The Last Supper

    Completely absorbed in the pleasure of eating, my naivety didn’t allow the idea to enter my mind that I was on a “date”. Mario was in love… or probably just lust. But I could have cared less at that point. I didn’t even know I was leading him on… I was eating and that was good.

     Sensing my financial situation, he slipped a twenty across the table, “Take it, I think you need it." Then he smoothly tagged on an offer, "If you want to, I’ve got some more beer up in my room a few blocks away.”

     The fucker knew I thirsted for more beer and, just when I was about to say, no thanks, he added. “Don’t worry, Red, I’m not gonna hit on ya again.”

      We entered his hotel… it had a small lobby with a few easy chairs and a couple of what looked like to me to be prostitutes. They looked us over… “Hi, Mario, ya gotta hot one?”

     I truly thought they were complimenting me. You know, like they were wanting to do business with us. We were halfway up the stairs before I asked, “Mario, are those girls available?”
  
     “Oh sure; they’re available alright… if ya got two-bits.” Mario had parted with enough cash and wasn’t about to pay for them. At least, that is what I thought his rejection of the floozies' offer was about. Besides, two bits was way low, even in those days. As naive as I was, I knew what he meant by it. They were just cheap whores; far beneath his estimation of what was a good lay. Cheap or not, I was a nineteen year old horn dog and I didn't care what they were.

     We got to his room… I should say a suite. It had a living room, kitchenette, bed and bath rooms. I was surprised because I expected it to be another low-rent room from the looks of the lobby. “How much you pay for this.”

     He came back with a couple of beers, “I keep this place while I’m out at sea. It costs me plenty but I can afford it.”

    “Great place, I was looking for an art studio when I first got here but I need to get a job to pay for one now. It’s a lot more expensive than I thought.”

     “Get a card and ship out…” he sat down next to me on the couch, “I been around for a while and have some say at the hall.”

     “Sure, you can do that? Great, I’d love it.” I couldn’t believe my luck.

     Mario was elated. I told him about the doors on Grace Cathedral. We drank beer and he babbled on about the art in the Cathedrals of Italy. Dropping names like  Raphael, Michelangelo, and de Vinci  he spat and spewed about Bernini and his Medusa. Then he wept alligator tears for a young Italian boy who was his companion in Florence.

     I guessed what that relationship was about and asked, "Was the boy  your lover?" I felt pity for him but, envisioning snakes coming out of his head, I just wanted to get my coveted ass out of there. He wept some more about missing the boy and how he’d betrayed the boy’s trust by proposing they steal an unguarded painting.

     Mario's body was on a collision course with the coffee table as he staggered over and crashed onto the couch next to me, “I didn’t understand the Italians had such love for their art until the boy reacted to my idea with so much contempt."

     I pulled and wriggled away from under his arm but he acted as though this was only a minor distraction and was not deterred, "So much contempt!" he blubbered.

     He continued, exclaiming loudly, “He spit on my face!” and louder, “My face…” then calmly, “he told me I was a beast and that I had no culture…”the picking up on the volume he stood in front of me… falling on his knees, “I was a barbarian!” then he leaned towards my lap and in soft tones, as though he were taking the sacrifice to a priest, he confessed, “I acted as though I were a Vandal or Hun… you are an artiste… please forgive me.”

    He reached forward ... a strategic move to to advance on my zipper… I jumped… yes, jumped up. “What the fuck are you trying to do, Mario?”

    His face turned red… not from embarrassment but it was the red of rage. Whoever thinks of homosexuals as wimps are very mistaken. I hadn’t considered it before but I realized then that I was in great peril. He grabbed at me as I backed off and I broke away from his very strong arms. I feared escalating the struggle by punching him… it would be hard to beat this fucker… I clinched my fists in a threatening posture. Hardened by years on the decks of freighters, he would probably make easy work of my half starved body. It was a good thing I’d some nourishment… thanks to his generosity.

     “You are the artiste! I’m asking forgiveness and you want to fight me?” he protested and backed off.

     I’ve heard that, if ever you have an unexpected confrontation with a bear in the woods; you should never run but stand your ground instead and do all you can make yourself large. It worked in this case. I hit him with words instead of my fists, “I hate that word ‘artiste’, Mario … it’s so pretentious.”

     Mario sat on a stool from the kitchenette. I don’t think he’d given up yet but as desperately combing his one-track mind for another ruse. I cold almost see the gears turning. “Will you forgive me though?”
     What could I do? “Sure,” I made a priestly sign of the cross I the air I between us, “I forgive you, Mario, for all your sins…. Now I’ll go.”

     I walked out the door and down through the lobby. The girls were sill sitting there watching me exit the stairs unaccompanied. One of them chimed, “D’jou have a good time, Red?”

     “Sure,” I wasn’t sure what she meant.

     “If you ever want a date, I can give you a better time than that old queen.”

     It was then I noticed an Adam's apple and a five-o’clock shadow under the thick make-up, “No thanks… some other time.” I got the hell out of there.

    A few days later I was on Geary Street, not so far from Mario's hotel. I thought I heard some one yelling, Red!”

     I looked around and up to the windows and roofs of nearby buildings and heard it again, “Red!”
People passing stopped to see what I was staring at without asking when another clear yell came from nowhere, “Red, come back!”

     “Did you hear that?” I asked the woman gazing up next to me.

    Craning her neck skyward she asked, “Yes, its calling someone… is it you?”

     “It must be… but from where?” I wondered... scanning the windows and friezes along the rooftops

     I never did see him or find where the call was coming from… just a mystery. But I did get a kick out of how so many people stopped to find out what I was looking at thinking, what a good way to meet people in a big city... but said aloud instead, "Maybe its God calling me?"
  
She walked away spritely and never looked back.