping from his lip. Nick still had not moved his feet.

 

The tattooed man rose swiftly and came at Nick full force. Punches flew at an astonishing rate and the violence of raw and unrestricted battle continued to escalate. Amidst the heavy stomping dance, the man’s fist caught Nick above the left eye and from beneath his eyebrow blood squirted and then began to obstruct one side of his vision. Three swift blows followed from Nick, two to the face and one to the gut but the man though dazed, came back just as hard and several blows contacted Nick’s body. His left hook stunned Nick momentarily when it caught his jaw and as he saw Nick’s frustration with the blood gushing into his eye, the man let rip with an uppercut to his chin.

 

It was this unexpected blow that changed Nick’s attitude. His mind had not been as focused as it usually was. Thoughts of his life and of Jack in the shower had been a distraction until the clip to the jaw. His eyes transformed and a controlled hardness filled them. Not with anger or spite but with an empowered certainty.

 

Nick took one step forward and his enormous hand thrust his knuckles direct and straight onto the man’s mouth, forcing him to stumble backwards. The tattooed man looked at Nick with a fury and he spat teeth and blood from his mouth. Before he could respond, Nick’s right jabbed hard to his liver and his left went to the side of his face and then his right assaulted with a savage blow to the lung. The man went down.

 

Struggling somewhat, the man returned to his feet and came again but when he felt his rib fracture from a powerfully directed punch and he also felt the excruciating pain shoot through his chest, he was completely unaware and unprepared for the final blow to the head, which left him unconscious on the concrete.

 

Taking a step back, Nick looked at the tattooed man’s unmoving body on the ground. He slowly became attuned to the deep male voices that had been yelling and spurring them on, now no more than surprised murmurs. They were surprised because of the swiftness that Nick had disposed of his opponent. Nick turned toward Jonny and he stepped toward him definitively. Jonny stepped back nervously and then held out a thick fold of cash. Nick took it without a word and then he turned and walked away alone.

 

As he walked into the darkness of the night, he could hear the voices of the pack behind him becoming louder, until his growing distance slowly diminished the sound. Minutes later he approached his car that was parked on another street. Once behind the wheel, he dragged his t-shirt over his head and then relaxed back into the seat. He wiped the blood from his face and eye with the shirt and then he started the engine and began his journey home.

 

Nick drove by the bar where his teammates had gone to celebrate. He suspected they would all still be there but he still had no intention of joining them, especially not now. Moments after he passed the bar, he looked into the shadows along the sidewalk and he saw a man kissing a woman. It made him feel so alone and it made him wish there were someone he could kiss. The couple parted from their kiss and it was then he saw the man was Jack. Nick felt a deep ache within. It was gilded in disappointment and lined with irritation that tore at his insides.

 

Extremely analytical of himself, still Nick did not stop to consider that the feelings he was experiencing had nothing to do with Jack at all. He barely knew Jack except for on the field as a teammate and Jack was not even that nice to him. Nick had never put two and two together and so the thought did not enter his mind that Jack was just a body and a face he wished could combine with his needs. He did not realize that loneliness and a life, which sat squarely on a foundation of inexperience, were the things that were driving his feelings.

 

Looking at the figure of the man in the shadows of the sidewalk, as he remembered Jack naked in the shower, once again Nick felt the impact of his secret, as it gnawed like a rat within his body. He did not understand it. Not that he did not understand what his secret meant or what it was about, it was just that he did not understand why life had deemed him an acceptable recipient. It seemed to Nick that everything in his life had to be difficult and though he knew how his secret could make him feel when he was open to it, he also knew that to this point for the most part, it had been no more than a disturbing struggle.

 

Driving onward, Nick wondered why he was letting Jack affect him the way he did and why without any real connection between them, Jack got so under his skin. Jack did not seem to be any different from any other man he knew, not like Eric did and yet, still he fantasized about him and now he was wishing he had been in the position of the woman on the sidewalk and accepting the gift of Jack’s tongue within his mouth.

 

Clenching his teeth, which caused his jaw to change the shape of his face, frustration and disappointment filled him. Nick thought that now he knew for certain that Jack was straight. At that moment he told himself it did not matter because the season was over. He would not see Jack or any of the men from the team until their next football season began the following year. This thought once again made him feel alone but with resignation, he turned at the next corner and continued his journey home.

 

Nick lived alone and to that day, he had no real friends. There was a group of unworthy acquaintances from his past he saw occasionally but slowly he was letting them become a distant memory. For over a decade he lived on the mean streets of Detroit, a powerhouse of aggression, resentment and hurt, which somehow he managed to enmesh within and around a gentle, considerate and loving soul. He had arrived on the streets as a twelve-year-old boy, the transition to a teenager and then to a man, harsh and disturbing and for the most part empty. Nick had slept in abandoned buildings and had supported himself from hand to mouth by stealing whatever he could, from wherever and whomever he could.

 

During that time back in those days, Nick remained segregated from the gangs that loitered or terrorized the city. He had done this by keeping to another small group of vagrant kids. By the time he had reached his mid teens, he was a prime candidate of attraction for kids seeking for someone to lead them. His rugged handsomeness, his huge body and build, his strength and aggression he occasionally displayed but also, the fact that he not only had street smarts and that he had been partially schooled and was intelligent, made him like an enormous planet within a solar system, sucking smaller moons into its orbit. He helped out the other street kids like him, gave advice and occasionally joined in the unruly activities but he did not want to be like some godfather to an amoral bunch of street urchins.

 

At twenty-two he began to gravitate toward a new idea of himself. Despite the disapproval and lack of understanding from the other kids in the pack, Nick knew it was time for him to shape up and ship out. He found himself employment and later a place to live and though he still saw the pack occasionally, his new life was even more secretive and withdrawn. He kept things that way because it was simpler than answering questions he did not want to answer. Innately he knew that he was gay and in those days he was resigned to it but he simply could not imagine coming out to anyone, especially considering that those who knew him, considered him a badass.

 

Now twenty-seven, only the previous year something had happened that adjusted his mindset. However, the fact that life was getting away from him and also that nothing ever seemed to really change for him, only ensured that he was becoming angrier and more dissatisfied with himself. His life as a consequence was becoming all the more filled with physical action and body pounding aggression. Still he had made no connection between his solitude, the secret of his sexuality and the violent situations he filled his life with. To him it was just a choice of something to do to fill the void, which hovered over and around him like a dark cloud.

 

Even his choice of work was dangerous. He was a tree man, appropriately termed a lopper and topper. He climbed them and cut them, making them safer or removing them completely. Though he had security lines to supposedly keep him safe, he literally moved about like a monkey, jumping or swinging from branch to branch and no longer truly considering just how dangerous and life threatening it could be. In actual fact, the guys on the ground referred to the guys like Nick as tree monkeys. It was not meant detrimentally and was actually a term of amazement and respect.

 

Following only a couple of weeks on the job, to the amazement of Nick’s employer, who would never have even considered letting a man Nick’s size climb a tree; one of the tree monkey’s slipped and before anyone knew what had happened, Nick was halfway up a forty foot tree and swinging and bounding through the branches. He got to the other man in seconds, helped him safely to the ground and while everyone was with the slightly injured man, Nick returned to the tree and topped it.

 

The site’s foreman had been sick that day and so the boss, Kyle Beck, had been there to see Nick’s natural skill and ability. Not only was Nick strong and incredibly flexible, he was also agile and unconcerned by heights.

 

The enormous, physical frame had initially seen to it that Kyle had specific intentions of keeping his new employee on the ground. However, when he saw Nick on his first ascent, he could not dispute his own eyes despite the laws of physics. Being such a large and heavy man, it seemed inappropriate that Nick should be a tree monkey but from that moment on, Nick was chosen for all the jobs where huge, well-established trees were the order of business.

 

Nick loved his job and the freedom in the open air it provided him but he also loved the chainsaw. It was so loud and so distinctly destructive and when he was twenty or thirty or even fifty feet in the air, with only security lines to negate his bone breaking death from a fall, the life numbing noise of the vicious machine was a temporary distraction from the way he always felt.

 

With not too long before he reached his apartment, which was cheap and dismal and though he kept it clean and tidy, had no real redeeming features, other than it was a roof over his head; he suddenly thought yet again of the one thing that had changed in his life a few months previous. It was his new next-door-neighbor, Billy.

 

Over the last month or more, Billy had been popping into Nick’s mind at the oddest of times. He was twenty-four, both a funny and quiet, subdued young guy and he was really down to earth. He was always helpful and always made it his business to say hello and to be considerate and to show concern. Nick did not know why Billy brought his mail to him whenever he retrieved his own or why he put his delivered paper outside his door. All he knew was he liked Billy and Billy seemed to like him.

 

The young man had caused Nick to wonder if perhaps he should take the chance and let someone into his life. It was an unusual thought for Nick but there was something different about Billy from anyone else. Somehow he made Nick feel differently, although Nick did not recognize what the difference was. He thought it would be nice to have a real friend but then he thought he would have to answer those disconcerting questions, which if he had his way and if it were possible, he would have their reason surgically removed from his mind. At least sometimes that was what he thought. Still, he also thought that Billy was just a neighboring tenant and could move at any time, leaving him alone in life again. Nick thought it was one thing to be alone but it was another completely, to make a friend and then lose that person, only to have to embrace being alone again.

 

Pulling up beside the curb, Nick turned off the motor. He reached for his t-shirt, scrunched it into a ball and pressed the material to the congealing blood on the cut above his eye, while wiping blood out of his eye. It was frustrating more than anything else but he pressed and wiped too hard and the blood began to flow again. He was a little irritated with his carelessness but after a few quick dabs to soak up the new blood, he stepped from the car and locked it.

 

Turning around, Nick moved forward and up across the graded verge. His huge legs took large strides but his next step only reached the edge of the sidewalk. Under Nick’s solid weight, a sizable portion of the ancient concrete crumbled beneath his foot and broke away. His leg buckled under the sudden unstable and shifting foundation and he fell. He put his arms out, attempting to stop his sideways fall and though he succeeded somewhat, his head struck hard against the large oak tree beside the sidewalk. He was knocked unconscious instantly and his body slumped and then his face slammed into a massive root that rose above the ground.

 

With the condition of his body as well as its twisted and still appearance, Nick was the picture of a broken and dead man, lying unconsidered in the street as food for vermin. It was such an unbelievable irony that a man the likes of Nick, so powerful, so strong, so disciplined and so determined, could have survived the day playing a neck breaking game of football and then survived the night at an illegal and what could have been a lethal street fight, only to be brought to his knees by an old and weathered sidewalk and then left unconscious with his face in the dirt by a tree.

 

To be continued...