"Hey, neighbor. Mind if I join you for a few baskets?" I say to Dan in a voice I mostly manage to keep from quavering.
Dan stops dribbling and turns to regard me. The famous half smirk instantly forms on his face and the grey eyes search mine with amused disdain. He chuckles and then turns towards the hoop over his garage door and aims the ball. He bends his fatigue-covered knees and leaps up gracefully as he shoots the ball directly through the hoop and netting. My eyes instinctively drop to glimpse the sudden flashing of his pale, but darkly furred six-pack stomach as his white T-shirt pulls up with his exertion.
"Dont embarrass yourself, Al. Youre no sportsman. Why dont you tell me why youre really here?" Dan challenged me as he casually retrieved the ball and dribbled it, waiting for my answer.
"I-I dont know what you mean," I replied, almost as shocked that Dan knew my name as I was at how quickly I seemed to be losing my resolve. "Ive shot baskets before. I just thought it would be a friendly way to introduce myself...."
"Cmon, Stroker, you introduced yourself back when you were doing the census. You were too chicken to step inside my house back then, so why the sudden friendliness now?" He demanded, shooting another basket as impressive as the one at his crotch. "If you had really wanted to shoot baskets with me you would have showed up fifty times since then."
I blushed at the knife-edged accuracy of Dans assessment of me and the situation, and awkwardly tried to excuse my behavior by reciting the official instructions from the census officials, when Dan stopped me short.
"Cut the crap," said Dan, thrusting the ball directly at me so suddenly that I was barely able to catch it without toppling backwards. "Now stop being a chicken _s_h_i_t_ and tell me what you came here today to ask me about!"
I stood there holding the ball like the last wimp in a dodge ball game, terrified to make an offensive move, but at last I began to dribble the ball and manage to speak. "I just saw that kid doing door to door voter registration for MoveAlong. org hightail it out of here, practically in tears. Somebody did or said something pretty upsetting to him, and I, uh, thought you might have some idea who.....or what....."
"So why come to me, Al?" he demanded, somewhat playfully. "There are 30 other houses around this block, so what makes you think I would know anything about that little crybaby traitor to the USA limping out of here with his tail between his legs?"
Dans deadpan look while speaking these provocative words clinched it for me. Oh god, I thought, that kid suffered the full wrath of my jingoistic patriotic neighbor stud. "Did you hear something over here from your house?" he asked, stepping forward to thrust his smugly self-satisfied face right up to mine and to snatch at the ball, which I barely managed to keep from him. "Did he TELL you I did something to him?"
"No, no, nothing like that." I cried, flustered and excited by his sudden proximity and suggestive, mocking intensity. "Its just that youre the only house on the block that has, uh, Republican political material displayed, and I thought that maybe you and he, um, had WORDS over something."
Dan tilted his head back and laughed out loud. "Oh, we had WORDS all right, your little red-haired comrade and I," Dan said, "but by the time he left here, he was SPEECHLESS."
I trembled from a mixture of horrified indignation and puerile curiosity. "Dan, what did you do to him?" I demanded, screwing up all the righteous indignation I could muster.
"I exposed him," grinned Dan, "and then I corrected him. I exposed every one of his America-hating propagandistic rationalizations that he and his commie special interest groups have been trying to pass off as patriotic grass-roots activism, and then I corrected him."
"Voter registration is anti-American?" I guffawed, shocking myself at my sudden boldness.
Dan sneered dismissively.
"Hes working for Carrie to defeat Busch, who is the greatest president we have elected since Donald McRaygun. THATS whats anti-American. Voter registration was just the excuse to bring his multicultural-elitist treason to my doorstep. Well, after just twenty minutes with me in my living room Id PULLED DOWN all his arguments , STRIPPED him of a lifetime of illusions, and mercilessly applied the best and most forceful correctives to him that Western history and tradition have given us."
Hearing these words was like getting hit with a wave of intoxicating testosterone, as strong in unmistakable as the whiff of marijuana smoke you sometimes get when arriving at the kinds of parties my friends throw. I lost the ball and it bounced off the pavement into the grass. "Western history and tradition? Are we talking about ancient Greek armies demoralizing their conquered enemies on the battlefield?" I asked, trembling.
"You mean, did I _f_u_c_k_ him up the ass?" Dan laughed in a tone that showed he wasnt impressed with my knowledge of military history. "Nah. lucky for him he was only in his twenties, and a good old nineteenth century bare assed spanking was enough to correct him." he grinned, retrieving the ball and dribbling it in a slow circle around me. "But for someone like you, Al, with TWICE as long a lifetime of delusions to debunk—who knows how severe Id have to be or how far back in tradition Id have to search for the most effective method of correction...if you were ever to get yourself into that kids position around ME, that is."
He paused in his circle and looked me up and down. "Something tells me you might enjoy getting Greeked too much for it to be punishment."
My _c_o_c_k_ throbbed from my own mental imagery of the kids certainly pale pink butt cheeks getting reddened under Dans hand, but my face flushed with anger over his suggestive threats and insults towards me. How the hell did he know I was a bottom?
"Talk about delusions!" I snapped. "You actually consider Busch the greatest president since McRaygun? Hes certainly the greatest criminal since THAT scumbag.. Just because some of us dont fall for the dog and pony act your unelected Oil Man keeps trotting out over and over again, doesnt mean were un-American!" I cried, trying to keep a stern, tough stance, even as my knees quivered.
"If I hear any more treasonous slander on the names of two of our greatest national heroes from your latte-sipping lips, Al, you are gonna find out FIRST HAND how that boy felt, and much, much worse," replied Dan, with the most dangerous looking smile Id seen on his face yet. Then he laughed and gave me another look that seemed to say "just kidding" but it failed to convince me that I was not actually in harms way.
"You spout a lot of handy pre-packaged liberal propaganda, Al, but I can tell its all just parrot talk. At least your little freckled-assed friend was WORKING for his convictions......skimpy and full of holes as I discovered them to be," Dan chuckled darkly. "At least HE had the balls to cross the threshold of a Conservative mans home and risk hearing or feeling something he wasnt expecting. I have to say this for the brat, mixed in with all the agitprop smart mouthing that earned him his place across my lap, he actually made a couple of arguments that were almost as hard for me to pull down as his pants."
I reddened with shame at my own cowardice and the memory of my unintended disrespect towards Dans hospitality. My increasing arousal from thinking of the kids ordeal was now mixed with an admiration for his valiant struggle.
"What kind of scared, lazy assed faggot are YOU, Al?" Dan continued, thumping the ball suddenly against my chest, leaving me to scramble and recover it. "You dont love your country or your city enough to risk _s_h_i_t_ for them. You gay activists are too busy sucking each others bite sized _c_o_c_k_s to ever put your balls on the line for a cause to benefit anyone ELSE in this community. You waste all your energy nitpicking and bitching about any leaders who dont happen to make YOUR agenda their top priority."
"But I DO love my country." I cried. "I just love it differently." With those words, I attempted a basket and missed the hoop by a foot. I watched Dan grab the ball and start to shoot a succession of baskets. His truthful words had shamed me as much as if hed just pointed out that my fly was open. I DID behave more like an ineffectual pussy than the strong liberal citizen I wanted to be. I only spoke up around people I knew would agree with me, and I never did right wingers the courtesy of risking engagement.
"Loving dick up your ass isnt the same thing as loving your country." Dan taunted as he continued shooting basket after basket. I realized after a minute that he wasnt just going to hand that ball to me again. If I wanted another chance, I was going to have to get it from him. Just like all the other guys who showed up in Dans driveway.
"This country is at war," he continued as I started to awkwardly shadow him and follow his movements across the concrete. "Your President deserves your faith and your loyalty, not commie Europe-loving opposition."
"Hes not MY president. He and his cronies stole the election so they could push through the big mercenary scam in Iraq that Chumley and his pals cooked up twelve years ago," I puffed as I scrambled to keep up with Dans swift, shifting limbs. "It has nothing to do with democracy or weapons of destruction and by pressing it, Busch has forfeited any right to faith or loyalty!"
At this I managed to grab the ball from Dan, dribbled it once and then made a shot at the basket from where I stood. It missed, but just barely. "Thats treason," he hissed, pulling off his t-shirt and wiping his brow with it before tossing it aside and leaping in front of me to try to block my next shot. "You should be charged and tried for treason, but short of that I will personally see to it your views are corrected. Busch was destined to be president because hes a decisive and moral man who knows how to use power," he huffed as he snatched the ball from me and bounded towards the basket with me in stunned pursuit.
"Stole the election? HA! You just cant admit that your gutless namesake, Al Goar, chose his own loser destiny by bending over without a fight and greasing up his own butt crack for George and half the Supreme court." Dan leaped and thrust the ball through the basket with a whoosh. He stopped below the hoop to dribble the ball and gloat at me. "Admit it, Al. We _f_u_c_k_ed him good and half the electorate and they LOVED it. In fact, YOU loved it too, Al, as much as you protest. You liberals were all born to be _f_u_c_k_ed by real men"
My face was crimson with anger and excitement as I stared at his chest with lust and winced under his humiliating barbs at my own partys limp leadership right down to my own grass roots. I pulled off my own shirt and strode towards my mouthy neighbor determined to keep him from scoring another point. Despite the decadent coloration from my faggot suntan, I think I saw approval in the eyes Dan cast over my now naked torso. My chest displayed itself to be as moderately furry as his, but with blonder, softer hair.
"You talk like Jefferson, but youll always be just one of the massas slaves," I said, lifting and spreading my arms and wiggling my fingers to provoke him forward. My knees were bent and my feet spread widely enough to allow me to spring in whichever direction I needed to go.
"You work yourself to death 40 hours a week for just over minimum wage at that _d_a_m_n_ed waste management job of yours, and wow, get two WHOLE WEEKS paid vacation a year, and if youre lucky youll die before your hero steals your social security away from you in twenty years. Or you have to sell your house to pay your insurance premiums while youre dying of exposure to chemical farm runoff in the water." I stayed right with my now pissed looking neighbor as we leapt back and forth all over the driveway, I kept him from getting a good opening for a shot long enough until I could suddenly tip the ball away from him and bound off with it in a running dribble.
"Good boy Dan. Good boy. Support your crooked billionaire president. Sacrifice for him!" I cried as I leapt for the shot and felt his tense, wirey form thrust upwards against me a split second too late to prevent the ball from making my first basket. "Those commie Europeans with their five week vacations and health care and child care and good wages and mass transportation and representational government are such idiots to give themselves those things when they could be TRULY happy just serving their masters with faith and loyalty and being contented with nothing."
"Why do you HATE AMERICA?" Dan seethed at me with patriotic fervor. Haw haw, I thought to myself, hearing such a lame and stupid right wing talking point coming out of his intelligent mouth. Cleary he was pissed at himself not only for letting me get that ball from him and SCORE, but also for hitting him politically in his chiseled gut.
"In this country, men who work hard gain themselves all the things you mentioned and MORE and they dont need the government to hand it to them!" he cried, and was suddenly all over me, sweating and swiping at the ball as I ducked and flinched and dove and managed to avoid his attack.
"Bull_s_h_i_t_, Dan!" I gasped. "Congressmen expect that all to be handed to them. Are they better than you? Youre as fine a man as anyone—finer!-- but youre gonna die in this house with another couple of mortgages on it, and youre gonna retire with inadequate benefits from the _s_h_i_t_ job youre in now, and its only your stubborn duped sense of righteousness thats preventing you from helping the rest of us set up a better deal for guys like you and me so that our lives arent just fodder for all the rich bloodsuckers."
I stopped playing and stood before him looking down, trying to catch my breath, hands at my hips. He stopped before me and caught his breath as well. I looked up and said, "Youre bending over to get _f_u_c_k_ed every day too, Dan. Just because youre polite enough not squeal while your masters are topping you doesnt mean it doesnt hurt like hell!"
"Youre _d_a_m_n_ed right I never squeal, " gasped Dan "But a real American man always chooses the rare times when and for whom to bend over. Nobody _f_u_c_k_S him. Theres just a....uh, pecking order that a true American man honors and upholds. The President and the congress ARE better and more important men than we are. They deserve more money and more power than we do. And if you loved your country and wanted it to succeed, you wouldnt envy them their due. "
"No! Were equal! In a democratic society, were all equal men!" I cried.
"Is that so? You REALLY believe you and I are equal?" Dan asked.
"Of course. Thats the whole point this country was based on."
"Sort of," Dan smirked, looked me up and down again and then fixed me with his steely eyes. "But the strong and resourceful should be allowed to take as much as they can. If were truly equal, you should be able to stop me from taking whats yours, right?
I stared back, mesmerized. It sounded reasonable on the surface but smacked of social Darwinism to me. "Well, ideally yes," I began, "but the playing field.....".
"Lets move off the playing field, Al." Dan, said, patting my naked shoulder with a warm hand. "Lets go into the house for a couple of beers and decide if we truly are equal men." He grabbed his discarded t shirt from the pavement and led the way up his sidewalk to the front porch. I retrieved my own shirt and wiped my brow as I hesitantly followed him my whole body throbbing with excitement and fear.
But its YOUR territory, which puts me at a disadvantage, I wanted to say. But I couldnt really have done otherwise but follow that fine shirtless form in army fatigue pants and black boots close behind, even while feeling practically naked myself in just my khaki cargo shorts, white socks and black sport shoes. To refuse would have just confirmed Dans negative judgment of me and would have exposed my fear that he and I were far from equal.
End of Part 2