Top Gun by Drew Gummerson
from Betrayal: a PUNK NOIR Magazine series
We played at being pilots.
Sometimes we’d borrow Johnny’s older brother’s sunglasses. He had about a dozen pairs.And one pair of lucky shorts. Johnny said he was always jerking off in them. To the dirty mags he kept under his bed.
Then Johnny’s brother went off to war proper. Two weeks later he was dead. First time in a jet. An F-14 Tomcat too. How was his luck?
While they were all out at the funeral P and I broke into the house. There were the sunglasses. In that rack he displayed them in. Except for one pair. Guess he’d had those on when that jet malfunctioned. Sad as shit.
But still, shame to waste them.
What do you think? I said. I’d put on the Ray-Ban Aviator’s. Who’s Top Gun now?
And turning around, fuck, there was P, completely naked, pulling on a pair of stained shorts, his little pecker as stiff as a tent peg.
That was twenty years ago now. I was best man at P’s wedding. Godfather to his two kids. Boys both of them. But still I can’t forget. The sunglasses, fair game. The dead man’s lucky shorts. Shit. That was too far.
This story appears as part of Betrayal, a PUNK NOIR Magazine series, originally published May 2024.
Bio
Drew Gummerson is a Lambda Award Finalist. He is the writer of The Lodger, Me and Mickie James, Seven Nights at the Flamingo Hotel. His latest book, Saltburn, will be published in Spring 2025. Find him @drewgum
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Oh, I remember this one. Great story.