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Sid did the garbage route thing as a summer job. It started in his junior year when he was 17 (he was left back in freshman year; his parents still bring it up). He didn’t exactly plan to start hooking up with one of his customers.
Andy Davis was as clean-cut and unassuming as they came. You wouldn’t expect him to be a dynamo under the sheets but then again most people wouldn’t expect Sid to love a dick up his ass; regardless, both of these things were true.
They didn’t talk much; it’s not like they had a lot in common. Andy loved sports and physics and god, even math. They did both enjoy skateboarding and when they weren’t fucking they spent most of their time down at the park where there were some ramps. Andy was pretty damn good, Sid had to admit.
Okay and so maybe they both enjoyed pizza planet still, while everyone else in their school had graduated on to the Dave and Busters that opened a couple of years back. Maybe they liked some of the same bands but, honestly, they were from different worlds. Summer ended, senior year started, Sid barely went to class and Andy turned away quickly whenever he actually was around.
That was all fine and good; it wasn’t like Sid actually cared. He was still the one who made Andy come harder than ever, the two of them in Sid’s basement, fucking with the lights off. Andy would pound into him as Sid squeezed down tight around him. Andy’s hand always found his when he came, threading their fingers together and for one flickering second it was like they actually belonged here, like there was no one else but the two of them.
Under the fluorescent lights of school there were cliques and college applications and senior prom. Sid preferred to live in darkness. They didn’t talk about after senior year. If buy some miracle Sid actually graduate, he wasn’t going anywhere anyway.
On his 18th birthday, Andy made him a mix tape. An actual tape. It was just filled with songs Andy knew Sid liked. He refused to make it into something it wasn’t. It meant nothing; why would it? Guys like Sid were a phase for guy’s like Andy and he wasn’t about to conform to someone Andy could actually be with. He was good enough for Andy to fuck, but not date.
Sid knew Andy was going to Ohio State. It was a few hours away and he’d be dorming. Obviously they wouldn’t continue this convenient fuck buddy situation when the key ‘convenience’ factor would now be absent. No one drove over two hours just for a lay; it was pathetic.
Except Andy didn’t bring it up, just kept on fucking Sid all through August in the sweltering heat and kept smiling at Sid sleepily from his bedroom window when Sid pulled up in his truck.
Sid decided to solve both of their problems; he and Andy had a standard arrangement on Wednesdays to meet at the blacktop at school, against the back of the building. He decided to ask Julie, the Goth chick who liked to bum smokes off him and was a great weed source to meet him for a deal. After buying, he checked his watch and then tugged on her shirt. “You wanna make out?”
She stared at him blankly. “Aren’t you a fag?”
He bit back the urge to tell her off; he didn’t use that word anymore. Not since he was 14 and actually understood what it really meant. Not since he realized it offended him to his core.
“Why don’t you fucking find out?” and then she was up against him, her breasts against his chest and their tongues in each other’s mouths. It did nothing for him but it was for the greater good. A shadow fell over the wall a few minutes later and Sid tore his mouth away and looked past Julie’s head. Andy was staring, wide-eyed. Confusion and something else clouded his eyes before he schooled his expression.
“Sorry, uh. Okay, I’m going.” He said, talking to himself, not even looking at Sid anymore.
Sid fought the urge to say something as he walked away. Instead, he pulled Julie back to him and kissed her neck until Andy was a small figure in the distance of the schoolyard.
“Okay that’s enough,” he said and pushed himself back against the wall.
She smirked at him. “Yeah, exactly what I thought.”
“You’re a fucking genius.”
He gave him the finger and walked off. He’d probably lost his drug connection but those were the breaks.
He told himself the tightness in his chest for the rest of the night was the stupid double cheeseburger and fries he ate on the way home. There was radio silence from Andy for two days. Sid’s route took him to Andy’s neighborhood on Thursdays and Mondays. Andy wasn’t at his window like usual. Saturday Andy called him and asked if they could grab some food. He picked Sid up in the car his mom bought for him for graduation.
They ate Taco Bell while Sid played the mix tape Andy made for him, which he usually carried around. Hunger Strike was on and he hummed along to it, absently, drumming his fingers on his thighs in time with the beat.
“So uh,” Andy said as he finished eating. “So I was thinking we should…” he stopped and started again, “I’m leaving next week. So, you know. Guess this is it, then.”
This was what Sid wanted; it shouldn’t feel like his insides were being ripped out. He slurped at his soda and nodded. “Right, cool. This was fun. Want one last blow job for the road?”
Andy winced. “Uh, no. No thank you.”
And that was Andy in a nutshell: polite even when declining blowjobs and catching Sid with a chick.
“Alright. Guess we’re done here. See ya, Davis.”
He got out of the car and started walking while Andy yelled to him from inside the car. He began driving in time with Sid’s pace, inching along Sid him. “Sid, what the fuck are you doing?”
“Walking home.”
“Um, why?”
“You don’t want to fuck, we already ate, nothing else to be done here.”
Andy glared at him. “Seriously? You’ve got some fucking nerve after you… if anything I should…”
He didn’t continue and Sid couldn’t take it, just wanted him to fucking say it already.
“What?!” he barked out. “What do you want?
Sid watched as Andy’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel.
“You’re such a fucking asshole,” Andy said before he slammed on the gas so hard the tires screeched. He stopped short a few hundred feet in front of Sid. Sid’s heart stuttered as he watched Andy in the driver’s side mirror. Seconds later, it dropped low in his chest when Andy through his mix tape out the window and kept on driving.
It was for the best. It was.
_____________________
Inevitably, Sid began to go over the last year in his head. He figured it was okay to now, with Andy a few hours away. He allowed himself to focus on the things he previously kept dormant. Like when the two of them sat on the floor of Sid’s basement, Andy with huge old school speakers in his ears that he attached to the portable record player Sid’s dad never used anymore.
Andy had idly fit his fingers in the holes of Sid’s jeans and laid back, lost in Patti Smith’s Horses.
“What’re you drawing?” he’d said and Sid had begrudgingly turned the notebook and showed Andy a guy with an exploding head, bleeding hearts, and some random dragons. Andy had run his fingers along the pages and said, “You should put these up on Tumblr.” Sid had responded with his trademarked, “Whatever,” but Andy never really listened to Sid’s bullshit.
“No, really, my mom has a scanner. I can email them to you.”
Sid had allowed it and the next week put a few things up on his Tumblr, “Nancy Not Needed,” which no one really understood unless they knew his name. He’d received 30 reblogs in a week and Andy had congratulated him with a pretty stellar blowjob while Sid had closed his eyes and thumbed Andy’s lips, loving how they felt stretched wide around him.
___________________________
They were still following one another on Tumblr. Andy reblogged audio of The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot from someone and Sid ‘liked it’. It soon became his very own break-up anthem. It’s possible he began drawing boys who looked like Andy, dodging bullets that may have metaphorically represented Sid. He didn’t post them.
Soon it was as though they were talking through their reblogs/likes; it was their own silent code and Sid began to live for it.
It was when Andy reblogged a tattoo of some chick’s arms which had the words “you are the smell before rain, you are the blood in my veins” on her forearms that Sid’s heart stopped beating.
He wasn’t sure why he’d never put it together before. Andy had named Sid’s mix “the smell before rain” and now Sid realized it was actually from The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot. He always seemed to filter over that line, focusing more on “call me a safe bet, I’m betting I’m not.”
Sid exited the browser without liking the post.
______________________
A few days later he was getting high in his basement when his cell phone lit up, revealing Andy’s name.
He almost didn’t answer it, felt vaguely sick to his stomach with something he refused to believe was nerves.
“Yeah?” He tried to keep his voice steady.
“Hi,” said Andy, quietly.
“Hi,” Sid said and put down his bowl.
“How are you?”
“Peachy keen, jelly bean.”
Andy laughed, but it sounded hollow. “And you, college boy?” Sid continued.
“Not bad. What are you up to these days?”
“Not a lot,” he said, vaguely. He was still working part-time on the truck, still living at home. Nothing had really changed, except Andy. Andy, who on the night of their graduation, hung drunkenly over Sid while they walked through the park and slurred, “You know, Ohio State has a great art program.”
Sid had snorted. “And what would I do, exactly?”
“I dunno? Computer animation? Video games? Comics? Those are big fields.”
“Comics isn’t a big field, you dork,” Sid had said before kissing Andy until he was moaning and no longer talking nonsense.
That was the other memory Sid had buried down deep.
Back in the here and now, Andy was saying, “Well, listen, uh. I’m coming back for Thanksgiving break in a few days.”
“So?”
He heard a quick intake of breath. When Andy’s voice returned it was slightly hard. “So, I thought maybe we could see each other.”
The thing was that Sid possibly had printed out an application to the art program after seeing Andy’s last reblog. It was possibly sitting on his dresser next to his Ipod. The defeatist in him, however, said, “You’re in college now, Davis. Time to grow up and leave the past behind.”
There was silence for at least a minute and Sid was beginning to think Andy hung up. “Why did you do it?” Andy finally said. The words were barely a whisper. Sid didn’t have to ask what ‘it’ was but just incase he wasn’t sure Andy helpfully specified. “Why did you fucking cheat on me?”
Sid squeezed his eyes shut and shifted his position on the couch. “Cheating would imply we were actually together.”
“You know we were,” Andy said, voice low and fierce.
Sid punched his fist into the cushion and slid off the couch and onto the carpet, sitting with his back against it. “No, what I know is you acted like I didn’t exist in front of your precious clique.”
“Are you serious right now? Sid, honestly, if I had said hi to you at school, what would you have done?”
Sid’s mind’s eye conjured up a variety of images: him walking by Andy and saying nothing, or giving him the finger, or saying ‘shut up.’ It never varied into anything other than a brush off.
Andy was still going, voice angry. “If I’d thought for a second you would’ve, like, sat with me at lunch or hung out at my locker or talked to my friends, I would’ve said something. They all knew about you, anyway. I made them promise not to tell you. They said I deserved better.”
“You do,” Sid said, gripping his phone tighter.
“Yeah, well tough shit, cause I think you’re it for me.” Andy’s voice went soft at that and Sid’s own breath caught.
“Andy…” He didn’t know what else to say.
“Tell me why, Sid.”
Sid sighed and dropped his head back onto the couch. “She was to make you leave me behind. End it on my terms before you could do it yourself.”
Andy laughed, sharply. “You bastard. I wouldn’t have ended things. I didn’t want to.”
Sid was again at a loss for words. There was silence on the line again, one of those moments when you were both probably thinking the same thing. Sid assumed it was about wasted time and being fucking stupid. At least, that’s what he was thinking.
Sid broke the silence. “So… I’m thinking of applying for that art program.”
Andy let out a small gasp. “Oh my god. Seriously?”
Sid smiled to himself. “Yeah.”
“You need help with your application?” Andy’s voice was teasing and Sid could just picture his wide grin.
“Yeah, I think I do. Maybe you should come see me.”
“I already suggested this like 20 minutes ago,” Andy laughed. It was a gorgeous sound. Sid wasn’t sure how he’d gone over two months without it.
Sid smiled up at the ceiling. “Just let me believe it was my idea, okay?”
“Whatever you say,” Andy said, amusement still evident in his voice. “I miss you,” he added, soberly.
Sid’s heart swelled at the words. Nevertheless, he said, “You’re a sap, Davis.”
Andy just laughed some more in his ear. Sid wondered if Andy could hear the mix tape playing in the background; he played it at least once a day. If so, then he’d know Fix You was on. It seemed apropos.
Later that night, after two hours of conversation, Sid pulled up the post of the girl with the lyrics tattooed on her forearms. He reblogged it and added, ‘This is for Andy.’
Andy ‘liked’ Sid’s post.
[End]
