California Dreaming

Chapter 2

Over the next year, we all adjusted to our new living arrangements. My two younger brothers and I moved our bed into the living room, my six sisters all still sharing their bedroom. Mikhail, his wife, and his son shared the other room, and they now had another baby on the way. They were trying to find their own apartment, but that was proving difficult on their budget.

I was still going to watch my movies, and as far as I knew, father still didn’t know about it. I had been saving the money that I made sweeping and cleaning at the theatre, I didn’t know what I was going to use it for yet. I knew I was getting closer to my father wanting me to quit school and start working at the shipyard. I also knew that that was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

I had been hearing about a new movie that had come out months before, “The Jazz Singer” starring Al Jolson. It was hard to comprehend, but I was told that the actors actually talked and sang. I had wanted to see this picture since it came out, finally after it had played in all the big theaters, it was coming to the smaller ones that I could afford. I sat in my seat, anxiously waiting to hear Al Jolson speak. The movie started like all others, mostly silent. 15 minutes into the film, Jolson started to sing “Dity Hands, Dirty Face”. It was magical, it was like he was right in the room and the words were coming from his mouth, not a recording that was being played in the theater. I felt as though I was witnessing history, when he finished the song, he said, “wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothin yet.” The crowd erupted with gasps and cheers. I sat in awe for the remainder of the movie, taking in every word. I was now even more resolved that I wanted to be an actor, not on the stage, but in the movies.

I ran home after the movie, I couldn’t control my excitement, I started to tell my sister all about the movie. To my disappointment, she was unimpressed. When my parents and brother came home from work, I was no longer concerned with father knowing about my movie going, I just blurted out every detail of what I had seen that day. Unsurprisingly, father already knew how I was spending my Saturdays, but mother had convinced him that since I was completing my chores beforehand, that there was no harm in my attending a movie or two.

He sat back and lit his pipe, “Ivan, you can dream all you want about this foolish acting nonsense, but next year you will be old enough to join Mikhail and me at the shipyard. You will make a living like a real man, not like some dandy playing make believe.”

I tried to protest, “but father, I do not want to work in the shipyard. I will find a job that I am more suited for.”

He stopped me, “you will never be in a movie, most of those pieces of trash are made in California. You might as well just accept your fate, work at the shipyard, marry a fine woman and raises a family. Just be sure you do it in the proper order, unlike your brother.”

I tried again, “but father…”

Mother stopped me, “Ivan, eat your dinner, we will hear no more about this.”

I hung my head, “yes, mother.”

That night as I was trying to fall asleep, I was trying to come up with a way to convince mother and father to let me at least try to follow my dream. I would be miserable working at that stupid shipyard, and I was starting to doubt that I wanted to be like my brother and have a wife and children at all.

That Saturday I finished my chores and headed down to the theater to try and take my mind off of my problems. I was pleased to see a Buster Keaton comedy on the marquee, “The Cameraman”. I paid my quarter and found a seat, a few minutes later another boy about my age sat next to me. He was handsome, with sandy blonde hair and pale blue eyes. He flashed a nice smile as he sat down and said hello.

I said, “hello, I’m a big fan of Buster Keaton, how about you?”

His grin widened, “yes, me too. I have heard this is another good picture.”

I smiled back, “that’s good, I need a good laugh.”

Before we could continue our conversation, the lights went down, and the picture started to play. Moments later we were laughing and enjoying the film. As usual Mr. Keaton’s physical comedy and dead pan delivery were spot on, I was convinced the man never made a bad movie. The guy sitting next to me was also enjoying the show and would occasionally brush against me or nudge my shoulder while he laughed. We were both surprised when a scene came up with Buster swimming, he dove under the water and his bare butt flashed across the screen. He continued to swim around, the water was obscuring things so that we couldn’t see everything, but clear enough that we could see he was completely naked. I can’t explain the feeling that came over me, but I was hoping to see much more of the actor on the screen. As the scene changed, I glanced over to my neighbor, he glanced back at me, both of us wondering if we really just saw a naked man on the screen. We watched the rest of the movie in silence, I kept thinking back to that scene. I found myself having to adjust the erection that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Why was I being affected this way? I couldn’t help but notice that my new friend was doing the same thing. When the movie was over and the lights came up, I adjusted myself once more and held my hands in front of me as I walked out of the theater.

My neighbor followed me out the door, he asked, “how did you enjoy the movie?”

I smiled, “I liked it very much, and you?”

He nodded “yes, I liked it as well.”

We continued to walk down the street in silence, we were now near the park. We turned to walk down the path that I always used to walk home.

He cleared his throat, “what did you think of the swimming scene?”

I paused, “yes, that was unexpected, I didn’t know they would show such a thing.”

He nodded, “yes, that’s the first time I’ve seen something like that too.”

We walked a little further, he grabbed my arm, “hey, would you like to see this great place that I found a while back?”

I shrugged, “sure.”

He led me through an opening in the bushes next to the path, a few steps later we were standing in a clearing. I looked around once we stopped walking, there was a log laying across the center of the clearing. There was some trash scattered about, it appeared that people came here to have little parties.

He turned to me, “what do you think, it’s a nice place, isn’t it?”

I nodded, “I suppose so, what do you do here?”

He walked closer to me, his beautiful green eyes staring directly into mine, he reached down and grabbed my crotch as he said, “this.”

I froze, unsure of what to do or what to think. He slowly lowered himself to his knees and unbuttoned my trousers, my hard cock sprang out as soon as he lowered them. Without saying a word, he took me into his mouth and started to suck me to my balls. My mind was spinning, what was he doing? Why was I not stopping him? In my short fifteen years, I had never felt such pleasure and such confusion. I just stood there while this boy kept his warm, wet mouth fully surrounding the most private part of my body. Was this normal? Should I be liking this so much? I looked down at him, my trousers piled around my ankles, he had pushed his down to his knees and was stroking himself. His strokes were matching the motion of his mouth on my cock. I had never seen another cock, well except for my younger brothers as my mother bathed them. His was of course, much bigger and to my surprise, very nice to look at. My mind was still racing, trying to process what was happening. I started to get this tingling feeling, what was happening? The pressure continued to build, then my cock started to spasm, and I saw a creamy white liquid escape the corners of his lips as my body finally quit jerking. He kept his lips tight on my cock and I watched his cock start to convulse and shoot the same white liquid from his engorged cock. A large puddle formed on the ground below him as he let my cock fall from his mouth. He smiled as he stood up to face me.

He asked, “did you enjoy that?”

Still in shock, I just nodded, “yes.”

His grin widened as he started to pull his trousers up, I pulled mine up as well.

I asked, “how did you learn to do that?”

He said, “I have an older friend who brought me here a while ago and did it to me. The next time he let me do it to him.”

I fastened the last button on my pants, “I have never done anything like this before, will we get in trouble?”

He chuckled, “not as long as we don’t tell anyone about it.”

He began to walk to the opening of the bushes, he turned back to me, “I’m Henry, I hope to see you at another movie sometime.”

I followed him out, “I’m Ivan, yes, I would like that too.”

He turned in the opposite direction and walked away, I watched him leave and turned to finish my walk home.

I was overcome with feelings of guilt as I walked, I was sure mother, and father would be able to tell what I had done. Once I arrived back home, my sister was starting to prepare dinner, mother and father were not yet home. I helped her set the table and get the rest of our siblings ready to eat. My gut turned as mother and father came home. To my relief, it was just a normal evening of them talking about their day at work. I’m not sure what I was expecting, just because I felt different, didn’t mean I looked different. This did nothing to ease my guilt, I was still trying to process what had happened, did this make me one of those queers that father was always talking about?

Father was still talking about me getting a job at the shipyard next year when I turned 16. I just sat silently as I pondered my fate, trying to think of anything but giving in to my father’s plan for me. Unbeknownst to me, I was about to get some help in the form of a catastrophic event the happened in the fall of 1929.

October 29th sent a lot of rich people into a panic. I asked father what it meant when I heard that the stock market had crashed. He simply told me that it meant a lot of rich people were no longer rich. Over the next few months, it also started to affect the rest of the economy. Many working people, just like my father, were finding themselves out of work. While my father and my brother were still working, father said he was worried that there would be no job for me next year. While I was secretly pleased with this news, I was also concerned about how it would affect my family going forward.

 

To be continued…