Burn All The Letters
"We weren't doing it for the money,"
-Lillian Gish
Genius begets trouble. Just ask my father. Almost forty years in one business and they named a finish after him...the ultimate fan screwjob. Very apropos.
No one sees through my mask very well; that's helpful, sometimes, painful in a few other ways. But I know I reach my goal every time a drunken redneck jumps the barrier and tries to kill me.
Violence is the sincerest form of flattery. Especially when you can't pick out the illusion. Is it me, or is it the makeup? When in fact, "Goldust is really a deck I've stacked myself. I always did like card tricks.
Oblique enough for you yet?
I laugh to myself as Al crosses the barroom and sits next to me. He's a magnet for those in need of sympathy; straight as an arrow, but with a soft shoulder. In a way, he's like my brother; like the father I should have but don't, because he cut me out of his life. Daddy loves blondes with big tits, and he freaked out when I discovered that I could take my blondes with or without them...
I try to pretend that he's not standing there for just a moment. His finger prodding my shoulder breaks the illusion and I take him in with a long, slow glance. He smiles, I smile; this is enough encouragement to get him seated. We drink our beers and pretend not to note a particularly vociferous pack of rats nearby.
"Why's everyone been telling me that you fucked Jeff Hardy last night?" he asks suddenly.
I almost choke. "Maybe because it's no one's business," I mumble. He gives me an arch look. "And besides that, we didn't fuck. We just split in the middle of one of old man McMahon's post-show lectures and ran for it." I look him in the eye. "Want to hear my tale of woe?," I asked. "I can keep it to myself, just as well."
Al tilts his head, his expression open, sympathetic, "Shoot with me," He says, "Looks like you need it."
****
"...And that, Johnson, is what you did wrong during your segment. Williams, I don't know what the hell you were thinking, but..." Vince McMahon doesn't know the meaning of the word 'pep talk'. I'd tried very, very hard to make myself less noticeable, which is damned hard to do when you're a six-foot-plus blond redneck in a red plaid shirt.
An elbow pressed me in the side. Hard. I glanced down about an inch and see a turned-up, elfin nose, purple locks and a black muscle shirt. Jeff Hardy, of course.
He pressed a tiny piece of scrap paper into my hand, his edgy scrawl asking me, "Any plans tonight?"
I shook my head.
"Let's get out of here," he whispered. I blink at him.
"Excuse me, are you trying to get picked up?" asked I; this would have made a first for me, and I was curious as to what I did that had been so very attractive.
He wrinkled his nose, "God, no. I just want to get out of here. Got a car?"
"Yeah...follow me.." I wove through a minimal crowd that had gathered to watch Vince dress down his main eventers; we found a side exit, pressed through, and ended up in the parking lot. Jeff settled himself in the passenger seat and flicked the radio onto something loud and aggressive as I turned the ignition.
I winced at the music, "Loud enough for you?"
He shook his head, "It's Godsmack; I was hoping for Linkin Park." He planted an elbow onto the dash and stretched, fastening his safety belt while trying out a torso twist. The boy had completely confused me without even trying.
"Where do you want me to drive?" I ask him, turning onto the highway.
He shrugged, "Your car. I'll go where you want to take me."
I shook my head. "You're a strange kid. Why did I know that before I got into this car with you?"
He frowned. "That's just a misconception; you know I wanted to get out of there as badly as you did."
"Yeah; I want to get away from a lot of things."
"Like Goldust?"
"The beauty of Goldust," I smirked, "Is that I have nothing to run from when it comes to him. He's ring psychology, simplified into one little character. Oh, and old Hollywood." I felt contempt race through my veins. "I can't stand it when people tell me that you have to be gay to appreciate Old Hollywood glamour. They're full of shit. Some of these morons just don't get it; I'm satirizing glamour. Goldust is Marilyn Monroe on steroids."
"Are you?"
"What? On 'roids? I used to be; years ago.."
"No, gay?"
I almost laughed out loud, "Bi. Aren't you?"
"What?"
"Bi?"
"No. Gay." He was very direct and abruptly brittle, "And in the closet."
"I see. I'm not asking..."
"Right. Don't tell, either."
"You're in the closet," I laughed, just a hair mean, as lights from cars in passing lanes reflected off of his sharp features, "I thought you weren't afraid of anything."
"I'm not afraid of much," he said, tonelessly. "Just my father and his church."
"Ahh." I smiled knowingly. "Do what I do; say you're Catholic, pray now and then, but avoid the church at all costs."
This, at least, went so far as to make him laugh. His hands found my sleeve and tugged, "Pull off here!"
I turned off the highway, surging down a dirt road, past some farmhouses. We ended up on a small farm, waking up a grumpy farmer and paying him for a saddle and two bays: one a mare and one a stud.
Jeff Hardy isn't the type of guy a person normally pictures riding a horse, but there we were, trotting around the farmer's show ring, Jeff driving his gallop to an insane speed while I lope around the track's sideline.
They should make watching this kid a national sport.
"It sucks sometimes," he said suddenly.
"What?"
"Being gay. Especially being a gay man."
I frowned. "You think so?"
"Yeah...you know how men are." His eyes shifted in their sockets. "Sexual; everything's about sex. Put two men together...it's dating hell," he said plainly, staring out into the dark night.
"Not always."
"Yes, always," he intoned. "We never get to go through natural courtship; I didn't get to go to my prom...we meet as adults and expect each other to know exactly how everything's supposed to be. How the hell can we expect that? I'm twenty-three years old, almost twenty-four, I have as much ass as I can get, but it means nothing."
"You're a kid," I reminded him.
"Yeah," he laughed. "A lonely kid. At least you have options when you're bi."
I laughed, "Double the aggravation, double the problems. Take your difficulties getting a man to commit and quadruple them. It took me two years to get Terri to say yes." I shook my head, "It doesn't matter. I am who I am; Dakota's father, Terri's ex-husband and Dusty's son. I just have widespread affection."
"And I..." Jeff stood up in his stirrups, "I..." He urged the horse to a gallop, then threw his arms upward, "I am a QUEEEEEEEEN!! You hear that, world?! I like COCK!!" He bellowed, for no one but the horses and I to hear. And possibly the farmer, wherever he sat now.
"Did you just out yourself?" I blinked.
His proud expression softened; sinking carefully into the saddle, he hissed, "He didn't hear me, did he? Please tell me he didn't hear me.."
Disappointment visited me briefly; for a moment, it seemed as though he'd experienced a moment of epiphany. It didn't matter. At the end of the night, when the sun rose, Jeff Hardy needed to be straight. And I, without fear or hesitation, had to at least in part be Goldust, let the section of my spirit that IS him breathe. I won't allow myself to crawl back into my half-closet; I've experienced too much to let it happen.
"No one heard you, Jeff," I said. "No one's watching."
"There's always someone watching," he replied.
***
"...And?" Al asks, wide-eyed.
"And I drove him back to his hotel," I nod casually as Jeff passes by, a woman on his arm, lipsticked lips giggling and heads dizzy.
Al shakes his head, finishing the beer. "Wasting a perfectly good evening like that; poor guy..."
"I didn't waste anything," I declare. "Jeff was a revelation. He's exactly what I DON'T want to become as a bisexual man. Some things should be private, but to live in fear...it's much more fun to mindfuck people with Goldust. Hell, I'd play him for free."
Al laughs, "I feel the same way about Head!"
"You would," I wink.
"Flirt," he declares, rolling his eyes "I'm headed to bed." With a placing of his empty glass on the bar's top.
"Night Al. Thanks for sitting around with me and letting me shoot the shit."
"Any time, Dust. Night."
I watch him stagger his way through the crowd, somehow finding the front of the bar, leaving. I do the same, watching Jeff Hardy from the corner of my eye.
He's kissing some girl, but he's looking right at me.
How would Goldust sum it all up?
"There are some things they will never know."