When Not Knowing Is More Important than Wanting to Know

          It was a bit of gossip when Elijah, that wisp of a dark smoke in his acid-washed Arizona Jeans, with his quiet smile and listening style, took up with Loud Joe. Joe, of the Matrix-inspired leather obsession. Joe, of the Tic Tac-popping habit. Loud Joe, so-called because he was a jocular guy with no idea how to keep his voice down, but also because when he came he yelled like he did watching his home-town Philadelphia Eagles fumble the ball.          
          Everyone in the Mission knew about Elijah. Many of us – one way or another – had been the recipients of one of his mind-blowing tongue-baths. We all agreed he could suck you off with a skill that made you feel like you were having an ecstatic seizure. 
          No one had ever seen Elijah’s junk, though. He kept it tucked away like a wishbone buried in a chicken carcass. That just made some people try harder. Come on, baby, let me do you. Hey, mama, what chu got in there for me? But Elijah would push our hands away, reject us while sucking our scrotums between his thin lips, and once that happened, we had no choice: we were under the sway of the Blowjob King. 
          The blowjobs stopped when Elijah got together with Loud Joe. We would see them sitting at a table in Chick-Fil-A, Joe pontificating, while Elijah, small smile playing at the corner of his peach-fuzzed upper lip, delicately dragged his fries through the smear of mayonnaise on his sandwich paper as he listened. Or on a bench on the outskirts of Buena Vista Park, checking out the other cruisers, Loud Joe, his arm flung casually over Elijah’s bony shoulders, nodding outrageously at the Sniffies as they went past, sometimes encouraging Elijah to join him in imitating the coyotes whose howls accompanied our grunting in the bushes.
          If one of us ever saw Loud Joe out by himself, we’d tease him about taking Elijah off-market. My man, it be dry out here since you took up with Elijah. Or I been having to go to Equinox since you took little man out the park. Sometimes, one of us would get brave enough to ask: “Hey, Loud Joe, you finally see Elijah’s junk? Which way does it curve? C’mon, give us the scoop.”
          Loud Joe would laugh. “Mind your business.” But he’d wink while he was saying it, so we knew he had.
          It went like that for a few months. If some of us noticed after awhile that Elijah’s willowy demeanor began to look more like a drooping sunflower, we stored that away without saying anything. They were in love, and we were happy for them, seeing in their happiness a possibility for ourselves. If Loud Joe got a little less loud, his stories a little less funny, we told ourselves he just wasn’t “on” all the time now because he wasn’t single anymore. 
          It was Joe’s hesitation before he told us to mind our own business that made us start exchanging worried glances. Even the nosiest of us backed off then, seeing as how there was no knowing laugh anymore, only a fast-moving tic that resembled a clenched jaw.
          One day, word hit the street that someone had seen Elijah cruising the park. Someone else said they’d seen Loud Joe alone and forlorn, smoking a J near the little bridge. By the middle of the week, it was for certain: the Blowjob King was back in action.
          “I tried, man,” Loud Joe told us when we caught up with him in Powerhouse that weekend. The music was brutally loud, and we all leaned in to hear Joe’s sorrowful voice. “I tried to be enough, but that shit is addictive for him. He was climbing the walls, flipping through Grindr looking longingly at dick pics.” 
          Loud Joe looked as if he might cry. He tipped his tequila shot straight down his throat and kept his head tilted high to keep the water in his eyes from sliding free. He turned the empty shot glass over and over in his fingers, shaking his head sadly. It killed all our jokes. Some of us who’d realized the Blowjob King was on the market again and weren’t feeling too broke up about it, now felt guilty for their anticipation. After all, it was Loud Joe and Elijah. And as much as we’d wanted to know about Elijah’s junk, we wanted more for them to prove to us that you could count on someone to hold onto your secrets and fears forever.
          In sympathy, we patted Joe’s shoulders, understanding that sometime in the future, we’d probably be on the receiving end of the Blowjob King’s attentions, but also knowing that – when we were – we wouldn’t be able to shake the memory of Joe, glass tumbling through his stubby fingers, saying sadly to himself, “That beautiful little man. That beautiful, beautiful little dude.”