Blazing Addles

Boston was not a pretty city, thought Alan, but it did have its perks and amenities. In damp boxers and undershirt, he sat on the back deck listening to the cicadas and watching dusk fall over the backyard garden. He'd eschewed a cigar; they were reserved to crown that certain sense of satisfaction that comes at the conclusion of a good meal, a good trial, a good orgasm, or a good day in general.

At the moment, he was anything but satisfied, but he held hopes that his day might not be yet over.

Behind him, the screen door slid open. Denny stepped out onto the deck wearing gold striped pajamas. He was preceded almost equally by both the cigar between his lips and the tent between his thighs.

Alan glanced over at him, then up to Denny's face.

"Couldn't do it," Denny said. "Can't lie on my back. Can't get the—" He made a rude motion with a curled palm. "—mechanical advantage lying on my side. Sixty years of habit: you can't put an old swine in new grasps." He tossed a donut cushion onto the seat beside Alan's and tried to sit.

His erection immediately poked through his pajama fly, popping in and out as he wriggled to find a comfortable position on the wrought iron chair.

Alan watched, glued with interest, until he had to readjust himself in his own seat to avoid a similar circumstance.

Denny gave up and stood again. He paced behind Alan and gripped the chair back, discretely transferring some weight from his bad leg to the chair. His gaze dropped down to Alan's lap. "We could use the doll," he suggested. One hand went to Alan's shoulder

"You shot the doll, remember?" The tautness in Alan's muscles relaxed a little under the caress.

"Oh. Right. We could get hookers, then."

"Do as you feel you must, Denny, but I am rather hoping you won't. It would spoil our special time, something I put above both my own pelvic congestion or anything which can be purchased for an hourly fee—no matter how enjoyable said purchase might be." Alan leaned back and rolled his neck.

"I've missed you too," Denny mumbled. "I wish you wouldn't work so much." He kneaded the shoulder briefly, then dropped his grip. "And now that I finally have you all to myself, I can't even sit and enjoy our balcony time." He paced to the edge of the deck and drew on his cigar.

Alan stood. He stepped through the door to the guest bedroom, and rough scraping sounds ensued.

When Denny turned around, Alan had moved the bed in front of the patio doors. Alan flopped down on one side and patted the coverlet beside him.

Denny grinned. He came back inside, stubbed his cigar out on a tray on the nightstand, and settled down on his side of the bed.

Alan nestled up along side him—face to face and only a couple inches apart. Starting at the sternum and moving down to the navel, he ran the back of his fingers over the sateen of Denny's pajama top. "Nice PJs. Soft." He stroked again—this time a bit more firmly and with the pads of his fingertips.

"Mm," Denny grunted. "They ruined my favorite ones. Ambulance people cut 'em right off me. My lucky pajamas. I boned Céline Dion in them."

"Lucky pajamas, indeed." Alan's hand went to the breast pocket of the pajama top. "A handkerchief?" He pulled out a polka dotted silk square and shook it out.

"Cum cloth," said Denny. "A gentleman always cleans up after himself."

Alan ran it between his fingers, sniffed once, then folded it and tucked it back in the breast pocket.

"Careful. My nipples are erogenous zones," said Denny.

"I'll file that away for future reference." Alan patted the hankie flat against Denny's chest, letting his hand linger over the nipple for several seconds.

"I remember when we used to sleep together," Denny offered conversationally.

"Yes, the good old days. Then you broke it off and got married, I had a number of increasingly desperate and imprudent affairs in a pathetic attempt to ease my pain, but fortunately we have come through that and arrived in a place where we can still be friends." Alan clasped at Denny's hand.

Denny jerked his arm away. It flung over the side of the bed and brushed against something. "What's this?" Denny picked up a paper roll.

"Nothing. There was just a little confusion. I asked my hotel to send over the long, thin object from my bed, and they sent the wrong one. Although in retrospect, the one I meant was likely not still on the bed but in the bathroom sink soaking in ten percent bleach, so I shan't hold anyone but myself to blame." He reached to take the paper from Denny's hand. "But forget this. You were talking about us sleeping together. Why don't we return to that?"

"These are plans for a house," Denny said. He held the drawings up to better light.

"A duplex. Now, about sleeping with me—"

"Forget it. I'm on to you. You can't distract me with dirty talk. Only women can do that.

"Unless I do it myself," Denny added by way of an afterthought. "I thought you liked your hotel?"

"I do. But in life, things change, and I must plan for certain eventualities."

"Are they throwing you out over that silly business with the Danish volleyball team? I thought we paid 'em off?"

"I did. And it hasn't been decided yet." Alan made another try for the plans, but Denny yanked them aside.

Denny peered at the diagrams. "There's an inner door between them." He hurled the paper down to the floor in anger. "This place isn't for you! It's for me!"

Alan swallowed. "You're wrong, my friend. As well as being uncharacteristically presumptuous. This is most emphatically for me. It's so seldom we are graced with something in life that makes us truly happy; do we not owe it to ourselves to covet and cherish it if we are?

"It's said that boys look up to their fathers, but my father was not a nice man, Denny. He was impassible, cold, self-centered and supremely manipulative. He was in every way that which I aspire to make others believe that I am. I have always wanted a father figure I could admire and seek to emulate for his own excellence, and not be driven to copy by some sort of forced Darwinian imprinting. I have found such a man, and while I have done many foolish things in my lifetime, I cannot imagine anything that would be quite so foolish as allowing him to slip away."

"You want to have sex with your father?" Denny boggled.

"I want to cherish that which I hold most dear, and for that I do not apologize."

Denny grunted. "Damn straight. If you're going to take after me, that's one thing you never do."

Alan chuckled. Suddenly he craved a cigar.

"So this duplex. Is it built yet?" Denny relaxed against the mattress.

"Haven't even looked at land. It's just a thought. I was going to talk it over with some friends."

"Oh. So you have friends now."

"One."

"And?"

"I haven't yet brought it up. It's not an easy subject to broach."

"Kings are supposed to die reigning," said Denny. "Preferably in their mistresses' arms. That's the worst thing about our system. You do your best work—give your best years— then instead of honoring you, keeping you on the pedestal you've built for yourself with your own youth and sweat, they toss you aside and vote in someone newer, sharper. Someone without mad cow. I've been king of Boston, Alan, and I deserve to be recognized for that until I die.

"I don't want to go out ignominy. I don't want it, and I don't want to think about it. I know you're here to nursemaid me—"

Alan opened his mouth, but Denny just steamrollered over him.

"— and because of that you can fondle my ass, you can steam my noodles, you can point out every place I've slipped, but you cannot make me think."

Alan spoke very softly. "I would never do any of that, and I promise you, Denny, as long as I'm around, you will never have to think." He cleared his throat, and his voice rose louder now. "But I do have an unrelated question: do you care for wainscoting in a living room, or do you prefer a less formal look?"

"Interior decorating is for faggots."

"Indeed it is. Shall I take that to mean I should use my own discretion?"

"I don't want your sympathy." Denny directed the remark to someone beyond Alan's shoulder.

"You don't have it. But as a man with no shame whatsoever, I am not above asking for yours."

"You've got it."

Alan took his hand again. This time Denny let it stay.

"I'm stiffening up."

Alan looked down to Denny's pajama fly.

"Not there. My hip." Clearly uncomfortable, Denny shuffled his weight on the bed.

"Would you like a pill?" Alan sat up and put his feet onto the floor.

"No. The last thing I need is anything to increase my haze." Denny shuffled again. "I was thinking that instead of getting up, maybe I could just sleep here. Since I can't get off anyway, I guess it doesn't matter." Denny plumped up Alan's pillow. "And this is kind of...nice."

"It is," said Alan. He went over to the closet. In with fishing rods, clothes, tackle and creels, he found and extra blanket.

"When we're living together, you're not going take advantage of me, are you? Sexually, I mean. When I'm too old and feeble to fight back?"

"I wouldn't dream of it. The fight is most of the fun. I told you that." Alan spread the blanket over Denny's form

"Maybe I won't fight you," Denny mumbled. "By then, who knows what other offers I'll get."

"You're Denny Crane; you're just now working off offers from the eighties." Alan tucked the blanket around Denny's chin. "I am certain that you will never lack for adoring volunteers."

"Damn straight," said Denny. "Still, it's nice to keep my options open."

"Perhaps you could keep your options on your side of the bed," said Alan as he peeled off his damp underclothes. "While my intentions are honorable, as you know I have a sleep movement disorder, and I cannot speak for what my various and sundry body parts might do when freed from the chains of my strict mental and moral discipline."

Denny chuckled. "That's what you'd like me think."

"Denny," Alan paused as he peeled back the covers. "There are no armaments in this bed, are there?"

"Of course not. This is the guest room. I keep my munitions much closer at hand. Nothing here but fishing gear and a few assorted sex toys."

"And into which category would this fall?" Alan asked. He drew his hand out from under a pillow, and held out an orange, snub-nosed pistol.

Denny craned his neck. "Both. That's a flare gun." He reached for it. "For emergencies. It can't even—"

There was a crack and the room erupted in a blinding yellow glow. They both covered their eyes, and when they dared look, the six-foot-tall poster of Denny that hung from the wall was already almost entirely demolished by flames.

"Ooops," said Denny.

"Oh dear," said Alan. From the bed they sat quietly and watched the fire die out.

Alan turned on the overhead fan and opened the glass patio doors. He turned to Denny. "Only the one?" he asked.

"Mmhmm."

Alan crawled under the covers. "Good."

"At least I think so. Or was it maybe a set?"

Alan chuckled. "Would you pass me your cigar?"

"Oh no. You're not going to smoke in my house."

"Just a puff or two. It seems to be the trendy thing to do." Alan nodded to the charred and smoldering remains of six-foot Denny on the wall.

Denny passed over both the cigar and a lighter. "All right, but don't stay up too long. I need my beauty sleep." He closed his eyes and began to snore.

Alan sucked in a drag and blew out a giant breath. Perhaps life could be better than this, but he had not the foggiest conception of how.