By Joshua Ryan

Chapter 4: What I Saw from the Coffee Deck

The Coffee Deck was a place where you could sit in a chair and look out to sea.  Coffee was served from a cart at the entrance.  At the other end of the resort, the beach came right up to the “facilities,” but this end was on a hill, and the hill was all rustic with brush and shit.  If there was a trail down to the beach, nobody’d put up a sign for it.  But anyway, Patrick said to get there early, so I did.

When I arrived—at 7 a.m.!—there was nobody around except me and an old waiter manning the cart.  When he brought me my coffee he said, “It is unfortunate, sir.  They are working down there—underneath us.  Making the trail.  They do it every day. Often there is noise.  If so, you may wish to return in the afternoon.”  Then I heard it—the noise of men cutting and whacking and shoveling and hauling, somewhere beyond the polished rail that ran around the Coffee Deck.

I leaned over the rail, and I saw them—slappies, a whole crew of them.  They were dressed like Dobie and Patrick, but they were working at stuff that had nothing to do with queer boys from North America who did housework in the morning and sex in the afternoon.

These slappies weren’t my age, or anywhere near.  They were old guys—30, 35, maybe even 40.  Old enough to be my father, maybe!  But they didn’t act old.  They acted like . . . .  I don’t know.  They weren’t acting.  They were doing a job.  All of them were wearing the same suits that all the other slappies wore, but their suits weren’t nice and smooth like Dobie and Patrick’s.  Their boots were caked with mud, and their browns were so sweaty I didn’t need to look very hard to pick out their ass cracks and even their dicks.  Which were either pretty big or pretty stiff, or both, despite all the shit work they were doing.  Or because of it?  That was a thought!  It didn’t seem like they had to keep their minds on the job–a couple of slappies were bossing them all the time and telling them what to do.  “Move them rocks over here mon.”  “Put you back in it boy.”  “Use you fuckin shovel mon.”  They didn’t look mad or anything; they just did what they were told.

You couldn’t say they were working very fast, but if you stayed long enough—which I did!—you could tell that, yeah, they were gettin it done.  Down by the beach, there was a place where the trail started; then there was the place in the middle where the slappies were cutting and digging and hauling and so forth, so the trail would go through; then if you looked close enough, you could see the little break in the bushes next to the Coffee Deck where the trail would end up.  You couldn’t see how it would get there, but you knew that it would.  The slappies would get it there.

From time to time one of them yelled, “Takin it out, boss,” and a boss would yell, “Take it out, boy,” and the slappie would stop and fuckin pull out his dong and aim at the brush and piss, right there.  One time I heard “Pullin em off, boss,” and the boss yelled, “Pull em off,” and the slap took off his shorts and reached up and hung them onto a branch and stepped way off the path and squatted down, and he was takin a dump!  I mean actually takin a shit right there!  So definitely, these dudes had no worries!  I almost fell over the railing when that happened, and maybe I would have if I hadn’t remembered that I would be so fuckin embarrassed if any of them looked up and saw me drooling over my latte like that.

Which started me thinking again about all the things I couldn’t do.  Compared with them, anyhow.  I mean, they couldn’t get on a plane and go back to wherever they came from, and they had to work and get yelled at and wear those brown uniforms which, I had to admit, were pretty fuckin ugly, if you didn’t know what you were lookin at, but they didn’t need to worry about some fuckin waiter comin over and asking in that parent voice, “Will you be having anything else, sir?” and having to get yourself together and say, “Yes, another latte, please,” so he doesn’t get all huffy about you nursing a drink on and on so you can look at the view from the hill, and maybe notice you’ve got a hardon, and even if he doesn’t, you think that he does, and that makes you feel all weird and needing to leave before you even want to.

Just an example, and I knew it was small.  Petty.  Tiny.  Maybe that was the problem—it was all so tiny.  But the slappies didn’t need to worry about going to college, either.  Not to mention medical school!  I’d heard about the debts you “acquire” for that.  Like they’re something you own.  Except that they own you.  And you don’t get any sex out of it.  Or even a uniform!  And you have to spend the rest of your life figuring how you’re gonna do your life every day.  Like I was right then.

So I got my second latte and went back to the railing, and it must have been about 9 o’clock because the slappies down below were having their lunch.  That must be what it was.  They had a pot full of something and one of them was ladling it out, and they squatted next to the path and ate it.  They were chatting with each other, and then I was trying to pick out who was a boss and who wasn’t, but I couldn’t tell.  I wished I could have heard what they said, but I couldn’t do that either; they were too far away.  I did hear what was happening on the deck behind me, which was people sitting down and ordering their coffee and croissants and yapping about what gifts they needed to take home with them and when were they gonna get their next promotions and I hope Jason gets into Princeton and isn’t it a bit early for brandy, hon, and do you HAVE to spoil every vacation we ever have, and I TOLD you I DID NOT want to do that . . . .   By the time my brain was back in focus the slappies were already raking up the cuttings they’d made and starting to move on down the path, maybe to some place they could work without disturbing the guests.  The last thing I saw was a pair of them carrying off the food bucket, one on each side, moving together, identical in their boots and browns.

“So this morning I saw some slappies that actually work.”  That’s what I said when Dobie and Patrick and I were hangin out after sex that day.

“We do enough work, jus gettin thee little freeman boys into shape,” Dobie said, yanking my cock.  Which led to other things.  But eventually we got back to my experience with the “sweaties,” as they called the hard labor dudes.  “SLP’s finest,” Patrick said.  “SLP’s smelliest,” Dobie said.

“But are they, like, more dangerous . . . ”

“Than we are?” Dobie said. “We all criminals ya know.”

“But I mean, you guys . . . . ”

“I’m tellin you, we all criminals.  If you ain’t one before bein a slappie, you are defnitly one now.”

Then I started learning about being a criminal.  “When you a slappie,” Patrick said, “evrywhere you go you askin, What can I steal here?  Cuz it’s all jus a picnic, mon, and you welcome to all thee food.  Jus doan take TOO much, cuz then you not popular anymore.  Other words, you get caught.  But look, some freeman come in here, he walk ver’ proud, an you know he thinks he ver’ clever indeed.  So that’s when YOU know he got five, ten thousan right with him in fifty dollar bills, an he hidin it in his room somewhere, so he can walk roun thinkin, I can buy this, I can buy that, down in thee casino I can drop a wad and get two wads back, I jus go get it outta my room.  You doan know where in his room, but you know it’s there.  If he use a safe, he bein a pussie, that’s what he think.  So he doan.  So you find it.  You take out five or six a them bills—is he gonna count?  An who’s he gonna blame?  Maybe thee cocktail waitress, that he give it to!  An who’s gonna believe that he had it?  Or maybe he keepin that roll jus to pay off some a them hos you seein out by thee pool house.  You happen to forget puttin his body lotion in his john that day, so you come back with thee junk, an when you open thee door, big shock! they in there, doin it.  Guess you shoulda knock louder, mon!  But he peel off couple a them bills, an you go way, ver’ quiet.  Or maybe you see some ol’ mon from . . . . ”

“Palo Alto.”

“Hey Dobe, who’s tellin this?  OK, some little ol’ mon from Palo Alto.  An he give you that look, like slappie, you on base right now.  So you come to his room an you start things off, and right away you fellow slap boy, DOBIE here, happen to come in to clean thee room . . . . What happens nex?”

“Some more bills,” I said.

“Right mon.  Then of course . . . . ”

“I’m glad you didn’t do that with me.”

“You too cute, I guess.  What you think, Dobie?”

“He too cute,” Dobie said.

“So there,” Patrick said.  “Besides, you already give us you cash.  Three fifty, right, Dobe?”

“Pretty close.”

“That’s for the weed,” I said.

“Yeah, but we charge you more if you wasn’t so cute.”

“So mon,” Dobie said, “that remind me.  Tomorrow you last night.  Wanta party?  Nice bottle a whiskey, cost ya two hunderd.”

“Sure, I’ll get it.  They’ll let you out at night?”

“We’ll manage.  Eight o’clock.  Got thee money tomorrow mornin?”

“Sure.  Yeah.”

Of course I’d known what was going on with Patrick and Dobie–they wanted my money.  OK with me; it was totally worth it.  And it wasn’t a problem to get the two hundred extra.  When I went to my parents’ room to meet them for the, like, inevitable dinner, my dad’s wallet was lying around like it always did, and I sneaked some fifties out.  Then when we got to the restaurant I saw my mother’s purse under the table, and I fished out some more.  I’d keep that for myself.  If they noticed, they wouldn’t suspect me; I was always such a nice kid.

Fuck that was good!  And so was the whiskey that night.  Of course I told the whole thing to P and D.  Well, not about robbing my mom.  The rest of it, though.

“You gettin to be a real slappie, mon,” Dobie said.

He was drunk, but Patrick was drunker.  “Yeh, slappies all alike,” he said.  “When you a slappie, you a slappie no matter what.  An you do what you can.  Doan make no diffrence whether you wearin browns cuz you kill you boyfriend, or you here cuz you some meek lil innocent creature like Dobe over there.”

Dobie gave one of his cute faux-bashful smiles.

“Or Joel here, with his thievin ways.”

My smile was also bashful, but totally real.

“Joel make a good volunteer,” Dobie said.

“Yeh mon,” Patrick laughed.  “He make the PERFEC volunteer.”

“Volunteer?” I asked.

Patrick gave me a look like, where have you been?  “A guy that signs up to be a slappie, mon.  Signs thee paper.  Volunteers.”

“You can do that?”

Now they both gave me a funny look, sorta like, we knew he was naïve, but we didn’t know he was this naïve.

“Sure . . . ” Dobie said.  “You can do that.  Dint we tell you that when you were tryin on thee browns?”

“I woulda remembered.”

“An you were lookin good, dude,” he said.  “Better than you lookin in these shorts you got on now.”  Which he was pulling down at the moment.

So we had other things to do for a while, but I managed to remember what we were talking about.

“You know, when you said that thing about volunteers . . . .  You mean, you can walk in and say, ‘I wanta be a slappie?’”

“Ain’t that why you here?” Dobie said.

“Yeah, sure.  That’s why my parents brought me down here.”

“What else you good for?” Patrick said. “Probly be a good deal for you, mon.  One-way trip to Slappieville.”

“Just like joinin thee army,” Dobie said.

“Or like signin up for slut service,” Patrick said, grinning back at him.  “Like you, dude.”

“Yeh mon,” Dobie said.  “Sure.”  Then he turned to me.  “I can see it now.  You look like a volunteer.”

“Me?  You think I look like that?”

“Yeh mon,” Dobie said.  “You do.”

“Nah,” Patrick said.  “He look like the boy next door.”

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