Now the Ship is Sinking Inch by Inch!
For James Stanton
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts
of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves:
—Romans 1:24
It was a long lake in the middle of Maine, the wildest state within a day’s drive of the Upper West Side, where I lived in a $3.1 million penthouse, thanks to my last film, a steaming turd called Kelpie, about a Scottish shepherd boy (me) and his ghost horse (Kelpie). My dialogue coach, a peachy Glaswegian, fake teeth, fucked me on set.
My great-grandfather built a cabin on Long Lake, circa 1947. Summers, my parents rented it out, but stopped when I started supporting them at age 13. It was so musty I had to keep every aperture open for days before my chest stopped aching and my nose unstuffed. I sequestered my fame there biannually.
In a canoe in the middle of Long Lake I met the “Maine Murder Fraternity,” the boys, Hunter and Etan Bishoff, in sleek yellow kayaks, the former red-capped (“FDNY”), and the latter in a black one that read “Zero.” Just post-dawn; hypnotic loons. Fog clung to the surface and the moon yet hovered hangdog. “You’re Johnny Kilkenny!”
“Can’t escape it.”
“Why wouldja‘ wanna?”
“You gotta be on all the time,” I said.
“On what?”
“Exactly.”
Hunter held the spoon of my oar. We drifted, freewheeled into marshes; Etan pissed, barely louder than whispers. They were ferrying weed in a Ziploc. We bonded on a wee, stony, pine-treed island—“Blood Rock.” I let Hunter fuck me with a palmful of his and his little brother’s saliva. Then Etan tried to fuck me and failed. “Sorry …”
“Star-struck?”
“Stoned,” said his brother in his stead.
Then they confessed. Clever rags were calling them “Gog and Magog.”
“What’s the point of killing kids?” I asked, naked in the afterglow, Etan still stroking his big brother.
“What’s the point of pretending you’re some kid you ain’t?”
“Cash money. I drove a Bugatti Veyron to this backwater.”
“That make you any less a cum-dumpster, Kid? I’m rockin‘ an F-150 and who just rode whom?”
“What if they catch you, Hunter? They gotta demolish adorable pups down at Warren State, no? I did a movie, Red Rain—”
“Yum! But none of them dumb fucks suspects us. Etan’s in Cub Scouts and I’m the odds-on favorite to win the Soap Box Derby. Anyways, we’d be King Shit in that horny Reform School, like in your picture.”
“Reform—? No, that’s for kids who, like, knock over the frozen yogurt shop. You guys … I mean … how many …?”
“Eleven.”
“Twelve.”
“Don’t you feel—?”
“Etan does, a bit. Right, Baby Duck?”
I pulled up my underwear. “So … how?”
“E. …?”
“Depends,” said Etan, all nonchalance, and kissed me long. Lovely.
“Keeps ’em on their toes,” said Hunter. “The whatever. FBI.”
“So. You ever …?”
“Jesus, Johnny-Boy. We ain’t deviants! This ain’t Hollyweird bullshit. This here’s Regular America.”
“Right.”
“Although …” said Hunter, and the siblings simultaneously hefted stones in their hot hands. “There’s always a first time.”
“A thirteenth!” said the littler boy with a filmic smile.