It was September, 11th.
Walker had come up with a plan. He had spent months thinking about it. He was excited and terrified imagining it actually happening.
Walker was pretty comfortable in his own skin for a 25 year old gay man. He'd come out as a senior in high school and been very supported. Of course there had been those students who taunted him. But he'd made good friends in high school and again in college. His parents cried and hugged him when he'd told them.
Walker lived in new york and shared a tiny walkup apartment in the West Village with his boyfriend, Johnny. Johnny was 5'8 and shaved his hair around the sides and let the top of his hair spill just a bit over his brow. He had abstract tattoos of shaded shapes along his arms, black and white. The tattoos belonged in MOMA, they were so exquisitely executed.
They had planned the event together. Picked a date, Sept. 11, a couple months in advance. Johnny couldn't believe they were going to do it. They had both been inspired by the story of the man who had tightroped across the divide that separated the twin towers. Seeing the photo of the man taken from the ground, the one where he is just a tiny, fuzzy, black speck on a faint line, brought them both to tears one evening, drinking buckets of PBR, sitting crossed legged on their throw rug, in the non-bedroom-other-room of their apartment with the faded lavender couch and the tv and the speakers. They listened to Nina Simone sing I Shall Be Released. Both thought that there could be no more perfect version of the song. They'd cried and hugged and went down on each other. Tears and cum still on their faces when they sadly and euphorically stumbled into the bedroom to sleep, wrapping themselves in a haphazard comforter and silly sheets.
They'd been together for over a year, and had grown fundamentally in love. However, Walker had not yet allowed anyone to enter him from behind, including Johnny. During the first month of their relationship, Walker explained that he was still a "virgin" and still scared. Johnny didn't care. Johnny would wait until Walker was ready, even if that meant he would never be ready.
When Walker told Johnny he was ready a couple months back and then proceeded to tell Johnny his plan, Johnny flipped his shit. Walker was a bit more calm.
"I just want it to be spectacular! I want it to be the greatest moment of my life up to this point. I know other moments will become more important, more meaningful as we grow older. I want to marry you and raise our children. But I want this to be special!"
"Yeah, no fucking shit! But jesus christ! That is some profound, empirically unsolid, stone-faced, belligerent, ranting, raving, heart-racing, horse cock of a plan you've concocted you beautiful man, you beautiful fucking man! But shit. Split."
Johnny sat stunned. Would he do it? Was he capable of doing it? Why do it? But if that's what Walker wanted? But they could easily die. This part didn't seem reasonable.
"But we could really fucking die?!"
"We won't die. We'll be safe. Just like clouds." Walker smiled.
"That, that, that shit you just told me, that shit is not how I define safe. No, no, no, my man. No, no, no. Not safe. No dictionary. Fictionary."
In the end, Johnny agreed. It took him a couple days, maybe a full week, but he got completely on board. It would be special.
And so when the early, early dark morning of September 11th came around, they were prepared. Johnny with backpack and Walker with keys and IDs. They left the apartment and began walking downtown. When they arrived at the North Tower, they knew the path of the first security guard, knew when they would have their moment, and took it. They entered the building at 6am and began to climb the stairs, both looking forward to the sweat on the other man's body at the top. They climbed and climbed in the darkness. Johnny had friends who worked at the World Trade Center and had helped them coordinate the planning though all were unwilling to be there when it happened. This wasn't a tight-rope walk and they weren't eager to be under arrest.
They reached the top and slid the ID card across the scanner to safely open the door. The wind immediately blew, and Walker, the first one through, stumbled backwards. He knocked into Johnny, right in the crotch. Johnny was already hard. Walker felt comforted and walked out on the deck. They walked about 100 feet to the first chain link fence, spinning in slow, bewildered circles: to see the world from such a height. The key to the first lock worked and the gate door opened. They both turned and climbed down the ladder that led to the ledge that led to the second chain link fence, this one with even more menacing barbed wire at the top of the fence, in three rows, angled towards the two on-comers. But again this fence had a door and again they had the key.
They moved through the challenges of the tower top without incident, easily passing by the numerous antennae and satellite dishes, and eventually reached their destination. The ledge, the actual ledge, where one could jump if one was so inclined. But, again, that was not the plan. They just stared at new york city below and everything above.
The ledge, the actual ledge, was only about about three feet high and it jetted back in about two feet. The ledge was built like an upside down "L", so you could sit on it, though that was never the intention of the architects. Walker ran his hand along the smooth concrete. They were facing north, in the middle of the outer edge of the North Tower. To the right the sun was beginning to splash the sky. For Walker, time was moving amazingly fast, he could see the sun rise and set and rise and set and rise and set and rise and set. The purple moving blue moving black moving blue moving golden wheat horizons and the love of stuffed animals and the search for meaning and the primal urge to fuck: all bounty there for the picking, if one was brave enough to pick it. And he picked it, he selected the place and began to remove his jeans.
Johnny smiled, tilted his head and closed his eyes. The muscles in his face relaxed. He smelled the high winds that blew across the tower top, unfettered with city pollutants. His mind played a hymn from his childhood, and he listened closely.
"Aren't you going to fuck me now?" Walker said with a slight edge of insecurity.
Johnny came out of his mind's little concert, smiled brightly and said, "Yes, yes, yes, most certainly, sir. I will fuck you now. You beautiful creature. Feature."
Johnny walked over and helped Walker out of his jeans. Walker looked at his socks and then up at Johnny. A decision was made, their eyes agreed, the socks would stay on. It was a bit rough on the ground, where feet go. But the rest of Walker became quickly naked.
Walker leaned over the edge and stared down at the tiny cars, parked along tiny streets. He saw a news helicopter fly by about thirty stories below them. It was heading uptown along the Hudson River. This vista full of miracles, destinies, mystery and eventually death. Everyone alive down there would someday die. This thought passed quickly through Walker's mind. Johnny handed the two towels from his backpack to Walker. Walker made himself comfortable on the ledge, laying on the towels, face staring down into the vastness, his ass facing up.
"Are you ready? Steady. Macho man."
Johnny had already taken off his pants and shirt. Naked, too, except for socks.
"Yes."
"I love you."
"I love you, too"
Johnny, put on the condom they discussed, plucked out the lube from the backpack, and began lubricating his covered cock. He took the back of his hand and touched Walker on his ass. Neither felt fear consciously, though it coursed gently through their bodies. The sun was now in the sky.
Johnny took a splurge of lube in his hand and spread it around and then into Walker's asshole. Johnny began to finger Walker ever so slowly with the middle finger on his right hand. With each finger movement inwards, Walker's body allowed Johnny to go just a bit deeper. Walker's chest and shoulders tightened at first, but eventually began to relax.
"You feel good. Keep going."
Johnny took his dick in his right hand and slowly guided it towards Walker's asshole. Again, Johnny moved it in close but barely attempted to make an entrance. He just kept it there so Walker could feel him.
Walker turned his head and looked Johnny in the eyes, "Fuck me," he said through the wind and the cosmopolitan daylight. Walker turned his head down and opened his eyes wide. He had imagined this moment for months and genuinely wanted to take it all in.
Johnny's charisma and instinctual desire to fuck took over and he started to push a little harder. He made slow progress but eventually his dick was moving in and out of Walker's asshole helped by the lubrication. Johnny groaned a pleasurable groan.
"Do you like getting fucked in the ass?" Johnny assumed yes, reverting back to his days before meeting Walker, the fucking he'd done with so many boys. Now 38 and experienced, with sharp stubble and graying hair, he'd reserved this moment for the young man he loved on the top of the center of world trade. The motion, their motion is highlighted by sunlight striking through clouds. The motion of fucking, the inaudible grunts and pleasure mixed with a bit of pain for Walker who is staring straight down at the billions of windows directly beneath him. Walker is flexible, open, baffled, content. He keeps giggling thinking of all those windows and Johnny's dick moving in and out of his asshole.
"Keep fucking me, Johnny. Keep fucking me."
Walker stares out and sees an airplane in the distance, and then moves his head to examine the remainder of the new york sky line. The sea is the sky and the sky is the sea. There are no beaches, only tenderness and instincts, fairways and birdies and eagles, streaming down the face of a euphoric lover.
Johnny reaches around and takes a hold of Walker's hard cock and begins jerking him off. Walker is on fire and it takes only seconds for him to splash off the edge. Johnny hears this and feels this and for him there is no more electric aphrodisiac, and soon his back is arching and Walker responds by sticking his ass up, giving more asshole to Johnny's cock and Johnny spasms and squeezes and fucks harder and Walker fucks harder and Johnny grabs Walkers waist and digs in with his fingers and fucks and fucks and fucks and falls on Walker's back, empty, groaning.
Walker watches as the airplane flies by far overhead, probably headed to Miami.
Johnny fucking Walker. September 11, 2000.
"I need a drink."
"Yes, a drink would be good."
much love,
Anthony
I Shall Be Released
