The Decade of Blind Dates

The Decade of Blind Dates

The Decade of Blind Dates

A Novel

Richard Alther

Lethe Press Maple Shade NJ

Copyright © 2008, 2009 by Richard Alther. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief citation or review, without the written permission of Lethe Press. Cover Design by Bill Drew Published by Lethe Press, 118 Heritage Avenue, Maple Shade, NJ 08052. www.lethepressbooks.com [email protected] This book was first published 2008 by iUniverse. Rereleased by Lethe Press, 2009 This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. ISBN 1-59021-047-6 / 978-1-59021-047-5

For Ray Repp

Do not allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection. Keep your solitude. The day, if it ever comes, when you are given true affection there will be no opposition between interior solitude and friendship, quite the reverse. —Simone Weil

Conversation is the sex act of the soul. —Thomas Moore

YEAR ONE

Chapter 1

“ S t r ai gh t ” L ace d

I was about to ring the doorbell of my very first blind date. I was sweating, not because I was worried about the man who would answer, but because I wondered what this guy would think of me. Okay, so I’d say I’m tall, lean, a serious swimmer, and have hazel eyes, if I were placing an ad describing myself. But forty-five? I took a deep breath and heard my teenage daughter, Julie, whose idea it had been to embark upon this tomfoolery, laugh and say, “Go for it, Dad!” As I stood there shoring myself up, I reviewed that this was Bath, Maine, the backwater twin to my own Buck Hill, New Hampshire. We must have loads in common as isolated gay men. Of course, I fretted, this is lunacy after just one phone call, and greater folly considering we’ve only had one exchange of greetings, his on notepaper decorated with soft, pastel, watercolor pansies. This was a decade before the Internet; options were limited. So this man Henry has a lilting, musical voice, I considered, still composing myself on his doorstep. He didn’t seem nelly so much as downright happy. This was enormously appealing after the litany of sanctimonious ads. True, cooking for his mother next door almost killed it, but who was I to judge? I was saddled with son, daughter, ex-wife, her likely next husband and his kids, plus how many others to cushion my base fear of foraging in the wild. When Henry opened the door, he was wearing an apron with frills. “I cook nonstop,” said Henry, flouncing into his tiny apartment, where each surface was covered with doilies like in my grandmother Bauman’s parlor. “I make these for our parish bake sales; everybody does cookies and cakes.” He wrinkled up his nose. “My lace ovals are really popular. Sit down, Peter. Oh my. Love that shirt.”

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“My shirt?” It was my favorite Hawaiian, light olive with washed-out pineapples—my go-anywhere security blanket. “It looks so soft.” Henry grinned, which compressed his third and fourth chins. “Obviously,” he flicked a pudgy wrist, “I’m into fabrics. I’ve got to show you the covers for toilet paper I crochet. They’re antebellum dolls, and their crinolines conceal two whole rolls.” He winked. “What a great creative outlet, toilet paper …” “Cozies.” I was stricken with sadness for this eunuch trapped in the bleak, cramped apartment with his ailing mother next door in the same building. Henry’s ad in the personals had been a cry for help—screaming to the lifeboat, flailing his overweight arms. I attempted to leave after three cups of overly floral herbal tea that had been brewed in a pot covered by a cozy crocheted with a bumblebee motif. “I made my special chicken potpie,” said Henry. “There’ll be plenty left for Mother.” An hour later: “Henry, this was a nice introduction. It’s a long drive …” Though I hated myself for it, I held firm as I watched the myriad moguls of soft flesh on Henry’s face melt abruptly into a swamp of utter despair.

*

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Weeks later, I was back at it. This time, however, I read ads in publications with circulations larger than The Gay Maine Monthly: Ivy-educated physician, country living, gardening, quiet times at home, fireplace, occasional dinners out. 6′1″, 50s, salt and pepper, seeks male companion. Photo appreciated. NYR Box 7705. For The New York Review of Books, this was singularly straightforward. No arcane PhD; no exacting age or anatomical requirements; no “no fats, fems, drugs.” And the ad was stripped of pirouettes like, “at home with Poulenc or Jefferson Airplane.” I grabbed a pen. Dear Ivy, Thanks for your notice in the New York Review. It’s not commonplace to encounter an ad simply extending a hand of friendship … I crumpled the sheet. Fred, my mutt, sighed and curled up tighter at my feet, knowing a scramble outdoors was an endless stretch away.

Richard Alther

5

Dear Doc, Greetings from Buck Hill, New Hampshire! If you’re sequestered in the sticks, maybe you too are hard-pressed for like-minded men. I imagine being a doctor leaves limited room for cutting loose. This is not an essay exam, I thought. I took a deep breath and squinted in irritation at the vaguely formed face on my canvas. Try again. Dear Seeker, I enjoyed the low-key tone of your ad and its hint of an easy connection at “our” age. You seem like a balanced character—Ivy-smarts doctor with hands in the soil. And a reader! How many of us are left? I’m sure you, like me (I’m 45), have been around the block. Save the psychoanalysis. The guy kept it simple; follow suit. I stared hard at the portrait of my friend Allison that I’d just begun. It was sketchy, of course, but perfect as is. Will it be this good, I thought, after the million brushstrokes to come? Dear NYR Box 7705, I’m responding to your pleasant ad. My name is Peter. I’m a divorced dad with two good kids and a friendly ex. I’m voluntarily stuck in the woods as a painter and coming out at last. Willing to travel in the Northeast for a great chat and a warm hug. Stats: 45, 6′3″, 175, brown hair, hazel eyes. You have a fireplace, I have a wood stove—we’re both willing to unwind. It’s a postcard, not an autobiography. By the way, I also went to an Ivy—Cornell. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if we were fraternity brothers? I could picture my gay buddy Barry grimacing and telling me, “At least end it with something sincere.” Hope this finds you buried under an avalanche of hot prospects.

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Just admit you’re horny and trust some of the other pieces might fall into place, said my inner Barry. Enclosed is a snapshot with my faithful Fred, who looks more like a bear than a dog and certainly acts like one—the way he’s eyeing me right now says this letter is cutting short his snuggling time. Cheers, Peter Surname? Why not. Phone? Sure. Barry said first-time sex didn’t have to be great; the meeting of minds was another matter. I stretched and yawned, which sent Fred into paroxysms of anticipation. We passed the nascent Allison in bare umber tones on my easel. She could wait. Finally nestled with Fred in bed, I leafed through a magazine I’d picked up at a Boston bar that I’d wedged under the novel on my nightstand. The personals outdid The New York Review as entertainment: Dentured! GrP, FrA (Greek Passive, French Active) Italian Stallion looking to pony up Totally uninhibited sex anarchist: call Mr. Drench Seeking angelic soulmate for heaven knows what Straight acting and masculine: I’ve finally managed to suppress my feminine tendencies

*

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Walter Eagleston, the country doctor–gardener–fireplace owner, responded a few weeks later. As I drove through the tame rolling spreads of central Connecticut to meet him, I recalled him saying, “You sound too good to be true.” What did I say in that first note, that really herniated haiku of an introduction? Mostly omissions, I mused. My bony frame settled into the journey’s second hour. This being years before online immediacy, the aim was to sell the sizzle, not the steak. Walter’s “50s” morphed into sixty-two during our initial phone call. “Oh, I wrote that ages ago,” he demurred. I bristled at the news. It was a stumble backward in our thrust and parry. Practically two decades older! Yet isn’t this what I wanted: a seasoned man of the world? At forty-five, I was no prime rib on the gay meat rack. For several miles, as split rail fences flashed by, I attempted to squash my expectations of two middle-aged men meeting after a lifetime of Advocate sex ads featuring the young and unblemished. Although I had to admit, my heart leapt, damn it, at Dr. Walter Eagleston’s sonorous voice during each of our calls.

Richard Alther

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He was clearly at peace with himself, a professional at calming people’s fears and bemused at the prenatal twins of hope and heartache for which he was a willing, even eager, midwife. “I detect the slightest drawl,” I said, unable to not flirt. “But I always prejudge as ‘Southern’ anyone who’s polite.” “Well, my mother was from Roanoke …” “Aha.” I felt a twinge in my crotch when I pictured the healer’s sensitive hands. I drove past clusters of tidy colonial homes, neatly blanketed by green velvet lawns. My Buck Hill was graced with stacks of firewood, rusting rototillers, and pastel-painted wheelbarrows overflowing with mismatched petunias. Here, tool sheds mimicked the mansions’ clapboards and Williamsburg roofs. Raised on an island of privilege, albeit a modest Jersey suburb, I wondered if I could ever return. If not, am I still identifying myself by a need to escape? Mother alone … A man for all seasons could savor whatever the present fare may be. Right now I was envisioning the good doctor’s income, sensibly stashed away, multiplying a millionfold, waiting for the golden years with a mate and Easter in Aruba. Walter had mentioned coming from a very conservative background, but hopefully he was a moderate Republican, not the Robert Noonan variety: a maniac Congressman who would have gays tattooed and quarantined if HIV positive. Think of your boyhood Vermont Republican—the eloquent George Aiken; or Maine—the gracious Margaret Chase Smith. It came as no surprise that Walter went to Princeton. I can take a little effete, I thought, if it comes with such languorous charm. “Merriweather Lane,” read the street sign. Good God, just another mile. Had there been only three phone conversations? Walter startled and delighted me with the abrupt invitation to visit his Connecticut home. I had to shit or get off the pot, like the drill sergeant had barked in my army days. Walter, pedigreed or not, had rolled up his sleeves and taken the initiative. I accepted on the spot.

*

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*

How could it fare any worse than my last blind date with Dr. Leo, the Harvard don whose classic text on Dante had been translated into twentyseven languages and whose contemporary coffee table, “an absolute marvel of minimalism,” had been handmade sixty years ago by the celebrated Milanese cabinetmaker Silvestro So-and-so? Leo was a first-generation Calabrian American who discovered, midway through college, that he was the lone heir to a palazzo and fortune on the coast

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of Tropea. He self-published a tome that took off even prior to his earning a doctorate. “My vita is fifty-six pages,” he pronounced during our first chat by phone. That should have warned me right there, but I proceeded blindly with plans to meet him, being a newcomer to such assignations. Leo exclaimed, “Wait’ll you see my place on the Cape. Gorgeous beyond words, Pete.” I liked that, the inclusion of my name. It didn’t come up often in the parlance of trysting, I was learning. “My architect Dominick doesn’t touch a place under two million. First, though, we’ll stay at my townhouse in Cambridge. My monk’s cell. I do work for a living!” “You’re an accomplished man,” I said. And I believed it. In fact, I felt a wave of inferiority similar to the pangs I bore at Cornell when it was dubbed “a cow college” by a Harvard friend. I’d get to prostrate myself at Mecca after all. “I’ve bought a second bike for dates on the Cape, Pete. Set me back two grand.” He ticked off the lesser bicycle brands to my deaf ear, my own last version having been a ’50s Schwinn. Even before I confronted the bald, toothy professor in the flesh, I knew this was a way station, a kick in the butt to propel myself to a larger playing field. “There has to be someone out there, Dad,” urged my nineteen-year-old Julie, in college and in command of her social life, if not her grades. “Talented, fun. You’re pretty old—you’re forty-something?—but you’re in fairly decent shape.” Leo’s penis resembled a fat toadstool—half head; that made it easier. But the coup de grace was the set of boxy chairs matching the Milanese coffee table: strap-in leather crucibles for measuring pain in a Harvard lab.

*

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I arrived on a dirt road, as directed, and decelerated. Good God, I’m excited. Well, I thought; this is exciting. It’s an adventure. Who in their right mind after receiving just the one letter and the one photo of Walter, albeit silver-haired and handsome … He sported a wry smile in the picture and sat at a piano with a background of bookshelves in a loose-fitting, nonrevealing, civilized shirt—not like the snug T-shirt my best friend Barry selected for my photo op that shouted wood splitter’s arms and swimmer’s pecs. “If you’ve got it …” Barry scolded me, his reluctant pupil. “I admit it’s a great mug shot of Fred,” I said to Barry. “Who could resist?” The color of the clapboards on Walter’s house—mustard—was the first thing to register. It wasn’t the muted colonial hue but French’s on hotdogs. So

Richard Alther

9

he’s a physician, not Monet, I argued. I could see as I pulled closer that the paint was badly chipped. This redeemed the man. His mind was on more essential things. Walter bounded out before I had brought my aged, dented Saab to a halt. The man smiled broadly. He was dressed in a cobalt blue jogging outfit that shone like glare ice in the midday sun. “Well, you made it!” he beamed, vigorously shaking my hand as we exchanged pleasantries. Forget the dandruff, I told myself. The flakes sparkled like fresh snow on his blue satin shoulders. He’s a doctor; he nurtures others. And so the “salt and pepper” is actually albino white. At least he’s got hair. “My, you’re a big, strapping guy,” leered Walter as he guided me inside. “Only 175 pounds? I’m that and a half foot shorter!” I blushed and realized I’d never learned Walter’s weight. He looked normal in the loose leisure suit, but as Barry had warned in assessing eye candy, clothes mask the man. “Watch your head, Peter. These quaint colonials and their beams!” He laughed, which exposed his pee-yellow nicotine teeth. Nonsmoker. Another forgotten item on the shopping list for love. “Let me show you around.” He was barefoot, and his nails needed clipping. His neck chain and diamond ring, like the clapboards, were a harsh yellow gold, the ersatz gold of boardwalk shops. We ducked into the living room. I beheld a shining sea of trinkets—ceramics, crudely carved wood, metals tinny to bronze, some created of broken mirror, others delicate as a Fabergé egg. “They’re all elephants!” I exclaimed. “Guess you could say I’m a card-carrying Republican,” he said. He picked up a pink rubber version and did a piglike jig. “It’s a hobby? From traveling?” Walter elevated his cotton-puff eyebrows and pointed out “Grand Old Party” written on the little pachyderm’s rump. “I’ve been a National Committee member from this county since I was twenty-nine.” He clicked his teeth. “Good for you! Like a member of the Log Cabin Republicans, infiltrating from within?” He scowled. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those in-your-face Up Starts?” “ACT UP,” I corrected. “No, I’m just a hayseed now who happens to be gay.” He grinned and dropped the lids of his glassy blue eyes. “That’s more like it.” “What an amazing collection.” The elephants were jammed onto every conceivable tabletop and shelf. I continued to stare and then asked for the bathroom.

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The john stunk. It was de rigueur to ask about smoking. Damn Barry for not reminding me. Atop the toilet tank was a black-and-white photo in a cartoon gray plastic frame fashioned, yes, as an elephant. By god if the photo wasn’t of President Ike shaking hands with the most cover boy beautiful Walter in his early twenties with thick, black parted hair and a killer Ipana smile. I peed, relieved that at least this man had a life and convictions, unlike the poor bloke in Maine. I was shaking out the last drops of pee and about to flush when the door cracked open. “Need any help? Just kidding,” said Walter, his eyes darting south. “Peter, what can I get you to drink?” I downed a watery tumbler of bourbon as if it was Kool-Aid. I was unable to dispel the image of the flagpole, with its grossly outsized stars and stripes towering over the saltbox. The flag was graceless, almost embarrassing, and the first thing I’d relay to Barry at the postmortem. “Did you ever want children?” I asked idly to keep things nonerotic. I was feeling the liquor. “Always. My dad, his father, wonderful men, doctors both. But I knew I was different. Went to proms but never laid a hand on a girl’s privates. The idea repelled me.” Walter fondled a rhinestone-covered figurine elephant astride his vodka on the rocks. Was it a panicky end-of-the-line mentality or a far deeper vein of bereavement that motivated the male? This is it for the Eaglestons. “What about your children, Peter?” Walter riveted his eyes upon mine with the suction of a woman’s, whether needy or commandeering: tell me everything, darling; I exist only as your all-enveloping ear. I sketched Julie and Derek. “My,” sighed Walter after receiving the first volley about my sterling kids. “There must be all sorts of endearing qualities in a man who has parented. And useful, too, in challenging our Neanderthal egos.” I softened toward this man. Distracted, I upended my drink, and ice cubes crashed into my teeth, all a-clatter. “Oops.” Walter leapt up and reentered with a refill. I asked about the photo of young rake Eagleston and Eisenhower. “I was a White House intern. The old boy network!” He resettled on the sofa of threadbare crewelwork. “So, do your children support you in all this?” Out of the blue he placed a hand on my thigh and gave it a gentle squeeze. I mumbled a reply. Walter was dutifully nodding until he announced he’d better shower and get presentable. Off he went in his blue satin loungewear with its powdered-sugar shoulders.

Richard Alther

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My spirits plummeted. Would he emerge in a towel? Fake a fall in the shower and yell for help? I sipped more booze—no water this time—with my legs splayed and feet planted on the pockmarked Sultanabad. Give the guy a break. You’re each sticking your necks out, said my daughter, or my sidekick Barry, or my old college pal Allison, she, like me, being open to trials with a cornucopia of men. Give the guy a hand job and get the hell out of here. Under copies of Fortune, The National Review, and Proctology Today, I glimpsed a cover exposing skin. Ram’s Head sported a young stud, his hairless, muscled chest like the Himalayas, shaved to perfection, the nipples pointing out and down, ready for tug-of-war. The magazine was mostly ads for big-city bars and baths, private escorts and masseurs, 24-7 telephone sex, masquerade balls in Sydney, in New Orleans, and last, to pay the piper, in the least conspicuous possible print, the ubiquitous personals. Looking to fulfill my dream of being ganged by a group of horny young dicks to age 21. I’m 31, white bottom, shaved balls. Them, too. Black coffee needs a little cream: 36, 6′, 170, seeks white bull top for uninhibited fun, lunch hours only. Under 9 inches need not apply. Climb aboard this masculine 6′, 200 lb. hunk and see how deep you can go. The bigger the rod, the better the ride. So where are the yangs for these yins? I remembered Norman Mailer writing that penetration defined homosexuality. Is this the common perception? Am I, so far, gun-shy of man-to-man lovemaking? If you were the top, claimed Mediterranean men who took boys as well as mistresses and wives, this meant you weren’t queer; you had not compromised your core, so to speak. I flipped a page to the ads from older men. GWM, 48, 6′2″, 180, sincere, romantic, seeks straight-acting men 30 to 47 for dating and If you’re forty-nine? Sayonara.

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Wall St. exec and dad, 43, dark and considered handsome, fit, successful, secure … My pulse quickened. … seeks new life with hairless modest Asian not in scene, uncut, to age 20 Another rag was simply porn. Fantasy Freshmen offered three boy-men on its cover with shaggy crew cuts and unrehearsed smiles who were all totally cute. They were muscular—“defined,” Barry would correct—but not overly so. Each had an erection near the length of their forearms and bursting balloonlike in girth. One guy in the raw gently embraced a very rough tree trunk: his penis was a splendid raspberry pink culminating in a head even more crimson. The surface was absolutely smooth and glistening, like pastel icing on petit fours. No popping veins on these boys, their flesh poised before a lifetime of pummeling and pleasure. I sighed. Damn right, they should be photographed. “You’ve discovered my library,” said Walter returning in the silky, blue suit. “I can see from that bulge that our foreplay is already underway.” He sat and enfolded me. Walter’s breath was sweet, and his skin had the scent of fine pear soap. He slid—didn’t thrust—his tongue into my mouth and slipped a confident hand under my button-down and over my T-shirt, circling slowly. He kissed my neck tenderly, all bedside manners. My tension drained. The man was a lioness licking her cub, vigilant but serene in her command of the moment. Walter removed our clothes; I remained prone. He commenced massaging me in all the right places. I was afloat, cast out to sea, too far gone to reciprocate. Abandoned, too, was any residue of guilt. Involuntarily, my hand gripped the back of Walter’s head. My fingers were pricked by wiry, coarse hair. My one eye popped open, then both. I glimpsed sagging flesh above: downward-pointing pectorals cone-shaped from defeat in the gravity wars; the spongy undersides of upper arms quivered with exertion. Walter slurped superlatives. “You’ve got the body of an eighteen-year-old.” Fantasy Freshmen flashed on my mental monitor and pushed me over the brink. “You’re a beautiful man,” he crooned. “Just a late bloomer,” I said, back on dry land. Walter was engorged. I collected myself and plunged in; fortunately his fresh soapy fragrance lingered. I ran a large and callused hand over my partner’s jellied flesh, fretting that my strokes were far too clumsy.

Richard Alther

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There was an instant of my apprehending us as one enmeshed in the heat and the wet of it. Walter’s body is as mine will be in twenty years, but does the essence wilt? I took deeper, slower breaths. By the time Walter came, I forgot where I was or who he was. We flopped into a heap. “I’ve made dinner reservations at Winding Brook Inn. Very romantic,” Walter leered.

*

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An hour later, we were ensconced in calico curtains, paisley carpet, checkered tablecloth, and a candlelit booth. The stone hearth flickered as the staff hovered over Walter and his guest as if we were royals visiting the outback. Walter insisted that I was perfectly attired in cords, a flannel shirt, and brown Oxfords. He himself had donned a navy blazer over a blue button-down shirt, pressed gray slacks, and tasseled loafers. A tiny American flag asserted itself from his lapel. “Well, yes, I did have a relationship, of sorts. With Roy, a seventeen-year-old from Arizona. He answered one of my first ads. For a house boy, to be frank.” I sipped my wine and sobered to this statement. “Of course I wanted him to ‘service’ me, but I really did and do need tons of help at my ramshackle place.” I nodded. “You took him in?” I hoped I veiled my repulsion. “He had the vilest marks on his arms and legs—his father had stubbed out cigarettes on him. I’m sure folks here thought I was a pervert in the Man-Boy Love Association.” “How long did you keep—was Roy here?” I corrected myself midsentence. “Almost four years. There was only sex at first. I paid his way through nursing school. He fell in love with a young man. He prefers not to see me anymore. It’s the way it should be, of course. But, oh dear Peter, he was like a son.” His voice trailed off. I reached across and clasped Walter’s cool hand. “Well, you have your boy!” said Walter, his eyes watering. “Maybe someday he’d consider a partner of yours a stepfather.” I flinched. “Sorry, that was presumptuous of me,” Walter said. Courses came and went. One moment I thought, I’m so fortunate for my thick circle of loved ones. Walter is so miserably alone. The next moment, I watched Walter slather butter on a pasty white roll between forking viscous slabs of meat into his mouth, the whole of it layered instantly under the swell of his belt. I had inhaled my broiled whitefish Florentine.

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“I hate the way the gay world is portrayed—all drag queens and hustler ads,” Walter said, red rising above his collar. “It’s our own fault, swarming like bees in a hive of sameness. Queer Nation. Please.” “I know,” I said. “But where would the women’s movement be without the first loudmouths who said, ‘Now, not next-year-maybe’?” “Poppycock, Peter. Nothing happens without due process, step by step. I abhor the gay ghetto, the ‘pride’ parades. Look, I’m a professional, in a community. We’re all sexual; you and I happen to be in the minority of preferences. But that doesn’t mean we shove it in people’s faces. Surely my patients assume I’m homosexual. And they don’t care, so long as I’m not spelling out who puts what where. Why should an eighty-year-old widow in Plainsville, Ohio, who has voted Mike Anderson into Congress, who also happens to be gay—they’ve ‘outed’ him, the irrepressible, egotistical gays—cast her next vote based upon the fact that he’s been forced to admit it?” “He’s a Republican,” I offered. “And hasn’t he been voting against gay rights bills and AIDS funding? I mean—” “He’s been blackmailed! If he didn’t come out, he’d be seen as dishonest about himself in general, not just his private life. Now that he’s been forced to acknowledge that he lives with a man, mainstream voters concerned about their wallets and health plans and children have to cloud it unnecessarily with this other, totally irrelevant information.” Veins popped on Walter’s neck. Bloody steak juice congealed on his plate. “You’re saying we gays should stay in the closet?” I slumped. “I’m saying the closet is a sophomoric oversimplification of the issues. These gay screamers are self-sabotaging. Because of AIDS, there’s all the more reason to act responsibly. ‘Safe-sex bathhouses’—quackery! Look, you bet I’m still a Republican like my forebears for the good of this country—the whole of it. Anderson said that if gay rights came to the table of his constituency, he’d address it. But not before and only according to his personal agenda. No wonder we’re vilified. But we aren’t ‘the other.’ We should work as colleagues of all stripes. So call me straight, if I must have a label. I’m sick and tired of these hysterical pansies—” “Walter, easy. Others can hear.” “Look at you, Peter. A regular guy. Do you call attention to yourself? You’re not hiding your sexuality from your family and friends. Swell. But on the street?” “You’ve made your point, but Stonewall—”

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“Tony, the check!” Walter signaled for the bill with imperial dash. “So! We have plenty to talk about, Peter, in the morning. The next time. Times.” He grinned broadly. I was taut as a spring, though I attempted to appear nonchalant during this tirade. Walter flipped open his billfold. “I was saying, my boy, that you’re not wearing a pink triangle emblazoned on a baseball cap. Does that mean you’re not gay? It’s nobody’s damn business.” His voice again shifted into a barely strangled roar. “We’re not in a closet, we’re in a house. No, we’re in a neighborhood. The whole bloody thing.” “That’s good, Walter. Very good.” I wiggled out from the booth, wobbly on my feet, and fought to reconcile my riot of mixed feelings about this man.

*

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We sat on the edge of Walter’s bed, naked, side by side. “I wasn’t totally forthcoming with you, Peter,” said Walter, drained of his earlier bravura. “Yes, my father and grandfather lived here as selfless physicians. And yes, I did idolize them in every way. And yes, I deeply, deeply wish I could have been a father, if not to one of my own, then to Roy. To …” He paused to more carefully select his words. “To cancel, no, that’s negative; to construct my chance at redemption.” He swallowed, stared at the floor, and then righted his gaze to the wall. “My father, who was very soft-spoken, restrained—repressed to be honest— died prematurely of a stroke. His last words, to my mother, were that he couldn’t stand it, my apparent lifestyle. And of course she had to tell me.” “I’m sorry, Walter. That was so terrible for you. Is still, I’m sure.” Walter picked up my hand, jostled it between us, then let our hands collapse. We looked straight ahead at the wall of bookshelves, dull brown in the dim light, punctuated here and there by the fractured twinkle of a saddle of sequins atop yet another triumphant toy elephant. “Tell me, Peter. Do I have a chance?” From the corner of my eye, I could see Walter’s collapsed gray frame, his eyebrows and sideburns a thicket of unkempt white coils. “Well, this has been—it’s only our …” We left a pause. “Thanks for your honesty, friend, in so many words. I’ve had a hell of a time. Who knows what lies ahead, even for an old sexagenarian sod? Emphasis on the sex!” He elbowed me gently in the ribs.

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“So tell me everything,” Barry said in a rush on the phone the next day. “The bottom line is—” “I want you to start at the top, please. I have a full ten minutes before a parent conference.” I could hear the usual chorus of screams from the Wailing Wall, as Barry called the Head Start facility he directed. “He’s a good man, a solid character—” “All right, go back to the bottom. Did you do it?” I sighed. “Yes. It was … uneventful.” “Describe his body. In detail.” “Barry, look, I wasn’t turned on by him physically enough to see him again.” “Dick size, flab or firm, BO …?” We both cracked up. I well knew Barry was semirepelled by the specifics and only asked because I was so oriented. “He was a Republican in capital letters,” I said. “Not neo-Nazi, but the oldfashioned, Main Street kind. I found that appealing, in a way.” “Yuck. Was he handsome? Could he talk?” “Yes and yes. But we were on different wavelengths.” “My dear Peter. You should have met him halfway, maybe at a nice restaurant.” “Next time, I promise. Oh, Barry, he was so wounded but proud. His father had a lethal stroke and blamed it on Walter’s being gay. According to his mother, anyway; maybe it was her fabrication. Whatever, imagine living with that.” “Monstrous. But no reason for you to adopt such a legacy of grief. Go for the laughs. That’s key.” “That’s what Allison is always telling me.” “Oh, Allison, God love her. She’s projecting—she’s so darn intense. I’ve never known someone who so needs a vacation from herself. And her mad scientists.” “I’ve started my portrait of her.” “If I settle on a haircut, maybe you’ll do me someday.” Barry pouted, then he switched to being mock-serious. “Keep answering ads. Think of yourself as a radical social pioneer: the first adult gay male to appraise the brain before the balls.” “Listen, Einstein. What about your love life? It’s two whole years after Len.” “Happy to live vicariously through you,” said Barry. “I’ll admit we could up the octane level.”

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“Dear heart, why don’t you answer an ad?” I shot back. “They’re here. Gotta go. Love you.”

*

*

*

The following week, I stood solider-straight at my easel while my right forearm, wrist, and fingers did their liquid ballet, led by the tip of my brush. My gaze didn’t budge from the cool shadow under Allison’s square, almost mannish jaw as Barry, sprawled in the studio easy chair with his legs plopped onto the ottoman, kept up a bubbling brook of chatter. Fred, in dog heaven at twice his usual complement of human company, curled motionless at my feet. “I know Allison by heart,” I uttered, “but it’s still fun having her sit for me.” “She still seeing that DNA researcher? Another happily married guy using her for jollies?” I paused on an ochre eyelid. “You know it’s more complicated, Barry, and how her father beat her mother. So she keeps men at arm’s length.” Barry glanced away, a sullen cast to his white, usually sparkling face. “I know,” he sighed. “Same old story.” I rested my brush and scrutinized my friend. “Your Len was a tyrant but never violent, right?” “Well, not in the category of Allison’s father biting off her mother’s nipple. Allison hates men with good reason.” “She told me something shocking last session.” I perched on my stool. “Remember that physics professor she had to kick out, the one who kept sending her flowers every day, and finally offered to leave his wife?” “Another old story, at least of Allison’s.” “No, Barry. He moved into an apartment directly opposite hers, and at eye level to her top-floor flat. She wouldn’t open curtains and changed her number; she was totally at wit’s end.” “She should have moved. No, a restraining order. Both.” “They found his body on the roof of her building, directly over her bed. He’d put a bullet in his brain.” “Jesus,” murmured Barry. He slunk lower into the soft chair and pressed shut his steel blue eyes. “It’s like she invites emotional violence to match her parents’.” “And you want me to aim for a joyride. You, if anybody, know the downside. Like a kid playing with matches. What am I doing answering ads?” I was too riled to work on the eyes. That required the detachment of a seamstress. “Hi, Dad. Hey, Barry.” “Derek!” sang Barry, eager to bolt from the glum spell. “What a treat.”

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“I thought you weren’t due till six,” I said. “I skipped lacrosse practice. The English paper is counting for a third of this quarter’s grade.” He stood there, red-faced, the whole of him about to burst from testosterone overload. His dense, brown crew cut, like zealous spring grass, was a replay of my own from light years ago. “And this is junior year of high school?” I asked rhetorically. “De-rek,” swooned Barry. “Haven’t seen you in ages. Just turned seventeen?” “Yeah.” He blushed brighter red and jockeyed from the ball of one foot to the other; it was impossible for him to stand still and necessary to duck this idiotic scrutiny. Barry shook his head. “Promise me, Derek, that you’re being kind to the girls. And the few gay sots in the making. A glance from you, and you’ll break their hearts.” “Barry, the boy is going steady with Caroline. She, too, is a jock with all As. It’s no longer master and slave like in our day.” I shoved brushes into bottles and peeled off my rubber gloves, this item being insisted upon by Derek, who admonished me for contact with my lead-infused paints. “I better get to my room, guys. Dad, what’s for supper?” “Oh, chicken or tuna, steamed veg, brown rice or sweet potatoes …” “Cool. I need a good two hours on the paper. Nice to see you, Barry.” He dashed off, but not before melting us both with his broad, uncontainable smile. “Such white teeth,” I sighed. “Although I wouldn’t want to repeat it.” “He is so beautiful, Peter. And obviously straight.” I pursed my lips. “Where did I go wrong?” “And you say Julie’s hanging on to college by a thread. That’s good. She’s her own person, not her brownnosing parents,” snapped Barry. “Listen, you never told me about that blind date with the architect in P-Town. Allison’s pal.” “Foxy, she’d called him,” I said. “At that I’d agree. What a rake.” “How Victorian. Were you chaste?” “His hand reached inside my thigh the second we got in my car. I’m trying to make small talk, follow his directions to a restaurant in Truro, all the while wriggling so he doesn’t feel my hard-on; I didn’t want to seem as eager as he.” “Tee hee.” Barry hunched his broad shoulders and raised his black eyebrows. I described this cool character—tall, buff, and svelte, with a short-cropped beard and piercing green eyes. “I was sure they were those color contacts, the phony. I’m trying to convince myself of this while my heart’s doing a trampo-

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line act. He was so goddamned good-looking; Allison should have told me! I never would have called him.” Barry gave me his look that said it takes two to see-saw. “All during dinner, whether I’m talking or he’s talking, he’s looking over my shoulder. I swear he’s eyeing this one guy who goes to the men’s room and, sure enough, Isaac excuses himself.” “They did it in the john while you’re sitting there?” “No, it was only a minute; they probably exchanged numbers. But Isaac lives there. I assumed he was bored with shallow.” Barry giggled. “Provincetown, the East Coast sandbox for toddler queers, including you. Seriously, Peter, intellects are a dime a dozen. I thought you wanted a good time.” I glared at him. “Okay, so I did, two nights going. I’m falling head over heels for this bastard, and what happens Sunday afternoon while I’m getting in my car? I invite Isaac to Buck Hill two weekends later—two weeks I thought didn’t seem too desperate—and he says, ‘I’ll call in a few days.’ Of course he never did; I knew he wouldn’t. The worst of it was my writing a thank-you note—a pukey, keep-in-touch, unvarnished plea. Shit. A grown man.” Barry let a pause hang between us and looked out my big studio windows to a field of gray-green blur. “So you had a roll in the hay. Quit yer bellyachin’.”

*

*

*

Barry made peppermint tea while I cleaned my brushes and appraised the portrait. Despite, or maybe because of, the extremes of Allison’s gravitas and fragility, I had not yet succeeded in expressing them. Left eye sharp, right eye vague; left lips upturned, right lips run amuck: the image strove to harmonize itself. Must it? Is the painting about you and your vision, or her? And you regard it a crusade to honor her when it smacks of exploitation, like visual wiretapping. What right have you to pin her down? “Here you go, sweetie,” said Barry as he handed me the warm mug. I settled onto the ottoman, Barry hunkered again in the cushy chair, and the two of us sipped and stared through the huge windows looking out to the yard—a beautiful green carpet violated by piles of firewood for the studio stove; a badly tended border of iris, lilac, and bulbs in the spring, mums in the fall—the hale he-men of flowers in the likes of Buck Hill, New Hampshire. Another section of the crowded room housed an eight-foot harvest table, home to my collection of French watercolor papers, fine English watercolors, and Russian sables for the increasingly rare interludes in my painting regimen that allowed for more

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delicate pursuits. For an hour, two at most lest the watercolor become overwrought, the hushed studio would become a private chapel in which I worshipped the pale underbellies of an apricot rose or a faded peony that forced me to imagine its prior, ethereal pinks. My eyes drifted to the potted, wildly rude bougainvillea with screaming sprays of fuchsia amidst the undistinguished earth tones of tables crammed with jars of upright brushes, tubes of partially used pigment, gallons of linseed oil, and lacquers. Finished canvases on a scale to six feet were stacked against the one free wall. My crudely built skylight under which the bougainvillea preened shot rivulets of light in all directions. Barry clearly savored this hiatus from Head Start havoc, until he interrupted our individual reveries. “You had it so good with Becky. No wonder you can be holed up here, for the time being.” “God, I miss her. I’d like to paint her portrait, but she’d never have time to sit. Of course, I wouldn’t need her to.” “How’s she doing, with Julie off to college and your having Derek full-time?” “I told you about Martin, the widower with three grown kids? They’ve been dating for months. A math teacher. He’s bald, overweight, and absolutely delightful.” “Wait’ll she hooks him on her no-fat pies. I swear you cannot go in a single market without seeing Becky’s Flaky No-Fat Pie Crusts. If I’m booted from Head Start, she can support us all, not just her ex-husband.” “I don’t know, Barry. Romance is for teens, for Derek and Julie. How can I, or you, couple with somebody our age who’s willing to just drop half their life? Somebody, let’s face it, who’s successful, who has a life that’s interesting enough to enjoy?” “Let me tell you something, buster. Forget all this equal-partner baloney. You had that with your first mate: two driven, albeit loving, workaholics. Go for easy this time. Find a cuddler, somebody playful.” I thought about how for years my ex-wife dedicated herself to fashioning a pie crust without animal or solid vegetable fat while I earned our living in New York City. Her concoction based on olive oil floored everybody well beyond her catering customers. She’d just turned down a cable TV slot, saying, in typical fashion, that it was the know-how, not her, that mattered. Barry closed his eyes, content, as I filled the void with memories of Becky. Aglow with pale, rosy, shimmering locks, she was beautiful without ever fussing before a mirror. To me she was a patient saint. And she was playful, all right. We simply loved each other from the minute we met as undergraduates

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at “Hornell,” wisecracking after an ethics of poetic license class, say, the illustrious gut course everybody wedged in between the likes of history of Western civilization with its thousand pages of reading per lecture. We were comrades in survival, each on a full scholarship that required us to stay in the upper quarter of our class all four years. From small-town high schools—she from Painted Sage in upstate New York, me from Maryville, New Jersey—we were suddenly pitted against Jewish whiz kids from Shaker Heights or the first wave of Asian savants who missed getting into MIT or CalTech by a hair. Barry’s eyes were open and on me. “You know,” I said, “with Becky, after a few decades of sex, we’d learned to please each other just fine. It worked until one day she said softly, ‘Maybe you stay hard but can’t come because you’d rather be with a man.’ “I said, ‘Maybe you’re fibbing a little at being turned on. Maybe you’re trying to help me save face.’ “And she said, ‘You need—we need—to take this a step at a time. No rush, but it’s your move.’ I’d like to think it’s possible, Barry: a love like I had, with one’s fair share of fun in the sack.” Barry rested his mug on his lap, his quicksilver eyes still aimed at me. “After twenty-five years with Len, I can’t hold out that kind of hope. I’m not looking for it like you, Peter, but maybe I’ll be open to it if it comes my way.” “Hey,” I snapped to buoy the moment. “Life can be complete with the love of friends—just friends,” and I clicked my mug to his. Barry returned the salutation with one of his droll, inexplicable smiles.

YEAR TWO

Chapter 2

The Happy Homose xual

The bleak winter, typical for northern New England, was barren socially but productive in terms of painting and responses to my first personal ad. I’d placed it in a regional gay newsletter for the outdoor-minded and had several inquirers: Hi. My name is Dwayne. I am recently divorced and looking to try gay life. Somebody who would be gentle and patient, who can teach me new ways and whatever it takes, I will do it. I am 6′4″ tall 230 lbs 63 years old gray hair. I have a pot belly. I wear exotic mesh underwear assorted styles. Please call. Another form letter, this one signed “Lonnie,” with the i dotted by a large circle: My name is Lonnie and I’d like to be your friend. We could have a picnic in a park where I’ll stir fry something. I’ll take some color pictures and we can plan another outing—to a new and exciting place. I am black, 29 years old, 5’3” tall, 190 pounds, and work as a hotel banquet server. Hi, I liked your ad. About me: I am a 44-year-old gay white man—6′1″, 170 lbs, with graying hair. My left arm and leg are about an inch shorter than my right because of cerebral palsy as the result of a birth injury. To a great extent, I have overcome the shame I felt for so long by working out. My body isn’t yet where I want it, but it’s getting there. See enclosed picture.

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In the photo, he was naked from the navel up, with a broad concave chest and his hands clasped behind him. This created a cascade of vertical wrinkles along his proportionately undersized arms. Fearful of becoming callous, I skimmed at least a paragraph of each reply. I am a gem of a Gemini … It takes so long for these letters to get sent on; one could say he is 45 and be 47, bumped, dumped, and have a baby by the time his answer arrived … I swear those girls steam them open and keep the good ones for themselves! … I design women’s clothes, and you know what? I’m bored to death … was given the most adorable apricot poodle. Her name is Peaches … Where else can you find someone who kisses you, loves you, sleeps with you, and can’t give you AIDS? … Well, Mr. Woodsman, I hope this epic gives you some insight … I can picture your idyllic life in upper New Hampshire … and you, too, with a dog … sounds like we have lots to share … Triathlon competitor, 6′, 165, silver hair, blue eyes, divorcing wife of 29 years and moving to city … three grown kids … known I was gay since I was 12, but getting married is what men did back then … at the heart of my life is my Pentecostal study group … And here in the mail was a card from the blond god in Santa Barbara. My heart thundered and instantly pumped blood to my penis. Greetings, O Prince of the East from the Ambassador of the West! It’s fitting I send you this card because it makes me believe I can see your New England. The card, a reproduction of Clear Cut by Milton Avery, was composed of four bold blocks of green-blues and a few dashes for tree trunks, as elemental and unabashedly life-affirming as any painting. So much to say on this little card! My new friend, you’re with me still. I want to see your paintings and sit beside you, chatting, sipping wine, later enfolding with you. You are strong and kind, such a gift to me from afar. Blaine. I pressed my erection back into place. I nodded at my easel and the wry smile emerging in the portrait of my ex-wife, Becky. Work on this could wait. Ah, but Blaine …

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Blaine had eyed me in the showers of the Harvard locker room after my swim workout. I’d been buying art supplies in Boston and had the use of a friend’s faculty pass for the pool. It was ten or eleven on a Tuesday morning, and the place was empty. The pool had the aura of Rhodes scholar athletes, male flesh in its prime, which induced me to swim harder and faster than ever. Soaping myself afterward in the luxurious, hot streams, I felt my fittest in years. “You are one swift dude in the water,” said the young man, a tall blond vision materializing from vaporous clouds, like an Ingmar Bergman dream scene. With a motion of false modesty, the fellow grasped one of his own shoulders, as if to say, “Aw, shucks.” Meanwhile, his slim hip was cocked at an angle—not about to budge—making the whole of his hairless torso a display case for his perfect and pendulous phallus. He nailed me in place with an artful smile. I blurted, “I’ve been swimming for years,” as I beheld the languid, Greek god half my age. I was near painfully rigid by the time Blaine dropped his hand to his side, leaned forward, and touched his lips to mine, all acrid sweat and citrus soap. Blaine made small talk for us both and led me on quivering legs back to the lockers, then back to his room. He led me through an hour of mutual devotion, with the softest, sweetest tenderness from a man that I’d ever hope to receive. Blaine was a child-king with the palest blond fringe of a moustache; a master decades before his due. His fair, shoulder-length hair and barely blue, sun-bleached eyes cast him instantly as a Californian well before I learned that he was briefly visiting Harvard to do research on Palestrina, the sixteenth-century Italian composer. It must be bred into them, as they’re suckled on the sublime azure coast, to float the body to gradual, mind-bending pleasure rather than the norm of pointless plunging in. I scratched Fred behind an ear. Fred warbled his low groan of gratitude. I sat stupefied, near drunk from this erotic memory. “Dear one,” Blaine had begun his letter upon returning to Santa Barbara. Never have I been so effortlessly tuned into another as you, handsome man. Yes, Peter, even if we never see each other again, you have helped me set a standard for my future relationship(s): Your gift to me was the welcome affirmation of who I am, still groping at 27, what I have to offer as an artist and scholar and potential partner, and what others—the special ones like you I’d always wanted to believe were out there—have to offer me. You say I am so natural in expressing myself physically, but you must understand, dear Peter, that it was you who released this breath of fresh air for me and

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showed me profoundly, with your maturity, insight, poise, laughter, what’s possible in a lover. I could more or less recite the lines of the letter before the one that told of Blaine’s new friend. … who plays the harpsichord and shares my passion for early music, whose beautiful penis reminds me of all that is beautiful about you, a prince among men. I’m sitting here in the sunshine in my little garden, thinking of you, wishing you and I could … Desultory and witless, I picked up another reply to my ad, a card featuring a reproduction of the Christ child by de Verrocchio (1435–1488), the babe bulbous, with tiny genitals. As a painter, you would appreciate that in the Renaissance it was important to argue that Jesus was a real man, his divinity being taken for granted then … paintings of Him naked make that argument.… How times have changed.… my sabbatical starting soon in Genoa … I closed my eyes and sighed in relief that the session with the sex god from Santa Barbara was all sensuous touch that had bypassed the manly acts of penetration. My dear friend Luke, stricken with AIDS in Boston after decades as a “proud bottom,” was getting sicker by the week. The final response for today triggered a ray of hope, or rather Hope, ever lurking below my sea like an encrusted centenarian turtle that refuses to call it quits. The return address was Beacon Hill on an envelope of heavy rag. Dear Country Squire, I gather that, like me, you are a late bloomer at the elusive goal of gay love. I was married and am the father of four grown and married sons. I am now divorced, like you. My ardor is food. I’ve been fortunate to parlay this into my career. Our place, I can say with all due respect, is the finest Chilean restaurant in the Northeast … raised in Chile in a French Jewish family … I’m six feet tall and although not slim I am not overweight … Me, in a gay bar? My skills at that game are those of an amateur. The life of the mind, however … Isn’t it grand to have arrived at this stage of the journey, still with a fresh palate to savor earthly delights?

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It concluded with a demure offer of a possible contact and the signature “Fernando Octavius Tissot.”

*

*

*

“A blind date, Barry, on Valentine’s Day?” “Bullshit. It’s your only iron in the fire these days. February fourteenth is all the better.” “He speaks five languages. Terrifically sexy Spanish accent.” “You’ve seen a photo? And it’s on neutral territory?” Barry asked. “He suggested a Northern Italian place, pricey and intimate. Oh, I don’t know. I forgot to get his age, smoking …” I trailed off. “Great hair, black and combed back like yours at times, and such swagger in the chin.” “Peter, for God’s sake, go. You’d rather join me at Moosehead County gay volleyball followed by dining at Pizza Hut? I mean, his name alone. You were once debonair, in the Dark Ages. You can handle Senor, or Monsieur, Tissot.”

*

*

*

There were armloads of red roses shoved into vases on every possible shelf at Boston’s La Angelina. It was to be a candle-fuck dinner, as Barry called the ambiance of stiletto-stemmed wine glasses, tuxedoed waiters, white linens, and silk walls. The only heart shapes were the discreetly gilded lines embossed on red cocktail napkins, I observed from my perch at the opulent but tiny foyer bar, nervously sipping a club soda and waiting for my date. I tugged the ends of my white dress shirt to expose a fashionable half inch beyond the coat sleeves. Conspicuous in the vast mirror opposite was my tie, ancient and uncouthly narrow. Serves me right for sabotaging my own sensible rule not to turn chameleon at age forty-six. “Peter! Ha ha ha, it must be you!” boomed the swarthy baritone from the large figure sashaying forward in a swirl of shiny black fabric. He gripped my shoulders, shook them, and laughed like we were the oldest and dearest of friends. “Hello, Fernando.” A cape; he’s swathed in a cape, I reacted. He unwound it in a backward pirouette, tip-toeing in patent leather slippers. “What a delightful way to celebrate Saint Valentine’s Day! Giorgio, per favore, pin the boutonnieres!” He waved grandly to the maitre d’, who sat us in the hushed, corner banquette, flowers jabbing my neck and left ear. Giorgio, smiling with sealed lips, pinned a red rose on each of our lapels.

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Fernando sported a royal purple satin dinner jacket and ivory ascot that billowed like cumulus clouds under his triple chin. His jowls spread forth like a puff adder in fright, but in Fernando’s case, it was delight at his supposed good fortune. “Now, Peter, what was that rubbish about lines in your face!” “Fernando, you’re exaggerating because it’s Valentine’s Day.” “Tch. Let’s begin with a split of champagne,” he crooned, interlacing swollen pink fingers that almost concealed his many gold rings. “Great idea,” I replied. I shoved myself back into the fluffy seat cushions as Fernando reached across and squeezed my hand to seal the deal. “Please. Call me Freddie.”

*

*

*

The morning after, Barry said, “Well, I trust you enjoyed every morsel at two hundred a head.” We were shopping for hiking boots. “Here Becky’s getting remarried, and I’m … well, as Allison and Arlene and you, Mr. Underwood, keep urging me, going for playful, having some fun.” “You’re being way too level-headed. Of course it’s whacko, for kids, for any of us at any age. If I were you last night I’d have stood right up and traded that mouse-brown sport coat of yours for Fernando’s spectacular opera cape. What a hoot, his having your names scrolled in icing on the Sacher torte. So the guy wasn’t a stud muffin but he had some flair.” “I’ll admit the wines were fabulous.” “Really, sweetie, when are you gonna loosen up? This is not matching the thrones of the Hapsburgs and the Bourbons. Listen, fuck your hiking boots. I’m hauling your ass to the men’s shop for a classy shirt.” And he yanked me by the elbow and off we went, Barry’s raven black hair streaming in the sun, all chiseled chin and sky blue eyes. Easy for him to have a devil-may-care attitude in the lust-seeking capers of midlife.

*

*

*

GWM, 56, 6′1″, 170, commercial pilot, silver hair, ultramarine eyes, city and country homes, hockey player, jogger, seeking mature GWM, tall, trim, cultured, passionate, clean-shaven, smooth body, serious about film, books, chamber music, travel. Photo a must. Those just looking for a good time need not apply. Sorry, Barry said first and foremost I should have a good time. We want our pilots sober but not in bed.

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Bright, adventurous GWM, 39, 155 lbs, gdlkg, well-blt, witty, creative, and spiritual. You: hlthy, humorous, well-adjusted GM whose interests exceed Madonna and shopping at Barneys. Shove it, Barry would say. I read on. Friendship first! Seeking med to drk skn HM or very lite skn BM, 24–32, little body hair, strong hands, goatee, shaved head, tattoos a + No Time for Gym: late 50s, looks 35, seeking motivated pro wrestling coll stu w/brains for weekly match. Please, no social misfits It had been months since I’d rented a movie. Unread novels were piled a foot high on my nightstand. I buried my nose in Fred’s warm and fuzzy neck. “What a waste. You’re all I need.” As I put aside the various magazines, the word “fun” caught my eye. Life mate sought for the fun of it. Dance, dream, eat, drink. Cook, of course. GWM, 41, 6′3″, 185, light hair, eyes wide open, into exertion for fun, randy, generally smile at strangers. Need to curl up with more than my dog. I’m ready. You? I scribbled a note and included, in the spirit of things, the photo of Fred and me. I worked in earnest on my new portrait of Becky for two weeks. Derek, immersed in sports and his girlfriend, had let up a tad on his studies. He’d been accepted by Yale, his first choice, because “academics weren’t everything there.” This caused a sexual flush in his father, recalling my own surveillance of the school as a teen. A strong swimmer, I was escorted into the subterranean bowels of the three natatoriums filled with naked, strapping young men. “Yale is very big on swimming,” said my guide. Bug-eyed, I could only nod at the National Geographic fantasy of my early lecherous years come to life. One evening, when Derek was out as usual, Fred and I sprawled on the living room couch. I was ensconced in the latest John Updike, and Fred was deep into his sixteenth hour of slumber for the day. The phone rarely rang when Derek wasn’t home. “Peter, this is Norman from Covington, outside Concord? You answered my ad in the Boston Globe?”

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“Norman, hi. Help me out here …” “I see. My ad was that forgettable—” “Forgive me—” “Just kidding, Peter. Actually, I said nothing about me specifically; more, my lust for life. ‘Eat, drink, dance, dream,’ I think I said.” “Oh yes. You used the word ‘fun’ twice.” “The truth is, I’m deadly serious. About possibilities. And you are, too. I can tell by your note, so earnest and restrained as if you’d fuck things up if you said too much.” “You’re right, Norm. Oh, you said Norman.” “Either way.” “Norm, Norman, sounds—good,” I said, shifting to flirting mode. “Is this completely bizarre, so out of the blue? So tell me, Peter, how have I interrupted you?” I described my banal routine, my dog, my day, my dinner. “And what are you taking a break from?” I asked in return. “My porn video collection, which, in truth, is gathering dust. Let me see here—How the West Was Hung, Lord of the Cock Rings, Gone with the Rimmed … The titles far exceed the contents, I assure you.” A quarter of an hour must have passed with me sitting upright on the sofa, and lubricated now, before I learned that Norman, too, was a painter, of floral watercolors no less, and supported himself with a day job in the “interiors trade.” “Nell, my poodle, is quite a handful.” My bubble burst. Poodle. “If Nell doesn’t play Frisbee once a day we’re all driven nuts—so much energy. Nell’s a standard. They say it’s the brainiest and most athletic breed. What about Fred?” On we went, for over an hour. “Well,” said Norman, not stifling a yawn, which I liked. It showed the lack of pressure about our business. “Guess we’re not at a loss for words. We should do this again. I mean chat on the phone. Heaven forbid we meet for miniature golf. Yet.” I laughed. “You’re kidding about the miniature golf?” “I’d be pretty good. Volleyball’s my thing. I organize the Sunapee men’s league—gay, straight, all welcome.” “You know Barry Underwood, the Moosehead County gay team?” “The group, yes. In our version, though, we play to win. The real test is the beach tournament, barefoot. That takes Nell’s sort of stamina.”

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When we hung up, I realized I was wide awake, and my lungs tingled as if I’d done a hard swim. Dare I use the word exhilarated? Me, sparring with a total stranger? Yet that’s exactly what Norman had put in his ad: that he smiled at strangers.

*

*

*

While painting the next day, I regarded my life as dull compared to this Norman. The isolation of my country idyll and the setting of my own schedule coupled with Derek’s utter responsibility for himself set me to consider how realistic merging with another adult could be: a doubling—no, an exponential runaway multiplication of—talk, issues, decisions, trivia. Here Allison was celibate for a year and loving it for the simplification of her life. “Dance,” “dream,” I mused. Words Norman had chosen for his ad. Am I serious about finding the man of my dreams? If so, hadn’t I better start dreaming? “Revise that to reality,” said Barry during one of our daily phone check-ins when I aired my thoughts. “Only Robert Redford looks like Robert Redford.”

*

*

*

“You sound a little down,” I said to Norman in the middle of our third phone call. I warmed to this new side of the guy who’d only displayed cheery majorette tendencies so far. “The factory was late in shipping some new fabric,” answered the weary Norman. Then he detailed the tedium of his job, but not to the point of fullblown kvetching. “So, when do we say hello face to face?” “You have a snapshot of me,” I said. “How do I know you’re not Scarface?” “For heaven’s sake, Peter, we’re a half hour apart. We can go bowling in case we bomb.” “C’mon,” I said. “Give me a description.” “Let’s see. We’re the exact same height—six foot three. If there’s anything that turns me on, it’s standing and holding a man and meeting eye to eye.” I felt my penis, the warm, furry little mole curled deep in its winter hibernation, stir for a second. “Okay, my hair’s a little light for this time of year—the cruise from Key West. Weight is good, from all the volleyball. What else? I have a tattoo. Just a little forget-me-not. Jeez, what are we waiting for? We meet—it’s either yes, no, or maybe. Three little choices, not rocket science. I’ll admit, ‘maybe’ requires some moxie.”

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We laughed, set a date for a Concord restaurant, then changed it to my place since Derek was joining other incoming Yale freshmen from the area for an alumni-hosted overnight. “I’ll bring enough food for a block party,” said Norman. “And Nell and Fred have to hit it off or we’ll never get to first base.” We hung up. Fred stood, plopped on his haunches, and made the monumental effort of scratching a rear paw behind one ear. The leg crashed back to the floor and he stared moon-eyed at his master. “It’ll shake things up,” I said to my mutt. “Be good for us both.”

*

*

*

A flash of metallic fuchsia was the first thing I registered as I paced in front of the living room’s French doors with one eyeball on the driveway for Norman’s arrival this suddenly summery mud-season Saturday afternoon. He came in a low-slung vintage Corvette painted a highly polished reddish grape, with a huge, panting dog’s head and thrusting shoulders barely contained by the passenger’s side window. Out burst the enormous black animal, who leapt wildly around the yard and executed cartwheels four feet in the air and sprayed clumps of sod. Norman, too, bounded out. “Oh God, Nell’s ruining your lawn.” “Not to worry,” I said, reaching for a hug. “Lawn needs aerating.” “I’ve got tons of stuff in the trunk.” “Later,” I said. “Let me show you around.” Nell sniffed and peed with exuberance every few feet as we sauntered from car to gardens to woodpiles to pond, our words flowing like the warm breeze. “This is so beautiful; how can you ever leave?” exclaimed Norman. “I grew up near the Jersey Turnpike, this is my karmic completion,” I said with just enough carbonation to keep me occupied as my mood was trampled underfoot. Norman’s hair was light all right: milk of magnesia, or the murk of an overchlorinated pool. It was fashioned by gel, I supposed, into the myriad soft spikes of a lemon meringue pie. Three or four metal nubs were displayed along his right earlobe; I was prepared for that, given that Norman had a tattoo, perhaps only God would come to know where. Yes he was tall and solid—too much so below the waist. In fact, the cutoffs revealed monster thighs above thick volleyball calves and bright turquoise high-tops. Under his open button-down white Oxford was a baggy, cherry pink tank top. Why this gay obsession with physical perfection? I thought as I took in (how could I not?) the total lack of upper body

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development. “No pecs, no sex,” Barry would often opine while he and I did push-ups. “I can’t believe I’m here!” gasped Norman. “I can’t either,” I said. “Oh, please Peter, let’s just sit down on your bench. I need to drink this in.” Norman pressed shut his eyes as if about to cry from unbearable pleasure. “Sometimes I do watercolors here,” I said, turning my attention along with my guest’s to the stunning furl of mountain range, itself a plethora of hues, mauve to copper, and then on to the silvery foreground, the patches of old snow, and the bowed birches waiting patiently to right themselves. “I’m jealous. My life in a condo that faces a parking lot. It’s probably why I paint picket fences under masses of rambling rose.” “I’m looking forward to seeing your work,” I said. “I brought some to show you. I swear I could sit here all afternoon.” I brightened: yes, let’s. But, much as the machinery of my mind was in motion, I couldn’t quite pigeonhole Norman as another fatuous queen; couldn’t help feeling an unbridled presence in this man under the carnival colors and egg-white hair. “Damn him, where’s Nell?” said Norman. “Nell’s a he?” “It’s short for Nelly, but, as you’ll see, he turned out to be the total opposite!” Just at that moment, Nell blasted through the brambles and charged into the pond, gamboling as had Fred as a pup. Birds shrieked; water was smashed. “He’s thoroughly coated with mud,” whined Norman. “We’re having an early spring.” I laughed, both of us cringing as Nell raced toward us, dropped the filthy stick clamped in his foamy pink jaws, then shook off gallons of foul water with broken-fire-hydrant force. We stood, wiped ourselves, and headed to the house. An hour passed before we settled down. We’d brought in armloads of Norman’s gear: paintings, wine, casseroles, luggage, dog bed, a large box gift wrapped in ribbons of gold and canary yellow, an assemblage of offerings crammed into the squat Corvette. Nell was momentarily calm and lying in front of the fireplace, still soaking wet, debris from the woods and weeds clinging to his tight black curls like confetti. Fred tried to feign indifference, acting wary and anchored to my legs, as Norman and I polished off the crumbs of Norman’s onion quiche and opened another bottle of his vapid Pinot Grigio. “Your watercolors are unbelievable,” said Norman. “I’m embarrassed to show you mine. I paint every petal, every dewdrop.”

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“C’mon, if we’re going to be friends,” I said, insouciant, my decision made or made for me already. I can go with the flow; I can do fun for a day. Norman was a man of his word. His first watercolor was in fact a pink rosecovered cottage, twelve-over-twelve windows, too saccharine even for postcards on Cape Cod. The next was an effusion of lavender wisteria smothering a split rail fence, as if this scene, too, so viscerally essential to the romantic temperament, if not duplicated ad nauseam, would evaporate into its own ether. This is you, Peter Bauman, at your bedrock worst, I heard in Barry’s voice. Damn your Aryan or whatever false superiority that, true, comes from too rarefied an education, but, far more importantly, imprisons your soul and slams shut the door to others. For Christ’s sake, lighten up. “These are so cheerful, Norman, and bold. I’m way too shy with color. You obviously love doing this. By the way, your eggplant snacks were terrific.” “Thanks. But they’re nothing without the mozzarella.” I noticed the unflattering bulge of Norman’s waist, the slack upper tank top with nothing to stretch it. Does loosening up in the search for love mean tolerating flab? “All right,” said Norman. He slapped his lap with two hands. “Time for hostess gift number one.” He fetched the big yellow box giddy with ribbons. “If you don’t like this, I bet your ex-wife would. It’s sort of a ladies’ thing, but since you’re an artist …” I unraveled several layers of lemony tissue paper inside the box until a white porcelain arm was exposed, then the chubby rest of the cherub, the bow string and arrow, plus nosegays of rose clusters in assorted pastels. At first I thought it was a joke—cupid personified on a blind date, until I caught Norman holding his breath. “It’s like a museum piece,” I rallied. “Delicate but—Bavarian, yes, atop a gilded end table in the Nymphenberg Palace.” “Silly, it’s a reproduction. From the Franklin Mint.” “I always wondered who—” I cut myself off. “I’ve been collecting them for years,” said Norman. “Decided this I could part with, given the theme.” He lowered his chin and smiled coquettishly. “More wine?” I asked. “But of course! I’ll save the fabric samples for later. The way you described your …” Norman trailed off as he scanned the walls. “Wheat here. Sand in the dining room. Ecru in the kitchen.” His large rosy lips pinched in concentration. “Someday you might consider—” “Splashes of real color,” I offered.

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“I didn’t say it was bland! But some accents can actually highlight the subtleties of the beiges and off-whites. Now, if this throw pillow were a raised chenille …” I belted down more wine and wondered about hostess gifts two, three, and four. Norman was constantly in motion, which struck me as feints and dodges of insecurity. “You started telling me about your mother’s people, the loud shanty Irish from Flatbush,” quipped Norman. “That must’ve been a kick.” I glossed over that sore subject. I suspected Norman of needing to bolster himself with kudos for his dire interest. My crazed mother? Ancient history. “And you, Norman? Some Viking blood I bet.” “Actually, I’m an orphan. I don’t have a clue.” “Adoptive parents?” He shook his head. “Nell. The volleyball gang, the office crew. That’s it.” This stunned me, but it shouldn’t have. The rose-covered bungalow; his sweet, immovable, porcelain offspring. I wrestled with that sliver of possibility because, honoring gut reaction, beneath the persona resided some being as butch as Nell. “So you raised yourself? And put yourself through business school?” Norman jumped up. “Save it for happy hour. You said you had a canoe?” We quarantined Nell in the mud room, packed wine and cheese, and strapped my canoe onto the Saab roof rack. We drove to Hastings Pond, which was miles long, sylvan, and forgotten this soon in spring. Norman pleaded to be captain. His strokes were surprisingly powerful, to the point that I found, sitting in the bow, I barely needed to paddle. I trailed my fingers in the bracing water, as the steering and forward momentum came from behind, almost out of mind. I inhaled deeply, overcome by the emerald green splendor of the pines. “Fabulous!” barked Norman as we pulled ashore for a break. He’d peeled off his shirts; his arms and pecs were not half bad to my wine-bleary eyes. We settled on a cushion of humid needles and aromatic bark. Owls hooted like off-key oboes in the undulating heat. I, too, was sweating from the sun, if not exertion. We took turns chugging the cheap wine. “You’re darn good with the paddle,” I said. “I haven’t been out here for ages.” Norman reached over and slowly, while smiling, pushed me to the ground. “You said I could play captain.” His hands lingered on my chest as our lips rubbed together tentatively, anticipating the entrée but in no rush. Our fingers deftly began exploring. I signaled that the enterprise should escalate from first to second gear upon touching the

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giant banana dick, slightly curved, under two layers of cloth. My eagerness was only momentarily clipped at the sight of Norman’s powder blue bikini briefs: out of them sprung the formidable, waxy, arching hard-on. Next we were naked, standing, stroking each other, our eyes glazed with wonder, as if this was an aboriginal act to which every living thing was entitled, juices broiling, skin and pores stinging from the teasing breeze while being gaily pelted with detritus from the overhead pines. Then we were fiercely clutching and tasting each other’s ears, necks, tongues in the next stage of the ritual, until the centrifuge of coupling forced us to the ground. We grappled and groaned as long as we could to honor the gods for this gift. And there was the forget-me-not—literally—on the shaft of Norman’s penis. I made it out during the melee, a mere pebble now in the preordained path. Norman, too, avoided penetration. Short of worry over brushing my teeth that night and risking a tear—at the time considered a possible entry point for HIV—I slept like a lamb. Norman, a furnace by nature, produced enough BTUs to heat the whole house. He was coiled around me like an octopus at rest, sated with not one but several meals. We had done it on the butcher block counter while assembling carrot sticks; in the bathtub while we washed off, we thought, from the day’s final tryst; and we had sucked on each other before disembarking the canoe, the last lap paddled in the altogether, for the sake of the heavenly, eavesdropping, androgynous Indians, so we joked. We had kissed in the root cellar, lingeringly, while retrieving a jar of my canned applesauce, which we proceeded to open in the bracken light and lick off each other. The hapless dogs had stood shoulder to shoulder at the top of the cellar stairs, heads tilted in confusion, but resigned by this point to their fate as mutual outcasts. Nell and Fred were, however, invited into the king-sized bed, the four of us lost to the world until mid-Sunday morning. “So,” said Norman, who had commandeered the coffee maker. This was fine by me, as I was brain-dead and bloated with sex for the first time in my life. “What next? Beer and pool? How about you come to our volleyball night, see dozens of guys in tight shorts, and survey the possibilities? We don’t want to rush this, Peter. I’m not possessive,” he concluded, contradicting himself by the very declaration. We ate, did the dishes, ran the dogs. We had sex in the shed, the canine voyeurs breathing heavily just outside the thin-slatted door. “We haven’t danced,” challenged Norman. “And I brought my country and western CDs. Clearing just half the junk in your studio would make it perfect for two-stepping.” “What are you talking about?”

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“Texas two-stepping? Best thing to hit gay bars since condom machines.” Norman assembled the music, we made ample floor space, and settled both dogs in the mud room, the happy hounds now nibbling each other’s ears. “It’s like the foxtrot in junior high straitjackets,” said Norman. He arranged my left hand on his right shoulder and hoisted my other hand aloft. “Jeez, this is the woman’s position,” I groused. “Relax. I lead, you follow. Go totally limber.” Without music, he instructed his neophyte: “Quick, quick, slow, slow, slide don’t bounce, quick, quick, slow, slow, see-you-are-get-ting-it …” And I did. We started easy, with sexy Tim McGraw crooning “It’s Your Love;” then I got promoted to a faster tempo, “Commitment,” by LeAnn Rimes. The dogs, to stop their barking, were set free, but they kept their distance and cowered at the strange shenanigans: we two men gliding, laughing, swooping at times to a feverish pitch. At one point, sweating like bulls, we stripped a bit and went at it even more furiously. “Dad! What the hell?” said Derek stepping into the studio, white as a ghost, a gaggle of his friends—three boys, two girls—with faces pressed against the studio windows. Nary a smile or smirk. I was in Jockey shorts with Norman’s hot pink tank top and my own derelict cowboy boots; Norman was in the baby blue bikini underpants and open Oxford. The music blaring, Norman dropped my hand and waved dramatically to the lineup of kids. “Get your butts in here. Derek, your father has told me all about you. Brains, brawn, except there are more things in life. Don’t wait until you’re an old fart like Peter to learn the Texas two-step!” He dashed open the door to the yard and the row of zombie teens. “C’mon in, there’s plenty of room for a group lesson. I’m serious!” “Derek, this is Norman.” “They know you’re gay, Dad.” “My!” sang Norman. “I promise to look, not touch. I’m after your father, anyway, hon. Big game hunter strictly.” Norman patted the others, escorted them in. “The program was over after breakfast,” Derek croaked. “Guys, this is my dad, Peter—this one.” He cracked the faintest of smiles as I whipped on my jeans. “Dad, these are my new classmates at Yale.” He tried to swallow, without success. Norman restarted the music and partially buttoned his shirt. The group watched us demonstrate, and within minutes Norman had paired up the others, boy-boy, boy-boy, girl-girl. “So you can make your mind a blank slate. The rhythm is tricky and it takes togetherness, none of this hula-on-your-own

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crap.” He clapped his hands sharply, which jolted them all to attention. “Okay, let’s go!” And so they did, for the remainder of the afternoon, often roaring with laughter. They concluded with the hunkiest young man and Derek being unable to exhaust Nell in endless rounds of Frisbee, while Fred and I hovered cautiously on the sides.

*

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*

“I don’t know, Barry,” I said by phone days later. “The white-blond heat of this other person …” Barry maintained a tactful silence. “He admitted he was basically a file clerk,” I said, “manning the phones and chatting up the customers in his windowless cubbyhole.” “So he puts lots of energy into his social life.” “He said he gives blow jobs to the drivers to pass time.” “Forget it,” Barry said simply, which was more than enough.

Chapter 3

B e cky

“You don’t need me to sit for you,” said Becky. “Look what you’ve already done.” “It’s a start. But I no longer know you by heart.” “Right, all these wrinkles and gray hairs.” Becky smiled. The folds of skin around her soft blue eyes crinkled as she glanced at my latest paintings. “Have a seat.” I gestured toward the easy chair. True, there were many more lines in her face than my long-standing mental snapshot of her. “I feel so pampered.” She stretched out her legs, her five-foot-ten figure still lithe and lissome at forty-five. “I’m only doing your face.” “I see. The body’s shot.” She sat up straighter and crossed her legs in her slacks of tan linen light enough to reveal shapely calves and slim hips. But it was her face that held me captive, burnished with each passing year into a patina of untold stories and lack of regret. “You want the Walkman?” I asked, noting melancholy in her left eye. “Only an hour?” she replied. “Barely enough time to learn how you’re faring.” “Nothing to report. A few blind dates. Mostly I marvel at our Wunderkind.” I kept reducing the rose madder for her skin; as a redhead, she was incredibly fair. “Derek’s sure in orbit,” said Becky. “Like Julie in her tornado years. We used to let her pummel us with verbal abuse until she was spent.” She paused. “I’m staring at your Chinese vase, Peter. Such a pearly hue of aqua. It’s a mandala, very soothing.” Her wavy, shoulder-length hair was becoming the color and texture of rust. Threads of coarse gray had woven themselves into the still predominantly fine coral strands. Julie said she refused to dye it even though her ad people had pleaded. 41

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“I loved your guest column in Parade. Imagine—whole wheat is now allAmerican. Remember your college article ridiculing white bread? Your father thought you were nuts.” The lacy web of muscles encircling her right eye contracted with the effort of holding a steady gaze. Mention of her father also released a rush of color to her neck. Then her shoulders dropped; her eyes went lambent as she slipped into her charming shrug, evidence of the self-possession upon which I had become so dependent. Her skin’s whiteness was misconstrued. It was a field of salmon, peach, and ivory accents that heightened her moon-white beauty. The same can be said of Barry, whose face holds me equally captive. This isn’t a painting; rather, it’s the privilege of releasing the microscopic lock on those capillaries people trust to keep their secrets. If only my sitters knew. Now her eyes and thoughts were elsewhere, as if dodging this inappropriate intimacy. “Remember when we drove from Cornell for Thanksgiving to your parents in New Jersey? We were so smashed from that send-off milk punch.” I shook my head. “One-third vanilla ice cream and two-thirds bourbon.” “And we had your rotten, old Chevy with the clanging tail pipe …” “… and we got sleepier by the mile, barely making it to Harriman …” “… and we woke up looking nuns in the face at the doubly creepy Catholic hospital. However did we survive our youth, Peter?” “I’d passed out. You were at the wheel and signaled for help. Turned out exhaust fumes were leaking directly into the car, and we thought we were just drunk!” “God only knows what Julie is imbibing at Weaverton,” sighed Becky. “Hopefully she’s experimenting in moderation. You always said if they can get it out of their systems as teens, and know they’re loved …” “I said that?” “You said a lot of sensible things, my dear.” “I worry about Derek. Will he ever cut loose?” “Derek’s fine. It is possible, you know, to come from a functional family. Queer dad, celebrity mom. Ordinary Americans. It’s not like we’re Bolsheviks.” I was chatting more than I should. “How is your social life, Peter? How can you find a partner in the boonies?” “I’m here. There must be others.” Besides Norman. “Seriously, aren’t the gay men in cities? If you met your match, what likelihood is there that he could join you? Unless he was a kid, and you don’t want that.” She was correct, but I bristled at her assumption. As if by mutual agreement, we left a pause to clear the air. “Such a waste if you’re unhappy,” she said. “I’m not unhappy. Just impatient at circling in the starting gate for two years.”

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“I’ll never understand why you and Barry aren’t together. Such a terrific guy.” “Oh, Bec. How could Barry and I switch to that kind of love? Would we even want to?” She faced me. “You know Martin and me, we’re equally busy. We can’t be everything to each other, like you and I were at the start.” “Makes sense.” Though I tried to be absorbed in painting, I received this as a put-down. “You might not find the love of your life—” “The second love of my life; the male version,” I interrupted. “… but enjoy a good fling, as long as you protect yourself. You like a lot of sex, Peter. You should be having it,” said Becky evenly, as if we were discussing when to plant the dahlias. “It’s healthy. Hygienic.” “Remember when we did it on my office floor in Manhattan?” “And behind the wall at my parents? The minister’s daughter has her say.” “I’ve explained to Barry,” I said. “I really was straight at the time. We had fun in the sack. Not stuff for a Hollywood script but a good, earthy time of it.” Becky shifted her eyes to mine, a sly smile turning flat and unabridged. “Well, we were in our twenties. You’d probably screw anything that stood still. But yes,” she softened, “we had a good time.” A bead of sweat materialized on my upper lip. In painting a portrait, this was counterproductive; the telescope spun a hundred and eighty degrees. She had humored me, and for how long? Had I simply assumed marriage would “cure” me? Had she? Quickly I composed a muted jade background to complement the lush sienna rose of her hair. I was way too distracted to execute her eyelids. “How’s Martin, speaking of husbands? Still waiting for your honeymoon?” “Oh Peter, absolutely nothing can faze him. Well, he is a high school math teacher and a widowed father all these years. He cooks for us! Can you believe it?” Her expression became one of childlike wonder at how this treasure had landed in her lap. “What about that Barton guy who wrote the ornithology text?” I made up an excuse because I couldn’t bear to speak the truth: another bright mind in one too many pounds of flesh. And Martin, the avuncular, bald, plump, forever laughing and joking and merry-eyed Martin: how can I remind Rebecca of my own crass and now life-threatening instincts at animal attraction? My being in awe of her beauty was also due to her absolute indifference to it. This woman listened to her heart instead of looking at her image to monitor every new wrinkle and calculate her revenge. Is that how a face can become like hers? To age and weaken, yet stay soft and resilient to the inevitable blows? I thought of my mother Geraldine; when hardened and armored against life, are cracks the logical outcome?

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I said, “I’ve always thought your father treated you, as opposed to your sisters, like a son, saying, in so many words, make something of yourself, like I have.” “He’d have crumpled on the spot without those women,” she replied. “Maybe that’s why you encouraged him to move in with us when your mother died. It was your turn.” Becky froze in place. Her ears turned crimson from concealing her anger. “I’m sorry, Bec,” I said. “Shit. You can go now, if you want.” Waves of shame rushed from head to toe as I recalled my part in our only real, irreconcilable schism. I couldn’t paint. I bit my lower lip. “Peter, keep going, if you’re on a roll,” she responded, once again fixing upon my reproduction Ming dynasty vase. “Why look back?” I began painting the milky, juniper green background that I had borrowed from the vase; I could deal with no more for the moment. We’d done so wonderfully for so long after our marriage in not keeping it superficial but honest and detached in the way of nonlovers. I vowed not to resurrect our trial of wrenching ill will, which had gone from bloody gash to scab to scar: sealed and smooth but still showing. The episode had exploded with such gale force onto our years—our whole lives—of simply loving on an even keel and adoring each other for our very lack of pandemonium that was apparently, for so many others, the ignition that started and revved the engines of love. “I’m going to bring my concertina next time to break the silence,” said Becky, her smile once again ironic. “Sorry, I’m attempting the mouth again. It’s time for the surgeon to take over from the scrub nurse.” I painted in fearsome concentration while Becky hummed. But I could not stop my flow of thoughts. Her mother had died, leaving Becky’s hopeless, retired father, and so at my wife’s suggestion, we redid the garage apartment, which had formerly been a rental unit in our rural New Jersey home. Months went by. Rebecca, Lucinda, and Amanda all pushed for the move for varying reasons, though their father was reluctant, for the first time in his life, to impose. I figured the old goat was now sheepish about sacrificing his independence and his privileges as pastor emeritus. Becky, meanwhile, was in her precorporate days as full-time caterer and nutritional writer and was increasingly focused outside our home. I was the reverse, retreating from Madison Avenue. “Ed-win,” I’d answered the phone, since Becky was at a two-day photo shoot for her healthy pies for Bon Appetit. “We need to work out the logistics; who would be doing what, room for the cars, and so forth.”

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He seized these unsettled items as an excuse not to budge. Edwin would have nothing to do with the move to New Jersey. Becky was speechless for a week—until she reached the boiling point. “Without us talking this over, Peter, that’s shameful enough. But your dishonesty in acknowledging you never liked the man and dumping all the decision onto me is too much. Yes, he’s my father, but it’s our house and family. I thought we were in agreement. How can I ever trust you again?” That our sex life was on the wane at the time did not improve this crisis, which stood in such contrast to the calmer shores of mutual support toward which we were sailing. Straining into the face of my former wife, I saw not a wash of pretty beige and pink. I placed a red-black gash under the lower lip. She’d fled Painted Sage, New York, and the asphyxiated lives of her loved ones. No matter how bright the path she blazed, there lingered a symbiosis with their pain, and it had lain at the heart of our ill-fated feud. “Julie and Derek are still bursting with pride about your turning down that big deal with FoodCo,” I said, “and the fake fat they wanted you to endorse.” She roused herself. “That was easy. It wasn’t just synthetic, but carcinogenic. I’ve got to go. I’m getting ill from all this adulation. You better be painting my stubborn streak, Leonardo.” She stood, shaking her rangy, coppery red hair as if to rid herself of having been the hour’s centerpiece. “Let me know what you think of the oatmeal-ginger crust in the pear tart I left for you guys in the fridge.” She winked. “How am I supposed to behave like a bachelor, sweetheart, when I’m still tied to your apron strings?”

*

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*

Barry came for supper. I usually went to his place, but I had Becky’s tart to share since Derek was “watching the weight.” “Did I tell you,” I said spooning pulled chicken and black bean casserole onto Barry’s plate. “Martin’s leaving his teaching job and managing Becky’s finances from their new place in Marblehead. And he’s doing the cooking!” I sampled my fresh slaw made with olive oil only. “Maybe Becky will gain a few pounds. She has this theory there’s only so much fat in the world, so for somebody to shed—Martin, in this case—somebody else has to stack it on. What do you think?” “I think this coleslaw needs a good dollop of mayo.” “I’m painting Becky. It must be her low-fat vibes rubbing off.” I passed sprouted wheat bread. “I wish I could go for the soul and not fret the looks, like

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her. She’s crazy about Martin, and he’s like one of those dogs with a smashed-in face.” “Pugs. They’re cute, but not sexy. Look,” said Barry in a voice that said he was about to pronounce and to clarify the entire, confounded subject in one utterance, even though he could contradict himself in the next breath. “Women are constructed differently than all men, not just us fags. Their survival is based on TLC and ours on squirting seed, our parting shot at posterity. We’re dead the next day from a spear.” “How’s the casserole? Too much thyme?” “Listen, Peter, don’t put yourself down for being lewd. Your gay ethos is finally poised on the launching pad.” “You don’t think I’m oversexed? I told you in too much detail about the times with Norman. So he had this huge joystick. What if he’d been a weenie? Would I have still gone at it? Sure, but it wouldn’t have been as much fun.” “Stop lacerating yourself! Of course size matters. Why else would there be a nonstop PR campaign to protest otherwise?” “You’re full of shit, Barry. You could care less about a guy’s hardware. You’ve implied that forever.” “You’re the one questioning yourself, here.” “Arlene says it’s not the meat but the motion.” “Arlene is not a gay man.” “I feel like a lummox, lunging for this carrot thirty years too late.” Barry slammed the kitchen table, his mouth full, dark blue eyes blazing. “Bullshit. That’s your inner heterosexist patriarch preaching, and he does not want to step down. We were queer in utero, waiting. Then we waded through a life of shame and ridicule, and now we’re supposed to say, ‘Oh well, maybe the next generation will get it right’?” Wan on arrival from the quotidian battles at work, rose now infused his complexion. “With Norman,” I said, “there was this complete disconnect between his celebratory, out-and-shout persona and his trashy lack of self-esteem—blow jobs in the office.” “No different from Len forbidding me to publicly acknowledge our being gay. We could be held in check for decades even without being lacerated by fundamentalists. Look,” and he gestured with a wedge of bread. “You at least are trying to integrate it all. But this Norman character puts as much into sabotaging his health and well-being as he does in running the volleyball league and shock-coloring his hair.” I poured more Chardonnay.

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“There’s no reason for not being sexual in the process,” continued Barry, taking a slug of wine. “We just have to be self-loving and stay out of the gutter.” “‘We,’ my friend? You’re including yourself in the rat race?” Barry beamed and ran fingers through his thick, black hair, which had flopped in his face. “Don’t change the subject. After a day with four-year-olds and their poor mothers—who can act the same age as the children—I covet this chance to have an adult conversation. The chicken is super. Cilantro? Oh, you said thyme.” “Some of each.” Both of us ache for this sort of exchange, I thought, although I tend to overanalyze. Love, like this bread, is also a staff of life, but it’s not meant to be masticated. I sipped my wine as Barry wolfed down the hearty fare. It hit me that Becky and I had never “dated.” We just fell into each other, one step leading to the next. It was so simple and mindless, really. Could that ever happen again? “Anyway, back to Norman with the big boner. You said he’s an orphan.” Barry drank more wine. His metallic blue-black eyes were as serious as I had ever seen them. “An unloved homeless kid is already dealing with failed parents and battling the odds at claiming self-worth. But toss in being homosexual, and you get an extreme case of notice-me behavior that usually doesn’t descend until thirteen.” “I thought flamboyance was healthy—a shove-it middle finger to the world?” “It has its place, along with assimilating. If it weren’t for Stonewall, would I be entrusted to direct Head Start? So many walls have come down, haven’t they, Peter? It’s the stuff inside that’s our own worst enemy.” More true for him. I’m frustrated at being single, but otherwise … We finished our meal and shop talk. The two of us hunched over with our elbows on the tabletop and smiled, about to call it a day. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Barry. I’m always thinking of this business, but never to the point of solid guideposts.” “Now watch it, Mr. Skeptic.” “Okay, I’ll answer more personals. After I’ve finished the portrait of Becky.” “And I know, I should be dating, too,” said Barry. “Twenty-five years of being fucked over by Len and my letting Len fuck me over. Let’s hope time heals.” “I’ll drink to that,” I said as we clinked glasses, blew mock kisses, and laughed.

*

*

*

Becky agreed to go on Good Morning, America to demonstrate her “knuckledown pie dough,” working it as little as possible to yield a flakier crust. For years she had insisted upon keeping her private life private—especially when it came

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to her children. But with Derek immersed in his freshman year at Yale and Julie appearing less scattered in her junior year at Weaverton (she was majoring in child psychology, which floored us), Becky felt the gains to her business outweighed the risks. I recalled my mother Geraldine, right until her passing a few years prior, branding Becky “common,” a plain girl from upstate New York with no makeup. Mother’s hopes for me were set on someone more stylish and chatty, a girl from “a good family,” which meant tons of money and light years beyond the Flatbush Irish slum of her own spawning ground. She would be flabbergasted at this turn of events and would likely resent Becky’s power and my displacement in this New Age arrangement. Thank God she’s gone. The gay bit made her apoplectic enough. I continued working intently on Becky’s portrait, usually without her. The challenge now was one of elimination: I knew and felt too much. Her new marriage was so inspiring. It made such sense that a match in midlife should be formed of two locally available people with a slew of intersecting paths. This idea could also boot me down into the dumps. My constituency? The Sunapee volleyball league led by none other than Norman, or the Moosehead group with Barry who, along with the others, basically hated sports. I focused on the lips now that I was satisfied with the chiaroscuro of facial highlights and hollows. It was left to the lips to rest in a place that put final judgment, as they say, in the eye of the beholder. For me, a portrait was a question mark. If a human being could be the summation of a single look, an act of art did not occur. The house without Derek was blissfully serene, and the air in the studio still as a tomb. Every one of my strokes, increasingly diminutive and infrequent, was magnified with an electric charge of intention. I continued my ruminations on Becky, which neither interfered with the paint nor was disjointed from its purpose. I thought how she and I, over the years, became more of what we were from the start: compadres of a more serious than lighthearted bent. Was there sexual attraction? More like a complete comfort and lack of pretension. We understood as twenty-year-olds that our union went beyond procreation; it was a foundation for each of us to create the work that was meant to be made of our lives. “You know when you’re fucking,” quipped one of my fraternity brothers, “a girl’s tits are flat as pancakes?” I didn’t have a clue, but nodded my head roguishly. “It doesn’t matter when you’re fumbling with the hole and shoving it in. Who even gives a shit what she looks like, right, man?”

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I loved being with girls. I found them twice as sharp as boys, worshipped Becky, and was a young man on the rise in the world of the “haves.” But at this particular moment in my junior year of college, when I was well along with Becky and both of us were virgins, and on the receiving end of this sexual sagacity from my frat-house buddy, I froze in a subarctic ice of fear. The likes of this abyss I would never equal in my decades of acknowledging my true nature. Those college moments were rock bottom, I recalled as I painted her aging and ever-determined lips. How wonderful to have climbed aboard Becky’s life raft of casual regard for all the picayune matters to which most people cling.

*

*

*

“Becky, why don’t you put that tangle of hair into pigtails?” I said at the start of our final session. “Tending the beehives, scolding the rooster—you were right out of Li’l Abner with your braids.” “So true,” she said dreamily. “When I think back, it was all about fertilized eggs and rhubarb wine.” “We actually planted dandelion in the garden, a supposedly less bitter variety. And then it took root for years!” “It made me so sad, Peter—you trapped in that Madison Avenue zaniness.” “My homemade beer exploded in the cellar, Bec. There was zaniness!” “The sex was good. I hope you don’t beat yourself up over that.” “It was organic. We were making babies.” We laughed as I thought, she’s making it up with Martin—overweight, homely as a hyena, undeniably a ladies’ man. “I’m not going to move; I’ll keep my head still—but look, Peter, I found my old concertina!” She pulled it out of her bag. We sang polka tunes from the days before we’d heard of Fats Domino, both of us joking to the point that I couldn’t paint. “I insist you stay for supper,” I said. “I already cleared it with Martin.” She blushed, girlish with surprise. “You’re kidding?” “It’s payback for your sitting.” I led her to the dining room. “Jalapeno cornbread, three bean chili—this is amazing,” she said. “Your recipes. But the pumpkin pie crust I invented: ground almonds and toasted sunflower seeds.” We uncapped bottles of beer and dove in. “Becky,” I said, devoid of levity, “I forever need to thank you for making this possible, my painting full-time. I’m going back to work for real, probably in a year, but—” “Oh shut up. You don’t call this work?”

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“Two galleries have sold the largest watercolors for up to a thousand bucks.” “Would you listen to me, please? The money wasn’t alimony. You know that, and I know that. You can live comfortably. If you want more, fine, go earn it. But meantime, Petey, it’s as much a gift to me as you say it is for you.” For an instant, I fixed her face for what I knew would dictate the final strokes of her portrait. It was the irreducible Becky, the woman who smiled defiantly at her bridesmaids an hour before our wedding, with the poolside luncheon set along with her impeccably coiffed hair, when she shrugged and dove in. The girls screamed and proceeded to empty three cans of hairspray attempting, in vain, to reconcile the damage. Becky walked down the aisle to greet me with all eyes, mine especially, in thrall to her luminous self.

*

*

*

“Gosh, Barry, I feel so enmeshed with Becky again. I actually put on a CD of Gordon Lightfoot, one of our favorites, while she was sitting.” “Pe-ter! You’re still sucking up for approval.” “I know. Like when in the thick of our marriage, Becky had argued that I had to co-raise our kids. None of this all-powerful mama stuff. She said when boys have to rebel against loudmouth mothers—meaning like mine—we cut off our emotions to survive and put our mates in the same position, then wind up as children all over. Not that I ever rebelled. My lip was no match for Mother’s.” “From my experience, so many boys and girls lack nurturing, are fundamentally insecure, and idealize their eventual mates. For you, Becky, compared to Geraldine, can do no wrong. That was then. But now …” Barry released an irritable whoosh of breath. “There better not be a halo in that portrait.”

*

*

*

Two days later, I picked up the receiver and heard Becky sob, “Martin’s had a heart attack … intensive care … touch and go …” I grasped her shoulders, hugged our children, cooked meals, and stood by throughout the following days. Mostly I took long walks with Fred, with my thoughts as restless as the tides. We’d been divorced for several years, but still I pictured myself as Martin’s peer; I was her first mate, Martin the next. I suffered no jealousy at my ex-wife joining with another man; I no longer saw myself on that playing field. Or, like geese that mate for life, despite the divorce—a mere slip of paper—could I doubt she would not pace the hospital floor for me as she was now doing for Martin? As I would do for her? Am I deluded? Does every

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twosome feel theirs is a celestial bond unlike those of the majority who seize hold of convention instead of themselves? I looked point-blank at the painting. This is foolish, investing so much time in her, once the most important person in my life, when now I’m auditioning others to fill the role! No. This reprise is in order to elevate my sites for the second half. Nonsense. This patter is a subterfuge clouding the facts plain as day: Martin might not survive, and Becky won’t move to Marblehead. Then what?

*

*

*

Three days passed with the portrait untouched. Then Becky called. “Martin is going to make it.” “Thank God.” “Thank you. For everything.” “I’m so relieved, Becky. For a time it seemed like we … like nothing had changed.” There was silence. It stung, but it was good, and it cleared the air. “Everything has changed, Peter. But, yes, I do love you, and you’ll always be holed up there, like a big lump in my heart.”

*

*

*

It was a rainy Sunday afternoon. Barry had rented the latest Woody Allen. We were poking about the studio; I was eager to show him the finished painting of Becky. “Hey, I love this watercolor you’ve done of the Chinese vase. The creamy greens are mesmerizing. Really, Peter, your oils are so intense. I’m glad you’re doing watercolors as well.” I looked closely at my friend. “What’s your creative outlet?” Barry ran a finger along the edge of my easel. “What to do with the fish I brought us for supper.”

YEAR THREE

Chapter 4

Voice Male

“Peter? This is Winston. You answered my ad in The Village Voice?” I lowered my book and withdrew from the weird, lyrical world of Margaret Atwood. “I’m the teacher, here in New Hampshire? What else did I say? Tall …” “Of course. Winston,” I said. I hoisted myself aloft from my flat position on the sofa and drew a blank. Fred curled up at the far end. “Thanks for writing,” he said. “Such a way with words.” “It was just a note.” “I correct papers for a living.” “Where?” “At the Holt School.” “Oh, well, those boys must be articulate.” Winston chuckled. “I’m a one-man band flogging the Queen’s English.” We bantered on. All I heard was the man’s voice, a mellifluous baritone. “Are you a singer?” I asked. “Getting warm. I’m the school’s drama coach.” “Ah, you’re an actor.” “No, but I love great acting. Zoe Caldwell in Master Class, Colleen Dewhurst in anything.” “I miss off Broadway,” I said as I hugged my knees to my chest. “In college, I’d slip into the Village, you know those shabby black-box theaters—LeRoi Jones, Brecht, Ionesco.” “We did The Sandbox last year.” “In prep school?” “It’s pretty innocent these days,” said Winston cascading into bass. 55

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“A boy plays the mother, too?” “Gender bending isn’t the issue. In fact, I thought a unisex cast made a faster leap into absurdity. But enough about me, Peter. I want to hear about your watercolors. Landscapes, abstracts? Let me guess: somewhere in between.” Winston trolled as I followed the bait. I tried not to be impressed that Winston had gone to Harvard; by middle age, such way stations are not germane. But there it lay, like a shard from a long-ago ballistic embedded in my flesh. This little fact, like others I scribbled in my mental notebook, aggregated and shoved against the door of my resistance to this man, to any man. “Okay, so we’re not meeting by chance at an opera intermission,” posed Winston. “Let’s pretend we’re introduced by a mutual friend.” I snickered. This beat another hour of Atwood. “Describe the room for me, please. First, though, what are you wearing?” “Wearing?” I described the nondescript. “And? Shoes? Underwear?” I heaved a sigh and made no attempt to edit it for being one of annoyance. “Oops, sorry, back to the room. Where are you sitting?” “Well, I’m on a large sofa, facing a fireplace.” “Contemporary? Otherwise?” “The place is ancient and creaky, like me.” I detailed the pale, weathered bricks of the fireplace, the beveled panel door I’d cut up to replace the crumbling façade. Winston prodded further. I told him of the slanting wide-board floor, the oatmeal loveseat, Orientals and the odd brass candlestick: it was a near parody of Williamsburg until it was sideswiped over the mantel by my swirling red and orange Helen Frankenthaler print. “I love Frankenthaler!” exclaimed Winston. “There was a show at the Whitney of her massive oils, like watercolors really—” “I saw it, too!” My juices were now flowing like the somersaulting rivers of red in the reverberating Frankenthaler print.

*

*

*

“I reread the ad,” I said to Barry next day on the phone. “Two hundred pounds. You know what that means.” “You said he’s a deep baritone? So he’s a big boy. You know what they say about men with a low … heavy … voice.” “I thought that was earlobes,” I interjected. “Actually, it’s foot size, stupid. Haven’t you been listening to me?” “We talked for an hour and a half,” I said. “We took the same courses in college. But he was ballsy enough to follow his bliss, a la Jung. He lived in the city

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and saw every possible play while getting his master’s. Meanwhile, I’m writing copy for Liquid Drano.” “You were married and having a family, my friend.” “So listen to this: Winston is doing a course with his kids, writing the drama themselves and making masks. The blackface boy and the whiteface boy are partners, along with the brown and the red, the yellow and bronze. I think this guy is intriguing. And his spellbinding voice … Anyway, what’s happening with your Michael?” Finally, Barry was dating. “He wants me to meet his mother. Excuse me.” “Well, we’re all about family, ultimately.” “After two months?” Barry gulped. “What is it with twenty-nine-year-olds? I’m forty-five. This is the second guy that very age to hit on me this year. Michael asked me to dance at the club after eyeing me, he claims, for ages. How can I relate to a man born after Kennedy was killed?” “You’re having a good time, Barry. Go with it. That’s what you lecture me.” “He’s an architect. We walked through Boston looking up. It was like discovering a whole new city.” “See, there’s a history lesson for you. We shouldn’t be Narcissus, you’ve always claimed, straining for our mirror image.” “But sixteen years, Peter. It’s a stretch.” “You can’t help it, you’re so damned good-looking. Age shouldn’t matter— like weight. I wish Winston hadn’t said he’s ‘going to get back to the gym.’” “We can only fuck with our brains, kiddo. We’ve learned that much. Gotta go. Don’t forget the Marietta Zin. I’m doing lamb.” I recoiled at the mental picture of Barry in bed having the wild time the both of us were always wishing for each other. Don’t I mostly want to be held and to hold? Barry and I already have that—with each other.

*

*

*

Two days later, a card arrived from Winston. It featured a watercolor rendering of a nude male, arms outstretched like a wing span and legs spread wide, against a sunburst pattern of primary colors that shouted the man’s joy at being alive. The skin, in contrast to the red, yellow, and blue background, was the palest pink, the genitals a mere gesture, but the ecstasy was rampant. William Blake. Glad Day, c. 1793. Dear Peter, Needless to say, I found the first, I hope, of our many conversations to be thoroughly stimulating. Someone once said that being in love was one

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unending conversation. I’m not suggesting I’m in love, or that we are, but our initial meeting certainly allows for a possible relationship of the sort I sense we both seek. Winston’s writing was as charming as his voice. I’m hunting for a photograph amidst the clutter—I’m a hopeless packrat. My apartment is stacked with records—yes, old LPs!—along with my ridiculously growing CD collection. I’m a jazz fiend. I wear glasses (big surprise) and have short-cropped brown hair … I’m a monarchist but pray Prince Charles never ascends to the throne … I want to learn how to cook … I frowned. … I love the feel of night air on my skin when I walk outdoors naked after midnight … Oh dear, I thought. … I adore Bette Davis … I’m ticklish … Too much information, as Julie would say when Becky and I, as New Age parents, delved into the intricacies of sex for her erudition. … I want to be artistically photographed in the nude … I’d already posted the inviting snapshot of Fred and me. We’d have to talk again; I would remain civil and respect, if nothing else, the guts it took to “reach out.” The card the following day depicted a computer-generated image in neonwavy lines of two naked studs, hung like horses and holding hands. Instantly this licked me in the right place. Stop stereotyping the guy as a sex freak for expressing some fantasies. This is not a freshman tea at Vassar. A photo fell out of the card. Winston stood with his back to the camera in an overcoat, head and shoulders cocked at a seductive angle as if feigning surprise. He did have a commanding presence; I liked the body language—the boots planted wide, one lifted, dark eyebrow. The horn-rimmed glasses, for me, flashed both egghead and erotic, perhaps a clue to finding the combination of my own, cantankerous lock. “Outside the Chicago Museum” was scrawled on

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the back in his appealingly dashed, irreverent hand. “The Bonnards were unbelievable.” The card read: Thanks for the photo of you and your adorable hound. Talk about cuddler potential. How many men of our generation, spiritually and artistically grounded … there are no coincidences … I need touching, nurturing; I want to matter hugely to another man … foolish at our age not to grab for the brass ring … open to awe … “Whaddaya think, Fred?” I said holding up Winston’s photo to the dog’s twitching, wet nose. “Any perfume, forget it.” Fred lowered his eyelids and wagged his stumpy tail, his signs of utter gratitude whenever his master addressed him. I studied the snapshot. Devilish, to be sure. And isn’t that what I’m after: some devil up here in the woods?

*

*

*

“Hi Dad, just saying hello …” “Julie! We haven’t talked in weeks. How are you, honey?” “Can’t wait ’til Thanksgiving. Food here really sucks.” She filled me in on class work. I told her about my upcoming local watercolor show but avoided the latest kudos for Derek at Yale. When she asked idly after Fred then hesitated, I knew there was a reason for her call. “I’ve met this really great guy, Dad,” she said in a rush. “His name’s Pedro.” “Hey, that’s Spanish for Peter!” I said jauntily to mask instant gut churning. “Huh? Anyway, his father’s so hardworking; they’re so devoted to family.” “What’s his father do?” I said, pleased I could ask this as the logical sequel. “He’s here for the Champlain Valley apple harvest, all the way from Mexico. Isn’t that outrageous? Americans won’t work for such low wage.” “Pedro’s in your school?” “Yes. Well, no, not as a student. He works in the cafeteria.” “I hate to stereotype, but don’t tell me he makes tacos and enchiladas.” “He does the dishes, Dad, and sends the money back to his mother. Isn’t that amazing?” We jabbered on, me telling myself that Julie was just another sentient strand woven into my tapestry. It was her life. A Mexican dishwasher!

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*

*

*

I met Barry for lunch at our favorite café, where they served sprouts in place of iceberg lettuce. I reviewed the nibble from Winston and mentioned Julie’s call. “Sounds like she’s thriving, shoving off from her vanilla roots, trying out a new flavor, and not hiding it. She’s always championed the underclass. Well done, Dad!” I looked aside, having consumed my salmon salad, peeved he was so spoton. “Really, Barry, you could write a book about this stuff.” Barry reached under the table and squeezed my bony knee. “Can you imagine Len ever saying such a thing? He thought I was copping out, working with kids. Sorry, I’ve been yakking, and you’re all done.” He chomped into his turkey burger. “Take your time, pal,” I said. “We’re here for yakking, not the food.” Barry swallowed and looked me in the eyes. “Take my time.” He shook his head. “You know, once we were in a fancy restaurant, and Len finished, and I’m savoring every bite. It cost a fortune, and he was paying. So he stops talking. He tenses up, as usual, his eyes darting around the room, and suddenly he stands, shakes the crystal, and near cusses, ‘Hell will freeze over by the time you finish!’ and he storms off. Typical. But it was our anniversary; that’s why I remember it.” I was all too familiar with how “typical” were my best friend’s twenty-plus years of devotion to that man. “Sorry, Peter. Didn’t mean to bring up Len. We were dissing your daughter.” I squeezed a not-bony knee of Barry’s. “Don’t you ever apologize. We’re friends for life.” “I know, babe,” said Barry. “We’re the original civil union.”

*

*

*

I was determined to take it step-by-step with Winston, the head and heart abreast. I wrote him a long letter about Bonnard, Turner; watercolors versus oils; purportedly gay Sargent; whatever this man Winston had triggered by way of inviting an airing of ideas, mostly questions, and unhinging the trap door to the next set of conundrums. Our next call, we chatted about his parents’ new pink and baby blue suburban Catholic manse interior, which more resembled a plaster wedding cake; a McNally play in the works portraying Jesus as gay; and the value of blood and guts in the Catholic mass.

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“There has to be ritual,” Winston explained, “for people to make real their brutal impulses. The original church was healthy when it brought the massacre in from the streets in a safe, ceremonial form. Betrayal, torture, a grisly death.” “It never occurred to me like that,” I responded. “We need to stop the mind, in the Buddhist sense. The world’s out of whack. For example, are you aware of your surroundings, sitting there? What are you seeing?” “The ceiling. I’m lying down.” “All the better!” said Winston, sliding into a silky tenor. “On the sofa, floating on those down-filled cushions?” “Actually, I’m in bed.” “Fred with you?” “He’s on the floor. He still has to go out.” I took a deep breath, wary of a man who wanted to be photographed in the nude like Diagaliev. “What does it feel like, whatever your free hand is touching?” “The bedspread.” “No, that’s the left-brained object. I said what does it feel like? Let your thoughts wander, dear man. Close your eyes.” “It’s pebbly. There are loose threads. I know it needs mending …” “Just graze it, with one finger only, barely skimming …” “It’s smooth, slightly ticklish. I’m also aware of callused fingers, the insides, from gripping brushes all day.” “What are you wearing?” “Jeans and—” “Touch them. Are they soft?” “Very. My favorite pair.” “And shirt, describe it. Don’t peek.” “A loose, long-sleeved T-shirt, faded yellow …” “The color of what flower?” “Daffodils. Over the hill.” “Touch the shirt; feel and smell the flowers.” “Spring seems so far off, but the daffs are pungent with rain.” “Now touch your chest—stay focused on the cloth, not your body. Does it resemble the petals?” “I remember this very sensation from playing in my grandfather’s garden. The tulips were like satin; I crushed them and knew this was wrong, but I loved it.” “Now go from the tender feel of nature to that of fabric clothing a human being. Move your fingers to a nipple, lightly, not pressing, not in a hurry, just hovering over the surface, teasing playfully.”

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“It’s getting hard.” “Enjoy it, take your time and circle around, every now and then stroking more firmly, then take your fingers away …” “This is too weird.” “Shhh. Your breathing’s too quick. Relax, Peter. Take a long breath in, and out. Let your hand find your other nipple, the crown of your pectorals. Follow the dip there, and up and onto the other lovely mound …” I whispered, “I didn’t realize …” “No words, no thoughts,” Winston interrupted, his voice a harp string gingerly plucked then left to resonate, in no rush to strike the next note. “Use your fingers like the finest of your sable brushes, running them lightly over your tummy, circling and slowing down on the taut navel, appreciating this newfound attention.” “You should be a masseur.” “There are no shoulds. Just let your breath join the rhythm of your fingers now finding the next fabric, the soft faded jeans …” “My stomach’s showing.” “Don’t touch your skin. You’re discovering the very threads of pure cotton caressing your body; let your fingers slide up and down each leg, each thigh, slowly, now inside, not touching your shaft …” “How did you know it was swelling?” “Just picture yourself as the fabric privileged to grace your skin, to protect you from the world, to conceal your secrets, the parts of you so private and special …” “I’m so engorged it almost hurts.” “Let your fingers creep over your fly, not touching, not yet. Go back up now and trace your waist, pinch those nipples as hard as you want; massage your lower belly and, yes, let your hand slip under and down into the dark, warm, anticipating space, now back up! Grab, instead, the buttons and undo them, your final thrust because now you are going to slow way back down, far away from your skin, and return to the cool shirt and the jeans, the briefs; savor them apart from the hot, humid flesh …” Naked, I opened my eyes—an hour later? I had no idea when I’d hung up the phone. I had dozed, for certain, at some point in the escapade. Winston, too, had climaxed but, with his hallucinogenic serenade set at the pitch of an electronic vibraphone, he kept me drowned in a quicksand of words. Gradually, as I came to my senses, I was impressed by my complete lack of shame and the depletion of my every vessel and vein.

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Then this though broke the surface of my fog: for once in my life I cannot imagine replaying for Barry a blow-by-blow.

*

*

*

I started an abstract oil, the better to digest or pass beyond my odd telephone indiscretion. Throughout the day, I could not quite dismiss the aural spell that entwined me. I thought of Circe and the Sirens: truth following fiction. Winston called that evening, predictably, for which I was fortified with a stance of neutrality. I would neither discount the episode as unreal nor embrace it as a valid next step to acquaintance. “So,” I said breezily, “it was love at first sound.” Winston laughed a deep throaty guffaw, not swallowing my transparent attempt to puncture our escalation of intimacy. “I gather you enjoyed yourself. I did.” “Could we translate that into two bodies, not just two brains?” I queried. “Now, now, Peter, don’t raise the bar too abruptly for exploring yourself, let alone us two. Sounds to me like you’re perched atop a volcano of possibilities for sexual pleasure. Relating to others will work its way in time.” Once again, I was held rapt by the tenor as well as the content of these words. “Winston,” I said in a rush, “I thought it was a cliché, the brain as the primary sex organ. This needs some rethinking!” “You know the research prompted by Simon LeVay, the idea that the corpus callosum may be thicker in gay men than in straights?” “Yes, but remind me: the corpus callosum?” “It connects the two hemispheres with a bundle of nerve pathways. The anterior commissure is also supposedly larger in gays, as it is in heterosexual women, although there were no lesbians in the study.” “So it may be pure conjecture.” “Sure,” said Winston with a professorial air, graciously including all points of view while zeroing in on his own. “But the differentiation LeVay proposed was that gays have a smaller hypothalamus, which regulates sexual behavior, so at the very least, it suggests there’s a possible biological substrate for being gay, hence all the flak.” “I always thought I forever did battle with my mother, not easy-going Dad,” I offered, “because I was wired more like her.” “If the corpus callosum is responsible for communication between the two halves of the brain, gay men could indeed be more like women. We know girls are better at talking things through.” “So you think our sex play last night demonstrates our capacity for connecting?”

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Winston snickered. “I remember studies of little boys who were given a ball. They played alone or made up a game to try to take it away from each other; either way, they went at it nonstop. Little girls invented a game that made sure everyone got a chance. It if didn’t work, they created a new one. Of course, that argues more for social conditioning than genetic predisposition.” “I hope we never figure it out,” I said. “Keep the fundamentalists pissed.” Despite my often flinching from his supercilious tone, Winston’s stock was rising. “Right-brained skills are opposite to the left-sided sequential logical—” “Oh, no,” I interrupted. “Fabrics, choreography, flower arranging!” “… and then Pillard’s studies of twins: if one’s gay, there’s a huge likelihood the other is, too. It could backfire, of course. If we argue it’s innate, we’re fomenting our exclusion instead of acceptance as basically the same with just different wiring.” I was hooked. “We must stop meeting like this,” I ventured, sensing on some level it was up to me, the recalcitrant, less-polished knight in this joust to say when. “I’ll bring my bag of tricks,” said Winston after we had set a date. If we were about the business of buggery and high jinks, then a demure restaurant dinner would never do. “Open to awe,” a phrase in one of Winston’s letters, kept repeating itself in one of the many echo chambers of my bifurcated brain.

*

*

*

We decided a Friday night instead of a Saturday would be “less loaded” in its expectations as the week’s big letting go. I paced my studio, grounding myself in two works in process, my purpose in the universe as painter if all else failed. I’d had a few blind dates unmasked at my place and favored it over foreign turf. At home, with Fred and my unsprayed fruits and free-range chicken, the cushions, the bed, and everything else conformed to my particular bag of bones, I could if necessary appear to be hospitable while not yielding one iota. Why, then, am I pacing worse than Fred when he needs to pee? It was cold for early March, although there had been several thaws. The skies hung low as a thick, ominous, gray hulk. I doubted we could walk over my softening-mud paths, so I brought in armloads of extra firewood. Winston could talk. Or rather, he and I had amply indicated that our combined reservoir of topics ran wide and deep. I relished the prospect of fireside chats. The gravel crunched, the dog barked, and I trotted out to Winston’s battered, black sedan of indeterminate make. Score one plus: indifference to the material.

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“This is the sticks,” said Winston. He blinked behind lenses a quarter-inch thick. “I thought Holt was marooned.” I took in the car’s mess before the man. Candy wrappers, boxes of chocolate-covered thises and thats, and various CDs were tossed in a heap on the passenger’s seat. Cookie crumbs that littered Winston’s lap mostly fell to the ground as he emerged. He was tall, his eyes level to mine, and he grabbed me in a hug. His thick brown crew cut was longer and pointier than in the photo: less buzz-cut butch, more neglectful nerd. Score one negative, for same reason: indifference, but to vanity. I smiled and extended a hand. “God, it’s freezing up here. Hope you’ve got the fire roaring.” “Of course,” I said. I had summed up the man with the artist’s lightning speed. Indoors, Winston peeled off a voluminous, stained, originally olive loden coat. He wore extremely baggy black jeans and a battleship gray sweatshirt that revealed that his fondness for fabric was in his mind’s eye. The bruised black sneakers, partially unlaced, were also an afterthought. His teeth needed attention. Every struggling Catholic family can’t afford orthodontia, you prig. “Welcome, Winston!” I led him on a tour of the old farmhouse, the floorboards refinished and not, the nooks and crannies, the studio addition, the chat we carried on of absolutely no consequence as I steeled myself as host and curtailed Winston as guest. I became loquacious about my paintings—my own and the others I’d collected, gaining steam in the contest and soon pitying the poor man’s chances for gaining entry. While we relaxed with wine and guacamole, we held forth on the Greek islands, Olympia in particular; Lawrence Durrell’s gayness; Laura Nyro—whom we’d both heard at the Village Gate; Julie’s and most of her generation’s ignorance of world geography. “I used to teach English but narrowed it down to drama,” said Winston, adjusting his thick glasses. “Makes for so much livelier a classroom.” “You were telling me about those masks your kids are making—how marvelous,” I said as I tossed my legs onto the ottoman. “You must be quite the performer yourself, up in front of a class, encouraging them to cut loose.” So he’s burly. Barrel-chested and bearlike. It fits with the sonorous baritone. “I’m writing a play. For me. Not for school.” Winston hiked his right ankle up and onto his left knee, slightly grunting with the effort. “Tell me about it,” I said, composing an earnest look. “It’s about two brothers, one gay, one married, and his wife. The brothers, formerly close, depend upon each other, especially after their parents die. But they are thrust apart by the one’s coming out. The straight one becomes violently homophobic; the wife becomes sympathetic with the gay, antipathetic

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with her husband. The gay man and his sister-in-law are convinced of the straight man’s homosexuality, always suspected by them both, and their pairing becomes the union, and so it goes.” “That’s topical.” “I need to be creative, Peter, not just as a profession. It’s wonderful how you’ve applied yourself to your craft, and with such beautiful and powerful results.” I was tugged back into the game in spite of the negative balance of the moment in my see-saw appraisal. We made it through a candlefuck dinner of my crab-filled spinach ravioli; I imbibed more wine than I wanted. Put him in the guest room, came in Barry’s voice, but I was too buzzed. Winston’s telephone charisma had metabolized in the flesh into a mixture of chutzpah and reserve. Each aspect was appealing, but I approached the bed chamber at night’s end feeling hollow and inadequate to the task of adventure, at least with Winston. I wasn’t horny, let alone lustful. And it didn’t help that Winston, brushing his teeth and pissing without closing the door, was being so matter-of-fact. He emerged from the bathroom fully clothed; I was down to my skivvies. “I’m a little nervous, Peter. Do you have a candle to light?” “Of course!” I leapt at the chance to stage something or other, relying as I’d been on Winston’s earlier seductive overtures. When I reentered the bedroom, the guy was standing in baggy, dingy underpants that sagged well below his rear—a baby elephant in diapers. The body, by now, I was prepared for; what came next, I was not. As he wriggled out of his drawers, Winston exposed the most micro of penises imaginable on an adult male, let alone somebody “burly.” The little prong was like an infant marsupial peeking out of its mother’s pouch. I lit the candle, forced a smile, and pulled back the covers. “It’s a king-sized bed. We can take it nice and easy.” I slid out of my briefs. “You’ve got a beautiful swimmer’s build, Peter,” warbled Winston. He climbed in. “All those laps. But my brain is waterlogged,” I tried to lighten the moment. I squirmed under the bedding as Fred looked up dolefully from the floor. “And a beautiful penis,” said Winston. He blew out the candle with a gleam in his eye, and his voice returned to his lower octave, Mephistophelean chord. Does one say thank you? I did thank the gods it was dark as we went about our business. Without fail, I could be fondled and exhibit the autonomic reflexes of a decapitated bird: writhing, writhing, gush-gush-gush. This part was easy. Somewhere into long minutes of manipulating Winston, blessedly, he begged off.

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“It’s more than enough to be naked, our first night,” said Winston. “Do you mind if I simply hold you as we fall asleep?” “Let’s,” I said softly as relief washed over me. This was short-lived, as Winston soon was snoring and had hammer-locked one of my elbows at an odd angle while pinning my buttocks and one leg to the point that I lost feeling. Patiently I waited for Winston to roll away so I could recover my limbs. I freed up a foot, which was startled into pins and needles with the retreating numbness, and realized I had to make another move. Probably several if I wanted to survive until dawn, which was the very first excuse I had to let Fred out. For over two hours, I decried my ignoring the hints of slovenliness—the reported red licorice and buttered popcorn ingested simultaneously at the movies; the packrat apartment. One night pinned to my own mattress, even in my self-made hollows, was one night too many.

*

*

*

I half slept, my quasidreams anticipating my greeting of the dawn. I tried to force the brightness to enter the room, but it wouldn’t happen. At one point, I opened an eye, which settled on the nearest window. It was an unnatural, eggy orange, as if cotton gauze plastered the panes and obstructed the full light of day: beloved dawn at last. It was ice. Snow. I slipped quickly from bed so as not to rouse Winston. Warm and naked, I froze with disbelief. Piles, mountains, continents of white powder were heaped against the house, halfway up the windows—a good three feet. No! I found my robe, Fred in tow, and dashed to the front door. It wouldn’t budge. On this side, the snow was mounded as high as me! I dressed, then shoveled the smallest of paths out the studio door so Fred could pee. The force of the storm hurled horizontal snow in both our wincing faces. “This is a dream come true!” wailed Winston later, wrapped as he was in a big bath towel and ready for the spa. “We get to snuggle all day!” “Tonight, too, Winston. There’s no way I’ll be plowed out with this.” Winston’s car was no more than a vague hump in the white mass. “First, though, come back to bed, please, Peter. Still so nice and warm. And I have to show you my bag of tricks.” “Oh, yes, you did say … I thought metaphorically.” I put any thoughts on hold, my mind boggled, as Winston dumped the contents of a tote bag onto the bed. Various plastic gismos and tubes of lube. I clutched a pillow to my chest.

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“I’ve heard of a cock ring, to keep a firm erection,” I said. I felt at ease, absolved of responsibility, a bystander now in my own bed. “But these leather straps?” “One slips under the balls, at the base, and this other up the rod, kind of a double harness.” Winston beamed. “It’s called the Roman Gladiator. But the cock rings can come later. Let’s see … the nipple clamps.” They were connected by a thin chain. To pull things taut for more tension? I wondered as Winston kept foraging through the pile. “The Ladyfinger probe is best for beginners.” Winston sorted through the half-dozen rubbery hotdogs, one like stacked pingpong balls, another more penis-shaped like a dildo but only a half-inch thick. I sobered. “You want me to be a bottom?” Winston rolled into his mellow, this-is-your-captain-speaking mode. “We’re each of yin and yang, Peter. You have a bottom and a top. You’ve only discovered the one so far. There’s a whole world of sensual delight. These are toys!” “Even that thing?” It was a rubber cap and like a condom; the end covered with porcupine quills, albeit in latex. “The tickle fringe extension? Once you’re accustomed to the feathery teasing of your prostate, believe me, you’ll want to postpone orgasm forever.” “What about shit?” “You douche, silly. See this?” He held up another plastic sleeve, enticing as a turkey baster. “But first, relax! We’re just going to play at loosening you up and retraining your sphincters to yield just a smidgeon, and then later—” “Batteries? Oh no, Winston. Now wait …” “They’re for the vibrator. Aren’t those throbbing veins realistic?” “Don’t you want a cup of coffee?” “I want you to shut your eyes and open yourself to sensations you’ve never dreamed possible. Forget me, dear Peter. I’m just the intermediary to help you please yourself.” Gently he shoved me onto the bed, onto my belly, and stroked my shoulders, my flanks. “I’ll get the oil. Just massage for now.” There was nowhere to go, nothing to do. I could, if I tried, hark back to the time when I did what I was told. In fact, I abdicated on the phone pretty quickly to this man; too quickly, as if my everyday adult male pose is only a masquerade. Am I really waiting in the wings to be taken? “That’s better. Give those muscles a rest.” Winston’s slippery hands slid evenly down the backs of my legs, each stroke wedging them open a notch wider. “That feels great, especially the inner thighs. I’m getting hard.” “Forget the phallus. Flow in the other direction … let down your guard.” There was a click and a buzz, and I felt the touch of Winston’s fingers amplified by the gadget he was holding. Smoothly, without transition, I could tell it was the rubber cock and not fingers pulsating over my crack and down my

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thighs. Eventually, it found my hole and lingered there, greasy and releasing me from my need to be dry and tight in that sphere. The throbbing knob found my perineum. “It feels like I’m coming.” “Nice, isn’t it? But you’re not.” We carried on with other appliances and thicker and thinner lubes; Winston kept surprising me. The voice, too, was in high gear, the endless sing-song of an auctioneer uttering explanations and mostly encouragements. “This is a small butt plug, versus medium, large, jumbo. You’ll never go back.” Something triangular slid inside. “I used to get enemas when sick as a kid.” “Shhh. Just feel.” Next, he tried the one textured with ribs. After an extraterrestrial hour or so, Winston suggested a coffee break. I had another robe, so we sat around the kitchen table and sipped like long lost friends. The snow had obliterated any view from the windows, even the full-length ones in the studio. I was besotted with the tingling in my bottom. I was aching to have an orgasm. This chatty, bespectacled, heavy-set man, without a penis to speak of, had become the embodiment of sexual wizardry. More idle talk, and we were back in bed. If there had been a woman in my life of this sort, would I have stayed heterosexual? I glanced at Winston’s tiny Christ-child cock and balls, which did not matter in the slightest as I resettled on my front side and spread my long legs. Is this why a woman can come and keep coming as the ram slides in and out? I wondered. Because there’s friction over so much greater a surface area, and the clitoris is just the on switch that sets it all in motion? Men should be starkraving mad with jealousy; it’s best we’re kept clueless. “Now up on your knees. You handle the probe this time, Peter, while I massage your thighs.” I lost track of time. We dressed in my sweats and made lunch, with the dinner dishes still untouched. We flipped on the TV long enough to hear that this was the blizzard of the century then headed back to bed. I massaged Winston with enthusiasm, although just on his backside. It was getting dark. “One more toy before cocooning by the fire.” Winston held up a string of four small balls, each an inch apart. “Chinese love beads. I just oil them …” and carefully, slowly, he inserted them into my willing rump. “Trainer beads, not the real thing. We’ll do bigger next time, but now when I pull them out like so …” I groaned. “I think I’m getting the hang of it.”

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We drank wine and fixed food. I shoveled a bigger path so Fred could come and go. The conversation had lost its steam. I was leaden with an all-day erection, the whole of me lodged in my middle, with my limbs, eyes, and mind gone lifeless. Back in bed, a fetid swamp musky with sex and reeking of almond oil. This isn’t my room; it’s an Arabian bordello for males only, I thought. Winston put on his CDs of lilting Renaissance recorders and lutes, followed by eerie Native American pipe organs. Fred was pacing in circles, not like a dervish but in need of a leak. Winston slipped off to let him out as I drifted on in my narcosis. “It’s time to enshroud the body and keep the hole hidden, secretive, waiting; your proud penis, too.” He led us back to the fireside. “I need to drape you. Let’s just take this curtain; it slides right off the rod.” Then Winston took possession of the tablecloth and bedspread for himself, and we were soon bound as Bedouins. He fashioned towels as turbans and produced a stick of incense from his notorious tote bag. Next, he positioned the sofa pillows on the floor, protected by a tarp from the studio. I knelt, staring at my center, knowing the day’s ultimate release was at hand. My hard-on made a tent of the curtain material but, lying down, I tried to stay focused on the elliptical music; the steady beat of Winston’s affirmations; the importance of redefining one’s body as a transcendental being. Otherwise, how (as Winston kept saying so soothingly) could there be a true melding of all the senses that allowed, if for just a few seconds, the purest, childlike self to flee the bondage of the brain? He propped another pillow under my middle to elevate my butt. I shut my eyes, awaiting the next anointment. A waxy, viscous flow began spreading across my cheeks. “I’m melting this candle so it merges with the lube, this lovely drizzle, to peel off for all the more sensation. We just want the stub—not the whole thing.” This last was lost in my stupor as the slippery tube gently slid in and out, the joystick ever so beautifully massaging my insides, the pressure and prickly waves skirting the epiphany of ejaculation. Winston was right: it was double the pleasure. This went on … and on … I could make it last … I was vaguely aware of Winston’s rocking; he was stroking himself with his free hand, two pistons in tandem. “I’m coming,” I gasped. “This is … unbelievable …” “Shhh. Accept it. It’s yours. As I accept mine …” Suddenly loud banging exploded on the back door. I seized up and the hard thing in my ass sucked into my bottom as I cried, “Oh my God, someone’s here!” “Wait, Peter. Relax. Let me get this …” “Relax?”

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“… the candle—” “The candle?” The door banging intensified. “I can get it out, just release the outer ring of your sphincter …” The door shoved open; I could hear but not see from the living room floor. “Hal-low? Hallow!” said a woman’s voice. Fred bounded into the living room, plastered with snow, and shook wildly over us, still frantic by the fire. “It’s Missus Spooner down the road. Hel-lo?” she called again. I leaped up. The candle popped out. I ran to the kitchen door, which startled Mrs. Spooner. Her grandmotherly face contorted into shock as she attempted to smile. “Oh, Mr. Bauman, I don’t think we’ve officially met. I’m Muriel Spooner, over at Highgate Road. I recognized your dog, and since I’m married to the game warden …” I put hand to head and felt the terrycloth turban. I clasped the curtain around my open midriff, too appalled to speak. “Have you ever seen such a storm? I guess your dog couldn’t find …” “I’m—I’m wet … a bit of a flood … change of clothes …” “Now if you need anything …” She averted her eyes. “Thank you for rescuing Fred,” I finally found the presence to sputter. I yanked off the turban as Mrs. Spooner bolted into the night-blackened sea of snow.

*

*

*

We slept late, the three of us; no one wanted to move, least of all Fred. With Winston on one side and Fred on my other, I was warm to the bone. It was impossible to envision the polar opposite outdoors. Before heading to bed, it had been obvious the blizzard had returned with a second helping of a yard more snow, which dumped three-quarters of the way up my windows. When we did emerge, dressed, I assembled a breakfast that compensated for the haphazard offerings of the day before. My brunch consisted of whole wheat and cornmeal blueberry pancakes, local syrup, apple spice chicken sausage, melon and mint salad, even thawed slices of leftover ginger layer cake with lime and toasted macadamia nut-cream cheese frosting. “There’s a cup of ground ginger in the cake,” I slurred over a final cup of coffee. “You said you didn’t cook,” said Winston as he licked crumbs from his fingers. “I’m just the intermediary, a vessel through which flow the dynamic ingredients.” “Okay. What I’d really love to see flow are your watercolors.”

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I agreed to a demonstration as Winston hunched opposite at the table, head collapsed onto his fists, wide eyes fixed on every dash and dart. “What are these?” said Winston, poking happily into my racks. “My reject pile.” “You’ve cut some up?” “Birthday cards. There’s always a section worth saving.” “These are great—your mistakes! Could I take scissors to this one?” “Be my guest,” I said as I rinsed brushes. Winston sat upright at the big watercolor bench and went to work snipping, taping, gluing, and stapling. I looked over his shoulders and rested a hand on one—another round, undefined mass that made up this man. Winston hummed a popular mazurka by Rimsky-Korsakov and chopped bits of watercolors as if the scissors were castanets. Transfixed by Winston’s dexterity, I found myself massaging both my guest’s shoulders and his soft thick neck; the pliable shapeless agglomeration of this body was as familiar and friendly as any I’d ever encountered. I fondled Winston’s ears and soft-bristled brush cut. Why doesn’t everyone treat people like their dogs? “What’s that?” I asked as Winston held aloft his collage. Without speaking, Winston placed the patchwork oval to his face. His eyes blinked through almond slits. “Your turn,” he coaxed, not commanded. He handed me the scissors and spread out more of my rejects. “Mud pies, you call them, with no backbone. Ha!” I proceeded to cut and paste. “Think of your face as a blank slate,” he said. “How do you want to create it? Go on. You already know it’s a mask. Now don’t get too serious.” With Winston to my rear, his words sealed me off. They matched the delectable state of isolation when painting in the first place. It was just like being submerged in the warm bath of Winston’s phone voice that time, when words became notes of a bassoon that rippled over my skin and muscles and mood. The afternoon trickled on. We started another set of masks, bolder this time, heedless of the clatter outside as the driveway was finally plowed and the barest streak of sun penetrated the ice-bound windows of our igloo. “We’ve done the pretty versions, how we like to be presented to the world,” said Winston. “Now we do the opposite: how we’d like to look but would never dare.” He dashed off purple-black ribbons and hot pink eyes, urging me likewise to flail away. At one point, Winston fetched from the trash tissues I’d used as watercolor blotters—great dripping slogs of blaring red and inky blue—and fastened them to his latest mask, an aboriginal sea creature more starfish sweet than jellyfish cruel.

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Bruckner’s Ninth had been blasting from the classical station. We took Fred out for a romp and found the driveway and Winston’s car finally disgorged. “I should get going,” said Winston. He slumped as he walked and negotiated even packed snow with the effort of the unfit. “God forbid we left something idle in your bag of tricks.” I thrust an arm around Winston and squeezed. We stomped and shook off in the mud room. “Stay,” I said. “One more night. You’re cheaper than the furnace.” At this Winston’s face became that of a kid’s on Christmas morning. Soon Winston was dressed in a pair of my old khakis and an extra-large flannel shirt, but still they pinched the man in all the wrong places. “I have another fireside thought,” said Winston. Another orgasm: out of the question. But the assault on the summit could be lengthy and delirious. “No more wine,” said Winston. “We’ll do a ceremonial tea.” We brewed a pot of green tea, built up the fire, turned off the lights, and lit a multitude of candles. I settled Fred in the mud room with extra dog biscuits and started Winston’s CDs of Malaysian tribal drums and strings. “Before I pour the tea, we’ll gather our masks, the pale and the ugly and the brave, and we’ll bring them here to the fire and place them, one by one, onto the flames.” Moving slowly in bare feet, we did so. I flinched as each crazy-quilt mask was engulfed in a great whoosh. I wanted to keep Winston’s earth-sea crustacean to show the kids; moreover, likely, to remember the moment. We sat opposite each other on cushions, fingers encircling warm mugs. “The eyes can be closed, or not. What you see, what you’ll be registering, will not be in the ordinary way,” began Winston. He had shucked his horn-rimmed glasses, and his voice slowed down with each sentence, deferring to the ululating drums. “Oh, what wonderful visions from simple paper and paints, in a matter of minutes, going from here to there … There as accessible as opening an unlocked door. How far we’ve come from the animal world, not our beloved pets who reflect us and thank goodness for that, but from the times when men emerged from the loins of forest beasts and the eggs of jungle birds, the original caretakers of our most vital organs that house the spirit within …” I’m the audience in my own home, and Winston the conductor. Or is it a private recital: my salon, with the artist in residence? Forget nomenclature! I felt my head sink lower onto my neck, my whole upper half combine with the bottom. The music had become the click of sticks, the cadence of evening insects in their swelling crescendo.

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“Woman, man, mermaid, centaur, gnat, knave: we are the composite of all living things and can take strength and solace from that.” Winston had now made a metronome of his voice, which tick-tocked in sync with the sluicing tambourines. I could not lower my lids. My gaze had gone fuzzy in the flickering light, as if I were part of one of my watercolors, soaking wet, relinquishing pent-up liquids and watching them flood the total field of my periphery. The fine lines of objects were gradually discombobulated by coronas of color. If I moved not a muscle, the objects, one by one, began to disappear. The whole of the room was a deliquescence of melting shapes and harmonizing hues. “… and we sip the tea; it, too, infuses us with warmth, tang, wonder …” A staccato of tin keys gave way, beat by beat, to an adagio of unidentifiable strings: a tremulous zephyr on a sun-soaked isle, gently rustling the reeds. “… alive and well in the world, and of it, too …” he whispered. The fugue of the Far East continued to spin its web and envelop me, along with Winston’s humming; sounds had long since made words obsolete. I opened my eyes. I hadn’t known they’d been closed, nor for how long. Had I been hypnotized? My head, my eyes, neither had moved, and all was a blue-black squid ink blur flecked with tangerine from the soft, ebbing flames. Where’s Winston? My heart skipped in fear. But, slowly, as my sight was restored, so too was the outline of the man, a Buddha in shadow, with a sly, rueful smile, silent and mystical as moonlight on snow.

YEAR FOUR

Chapter 5

Male Order Bride

ComManD, a half-dozen years before the Internet, was a computerized matchmaking for gay men. There had to be social life beyond Moosehead Country, New Hampshire. I was open to a midlife linkage involving two states, two homes, two sets of credit cards, two men who did not have to blend a damask settee with a beanbag chair. And with my watercolor shows in varying locales, travel was increasingly part of my routine. A typical profile: … jazz … politics … hiking … scuba diving … Broadway … sushi … travel … The blurbs were too brief; the only enticing part was an address or phone number for instant access. Each match included a rating of me and my rating of the other man based on submitted profiles and preferences of age, height, weight, hair (upper versus facial), nationality, smoking status, endowment: “Average,” “Less So,” “More So,” “Doesn’t Matter.” I left that one blank. “Yeah,” answered Ed in New York City one evening. Ed had good stats, plus “warm, smart, movies, museums, Rilke, and Steve Martin.” “My name’s Peter; you were on my list from ComManD? I live in the country but get to the city often and I—” “Oh, God. I once had a relationship with a guy in the Catskills. So unreal. I’d whisk him around—dinners, theater—and then he’d spend all weekend when it was his turn doing the elaborate food bit, a canoe trip. Like, when were we just going to lay back with the Sunday Times? And the expense! The phone calls, the car rentals. I don’t think so … Paul? What did you say your name was?” 77

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I said good-bye and dialed again. “Hi, Bart? This is Peter Bauman; you and I had high ratings of each other on ComManD?” “On what? Did we meet at Brunch Buddies?” I clarified it for Bart, “Boston, good build, seeks similar.” “I’ve had really creepy results with that thing. Bunch of losers. Turn that down! Sorry, my sister’s kid has already shot his eardrums at ten. I’m looking for work and had to give up my flat, so I’m staying with Sheila till I get back on my feet.” I wrote to a man in Chicago, there being a United jet nonstop daily from Manchester. Dear Peter, How surprised I was to get your letter, let alone from New Hampshire! Still single? You seem to have it all in your late forties. I fantasize about meeting a man removed from urban blight. Enclosed is a photo. Dare I ask one of you and risk ruining the image? I take that back. How a man looks is of little consequence. How he lives, what he is … I wish I could have been a father! I’ve been way too centered on my needy parents, and to escape, I became way too focused on my work. Now I’m in my late 30s. My challenge is the opposite of yours. I meet so many men here in Chicago. A soul mate? Like finding a needle in a haystack. We city gays get so picky. I work at a local TV station. Wildly demanding schedule. I do get bursts of freedom but find I’d rather be at work. You get the picture. I think to be a man in this world is quite an achievement. Perhaps I have to find one of my own and be open to emulation. At first glance, you sure hit the mark. I’d love to hear more about you, if you’re so inclined. This has indeed been a pleasure, temporarily shooing negativity into the dustbin. Sincerely, Andrew Sincere, I don’t doubt. But so far away … This was the left brain speaking; it lagged way behind the subjective lobe on the right, which had beheld Andrew’s photo. Fairly white skin looked amazingly opalescent and unlined. High cheekbones and a thin but square-cut nose conveyed regal authority. That impression was deepened by medium-brown eyebrows that were not misaligned with

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natural blond hair. The eyes were a bluish green—rather pale, like the hair and skin—but still a countenance of stature and resolve. More handsome than pretty. This Andrew from Chicago is fucking gorgeous! Is such a person so vain, I wondered, slumped in my studio, that he doesn’t want competition? Whatever, he shouldn’t be written off simply because he was beautiful but single at thirty-eight. There are those who prefer older men, and ten years between adults is nothing. I may offer maturity for a man my junior just as he may enliven me in ways in the phase of make-believe to get things going. Without brooding further, I dashed off a letter to Andrew, enclosing the irresistible snapshot of me and Fred in front of the blazing fire: no flat in Chicago could rival that. Dear Peter, You have a dog! And to name him Fred, after Lucy’s neighbor. They rerun Lucy forever on the station, and it’s no wonder. We all need to hearken back to simple give and take; ordinary folks in life are where it’s at. Working in television, one can get mired in unreality. Tell me about your watercolors. How great about the show in DC. The Phillips Collection is one of my favorite cloisters—quiet space, like the Frick in New York. Maybe someday, Peter, you’ll be in a museum! By the way, you’re nuts to qualify your looks because of frown lines. Look at Clint Eastwood! My grandmother always said her scars and lines were road maps to reality. I’ll save details of my crazy family for another time. Suffice it to say, I’m still raising my parents, with no end in sight. My dead mother Geraldine is still a parasite in my guts. And I thought I dismissed her when I was twenty-one … Nothing to bitch about. I take advantage of city splendors—restaurants, theater, Lincoln Park—but you can get these anyplace. Imagine being entangled in a man’s arms that have been hardened by splitting wood! And you swim. Now that appeals to my aesthetic side. You’re like the Greek ideal— fostering the life of the mind as well as an agile body—before the Roman thugs came along and ruined it all. I didn’t go to college. I was raised in Europe—my father was in sales— and I attended private schools, usually with a dozen spoiled American kids like me, learning French in not really schools, but typically the freezing wing of a chateau that was formerly a great house. So I’m good at the glitz but not the guts.

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More later about my job. It’s television; forever do-or-die deadlines. You live with it. At what price? Can’t really say. I’m still discovering what resides at my core. Does that put you off? Just trying to be honest. I’ll also admit, Peter, just addressing you is exposing something that feels entirely untapped. A little frightening. So if it’s okay with you, I’d prefer exchanging more letters before our phone numbers. Either I want to keep the image of you as Primal Man in the air a while longer before landing, or I want to hold off on just another date, brief as a smile from a passing stranger. Listen to me. I’m never this fanciful. Or hopeful, in truth. Looking forward to your next eloquent letter, whenever … Sincerely, Drew PS: Andrew is my professional name only. PPS: Tell me more about Fred. Looks like you already have a lover!

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Mud season turned into May. The forsythia was in bloom; the crocuses had come and gone. Big bulbs shoved up and out of the ground. Steady sap from the sugar maples had produced a bumper crop. Everywhere juices were flowing; I was horny as hell. True, my swim workouts had become more intense, and I’d read that, accordingly, testosterone could be surging. There had to be something to the celebrity of spring. Why else would poor Fred, fixed as a puppy, be humping the odd lower leg, or even a throw pillow? Primate behavior: am I, or is any of us, any different? I was channeling my energy into raking leaves. Just because Drew in Chicago is my only iron in the fire, don’t blow things out of proportion. Hefting a wheelbarrow full of rocks, I found myself wondering if the pubic bush was brown or blond. Next, collecting armloads of fallen twigs, I thought of my daughter, twentytwo, out of college, and dealing with hormones raging in her system. Ostensibly working in a day-care center “before starting my own Montessori school,” Julie was living with a Japanese jazz musician in a marginal section of Baltimore. On the phone, she often slurred her words, setting off in her father’s mind the obvious chain reaction of worries. Pruning apple trees, I reassured myself of her having at least one parent of unquestionable rectitude; she could flail away but still stay grafted to her common stock.

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It was Julie who urged me “to get with it” and come out via the computer world. “You’re not the only man your age wising up about his sexuality,” she instructed me. “And Dad, I expect you to be remarried to a nice guy in a couple of years when you turn fifty. I could be married, having kids. You and Mom are so busy, who’s going to babysit?” “You and Suki are that serious?” “I’m talking theoretically,” she scolded. “But you know I love kids.” After yard work, I wrote another long letter to Drew, this time ending with phone number, full name, and address.

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“Has he been tested?” asked Barry. “Not for awhile,” I said. We had just finished supper at Barry’s and were sitting idly over decaf. “He hasn’t dated in years.” “What’s that got to do with getting tested?” “You’re right. I’m due, too. It’s over a year. This is my fifth. God, I dread it.” Barry sighed and sipped; he didn’t need to say a word, with AIDS so embedded in his life. He’d been dating Michael for a year when Michael’s HIV infection bloomed into debilitating disease. Barry’s blue eyes were glazed over in gray. “It’s you I worry about, Barry, watching Michael slip away one miserable turn at a time.” “A relationship, finally, after Len,” said Barry. “I can’t believe I’m negative. Even though I never fool around …” “I’m doing that for you, according to you.” Barry looked up. “You damn well better be safe.” “I’ve told you everything. Remember when I brushed my teeth and then had oral sex? I’m still negative.” “It can take a decade,” said Barry, exhausted with the topic. “This is asinine, chatting up a guy in Chicago that good-looking.” “Use condoms.” “For sucking?” “They come in flavors.” “How about vinegar?” We attempted to laugh. I stood and paced the floor of Barry’s wonderful little nest: a tree house on three levels atop and astride an old Victorian garage; he rented the apartment for pennies from the widow Brownell. “Look at this, Barry. We have such ter-

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rific homes, good jobs. Now your Michael is dying. You don’t deserve this. Was it worth it?” I fingered the swivel chair plastered with cat hair. “Yes,” said Barry softly. He pushed shocks of black hair off his angel-white forehead. “Everything after Len has been worth it. So now I’m learning about death, helping another … that far outweighs the fear.” “Thank God you and Michael were just masturbatory play and didn’t fuck,” I said as I walked to the sink with dirty dishes. “I’ll try not to obsess about you.” I twisted on the tap and rolled up my sleeves. “And I won’t worry about you, as long as you’re courting a charming, levelheaded man of the world who wets your whistle—just keep it sheathed.”

*

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Drew and I had been talking for weeks, eventually every other night. Drew called New Hampshire as his schedule permitted. I stepped more lively about the house and studio and rushed Fred back indoors after his nocturnal pee so as not to miss the phone. “It’s a day job,” said Drew, “but it overlaps into evening if I’m not on my guard.” “What, actually, do you do?” I asked. “A little of everything,” Drew said evasively. “There are always visitors from New York, L.A., other affiliates. It’s too boring, Peter. I’d rather hear about the shed you’re building to house your power equipment.” Here he let his voice slither into a tad mock feminine: seduce me in back of the barn. I described my new chainsaw to cut sumac and clear the trails. “Gawd, what husband material!” “Well, I hope with two men, each gets to husband the other,” I said, immediately feeling the schoolmarm. We prattled on, fizzy and effortless as uncorked champagne.

*

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“I’m flying to New Hampshire this weekend, Peter,” announced Drew at the start of his next call. “Ready or not.” I studied my nails, which were caked with dirt. “You’ve left me speechless, Drew.” “Good. Talk, we’ve got down. It’s time to test the water.” “That’s not fair, you’re doing the traveling. We could meet—” “Chicago? Forget it. Too much razzle-dazzle. Besides, I must meet Fred.” “I could pick you up in—”

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“My assistant’s already got the ticket and rented the car. Just need directions to Timbuktu.”

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I dropped dinner with Becky and Martin, and lunch with Barry. As for finishing the invitations to the DC show: that I wouldn’t cancel, nor meeting Julie and her Suki a few weeks hence in a Baltimore nightclub. But every waking minute was now consumed with preparations for Friday’s candlefuck dinner. The candles, of course, matched the spring blooms I’d have indoors: a current crop of narcissuses with apricot centers, subtle for the dining room; the brazenly yellow daffs for the kitchen table. Damn. If only the lilacs had opened to infuse the bedroom. A few sprigs of lily of the valley; are they almost over the hill? A handful would be way too perfumey anyway, I thought, which resolved this strategic item before I focused on the next: which jeans to wear. A city slicker, he’ll go rustic chic, Gloria Vanderbilt or Armani. My same-style Wranglers ranged from fairly new to hanging on by a thread. Perhaps comfortable khakis, not so country bumpkin, would strike the appropriate note. And so my days went, mindless as I could make them. I rarely drove to Concord, but for the Wellington beef filets, I didn’t hesitate. These I seared to perfection, seasoned with garlic and herbs, amply dressed in an orange zest Hollandaise, wrapped in phyllo, and froze. They could be finished in minutes under the broiler without interrupting a word at the table. My fresh asparagus steams in seconds. The basics accomplished, I lavished attention on the raspberry coulée to go under my lemon tartlets; surgically I sliced grapefruit and avocado for the salad; toasted almonds to toss with the Basmati rice. Idiotproof: simply assemble. Déjà vu: awaiting the arrival of the mystery guest. Never was a blind date what I’d fecklessly concocted, like a kid on Santa’s lap greedily compounding my wish list. Maybe when I’m fifty I can act my age. Why should there be a whit of intrigue about the television business? Well, there just is. Well, get over it. The little voices bickered, attempting to spoil my fun. If you’d cut loose at Derek’s age, you’d be done with it. I was reminded how Becky and Martin had simply met, through ordinary means. Thus occupied on this Friday night, I tightened the bed linens and repositioned the dinner plates until the doorbell split the silence. Fred was caught offguard and erupted into a yodel of half barks; I froze. Showtime, I rallied. “Drew, you made it! We didn’t hear you.”

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“That Mercedes coupe is stealthy as a cat. And you’re Fred! Gotta greet you first. What a love.” He stood back up, smiled with dazzling teeth, and kissed me gingerly on the lips. I embraced him, flushed at confronting this man for whom a photograph was a poor imitation. He was nearly my height but willowy and debonair in tight black jeans, black tee, an ecru suede blazer, and hand-stitched Italian loafers. His icy blond hair was mussed in all directions, adding to the allure of his just having landed from afar. “You found us okay?” “Triple A details every cow path, I assure you.” He flung off the jacket and swished around the living room. “This is simply bucolic.” The mincing movements were not lost on me in spite of my being dumbstruck by the beauty, the china white skin similar to Barry’s, plus dramatic, light hazel eyes. “Just like you described.” Drew’s pearly smile stiffened into a dash. “It is a muted Williamsburg blue. Wouldn’t I love to gather those crewelwork curtains under a padded valance, covered with the same fabric, of course—a mite austere the way they hang. Just kidding, Peter. Let’s have another peck on the lips.” I remained dumbstruck but for a different reason: light gloss on Drew’s fingernails. That barely detectable varnish was a microcosm of the man. The wheels of my thinking, dependable and as precision geared as a Swiss watch, were mechanical and heartless in their instant verdict. “Let’s get your things from the car, open the wine, and let you crash by the fire,” I spit out in a volley. “You must be exhausted.” Drew lowered his lids a fraction. “First class. I slept like a lamb.” I returned with two glasses of wine. Drew was on the floor in his stocking feet, stroking Fred’s belly; the slutty dog was on his back and groaning. Maybe Drew’s just hyper. Who can be their best in a scene so bizarre? “This hound is just plain wonderful,” said Drew. He rose and accepted the wine, but placed it on the coffee table. “There used to be a pair of Lhasa apsos at the school in Dordogne. They expected us kids to wait on them!” “You’ve led a charmed life. Raised in Europe,” I said vacuously, settling on the sofa, the whole of me now anesthetized. “All veneer,” huffed Drew, combing hair into place with serpentine fingers and joining me on the sofa. “Say, Peter, you wouldn’t mind if I started off with a little vodka? I need to calm down. Stage fright.” “Of course. But you’re in television.”

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“Just a job.” He flicked a wrist, lacquered nails gleaming. “Now this is real. It’s all so beautiful, Peter. And so are you.” His searing hazel eyes fluttered up to mine and seized them as if taut cords connected our lines of vision. I forced a smile and hustled to the liquor cabinet. “Vodka …” Drew quickly followed. “I’ll make a stab in the dark—happen to have any lime juice? I’d adore a gimlet.” “Of course,” I said. “This, too, is a first-class cabin.” Touché, squealed Barry in my brain. We sat and sipped by the fire. Drew had his legs tightly crossed, dangling his elevated toes; he gestured grandly with the cocktail glass. I learned of Drew’s family and how affluence had incapacitated them. “Really, dear, wouldn’t everybody be gay if it was based on a dominatrix mother and distant dad?” At this I genuinely laughed. “My identity was shaped by dolls of both genders, pre-Barbie and Ken,” said Drew. “What was a little queer to do but invest himself in others? We couldn’t be ourselves.” Drew wrestled free from the sordid details to glean more morsels of my Ozzie and Harriet heaven: my kids’ graduations, Becky’s recent wedding, mine and hers in the first place, the arrival of Fred. He reveled in my artwork; we’d advanced to second drinks. Next Drew swiped the bedspread from the guest room and draped it over a circular end table until it grazed the floor: the essence of a country bed-and-breakfast overdone with Laura Ashley. “The colors are perfect. See how it sets off your jug of tulips? Don’t shy away from a little flair, Mountain Man. You’ve obviously got your share of gay genes.” I was not so drunk that I ruined the Wellingtons. “Slightly singed on one side,” I apologized. Drew may be a hopeless match, but he’s noticing every thread and family photo, and he’s knocked out by Fred’s perfect behavior: “more cogent than most people,” he said. I was determined to pull off a flawless, if civil, dinner. Well into the Pinot Blanc, Drew pursed his lips, which were not an exception to his facial extremes whether fidgety from apprehension, as upon arrival, or unwound, as now, by alcohol. “Look, Peter, this isn’t rocket science. We are not meant to be. It’s as plain as the look of disbelief on your kisser right now, shifting to one of false rebuttal in response to my frankness. You’re so wonderfully dishonest and polite—that’s what we love about WASPs, and you’re the host, but I’m the aggressor here. In a way, this is my show; I announced I was com-

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ing. The food, by the way, was fabulous. Oh, Peter, don’t look so crushed. You’ve done a beautiful thing here, for us, for me. You’re a doll.” “I’m trying to stay open, Drew. You shouldn’t say—” “Oh, shut up, sweetie.” He stood and took dishes to the kitchen. “I’ll serve your dessert.” “Wait! The raspberry coulée.” I bolted after; we assembled it together. An hour later, after coffee and patting linen to lips, Drew said “Now Peter, I’m driving to the airport to catch a flight back first thing.” “Drew, don’t be silly. All the drink.” I hesitated a beat. “And it’s been fun.” Drew uncrossed his long, lithe legs and flattened his mouth. Overall, sure, the guy was effeminate. But he had this uncanny knack of shaping his greenish eyes and surprisingly dark blond brows into a steely stare that held me in place. “All right. I’ll stay the night. But not in your guest room, Peter. If this is a spring fling, we’ll have some more fun, I assure you. It’ll be safe. But it’s just for fun. I know I can use it,” said Drew, his feet now on the floor, his elbows planted on knees, “and I think you could, too.” I sat across from a face with a square jaw more dominant than the delicately elevated cheek bones. Drew had shifted from Grace Kelly to Sean Connery. His words had just been spoken with a gravity I had heard often on the phone, a tone that was underscored by Drew’s initial brash decision to visit, then his decision to leave. It did not appear he was playing games; he was being emphatically forthcoming. “Let’s not talk it to death,” said Drew disrobing. “Of course we live in totally different worlds. For my part, I’ve loved the fantasy. You are the man of my dreams, even before we learn what happens in bed. But I could see it in your eyes the minute I stepped into your home. Eyes don’t lie. Isn’t that what you said of your portraits?”

*

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I woke well before Drew to tend Fred. Drew said he’d sleep late since he didn’t need to be at the airport until evening. I did the dishes, grateful for the early morning quiet to sort through my mental flotsam. I had lost my top-man virginity. Drew coaxed me into the dominant role, his shaving kit stocked with condoms and lubrication. “When a man is inside me, I believe he desires me,” Drew had crooned, one of the few comments we exchanged. I loved it, I thought, my hands at rest in the dishwater, staring morosely into the yard. Like being with a woman, parts sliding, meshing to maximum pleasure … The latex merely let me linger and last. Drew seemed transported to a place altogether foreign in my experience. It was like the best of sex

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with Becky, yet totally turned on as I only could be now, with a man. Drew’s body was smooth, at once soft and firm, without excess flesh. “Totally shaved!” I said to Drew later as we devoured my reheated peach muffins and coffee. “I almost lost my erection.” Drew shrugged. “It heightens sensation on the skin. Don’t they ‘shave down’ for swim competitions?” I nodded. “I should give it a try,” I said, knowing I would never. “There are lots of things you could try and still have fun and play safe.” Drew had the unvarnished look of a lady the morning after: no makeup, and the frank, earthy aspect of an animal, confident of its place, squatting there in the wild. “I was impressed you could come back for second helpings. It’s hard to believe you’re forty-eight.” “I missed out as kid. Didn’t we all?” “Boys’ schools in Britain? Please.” He said this in the day’s first swishy note, which disoriented me. “Listen, I’m bursting with energy.” Drew slapped the table. “Could I split some wood or whatever you do? Throw on some real jeans, a T-shirt. And work boots with thick socks. Yes!” Soon we were plunged into yard work, of which I had tons, literally. Drew moved two cords of stacked firewood that blocked access to one side of the shed I was building. We ran Fred in nearby fields. We hauled wagonloads of kindling and logs from the woods to the yard. Drew played Frisbee with Fred while I fixed a lunch of turkey gumbo, cider, and anadama bread. Not once more during this Saturday had I noticed a speck of nelly behavior; not a limp wrist, not a shortened, halted step. Drew was lean but with well-defined biceps and forearms, “from tennis and racquetball. It can be rugged. And sissies can be mean.” After lunch, Drew regaled me with escapades of his boyhood in Nice, Umbria, and the Cornwall coast. “I’d steal the headmaster’s notes for his opening remarks, him all red-faced and stammering and I stood—always had the balls to poke holes in pretension—and fired off questions about scheduling, course content, the library hours, until everyone’s roaring and I’m commander in chief.” He does have balls, I thought. I opened a tin of my molasses cookies and worked my way through my guest one layer at a time. What on earth is going on? Yes he was polished, but that was situated on the surface. The ash blond hair was fey but deceiving. In the space of less than a day, Drew had become a blond Cary Grant: the often affected manners were the playful bons mots allowed by a man quite self-assured, and ironically all the more masculine. Entirely sober, I spun like an endless roulette wheel, forestalling the outcome of win or lose.

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“Drew,” I interrupted his tale of sexual high jinks in Bellagio with the bellman. “Stay the night.” “I thought you’d never ask.” “We’re having a good time. Isn’t that what you suggested, at the very least?” “Why not?” Drew interjected, his low voice holding steady like his limbs, taking me hostage by aiming his tawny, green, unflinching eyes. We spent the rest of the afternoon rototilling, turning the compost heaps, and picking rhubarb for a cobbler, me all the while drugged with lubricious thoughts of my newfound potential as a “top.” Drew perused the wine cellar while I scanned the freezer for a dinner to thaw: lobster bisque, chicken-and-brown-rice tamales; window dressing for more, succulent asparagus straight from my patch at its prime. It was warm enough to start our debauchery on the terrace of weathered bricks I’d composed after a pattern at Monticello. Flaky Tuscan pots stood about, recently planted with parsley, tarragon, and dill. Swirling the longstemmed glass of Viognier, Drew once again crossed his legs. “You know this femmy stance is strictly a survival adaptation,” he intoned in his swarthiest voice, contradicting the Marlene Dietrich legs. “Now I didn’t think—” “Oh, clam up, cutie. It’s true: we mammals are loose limbed. We lived in trees, had to make quick getaways. The head aiming in one direction, wrist in another, that’s normal, not hysterical, for the male. Crossing the body with legs and arms was a sign of submission. Our instinct is to flee, not fight.” He took a good swig. “We advanced male Homo sapiens put a lifetime of effort into controlling our movements, making them robotically stiff. No wonder we die decades before the dames.” “Fascinating.” I swilled the tangy wine, one of my best, damn this guy. “We’re primates, dear. Supple as we swing from branch to branch. The chest pounding came when we stood on two feet and couldn’t run as fast. But it’s all a ploy. Our nature is to shriek, flap, and fuss about. Our brains are still wired that way. But boys have to be boys, hang the arms like meat hooks and take big, plodding steps.” “Now wait, Drew. Aren’t we modestly civilized humans trying to placate those warring instincts by shaking hands in lieu of clobbering heads?” “We have a smorgasbord of options. You want butch, I’ll give you butch.” And with my jaw dropping, damned if he didn’t. It was as if Drew took a blackboard eraser and swiped his face: in a second, he’d gone from Peter O’Toole effete to Burt Lancaster carved. “You’re incredible!”

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“No, Peter,” Drew said, suddenly drained. “It’s my job.” I felt my eyes pop. “Holy shit, you’re an actor.” “I’m afraid that’s the usual me. Beyond that, it’s anybody’s guess.” “You’ve … got me off-balance.” “I’m sorry,” Drew said sincerely. “It’s all I know how to do.” “You’re on television! Do I know you?” Drew laughed. “Hardly, Peter. You don’t exactly fit the Nielsen profile for daytime TV.” “A soap opera?” “Fifteen years and no end in sight. Three Emmy nominations. The Mighty Hath Fallen.” “Julie would know. Oh my God.” “Peter, I don’t want to hurt you. I did see it in your eyes, when you initially watched me perform and realized there was no way. I wanted to see how you’d react to that part of me.” Too stunned to hold the wine, I set it down. “And I took on another role, today, to do the same. I could see your gears shift in my favor. It was all an act.” “You’re a composite. I think you’re gifted. Makes me feel like a dunce.” “Don’t be ludicrous.” “I’ve always thought that being gay, as an underdog,” I said, “I was forced to watch my step and simply see more as a result. I guess that involves acting.” “In your case,” said Drew, “that’s just icing on the cake of a quite solid core. For me, I only know the role I inhabit at the moment. On television, I’m actually a rogue. Nary a pinkie ring in sight.” I was floored. We finished the Viognier and moved onto an ’84 Stags Leap Cabernet, one of two I’d been hoarding. My mind could in no way keep pace with the flow of repartee. So Drew was a schoolboy rascal; he’s Renaissance man to me. Our dinner talk was every bit as effervescent. “It’s like the Berdache,” Drew conjectured over my blackberry sorbet and toasted cashew chews. “The tradition in native Indian tribes was to acknowledge the young boys that tended to girls’ ways and let them go, as such. They became the wise ones, dexterous on all sides of the sexual field; they acted as conduits between the flesh and the spirit.” “I feel I’ve hardly begun in this business of sex,” I said. “I’m definitely feeling the wine.” “What a grand opportunity for me to fuck you.”

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“Oh, Jesus,” I gushed. Now what, I thought, but didn’t really care; there were condoms, and Drew, though nicely arranged, was not enormous. “Alas, I can’t. Or I won’t. I told you I haven’t been tested in ages, but I’m convinced I’m positive. It just happens to people with no inner fortitude.” “How can you say that, Drew? You certainly are a man of substance. Look how you’ve cared for your family, the orphanage you endowed in the Chicago Black Belt, the AIDS fundraisers you host. There’s no way I could have responded to you from the start without reading between the lines.” “I’ve fed you lines.” His face had lost its luster. “I think we should have another fling. I’ll fly to Chicago. So you read my eyes a day and night ago. Well, read them again.” “Just for fun.” “Yes, just for fun.” I was gripping my seat with both hands. Drew smiled faintly, then shook his head in the negative. “I’ve prayed to meet a man like you. But I’d be leading you on. I’m not ready to play only one part. I’m hollow inside, Peter. Don’t have a clue yet of what I’ll find. You may just be coming out as you say in midlife but, believe me, you’re light years ahead in knowing what makes you tick.” My mother escaped impoverished, hateful parents, and I escaped her devouring love—what’s the difference? I got up and wrapped my arms around Drew and nestled my lips into his neck. “God knows you turn me on,” said Drew. “You probably didn’t notice last night: I didn’t come; we didn’t French kiss; I wouldn’t let you suck me without a rubber, nor would I go down on you unprotected. And that’s just one of a million things tearing me apart.” “Come to bed, Drew. Enough talk.” “I needed to come here, a world away, for an honest reaction.” “You got one. I think you’re terrific.” “It’s not your reaction, Peter,” Drew said coldly, drawing back from my touch. “I knew how you would be; I’ve had an audience all my life. But it’s been ages since I’ve had the chance to watch myself in the presence of someone real. Mission accomplished. Although I’m still not ready, you’ve sharpened my idea of what’s possible. And for that I’m truly grateful.” “I’d love to have sex with you again. If you’d be willing. Just for fun.” Drew’s shoulders slumped in resignation. Suddenly his eyes shone bright, his brilliant teeth revealed by semiparted lips. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said in his wiliest Casablanca swagger, Bergman svelte or Bogart foxy, I wasn’t sure.

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Drew’s flight on Sunday allowed for a leisurely morning and a long walk in the woods. Once again, Drew dressed himself up in a pair of my faded, ragged Wranglers and hiking boots, “reverse drag,” Drew quipped. Strengthening sun was smeared into a molten sky. We tied our hooded sweatshirts around our waists, Drew keeping up easily with me and Fred as we scaled rock ledges and patches of dense evergreen. We paused to catch our breath on one of my favorite overlooks, presently a blend of chartreuse valley arching up to a mountain ridge of pale blue. “I love sex outdoors,” said Drew. “Another fantasy.” “Here? Not sure I’m up for it.” I was inebriated on the weekend’s afterglow. “Let’s just get naked, like a Dionysian rite. Your sketchpad’s in your backpack?” “Always,” I said. I peeled off my layers, as did Drew; Fred dove happily under logs. Straightening up, I was shocked to see Drew standing in hot pink tights, his dick and balls exaggerated in outline. “What the hell?” I giggled. “Okay, I’ll pose, you sketch. I feel unbelievably aroused, nothing but nature.” He stood like Leonardo’s Vitruvian man, his limbs the spokes of the wheel, of the universe. “Please. Draw me. I have to take something more than memories home.” I played along, fighting the bittersweet residue of Drew’s remark. My pencil, instead of capturing Drew’s sylphlike élan, zeroed in on the eyes. “Okay, it’s your turn. You pose, I’ll sketch.” Drew slithered up and rubbed a nylon-covered penis in my face. He yanked off the pantyhose. “And wear these.” “Forget it!” I laughed nervously. “It’s just for fun. C’mon.” I managed to be thoroughly embarrassed, there in the thick of the woods. “You don’t have to pose like Hermes. Just lean against the tree, that’s it.” I was getting aroused, the slinky fabric constantly stroking my cock. “Raise your arm, Peter, and hold onto that limb. Great! It’s stretching your torso—and your manhood.” Drew’s sketching arm was rotating like an eggbeater. “Hold it right there. I have another prop.” He pulled small tubes from the backpack and trotted up to his model. “Just a smudge over the eyes …” “No way!” I exclaimed. “Makeup?” “Just an act. It comes right off.” He glossed purple goo with his pinkie over my tight lips, then did my eyebrows in vile green. Fortunately Fred was occupied chasing squirrels up trees.

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“There!” cried Drew. “More like a Greek drama.” He scampered back to the sketch pad on his rock perch. “Jesus Christ! What’s the devil’s going on?” A man in a camouflage vest stood there with bulging eyes. His legs were being slapped by Fred’s wildly wagging tail. “Russell!” I croaked, clasping hands over my hot pink crotch and facing Russell Stearns point-blank, the Brookline owner of these five hundred acres. “Nice to meet you!” sang Drew. “I’m Andrew, Peter’s friend from the New York Ballet. He’s been kind enough to help me with sketches for our latest production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. You’re familiar with his studio, his fantastic portraiture?” “No … well, yes, I know Peter’s a painter.” “Russell,” I uttered as I scrambled for my clothes while Drew casually stood up and wiped pine needles from his bare butt. “Thanks for letting us—” Russell Stearns turned and waved a hand. “These damn snow machines, Peter. Caused real havoc on Mutton Hill.” He walked off, his words a pass at courtesy. Drew got dressed and shoved the wadded tights in the backpack. “Guess I’ve had my fill of improv for one weekend. Whew!” he said with Clark Gable cockiness, buttoning the fly of his jeans, boots two feet apart. I studied this man before I could tug on my shirt. “What quick thinking! My heart was absolutely jammed in my throat.” “We all have our talents, Peter. I’ll probably never quit the stage.” He kissed me softly on the lips. “I’ll live moodily forever after as a split personality. I doubt I’ll ever see you again.” “Oh …” I began until Drew covered my mouth with a finger, the nail gloss glowing demurely in broad daylight. “But the look on your face, caught dead center by your neighbor between two worlds was priceless. I’ll have that with me forever.” He sashayed, a la Mae West, or just his own swivel of hips, into the pines and down the path.

Chapter 6

Ar l e n e

“Andrew Boyce! Andrew Boyce, the fucking soap opera heartthrob, right here in this godforsaken shanty!” “Hold that pose.” I dashed off another sketch with Arlene’s upheld arms, each frail wrist boisterous with silver bands of every conceivable twist and ethnic origin. She shook her cascades of hair to expose earrings that dangled like IUDs. “Another thing I love about you, Peter. So inextricably in your orbit. It’s truly unthinkable a citizen of planet Earth does not know, or at least recognize, Andrew Boyce. It’s a goddamned good thing you said he was a bit of a space shot. I can almost forgive you for not having round two.” “It was Drew’s choice. I suspect for all his je ne sais quoi, he was scared to death. When he was acting nelly, it was funny, but distancing. He obviously lives in an artificial environment. I mean, look how you’re going berserk over the guy.” Arlene dropped her shoulders. “I know, always ripe for fantasy. It’s my compensation for rearing kids, doing the dishes, fucking husbands—an asshole in my case.” “I took Drew at his word: hollow inside,” I said and ripped a sheet from my pad. “You think the vamping,” suggested Arlene, “was to throw you off balance?” “Maybe. He made me feel like such a square.” “Eh-hem.” Arlene cleared her throat. “Fair enough,” I said, and drew her whirligig of hair. “But I admired him. The femme was hardly his real self, and weirdly enough, it reinforced the opposite: here was a man of many talents and points of view. Arlene, he actually talked about it—how crossing his legs ladylike was a conscious thing. Not necessarily 93

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feminine, but a proclamation of independence from the expected. He quoted Quentin Crisp saying, ‘Sissies don’t throw a ball like a girl but like a sissy.’” “I think gay men and many women,” responded Arlene, “dish out more emotional energy than we have in our holding tanks compared to the tough guys who hoard it. The off-putting mannerisms of some gays are a way to reserve real emotion.” “Drew said he adopts roles and keeps his core under cover. And he’s lost track of that core.” I fought to concentrate on sketching. “Now you, on the other hand, my dear,” said Arlene as she rose to pace the studio, “could be—have been—a stud in whatever direction you aim.” The charcoal came to a halt. “Don’t be daft. I’ve got every bit the challenge to come to terms with myself.” She turned to face me, hands on the hips of her slinky linen dress. “Peter, your sexuality is very present. It just needs a focus.” “I don’t agree. I think it’s easy for the polymorphously perverse, like you and me, to go at it but not wholly connect. You’re now single! And a babe! Maybe that immediacy scares people. Maybe Drew was terrified of my being randy and ready.” She folded her arms, and in so doing offered her ample breasts as if on a tray. “I wish I enjoyed women like I do men! Straight or gay or ambidextrous, you guys are so cute when questioning yourselves,” and she hopped back into the cushy chair, this time in the lotus position, grabbing the armrests and shaking out her glorious tangle of bright orange locks. “With you, I truly feel like a queen. I have all the same questions but don’t have to settle on answers and poke and prod them like men, since, for you, the business of sex, of love, of life, are so teasingly inexplicable.” Regal as a Siamese, she sat there and puffed up her huge chest. “Now, draw me, Peter. Just like this.” Next she was crouched like a toy poodle quivering to be obedient. “Petite” was how women like Arlene were classified, but for the boobs, which I knew to be a modification on nature. The function of her tiny face was like that of a mannequin’s displaying the orange wig of a Harlem drag empress. “This canvas is so big, Arlene, I could do three of you, a triptych.” “Ooh, I like that,” said Arlene. She adjusted the spaghetti straps of her lime green sundress. “Three of me.” “Picasso forever painted his mistresses. Of course, his consort at the time was always there.” “Mistress. I like that, too.” Arlene popped out of the chair, hiked up the sundress, and exposed her pink panties. “This watercolor!” she cried. “I never saw it, except on the brochure for your show.” She squatted down to view the paint-

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ing on the floor. Her tight little tush rested on her high heels. She bit her lower lip and clasped her fists to cleavage. “Oh, Peter,” was all she could say. “The gardenias?” I asked. “I’m crying, for God’s sake. You go right to that spot. It’s so sensuous and erotic yet holy, if that’s possible.” “White on white does make it mysterious. My mentor Lee urged me to hang on to the best in a show.” “Leland Hawkins, what a marvel. So lucky you met. But this—your subtle variations of gray white, soft green white, the pistils and shadows and browning edges—I can practically smell them!” “Thanks.” I was becoming uncomfortable. “No wonder your exhibit sold out!” Still staring, she hugged herself as if momentarily chilled. Arlene faced me, the pressure of her folded arms pushing her breasts into ever-larger orbs. “You’ve got me wet!” “Oh Arlene, you could be turned on by a robin.” “Well, a he-robin, not a she.”

*

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Next time, she arrived in a light tan summer suit. She ripped off the jacket, liberating her breasts within a flimsy white blouse, and kicked off brown and white spectator spikes. I laughed, wearing as I was a tank top and shorts. “I can’t believe you get away at work looking like the chief broad at Copacabana.” I kissed her eagerly. “Whaddaya mean, looking like a broad? I am one. This hunk at a conference last week leaned over to me and whispered, ‘Nice legs. When do they open?’ I assume he knew I was going to laugh, not have him arrested.” I fixed us lemonade and we strolled barefoot to the pond with Fred. “You’re quite a handful, Arlene. No wonder men throw themselves at you.” “All in the past, Peter,” she said, mirthless. “I’ve had my fill of creeps since the divorce. And before.” “That doesn’t surprise me. Did Harvey know?” She contorted her huge lips. “He’d have taken every nickel. There was one truly lusty affair that gave me the courage to sack Harvey.” Her eyes sought out mine. “My son Aryeh, he’s only sixteen. He needs a positive role model. Like you, Peter.” We settled into weathered Adirondack chairs at the pond’s edge that were shaded by two towering maples. The sun overhead had shifted from white glare to sizzling. “Me, a role model?”

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“Don’t give me that crap,” snapped Arlene. “First of all, your two kids are no exception. They don’t give a shit that you’re gay. Children today are far more concerned with the state of the world, politically and environmentally; AIDS in Africa; AIDS, period. Secondly, if you did have your head full of homophobic nonsense, then that’s the message you send out, to a kid, to anyone. And that’s not the case.” In fact at this moment, enjoying Arlene’s perfect little body, I was far removed from thinking of myself as homosexual. As so often in the company of a woman, I could slip right back to Dick and Jane. I did not feel aroused but totally enlivened in Arlene’s sassy presence. I drank in her forever-disheveled hair and the pleasure she obviously took from that, now and then revealing two inches of brassy Indonesian filigree as earrings. Every move she made—tucking lips into the frosty lemonade glass, flecking a long fingernail like a miniature baton; “get in tune with me, boys”—infused me with the opiate of my career as a he-cock. Prior to puberty, I’d fallen in love each year with the most beautiful girl in class. I got addicted to the male hetero swill of commandeering a forearm, holding open doors. “So why have you ended your affair if Harvey’s gone?” I asked as Arlene wriggled burgundy-painted toes in the grass. Arlene smiled faintly. “I’m sick of dating. I need to focus on Aryeh.” “I’d like to be in your shoes, Arlene. After four years as an alley cat, I’m wishing my hormones would dry up.” I tossed a stick into the pond for Fred. “Don’t feed me that line, Peter. You’re just in boot camp. Didn’t you say of divine Andrew that you learned so much about what guys do behind closed doors?” I snickered. “I think about it all the time. But Arlene, the whole time I was reminded of the best of sex with Becky, so natural and easy, penetrating willing flesh. Blasting away especially the mind, it seemed gender was out of the picture. I’ve been confused since Drew. Truth is, when he posed like a woman— witty and wily—I got all jazzed up.” “I love cock-and-ball stories,” said Arlene. “What have I been preaching from day one? If you dig somebody, it falls into place.” “Then acting more as a guy, Drew turned me on below the belt. In bed, I reverted to my he-man thing and felt completely at home.” “Diversity!” She flung up her arms. “I think I’ve been fluid in dating a variety of men. Not that I’ve made any progress.” “I believe in ‘easy’ versus ‘difficult’—my only classifications. You just know. There are many sides to you, Peter Bauman. Don’t close doors.”

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For a second, I pictured myself mounting Arlene, the one person in my life besides Barry with whom I could discuss sex. “You think there could be an honest state of bisexuality, somewhere between Freud’s two through nine, that’s not merely a stepping stone to full gay liberation?” I ventured. “The gay ideologues say—” “I say who gives a rat’s ass what somebody does in bed? Get a life.” “I read of a hyper-Christian preacher who was shocked at the notion of same-sex unions who told of a woman who wanted to marry her pet python, and where would it all end?” Arlene clapped her hands. “My portrait, my dear! I have an idea—get your watercolors. I’ll pose as a nymph.” “I didn’t tell you about sketching in the woods with Drew—” “Later. Fetch your paints.” Upon returning, Arlene, stripped down to bra and panties, was emerging from the pond. “You ever seen my beehive plastered flat?” “Sweetheart,” I said, arranging my block of paper and palette on the nearby bench. “Flat is not a word that can be used in reference to you!” I hadn’t done watercolors from a live model in years. It was exhilarating to paint outdoors in the full summer sun, the paper drying instantly and forcing me to work faster. There were no “mistakes” or “corrections”: if the underside of the leg was too blue, too bad; on to the next. “I want to do your back, Arlene. Clasp the chair, yes, that way, and hang one leg over the arm. Terrific!” “It hurts.” “Shove your dress underneath.” “Italian silk? Peter, I’ve got to jump in the pond.” And she did, in her fleshcolored underthings, with Fred racing in ahead and splashing. Arlene shrieked. “Come on in!” she cried. “You can paint for the rest of your life.” My mind occupied with my most recent strokes—why amber instead of mocha?—I stripped off my top, shorts, and briefs, dove in, and surfaced beside Arlene as Fred, perplexed, swam in slow circles looking for the stick he should be retrieving. “Well, hell, if this is a skinny dip.” Arlene unbuttoned and slipped free of her underwear, tossing them onto the dock. “That’s better.” Her tits, now spherical pontoons, bobbed happily on the surface. “I know. You don’t want me to see your pee-pee. Men always hate the way it shrinks in cold water.” Startled, I wished that were so. We toweled off with my clothes, sparing the silk skirt. Heading back to the house, we each held a clutch of fabric front and center, as if this were no big deal.

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*

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Arlene called a few days later. She’d been given two Boston symphony tickets. I relished the no-strings date opportunity. “Champagne?” I said on entering Arlene’s Comm Ave. flat in my ill-fitting seersucker sport coat, so rarely worn it didn’t warrant replacement. “But of course,” said Arlene. “Perfectly in keeping with the way you’ve lifted my spirits, Peter. I treasure the watercolor you gave me.” “I better not fall asleep in the concert.” “These vine leaves are from the most overpriced deli on Charles Street. Aren’t they outrageous?” She popped one whole. We nibbled and laughed and drank, even without the bubbly I got high at the sight of Arlene in her lemon yellow shift of porous cheesecloth, clinging just so. Two rings on one hand, three on the other. She’d tamed her hair for the occasion with something like knitting needles, the ensemble a prelude to platter earrings large enough to be Chinese gongs. The apartment was dark, with wall hangings of African fabric, Prussian blue Orientals, and great mahogany antique armoires. In this picture, she shone like a butterfly with jewels, as if momentarily trapped in dense undergrowth. We finished the wine. And the baba ghanoush. I looked at my watch. “We should probably forget your supper.” “I think we should fuck.” Her smile was ironic but her eyes were assured. “Excuse me?” I said automatically; something had to be uttered. “Well,” said Arlene, facing me on the sofa while primly pressing together her knees. “If you’re devoted now to being gay, then I’m offering you a way to cement that decision. More or less, you’ve only been with Becky, right?” “Yes.” “Good God, Peter, we’re a mélange. My experience before, during, and after Harvey has been essential in fortifying me to make this leap. You’re doing the same with men. Until you settle, well, the more the merrier!” Perspiration reached the armpits of my seersucker coat. “But, Arlene, I’m gay. I’m into cock, not cunt.” “That’s nice, in the abstract,” she said, withdrawing the knitting needles. “But what’s that got to do with you and me, in particular? We’re talking flesh, mutual pleasure, fantasy. We can use my dildo, if you want. You’re the sweetest man I know. God knows the best cook. Look at the jerks I’ve dated. Yuck. I think being a lover to a gay man makes absolute sense.” “What’s in it for me if I crave a man’s body?” “Maybe you don’t, exclusively. Give me a chance.” “Arlene, I adore you, but—”

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“I can get off on being adored and not loved. You’ve made me feel sexier, Peter Bauman, by drawing and painting me. Sexier than I’ve ever felt!” She unhooked the kettle drum earrings. “I’m soaking wet right now.” “Aryeh—” “Spending the night at a friend’s.” “The symphony—” “Get serious.” She stood, straddling me from behind. “Close your eyes. Just feel.” She ran a fingertip in back of my ears, along my neck. I shivered. “Your job, for now, is to just sit still,” she whispered as she pressed her body into my back. “You men always think you have to be employed.” Next, she slid off my coat and began the fingernail love torture on my chest, over my nipples, back to my neck. We did it, and without a dildo.

*

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Two days later, there was a knock on the door. “Bauman residence?” asked the young man. At my reply, he handed me a yard-high basket of glads in a rainbow of colors. The card read, “Be mine, Valentine. Better late than never. XXOO, Arlene.” I stared at the skeletal lines of her I’d started in oil on canvas. Now what? Arlene forever lifted me from the doldrums at first sight. Is this the stuff of lovers linked for life? I recalled the line about intercourse being one unending conversation. Do Arlene and I qualify? Would Becky be jealous? Should we have parted in the first place? How chauvinistic of me, Becky long since remarried to Martin. Should I be jealous of Martin? I never was … I perched on my stool and pictured stealing peeks as a boy at the teenage guy next door at bedtime undressing. I remembered the time in college I followed the guy who looked at me longingly in the locker room back to the fellow’s dorm and memorized the door number, emboldened that night to tap on his ground-floor window; the curtain parted, then I climbed in with the help of his outstretched hand … and paying the downtown whore to erase all this, incapable of an erection but bloated with shame. I had no desire to paint. I paced the studio, then the house, as if it belonged to Fred and I was merely the caretaker. I plunged into depression. Is my coming out a sham? A juvenile, narcissistic lunge at erotica or a manly grab at the reins of destiny? Arlene is right: what is sex other than icing on the cake of real connection? I’ve made a burlesque of becoming gay. I rushed outside, heading for the pond, so distracted I’d accidentally shut the door on Fred. My place in the woods

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is a hideout, not a homestead. I reached the pond, shed my clothes, waded in, submerged myself with eyes shut, and visualized a black-green bracken cave in which I could squat. I came up for air and let the cotton white sky seal me off from the busy, dwarfing limitations of my routine. I swam backstroke in slow circles, hoping those bleached million acres above would blank out all thoughts. I emerged and sat on the bench, no longer able to postpone Arlene’s tirade of adulation. “You just lie there with your limp, wet prick while I get the Courvoisier,” she’d ordered after our tryst. “It’s my turn, Rembrandt, to ogle you.” Did her praise get me off, not her body, lusted after by real men? How we entangled was almost as much pleasure as my string of gay tricks. Is such action of the flesh the real thing, and the idea of a big penis, great pecs, and huge arms just figments of my imagination? Do I need them in the raw? When I get them, what good are they without the electricity that can snap and crackle along the pathways of our eyes? I lolled again in the water. Did I feel like a woman in Arlene’s brothel; she the predator, me the languishing plaything? With a man we’re each assertive, or so I’d composed it after the fact. Sparks fly from tactile thrills, but also from indulging in the forbidden, so brainwashed are we into bonding sex with sin. I strode back to the house, buck naked, charged with an energy totally foreign. Have I truly stretched my potential as a heterosexual? Husband, yes; father, yes; caring son … another story; but completely consumed by joining with another body and soul? Arlene is my equal in so many ways; that she doesn’t give a damn I’m attracted to men enhances my feeling sexual with her. The whole point of being human: the body and mind in tandem, unshackled at last! I set up a date for a candlefuck dinner.

*

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A month later I called Derek, who was in Florence for his junior year. “I didn’t want Becky or Julie to tell you first. I’m having an affair with Arlene!” There was a long pause, not attributable to our overseas connection. “But Dad, you’re supposed to be gay.” “Maybe I am, maybe not. The point is, Arlene and I are having a great time. Her ex-husband Harvey has become more of a moron than ever.” I continued, adding a few other items beside the point. “You should see it here: men kiss and hold hands. Grandfathers hug and kiss after their bocce games, no big deal. Look, Dad,” Derek implored. “I don’t care if it’s a he or she, I just want you to be happy.”

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“You always dug women, Dad, but Arlene?” said Julie by phone. “I don’t know if it’s a fling or if we’re carrying on in a new dimension the cavorting we’ve always been about.” “Arlene is a tramp. Remember the time she was wearing that T-shirt—the one that said ‘In case of rape, this side up’?” “I thought it was funny. Still do.” “Not if you’re a woman. Not if you’ve worked with battered women.” “Julie. It’s the same cocky sentiment as ‘Don’t Mess With Texas.’” “Whatever. Arlene is totally insecure. How could she have lived so long with that icky husband? And the way she dresses! Give me a break.” “You’re sounding like Feminism 101. Don’t tell me gorgeous women of the world look so just to please men. Arlene loves her career, son, body—” “Spare me.” “Your generation, maybe, has other ways of celebrating sexuality. No reason to outlaw what we old farts think is fun.” Julie responded by breathing audibly. I pictured her shoving hair behind one ear. “Dad. You’re doubting your gayness. After several foiled attempts, it seems to me, you’re taking cover. I’m sorry, but you asked.” “I called. To let you know,” I said weakly. “You’re looking for my approval. Because Mom will say she’s delighted for you but won’t say what she thinks. You’ve raised me to speak my mind.” “As a teenage brat, I never wanted your opinion. Now, I do.” “Dad, I know you. I love you. You’re gay.”

*

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Arlene called every night if I hadn’t at least rung and left a message. An enormous basket of imported cheeses arrived from the gourmet deli on Charles Street. “Don’t waste away on your Jerusalem artichokes!” read the card. “God forbid I lose one centimeter of you. Kisses, A.” “Harvey’s threatening to sue me for alimony,” she reported breathlessly during our next call. “I told him you said I should get a restraining order.” “You told him about us?” “Of course. And Aryeh. He was so cute. ‘Mom, does that mean you and Peter are an item?’ I think he’s eager for me to settle down.” “Oh, Jesus.”

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Barry barged in unannounced. I was making a new mix of dry food for Fred, a soybean recipe I’d read in a magazine at Becky’s. “Let’s just sit and have a little chat,” said Barry. He opened the fridge and helped himself to a beer. “You’re angry with me,” I said. “I’m upset. It’s like you’re a gay Benedict Arnold.” “Let’s calm down.” “No!” His eyes burned bright sapphire as he yanked off the bottle cap. “That’s the point! You’ve calmed down to a flicker of yourself. Letting Arlene suck you up.” “Barry, you’re jealous. Sibling rivalry! You’re my brother, she’s my sister, and we’ve just switched gears.” He plopped on the sofa. “That may or may not be the case. But this is about you, Peter. What’s been the point of our mutual support to go against the grain, not with it?” His marvelous shining black hair, swept back upon arrival, now hid his forehead. I glanced aside. “This is between me and Arlene. We’ve clicked. I know you don’t want to hear this, but a penis feels fabulous inside a welcoming woman. I’m sorry, but anatomically it’s so … correct.” “I thought you liked the Drew character that way.” “Not the same. With Arlene, it’s more than the sex.” “Obviously.” “Hear me out.” I droned on, defining the sex more as connective tissue. “So, I am jealous. You’re right. Like I’m on the sidelines.” “Sidelines? Barry, you’re my mate for life.” “Mate in European parlance.” I took Barry’s free hand with both of mine. “I’m not feeling foolish but wickedly selfish. Please forgive me. My timing’s terrible.” Barry shrugged slightly to one side. “I’ve been insensitive.” “It’s okay, being led by your dick; a pussy this time really no different.” This I took as a dagger to my soul. “I’m still on thin ice. This is good for me, Peter, my taking this as your hurting me, bypassing me. You should forgive me, ever ready to mouth off. I guess it’s just part of the process. Accepting loss, accepting our ultimate aloneness.” “Oh Barry, I feel so reckless, acting exultant about Arlene.” I stroked the cold hand. “Only a few months since your boyfriend Michael died. No, you have to forgive me.”

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Arlene arrived with armloads of groceries. “Isn’t this fantastic, darling? Summertime! The office is practically closed.” Arlene managed a public relations firm for universities. I was not horny. The last time I was in bed with Arlene, I’d fantasized about passing a beautiful Speedo-clad man the summer before. There it was: a taut, defined body; genitals only suggested and all the more titillating; a chief essence of sex its imagining, not its mechanical engagement. Arlene rushed into the kitchen, kissing me only between outbursts of glee. She was wearing a loose for her tank top, flip-flops, and wraparound skirt of light Indian fabric, as if it were all meant to be quickly cast off. I stood there, spellbound by her earrings—five or six concentric silver hoops, each with a tiny, tinkling bell, probably made for five cents in Thailand and sold in a Newbury Street trinket shop for ten bucks. Why am I thinking this way? More captivated by the container than the contents? I’ll know if I shut her up and rip off that wraparound. I did not, even though after dinner we pranced into bed and played a CD of sultry Annie Lennox and brought each other to climax.

*

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Arlene and I dined at a sexy French bistro. For the occasion, I salvaged my midnight blue, double-breasted pinstripe suit. Arlene was dressed to kill in a tight, black sheath. We strolled along Dartmouth Street afterward. Though my arm was around her waist, she apparently needed closer contact and hooked her hand over my opposite shoulder, becoming a dead weight. She kept chattering away—work, her son, the book she was reading. As we passed the large plate glass windows, I was distracted by our reflection. She was hanging on me, continuously clutching the lapel of my suit coat or stroking my chest, especially, it appeared, for the benefit of passersby. Her high heels were stilettos—strappy, sexy little things that forced her to wobble and hold on tighter than ever. Increasingly aware of this, it became difficult to hold up my end of our banter. Suddenly I pictured us at the restaurant, seated side by side at the banquette behaving like lovers, expected of a woman outfitted like Arlene. Perhaps at the time I was so engaged at the resumption of the role of manor lord that my focus on her slipped through the cracks. I’d had such a long hiatus as male peacock that I slid into the grip of infatuation with it, like retasting a long-ago hot thrill: having one’s name announced as the winner in grammar school; or later, being

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told of a big promotion. Now, passing one strange reflection of us after another, me carrying the whole of her as if she were a cripple, it became clear to what extreme in the restaurant her hugging, petting, tickling my ear, and blowing kisses had escalated beyond our ordinary level of love play. “Oh, darling,” sighed Arlene as we strolled. “Department heads, eggheads, CEOs—they all, to a one, become little boys in bed. It must be my tits.” “No, it’s your smarts. You can talk their language, any topic, and dazzle them.” “It shrinks them into needle dicks. They’re attracted to the queen bee, and then they’re at a loss. And I don’t mean sexually; I mean not knowing, deep down, how to treat a woman as an equal. Isn’t it weird? You, a gay, are the most masculine man ever to be in my life? For the first time I feel that I can fall apart. God, this is bliss.”

*

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A few months later, I took my son’s advice, “just to be happy.” I took my daughter’s, too: “I know you. You’re gay.” I ended the intimacy with Arlene. “When I found myself eyeing the personals …” I said to Barry over sushi. “And you were jealous of my newfound freedom after Michael. Not that I’m doing anything about it. Oh, and you returned to the gym!” He was downright jolly. He’s so happy, as am I; like, “We’re back.” “So how is the high-strung filly?” “Arlene. She pouted, ‘I knew you’d never finish my portrait.’ Holding her head high, she said, ‘I’ll be your work in process, forever posing. I can live with that!’”

YEAR FIVE

Chapter 7

E m i ly D i c k

“It’s high time you faced off with somebody of consequence,” barked Arlene over the phone. “I’ve wanted you to meet Jonathan for ages. He’s an AIDS buddy. Very bright but, most important, he’s a giver, not a taker. Here’s his number. You never know.” My friend Luke was battling AIDS. Any disease filled me with dread. I was reluctant to include Arlene in my cancer watch for fear of triggering, by her very nature, a zealous flurry of phone calls, food, and invitations. My prostate-specific antigen (PSA), which gauges the level of likely prostate cancer, was 4.9, “on the high side of normal, not to panic,” Dr. Hal Kramer had said. “We’ll test again in three months, and if it’s risen, we’ll do a biopsy.” Two cousins were recovering from prostatectomies; they endured partial incontinence and total sexual dysfunction. This, not cancer, scared me witless. Cancer, no longer “the C word,” was containable; however, carpe diem never held a greater charge. I called Arlene’s friend Jonathan and made a lunch date in Harvard Square. I waited in the noisy café, holding a tiny table for two. Above it was a faded poster of Cesar Chavez with a raised fist. The place was so loud, I was entombed in my own eerie silence prior to meeting Jonathan who, on the phone, was witty, self-effacing, and soft-spoken, with a delectably sly Southern accent. Cambridge bookstores were vital lifelines to Buck Hill. I pictured reruns of Fellini’s La Strada at the Brattle Theatre and takeout curry in some guy’s brownstone after a guest lecture by Susan Sontag on illness. He’s cute! Damned Arlene wanted to surprise me, I first thought upon greeting the wiry, tall, bald man wearing wire-framed glasses that heightened rather than hid a devastating pair of baby blue eyes. 107

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We shook hands and hunkered across the table, which kept wobbling like a struck bowling pin. “There!” said Jonathan. He beamed with beautiful, WASP teeth after shoving a napkin under the offending leg. “Poets can be practical.” “A poet?” I asked, delighted at the notion. “Aren’t we all?” “We should be,” I answered, “if the rent is paid.” “Arlene said you were a painter. Describing your watercolors, I thought she was having an orgasm.” “Arlene is highly excitable.” “Don’t be modest, now,” said Jonathan in his lilting patois. “I paint because my ex-wife was very generous.” “There you go again. I bet she doesn’t hold an umbrella over you like Sargent’s minions did.” He smirked in a rakishly handsome way. “You know of Sargent’s watercolors?” I asked. “This is Boston, Peter. The Public Library, the Gardner Museum, the Fogg.” “He’s a mentor for portraiture, with his dash and disdain.” “You do portraits too? Quite a man!” We flirted for ages before a waiter broke the spell. We soaked up dollops of each others’ stories like bone-dry sponges. “A PhD in Chaucer?” I remarked. “So arcane. Next I got an MFA, thinking I could inch toward being employable.” “Don’t apologize, Jonathan, for being an artist. I think of folks like you, without a trust fund, as downright heroic.” Jonathan paused, eyes level to mine: enough of the small talk. “When you look at your canvas, there is no one to say, ‘Do this or do that.’ No one to keep you from flinging it into the trash. My challenge is going public. I’ve often read to a sea of scowling faces. And worse, their fake smiles.” “But you keep writing.” “Mostly it fends off demons.” “Jonathan, not Jon,” I said retreating from the dark note of our conversation. “And I’m Peter, not Pete.” “No sobriquet for us,” said Jonathan sipping tea. “More gay, too, yes?” “What my mother called me,” I said. As a boy and an only child, I didn’t argue. “The world wants us to be butch with chopped-off names, but when anyone called me Johnny, Mother, being from Old School Carolina, banged the gavel.” “She still alive?” I poked my tofu salad; Jonathan had selected the café.

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“When she deigns to depart, no matter the incinerator, her ashes will forever fly in my face!” he said merrily as I sampled the tofu, as thick and slippery as Jonathan’s irony. He’s oversensitive. I’m done with Geraldine. He was easy on the eyes. This helped side-step the man’s dead-serious mien. “I remember lusting over photos of Tab Hunter in my sister’s movie magazines,” said Jonathan as he hacked through the rawhide tempeh. “For me,” I said, “it was National Geographic. I’d pretend to read, but constantly turn back to the Trobriand Islanders—men initiating boys …” “You’re into physiques. I’m into faces.” Jonathan laughed. Both, I thought and asked, “What exactly is an AIDS buddy?” This pedestrian topic allowed me to speculate about the man’s flesh. He was lean, not from exercise but diet; probably deprivation. Animal fat’s the biggest feeder of cancer cells. Vegetarian Jonathan could be an angel of mercy. Hopefully, it’s a false alarm … “My heart just goes out to these infected boys. Robbie, my current one, is gay and a junkie.” I sipped the lukewarm rosehip tea. “Does vulnerability turn you on?” Jonathan seemed perplexed then said, “Of course. I’m needed, for one thing—empowerment.” He thought some more, looking aside, as I admired the fine cut of his nose. “Also, I’m not threatened by a gentle man as I am by a thug; or read that smug, a man with all the answers. So, sure, I’m more at ease with a man who can admit ambivalence. But turned on? Sexually?” I shrugged. “How can you separate?” “You’re right, Peter!” High color rose to his elegant cheeks. “Vulnerability means dropping the armor, being open to another.” “I think your volunteer work is fantastic.” Jonathan swelled some in the chest, given that it was otherwise flat as a board. “Thank you, Peter. You have a way to make someone feel wonderful.” “You, right now?” “Well, yes!” “Let’s do it again,” I said, folding my arms; it was a protective gesture, I realized. Chatting on, I learned enough of Jonathan’s day job to glean it was simply for the check. The iron will of his mother I took as genteel, not castrating. Without thinking I blurted, in a silly Southern twang: “Well, Jonathan, do pay us a visit in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, a site of the underground railroad and examples galore of two centuries of civility.” Finally a blind date on neutral turf and I blow it. “Peter, I’d love that sometime. Is there a bus? Concord or closer?”

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“Of course,” I said, “sensible folks in the city eliminate the hassle of cars!” Nuts: not independent. “I feel very comfortable with you, Peter. In case you asked about my poetry, I brought one to share. Here. Read it at home.” He flashed a wickedly adorable grin. Perfect teeth, perfect eyes, pedigreed, leonine hauteur: another midlife virgin at the gay starting gates. “Since I’m going to read your poem, you must see my watercolors, especially the one of gardenias that almost gave Arlene—” “Don’t say it, Peter. Action speaks louder than words.” He winked. He may be proper, I thought, but he isn’t a prude.

*

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Leaf Buds Fickle leaves fall often, even before the scarlet holiday: one day a year: is that asking for much? I’d settle for yellow or perhaps a hint of persimmon; any hue would due before their encoded descent. What chance to celebrate if not the fulfillment, at least the illusion, knowing full well the mission of the shell is to harden, crack open, and expose the pit. If only illusions, too, were short-lived.

*

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“Jonathan, I hope your relationship history isn’t as abysmal as mine,” I said at our next phone call. “Stop putting yourself down! Becky sounds like a magnificent woman.”

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“I meant with men.” “Actually, I was with Arthur for twenty years.” “What happened?” “He died. He was seventy-six; a lifetime of heart disease.” I took this in: Jonathan as a man of compassion, age and health status not utmost: the polar opposite to my sinful self. “Arthur was brilliant, a professor of mine in graduate school. Only in his body did I feel the discrepancy in years. Compensation for my father.” “How so?” It seemed Jonathan did and did not want to pursue this. “My father wouldn’t speak but he would suddenly lash out, usually at the instance of my mother breaking down. He and I, our sole purpose was to support her and keep the rivers of family festivity flowing.” “Sounds dreadful.” And familiar. “But you’ve gained much from therapy.” He chuckled. “Ladies, not gentlemen, should faint on the daybed.” “I’ve thought of painting as self-therapy. Or a loss of ego. It gets way too much credit as being creative; it’s my job. I’m sure I’m not addressing all kinds of ghosts.” “No, no, Peter. Any art brings the shit to the surface.” I recalled the doldrums of Jonathan’s poem. Would they all be as glum? Yes, if they’re unearthing. “I fired my therapist,” he said. “I knew things were out of whack when I left every session peppery as Daisy Mae, acting upbeat to make her feel good with her client’s progress. She’s been unprofessional enough to let me to inveigle how her mother abused her with inattention. Which is the story of my life: Goody Two-shoes mothering mama.” “Yes!” I exclaimed. “My mother’s mother was an alcoholic, so I—” I stopped. Jonathan whispered, “Charleston, where I grew up, was governed by etiquette. My mother’s parents were practically ditch diggers, but that didn’t stop my grandmother from wearing white gloves to church and raising my mother not as a girl, but a little lady. Materially, things never came to pass, but, honey, those folkways are written in blood. My mother ‘married up:’ a college graduate, a humorless, hardened civil engineer; but never, especially with four children, could she even get a silver-plated tea service, a housemaid, the chiffons, the essentials of her birthright. I did my best, earning all As.” “Jonathan, we could be twins!” I declared. “This is sounding narcissistic.” “Now, Peter, a healthy dose is fundamental for the individuating child.” “We’re not children.”

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“But we’ve been forced to postpone the uniting with our missing parts, according to Jung,” rushed Jonathan, thrilled by the subject. “We attach erotically to our fathers, but since that’s denied, we search for the soul brother in our subconscious.” “I like that,” I said. I excused myself for peering into the mirror of Jonathan’s persona and finding my image. Just a stage in fostering a partnership. I set a date for Jonathan’s foray to Buck Hill.

*

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*

Jonathan entrusted me with more of his poems by mail. I lauded them by phone. “I loved the one of Icarus, fragile and adolescent, flying too close to the moon (mother) and the wax holding his wings together melting; him falling to his death in the Aegean; the contraption foisted upon him by his father Daedulus, a mad scientist clearly not focused on the best for his son. The pithy Greeks had it all figured out.” Jonathan explained more of what he meant by that poem, further revealing his harrowing angst. “And your poem about Theseus slaying the half-man, half-bull Minotaur …” “Yes?” he said breathlessly. “… becoming the Attican hero and marrying the Amazon?” I didn’t say how futile was the author’s hope for redemption, his voice clearest but most hapless in his poem of the Labyrinth. Still, I let this seep down to my penis. We were brothers in arms—joined by limbs, not munitions. Here, I was eager to tell Barry and of course Arlene, is a man spinning gold from our generation’s albatross of being gay.

*

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“I have to postpone my visit by a week,” apologized Jonathan. “My AIDS buddy Robbie’s in the hospital from an overdose.” “You’re a saint,” I said. “I’m a sinner, too. Thanks for your understanding.” “Deprivation creates desire.” “Queen Victoria!” said Jonathan. “You continue to intrigue, Peter Bauman.” “Send me more poems.”

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The threat of prostate cancer was simmering, but on the back burner. It flared one day when I learned my cousin was undergoing radiation for his cancer, which had spread. I intensified my swim workouts and vowed to give up red meat. If soy was good enough for Jonathan, I had every excuse to follow suit. “They laid off half the floor, and I’m forced to learn processing on the new computers,” Jonathan said jovially. “The fate of file clerks!” I’d just read Jonathan’s poem of Ulysses as a metaphor for the homosexual’s abandonment of home and wife in the quest of true identity. Seeker, file clerk: between dream and reality falls the shadow. Remember he’s a man, not an immortal.

*

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I remembered reading, damn it, that men with vasectomies like myself had three times the incidence of prostate cancer. Becky and I thought, shortly after my procedure, it was simply more feminist backlash, so pervasive outside our Planned Parenthood circle of friends. My doctor emphatically dismissed the hearsay. I vowed to do the same. My two cousins’ impotence in their early fifties also tried to rain on my parade. I am nothing less than a satyr these days, in the spirit of Jonathan’s mythological, god-powerful poems.

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“I loved the new Woody Allen,” I said to Jonathan on our next call; the calls were now daily. “I thought it arch,” said Jonathan. “Love and Death, now that was unaffected charm.” “Interiors is one of my all-time favorites,” I tried. “When Geraldine Page storms out of the church—took my breath away.” “Sorry,” said Jonathan. “I thought it histrionic. Then enters Maureen Stapleton, bombastic black and white, and gone are all the gray vagaries of mental illness.” “Let’s talk about Philip Roth.” “Our Misogynist Laureate?” “Updike?” “A wordsmith elevating self-infatuation to dialoguing with God.” “You’re kidding.” “I am kidding, Peter. I’m being captious. Actually, I’m in awe of these talents. I’m the would-be wordsmith. It’s really self-loathing when I let slip those remarks.”

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*

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I chose not to have a candlefuck dinner. Wine, yes; but all the best china and crystal and silver for tofu teriyaki? Besides, we’d agreed on one night and separate bedrooms. The bus was on time. Jonathan was dressed in a too-large polo shirt of broad horizontal bands, alternately fireplug red, canary yellow, and pistachio green. Coupled with baggy white slacks, obviously brand new, the poor sot looked like he was trying to fit in at a Palm Beach country club new members’ social. I zeroed in on the movie star blue eyes, even better for their lack of competition from his bald head. “Tell me more about your kids,” said Jonathan on the drive to Buck Hill, bubbling over, as if this information was on a par with a chocolate sundae. “Well, Derek is almost twenty-two and about to graduate from Yale. This summer he’s working in Roxbury, getting people to weight control clinics, then he begins at Harvard Medical School. Julie’s twenty-four and an au pair in Baltimore, where her ex-boyfriend is in rehab for heroin.” “Do you worry about her?” said Jonathan, his eyes wide as he lapped it all up. “Not really. She’s a very safe driver and never touches alcohol. Full-blown feminist. She dropped Suki but helps to oversee his treatment.” “She sounds formidable. Like her dad.” “No, like her mom. She’s far swifter than I and her brother.” “Oh yes. I’ve had my fill of boys being dolts, so desperate to show off. Did I mention I’m a Saturday night chauffeur for HIV teens? To and from movies, arcades, youth events.” “Every Saturday?” “When I’m free,” said Jonathan. “It’s an adjunct to the AIDS buddy program.” “Right,” I said negotiating narrower roads. “It’ll be fun to meet your dog, Fred. A test of my,” Jonathan paused. “I take meds for … allergies.” “We all have health issues.” I informed Jonathan of my cancer alert. This revelation enlivened Jonathan to the point he threw himself against the seat belt as he lurched forward. “Actually,” he sighed, “I’m an asthmatic. Likely psychosomatic, but I’ve made headway in therapy—” “Now about your Saturday nights,” I interrupted, Buck Hill being within sight. “And this one specifically—no kids to …”

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Swilling wine and again talking films, we settled into my squishy sofa. I savored my vision of our ducking into one Boston art cinema after another. “There was this wonderful indie,” said Jonathan, “of two old gays discovering each other in a nursing home. So sweet.” “There’s hope for us all.” Jonathan laughed and tossed a hand onto my thigh; the gesture was playful and wine-induced, but still, there it was. Jonathan sat back up and grinned. “You amaze me, Peter. You have a wonderful life. Your paintings alone! It’s a good thing you like my poems, or I’d think, what could you possibly see in me?” All this was dished out with his thickening Carolina drawl. I broke in. “You’re all heart, Jonathan. You feel the plight of others, like my pal Barry. To me, it’s the best you could say of a person.” “I’m becoming very fond of you, Peter, very quickly.” He was hugging himself as if to contain his soaring elan. “I feel likewise. We’ll take it one day at a time.” Which includes one night, too, I plotted as I refilled Jonathan’s glass.

*

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The tofu was undetectable, just as I’d hoped. “Even the weather here, Peter!” Jonathan rhapsodized. “Glorious, green, brilliant! What is Beantown but cloudy, gray, chilling? Like living in permafrost.” “But Boston is fabulous; Thai restaurants, Symphony Hall, lectures …” “No, humanity is nature. I wished you hadn’t likened me to Mary Oliver. Compared to her, I’ve no excuse for being a poet.” He was suddenly dejected. I radiated with our deepening bond, having found my reflection at last. Jonathan was so winningly earnest. A nerd, of course; what self-respecting gay man is not? “Come to bed, my friend,” I said as might have Jesus to his flock, all serenity and sweetness. “I want to honor your suggestion for separate bedrooms, so leave your belongings in the guest room, but please sleep with me … and Fred, since his dander appears to be harmless.” The wine buzz carried us along through our ablutions and undressings and on to my king-sized trampoline. “Peter has always been my favorite name for the penis,” said Jonathan, gamboling rather aggressively and abruptly with me. I sensed Jonathan’s discomfort at our sudden intimacy and was working to dispel that. He resisted my caresses. It’s just the first time: Barry’s pearls of wisdom

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echoed as Jonathan manipulated me rather deftly to my finale, which wasn’t grand. It was fraught with the lack of reciprocity, lightning without thunder. Finally, I rolled over and stroked Jonathan’s torso—unmuscled but lean and taut—until my fingers found the pelvic bones and below. Jonathan was totally flaccid. “I’m fine!” he said as if elated, his eyes opened too wide. “You, Peter, have given me more pleasure already than ever I’ve had with a man.” This I dismissed: not words I wanted to implant at that moment. “I’m … I’m okay,” said Jonathan, a few octaves down the scale of jocularity. “It takes me … time.” “Of course,” I said enfolding him in my arms, kissing his cold, damp forehead, his polished dome. “Time—we’ve got the rest of our lives.”

*

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After bowls of oatmeal, Jonathan uncapped a dozen small, plastic bottles. “Vitamins, supplements, and meds, of course!” He seemed ebullient to have survived the night. I clung to the bright stars of this date: keen mind; pet person; Samaritan; classic jaw line; meltdown blue eyes. Suddenly Jonathan’s effervescence was swallowed as wholly as were his pills. He lifted his head and said to the wall, “Actually, Peter, I’m impotent.” “You’re healing. Your energy is focused on that.” “No. It’s been a problem all my life. Another ailment. All connected, sure, but, I don’t expect a partner, a lover like you of all people, to be like Arthur, for whom it didn’t matter. He loved getting his rocks off. That’s not making love.” “Why pigeonhole the act of love? It’s a labyrinth, like in your poem. It’s the journey not the destination.” I wish I could believe that. “I’ve not got a great scorecard,” he said. “Who does? First thing, forget keeping score.”

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“I’ve found a new therapist and right off we plowed into my key issues,” said Jonathan by phone. “I really smell liberation in the air. Oh, Peter, I’m feeling empowered like never before. My bildungsroman is my family mythology. I’m rewriting it!” I encouraged his optimism, then thought, What goes up eventually does the opposite. The law of psychic gravity. Aren’t we supposed to aim for a nice, sustainable glide just above reach of the ogres, with a few bumps now and then? I placed the phone in its cradle after we made a date for me to visit Jonathan’s flat in Boston. One step at a time. Porcelain starts as lumps of clay.

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Jonathan pecked me on the lips, then immediately apologized. “Needle Park across the street, I’m afraid.” “My Saab’s seen worse in mud season,” I reassured him. I took in the dungcolored walls, the dust and distress of the place. If family mythology didn’t sink Jonathan’s spirits, certainly this place would. I pretended not to notice the label on the lone bottle of wine on the greasy, cluttered kitchen counter; it was reminiscent of my drunken days in the fraternity barroom when that was all we could afford. Next to the wine was a jar of Metamucil. We sat on the threadbare couch piled with ancient silky pillows likely from the family’s would-be manse. There was a framed photo of Jonathan as a Peace Corps teacher in Haiti with his scruffy, black kids. Haiti, the bleakest slice of life in the Western hemisphere. I eyed a novel by William Trevor on the yellowed vinyl coffee table. Pure bliss, I thought. Trevor, not the table. C’mon. This guy’s a diamond in the rough. “I’ve applied for a much higher paying position in my office,” said Jonathan. “It’s department head, which I already do with my eyes closed. Evelyn is retiring and recommending me, so …” Jonathan elevated his eyebrows above his wire rims, puckish and upbeat. I sipped and smiled. “Good grief,” said Jonathan, stroking my forearm. “This is so special. Out of the sky you fall. Arthur was entrenched in his scholarship, even well into retirement. You’re so present for me.” He played his fine fingers over my shoulder then drank some wine from the glass: not a former jelly jar, but close. “Thank you, Jonathan,” I said. “That’s sweet of you to say.” “I feel childishly sweet and spunky, for the first time in my life.” “Really?” I gasped. “By age eight, my playing doctor and nurse in the tree house had been superseded by doctor and doctor.” “Astonishing!” Jonathan’s handsome jaw tensed, despite himself, as if a dose of novacaine was wearing off. “What was I doing at eight? Bloated in that prepubescent, larval stage. Mother had to buy me ‘husky’ sizes. I was mortified.” “Well,” I said placing a hand on Jonathan’s knee. “Look at you now.” His gaze was held by the ratty floor. “Wonder if I’ll ever stop shoving that gnawing feeling under the nearest psychological carpet. You, Peter Bauman! You’re better than a decade of analysis! Let’s go to bed!” “Now? Well, sure!” Jonathan was an accomplished lover—in every way but one. That didn’t change. In the throes of sex, I recalled that for the ComManD matchmaking

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profile, regarding the penis, I left unchecked the box for endowment preferences; regarding sexual style, adventurous or vanilla, I checked the latter. On both counts I lied.

*

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“But you made love,” said Barry while he grilled bluefish on my terrace. I paced with a gin and tonic. “You could say that.” “What do you mean, ‘could’? You were naked in bed. Jonathan took the initiative. He gave you pleasure. It lasted a half hour—hey, that’s nothing to sneeze at.” He slathered the bluefish with my marinade of mayo, Dijon, garlic, and dill. “A man without an erection?” “Maybe he’ll come around. You describe him as affectionate. You could be the catalyst. He’s blocked.” “He’s seriously depressed, Barry. Who else can stand to write poetry, let alone read it?” “Don’t be cheeky.” “I’m frustrated. I like his body. And I’m really engaged by him and his … what?” “His intelligence, stupid!” Barry flipped the fish. I plopped in a big wicker chair. “Look. Peter.” I steeled myself. “Here is a chance for the real thing. You keep saying it’s not about simply crashing in the sack. What are partners for if not to lend each other a helping hand? Validate each other’s hardships and move on?” He slid the fish to a warming section, picked up his drink, and sat opposite me. “Did I tell you that the last two years with Len, he made me sleep in the cellar?” “He what?” “He said he was disgusted by my body.” “You’re joking.” “Too white. Of course, I can’t go in the sun after the melanoma. You know I’m convinced I look like an albino.” “Barry, someday you’re going to wake up and look in the mirror and—” “Okay, okay. The thing was, even if I didn’t believe everything Len said, I surely internalized it. I was so hating my flesh I couldn’t even masturbate. The point is, my dear, I’m fine. It’s the past. Jonathan could break through the crap. He’s obviously in love with you.” Barry swallowed his drink with difficulty, as if choking on those words.

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I stared at the beautiful, weathered terrace bricks. “Good lord. We’ve only had a few dates.” “You’ve been constantly on the phone. He’s sending you his poems.” “Yes. The last rosy one began something like ‘Fog settled on the eyelid of endeavor.’” Barry stood and gathered the grilled slices of eggplant, onions, and zucchini onto the large, hand-painted platter. “Give him a chance, Peter. Give you and him a chance. The brass ring doesn’t come around that often.” I stood, shaken by the forlorn look on Barry’s face as he held the platter aloft. “How can you ever recover from such humiliation?” I asked. “The cellar.” “Sweetheart, that was the least of it. Once we kept separate beds, he started bringing boys home. He wanted me out of the way, but I could hear it all. I could have moved out years before I did.” “Oh, Barry.” I kissed the side of his neck and one-arm hugged his upper chest, forever firm despite his purported lack of exercise. “We’re all moving on,” he said. “Let’s eat.” We did, though a lump of concern for Barry would not dislodge from my throat.

*

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Jonathan and I continued to date, primarily in Boston, my being compelled now by the wonderful, cheap eateries, Ethiopian to Lebanese. I decided that Barry was the smartest person I knew, and his advice to the lovelorn was to be heeded, crystallized as it was from decades in a cauldron with Len, plus his life on the streets and Head Start. I can’t make myself fall in love, but I can follow another man’s lead, for once in my life; I can allow things to eventually flourish, if that’s in the cards. Meanwhile, at the art of massage, Jonathan is a Michelangelo.

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“I didn’t get the manager’s job,” said Jonathan by phone, utterly despondent. “At least you tried.” “Everyone at Evelyn’s retirement party said I was a shoo-in.” “Look for something else. I’ll write you a knockout reference.” “I do need more money. I’m seeing the new therapist three times a week.” At this I was speechless. “Peter, my job can be done by somebody brain-dead. It lets me write.” “Have you thought of a job that’s really interesting? Take a break from poetry, another thing you think you should be doing because of your PhD, your MFA.”

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“I have no skills in the workplace,” Jonathan droned. “Get yourself a Guggenheim, a Fulbright for a year, to write poems, get another PhD, on William Trevor. Yes! Go to London. Or Lake Como! I’m dying to paint there.” “Peter, I love you, you’re nuts. There’s no way.” I retreated from bashing the poor man with my overdrive. Calmer, I listened to Jonathan and validated his pain. The following weekend, Jonathan came to Buck Hill. The early summer sun, never something to take for granted in upper New England, was intoxicating after a typical winter and sodden spring. Jonathan maintained a state of euphoria. The sun poured over the lustrous grass; the last of the lilacs still leaked scent. “You know I’ve been diagnosed with SAD?” he said as we entered the kitchen Sunday afternoon shortly before the drive to catch his bus. “Seasonal affective disorder.” “I thought that was a slang term. I didn’t know it was clinical,” I said flatly. “Don’t all of us get depressed by March and jubilant at the first signs of forsythia?” Jonathan struck a forced smile. “You just know.” Instead of apologizing for my lack of sensitivity—Jonathan, after all, was soldiering on without antidepressants—I simply stood and gripped the top rung of my ladder-back chair. “I’m sorry, Jonathan. This isn’t working. For me. We’ve given it several months.” Jonathan turned ice white. “I don’t feel any passion,” I continued. “It’s dragging me down even when we’re at our best and discussing Saul Bellow.” “I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying, Peter. Sorry, my thought process isn’t functioning. I’m too stunned. I thought we were having a wonderful time.” He, too, gripped a chair. “I feel like such a bastard, waiting until the hour you leave.” “I’m sure it’s never easy to say what you just did,” said Jonathan stoically, his pronounced cheeks now flushed with fire. “I have had wonderful times with you, Jonathan. Including in bed.” “Don’t lie to me, Peter. Let’s not stoop.” He was lock-jawed. I was drowning in shame. “I don’t know what more to say. I think this is one thing maybe even you and I can’t articulate. We’ll talk next time. You’ll be late for your bus.” Midway through the ride, Jonathan broke the silence. “Some of us are dispirited but, you know, Peter, it does have the beneficial side effect of honesty. Gay men, all men, have a problem with commitment. For

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too many reasons—no role models; sucky role models; enabling women; whatever. God knows I have my obstacles to fulfillment. I hope you get to address yours.” Wearily, I nodded. Yes, but what to address?

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Two months later, my PSA rose from 4.9 to 8.3. Dr. Kramer scheduled me for a biopsy. Five of the six plugs were positive for prostate cancer. Jonathan and I exchanged a few phone calls, with Jonathan playing the eager minister. I immersed myself in researching options—freezing the gland, implanting it with radioactive pellets, going the less-invasive route of external beam radiation—but tried-and-true surgery was a foregone conclusion at my age and level of malignancy. The specter of impotence clogged every pore of my being. I found myself in Boston after a Sunday brunch with Jonathan, as friends. After we parted, I drove without forethought to the Bird Sanctuary, the infamous warren of homosexual acts perpetrated in broad daylight along the well-trodden paths or furtively tucked into thickets carved with alcoves of discretion, for those so inclined. I’d heard of arrests. I’d heard of knifings; I blithely assumed that they happened at night, not on Sunday afternoons. I’d heard of those recently diagnosed with HIV no longer giving a shit. Even if it was just mutual jerking off, I’d heard of men lubricating their hand with spit, and saliva was a body fluid. These thoughts and others drifted past my eyes, not through my mind, as if broadcast on a distant TV, out of focus. I’d known of the Bird Sanctuary as a habitat of my ailing friend Luke. I had never been to this haunt but had driven by a million times. Today is entirely different. No matter Luke has AIDS, and I have cancer … I didn’t touch a soul. I let myself be fondled by the first taker. I unzipped and exposed that part of myself to which I had access. I shuddered without pleasure, holding onlookers rapt, in the sun-drenched center of the path.

Chapter 8

Luke

Luke was the first gay man I fell in love with. Above his feathery, adolescent moustache, his nose twitched constantly, like a chipmunk. For me, it signaled a mind constantly in motion. Could I paint that now? The frail moustache was in such contrast to his thick, henna brown tresses, clipped every which way as if for this, too, he couldn’t hold still. Fuzzy-little-animal cute had better not dominate this portrait. But in his early forties, he had the impish smirk of a twelve-year-old. His boyishness was reinforced by his being dwarfed by me. Luke’s small brown eyes were often pressed nearly closed. His squint behind the thick-lenses of his horned-rimmed glasses was the capstone of a face almost pinched by the pressure to contain tight, inner springs from bursting forth and uncoiling out of control. Any hostile energy, I thought as I paused on the pixie nose, was kept at bay. To the world, Luke was smart and irreverent, and he giggled at his own quips; to me, it was all a way to alleviate the dark within. His skin was opalescent and incapable of a tan. Beginning his postmortem portrait, I retreated from a near ghoulish cast I’d concocted with harsh white, putty and not enough pink. As if I’ve laid out the corpse for viewing. I picked up a postcard Luke had sent shortly after moving to Boston. “Aside from a workshop called ‘Rainbow Fasting and Summer Solstice Colonic Irrigation,’ you are missing nothing of the city life.” I had unearthed dozens of Luke’s notes and letters, notably the ones from Provence, and spread them on my studio table. Luke had never gotten tested. “What’s the point?” he said. “I know I’ll be one of the first.” And so he was.

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Luke showered his friends with attention. But I was never convinced my appeal was more central than serving as a buffer against his sexual contacts who came around for seconds. As he once sneered so aptly, “A trick gone all smarmy unfortunately lives on my street.” “So let me tell you how it goes,” began a letter from the early ’80s: Within a ten day period I got four job offers. Living out of a suitcase in a rent-controlled find two blocks from the Common, dry cleaners on one side, Emac & Bolio’s Homemade ice cream on the other—perfecto. What’s happening is people, some old friends, mostly new. Sex first, friendship later. I’m having fun with a man who is tempting me into more than casual sex. In spite of my cynical façade, I’m a pushover, and it’s too soon to judge this person. Twice already I’ve been to the beach (cruisy, cruisy).

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I returned to the canvas—three by four feet—but could only work on the face. Why not follow Rembrandt and simply highlight the head with all else an ominous, dun void? But Luke’s hands were too animated to be absent. He’d be fingering a paperback, or shoving his big glasses back up the thin ridge of his nose, as the glasses perpetually dropped like Ben Franklin’s and forced Luke to peer over them until he could free up his hands from lighting another unfiltered cigarette. I picked up a letter at random. At the top, Luke had drawn four window shades of varying sizes and colored them with felt-tip pens, hues closely aligned but not quite. “There are only shades of gray,” he had written. Hot day where amoebic anxieties flourish and rot. (Is being bored really so melodramatic? If so, it can’t be boring.) This kind of weather brings soul sludge to the surface. My room, too, has become unhinged—books and clothes everywhere. I will flash in my mind a slide of Buck Hill. All better. Just lay by your pond, willy-nilly, water lapping legs, sun on belly and chest. Fortunately, I have slides in my mental canister of your flower gardens and your muffin batter. This Sunday, we watched Tarzan tapes with bagels and the Times. Heat also means legs galore stride by my bedroom window. Ah, Boston; ah, men.

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I put down the letter and smiled briefly. My prostatectomy was scheduled to happen in six weeks. I’d always wanted to paint this commemorative portrait. Though he’s long gone, it’s Luke’s life force into which I need to plug. I returned to my brushes and paint. When I was still married and still invisible in New Hampshire, I chafed at my lack of real work after New York. I was startled to see “Gay, Lesbian, Women’s Issues” hand-lettered on a shelf in the matchbox-sized hippie bookstore in Concord. I bustled on to “New Fiction, Paperback,” after being seized by hot flashes. “The gay shelf won’t bite,” said the horn-rimmed, owlish man perched behind the counter. I froze as the guy removed his glasses, huffed sharply on the lenses, and pulled out a cloth. “But the texts do have teeth, so you’re right to beware.” This turned out to be Luke, over whom I towered, which smashed the first of many “must-haves” in my laundry list of male attractions: being tall. I was smitten with Luke’s casual bluster, so cocky that the barbs dripped—not pounced—from his tongue. “I’ve seen you eye the homo section several times,” said Luke as he slipped off his stool and stepped promptly to the books at hand. “Let me recommend …” He plucked a few. “This is a start. No grades, but your final exam might be oral. Oh, my name’s Luke, as in Matthew and John, my two brothers. Born-again parents in Indiana, so you see, you, Yankee Independent, are enlightening me.” I laughed; Luke closed shop; we spent two hours in a café. “You’re kidding?” said Luke. “You’ve never been to the baths?” “I’m open to meeting an interesting man,” I said, dazzled by Luke’s every comment and imperious gesture. “You need to get laid; well, have sex, that means. The het set can be so literal.” “I’ve had some experiences,” I said wanly. Luke drew in a breath. He scribbled the address of a bathhouse on a paper napkin. “Next time you’re in Boston, try this playpen. From there, you can graduate.” Nervously I crumpled the paper into a pocket and picked Luke’s brain about novels, my primary source of fuel. “I’m moving to Boston,” said Luke. “I’m a financial programmer but need to marry that to consulting—workshops on fund-raising, gays in the workplace. Tons of socially conscious businesses, just in Cambridge. Besides, the lack of men here …” Crestfallen, and with my heart pounding, I shook my head in commiseration. The following week, I unfolded the wrinkled napkin and rechecked the address. I made my way to the hand-lettered sign for Key Club inside a filthy

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doorway. I climbed the dark stairs and was greeted at the landing by a sallow man behind bars. “Towel or cubicle?” he said, without looking up from his comic book. “Towel is fine.” I paid my ten bucks. He directed me to a small locker, and I jumped at the loud buzzer that sounded as the large metal door that needed paint unlocked. Dante’s Inferno was my first thought as I squinted to follow the maze of lockers illuminated only by the eerie, red light of a Coke machine. Not a sound; not a moving shadow. Quickly I undressed, stashed my things, put the key on its rubber bracelet around an ankle, and wrapped the towel around my midriff tight as a turban. At least I can tell Luke I tried; at least I have an excuse to call Luke again. I stepped forth onto the cold, gummy floor. I took a deep breath. My lungs were stung by disinfectant. I walked ahead as if I knew what I was doing. Acid yellow light slanted from a cubicle with the door ajar. I swallowed and peered in. On a bunk lay a wiry, bald man, with jet-black, bushy sideburns, a sunken chest covered with black coils, and a leering grin exposing discolored teeth. He ran a hand up and down a disproportionately large cock, black in the murky light and shaped like a boomerang. “Hi,” I said too sprightly, but someone had to break the ice. The man answered by slowly opening his mouth and sliding out his tongue. “I just got here,” I said falteringly. “I’m going to … look around …” The man sat up, scowled, and started furiously masturbating. “Should I … close the door?” I skittered off, my lips now sealed. I relayed my story next day to Luke by phone. “Well, what about the other men there?” asked Luke, sounding incredulous. “I did confront one guy in the steam room. He was naked, but I just couldn’t remove my towel. ‘Too hot,’ I apologized and rushed out. He looked so crushed. The poor guy, he must have been in his eighties, his ball sack swinging halfway to his knobby knees.” “Christ, Peter, when were you there?” “Monday. Yesterday.” Luke sighed. “Monday’s not prime time.” “Actually, it was ten in the morning.” Luke left a pause. “I will take you under my wing. Because—and only because—you read and buy books, one now in a million.” The day Luke moved to Boston, I mourned the loss of my new friend. The ache rivaled that of my departure from Becky, my daughter, and my son. Barry, my bosom buddy, had a similarly incisive tongue. But Barry was marshmallow

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sweet to the core; this Luke was tart as the sharpest sourball candy, and for that I was developing a taste.

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The surgery was still a few weeks away. It meant several days in the hospital and three weeks attached to a catheter and leg bag, followed by Kegel exercises to transform the sphincter into one of Herculean strength. I thought wistfully of the brief discussion of cryotherapy: freezing and destroying the prostate as an outpatient. But Dr. Kramer said the surgery would be as “nerve sparing as possible,” given my lean, low-fat build. Between losing myself in sessions on Luke’s portrait, I found myself doing double time in the pool. After seventyfive minutes and three thousand yards, I popped out in my skimpy Speedo and strutted to the locker room, my lungs and chest a mile wide. Who needs a prostate? Who needs sex? “Barry, I think I’m in denial,” I said, meeting him for lunch. “I’m only frightened when I think of losing you.” He rushed to a hug, perhaps to avoid my seeing his wash of tears.

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Luke was soon immersed in his new life in Boston. Lucky for me he loved to write letters. —October, 1986. Life continues. The current infatuation can overwhelm all. After NH, Boston is so stimulating—architecture, river fronts, sex. Saw an exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art. Disappointing, but the gallery a gem—a clever, functional renovation of a 19th-century neoRomanesque fire station. The thrill of newness! Tonight I was to see Fame with my confusing new friend, but he was playing hard-to-get queen. So I went to a double feature of Nijinsky (awful movie, but historically interesting) and Cabaret, always a shot in the arm. Charlie, the guy, about to do a residency in psychiatry and in analysis for God knows how long, is not clear in his signals. He is not turned on by my body. But there is a fondness and ability to communicate that keeps each of us coming back for more. He kvetches a lot, which I like for the opportunity to debunk him, Herr Doktor of Human Dilemmas. My needling does turn him on. Some night we’re going to encounter each other cruising in the Fens; only appropriate, since that’s how we met. Last time in the Fens, I came upon a master in leather and chains and his naked slave sucking and

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getting fucked by men, in line, orchestrated—the moves, the positions, even the climaxes—by the master standing above. Work is fantastic, no time to catch my breath. I love it, and at the same time there are no fixed points, no certainties. Visit soon! Write! I did both. Luke inflated a camping mattress in a pantry off his miniscule kitchen. He regaled me with his exploits as we huddled in a trendy bistro. “So it’s Saturday, I’m walking back from the hardware place, when our eyes meet and hold that extra millisecond. Stride is not broken in either direction. Two stores apart, we both stop, look back, smile. Bernard comes home for dinner and stays half the night, leaving after a groggy speech about the street noise, or my snoring. Next night we ate Chinese, giddy meandering home through narrow side streets. We are not sexually compatible. But we talk well and like each other.” At this juncture, Luke removed his glasses, cloudy as usual with grease and thumbprints, and did his huffing and polishing routine. I found the pause allowed Luke’s last phrases—“not sexually compatible, but we talk well and like each other”—to sink in and zap my balloon of high spirits. “We went biking in P-Town. It was too windy, so we left the bikes and walked along the shore through the paths of the dunes and basked in the early spring sun, the wind whirring and creating beautiful eddies in the sand. Such a perfect scene. I did not snore. Not that it mattered. The infatuation-disenchantment cycle had run its course. What were we doing there in bed together? I did not snore because I did not sleep. I was so annoyed with myself, Peter, having fallen for a simpleminded temptation I long ago eschewed.” He sipped some wine. “Why, why, why …” He ran a hand through the lush crop of auburn bristles, again yanking off his glasses and rubbing his red eyes. “You’re a tough cookie, Luke,” I said. “So you make mistakes, but hopefully you’re saving me from some of them, and yourself down the road. If I were here, I’d have AIDS by now.” Luke looked up and smiled as if to preempt me from apologizing for my gaff, since he was obviously the one at risk. “I knew moving to the country in the first place wouldn’t eradicate my baggage,” he said. “It just allowed me space to adjust to all my fragments. And moving here, I knew I’d be bringing my warring parts into clearer focus, so who’s complaining?” “You’re not complaining, Luke. To me,” I continued, “you’re a gay pioneer fending off the varmints and mining for gold.” I was radiating in Luke’s warmth and honesty, if not his optimism.

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“So I’m at the bar, The Bar, where men of substance congregate; no disco lights, no porn. ‘where-we-can-talk,’” he said mockingly. “Bars are so inefficient for meeting people—everyone stiff as if struck by lightning—but there I was. Along with the close-cropped clones with their well-defined muscles set off by T-shirts two sizes too small. But there were also men in suits, long-haired types totally stoned, and lots of preppies. One guy took my fancy—beautiful in his brown leather jacket, wire-rims, neat moustache, and brushed-back hair. We circled around, visually sparring. I was about to approach him when a short fellow I’d also noticed because he was cute, looked like a rabbi, and was smiling, came up and unloaded some abstract mumbo-jumbo I immediately understood. Instant rapport. Going to the bar I’d repeated my mantra: You don’t get what you want by looking for it. Of course, I brought Shel home by giving a backward glance to my brown-leathered fantasy sipping another scotch. The night was amazing. Shel’s a bit mad and unbalanced but delightful and sexually adept.” I nodded encouragingly. What differentiates adept from my inept? “There’s something almost magical about Shel, some lure that draws and repels. I guess it’s all of a process whose pattern I cannot yet see.” The eyeglasses had once again slid to the tip of his pert nose, too fine boned for the burly frames. “You’re in the throes of life, Luke. And for that I commend you.” Envy him, no. Yet as Luke whipped out a cigarette and tapped it hard on the table, I fell further into a spell of fascination with this character. Lust? Love? Something that infused a thousand vacant pores of my being; exposed, invigorated, challenged a host of my own forgotten fragments. Chief among them: terribly missing the brain-teasing talk with Becky and not making enough time for it with Barry. We were driving back on Mass. Ave. when Luke abruptly pulled over to the curb. “Get out,” he ordered. “What on earth?” “This is The Bar. Timing’s perfect. Ten thirty on Saturday night. People just arriving; no one’s drunk. The talk will be as coherent as can be expected.” “Luke, I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. I came here to see you. I—” “Out!” “You’re not joining me?” “Now, if you meet somebody, you’re welcome to bring him back—any hour. The key to the rear door is under the mat. I’ll be out solid. The wine, the chat, it was grand, Peter. But I’m shot. Your turn to prowl.” I opened the door and looked longingly at Luke. “You can take a taxi back. But, as fresh meat on the floor, I’m sure you’ll hook up. Whatever, you’re not welcome back until 1:00 am—earliest!” “You’re too much,” I said as I sidled out.

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Luke leaned and yelled as he pulled away, “Fresh towels are on top of the dryer!” I steeled myself; I was twice the age of college guys, and probably some professors, for that matter. Outside, the place was as deserted as any warehouse district after dark. I pushed through the door to meet a blur of inky lights dulled by smoke. I thought of an amusement park spook house, all make-believe gloom and sinister shadows. A half-dozen loners, at most. I knew that once groups of friends arrived and enlivened things, the catatonic wallflowers, myself included, could lurch about and possibly utter a “Hi.” Around midnight. I circled once, pretending to look for someone, and left. I hailed a cab and reached Luke’s flat by eleven. Like the grand jewel thief of Monte Carlo I crept in stealthily, taking off my shoes and holding my breath until I was safely under the sheets. I didn’t want to fall asleep so I could savor the string of delicious conversations that evening with Luke.

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The face emerging on the canvas was way too angelic. Well, Luke did look like a boy. I spent hours, days into nights with studio lights ablaze, piercing Luke’s soul and feeling assured that at least upon Peter Bauman, Luke had bequeathed a legacy of unforgettable pronouncements and questions common to every man’s path. Exhausted in the faltering light and fraught with fear for my impending impotence, or worse, I cleaned brushes and poked again through my Luke memorabilia. There was a postcard from Forest Lawn Cemetery featuring a reproduction of The David onto which was draped around the waist and over the penis a long measuring tape. June 16, 1987 Just back from a friend’s memorial. I am so down and depressed; it was the second this month. And my car blew up. But. There are a whole slew of things happening, workwise, menwise. Otherwise, I am well, malcontent with the way things are, and wish you’d come visit soon. And a letter apparently after Luke had recharged at my retreat years prior: Sad end of summer, 1983 Peter, Peter, Peter, You are the perfect host, but you are an ignoramus when it comes to coffee. Freeze-dried? In a jar? So. Under separate cover, I am sending you

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the Mellita and filters, and when the next guest appears, you pull the coffee out of the freezer, one large scoop per cup of boiling water over the grounds, and—voila! Sip and look at the ice forming on your pond edge. It’s September. Did it snow yet? I loved spending time with you, dissing Joan Didion, waxing euphoric over our rereading The Magic Mountain. It’s too bad we didn’t know each other longer during my tenure in the hills. C’est la vie. Every pinch of your whole-meal cookery was divine. I especially loved your five-grain, nine-seed crackers that looked like something usually hung from a birdfeeder. God, you are ingenious up there on your survival course. The drive home gave me time to think of my latest, Shayne (we met at The Bar, for all my bitching) and the camaraderie and friendliness to date. We’ve hit that juncture where expectations need verbalizing. I am not up for any more heavies. One, I don’t have time—I’m supervising seven now; and two, either I’m incapable of intimacy or I don’t want it, which is what I’ve always thought but have never been so clear about since Alfie. Alfie and I like each other a lot and get along pretty well, in spite of vast differences. Of course, I’m German and he’s Hispanic, for starters. But Alfredo is forever misreading my distance couched in cheer as meaning I want the same kind of monogomous relationship he does. Alfie is not enough of a challenge for me. I don’t respect his thinking (Indian gurus! He should reinvent his Catholicism). But I like him, and rather than agreeing to his bimonthly dictum, “It’s over!” I’m forever saying or acting out, “I need/want my space but also to stay friends. I wish this could evolve rather than cut off just because it’s not your ideal.” While he was visiting the family in Rio, I realized that given our repetition of the above conversation at the start of another tedious weekend, the only way Alfredo would hear what I was saying was for me to agree with him and say, “For the time being, it’s over.” And—surprise, surprise—Alfie said, “Okay, well, ah, we do have something here that shouldn’t be aborted, so let’s work on being ‘friends,’” to which I said, “Fine.” I think some people get juiced more over the process, the stickier the better, than a state of arrival, resolution, clarity. He’s clearly the former; I, the latter. I’m loathe to stereotype Latin blood, but, excuse me, if Alfie isn’t pummeling his emotions, they might abandon him, God forbid. I’m clear that I’m unclear about exactly what it is that I want, but I know now that my guts will opt for friendship over one-on-one bonding. On the other hand (hands? I need a Hindu goddess metaphor here), if I really do not want “marriage,” why am I forever engaged in the hunt? Sex, yes, but that dulls,

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and I do want someone to wake up with. So why does my id start losing interest in sex once we’re spending lots of time together? I let the letter fall to my lap; Luke’s imbroglio was a broken record. Maybe companionship is more important to survival than sex, and, left to the natural course of things, will select the “cooperation” anthropologists claim is responsible for evolution. Sex/incest is disruptive, and survival/peace depends on fraternity. Look what we had, Luke. I stared at the canvas face. Because we didn’t have sex. Oh, but I wanted to. Meanwhile, I’ve met Shayne, who I can talk to and unfortunately travels in the same group as Alfredo. But what is life without constant churning? You know where the key is. Come! P.S.—Did you get the Hepatitis B vaccine? Better safe than sorry. In 1991, a year after Luke died of AIDS, Alfredo died of same. At Luke’s memorial service, Alfredo jockeyed himself into delivering the major eulogy, after which others could speak. At Alfredo’s service, they showed a videotape made weeks before his death. Gaunt but electrified, he talked of his days in the monastery, then the ashram in India. “One of the best things about my leave,” he said, “is that I’ll be with Luke!” Openly weeping, he dropped his head but held up a finger and added, “I was right, Luke. You’ll see.”

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Although five of the six plugs of my biopsy were positive, the doctor was surprised. At the time of the procedure, he reported the prostate was small and firm, with no sign of enlargement or irregularity. He’d dismissed the likelihood of cancer and said the elevated PSA was probably due to a urinary tract infection. He was wrong. That did not stop me from swallowing all the assurances he offered that the surgery should go uneventfully, and I was in the best possible shape to recover quickly. The CAT scan and MRI had been passed with no indication of spreading into bone or beyond. Despite sweating these hurdles, I remained optimistic. Carcinoma of the prostate was one cancer measurable by blood. The PSA test was not perfect, but I saw myself as a beneficiary of early detection. The peripatetic hard-on: when the time came, I was prepared to do battle. As for dying—no way. I’m just starting the second half.

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I swam and worked continuously on Luke’s portrait until the eve of my operation. I decided how to compose Luke’s body on the sprawling canvas. Luke had sent me several photos of his trip to Provence the year before his death with some new chums. He was smoking, smug, and perched on a log, clearly having a grand time, even though he wore a special watch alarm that sounded the time to take AZT, still an experimental drug then. Stroking myself the night before my surgery in a farewell masturbation, I thought how once Luke said the body didn’t matter if he had a nice cock; and the cock didn’t matter if he had a nice body. Hopefully the latter scenario could work for my ensuing chapters. Derek was on hand, despite his insane schedule at his first year of med school. Julie arrived from Baltimore, where she was taking a crash course in secretarial skills and “dating an Afro-American businessman”—Bruno sold rat poison door to door in the ghetto to earn money for trade school. Becky and Martin were cooking and packing my freezer with goodies to last for months. Allison was in Istanbul “on business,” but arranged for visiting nurses to come to Buck Hill. Arlene had stationed herself in the waiting room with access to a phone. “I’m not leaving until you do.” But they were all taking orders from Barry. “You wouldn’t believe the tacky bouquet Becky’s sisters sent: dyed carnations. I kept the card but stuck the flowers on the drab reception desk when the bull dyke wasn’t looking. Actually, there, next to her, they weren’t so bad.” There was a final hurdle. At the onset of the operation, the adjacent lymph nodes are biopsied and, if positive, the patient is sewn back up: only chemo could tackle metastatic cancer. And so, as I slid into oblivion, the last thing on my mind was, Pray to the almighty whoever I wake up without my prostate gland. My wish was granted. Barry had the room looking like Longwood botanical gardens. “I redid most of the arrangements,” he said. “Aren’t the scabiosas gorgeous? They were from Allison’s bouquet. But I set them off with the sea green eucalyptus—completely lost in the one from Derek’s housemates.” In days, I was on my feet and back home, albeit attached to the bag and catheter. Family and friends came and went; Barry slept in the guest room, still commander in chief. Whenever possible, I barricaded myself in the studio. I was sore, not in pain, and mostly aghast at the pace the pee bag filled. Luke on canvas was now perched idly on a log in a courtyard of a stone cottage. I lavished attention on the climbing roses, the ivy, and the glossy hunter green foliage of intertwining vines. It was all so lush and dense, a perfect foil for

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Luke’s luminous pale skin, stuffed as he likely was with grilled poulet and olives and wine. His small eyes were aimed toward the dappled sun, with one hand resting upon his pack of Gauloises, the other cradling one he’d lit. Three weeks I was to be strapped to the bag; for three weeks I would mend under Luke’s bemused, gossamer gaze, his voice not even silenced, since I could recreate it as if he were plopped right there in the chair. I delved into the many letters Luke had sent from Provence, a diary of his last, delectable time on earth.

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May 14, 1989 Peter Painter Peter Painter, The question I’d pose to you, if you were here, is: how do you recreate the color of poppies? And: how to find your place in the field/universe since “you” only exist relative to the yellow of the broom, the many greens of leaves and grasses, the blue-greens of weeds and flowers, the special blue of the sky, the white flitting across our vision, and the “nothing” that ties all these points together into a composition? And even then, the color of poppies is only partial without the “light” from the sun, which is no light or color in itself; and the refraction from clouds when they’re there; and together at noon, in the heat (yes, yet another dimension) of the day; and during the moments while you assimilate it all; or as you’d so casually say, just cover it all with a wash and voila! And still you need someone to see it, this salmony hue which is so harmonious, so (yes, this is the right word) ecstatic. All those things need to be there to achieve just this one “color.” So, Peter, you are here in my head, helping me “see.” The dreams meld into stories, and these split into conversations. How do I discern the plot in all this, the connecting thread (or worry that I can’t) or just natter away, one phrase next to another … I emptied my bag, saw Barry off to work, ate some lunch, and returned to the letters, with Fred euphoric at my constant companionship. “… perhaps Meaning … arose just in the way flavor arises out of a conjunction of spices and herbs and long cooking and a sensitive palate, and yet is not reducible to any of those things; was a name only for the nameless conjunction.”—John Crowley, AEgypt, a fab book I’m reading. To one side of Luke on the log, I painted a book; it perfectly balanced the pack of cigarettes. I could stand comfortably in the second week after my sur-

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gery; though I was sore as hell, I was used to the tube and bag. Luke’s letters were voluminous. At the time, I’d been jealous of the new friends who joined him there. Now, years later, the missives both cemented my connection to Luke for life and thickened my anguish over the loss. May 22, 1989 Cabrieres d’Avignon This afternoon, I took off with my wonderful book for a nap in my magical field. The field was waving with feathery fronds of wild fennel. I found my spot, which has formed to my shape, the tall grasses like a mattress under the shade of trees. I read, I dozed, and hearing something, I looked up to see, ten feet away, a tall, blond boy with a ten-inch rock-hard penis protruding from his fly. My mind could not decide between what was real and what was not, and it tied my tongue. It was obvious he lived with the cherry pickers and only spoke French. Still, I stood and, letting him know I was tonguetied, motioned him to come join me in my bower. He never touched his cock, never acted, in fact, like there was anything out of the ordinary. He talked, gesticulated, and in moments let me know he had to go. Like the vision he was, he ran off down the path, his loose shirt and pink pants billowing out behind, and was gone. I was slowly but more surely navigating my life, driving my car, doing errands. Barry returned to his home. Instead of a void, my world had shrunk to Luke’s pile of letters from his bittersweet month in France. He was dead, but his irrepressible spirit totally discounted that I myself faced anything life-threatening. I played Cinderella today, left at home to wash dishes and clean while the jolie sisters went off to the ball. So I made my way to my magical bower, book and Gauloises in hand. Instead of the fantasy I’d imagined, I finished my book (4 stars!) and pack of Gauloises Blondes and was writing this to you in my mind, when there, walking along the road that would intersect my path back to the house, came pink pants, who today was chartreuse shirt. We walked (talked, so to speak), he on his way to his friends at the phone booth, not looking back as I continued on. Ironic the black pun in the name “AIDS,” as if it can lead to doors that can be unlocked. I put aside the last letter for later, for the conclusion to my portrait. I couldn’t help but glance at one sentence:

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I screwed the fields this morning, burrowing into my magical pad in the thick grass, fornicating with the flowers … At the bottom of the pile was a postcard from another time and place: Second-Story Sunlight. I identify with Edward Hopper (fantastic exhibit!). The stark unfettered lines of the twin peaks, same house, two people, each lost to herself, separate lives yet connected. Bare bones. That’s me. The Hopper painting chilled me with despondence. My portrait of Luke: for all its bath in the limpid Provencal sun it was also dashed with shadow, each defining the other. Luke had been only forty-five.

*

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*

At the end of the third week, I arrived at the office of Dr. Hal Kramer to have my catheter removed. I planned to celebrate with a swim immediately after. The catheter slipped right out. “That was easy,” I said. “I was dreading the thought.” “Flexible tissue,” said Dr. Kramer. “I hope so! I mean, in terms of rebounding.” By way of reply, Dr. Kramer said, his jaw tense, “Peter, I’m afraid the lab report was not encouraging. Trace amounts of cancer penetrated the capsule into fringe tissues.” My heart stopped. “I’m sure it’s contained within the pelvic area, but still, we have to consider further treatment.” I shook my head in silence. Gravely, Dr. Kramer cited the pros and cons of commencing versus postponing a seven-week course of external beam radiation, six days a week. I agreed to get on with it as soon as medically appropriate, which Dr. Kramer scheduled after a few weeks’ rest. “I’ve read that radiation carries the same incidence of incontinence and impotence as surgery,” I said matter-of-factly, squashing any emotion about to blast forth. “So it will be like a double dose.” With this, Hal Kramer concurred. I drove directly to the pool. I was sore and swollen and reddened, but for a solid thirty minutes, for some confounded reason, I had never felt so strong.

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*

*

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There was a note I’d overlooked, from late fall 1989. I’m about to start my second treatment at Beth Israel with ribavirin, which holds no promises but is statistically hopeful. It is daily the case that friends and acquaintances are diagnosed as being HTLV-3 positive, or diagnosed with AIDS or ARC. Nothing’s the same anymore. When sex stops being play, it loses its raison. The sexual energy central to my “gay” identity for the last 20 years has shifted into work. It’s true also for every one of my friends, gay and straight, resulting in an intense networking and coming together to fight for our lives. I’d love to see you. What about going to the Caribbean for Christmas?

*

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*

I stood at my easel, day after day, fine-tuning my portrait of Luke. I kept replaying my last—rather, next to last—meeting with Luke as he stood and joshed with the staff and doctors in the hospital where he was undergoing more tests: toxo-this for blood sickness, crypto-that for brain erosion. Or blindness. Already he had the purple inky blotches of Kaposi’s sarcoma on his arms and neck. But he was dressed in his uniform black polo with the collar up, black jeans, and black loafers, as if in mock mourning for himself, forever owlish and grinning at the circus of it all. When I left, Luke was standing at the end of a long hall, shrugging by way of a wave: just one more story about to overlap with the next. To me it was the image of absolute aloneness. I picked up the last letter from Provence. It began: The psychiatrist I was dating reminded me before I left for France that my “I” would begin to emerge from the prison I’ve built over a lifetime, that I was on the verge of a breakthrough, not breakdown. I still worry that if I start tearing down walls, instead of wonderful wide open spaces (one cannot live forever here in the Luberon), I’ll be left with ruins impossible to repair. It ended with: “We will be solitary, inevitably, like balls struck across a wide lawn, striking others now and then and being struck by them. We must be glad of that striking; and keep up our courage and our cheer; and not forget the ones we

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have loved—no, and pray that our remembrance will in turn earn us a place … in their hearts.” Another gem from AEgypt.

*

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*

I picked up a brush, one of my finer sables. For subtlety. Ha! Slowly, with pale blue and honey shadings applied horizontally over the head, I painted a beautiful, erect penis, larger than life, veins fulsome and throbbing and rosy red. And more satisfying, the introspective, coy smile, somewhat peeking from behind the fine moustache, took a decided detour to the devil, one end curled up and the other turned down. All of this took less than an hour. And then the portrait, to my mind, was done.

*

*

*

It happened so quickly, the gap so brief between my visit to Luke in the hospital and the call from Alfredo the night they moved Luke to the hospice. I was there next morning. Alfredo had not gone to pieces. In fact, he stood tall and proud, Luke at last at his side. He withdrew for a few hours, to allow me privacy. I entered the room. Luke had been in a coma for two days. Practically every square inch of his flesh was covered with vile, black bruises. Without his hornrims, his face was but a chalky, white mask. He’d lost half his weight. I stood without breathing. Suddenly Luke snorted—no, snored. He was still snoring! At this I collapsed, sobbing into the bedside chair. I held my head in my hands, the whole of me shaking violently. I fought with all my might to keep my sobbing silent. A nurse bounced in. “How we doin’, Luke?” she sang. She shoved his head, adjusted the pillow, straightened the sheet, rubbed his fragile purple forearm. “Hey, your pal Peter is here! Isn’t that wonderful? He made it! You, too!” She wriggled my shoulder, with affection but also aggression. “Talk to him! He can hear everything. His ears are perfectly intact. Don’t expect a blush or smile or wrinkle or twitch of his finger, right, Luke? But you’re every bit with us. It ain’t over till it’s over!” Again, she grasped me by the shoulder, gentler this time, and winked on her way out. I stared at what remained of my friend. It was a sight I’d never seen, nor could have imagined. I cleared my throat. I opened my mouth. Nothing emerged. Finally, I said, “Oh, Luke. Luke. Can you really hear me?” I was whispering; I swallowed and tried again. Tears coursed down my cheeks. “You’ve given me so much. And you’re not taking it away. No way.” Again, I lost control.

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“You were my leader, down the rose-covered path to gay freedom. But the thorns. It wasn’t fair. You had more than your share, you bastard. Out there. Aching for it. Me, tagging along. Not really. Been so chickenshit.” My vision totally blurred. I lost contact with Luke, now but a vapory pale ghost. Suddenly I felt foolish, insipid. I slumped into the chair. “Touch him!” the nurse scolded, returning with a fresh box of tissues. “Go on. Make contact, however you can. Really. He’s alive. He’s right here.” She left. Tentatively I reached over and touched a bare foot. The skin was unearthly ashen, like brittle, ancient paper. Over the next hour I recited stories, stories of Luke’s, stories of the two of us, stories of my buffoonery in the Boston baths and bars. I sat on the edge of the bed, shifted Luke’s hips slightly to make extra room, and stroked his ribcage through the sheet. “I swear I’m going to take up where you left off. But safer, you bugger. I could kill you for dying on me. You’re only forty-fucking-five years old!” I touched his hair, matted and lifeless, the henna now a harsh metallic hue. “Your mind has always been your own. Conflicted, but your own. That’s been great! I hope this is good for you, because it’s shit for me. You know what I mean. You know I’ve loved you more than any man I’ve known! You putz, you prick. I love you.” Heaving again, I dropped myself totally onto Luke’s carcass, clasping what was left of the bony shoulders, kissing the pasty brow, burying my nose in the foul nest of hair. I heard shuffling. I twisted around. Alfredo was standing in the doorway. Luke died later that day.

*

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During my convalescence, I accepted the friendly overture from my “ex,” if he could be so entitled: Jonathan, the erstwhile poet and AIDS buddy volunteer. Jonathan heard from Arlene of my portrait of Luke and offered to assist in the making of a patch for the now-famous AIDS quilt to further commemorate my friend. Jonathan said there was a ton of material at their gay community center, and sewing queens as well. I came up with the design. It was a single salmon poppy with two stems: one in full flower, the other ending in a tight bud.

*

*

*

After the two months of radiation, when next tested, my PSA was “less than zero point one, technically undetectable.” As for my penis, which was defunct as a flat tire: I was about to crack the pamphlet I’d been given, “Intimacy with

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Impotence,” when I discovered, after daily prodding, that I could prompt sparks of preorgasm although completely limp. It made no sense, but so what? Massaging week upon week, I could eventually achieve a climax. My penis was nowhere near stiff, but vaguely plump? Absolutely. And as they said in the mailroom in the basement of the Madison Avenue agency the first week I started as a trainee, there was nowhere to go but up.

Chapter 9

Co c k s u r e

“You can always make love,” Barry had said. “Rubbish,” I snapped. “Without a hard-on? I’m just coming out. Who said I’ve been lovemaking?” Barry assumed the ethereal pose of a saint, which irritated me all the more. I was seated erect as a robot in Dr. Kramer’s waiting room, mechanically leafing through Modern Maturity, whose cover featured a winking Ann-Margret with the headline “Sixty is the New Thirty!” Stiffly planted opposite my chair were two middle-aged couples. The men had clamped jaws, blank stares, and rigid necks, as if waiting to be inspected at Fort Drum. Alas, they were no longer the Honor Guard, but appeared like vets gone glassy-eyed fifty years later at a Memorial Day parade. I adjusted my lanky frame in the undersized chair and returned my attention to the black vinyl box on my lap. “Vaso-Maximus” was printed discreetly on the side. Within was a ten-inch clear plastic tube three inches in diameter. Dream on, I sighed to myself. Also included: the pump gun; a cone-shaped device for slipping the rubber ring onto the base of the artificially inflated penis; the insert collar “for the man with less expansion needs;” the special Vaso-Max lubricant; and, finally, a demonstration video featuring a soft, pink man with an inner tube waist and a penis so modest that the production would unequivocally merit a G rating. The wife in the film, standing by her man, gazed up at him like Nancy Reagan held rapt by her Ronnie. Impotence dogged me for months after my prostatectomy and radiation. A pill was forthcoming from the drug industry, but who knew when? “What’s the big deal?” Barry had argued. “I think you’re being too phallocentric.” 140

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Barry, of course, was always right. Forget blind dates, I chided myself. Focus on the human heart. The penis pump left me limp. I was here because I’d promised Dr. Kramer to meet a representative of Vaso-Maximus who visited annually from the manufacturer in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. “It’s best with these folks to help get the proper fit.” I’d already experimented with several “fixes,” starting with implanting an icy pellet in my urethra. I imagined myself like a tube-inseminated cow as I stood there, prodded and witless, with my legs splayed. There was instant swelling, all right, but in the veins of my right calf. It stung to pee for days. Next, there was the injection method—“It doesn’t hurt; you’re still flaccid”—but for this I had to squint, and therefore often missed. Besides, there was the odd chance that the erection, guaranteed to be board hard for an hour, might not deflate and would require the ER. I’d be the talk of our hamlet. They had it right in the plague years of Padua: cloak it with a codpiece and leave well enough alone. Several men by now had lumbered after the nurse into the recessed chamber as if to the gallows. My dad had complained bitterly as an oldster for not having his “parts inspected,” which led to an unchecked prostate and bladder grief. “A rectal exam for a real man?” he’d have reacted. “Like kissing a commie.” I stared stupidly at a wall chart of a man’s inner labyrinth of vessels prone to plumbing problems. Women’s tubes are muscular and eel tough; that’s what it takes to produce life and withstand the pain. Men’s connections are slippery as spaghetti and fragile as thread. “Peter,” once argued Barry the sexpert, as if he scored weekly when in fact he was utterly exhausted from Head Start, “maybe you’re bi. You did it with Becky; I mean she’s wonderful, but …” He scrunched up his face. “Fish. Eew.” I chuckled, ever amazed to hear this prattle come from the head of thick, shiny black hair, dark brows, and a manly jaw. Barry the enigma, queer as he is yet resolute, paternal, often calm and butch as a test pilot. “Barry,” I had countered. “I’m not bi. In junior high, I whacked off with Gerard Hubschmidt behind the lathe in Boys’ Woodworking. A fair test of my preference, well before the obligatory drive-in heavy petting.” My field of vision was enveloped in white, bringing me back to the present. “Sorry for the delay, Mr. Bauman. They’re ready for you.” The nurse’s mild voice seemed like thunder in my reverie. They? It was a team from the manufacturer to inspect my software? I clasped the black plastic case, innocuous as a child’s lunch box, and followed. I took a deep breath and stood tall. Fuck hard-ons, I chastised myself, striding ahead. A small measure of a man. I’ll date, and without all this claptrap,

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a damned crutch. I’ll get back to the pool and the gym. I was escorted into the undersized, overly lit room. I’ll turn my entire body into a rock-hard erection. Get my mind off this irascible worm. “Todd Stoddard,” said the ruggedly handsome, blond man in a deep Southern accent, as he thrust his large hand to mine. My fingers cracked. “Dirk Pryor,” said the second rep who was equally broad shouldered and also had blinding teeth and thick hair, although he wore his in a brown buzz cut. “Todd, Dirk,” I managed. I shook Dirk’s mitt, which crinkled the muscles wrapping the young man’s wrist, large from an adolescence of rugby and weights. “Courtney, or is it Peter? They’ve got both down here,” smiled the curly blond. He unbuttoned his shirt sleeves and crisply folded each one twice with military precision. Their tie knots remained firmly in place. “It’s Peter. Courtney,” I said, feeling the color rise to my cheeks, “is an old family name; the Irish side.” “Lotsa boys in the South have family names—Sheldon, Hamilton, Brooks,” said buzz-cut Dirk apologetically, as he was on Yankee turf. He laughed silently and leaned forward, socking one meaty fist into the other. Todd clicked his sparkling teeth. “Ya know, they say any man lives long enough, he’ll develop prostate cancer. Environmental toxins concentrate in the sex organs.” “I’ve read that,” I said, my organs shriveling. “A darn shame, a man in his forties like you,” said Todd. He sighed, and his huge chest heaved. “Dirk here is a trainee at Vaso-Max. Hope that’s okay with you, Peter,” continued Todd; he was the one in command, the coach delivering the half-time strategy. “Gotta think positive. Before we demonstrate.” Jesus Christ. Demonstrate. Me? Them? All of us? “Okay, Pete, we’ll ask you to use the equipment as you’ve done normally so we can critique you.” Tight lipped, I nodded. “First though, let’s get better acquainted with your history.” Todd shifted his cool gray eyes to the paperwork and lowered his brow, which isolated the highly sculpted, straight nose; the square, elevated cheek bones and thin lips; the hypermasculine neck constrained by the buttoned collar and tie. This likely former All-American and sorority heartthrob from Ole Miss was stuffed into an anatomically incorrect suit of armor in order to support the wife and kids. Don’t think this way, I assailed myself. What if I get aroused? I gulped. Yet isn’t that why I’m here? “Any history of erectile dysfunction before your prostatectomy, Peter?” “No.”

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“No impotence.” He shrugged. “Just now and then, during intercourse?” As if it were such an affable, everyday thing, like stubbing a toe. “On the contrary. My wife used to groan on Saturday mornings, ‘Oh no, not another piss-proud!’” With a fading grin, I thought, How many times did I flaunt myself at Becky, compensating for my ever-deepening doubt? The two fullbacks straightened. “Now, Pete, you know radiation’s as bad as surgery for leakage and impotence.” Todd was the officer assuring the widow of the father of five killed in action that life can go on. “We’re here to help you.” His pinched blond eyebrows said he was dead serious now. “How about incontinence? Dribble? You use padding?” “I’ve done the Kegels constantly. Tight as a drum. I needed the di—nappies, but I advanced from Extra-Heavy to Lite Gards within …” I lifted my lower lip, “… a week.” “Great prognosis for erectile recovery,” smiled Todd. “All about sphincters,” chimed Dirk, as far removed from penile concern as the thick veins pulsing behind his neatly knotted tie. I was buoyed by this earnest, young rescue squad. If my anus and urethra regained control, well, so could my corpora cavernosa. Use it or lose it! Flexible muscle, absorbent tissue, blood surging and receding with tidal-wave force. This hydraulic Rube Goldberg machine is just a means to an end. It’s all in the mind, as Barry says. I’m sick of cowering like the lesser dog, tail coiled tight over privates … This stream quickly ran its course. Todd scanned my file. “Ever had trouble achieving an orgasm, Pete?” “No. In fact, it’s been the opposite. You know—” “Yeah,” Todd cut me off and returned to the papers. Dirk smiled wanly, as if to say, ‘Don’t worry, guy. It’s a lot more common than most men will admit.’ Premies. How many months and years did I try to pleasure Becky with my tongue, fingers, backrubs, my whole trolley car of tricks, to build her pleasure before I eagerly, recklessly entered her? Telling myself jokes, picturing Agnes the Ugly, shark’s teeth, vagina dentata, anything to forestall the asinine brevity of a man’s bliss. But it felt so good, being as greedy as a kid, so often at Becky’s insistence: ‘Slam me. Do it. Stop being so fucking polite.’ It was incredible with men a few times, in my early forties, as I discovered an entirely new way to feel, touch, and relate without words. Like watching my children as infants, awestruck at trying to fathom their sensory exploration unencumbered as it was by reason, I had been on the threshold of repeating that very miracle. Now this. “All right,” announced Todd. He rolled up his sleeve cuffs one more fold, exposing the whole of his pale-haired forearm, striated with muscles.

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Dirk leered with a grin. “Let’s see how this gizmo can give you a decent erection. And we don’t mean a semi,” he laughed, in an attempt to defuse the intimacy and the inevitability of the visit’s purpose, which rushed ahead like a cork on a raging river. Meanwhile, Todd held the plastic parts to his nose and squinting eyes in the final inspection before lift-off. The boys reminded me of my twenties, so cocksure and unfettered by the trials of the journey to come. I’d given it my all as an upstart copywriter in New York. What else could an English major do for a living but fill a blank page with gibberish, one’s polysyllabic vocabulary being ossified? I fell flat in my attempts at peddling the likes of New, Improved Flush-it Toilet Bowl Cleaner: if it was so new and improved, what kind of crap had the poor souls been conned into up to now? I was a Madison Avenue misfit until Becky bailed me by out hitting the jackpot in her bakery business. How will I ever fall out of love with that woman? My musing cushioned me from the reality of the moment. “Don’t use Becky as a scapegoat for trusting men, buster,” know-it-all Barry often barked. “She’s a hard act to follow, but try looking at the guys you date first between the eyes, then between the legs.” “Okay, drop your slacks, Pete,” ordered Todd. My pounding heart catapulted into my throat. “And your shorts. We’ll assemble the pump here.” Gently he took the box from my lap, freeing me to stand and undo my belt. Todd lined up the absurdly thick and long plastic cylinder and the hand-gun pump. Dirk avoided looking at me, standing there cold as a plucked turkey. I sat back down on the icy steel chair, shrinking my parts even more, if that was possible. “Up here,” requested Todd as he patted the paper-covered examination table. I lurched forward, my pants and underpants lassoing my ankles like a kid in a sack race. I’d chosen Jockey briefs and not one of the slinkier, flyless types creeping into my wardrobe. “More uplift and basket definition,” Barry had counseled me on this matter. He himself wore baggy jeans. “Let’s slip these off,” said Todd of my slacks. “You need plenty of freedom,” he added, positioning his chair so he’d be at eye level with my sad, wrinkled equipment, which looked at the moment like a leftover hot dog kept too long in the fridge. Dirk, too, scooted his chair forward; I noticed, how could I not, the shirt grazing the young man’s beautifully rounded pectorals and stretching the material ever so rakishly. Todd donned surgical gloves. You’re in a biology lab at Cornell. It’s simply a toe, an earlobe, a random body part. If you’re ever to advance to love with a man, stop being blinded by the nuts and bolts. I really did wonder if I could graduate from gay playgroup to the real thing. A penis, yes, was good sport; but the hole, either mine or the other guy’s, all plugged up? How did they do it with a finger, let alone a fist? Is this truly

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what consummates man-to-man love? My question was rhetorical, but it kept me distracted. Todd, the present lab instructor who just happened to be gorgeous, handed me the cylinder. “Okay, let’s take this step-by-step. Not following any one of them can ruin the seal, lose the erection, or even cause vascular damage.” I frowned in concentration and slathered the requisite lubricant onto my penis. “Wait a sec, Pete,” interrupted Todd. “Way too much pubic hair. If you trim it, the rim holds tighter. Dirk, grab those shears for Peter.” I started clipping. If ever one felt like Samson … “Top of the scrotum, too. Okay, let’s work on a good erection before slipping on a tension ring at the base to maintain arousal. You need to practice, Pete.” “Oh, I have been.” “Fit the tube over, now, slowly, start to pump. Wait five seconds; too fast, and it’s uncomfortable. I know she’s there and eager! Attaboy,” urged Todd, his toothy smile widening. “Keep going until the shaft starts lifting off the tube’s base. Yeah! I can see the swell! Lookit that head, Dirk. Good going, buddy.” My balls were churning as I glared at these beefcakes, with their gracious Southern charm and their faces inches from my manhood in extremis. I dared not look down. This is strictly an experiment, I reminded myself. They’re just sales reps, technicians, paramedical nerds. God damn, they’re cute. “How’s it feel?” asked Todd. “Hurts a little,” I offered. “Release the pressure button. Start over. Too fast.” “It was working,” I said, though I grimaced at the redness. “Look, Todd,” said Dirk. “He’s added the optional insert lining. Pete, you need all the room in the tube, not less.” I flushed with embarrassment, then pride. “Showers versus growers,” Barry once quipped; “you can’t judge dick size at first glance.” I started over, sans insert. Wonderstruck, pumping and counting, I thought of the bulbous musculature as a sentient being in and of itself, like a new mother aghast yet ecstatic at the fruit plucked from her loins. “Remember, Pete, this is a mechanical aide, only part of the program. Your wife’s involvement is just as critical.” This was no time to correct them about my sexual orientation. I silenced the man’s voice, tried not to imagine how this could turn a lukewarm date into a steaming knockout. My penal veins had swollen into tree roots. Todd continued with the small talk.

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“Hmm,” I replied, transfixed by Todd’s smooth, long fingers as they demonstrated the tension ring applicator and his ample bicep strained against his shirt sleeve. The tip of my penis shoved aggressively against the cylinder’s end. The whole of my appendage, this obscene, aboriginal saddlebag of blood, throbbing and purple—it was miraculous as a gold crown kicked up by a donkey in the Nile Delta. Todd, proud as Zeus, handed me the tension contraption. “It’s one thing to get it up, and another to keep it, right?” he chortled slyly. This artificial erection is like the bloated Hindenburg seconds before it crashed. “Umm,” I uttered and thought how simple, normal, and witless it was to maintain a red-hot poker in the faces of men like these. From Todd’s taut bicep, I completed the rest of the man’s torso and limbs. I was overcome by these gentle giants who unabashedly shared their manhood in the “helping professions,” as Barry said they were coined. Teachers, hairdressers, social workers; careers ordinarily reserved for females but welcome to gay men, with their self-effacing humor and fastidiousness, attributes for which we’re pilloried in the mainstream. Meanwhile, I remained dumbfounded at my baseball bat of a prick, of which I was finally forced to claim ownership. Next, I was to install a tension ring at the base to immobilize the erection like a tourniquet. I fumbled with the ring applicator, which resembled the nosecone of a spacecraft, and rolled the ring like a condom from tip to the base of my shaft. “How butch,” Barry had cracked upon appraising my “’Rector Set.” I felt a stirring spread through my belly, nipples, and perineum in the presence of these burly guys, libido oozing from their every pore. These Mississippi heterosexuals were the real thing, the New South—Jimmy Carter-cordial without a trace of threatened masculinity. Tenderness in a man, the opposite of macho-thug, is, for me, the ultimate turn-on. I was hard as cast iron. “Just slide off the cylinder, Pete. Yeah, mighty fine. Whaddaya think?” beamed Todd, the Viking blond, cocky with success. “It’s—really great.” I groped for words. My penis was big as a bugle and about to blast. “Boy, that’s a beauty,” managed Dirk, his eyes a tad too glazed even after his lifetime in locker rooms. My penis, shiny and purple like a bruise in full bloom, was practically clubbing Dirk in the face. “It’s normal to have greater girth,” added Todd man-to-man, like we were guys in an auto-body shop. “Your vessels are now filled to the max!” “Vaso-Maximus,” I laughed, still gawking at my own side show. “Don’t mind the blue, Peter. And your penis is probably getting cold.”

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“It’s freezing.” I stroked it some, less bashful; we were all in this together. Todd handed me a steaming washcloth, grazing, I swore, my throbbing cock. Oh my God! I’m coming. Feverishly I wrapped the hot cloth around my undulating penis, sighing. “Oh, that feels better,” I warbled as the spasms buckled my knees and crashed me backward atop the elevated table. The men were delighted with their smashing achievement and their good student, crumpled over and furiously releasing the tension ring from rapidly shriveling flesh. Praise the Lord—no semen without a prostate gland, I thought and gently patted the paltry remainder of the afternoon’s exhibition. I continued to shudder in the aftermath. “Give it some time, Pete, and you’ll be able to penetrate the missus and certainly achieve orgasm.” “That would be very nice,” I whispered. “That fab—that good erection,” added a now-blushing Dirk, “is just a bonus.” He seemed crestfallen that the show was over. “Well,” I said, “a friend assured me I could always make love, no matter what. But jeez, fellas, this is so much more.” Todd patted me on the back and let his hand linger. I shivered. “Any questions, our 800 number’s right on the pump handle,” he said. “Good luck, Pete,” said Dirk. He winked and embraced me in a loose bear hug, but it was close enough to bring me into contact with the hard shelf of his chest. “Keep it up, buddy!” I took repossession of my prized case, waved a hand in salute, and entered the overbright hall. Yahoo, I crowed to myself, remembering the ad I answered from a bodybuilder and personal trainer moving his practice from Boston to upper New Hampshire, “for clean air and the good life,” he said. I’m ready to meet a real man as a real man, with my potency relegated to its sane and partial place in a true relationship. Glancing at the Modern Maturity in the waiting room, I thought, If “sixty is the new thirty,” then, hell, fifty (mine, at any rate) will be the twentysomething I never got to uncage as an ad agency trainee in my three-piece, pinstriped suit.

YEAR SIX

Chapter 10

Gam e Coc k

Playful heart & soul. V. handsome WM, 40 yo, 6′2″, 170#, blk, blu, prefers natural environs to city, meditate, creative, hands on of all kinds! RU 30–60, WM w/variety of life experiences? Let’s grow! I responded to this Advocate ad and received a form letter. The photos of Chaz that fell from the envelope were more than enough incentive to get through the misspellings. “Dear Peter” was handwritten at the top. I’m a licensed personal trainer working in Boston 4 days a week and a 5th here in the burbs. I have a quiet apartment on 25 acres boardering state land. I like to think I’m on the Appilaccian Trail! I find a natural environment almost a necessaty since I work in the competative hubbub. Ive high profile cliants and a reasonable income, saving for my dream home in the pines. I long for a lover whose heart also soars in wild places. For 8 years I was at a yoga center in Maine. They required staff to be celibit the first four years, short of masterbation. This was to help focus on personal growth outside of intimit sexual relationships. Unfortunately the head guru irrupted in a scandal with his wife and girlfriends (three), and he had to leave. Those years still hold great satisfaction for me. I didn’t succeede in avoiding sex totally. Health and consious living are it for me. Weightlifting came into my life when I was 16. I left the yoga center and went to Florida for personal trainer training. My diet now is very strict, no red meat.

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Ive found that living a truely responsible life starts with realizing that my emotions are my doing and I’m the first recipiant of their pain or joy, although I’m dealing with issues of past deep shaming and abuse. Again I glanced at the photos and nearly swooned. I was sexually abused at ages 5 and 6 by my 18 yr old cousin. Ive bailed out of possible relationships when I got affraid. Now, I can communicate the fear and build more self trust. On a lighter side, I’m deeply affectionate and satisfied by holding, touching, and loving. I’m recently HIV retested. I don’t tend to have casual sex, but I have a few times and its empty for me. I don’t read a lot, but I like spiritually oriented books. Hiking with dog friends is great fun. Basically anything physical draws my attention. So, naturally I was drawn to body building. Well, this was fun putting together a “little” introduction!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but its my hope to give depth to our connection from the start!!!! Sincerely, Chaz PS. Ive included a couple pictures. They were not skin shots. He stared goofy-eyed at the camera; he hugged a large dog in another. True, the third featured Chaz in a loose tank top that nevertheless indicated a perfect-ten David and not a Sumo wrestler. Chaz’s black hair and intensely blue eyes made him strikingly similar to Barry, but he had a body. There were stirrings galore in my groin. Our exchange of letters and cards continued, which whet my appetite, but, for the moment, I had more than enough adventure going with the impotence paraphernalia. Dear Peter, Boy, do you make my heart sing just by reading your loving words. I don’t care how old you are or what you look like—well—within reason! I just know after working with so many cliants, a man like you is rare. You make me feel so good about myself and weve just written a few times. As you say, anything’s an art form including bodybuilding. I really like your idea that each of us is a living skulpture and what we do with our bodies is “up for grabs.” Ha, that made me laugh too! I’ll be comfortable meeting you as an equel. I know I’m 40 and should be over my shame, but as you say building self-esteam is a lifetime process and many never even try.

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Please write again. I’m in touch with many gyms in your area—there’s a big demand for personal trainers as the working man is so out of shape. Hope to see you and Fred! soon. Warmly, Chaz “A bodybuilder?” said Barry by phone. “Have you talked?” “Not yet. Just sweet notes, sweet nothings,” I said. “I’ve got to talk fast. Lunch break’s almost over.” Since Barry was asked to leave Head Start under questionable circumstances—he had organized and led a contingent of federal employees in the Boston AIDS walk—he was making ends meet as a salesperson in a men’s store. Or, according to him, “Fashion consultant, please.” “Barry, it’s just for fun.” “Peter, he’s a boy toy!” “You know I’m not ready, or capable, of having something serious.” “Have you ever been, my dear?” That smarted. “You’re right, Barry, as always.” I paused. “Okay, how about a boy toy; the body leading the mind for a change?” “I think it’s just what the doctor would order. And not just for postops like you!” said Barry in a rush. “Ciao.”

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Chaz and I exchanged phone numbers. There had been a burst of short, cheery calls for one week while we discussed our history with dogs and brands of soy shakes. I confessed to having prostate cancer. “We’re all healing,” said Chaz. “It’s what life’s about, if somebody’s on the ball.” I revealed a bit more. “That’s only one part of us, Peter!” “That’s the spirit,” I said, though I was, in fact, crushed. What’s in it for this GQ model?

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Days later, Chaz stepped down from a tan minivan in my driveway during his reconnaissance of the region’s health clubs. I shook my head at this vision of male pulchritude, which went far beyond what the camera had captured. “Hey, guy!” beamed Chaz as he engulfed me in a bear hug. Did he forget my name? Fred was wagging furiously, awaiting his turn. Chaz grinned from ear to ear and the sunlight tap-danced over his bright teeth. His huge, gripping hands

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and arms held me in a vise. To better behold his host, Chaz leaned back from the embrace, which pressed his chin into his muscled neck, already chiseled square. “I think you’re what’s known as a hunk,” I said demurely. At this, Chaz released me, loudly chortled, then grabbed and squeezed my shoulder. “My body is my work. We each have our thing. Listen, Peter, you look terrific for fifty.” “In a few months. But that’s generous of you.” I took in Chaz’s outfit—the first thing Barry would want to know—the clothes concealing nary a curve: skin-tight black leather jeans, skin-tight white ribbed pullover, with the V-neck a display case for a delicate but intricately linked gold chain. “You could be a model for the International Male catalog.” “Man, you’re sharp. I get tons of stuff from that.” We headed to the house, as it was cold outside even for Fred. I remembered necessities in that catalog, such as a leather thong with a zippered pouch, as if easier access could be conceivable. “Great place!” Immediately he was on his knees in the entry, holding Fred in a hammer lock. Fred did not complain. Chaz’s lush hair was an odd, matte black. Dying at his age? Chaz leapt up. “I gotta look in your fridge. You can tell everything about a person right off from two things: how they walk and what’s in their fridge.” “What better way to get acquainted?” I said and escorted Chaz to the kitchen. He bounced in his fancy, black leather sneakers, which were poked with holes like Swiss cheese. “Soy milk! All right. Eggbeaters, tofu, tomato sauces, kale, cold chicken, ginger, tons of fruit … hey, Peter, you’ve got it all down!” “Since cancer, I’ve become a pomegranate, if we are what we eat.” “Now this protein powder,” he said and reached for the canister. “It’s whey.” I nodded gravely as Chaz inspected the fine print. “Stick with soy. And no sweetener.” Chaz jockeyed around the kitchen and pantry like a prizefighter doing a jig. Fred and I stood there, wide-eyed. “You are one advanced dude. Don’t give me any of that recent cancer shit. Man, look at these preserves: pickled beets, applesauce—wow!” He took hold of both my hands. His azure eyes were glazed. His perfect white skin shaded to mauve. “This is my dream. Living with, not against, nature. You’re living my dream, guy.” He smiled, no teeth this time. “I hope it can be mine, too.”

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I fixed a luncheon salad of avocado, lemon, arugula, lentils, and leftover halibut. I sliced my whole wheat bread and organic apples, and consummated the

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lunch of seduction with iced boysenberry tea. Even fully clothed, Chaz resembled an anatomical poster in a doctor’s office: every muscle was beautifully proportioned and defined. Chaz seemed on the verge of tears; he scratched the scruff of Fred’s neck nonstop. “Could we sit in your living room, overlooking that wonderful mountain view? It’s not wild like Wyoming, but even better. In harmony with the nearby cities and highways, all intergr—” “Integrated. In balance, yes.” “I just want to read a passage from my little book of lessons for men.” “That’d be nice.” I settled us on the sofa. The pressure built in the veins of my neck and headed south. “I love this one. From the guy who wrote The Little Prince?” “Saint-Exupery.” “Yeah.” He smiled eagerly and read, “‘A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, having within him the image of a cathedral.’ I’ve found the power, Peter, within me, to start over. To live with being violated as a boy. Live with it!” He patted a hand over his well-coifed hair, the dull black irking me. “Congratulations, Chaz. You should be proud of taking the reins.” “My old man beating me was much worse than my cousin pounding me up the butt.” He paged again. “‘A more fulfilling masculine spirituality will depend upon new ways of learning to be sexual.’ James B. Nelson. See, Peter, you can do the same! So you can’t get a hard-on. You said you could still have an orgasm just from massaging. Wow, guy! What secrets our bodies hold. Look at me, after being a sicko queer kid!” “I’m looking,” I said, a trifle breathless. “And what a chance for me, to be sexual with you, a different lovemaking; who knows? Wait, here’s a terrific one-liner: ‘There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness.’ Han Suyin. Japanese, wouldn’t you know. So fucking smart. One of their kernels … kerns?” “Koans.” “I love it. I love being gentle, especially now, with my body rippling with muscles. I can crush things if I’m not careful.” He placed a hand on my thigh, leaned over, and kissed the top of my hand. “I’d love to be gentle with you, man. You’re a beautiful spirit. I could feel it in my bones the minute I read your first kind words. And Peter, believe me, I think you’re hot. I’m totally turned on. Hopefully this will be for both of us, but for me, for starters, I just want to touch you all over and look in your eyes. I want to touch your strong arms, your solid legs, that great chest, your soft belly, whatever’s soft, whatever’s hard,

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it’s all part of the same soul, man.” He leaned over further and gingerly placed his lips upon mine. “I’m game,” said Chaz. “Whaddaya say, sweet man?” Chaz trembled slightly. I was speechless and motionless, but swore I had an erection, unaided, for the first time in three months.

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An hour later, we were enfolded in my bed. There wasn’t a square inch of me that hadn’t been caressed by either fingertip or tongue. We lay in a heap, Fred on the floor doing his pitiful, pining face number. Chaz roused himself. “Geez, gotta get to that country club interview at four.” “Come back, for heaven’s sake. Stay tonight. Leave your things. I just have leftovers, but they’re antibiotic and pesticide residue free.” Chaz was dazed, eyes and mouth downcast, as if pained at the thought of leaving paradise for two hours. “That would be so wonderful, Peter. Everything about you is wonderful. I feel so safe. Never before …” “Go, you gorgeous man. I need a few hours to catch my breath. I’m absolutely overflowing with your tenderness and …” I almost said the L word. Chaz slipped off the bed, his backside crafted to perfection. He tugged on the skimpiest strap of a black bikini. He really does get his things from International Male. As he stepped into the thong he faced me, smiling and lapping up the appreciation: he damn well earned every lick of it. Chaz tucked his “average” parts carefully into the pouch, his penis vertical and pointing to his navel. Barry said men did this to bolster their basket. In Chaz’s case, it could be cut off, and I wouldn’t give a hoot. His musculature was hardly a shell. He’s developed an obvious path in claiming a selfhood. And he’s not a simpleton; rather a simple, pure, trusting nature. The world is sour—hurrah for those who are sweet! Chaz’s head was hooded as he wriggled into the second skin of ribbed pullover, the fabric soon carved as enticingly as his drum-tight torso. I ogled the pronounced muscles leading from each hip and forming a rigid V that pointed boldly to the pelvic bone. The leather slacks disappointingly masked the elegant fanning of quadriceps to knee, less so the shapely calves. He tied up the racy black sneakers, leaned over to kiss me on the lips, then cupped my handful of collapsed genitals and gently massaged them as our mouths touched. “Now you relax, Mr. B. That was quite a workout. Can’t wait to coach you in the gym. We’re gonna build up those anterior delts, man—your shoulders will be wider in no time, but we gotta resolve that rotator cuff problem. And that’s just for starters.” He winked and released his hand. My one handful had become two.

Richard Alther

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I made the bed and fixed a meal. A simple dinner, but candles for sure. I arranged a late-winter bowl of cedar, pine sprigs and cones, dried berries, dead grasses, and leaves, and placed it on the dining room table amidst the various tapers and columns of wax. Actually, the bouquet was worthy of a watercolor. He feels safe, I thought while feeding Fred. He was abused. What better stepping stone than an impotent old man? To this I answered myself: Can it, creep. Think Buddhist. Be in the moment; there is nothing else. I set kindling in the fireplace. I showered, shampooed, and splashed myself with a fragrance Becky had given me decades prior. I squinted into the mirror, brushed my teeth, fluffed up my hair, and furiously scanned my wardrobe for something sexier than the usual. A flannel shirt, open two or three buttons; yes. Jeans faded and thin as a thread; yes. Thick socks, nothing else. Yes, I’m capable of living in the moment, I thought. We know that, Peter, said Barry’s voice in my head. Don’t forget the goal of long term.

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“So it went well at the interview?” We’d finished apricot soy smoothies seated in the dining room. “Oh, yeah,” said Chaz, sitting tall, hands in his lap. He had changed into a see-through shirt of webby material, rather odd in my woods. “The trouble could be I’m overtrained. Their clientele isn’t that serious. I’m gonna focus on the beefier health clubs, the really committed guys and women.” I nodded in understanding. “Shall we eat?” Chaz smiled piously. “Let’s just close our eyes and lower our heads for a moment and let the blessings of our finding each other in this vast universe sink in, but no surprise, since we’re all of the same!” I cheated. Before I closed my eyes, I drank in this paragon of raw virility in whose initial company I felt so safe and accepted. Who in heavens sent me this god? Quickly I bowed my head before the minute was up. We opened our eyes simultaneously, dreamily beholding each other. I lifted my fork. “One more thing, Peter. I’d like to suggest, just at this, our first meal together, that we eat in silence. I’ve been doing it ever since the yoga center. The idea is, we rush through our lives without seeing, or experiencing the flavors, in this case: the textures, how they mingle in the mouth, how they’re filled with love, especially your food.” “That’s touching, Chaz. Plus, I get to stare at you nonstop.”

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Chaz giggled. “It’s about giving and receiving, acknowledging the other person. It’s not drinking tea, or eating food. We’re making love again, just in another dimension.” “Lovely,” I said. A blue collar bard! Again, I reached for my fork. Chaz’s hands remained folded in his lap. “Peter, there’s another part to meaningful eating. We chew everything three times before we swallow. In terms of digestion, it’s just common sense. But also it takes less to fill us. Most important, we invite our hearts and minds into the process. Is this food good for us? Harvested in season? Raised in harmony with all plants and creatures?” I nodded approval, feeling remiss if I were to respond verbally at this point. We began our meal. In a way, I was thankful: we’d exhausted my garden, the “beautiful challenge” of reclaiming my erection, Fred’s daily routine. Chaz had no problem sustaining eye contact. I found myself blushing, diverting my gaze, and studying the food on my fork before placing it in my mouth. By the time it was chewed, it was flavorless paste. The upside, in the moment: I’d chosen a very good wine that merited swilling for as long as gustatorily possible.

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“Hey, my guy! You’re bigger! At least a half inch!” Smoothly, lovingly, he fondled my penis. “I swear, since last time …” Chaz had punctuated his rounds of job hunting over the past several weeks with frequent layovers in Buck Hill. At this point, I could become semirigid just at the thought of sweet Chaz’s enveloping, ever-ready tongue, to say nothing of what my lover did with his malleable, sinewy hands, like a fluid Hydra of sensuality. “Our visits have been so wonderful,” I managed to gulp during our half hour of foreplay. “And I’ve been practicing with you in mind.” “Man, this is more like it. I can see the potential.” “Must live for the moment … this could be it …” I gasped, drunk with sensation. Each time, Chaz became aroused in less time, somehow relishing me with reciprocal conviction. I tried to vacuum my mind, in the best Eastern sense, but couldn’t erase that mine was as close to a house of male geishas as one could expect in a lifetime. Afterward, Chaz’s thick brush of black hair was askew. I focused instead on his van’s bumper sticker. It read, “Drive your karma and run over your dogma.” I closed my eyes, flooded with a tranquility I might have briefly tasted in the aftermath of a simple, unmannered watercolor that had painted itself; or prone with Fred on the bank of our pond in full sun; or in Becky’s arms after we each gleaned, in silence, that one of our children had just been conceived. And seeping into my system, slowly, was the most profound and penetrating satisfaction.

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Two beings compelled by each other, face to face, fused as one, for the moment. So much of the past year, frankly, had been hell. Now this … how nice.

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I was sore and exhausted. Chaz and I were on my studio floor, the tables and easel shoved aside. Chaz had just led me through my third session of yoga. I was in a loose, gray T-shirt and gray sweat pants; Chaz pulled out a neon orange Lycra bodysuit for the occasion, leaving nothing to the imagination: I had a perfect model for the postures. “It’s all about air,” said Chaz. “Pure energy, prana, the life force.” “It sure shuts down my brain,” I said. “Can’t think of anything but maintaining the pose.” “Hey, let’s strip. I’m going to demonstrate on your body the chakras, the energy centers. We’ll start and end on your solar plexus, the ‘sun center,’ at the pit of your abdomen. And you’re gonna have the goddamnedest best orgasm so far, with us—with anybody! You’ll feel it in your toes, ears, ass, nipples—an endless cycle that dissolves in the moment but continues on to the next. Okay, get down, totally flat. Forget your swelling dick. You’ll see, man, what it means to be really awake. Oh Peter, we’re just beginning. I can’t wait to get you into the gym. And in the pool, you’ll be a bullet, faster than a fish.” His warm, strong hands cupped my shoulders. “I’m poker-face serious, I know, but this is all play. Let the soul sing!” His hands now cupped my pectorals. “Isn’t this fun?” “Oh yes,” I managed to whisper.

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My oils were idle as I delved into a new series of watercolors, stimulated by Chaz’s chats about creation and dissolution as “two halves of the karmic whole.” If the aim was to let go of objectification—even a suggestion of sky versus earth—then I tried to release such parts of a composition and let them bleed into a wash of oblivion. My paintings evolved into a vague, near-negative hint of color balanced by the positive incarnation of that hue as a possible flow of air or ridge of land. Chaz proposed I have a show and call it “Mindscapes.” The man has substance. This is not a fling.

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It was a hot spring day. Chaz was offered two positions as a trainer in excellent Concord-area clubs, and he was in rare form. He showed up for a cookout

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in Buck Hill sporting white cheesecloth drawstring pants, a matching loose top without buttons open to the waist, and a marigold yellow thong visible through the film. His abdomen was like a corrugated iron griddle, hairless and smooth as polished pewter. He chased me instantly into the sun-drenched yard, whistling and hollering, to Fred’s delight, until he captured his prey in wild, soft grass near the pond. He dropped to his knees, wrapped my waist with one arm, and fondled my fly with his free hand, laughing with delight at what he uncovered. “Good going, man! You’re not a rock, but you are ready. Three-quarters of an inch longer, absolutely. And thicker! Can barely get you down my throat!” I grasped Chaz’s head, the thick hair harsh and brittle. I was succumbing, oh yes, don’t be distracted from this; but the hair, I swore, had shifted. We dashed inside to finish in front of a mirror; Chaz prided himself on inventiveness. He was down to the bright yellow thong; I in the thong he’d given me, a robin’s egg blue. It irritated me, riding as it did deep in my crack, but mostly it teased and toyed with my perineum, which Chaz was taking great care to resensitize. I prolonged orgasm by clasping Chaz from the rear and playing over his six-pack and pouch as a harpist might. The following morning, before Chaz dashed to the Boston clients he needed during his transition, he critiqued my wardrobe, which we both agreed was due for a spring overhaul. “With your coloring, guy, it’s strictly earth tones: peach, the ivories, beiges. You’re a spring. Reds, navy, black, fall and winter, no good. And pleated pants—strictly for fatties in disguise!” “You sound like Barry lecturing me. He’s more impossible than ever in his men’s store.” “And fella, you’re all legs, high waist. The cool short-sleeved shirts I’ve ordered are designed to be worn over your belt. We’re gonna shape you up, man, body and soul.” “That’s well under way.” As I watched Chaz drive off, me wearing my amber velour sweat suit, his latest gift, I could no longer fend off tearing the fine spun web of contentment in which I’d been wrapped day and night. So Chaz is not the eye-popping vision his surface presents to the world. Still facing my empty gravel drive, I questioned whether Chaz’s hair management was any different than a prop for a limp penis. I plucked an errant dandelion surviving in the stones. But a hairpiece, a toupee? Do I touch it? I was so repulsed at the first sight of its mesh foundation, outdoors in bright light. Well, it’s just another this-world contradiction, and that much more access to the man’s humanity. And isn’t that what love is all about?

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Fred and I went inside. I flinched again at the thought, not of the toupee, but of the absence of truth. I’d certainly continue to hold open the door, but like a city dweller answering a knock while keeping the chain in place.

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During our next bout of sex, I fought the urge to rip off Chaz’s hairpiece, to lick and fondle yet another expanse of his smooth, solid body. In time, I let this go. Chaz was a carnival of fun, one act outdoing the last. Although only a half year after surgery, Chaz encouraged me to train hard for the summer’s Gay Games in New York. “You’ve said you’re swimming faster than ever, combined with our weight training. I’m gonna be right at that pool, guy, yelling at you to haul ass!” Chaz began work as a trainer an hour away. He took a small apartment near the facility. His and my liaisons occurred every other week. I mailed my application for the Gay Games, since I was pleasantly startled at my times in the pool. I painted every day but found my body wired to a pace clock.

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A month went by. For ten days, Chaz was in Boston doing a workshop on lifting techniques for other personal trainers. My waist, already trim, shrank two inches from all my exertions plus my anticancer, drastically reduced diet of animal fat. The shoulders of my shirts were pinched by thickening traps and delts. Without telling Barry or Chaz, I got a few things on my own, and not from the android-illustrated IM catalog. “You call him your boyfriend?” said Barry rhetorically during a meal we squeezed in. “Oh, Barry. Wait’ll you meet him. He’s so sweet.” “I am happy to learn of your ‘progress,’ we’ll call it. I know how devastating it’s been.” I held Barry’s gaze. “Hopefully my cancer is history. You’re the one, dear heart, who’s been through the wringer. Plus this dead-end job in the men’s store. I know it’s just for now, but the phony allegations, the brouhaha over your being gay and dealing with tots …” “I told you, some ‘family first’ organization in Alabama paid for their attorneys.” I bowed my head. “Thank God you’ve dropped the lawsuit, even if you’d come out with a quarter million. Can’t waste your life with all that rot. I’ll feed you.” “Can I quote you? I’ll take up residence in your wine cellar. Just say when.”

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Each of us grabbed for the bill and ripped it in two. I relinquished, knowing Barry’s pride was at stake. “Say, where’d you get that polo shirt? Sexy,” said Barry. “Oh, just a hand-me-down from Chaz.”

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“Put yourself in his place!” scolded Arlene over the phone. “Somebody did research on baldness, not academic, but interesting. A bald man, otherwise thirtysomething and attractive, went to all the gay bars in ten cities and towns. Not one conversation was initiated by another man. He returned with a toupee, and there were at least two approaches in every single bar.” “I think the innocent core of this guy is seeping into my heart. The beautiful package is just the delivery system. Arlene, for me, this is a first.”

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Chaz and I had sex. Chaz paid unusual attention to my every lug and lump. He even put on a sounds-of-lapping-water CD and treated me to a full-body massage. My eventual orgasm was mind-shattering; Chaz did not come. During supper we decided to drop the Tantric silence bit. “Lots to catch up on,” said Chaz, dressed demurely in nonclingy tank top and shorts. He tightened his brow. I hated to see a crease violate the normally silken swath of skin. “I’ve been … seeing some other men, Peter. Well, one, in particular, but—” “It’s your body. It and you belong to the Universal—” I cut my immature burst short. “It’s nothing serious.” “Yes, seriously, Chaz, we all want to be loving and generous. Every minute we’ve been together for me has been a gift.” “I know that, Peter. That’s true for me, also.” Staring at the floor, I reached for another few words to get it over with. “We can be loving friends. Sex, no sex, if and when it suits.” He’s the be-all of fantasies. I fortified myself with the thought. “It’s just that …” Chaz hesitated, turned a ghostly pale, and looked aside. “Peter, you’re doing great, but … I need a hard man.” “Of course. I understand. We’ve each offered the other a helping hand: me, a country bumpkin role model for you; you, a …” I couldn’t continue. My skin turned ice cold, there in the onslaught of summer.

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“Hey, guy, I’m gonna be there for you at the Games! Soon! That’s a promise.” He popped up from the table, the deed done, his color returned, then stuck his tongue into my ear and playfully pinched my nipples.

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At Chaz’s new place, we shared a meal of rice and beans as friends. We talked about the progress of my training in and out of the pool. “I love your chest in that shirt, Peter.” We ate with green bamboo chopsticks “to not alter the pure taste.” We chatted a few times on the phone. My wounded pride was nursed by extra hours in the studio. Otherwise, I was absorbed by summer picnics with Becky’s and my assorted families and a few friends—Barry of course. I did several languorous watercolors outdoors, abstracts under the influence of brilliant summer flowers and leafy greens before turning the inevitable dull hazel of fall. I produced several paintings for my reject pile: three out of four were flat and contrived. Just as well. My head was entirely in the pool, drowning my humiliation over being dumped. One sting I could not assuage: as I idly paged through the Boston personals one day, my eyes were riveted by, “Playful heart & soul … prefers natural environs to city … creative, hands on of all kinds!”

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Chaz and I stayed at the elegant eastside townhouse of one of his tonier clients. Sexually, Chaz and I over the months had been perfectly safe: no anal penetration. Only retrospectively did I acknowledge the implications of Chaz’s requirement of “a hard man” from his point of view; at the time of our split, I was obsessed with reclaiming my potency and despondent at the loss of my lover. Now, surging through the chlorinated water of a gleaming new Manhattan pool, with a raucous few thousand spectators cheering, I felt at the top of my form. I was racing the five-hundred-yard freestyle, my first event. It covered twenty lengths of the pool, which meant a volunteer had to be stationed at the far end to flip and submerge the lap-counting cards for the swimmer to keep track. Chaz, proudly, was serving this post. I won the race despite performing in my age group, forty-five to forty-nine, the oldest possible and just weeks before my fiftieth. Split seconds determined the outcome in this sport. Chaz and I were jubilant. Apparently, also, were the hordes packed into the steamy facility. Swimming and bodybuilding were the most coveted tickets at the Games, Chaz said, because of the bodies being so scantily clad. “You should be in the bodybuilder competition!” I had protested for weeks.

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“I’ll be there to support you. My promise. Besides, I love seeing the results of your training in the gym, for which I take full credit!” I had scanned the heat sheets, noting the minutes and seconds of each entrant’s expected time, not the names and states. The second day, I was astonished to recognize a fellow from California not only as having been the captain of the Cornell swim team for our class but also, thirty years prior, a blond god from the leading fraternity of hunks on a campus otherwise peopled by sliderule-toting eggheads. He was here. At Gay Games. Oh my God. I beat Dave by a quarter second in the fifty-yard freestyle sprint. We hugged in the water at the finish—obligatory; then we kissed! Roars from the throngs. Back on the deck, I explained our connection as classmates. Dave was a few stones heavier and “just getting back into it, after my divorce.” Perfectly sunny, a good coastal Californian, he didn’t have a clue of who I was from college. “Revenge of the nerds!” I crowed to Chaz. Three golds plus a silver and a bronze was plenty to sustain me at the midcentury mark and propel me into more of the wild, hopefully blue, yonder.

*

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Concluding the swimming portion of Gay Games was a competition called the Pink Flamingo Relay. Various of the groupies, spouses, and cheerleaders from the dozens of swim teams around the country stopped the show festooned with pink feather headdresses, sequined goggles, fishnet stockings, ludicrous pumps and heels, bikinis to brassieres to fake bananas, rubber duckies, and dildos. Dame Edna takes the plunge. All of this went into the water, but the race was for real, despite flailing soggy boas, oversized plastic martini glasses, and long pink fins intended for an American Princess snorkeling in Barbados. The crowd was frenzied. I laughed, clutching my medals, wearing the amber velour leisure suit. I looked for Chaz. Somewhat panicked, I maneuvered up several rows of the teeming bleachers, the almost entirely male audience stabbing the air with elbows and fists. The body was unmistakable, standing on a raised platform and aglow like Adonis in a museum under the glare of artificial light. Chaz had been chosen among the multitude of volunteers to present the winner’s cup, clad only but gloriously in his peppermint pink thong.

Chapter 11

Lee

I was to spend several days at the lakeside home of my painting mentor, Cleland Hawkins. Lee reluctantly agreed to pose for a portrait in return for my companionship. “Christ, I’m supposed to sit still in my own studio?” said Lee by phone. “Now that you’re ninety-three, can’t you coast for a few days?” “Never.” Everything Lee said was tinged with regret. Even now, with his work hanging in museums, Lee remained a malcontent. “It’s only Bangor. My peers are in Brooklyn, MOMA, Fort Worth.” As I drove north, my head spun with Cleland Hawkins, my friend of twenty years. How to put this character on canvas? It’ll be especially complicated by the havoc Lee could make of his life, even on a calm island in Lake Champlain, Vermont. Yet isn’t that what I want, something so difficult the result has to reconcile gritty opposites? In discovering watercolor, I was destined to find one of Lee’s four books on the subject. When my first paintings were on display, matted only and hung in a White Mountains gallery, priced from twenty to fifty dollars, above them hung a few of Lee’s, handsomely framed, at a thousand each. On the very same wall! I had to contact the artist. Lee answered with an equally verbose letter, admiring but dismissing Sargent’s watercolors as “too facile,” and in awe of Whistler’s near-black oils of London lights at night, “a triumph of minimalism and psychic void, eons ahead of his time.” A lively correspondence followed. Within months, I had met Lee, who lived three hours away on Split Rock Island and was painting full time. My dozen modest paintings at the White Mountains gallery were sold and replaced with as much work but at twice the price. 165

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It was a thirty-acre island made accessible to the mainland by a causeway, not much more than a wagon trail elevated a foot or two above water on both sides: a broad lake to the south and a bay to the north. According to Lee, if the place wasn’t impassable in winter from howling winds and horrific snowdrifts, then it would be a slab of black ice. Lee said that about four times a season, the whitecaps from the lake crashed over the causeway, fashioning an instant, arched igloo that froze solid for days, until he’d slip the town road manager a hundred bucks to hack away at it. And then, with an especially heavy snowmelt, the lake rose several feet, which forced him to boat in and out. Lee quipped about wearing a parka, wool cap and gloves in May while rowing in water two degrees above freezing and dodging logs in the rushing waters of spring. Why does this appeal? Is there a part of me that lusts to be even more isolated? From what? I drove up to his mailbox under a stately, feathery willow as the causeway fanned into a meadow of unmowed grass, wild asters, and spiky weeds. Whenever I approached “the cottage,” as Lee called it, the foreground, the buildings, even the line of regal native lakeside cedars, “arborvitae” to Lee, paled astride the million acres of lake and its canopy above, a million acres of sky. “What the hell took you so long?” heckled Lee, ambling out the back door. I watched him firmly grasp the rickety handrail. “Leaf peeping,” I said, taking Lee’s hand as he clasped mine with vigor and beamed broadly. “So good to see you.” Lee continued to grip my hand with both his own, holding steady with his watery, rusty gray eyes. “You doing okay with the cancer, Peter? Too damn young.” I said, for now, all was well. “Ninety-three. You don’t look a year older.” “That would be impossible. No more belly to balloon, balls to sag. Don’t mind the place. Sick of having the lawn cut. The intrusion. More bugs and mice than ever, but it’s quiet. All I ask for.” The screen door crashed behind me as I entered, and I was immersed in Lee’s voluminous, dingy studio of imperfectly Sheetrocked walls that often exposed the insides of antique clapboards, with flaking white paint outside but indoors aged to a patina of blackened brown. The house had only one story but was huge, circa 1875. Lee’s studio was the former kitchen and big enough for hired help. The dining room was a dreary square box with a twenty-foot ceiling and massive, gray stone fireplace. The living room ceiling was even higher, the dark walls of vertical, narrow, tongue-in-groove slats festooned with placards of stuffed fish, a winking, one-eyed moose head over the great fireplace—one lacquered eyeball long since lost—and various moth-eaten pennants from schools like Exeter, Harvard, and Choate, missing letters but unmistakably WASP bas-

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tions of yesteryear. The house reeked of ale and mothballs as only a summer camp could. The lake side of the living room was half of an octagon, a simple but spectacular early Victorian flourish. Padded seats under the sills of the large windows filled the octagonal wall. I loved perching there with Lee, chatting idly, our gazes seized by ever-rippling water. “This is cause for celebration, Peter.” He grabbed a bottle of sherry and we went to the porch. The lake, opaque and shimmering under bright sun like tinfoil, overwhelmed the mountains a few miles opposite on the New York side. “This is so gorgeous,” I said. “Why would you ever leave?” “I don’t. I’m not,” he answered. “I never would, either. I love my cloister in the woods, but here I think I’d just sit like a zombie.” “Exactly what I do,” said Lee. “When you’re not painting.” “I paint every day. All I know to do. But I needn’t remind you, the best watercolors take an hour, two at most. Then I force myself to walk away. It’s usually that final stroke, Peter, gestating for ages, that’s the boldest and best. Then I know it’s done.” He sipped unsteadily; more of a slurp. “You still painting on the ledges?” I asked. “Nope. Outdoors is such a pain in the ass. Bugs. Shifting light. Winds drying the paper too fast or not fast enough. Besides, in the studio I leave out more than I’d put in.” He looked at me directly. “How’s your painting, Peter?” “Still some florals. But my oil landscapes are more abstract than not.” “Don’t denigrate your flowers. They’re damned good—poems, not paintings.” I revered this man. For the first time, I squirmed at the thought that it might be reciprocal. Lee poured refills. “I’ll open a can of sardines.” Long since a widower and childless by choice, he was oblivious to the domestic arts. Bat dung wouldn’t get swept for weeks. “I could go blind and paint each day,” said Lee ruefully, “sometimes based on a flicker through the bathroom window that morning that I saw while scrubbing my false teeth. I’m talking a diagonal line in the water or the sky, that’s it. Always one dominant color per painting that pops out from a cloud or a tree. Even a dead tree. Especially a dead tree. I can identify with that. And so stately. Even smug! You see, there is an afterlife, you nincompoop atheist, it says to me, it rooted forever in the rocks.” “Look at Rattlesnake Mountain,” I said, unable to budge my attention from the New York side.

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“Uninhabitable! Sheer cliff from Westport to Essex.” “Imagine anywhere, New England for sure, being this wild,” I responded. Lee reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze. “There are folks who look after me. But not a bloody soul knows what I’m talking about, except you, my boy.” I ducked to the bathroom: the cracked and stained porcelain; the touristy bag of pine needles thumbtacked to the paneled wall, the scent long since evaporated; the misshapen, expandable screen wedged between the sill and lower window casing, inviting mosquitoes in for a blood fix. I tugged the white porcelain knob on its chain to unleash the thundering wave of water in the tank above. In Lee’s presence, I feel totally at peace, and like Lee, invisible in the presence of such grandeur.

*

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“Peter, you’re gripping that brush like you’re threading a needle,” sputtered Lee the next day, phlegmatic and wizened, with tangles of white hair. “For Christ’s sake, relax.” I began my portrait while Lee chatted on. “You know in your guts when a painting’s right,” he said, “in spite of what your head says it wants. It’s the guts being spilled here; otherwise, it’s an illustration. “I remember when your paintings were mud pies, Peter. And that was good! Muck it up, I’d scold. Let it get monochromatic. The accents will be brilliant. “Sometimes I wish I’d been a sculptor. Moore. Arp. Noguchi. Same idea: curving lines, simple compositions, less is more.” I wanted to rest my brushes and just listen. “The brilliant violet was an accident,” said Lee. He nodded at his latest watercolor tacked on the wall. “I was in the middle of changing my mind, and it just plopped smack center. Why fight it? Secretly, I encourage it.” He’s repeating his pearls of wisdom, as if this is his last chance. Eerily, I felt I was his designated repository.

*

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While Lee napped, I climbed down the flat rock ledges to the water, clear as polished green marble, on the southern, lakeside spit of land. I stared at the momentarily unblemished surface, the breeze catching its breath before proceeding. Then I scaled the rocks and grasses to the northerly bayside. Here the water was shot through with nodules of ochre algae. I inhaled the odiferous edge of the stagnant bay, a welcoming change of sniff from the icy crisp air over the broad lake. A fat frog leapt into the murky pool at my approach. The

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cedars stung with their emphatic, vinegary perfume. Deep holes were drilled into their rough gray trunks by pileated woodpeckers, but cedars survive with their tough-as-nails wood. The dried remains of delicate columbine insisted on seeding themselves in the tiniest cracks in the inhospitable rocks; for the rust orange lichen, this was to be expected. Next I was awed by the washed-up pebbles and flotsam of dead leaves, a complete universe of configurations and color, simply foreground to the wide miracle of water above. It was a cacophony of input for an artist. Lee would admonish: keep it simple; nature will try to seduce you with a zillion flirtations; celebrate, don’t replicate. I sighed deeply to expel the overdose of stimulation from Lee and from this place. Soon, I realized, I’ll be losing both.

*

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“I love gray days,” said Lee on the porch that evening, with his tumbler of gin. “They help me to see.” “You mean you have to coax the colors to the surface,” I said. “No. They’re right there.” He pointed across the lake to the Adirondack foothills stretching as far as we could see. “That’s all purple in back of that evergreen ridge. Muted purple, but purple.” “Of course.” I agreed. “And the longer you stare, it becomes crimson!” “I just have to sit and open my lazy eyes. Sparkling jewels everywhere. Almost wish I were colorblind, it’s so dazzling, and me wired to every speck.” I, too, stared ahead. The sky did a striptease in a split second, exposing a sliver of cool, milky gray then hiding it with whale-sized puffs of dull smoke. It was like a grand magician pulling me into a spell, flicking fingers on the left hand, making a wand of the right, forcing and intensifying my gaze to the exclusion of all else, the eyes engaged and the mind suspended. “I’m living inside a Rothko,” said Lee. “Look at that vertical composition, Peter. The mass of mostly slate above, the mass of mostly metal blue below, the mountains a mere horizontal of dark dividing them. Block out all the rest.” Several moments passed. “Thank you, Lee.” “Don’t thank me. It’s free for the taking.”

*

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Cleland Hawkins outlived three wives. There were no children; art was his life. He claimed my dedication to painting was far more satisfying for him than could have been a “snot-nosed kid” of his own. He died at 94, one week before I turned fifty, and bequeathed Split Rock Island to me.

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While standing around and swilling fine champagne at my fiftieth birthday party, Derek and his new girlfriend—a Swiss, blond medical student fluent in seven languages, including her native Romansch—passed plates of thin pastry shells heaped with bits of curried shrimp. In addition Becky had crafted her “eggplant caviar,” a garlicky blend of herbs, morels, and the lowly purple aubergine. Finally we sat down to a first course of seared tuna dotted with fresh thyme and glazed with a red wine reduction over a bed of delicate escarole and Chinese cabbage shavings. The second course, billed as a salad, was a ceviche of scallops, hunks of mango and avocado, and lime zest. Julie volunteered to waitress for the entrée, two plates at a time, which Becky arranged in her sprawling kitchen-cum-photography studio. The baker’s dozen attendees were so raucous by this point that Becky had to ping an empty wine glass several times with a spoon. “Attention!” she said in French, laughing, remnants of rose in her hair unmistakable to the artist’s eye. “Attention!” I hadn’t seen her so happy in years. “I know, you all know, that Peter at fifty has eclipsed his ex-wife in culinary pioneering: no more red meat!” Everyone hissed and booed, making thumbsdown signs. “But for this occasion, the heck with his PSA, because he’s going to outlive us all, I’m serving his former all-time favorite—butterflied lamb, hot, juicy, and bloody right off the grill!” “Don’t forget the rosemary and garlic you’ve encrusted it with,” said Barry. “What’s this divine thing, Becky?” said Arlene, pointing an inch-long cranberry fingernail at the ramekin of green mousse. “It’s all just food,” she laughed. She sat down at the head of the long table. Fred was having a field day, circling underneath and making contact with twenty-six feet. “No, no,” protested my diehard-single pal Allison, who was flanked by her latest beau, a top exec in her corporation and married, of course. The others, too, demanded the dishes’ pedigrees. “This is an asparagus timbale—no dairy, Peter—well, a pinch of Parmesan.” “It’s all organic, Dad. Don’t panic,” said Julie beside her latest, Mo, an African American, the first person in his family to graduate from high school—no father, three younger sisters with children before they were twenty—and working on a printing press at the Baltimore Sun. When he saves up, according to Julie, he’s going to journalism school. “And,” she added, “he treats me like a queen.” I assumed his name was short for Mohammed, but kept my mouth shut.

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“The potatoes,” added Becky, “are an invention for today—sliced ultrathin on a mandolin and layered with pesto and peach.” Hoots and ahs from the group. “Peaches and potatoes? grimaced Julie. “It’s symbolic of new adventures in Peter’s second half. Now eat.” “Moth-er,” said Julie, shoving back a hank of hair, which had always underscored her exclamations. The talk, louder than ever, resumed with the spearing of food and the downing of wine. At the table’s opposite end from Becky, I was having a grand time being included in half the conversations. Barry brought his boyfriend of six months, Kent, a social worker with a Master’s. I was happy for Barry’s having fun while slogging out his sentence as a clerk in the men’s store, but I knew it wouldn’t last; I mean the boyfriend. Kent was fine boned, fair-haired, and too thin. Agile pianist’s fingers often played over his face as if to soften a remark he’d feared too blunt or offensive. I figured poor Barry, bludgeoned by Len for twenty-five years, needed men stricken with reduced self-possession as part of his healing. Barry, thank God, was moving beyond Sunday nights with the gay volleyball league. Kent, an MSW and not a shrink, still beamed to me a head full of the same inner scrambled eggs: that profession was above all a path through one’s own underground tunnel. I kept these thoughts to myself, including, I terribly miss the frequency of Barry’s and my frank exchanges. “Elliott is the first straight guy to serve as board chair for the Boston AIDS agency,” announced Arlene of her new full-time squeeze, who grinned at her side. Arlene was true to form in a raspberry sorbet satin sheath that revealed four-fifths of her chest. Her orange mane was close-cropped for the first time ever, making her diminutive skull the size of one of her synthetic tits. Her choker of black pearls riveted me as I tried to take the measure of this Elliott who fawned over her. He wore a dashing, double-breasted blazer and silk polkadotted ascot, and his lush dark hair was plastered down in the manner of Zorro momentarily on the make. “Omigod,” Barry had hissed to me in the john before dinner. “He’s as queer as an albino Turk. Arlene’s done it again, the royal fag hag on a rampage to convert every gay hunk she can get those claws into.” “No sibling rivalry, pal,” I said. “It’s all in the family.” “I know. Isn’t this a blast? Your son could give me wet dreams. And Martin’s a big pussy cat. He and Becky are so in love.” Julie slipped hunks of lamb to Fred under the table; he received them like a starving shark. “You poor doggie,” she crooned. “Soy biscuits from your dad.”

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I chatted amiably with Martin. How could one not? Bald, cherubic, an exheart-attack patient and still overweight, but Martin simply laughed it off. His good spirits had obviously transformed Becky. And don’t forget the sex! This potential wrinkle washed away as I studied my son and his gorgeous young woman, the two of them already skilled at masking their intensity with a glazed veneer of calm. They were superior beings, and they knew it. Maybe Derek will surprise me and run a low-end clinic: high energy but socially impassioned, where satisfaction could outweigh stress. Twenty-two, I sighed. His thick, dark brown hair was cropped close, as if his every cell—follicles to pheromones—was bursting to the breaking point in rampant good health. How can he possibly keep his Swiss miss unpregnant? I hope my boy will shun research, consulting, more of the Harvard thing. If I let my wishes be known, I’ll prompt the opposite. No, that’s with Julie—a slight difference. “More Champagne, or stick with the Chard?” said Arlene. She traipsed around the table in spikes, much to the delight of all the men, especially the gays. “It’s a no-brainer what’s for dessert,” said Julie to Mo. “My dad’s a coconut freak.” “Hap-py birth-day to you …” came the chorus, concluding with off-key harmony and resounding cheers. “Speech! Speech!” “No, idiot,” said Julie to Derek. “He has to make a wish.” I stood. Before me with five big candles shone the coconut cake of my dreams. Divorced so long, deprived of my gluttony, I prayed Becky would pull out all the stops. I studied the prized confection, worth turning fifty for. “Don’t tell us your wish, Dad!” screeched Julie. “You’re cute, but you’re dumb.” “I’m not going to tell you, in so many words. But just look around the room. It’s like all of you are lined up at the ark.” And then I whooshed out the flames. “You really blew it,” said Barry, raising his devilish black eyebrows, my wish hanging naked over the table of couples and suspending frivolity until everyone dove in. “Becky, this is beyond fabulous,” I said. The cake was incredibly moist, with just a touch of coconut rum, coconut in the four succulent layers, toasted coconut in the coconut custard filling, and a blizzard of freshly grated coconut over the butter cream frosting. “Speech,” Martin bellowed. “No way,” I said. “It’s my birthday, and I’ll clam up if I want to.” “All right!” said Derek. He blushed and rose, then lifted his bottle of no-al beer. “We have to speak. What can I say?” “Nothing,” said Julie. “Hand over the mike.”

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“My turn, sis. Well. Dad. You gave me a green light to take myself seriously. Mom, too, of course.” “But she has a sense of humor,” said Barry. “No, seriously, we are where we come from. Dad, you’re the best. Do whatever you want, but do it with all your heart, you urged me. Thank you! And I’m glad you switched to men after you had me!” Derek sat amidst the clapping, and Julie rose, clutching a tumbler of diet ginger ale to her hidden but ample breast. “Dad, I’d like to thank you for the same advice, almost. You gave me a green light that never turns red. Period.” She was choking up. “You were always there. And after Mom was out doing her thing, you ran our show, with the best nonmeat chili possible.” She laughed and gagged on a sob. “I tell my friends I always call you, too, on Mother’s Day.” She broke down, and paused. “Even though you didn’t separate my underwear, which turned blue with my jeans. I love you,” she croaked in a whisper. The group was tongue-tied and staring. I clapped my hands. “Thanks, honey. You, too, Derek. But this is a birthday party, not a memorial service. Can’t we just eat and drink?” “Hush,” said Barry rising. “What if you were hit by a bus? I know—Buck Hill. A shotgun, then. I’d like to begin with a poem by Oscar Wilde I find apropos—” “Oh, no!” Martin groaned merrily, and they all took turns—except the various dates, newcomers to this makeshift egg of a family that Humpty Dumpty had ostensibly reglued. Last but not least, Becky stood. She was flush with the success of her banquet but oddly tremulous for her, the public speaker and celebrity. “Peter, you have energized me from day one. You’ve been tenacious and gracious at the same time. You’re an inspiration to our children and all your friends, let alone your many admirers now, in your painting career. I wish dear Lee could have been here,” she said parenthetically, steadying herself on the back of her chair, catching her breath, as if the words so far were obvious and cordial, but she was searching for sentiments less tangible. “It seems sometimes that you’re leaping ahead into unknowns just when you deserve to, not slow down, but take life easier. You do push yourself, Peter, if I may say, now that I no longer have the chance to be your nagging wife.” “Thanks, pal. It’s my turn,” said Martin, laughing, but in a lower key. Becky rested a hand on Martin’s shoulder, and he smiled into space like a contented cow as she continued. “My birthday wish for you, Peter, is that, with so much potential—”

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“Potential,” groaned my architect friend Arno. “I could never use that word now, and I’m the same age!” “That as the second most important man in my life, I wish for you …” She halted and raised her flute of bubbly, still not quite saying it. “That you find a big pot of gold, or whatever it contains, at the end of your rainbow!” “Rainbow,” said Barry. “Très gay.” “Cheers!” “Cheers!” echoed around the table and around the pretty papered dining room, the sounds muffled but bouncing off the fine paneled walls, ricocheting throughout Becky and Martin’s neo-Colonial mansion, and, finally, reverberating along the interstices of my brain. My head seemed eerily hollow, as if the idle synapses and unused lobes were waiting to receive new data for “the second half,” the source to be either scooped beyond the Milky Way or dredged from the bottom of some foul black pit. “Happy birthday! Happy fiftieth!” they all sang, as Fred barked and wagged his tail, unsure if his master was okay or under siege. To call a ceasefire, I rose and made a little speech of whatever words were at hand, while my mind filled to overflowing with thoughts of Lee—his bequeathal still secret, the sweet acidic whiffs of the lakeside cedar, and then the near-blinding image, supplanting all else, of glaring silver sky and water—no mountain, no horizon—merged into one.

*

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Right after the year-end holidays, surrounded by my loving circle, I announced my decision to sell the spread in Buck Hill and move to Vermont. First, of course, I’d confided in Barry. Since his skin was so white, it was hard to tell any color was immediately drained. Blinking eyes, though, were a dead giveaway. “You can’t,” he muttered. “Why not? I’m free as a bird. The kids are—” “All alone?” “I have Fred.” He forced a smile. “Of course. Fred.” This went on for weeks. “So I’m three hours away instead of thirty minutes,” I said to Barry, his guilt tripping having been replaced with resignation. “You can bring your boyfriends. The place is dilapidated but vast.” This got his attention. “Swear under oath: you will not touch a thread of fabric, a sample of paint, nada, until I come to plot the overhaul. And I have final say on the guestroom! I can picture a neat wicker sleigh bed, of course just an

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old-fashioned double for cuddling, like it or not; slanting wood floors; wall-towall carpet over my dead body; maybe an antique hooked rug.” What am I doing, moving from him?

*

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*

Fred and I arrived the first of February with the third and final U-Haul. North winds howled over the narrow causeway, piling billows of snow. Terrified, I plowed through in second gear. We got out of the car, me with my face clenched against pelting snow. Fred bounded down to the edge of the lake, which was lost in a complete white-out. “No!” I screamed. “No!” I hollered again and again until my voice was lost. I panicked and raced along the path of Fred’s paws; even that was soon obliterated. “Fred!” I tried to yell, but it emerged as a pitiful warble. I pressed hands to head and sank into tears. I squinted into the impenetrable blasts of angry clouds, indistinct from land and water. There was a blob of faint gray. It moved. My eyelids, mostly clamped shut, allowed a sliver of vision. The gray grew into a bobbing ball of umber, then a sooty smoke, then closer, a trio of this and that, and finally, a streak of pitch-black coal. Fred dove square into my chest, there on the frozen lake, hurling me onto a mattress of snow as he leapt onto the ledge of rock, the ledge outlined, if one was straining to see it, by a thick sheet of ice. At this I stared for several seconds, until I glimpsed a jagged vein of shocking violet.

YEAR SEVEN

Chapter 12

C a lv i n i s t - I n c l i ne d

Stone Hollow, Maine, in the state’s upper, unglamorous reaches, hardly qualified as a nearby source of companionship. Nevertheless, I had written to a basket maker named Warren. I felt like a person who buys a lottery ticket each week: one chance in ten million but … Doomed to failure, just placating Cupid. I finished lightening the somber walls of Lee’s studio. Between tending to chores—an irascible toilet, an outlet that emitted sparks—I eagerly painted in my new quarters. Perched on the window seat with Fred on a break, I strained to make contact with the frozen lake through intricate lacings of frost. “Back to work.” Fred scrambled off the window seat to follow. “Now Fred, once the new beige linen sofa Barry selected arrives …” Lake Champlain was ferocious one moment, silent as 2:00 am the next. I loved when the beast was tamed, but equally enthralling was the wind as it abruptly shifted to the west and shook the creaky old Victorian to its foundation, spraying the porch with a fine mist as whitecaps crashed into rocks. Barry was wrong: Fred and I did not live alone. It was a way station for Canadian geese and who knew how many varieties of ducks. Solitude is bliss. My PSA remained 0.1, undetectable. I can breathe easy for three more months. This routine had not kept me from stopping by a gay and lesbian crafts center one day in Burlington. It featured an antiplastic campaign, with products to help the aspirant lead a “whole-ier” life. Included were beautiful woven baskets, according to the tag on each, “a true American classic before the days of our throwaway culture.” On the final panel of the brochure was the photo of the basket maker, Warren Hardwick, stern as an Amish man riding in his horse179

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drawn buggy, with defiant eyes, severe dark bangs, and lips set in a tight dash, but with the jawline of a matinee idol. Below that—no phone, no street, no zip—just “Stone Hollow, Maine.” I bought the largest, the “Market” basket, making sure there was a complete tag attached. I researched his zip code. A fan letter went out to Warren Hardwick that day.

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The ice on the lake, though up to a few feet thick, began to crack. Fred and I were serenaded with the abrupt, zinging sounds of a xylophone at the oddest moments, then startled by the groaning, croaking, and bellowing of the shifting mass. The auditory life of the island offered yet another slice of environment while I worked on large, abstract oils, as if my lifetime of watercolors was a prelude to the main event.

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Peter— Thank you for your interest. I hope you find the basket sensible for saving unnecessary trips and doing more errands in a single outing. I don’t lead a particularly social life, but thank you also for making an inquiry along those lines. It is good to talk now and then with other serious artists. Perhaps we could meet at the Portland museum, although I don’t like talking in museums. You suggested dinner, but I get up at dawn to prune my fruit trees; maybe a lunch. There’s an exhibit in Boston called The Age of Sultan Solyman the Magnificent. The notice said its objects were “both concisely clear and impenetrably complex,” a summation of my own work. Your letter arrived as something to alleviate winter’s dreary grays. I’ve enclosed a booklet about me and an order form—that doesn’t sound right—but the order form has pictures and thorough descriptions of my twenty-two different baskets. Best regards, Warren Hardwick Still no phone. So what? My eyes darted to the photos of the craftsman pounding logs, peeling bark with various thick and sturdy tools, and hammering and cutting splints. His arms were as chiseled as his woodman’s face, with knotty veins in his hands and neck. My pulse doubled. Here we go again.

Richard Alther

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Peter— I was surprised to hear from you so quickly, given your preparations for two watercolor shows this spring. Perhaps as an islander, you know of the Monhegan group. I’m impressed at the hard life people endured well before my time, with a certain heroic quality, if not cheerfulness. I don’t feel qualified to comment on your watercolor invitation cards, but thanks for including them. They border on the abstract. I’ll have to see them in person. Good, good. They’re almost flashy, which is beyond my ken. But they do speak of you as a multifaceted man, and simplifying from the complicated, I think, is what life is all about. Or should be, and usually is not. There are Jamaican workers in the apple orchard adjacent to my land. Good workers, but their radios blast tacky love songs with the rhyme schemes of a child. I usually work to Gregorian chants in my shop. Anything after Bach I think of as contemporary. I should qualify “my land.” I lease it from an absentee landowner. There are rumors of his selling to a big canning outfit. Jacob and I have “a gentleman’s agreement,” and I’m old-fashioned enough to take a man at his word. This is time I’d normally be composting or bombing woodchuck holes. I’ve been in my stone cabin all winter with my basketry. I’m looking forward to going on log runs after mud season. Best regards, Warren Hardwick Stone cabin? Flinty, I rationalized and shooed away the gremlin image as I scrubbed De-Rusto into my kitchen sink. Here in March, the meanest month, at least it’s an iron in the fire. Everyone had visited, even Arlene and her closeted Elliott, she screaming, “Are you out of your mind? How in hell can you get the Times?” Barry came, and he, Fred and I fell asleep on the new fireside sofa, all of us freezing. I was very productive on all fronts, including my correspondence with the beguiling Maine lumberjack, who wrote ever-longer letters twice a week, to which I’d dash off a reply.

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Peter, No, I don’t have a phone. I make calls from my neighbor’s in an emergency. Wrong word. There is hardly ever an emergency; just impatient people at the other end. But letters are good. Each of yours seems a different mood, so I have no idea who you are. I thought your last was a bit operatic, but the one before was fine. I’ve never been fond of contemporary fiction—so self-absorbed, with the extreme use of a narrator’s personal problems as the source. I like Henry James. There’s a great line describing Frederic in Flaubert’s The Sentimental Education: “Yet it seemed to him that he should be loved.” What a cutting analysis of character. I’ve been scattering horse chestnuts and planting a lilac. I look forward to your letters. Best regards, Warren Hardwick “Look forward” I took as a quantum leap in our potential relationship. Although the Green Mountains to my east and the Adirondack peaks across the lake to the west were snow-covered, signs of spring blazed on Split Rock Island. The yard was as overgrown and untended as the old house. The paper reported that sugaring season was off to a great start. The sap flowed from the maples, and so, too, for me with my phantom love interest in Maine. More weeks of letters ensued. I offered to meet Warren for the exhibit of Fitz Hugh Lane at the Boston MFA. I work Monday through Wednesday, take Thursday and Friday off, then work the weekend; the following week, I’ll work in the orchards Monday through Friday and … I volunteered to meet in Portland since I wasn’t bound by a schedule. To this Warren agreed. The day before, he telephoned from the gas station—he didn’t want his neighbor overhearing—to cancel. “My mother needs help—a tree limb blocking her driveway.” His voice was hesitant but husky, overall a sultry mix. “Warren, that’s fine. You’ve got responsibilities that come first.” “I told you about the composting experiments? Two of the four towns are going to make deliveries of bagged leaves any day, and I really should be here.” “Not to worry.”

Richard Alther

183

“I guess a telephone is good in a situation like this.” He paused, then laughed a tad. “It’s not an emergency, but it’s nice to hear your voice.” I was getting hard; well, not solid, but good enough and getting better. “Look, Warren, I know that once it thaws, you’ve got a lot on your plate—” “Thanks, Peter,” he interrupted. He sounded awkward and left a long gap that, somehow or other, I found the presence to sustain. “Ah, if you’d be willing to drive a little farther than Portland, to my place …” “Of course! I’m flexible.” Now don’t blow it, I heard in Barry’s voice. You were sterling until you blathered that. A date was set. Directions would come by mail. Fred was not invited. “Too many skunks and coons,” Warren explained. “My van needs valve work. I’m the fourth owner at two hundred thousand, but it’s great for hauling logs. Why scrap it when it’s perfectly adequate?” We signed off. Fred assumed his woebegone look. “Now, Fred. You can’t come between me and gentlemen callers. Melvin’s daughter has offered to dogsit. Think how much perkier your old man will be. I’m on the verge of whistling, when I’m about to deal with our sluggish cesspool.” A postcard arrived, featuring a savage-looking macaw tethered with a heavy chain, part of a live display at the National Geographic Society headquarters, with the added note, “Its raucous cries can be heard for miles; its beak can crack fingers.” Peter— I must admit I’m looking forward to your visit. Independence—connection—so many careful balances. I’m really much less cerebral and more lively in person. Regards, Warren

*

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April in northern New England is not especially inviting while the rest of the nation celebrates with redbud and daffodils. I drove onto Warren’s windchilled flat land. Without a hint of greenery, hundreds of fruit trees stood arrow-straight, pruned of any frivolous suckers. They were like the queen’s Palace Guard: unsmiling, even smug, with the superiority of those capable of inhuman demands. Warren stood rigid as his trees, in black boots and black jeans, a faded and slack black turtleneck, and a leather jacket cracked and blackened with age. His tight smile widened, but without showing teeth. Heaven help me. I mumbled a little prayer for strength as I braked the Saab to a halt. It was the thick, dark hair

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aiming every which way, self-shorn into irregular bangs, this last bit making him obscenely, unselfconsciously cute. “Hello, Warren.” We faced each other, smiling, no gestures or touching. “Cold!” I said, zipping up my down parka. “I’m spoiled, living lakeside. Like a big hot water bottle, it warms up so much earlier than the hills.” Shut your face, Barry’s voice admonished in no uncertain terms. Warren turned and walked toward mounds of black plastic bags. “It’s good I stayed home. Got the first leaf delivery.” The tour was apparently underway. I was shivering but wouldn’t retreat to the car for cap and gloves. “I do compost experiments for the state extension service,” said Warren, addressing the drab woods as we entered a clearing. “For example, this section uses alfalfa meal only. It’s very high in protein, for a plant. It takes protein to break down waste.” “Like with people,” I offered. “A balanced diet!” Warren frowned under the black bangs. He said, “Good point,” and turned to another path. The jeans were of the damnably “relaxed” variety, but Warren’s nice butt admirably fleshed them out. “That stack of bagged leaves are from last fall. They serve as insulation.” I must have looked quizzical. “It’s my stone cabin,” Warren added. I ducked as we entered the igloo of bagged leaves. “You’re taller than I pictured,” said Warren. “Have a seat while I fix some soup.” “This is nifty.” The place was orderly as a bank teller’s. Stacks of journals on a plain table; kerosene lamps in line on a shelf; simple, sturdy wooden furniture, with not a pad or cushion in sight. No sofa: this I was prepared for. A tiny but mighty woodstove. The floors were bare, and there were books by the hundreds. Warren sliced brown bread on a small cutting board. The photos did not exaggerate his forearms. “I usually have soup by the can, but this I made from leftover fish stew.” He ladled it into thick ceramic bowls, the sort for sale at gay and (mostly) lesbian craft centers. “Cider okay? It could be a little hard.” “Great!” You mean, ‘that’s fine,’ hissed Barry in my head. We sat at a small table. The host was nervous but strained not to show it. The soup was thin—a murky, milky gray—and could indeed have passed for weekold leftovers tossed in the blender with a quart too much tap water. Fortunately, it was tasteless. “Hmm,” I uttered. “Good and warm for today.” The dry bread was like meatloaf made of sawdust. Maybe it was. “Tell me about your family,” I said. “It’s complicated,” said Warren. “But your mom lives nearby? She must rely on you.”

Richard Alther

185

He scraped his chair backward over uneven boards. He was the first startlingly beautiful person I’d ever met who seemed genuinely oblivious to their looks. Warren avoided eye contact, but the downward bent of his head lent gravity to whatever thoughts would be spoken. “Dad rarely said a word. Except things like, ‘You get more done when you work alone.’ And yet I could only learn by his criticizing my work—pruning, mulching, sawing—after the fact.” “You obviously did learn,” I said. The cider helped me unwind a few degrees from my instant infatuation. Warren refilled our glasses. “My sister’s unwed. I have her boy helping me here on weekends. He listens and works hard for twelve—for any age.” “That’s good of you, Warren. You must be like a father to him.” “Not like my father.” At this he smiled, nearly melting me to mush. “Dad didn’t pay me until I was fifteen, and I’d already been doing a man’s labor for years. When he did pay me, I had to give him back a dollar for the mower gas.” I shook my head. “I’m lucky my father was approving. I’ve had it easy.” “I can see that,” said Warren. “That’s good. It’s awful when children are squelched. But you know, Peter, I have no regrets. Bone toughens at the breaks. I have to set more boundaries with my overbearing mother. But she cooks, and saves every penny to give to my sister and her boy. Then I have to make secret deposits in her account so she can get by.” “I never heard of an adult child assuming that kind of commitment.” “Across the world, it’s the norm.” He pressed together his already tight lips. “Let me show you around.” Warren stood abruptly, the force of his barely contained musculature, like that of a whippet, almost knocking over his chair. We went to his outdoor basketry woodworks. “Sometime I’d love to see you weave these splints.” They were evenly spliced paper thin. “Here. Try to snap it.” I complied, at first hesitant and then less so. “No,” said Warren. “Like this.” He clasped his large-boned hand, dirty fingers ragged with scratches, firmly over my grip and squeezed our fists into a massive vise. “See?” he smiled. “It’s the best for making the most durable basket possible.” His musk of soil and charred wood lingered as we visited his Bunyonesque, seventeen horsepower shredder-chopper-grinder that could make toothpicks of a baseball bat. After a few hours, Warren had shown off the various stands of apple plus the “persnickety” cherries and peaches and plums, “but the challenge makes them doubly satisfying.” The setting sun painted a pattern of pink lace behind

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the stark, black trees. “More to show you inside,” said Warren, and he led me through a thicket of elder and pine. I knew I was to be a guest overnight, but I expected Warren to offer me his bed while he’d throw some bedding on the floor by the stove. We ducked back into the teepee of black plastic bags. The exposed stone walls were charming, in an Abe Lincoln sort of way. “There’s more cider, but I thought we’d have beer. Oh—the bathroom, the bedroom.” Each was microscopic, dark, and spotless. The bed, beside a simple stand with a reading light, a candlestick, and stack of books, was covered with wool blankets folded tight as a plebe’s. I spotted an ancient teddy bear propped in the corner. Warren noticed this. “I kept something tender from my boyhood.”

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The rabbit stew—“the last of what Mom raises, apart from the laying hens”—was remarkably succulent, if crying out for a pinch of spice. The bottles of Sam Adams and constant talk were ample enough for our introduction. We peed together outside in the dark, “to save the composting toilet,” me exaggerating my stance away from Warren to rein in my furtive eyes. Warren was totally at ease, much to my dismay. “I like that you didn’t go all sentimental,” said Warren as he swilled another brew, “at my dealing with Mom. You just said very sensible things, like specifying times for interaction.” His cheeks were rosy bright despite the dark stubble, more a loosening up, I figured, than a flush from beer. “Hmm,” I muttered, sated with just the sight of him. “It must be good for you now, this distance from your family and friends in New Hampshire,” said Warren at his most jocular thus far, “and getting in so much painting.” Yes, but there’s still a void. “Are you wedded to this orchard? Couldn’t you be basket making and composting just about anywhere?” Warren looked aside, suddenly grim. This did not tarnish his handsome face one wink. “It’s complicated. Yet that’s what makes me tick—striving to simplify.” He switched the conversation to the best woods for stove burning and then retrieved another armload from outdoors. Warren returned to find me washing the dishes. “Now listen, Peter, that’s my business. The worst thing you could do is fuss; it’s all my mother knows.” He restocked the glowing stove, got up from his knees, and stood facing me as I rested the scrub brush in the sink. “I’m a father. I’m used to it being my job.”

Richard Alther

187

“You’re excused.” Then Warren stepped closer and gently, tentatively, kissed me on the lips: dryly but firmly, for more than one second. “I’m not very good at this. It’s complicated.” “One of your favorite words.” “I do feel emotion.” He was trembling; slyly I didn’t move to ameliorate this. “My mother and sister thrive on hysterics to get my attention. So I’ve shielded myself.” “For you, that’s a—sensible stance.” “I know I seem gruff, and stiff.” Don’t dare touch that one, snapped Barry. I elevated my eyebrows and let my face assume the look of the Madonna at His feet. “I’d like you to join me in my bed, Peter. If you’d be comfortable with that. It’s only a single; I could sleep on the floor …” I smiled, leaned over, and returned Warren’s kiss with one as tender and firm, perhaps for a few extra seconds. “This will be good for me,” said Warren, soldierly tough. “Good for me, too,” I responded, I hoped with not too much enthusiasm. “I’ll let the fire die down. We won’t need much in the way of heat,” said Warren. He turned off lights and fetched matches for his bedside candle as I followed. “I just fold and leave my clothes on the floor. It’s perfectly clean.” “I can see,” I said softly, feeling like the teacher, the leader; the farthest thing from cancer patient or wanton slut, my two usual extremes. “I’ll make us buckwheat pancakes for breakfast,” said Warren as he stripped off his turtleneck and smacked me in the face with his Mr. Universe abs. “Buckwheat’s kind of coarse, but it’s really good at absorbing the syrup. And I grow and harvest the grain.” I slipped off my things. “And you can grow buckwheat anywhere in New England,” I couldn’t resist. “Peter, you’re more handsome than that snapshot of you and your dog. And your body, from tending your yard and swimming—it’s wonderful how hard work pays off.” This was said with an utterly straight face and not a trace of embarrassment over his large steel wedge of an erection as he neatly unfolded the bedding, climbed aboard, lay flat on his back, and turned to face me with a broad, boyish grin.

*

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The buckwheat pancakes were delicious. Warren had collected sap from his mother’s sugar maples and boiled it to viscous, molasses-thick syrup. “It’s probably beyond Grade B,” he said, lounging at the table in his trim boxer shorts, “but it’s far richer in minerals and nutrients than the Fancy.”

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“Hmm,” I managed, loosely swathed in Warren’s robe, still drugged from this morning’s lovemaking, on top of last night’s. “I’ve yet to show you the asparagus beds. I found shredding newspapers and making a slurry with alfalfa meal thickens into a paste perfect as mulch— impenetrable to weeds but porous enough to drink in rain.” I lowered my eyelids, the better not to appear to be staring so hungrily. I was enraptured by Warren’s sensitivity as a lover—gentle and undramatic but with constant, sincere eye contact. That he couldn’t achieve orgasm on either occasion seemed not to matter, given his concrete phallus was such a marvel adjacent to my forever-soft hard-on. Of that Warren showed no concern. We’d slept enfolded in the warm, narrow bed like newborn lambs. The stubble on his chin and jawline was achingly racy. I wanted to yank off his boxers and toss him back in bed. “The chores are waiting at Mom’s. She’ll be all over me about why I’m an hour late. I’ll have to think up some excuse—the shredder got plugged.”

*

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For the whole of the six hour drive home, I accentuated the positives. Whatever else flickered to the surface was simply smothered by an instant blanket of alfalfa-newsprint slurry. I remained besotted for months, honoring Warren’s apprehension of telephone intimacy. Warren ground out two letters a week, and I fired off replies. I returned to Stone Hollow a few weeks later, since Warren’s initial trip to Split Rock Island had been postponed by his lengthy todo list, now that spring was in full force. Dear Peter, Your letters get better. The layers peel away and a picture, graceful and warm, grows clearer. I’m happy you enjoyed the second weekend here. You come like tropical poetry into this life of earth-bound prose. And in sixteen days, you’ll be here again. You were charming at Sunday’s dinner with Mother. I thought the charm might have been put on, but you seemed genuinely cheerful, and again I wonder who you will turn out to be. My mother’s own needs short-circuit her giving love. Identical to Geraldine. And I fancy myself so detached compared to Warren.

Richard Alther

189

I keep thinking, if I stay nearby but increasingly separate, things will change. As you were dressing to leave, you looked across your shoulder at me closely, and the lines in your face were deep and gray and your eye sockets cleanly defined. Your expression was so sad and lonely—I wonder if I’ve seen something I shouldn’t have. Loneliness? Beyond missing Barry? My cabin seemed so hollow after you left. Hours earlier, it was barely adequate to contain us. Now all is back in place—the little bed, my boyhood desk, everything tidy and virginal. In the orchard I was so reticent: what if someone saw us from the road? So foolish. You—bronzed Viking chieftain—marching toward me between the rows, and I immobilized by emotion. What a paltry greeting I gave you; don’t take it personally. Best regards, Warren I was in love. Lust, all right; but c’mon, I thought, collecting armfuls of kindling along the lake. I haven’t felt like this since Mary Lou Bostwick cheated at Spin the Bottle just so she could kiss me. Bad analogy. Try for one after I turned at least thirty, shouldn’t we, Fred you ole rascal? Just what is your dad up to? I hurled a big stick into the water for Fred and whistled into the wind.

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Dear Peter, Your island sounds fine. I’m beginning to look forward to it. You sound so busy. I’ll bring books and not be obtrusive. I’m reading The Odyssey, the T. E. Lawrence prose version. I wonder what you tell your friends and family. I hope you’re low-key, that I’m the “correspondent you occasionally visit.” I may never want my main public role to be that of “Peter’s lover,” regardless of our situation. I’m sure this will moderate in the gentle land of Vermont, but here, this harsh delineation has seemed a requirement for survival. You recently said, rather perceptively I thought, that I was unadulterated. So discipline has its good side. Arising and shining, Warren

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Dear Peter— The journey to Vermont seems enormous, but I’m ready. The great spring flood here is over. It’s like one of your visits, all liquid excitement. Then, the next day, one wonders: did it actually happen? Each time I think this may be it. Someone so remarkable will soon be bored; this jasmine, full and blossoming, setting itself down in my field of bluets, can’t last. If our connection ends (I first thought “when”—that’s progress, of a New England sort), it won’t be bitterly. These times with you have been the nicest I’ve ever spent. See you soon, Warren Dear Peter— I’m certainly aware of our differences, but we also overlap. I may be too practical for what appears to be your rather flamboyant life. I asked my friend Scott if he was flamboyant. He said no, he was just harried (he’s an editor for educational TV). I asked what he thought flamboyant implied, and he felt it was being harried, but self-consciously, for effect. Well, that’s not you. I may be so insular I can’t recognize a normal life when I see it. Still, it’s a little early to be definite about a future relationship, but from the Maine end it looks promising. The tulips you brought are still beautiful. They seem indulgent without you here admiring them. Take care, and think of Ravel (I’m off Bach for the moment), Warren

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“I like these floral watercolors, compared to your—freer studies. The intricate layering of petals—really fine and exacting work. You’re so skilled to pull that off with watercolor.” “Complicated and unpredictable, like your basketry.” “This one of the rose,” said Warren, “there’s a tension between the precision and relaxation that puts the onus on me to sort it out.” We stood side by side in my studio, the second day of Warren’s two-day visit. For me, the sex was increasingly thrilling, just to lie with this man; for Warren, he seemed preoccupied with absorbing the strange new environment. “I don’t know what to make of your portraits. Each is so different. Especially this one of Lee—the anguished face split in two, like a Francis Bacon.” “Just look, Warren. You don’t talk, you say, in museums.” I tousled his thick mop of hair.

Richard Alther

191

We took out the canoe, Warren in the bow with more chance to imbibe the views. The lake was becalmed as I guided us to the cliffs of Rattlesnake Mountain. Just off the island, we spotted two soaring, white and brown osprey; a lissome variation of the bald eagle, I began to explain. “Shhh,” Warren interrupted, quietly but decidedly. The mountains gleamed emerald in the bright sun; icicles of clear water snaked down pink expanses of bare rock. We maintained silence for all of two hours. I had no idea whether Warren was in awe of the grandeur or diminished by it. Later, Warren read in the porch hammock. I dashed madly about the kitchen, preparing dinner as stealthily as possible; Warren repeated how fussing made him nervous, shades of his mother. It will be my first candlefuck dinner, I thought, disguised with cans of citronella. I positioned two dishtowels over my largest blade for dicing cabbage to better muffle the sound of my fussing. We’d had good chats about art, books, wildflowers, varieties of duck, and a better way to bank the causeway against erosion. Intimacy seemed better suited to letters, for Warren. Just by dicing, I was stabbed with shooting pain in my right forearm and wrist. I’d gone at Warren’s cock like an eggbeater in whites that wouldn’t coagulate from liquid to meringue. Withholding or incapacity, yet to break through a man-made barrier? Barry would have some salient thoughts. Pleasure can’t be one way, no matter how Warren protests. He needs time … time … time … We ate in the octagonal window alcove, the lake chop too rough for porch dining. “I’ll be curious to see what you do with your living room,” said Warren as he swilled wine like soda. “There’s a new house on my road. So plastic. Like sconces of fake burnished brass. It’s vulgar, spineless, picked off the rack. I will say this about queer culture: it took balls when a guy painted a wall pink or carted home some miserable Ethiopian bust. Now it’s all the rage. No individuality. It really bugs me.” Whatever is Warren making of the wide-board bathroom floor and paneled ceiling I’d coated in apple green? Well, it was what the Victorians did. But the sand linen sofa on order … Before he returns, I’ll cover it with a threadbare quilt. We carried on in the creaky old divan on the porch, about to be replaced with an oversized, Indonesian wicker sofa sporting eight-inch-thick cushions of down. We gamboled in the bedroom, the space untouched as I’d promised Barry, with its four walls and ceiling paneled in decrepit, bat-dung brown. We talked, cavorted, slept, and cavorted the next morning, sweaty, warm, and comfortable in this unused attic of a house about to be violated not by the artist’s but the homosexual’s raging, genetic gift for interior design.

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Warren let me hold his hand on the way to his van upon departure, since there was only Fred as witness. “It’s certainly another layer of you exposed, Peter. Several layers. Lots to digest.” I returned Warren’s wan smile, thinking: he needs to reclaim his bearings before the visit suffocates and sours. “I’ll write,” said Warren, as if about to go to war. “Oh, I know you will,” I said. “Probably tonight!” “Better than a phone call,” I said, reassuring Warren, and really myself.

*

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Dear Peter, The weekend was by far the most exotic of our get-togethers. Not only the brilliant weather but bougainvillea in full bloom on the one sunny spot in your dining room. Everything about the place was oversized and dramatic. Even the first view of the white clapboard house on the island’s hull was like something out of Bronte, and the splendor of the views and the magnificent trees rooted in the rocks … Your sense of proportion, the rooms as you’ve left them, demonstrate your good taste. My life is so messy. If anything’s perfect, it’s my straight line of asparagus. I have to deal with my sister May. She’s pregnant and doesn’t want to abort. Mother and I are already raising Kenny. She can’t hold a job. I think this is her way out. Not as drastic as my father, who just left us, but equally doomed to failure. ’Til next letter, with thanks, Warren Peter— I’m ambivalent about the weekend. It may simply be that your situation is so astounding I don’t have a simple response. Anyway, not to worry; maybe just newness triggers my flatness. William James once said that what usually passed for thinking was a rearrangement of previous thoughts. I may be thinking in the true sense, and none of the usual thoughts will do. One thing that gnawed at me as I heard more was your relationship with Becky. It’s not just your missing a partner of such consequence, but some aspect of your ongoing past and your significant distance from it now; or maybe it’s the ghost of Lee that’s eating at you. Water is where you now belong—watercolors, swimming, the lake itself. I think I’d like it there, too. Of course, I’d get my own place. Regards, Warren

Richard Alther

193

Eating at me? My eyes were glued to the lake. Do I really need a partner?

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I worked on a new and larger oil—abstract, could go anywhere, but clearly under the spell of the once-again ultramarine green of the lakeside cedars. Mostly the six-foot canvas held me captive and a step removed from my constantly swirling thoughts of Warren. Am I obsessed? No. There’s too much Fred holding me in check. Too many patches of floor needing sanding. Too much work with the watercolor shows. Too fleeting a glimpse of fuchsia-lashed sky to behold, imprinting itself in my mental sketchbook.

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Dear Peter— Ignore my last two letters. I wrote them before having worked out my thoughts. The dynamics of your situation are none of my business, as long as you’re happy and productive. Letters are helpful for the exchange of ideas. But your comment that sometimes the letters can outweigh the conversations is true. When I’m in the same room with you, being there is all I want. We should clear something up. I’ll concede your life is not a Mardi Gras if you’ll believe I’m not the recluse you refer to. You talked about swim meets, your circle of close friends plus family, your travels to Tunisia, Israel, even a gay men’s powwow at a New Mexico Buddhist retreat! It all sounded a little crazy. Your solitary aspects weren’t apparent until later. I appreciated your kindness in response to my “ambivalence.” I can tie myself up in knots. You credit the Sufis for having helped to ground you: “Ride lightly in the saddle of life.” Ah, that I could. Looking forward to our next, here. X Warren I inoculated seeds of crown vetch to plant on the causeway’s treacherous banks, which were prone to washouts. In addition, I didn’t so much brush aside the buzzing gnats hovering about my linkage with Warren as face and dismiss them, as in “What’s the big deal?” In a way, this was more worrisome. I had to acknowledge the subtle slide of my heartbeat to a steadier rhythm. Along with his first X as a sign-off was the first crack in the fragile vessel of love.

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There was a raging thunderstorm, so Warren had to halt work on his asparagus beds. Instead, he delivered on his promise to demonstrate making a basket in his lean-to. Craned over the bench, he held the gossamer-thin strips to his nose as he wove them, summoning hardened fingers to follow the intricate routine. I propped myself against a stone wall and stared as intently as the performance commanded. It was well into May, but still I felt chilled, while the thunder clapped and rain pelted the tin roof like a million nails. Warren worked on into the second hour. I knew he wouldn’t stop to chat. He invited me to sketch alongside, but I wasn’t motivated. I encountered the same ennui that Warren at Split Rock Island was honest enough to claim, if not in person, then afterward in prose. Here, I felt burdened by the soaked evergreens bowing low with wet needles and everywhere the dank foundation of sodden earth. This is where and how Warren flourishes, like a swamp maple. I was struck by his capacity for monotony, the repetition of braiding and threading and scraping and tapping. Whether here or in Vermont, Warren seems temporarily on loan from a calling more critical. The rain stopped abruptly. I slipped out and sat on the front stone step. Something moved, then disappeared. I studied a rustle of leaves. Out scampered a chipmunk; it dashed to my feet and sat up on its haunches, its head jerking about like a gyroscope as if it had made a huge mistake. It dashed out of sight. Moments later, it tried again, approaching slowly but not getting so close. It cocked its head, tiny whiskers furiously twitching, then raced off, for good this time. Warren stepped out from the cabin and sat at my side. “The oddest thing just happened,” I said. “You mean Gertie?” I twisted around to face him. “The chipmunk. She’s the mother, the matriarch; actually the smallest, though you wouldn’t suspect it. I’ve been feeding her for years. I have names for about twenty of the little critters. Cute, isn’t she?” My eyes drifted back to the pine needle carpet. “If we sit still long enough, she’ll come back to say hello. It’s not just for food.”

*

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*

Dear Peter— It might be sensible to admit that we’re already in a relationship and just get on with it. It’s a half a year since we met.

Richard Alther

195

Yesterday I got a brochure from a gay press. The fiction illustrates everything I hate about the gay lifestyle: the hero arrives home with just the clothes on his back (the romance of the wanderer, of travel); his home is Calgary (cowboys, tough men); he’s walking through a park on the way to a job interview when he feels eyes looking at him and sees this 20-year-old bronzed youth (wearing faded jeans, with a large “basket;” deification of youth) and is attracted immediately (the myth of instant gratification); the youth’s name is Blaise (the romance of the exotic); his accent is English (the romance of the country house, of aristocracy—one assumes Blaise isn’t an accountant); the hero forgets his job interview (deification of irresponsibility); and they hop in the sack (in these plague years, the denial of reality). I looked aside from the letter and recalled a wonderful article by Andrew Sullivan. The author made a plea for a gay person’s resisting self-marginalizing tendencies: identity through blaming the bigots, or, in Warren’s case, hating the overly visible gays. Either way, it smacked of victimization, perpetuating one’s place on the sidelines. I’m furious over the landowner’s plans to sell the property I’m leasing. “Nothing in writing,” he said curtly. I exploded. As did he. My sister insists upon having her baby. She’s stopped drinking but is still smoking. My mother’s aware of a possible relationship, but I claim ours is a friendship. Your lake house next time, I’m sure, will be fine. You’ll be there, nude in the kitchen, wearing a little apron like a G-string. Canned soup for supper for me, then bed. Take care, Warren Peter— I must admit, I’m in a retreating mood. More a stock-taking. It’s strange, but I do miss you. Not for just the sex, but sitting and chatting, being in the canoe, saying nothing. More chaos: May wants to move in with Mother, meaning she can tend the child to come. It would be silly to suddenly move to Burlington. It’s like transplanting an oak: sure, you can get it out of the ground, but it has to survive in its new spot. Truck oil changed; tent caterpillars burned in the fruit trees. Best regards.

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Peter— Sister May, seven months pregnant now in August, is going to marry a motorcyclist she met in a bar—not the father. On something like this, with you, I need to be sure. I’m not head over heels, and I realize my letters aren’t “love letters”—more facts and ideas, more lasting stuff. Also, a same-sex relationship is not well received, and one has to be sure of it to defend it through the ups and downs. You sound so accepting in your letters. “It’s good to see all sides.” By the way, I’m not a “boyfriend.” I’m not a boy. “Friend” is fine. Is writing letters and visiting Vermont more escape from life than actually living it? My dryer in the Laundromat has stopped. A young couple is kissing— loud quick smacks—it would be nice to be doing the same. Off to gas woodchucks. Thanks for the job ads. Warren Peter— Our first talk on my new phone! (May gave it to me for my birthday—I didn’t tell you so there’d be no gifts.) I suppose you’re getting ready for this weekend’s guests. It’s funny to miss you and, at the same time, be relieved I’m not there. All the cleverness and gourmet food. I remain baffled by your vast amount of space, inside and out. At what point does spaciousness become emptiness? Painting ever-larger canvases, my life has never seemed fuller. After a month not seeing each other, it’s unrealistic to expect to begin where we left off. You’ve suggested using Arlene’s apartment. I’ll call and we can talk it over. You realize what I just wrote? “What?” screeched Warren. “You just show up, two days before Boston!” He was grinning like I’d never seen, caught in the act of unloading a bucket of slurry around his rhubarb. “We’re not going to Boston,” I said. “And you’re going to wear this the whole time I’m here.” I handed him the sweatshirt. Warren unfolded it, still beet red, which colored to purple upon his reading the words. “No way! ‘World’s finest fruit: It Takes One to Grow One.’ Where the hell did you get this?” Warren added, laughing.

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“I had it made especially for this occasion.” I decided not to mention it was Barry’s idea, the sweatshirt and the surprise. Warren peeled off his parka, giddy as a kid, and tugged the sweatshirt into place. He donned the apparel as a macho man up for a dare. “I’ve brought supper, Warren. Save the can opener. I hope you like crab cakes, Champagne, dilled not dull potato salad, green pepper salmon, a few other basics.” “You devil.” “That’s the idea. Give me a hug, then I have to get off these boots. They were not made for driving.” The sex was not fine; it was furious. Warren almost came, his closest ever. We tried to outdo each other at Scrabble, but we were too drunk after the feast. I hauled Warren’s little mattress onto the floor by the woodstove, “for more elbow room.” We woke, nibbled and played, then slept in a tangle of limbs. “Something’s burning! That shouldn’t be!” Warren bolted up, tumescent, a deer on the alert. “Peter! Get dressed.” In moments we bounded outdoors in the icy, orange light of dawn. “It’s not the house. Over there! Something in the compost bin—shit, it’s overheating. It was smoking a day ago.” We raced along the path. Leaves crackled underfoot. Warren mentioned they were desperate for rain. “Good God!” screamed Warren, me struggling to keep apace but choking on smoke. The blaze had spread to the mulch under the nearest row of fruit trees; it would swallow the orchard whole. I stood helpless as Warren sped back to the cabin. “I’ll phone the fire department!” Within seven minutes, the first truck arrived. Two more trucks and dozens of men with huge hoses extinguished the blaze within a half hour. Damage was contained to the composting area; the orchard and all rest were unscathed. Warren, his white face smeared with soot, went about shaking hands with each of the twenty-some volunteers. The men appeared embarrassed and blushing by the vigorous display of gratitude. All in a Mainer’s day of obligations. The fire chief was last to leave. He held his arms akimbo and looked aside; something had to be said, but these folks could bite the bullet when pressed. “Warren, you know I’m also the police chief in Stone Hollow. I’d appreciate your coming into the office soon’s possible. I’m afraid the county sheriff ’s engaging an attorney to bring suit against your position here. The owner, Jacob Waldron, has it in writing that you’ve reneged on your leasehold duties,

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which, among other things, obliges you to pay the land tax. I know, with you, it’s a matter of principle, but he’s sold the land to that there canning outfit in Washington state.” “That’s immoral! That’s blasphemy!” yelled Warren, unable to contain his rage. “Transporting fruits from one coast to another … the waste in fossil fuels … the stupid, exaggerated price!” “I’m afraid you’ll be cleared out of here any day with just the clothes on your back.” Then he snickered and wiped a finger under his nose. “Speaking of which,” and he gestured at the sweatshirt, “ya don’t need to advertise it, Warren. We’ve all known for ten years, and who gives a tinker’s damn? G’day, now.” He turned to his red pickup in the glare of the rising sun. I departed soon after. Warren refused my help. “It’s all grunt work. If I’m alone, it’ll go faster. I won’t be fit for polite company.” The sweatshirt had been consigned to a pile of dirty rags in Warren’s workshop. “I’d be happy to help in silence.” “We can talk on the phone.” Driving off, I realized the telephone saved the property. About that, however, Warren would have to draw his own conclusion.

*

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*

Two or three weeks went by, interrupted here and there by a call or letter. I started another abstract oil. The studio woodstove was roaring, the oil furnace, too. Barry and I, by phone, were catching up more of late, to my relief. The colors of fall had long since receded to dull umber and dark olive. I delighted in discovering the odd blush of lemon rose seconds before sunset, as if Lee were right alongside, the two of us staring into the eternity of blank, gray space.

*

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*

This postcard reminded me of you, the Bavarian etching (1879) of the lone hunter stalking off on the path into oversized, Wagnerian woods. I hate to appear racist, but I see you as an example of extreme Vaterland Romanticism, intriguing but perplexing to us English pragmatists. Warren Peter— I don’t know what our relationship is, but it’s important to write and get letters and see you when sensible. I’m sorry it isn’t the total passionate coupling you envisioned. How can it be with two men? Men, in our culture,

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are individuals making their own worlds. I’m sure you’ll talk about the “new male.” But after all is said, I believe the concept of maleness hasn’t changed. Write when you can. Warren P.S. I’m an uncle once more. It’s kind of fun, to a point. Dear Peter— I’m sorry I didn’t get to spend the weekend in Vermont, but, with the weather, it made sense to stay here. I went for a walk in the storm, it being too cold to prune. About 5 degrees. The branches were brittle and the snow kept lashing my face, but it was refreshing. I’ll be spending Christmas with Mother, May, Kenny, little Merrilee, and May’s “Big Sam,” her new husband, I guess, though he’s seldom around. They’re all living at Mom’s—off Mom, I should say. If things get tense, I can go for a walk. I clipped a broken sprig of hemlock and have it wedged into a bookcase for my “tree.” May gave me an ornament—you wouldn’t believe how tacky: a tin raccoon with earmuffs and scarf—it’s sort of cute, like my chipmunk, Gertie, who’s gone to bed for the winter. I know she and her brood are well fed. I ran into my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Sorensen, whom I haven’t seen since grade school. She said I seemed “more lively, even chipper.” Most people are a lot less lively than they were in first grade. She said I was “a solemn little boy who did exactly what I was told.” I hadn’t realized that. Sometimes I feel so out of step, growing up when movie theaters had ushers, real ushers, who escorted you to your seat, with their natty bow ties and little flashlights. Class. Best regards, Warren

YEAR EIGHT

Chapter 13

A M a n Com i ng Cl e an

“Does this painting need a third light?” asked Michelle, the gallery’s chief assistant. “The salmon undertones in the lower right, I realize, are meant to be subtle, but the rest of the piece is so brilliant.” “It’s already so intense compared to when it was in my studio.” Michelle shifted the ladder, pliers in hand, as I gestured to help. “No, no, Peter. You stand back and tell me if I’ve caught that cobalt underpainting.” She was lithe and thirtyish, and she wore her silky auburn hair pulled into a hasty ponytail with bangs flopping forward. She spoke perfect American English, although she was French: yet another sophistication of Montreal that cast me as the Luddite and all the more amazed that this rue Sherbrooke gallery would be home to fifteen of my latest abstract oils for six weeks. Michelle, impatient for my response, descended the ladder, circled the huge room, squinted fiercely, rescaled the ladder, and fiddled with all three beams on the orange, pink, gray, and blue canvas of five by six feet. Half the show hung, we took a break. “So, no boyfriend?” Michelle frowned, sipping her latte. She undid the barrette and shook out her shiny mane. “Pity, a marvelous painter and a man such as yourself.” I forced a smile, still overwhelmed by seeing my work in such light. The gallery, with its vaulted ceiling, immaculate off-white walls, and polished hardwood floor, rivaled a museum. And the prices Elena, the gallery owner, had set: up to eighteen thousand, Canadian, but still. “Hmm?” Michelle pursued. “Trop occup pour l’amour?” “I date now and then. But my ex-wife, and women in general, are so much more fun.” 203

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“Tch, tch. You need some city life. Sooo many men—mature, eligible, handsome. My friend Wills, for example. You really should meet. Yes!” Again, she flung her lustrous hair. “You must call him. He’ll be at the opening, but join him for a drink while you’re here. Oh, Peter, please do.” Certainly she’s acting more upon her concern for Wills’s availability than mine. So what?

*

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*

We chatted amiably on the phone, Wills and me, as I sat in my posh room at the Ritz-Carlton. Wills sounded like a collector. Is this, not his bachelorhood, Michelle’s motive? Nevertheless, my juices were flowing at the sound of Wills’s borderline-bored tone of voice. A few hours later, we sat sipping Kir Royales in the hotel lounge. “Paul Monette,” said Wills as we tossed bons mots back and forth. “Compelling, but I don’t cotton up to the author, the screenwriter. Titillating but glib. I didn’t finish his autobiography; it read more like a thriller, what comes next.” He paused and took a few drops from the elegant flute. “I’m glad somebody was published saying these things for our generation,” I said. “I found the love for his partner, Rog, very moving, as was his justifiable rage.” I tried not to throw back the too-sweet Champagne concoction and to remain level-headed, sitting opposite this silver god. Why am I such a fool over a handsome face? Wills was fifty, with a head of extremely thick, short-cropped gray hair gelled in the latest spiky fashion. For some blasted reason, I found men my age, especially gray or beyond, with hair to spare, wildly sexy, as if the body defied the accretion of years and was still bursting with adolescent virility. I’d demolished the little bowl of nuts. Wills crossed his legs, which highlighted the sheen of his fine, black slacks. The black silk shirt was opened a few buttons, hinting at flawless, white skin. The drape of silk over his chest suggested fitness without obsession. “Did you catch Derek Jarman’s Edward II?” Wills said. “Coarse, ugly characters. So pompous and arch. And violent.” He bristled. “A stylistic statement, not cinema.” “Your verdict makes me less contrite at being American. So rarely is there something wonderful and weird, like Altman’s Three Women.” We chatted on, circling but not touching. I was both fascinated and repelled by this expat Brit, at home in a dozen languages, wily in silver and black like an exotic poisonous snake. Wills’s one arm was flung over the chair back; the other languished on the armrest, fingers blithely toying with his glass of Champagne.

Richard Alther

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“Is Wills a family name or short for William?” “Family, family, forever family. In truth, Peter, I changed my name in the New World to Wills Sandridge. The other side of the pond—hold your breath—it was Ardleigh Drake Wills-Sandringham.” He rolled his eyes. “Oh, the upper crust is nothing but a bunch of crumbs held together with lots of dough.” My laugh trickled deep into my solar plexus as my estimation of this character soared. Plus, he knew Noguchi, Arp, Hepworth, and the litany of lesser knowns. The tuxedoed waiter sashayed up to enquire of refills. “This has been grand, Peter, but I must be going. So looking forward to your show.” Crushed, I asked for the bill. “On my tab,” said Wills, gathering himself up. “Thanks so much. Perhaps we can—” “The opening’s a week Friday? Till then!” And Wills sallied off.

*

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*

I decided Wills was shy in the admirable tradition of British reserve. I also decided that Wills, for all his fey posturing, was a man of guts to have ditched his home. Wills’s taste in art and sculpture mirrored my own: singular, without distracting, equivocating flourish. I called Wills and proposed a dinner at Cue, an eclectic new bistro, upon my return. With mild diffidence, Wills agreed. Wills sipped Grey Goose while I nursed Sancerre; all French wines to my crude palate were like mouthwash compared to California bolds. Wills ordered a plate of sushi; I, mussels, swordfish, salad, a side of garlic spinach, more bread, and more wine. “You will adore St. Barth’s,” said Wills. He wore a pebbly, white cashmere sweater and one heavy ring, so he described, as white gold layered with forged Damascus steel. The band was stunning. “My trips to Jamaica and St. Croix,” I said, trying to keep apace, “were discouraging—so many idle blacks decades after sugar plantations. I kept being offered ganja, ganja, peoples’ sisters.” Wills smiled plaintively. “St. Barth’s is français—clean, fabulous restaurants. Getting overdone, but it’s still a gem.” You will adore. Is he inviting me? We were not at a loss for words. Was anything said? What kind of life do I want outside of Split Rock Island, my painting, and Fred? Our talk purred through dinner like a Rolls idling in neutral. Fuck it. “I’d love to see your sculptures sometime, Wills. What’s not out on loan,” I added with a smirk.

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Wills smiled demurely. “If you can bypass the ginger pots de crème—God, you’ve got an appetite—I have a fine selection of cognacs.” “I’ve no doubt.” Wills had prepaid the bill on his run to the gents’.

*

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*

“Henry Moore started a revolution, didn’t he?” I said on entering Wills’s grand foyer. “A whole generation making these massive, smooth shapes in bronze, but with such a sense of—serenity. Is this a Canadian sculptor?” “No, that’s a—that is a Moore,” said Wills, stepping rapidly to the drawing room to ease the sting of my faux pas. “Now here’s a Vanderstukken, a real up-and-comer.” I marveled at the simple, corrugated texture of the thick, milky slab of glass equally liquid and solid. The living room was totally white: marble floors, white leather sofas, epoxied tables. All of it was lit from sources embedded in the floor and ceiling that splintered the moonstruck surfaces into a thousand shades. The paintings and sculptures were at home, not on display, although the tapestry of white had been woven entirely for their benefit. “Thank you for not asking me to choose which brandy,” I said as Wills handed me the Steubenlike hunk of crystal that felt more like a paperweight for Her Majesty. “I did bring a few things from the family vaults,” said Wills, following my attention to the glass. “Tell me more of your family,” I said, still hypnotized by the dance of fractured light on the lead crystal in my lap. “All gone. I’m it. I’m very fortunate, Peter, to have my life in art. I’ve never held a job. Father was in—the diplomatic corps. My sister was killed as a teen on a small plane in Kenya. It all boils down to this.” “Where would art be without patrons?” Wills smiled, genuinely, but avoided eye contact, his habit. “It would be the very same: artists like you, forging ahead, whatever the consequences.” “Thank you, but who would see it? The centuries of art in my DNA; though I hardly recognize my paintings hung for the show, how can they be unique?” “Elena said she thought your work ‘reverberated as Rothko,’ albeit in sublime color.” “Really? My heart just somersaulted!” I caught Wills looking at me before returning his gaze to the woolly white Tufenkian carpet.

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“You have a gift, Peter. Elena has only the best.” He paused, parted his lips, then stood abruptly. “It’s getting late, but let me show you around.” I stumbled into an icy block of electric white. “An aquarium! Fantastic. Are there fish?” “Look closer.” Between curving contours of polished steel, I made out slivers of animation, diaphanous fins, some flesh opaque, but mostly transparent. “They’re—all white, nearly invisible.” “Less is often more,” said Wills on our way to the greenhouse. “How beautiful!” I responded as I faced a field of yard-high roses. “I raise hybrid teas. The tall, single stems. Every conceivable variation.” Row upon row, they were all pure white, until I could differentiate the inner hues of pale ivory here, violet there. “Like a Rothko,” I said, brushing against Will’s cashmere sleeve, accidentally or otherwise. “Monochromatic until you stare long enough. Breathtaking.” “You’re too kind.” “You didn’t come clean. You’re far more than a collector.” Wills pretended not to hear. “This is my latest, ‘Hermione,’ developed at Kew.” We sauntered back to the living room. I made signals of departure. “You didn’t finish your drink.” “I’m fine, Wills. It’s been a great evening.” Two can play this game. Wills faltered and raised his hand with the heavy ring, as if gesturing heavenward but uncertain of its direction. He seemed incapable of eye contact, as if he were so well bred he was above and beyond the elocution of mundane transactions. He managed to smile sheepishly, pleadingly. I finally understood and followed on the tour to the hushed boudoir, paneled in black.

*

*

*

I most vividly recalled the neat stack of moistened towelettes in their foil pouches on the ebony nightstand, the packets too large for condoms—although they too were in evidence, as were folded washcloths. The sheets of silk aided my slithering on top of Wills, who for the most part had lain motionless. His hairless, firm body was delightful to behold, and to stroke. And instead of mimicking my partner, I was infused with an odd calling to command, lie above, to boldly kiss and caress this person who I decided was simply, savagely unschooled, a victim of his caste. Wills moaned with appreciation and was complicit to that extent. He placed a hand on my shoulder to deflect my attempt to pleasure him orally. I was woefully aware of my own lack of rigidity, how Wills

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would take that as a sign of lessening enthusiasm when it was the opposite. I let my fingers graze Wills’s flanks and belly and face, prompting rapturous guttural responses, although his head was turned completely to the wall, and his eyes were sealed tight. I floated along in the enterprise, gradually ascending in bliss by merely ingesting the man’s beauty and soft skin and the grace of his art, which he embodied. Wills became a mesmerizing void in the flickering black light into which I could enter, not physically but forcefully, beyond the limits of our loins. Again, pressing atop Wills, I tried to forestall the end and not lose contact with the whole of this fine man and the majesty and finesse of the bronzes and glassworks and steels. I exploded and collapsed, as did Wills, but not before him muttering, “Oh dear, I’m about to make a mess.” This I dismissed, wanting to lay motionless. Instantly, Wills roused himself. The towelettes were unsheathed. Steps padded to and from the bathroom; lights ignited; warm cloths were applied with tender but surgical swiftness. The next moment was imprinted for life. “Use the urinal; I never do,” said Wills, pointing in his desultory fashion to an opposite wall as he squatted on the toilet. “I favor sitting. No splash to wipe up.”

*

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*

“I was in a daze with Wills,” I reported a few days later to Barry, who joined me for a k.d. lang concert in Burlington. We shared a decaf afterward. “I mean, there was an original, signed Toulouse Lautrec over Wills’s sink.” “You’ve made him sound like a very intriguing man. For God’s sake, Peter, this doesn’t have to be ‘it.’ Like your last one and the ones before that.” “I’m probably trying to distance myself instead of getting sucked in.” My voice again shifted into gossip mode. “Rows of pressed Levi’s in the walk-in closet, which was size of my kitchen. Shirts stacked like a Chinese laundry.” Barry left a pause, which was very unlike him. “Archery,” I went on. “That’s his sport. It figures.” “How wonderful you could relate over art.” “He didn’t return my kisses. He leapt into the shower, and I’m standing there, peering into the fogged-over door, wondering what in the hell to do.” “It was touching, don’t you think,” said Barry, “his arranging to pay the bills and avoid your protesting; him acting the host in his city?” “The cold marble floors, the hypermasculine sculptures,” I said in a rush. “Wanting to be ‘taken’ in bed like a female and attracting a man he thinks he can’t be.”

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Another pause, but longer. “Would you listen to yourself? Schadenfreude! Gloating over his blemishes to get you off the hook. What do you think a relationship is? With a man, no less; I had one longer than you were with Becky! Give this guy a break. Give anybody a break. Did I ever tell you about Len’s letting me cook, once in twenty-five years, for a dinner party since he had been out of town till the night before? It was my chance at last to shine in our, really his, kitchen. With our closest friends. I rummaged through old cookbooks and concocted recipes in my sleep. I had it organized to the minute: reheated the mini goat cheesecake first course, then on to the stuffed crown of pork, blah blah, and Len takes his fork and starts tapping his wine glass, louder and louder. ‘Well, this food will turn to ice if you dawdle one more second,’ he yells, shutting up our loudest friends. ‘Let’s go out,’ he barks again, not joking. I lay it all out beautifully and he bolts from the table. ‘My stomach’s gone sour,’ he groans.” Silence on my end, then I managed, “Sorry, pal.” “I admit I was the mother of all masochists. I tried with all my might to make it work with Len. I loved him. I didn’t even care he was sleeping around. I hoped it would pass. It just turned him into more of a monster. Nothing as bad as Dad dragging me to the car,” Barry added under his breath, “threatening to have the doctor castrate me, the limp-wristed one.” “What?” He brushed it aside. “The bottom line, Peter, is we’re all flawed. Wills sounds like a gentle and good man. At least seduce him to Vermont. Maybe here, with your howling winds and wood smoke and dog poop, he can get down and dirty.” “Why aren’t you living next door? We could have dealt with this over morning coffee.” I truly wish that were so. “You said his fridge was gleaming but empty. Frozen vodka and gourmet takeout. Just cooking him a meal—meatloaf!—could propel you onto a whole new course. And he’ll swoon over Fred if his veins carry anything other than ice water.” “We were tiptoeing around, out ‘polite-ing’ each other. But I feel his hauteur is by nature and not an affect. It was calming to be with Wills, the French English cosmopolitan, after us let-it-all-hang-out Yankee boors.” “Go for it,” said Barry, “but, please, in second gear.”

*

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*

The lake, frozen solid through March, had mostly thawed. On one slab of lingering ice, a family of bald eagles came to fish. Mother eagle, I learned, was the fisher, as the eaglets hovered overhead in awkward figure eights. And papa eagle, wearing his royal, white ermine cape, preened over the guts and remains

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of the first catch, ready for the next, the others waiting upon his satiation before claiming their repast. Blood within view of the causeway had splattered the scene like a Jackson Pollock. Now, in transition to spring, fish heads and bones were encapsulated in gray chunks of ice that would persist another month. Whatever will Wills think of this playground of barbarity? Meanwhile, I debated over food, my wardrobe, the china, and finally another candlefuck dinner. As Barry suggested, Wills’s frosty demeanor could be poised for just the right meltdown.

*

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*

“You’re in great shape,” I said to Wills, settled with Fred and drinks before my mammoth, gray stone fireplace. “I try—to stay healthy,” said Wills, blushing. “I see you take a horde of pills. Me, too—lycopene, gamma tocopherol not just ordinary vitamin E, anything remotely purported to fight prostate cancer.” “Speaking of good health, I’ve never breathed such crystalline air.” “I have an extra pair of boots. Tomorrow morning—super exercise tromping through the still-frozen reeds.” Wills squirmed, sipped, and avoided eye contact on this occasion by admiring the teal gray armchair fabric. Will he stay a second night? He’d sensibly insisted on one, not to intrude; “It’s just two hours from Montreal.” “So. Where did your dad serve in the diplomatic corps?” “Oh,” hesitated Wills, scanning the framed watercolors of Lee’s over the cedar-plank mantel. “The Mediterranean, Iberia mostly. Sri Lanka. All over, really.” He fondled the Turkish throw pillow. “And you and your sister trekked along? Is that how you obtained your fluency in so many tongues?” “Hmm.” “Must not have been easy, not rooted in England and the familiar.” “Peter.” Wills faced me squarely. His pale brown eyes shone straight into mine. “I haven’t fleshed out more of my background, well, because I’m not especially proud of it. It’s what I fled.” I stiffened. Instant intimacy from ugly Americans. My wine glass was on zero. I didn’t move a muscle. “My father, actually, is still living,” he addressed the flames. “Well into his eighties, but every inch the commander in chief.” He swallowed a good belt of spirits instead of his prim sip. I held my tongue.

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“My mother, yes, she is gone. Gwendolyn, too. And Father, he wasn’t so much an ambassador as a major general in the Royal Army. He and Mother came from families of means, she especially: Irish barons. He didn’t have to serve, and certainly not for so long, but he felt it was a man’s—a gentleman’s— role, coming from such privilege. His father, his brothers, and his uncles were derelict. And then me, a pansy in the making, unbeknownst to us all. Believe it or not, I was rather an armored tank at rugby. But studying the fine arts … well, when Mother passed away, and I had to confront him—” “Over your sexuality?” “Eventually. At first, it was my choice of the Royal Academy after Cambridge. He threatened to cut me off and arranged blind dates with debutantes, then lost it when I turned thirty-three, thirty-seven, whatever, with no fiancée. You gather he’s a man with a short fuse.” “What came next?” I fetched the bottle for refills. “I told him I was homosexual and leading my own life.” Wills sagged into the goosedown. “Then?” I prompted. “He said, ‘Fine, but not in this house, London, or the British Islands. I’ll release your share of your mother’s estate, but I never want to see or hear from you again. That probably won’t be for very long, since I’m sure this will kill me.” “But it didn’t, yet,” I said, in awe. Wills shook his head, with its severe military cut, I noted. “I’m not sure. I’m no longer in his will; it’s all going to another World War II monument.” I sat closer and put my arm loosely, then snugly, over Wills’s shoulders. Fred’s tail hit the floor repeatedly, anticipating action. “Incredible,” I said, although it was a replay of Walter, my first blind date, whose coming out really did kill his dad. “I’m quite accepting now of my solitary state. You were sweet to suggest that I too create—my garden, my home—but I’m simply a medium. I hope to do some good.” He stopped. “I help out at the AIDS center. I’ve built a home for …” He gestured to the twisted timber chandelier, embarrassed now in the spotlight. “Go on, Wills. This is fascinating.” “I’m leaving my estate to Canadian AIDS groups. The art, of course, I love but it’s just more of the moat I live behind.” I lit the candles; put on a CD of sexy Madeleine Peyroux; dished up mountains of spicy food; poured white, red, and the sixty-dollar bottle of Italian dessert wine I’d been saving. I slathered my creamy dacquoise with Kahlua. Wills became jolly. We scampered in the icy outdoors with Fred, the moon painting Lake Champlain as a sheet of shimmering mercury. We sliced the silence by singing “Moonlight in Vermont” off-key.

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I was indifferent to the impending sex. If ever someone sold himself short, in courage, in reinventing himself, it was Wills Sandridge. He’s handsome, intelligent, aloof in the most seductive way—what more do I want for starters, a second date? So what if he brushes his teeth after sex to avoid exposing gums? So what if his obsession is one entire wall of Bach CDs, “every one ever recorded.” Barry, damn him, I thought while shoving dishes in the sink as Wills was likely sitting to pee in the john; Barry is right on about my being so fucking judgmental, insisting upon virtues outside myself, microscopically, and finding every fault. I like all kinds of things about this man. So he had Renee Fleming in his home for a private recital during her concert tour; it was to raise money for the AIDS group. Theater, travel, his life with masterworks—it’s not selfish; it’s his foundation upon which he’s built a world of his own, and have some fun! At fifty. I’d be damn lucky to tag along. I undressed and arranged bedside towels. Again, Wills was reluctant. Again, I played master of ceremonies. Again, Wills slipped from bed seconds after coming to wash up. I fell asleep inspired not by a heretofore undiscovered plume of purple in the vast sky, but a vision of a soul in other flesh. Maybe at last I’m wising up. In the morning, Fred nuzzled me; he was no longer sidelined on the floor. The bed was otherwise empty. “Wills?” I called, to no avail. The house was toasty warm, yet I was suddenly chilled. A handwritten note lay on the slate kitchen counter: Dear Peter, You are the kindest of men, the greatest hand at hospitality. Thank you for making me so welcome in your home, and splendid it is. I’d be content in a shack on this heavenly slice of earth. I’m happy to say your paintings do it justice. I am thrilled for you and Elena that seven were sold at the opening, with others pending. Please forgive me for departing in haste. It’s simply easier for me. I know that’s selfish, but I need all my wits these days to deal with my HIV infection and prior ailments and to hopefully maintain my current well-being. For several summers in the ’80s, I was one of a group of ten—musicians, physicians, an architect, attorneys—who rented a house on Fire Island. I’m the sole survivor. The medicines are having continuously less effect. I am now fine with this, but please understand I’m unable to commit freely to another, attractive as you are. My heart is elsewhere, somewhere truly at peace for the very first time.

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Again, please forgive my tardiness in telling you more of my personal situation before accepting your good invitation to Vermont. I probably should have skipped the drink at the Ritz and corresponded endlessly with you by mail, envisioning our meeting in an anticipated but never quite realized future, like Chekhov’s three sisters dreaming of “Moscow.” I wish you all the best in your search—on and off canvas, so to speak. Hopefully you’ll join me and Elena and Michelle and a few friends at a celebratory dinner at my place at the conclusion of your show—catered, of course!—and to view a new acquisition. As ever, Wills Panic scalded my ears. Was I exposed? With Wills, who seemed clean as a whistle? Thinking of yourself; what about this good man? I exhaled and counted my blessings.

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I was contacted by a gallery in Dallas that was associated through friendship with Elena’s in Montreal. Both sought more work. I was in no rush. I was digesting the comments from Dr. Kramer, my New Hampshire urological surgeon, over the doubling of my PSA. “At zero point two, it’s still microscopic,” said the doctor, his lips pressed into a tight smile that said, We’ll tough this out. “But it is twice the zero point one you’ve maintained for several years. We’ll test every three months from now on.” I shut off my emotions. “Tell me about testosterone ablation, if it comes to that, Hal. I understand it’s very effective.” Hal Kramer sucked air through clenched teeth. “Fine for some, but for you, Peter,” He shook his head. “It can bring on hot flashes worse than a woman in menopause, plus shifting and softening of muscle mass, and sagging breasts. With all your upper-body development from swimming, it’d be devastating. Plus fatigue, depression, and possibly diminished cognition.” I ignored the fear girdling my belly. “There are several vaccines coming along,” he went on. “Labs the world over are racing, with billions to be made. In fact, in trial states there’s a drug—actually a rhinovirus—that specifically attacks prostate cancer cells. The only side effect is a runny nose.” My spine slumped from its ramrod stiffness. “That sounds positive.” “Don’t get overly upset every three months,” said Hal Kramer. “You’ll be tested for the rest of your life. Now if it rises to zero point three, we’ll consider the next step.”

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“Yes,” I said like a trooper. “Everything okay with your erectile—” “Oh, yes,” I interrupted. “Viagra suits you?” “Yes,” I lied, unable to come out to the doctor and explain I was fine without the drug since penetration was not key; plus, I refused to admit to myself that I came in anything less than full strength. Barry gave me a pep talk. Driving home from New Hampshire with Fred snoring on the back seat, I was obsessed with my disease. Oh, just swim and eat tofu and get back to work. As if it could be that simple.

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I corresponded with Barclay, a Yale PhD candidate whose ad I had answered, him describing himself as a “Zennist-Buberian-Messianic grounded in reality as a choreographer-philosopher.” Finally, an intellectual, I’d thought. “His ego’s so big he could have his own zip code,” said Barry. “You’re lucky he wasn’t an ax murderer.” “That’s what Julie fretted about when she instructed me to go online. ‘Dad, don’t rush in,’ which is what I was trying to do with Barclay. Play along. He seemed a lovable maniac.” “Right,” Barry hissed over the phone, “like Jim Jones.” He paused. “Really, Peter, you can be such a chameleon. Just because some quirk catches your fancy.” “At least I’m trying.” “With a threesome? Barclay saying he’s into ‘serial monogamy,’ whatever the hell that means?” “I know. The Yale thing. I mean, how often do you meet somebody who’s rereading Plato?” “I’m glad you let me see them, but in every letter, dearie, some bomb was dropped. ‘Resist AIDS—eat macrobiotic,’ as if it’s all in the mind.” “Barclay is all in the mind. It was an interesting episode.” “You were leading him on.” “My heart goes out to artists. Aren’t most of them mad?” “You often are.” “Reinventing the world—a dance philosopher!” I argued. “I’ll give him credit for not being enslaved by his own looks—all that rot.” “Excuse me?” “My point! You’re like zillions of gays: looks are all you think about.” “Easy for you to say, pal. Your face could be on the cover of GQ.” “Oh, Peter. You’re a face man, a pec man, a penis man—”

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“Don’t forget I’m horny.” “That’s another thing, how you led him on. Barclay stated quite bluntly that he usually can’t get it up, that what pleases him is to do the pleasuring. Which would work for you, maybe halfway through a one-night stand.” “I was trying to be open to a serious connection, a friendship, and let the sex happen or not.” “That hallucination doesn’t even merit a response.” “Maybe I miss the city? Any city.” “We’re going to New York twice a year. MOMA, Cherry Jones, Picholine, me, what more do you want?” “So my heart wasn’t in it. But my head was. Here I’m paging through my college copy of Kant!” “What did you write him about Becky? Does she still plague you?” “Reverberate is more like it. Until you, she was the most important person in my life. She’s in half my dreams.” “So she’s an archetype, not a person. You’re always projecting your buried good onto her. She’s hardly a saint, Peter. Maybe you should see a shrink. You could peel off that crud and discover a normal, loving friendship with her. I’m sure it’s no fun for Becky, being regarded by her ex like some earthbound Athena.” “I still think she’s beautiful.” “She is. She’s gorgeous. But so what?” “True. I keep falling for qualities in others I deny in myself. Wills, the sophisticate …” “I’m not right, Peter, just observant. Hopefully I learned something from my soul blasting by Len. You can’t be as smart yet. You’ve had it too easy, like with Rebecca.” “Well in your case, anyone would be ideal after that egotistical monster. By the way, you never finished telling me about your fortieth birthday party a decade ago.” “My horror stories probably keep you feeling sorry for me and thinking you hold a solid rank as my protector.” “For the sake of science.” “Okay.” He drew a breath. “So Len decides we have to make of my fortieth a major deal. The dream for me would have been the two of us on a faraway island, or even a downtown motel. But I’m flattered he’s paying attention, so I said okay. I suggest some names, slipping in a few folks that were just my contacts. ‘No, no,’ he says, ‘we must invite him and him and her and her.’ It turns into a showcase for his cookery, his friends, two dozen of them, many I don’t know, likely including some of his tricks. I speak up. Len explodes. We fight. At the last minute, he calls it off and books a room at a restaurant. ‘You stay home,’

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he says. ‘I’ll tell them you’re sick. Which you are, you know.’ He storms off and I eat some leftovers, fingering cards from uncles and aunts, tapping the kitchen table. I was actually relieved.” I let this sink in. “It’s hard for me to grasp this other person you were for twenty-five years. You always tell me what you think without blinking.” “I was madly in love with Len. You, I only love. Which is another fact of life I keep trying to hammer into your skull so you can tell the difference and don’t get yourself butchered or infected one of these days.” “All right, I can believe you were that masochistic, because you’re basically so caring of others. But I have a harder time digesting—because you are such a wuss—that you survived, that in fact you’re tough as nails.” Barry laughed. “This can happen when you’re raised a Catholic. You have to reconcile faith and disbelief from day one.” “Seriously, I’ve never heard of a situation so inflicted with malice.” “You really are out of it, sweetie. Right under your nose. Allison’s suicidal lover, for starters.” “Let’s limit it to an adult, same-sex relationship.” “My birthday debacle was nothing. Len had been sneaking boys home for years.” “While you’re working your butt off.” My impatience was near boiling. “The tricks often greeted me; they assumed it was open between us. The last few years, I know I told you, he asked me to move down to the cellar so he could claim the entire ranch floor as his playpen. I’d chomp salad and stare at the evening news.” “You were so stupid!” I erupted. “Yes, I was stupid, a slow learner, but I do believe I now have a grip. I never told you one of the worst things that ever happened with Len, when my college roommate Paul came for a few nights. He was gay, of course; we’d bonded like twins during freshmen orientation week. Paul flew from Minnesota, heartbroken after splitting up with his partner of seven years. He and I had a talkathon and crying binge. I think Len was jealous. Anyway, we gave Paul the guestroom. On the second night, I was awakened in the cellar. I definitely heard voices, very soft, and some floorboards creaking. Probably Paul bumping into Len on the way to the john. Next morning, Paul rides with me to work; he says has to get out of the house. You know Len had some so-called consulting business based at home. He never earned a dime. So, Paul starts sobbing. I have to pull off the road. He confesses he and Len had sex, pleads for me to forgive him. I’m in shock. He says Len came into his room and said he needed to talk; that he was miserable, that I wasn’t interested in sex, or didn’t find him, Len, attractive

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anymore—of course, the total opposite was the case. Len was heartsick, but he could charm a snake—Paul simply put his arm around Len, and one thing led to another. By then I was outraged, humiliated, and I drove Paul directly to the airport—he had packed his few things, but I hadn’t noticed. I went straight home to confront Len, and he readily admitted it was true, except he said it was Paul who came into his room—here, let me show you the sheets!—and, by the way, your college fuck buddy has one hell of a dick—why did you ever give him up? Of course, Paul and I were never lovers, which Len knew perfectly well. So Len crashes out of the house, shouting that once again he was falsely, hysterically, accused by me. I gather Len’s bed linens—I did all the laundry—and yes, there was the evidence. I’m brain-dead by this point and collect the sheets from the guestroom, and the things there were equally soiled, but I have no reaction. My self-esteem could not descend any lower.” Barry sighed, to punctuate the silence from my end of the phone. “So you see, darling, your love letters from the space station—kids’ stuff. I shouldn’t reprimand your lapse of moxie. You need to stay upbeat—okay, Pollyanna naïve—to combat your cancer. I’m not kidding now.” “I love you, Barry.” “You’re supposed to say that when we hang up. I’m not finished. I didn’t tell you how super is my boss Suzanne at the agency—nirvana after the men’s store! I had no idea New Hampshire was this hip about funding child welfare.” “Very cool. Plus your fabulous new salary and benefits.” “I know. My view as a Head Start director of bureaucracy was so demoralizing. Anyway, she’s retiring in two years and said I’m a top candidate. I’m witnessing so many people get a new lease.” “You’re the one with the new lease.” This he brushed aside. “I wouldn’t mind catching that piano recital at UVM.” “Sorry, I’ve been distracted this summer.” “I love you, Peter. Now check your trash for the Lane Series brochure you tossed.” “Are we done? Fred and I need to take a leak.” “Wait. How is our Fred?” “The doctor said the cataracts aren’t too bad, yet. He’s stopped swimming, but he races along the ledges so he still can keep an eye on me.” “That makes two of us.” “Barry?” “What?” “I love you. I needed to say it again.”

YEAR NINE

Chapter 14

G e r al d i n e

I always thought of her as a caged bird fighting for freedom. She wore jungle colors that were totally out of her element in the slums of New York or the look-alike Jersey suburbs of my youth. Her lipstick was parrot orange or scarlet, which suited her shrieking. No, she was more like a parakeet, daintier, forever chirping but still brilliantly feathered. Geraldine took a course in fashioning costume jewelry—the brighter and more gaudy the better. For years, she spent every spare hour in our cellar craned over her creations, belting out show tunes in homage to her idol, Ethel Merman. Her thumbs and forefingers would piece together the rhinestone hairpins, with her pinkies aiming in the other direction so as not to mar her newly applied hot cherry nail polish. She peddled the pink glass earrings and sparkly purple bracelets to her gal pals in the mixed bowling league to supplement her minimum wage as a taxi dispatcher. “The grime, the stink of that office—I swear, those guys never saw the inside of a shower, but ya gotta love ’em, just like us, tryin’ to make ends meet.” I leafed through my sketchbooks of various models as a break from the intensity of my ever-larger oils. The pages of drawings I’d done of my mother a decade back had never been converted into an oil portrait. True, she couldn’t sit still, but basically she couldn’t stop talking, and usually in the negative. “That girl of yours has a mouth on her. I love her to death, don’t get me wrong, but, boy, if I ever addressed my father that way, he’d have made a Mack truck of his fist across my fanny.” She’s been dead for years; it might be interesting to attempt to pin her down on canvas, I thought as I surveyed my flighty charcoal sketches. I could be an entomologist trapping my long-sought-after butterfly. But now that she’s at peace, as am I (at least regarding her, so I like to think), what would be the point?

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I remembered my choice of charcoal, edgy but a medium I could smudge, rather than using color pencils or watercolor washes. I’d been hoping to go beyond the flash and dizziness and prattle to something residual, irreducible as fossil, which of course lurks in me as well. Julie, too. Less so Derek; he’s more like his practical mom. I concentrated on the gaps between dashed lines for a clue to the whole, the whole that I couldn’t recognize, or articulate if I did. I knew, even then, when she was near her demise and I was well out on my own, that the cord was thick and firmly in place. That, at least, was obvious from my having strained, given our ongoing war, to depict her in the flush of merriment, several rye and gingers under her wasp waist, squeezing and kissing and bellowing with laughter, seeing the bowling club guys and gals out the door after hosting a bash. I closed the sketchbook. Another portrait that did not need a live model. Will I portray her as might Francis Bacon, one crazed eye drilling into space off-center, the other blank or misshapen or missing altogether? Even a more kindly version in the spirit of Larry Rivers or Alice Neel would too easily dement her, make of her a caricature, a cheap shot at oversimplification. And Geraldine was not a simple person, to herself and certainly not to her son. I could tell I was getting hooked, needing to be hooked, my latest PSA having inched up a tenth of a percent. There’d been almost too much ballyhoo over my Montreal show. If anything could clip my wings, it was this woman. Wasn’t it Lillian Hellman who said it was only after her mother had been dead ten years that she realized she loved her? I laughed to myself and glanced out my large studio window at the translucent lake. The chuckle was prompted by a New Yorker cartoon I’d never forgotten. The sketch was of a public statue of a grand marshal or general with the proudest of puffed chests, one hand tucked behind his back, the other pointing out and beyond the vanquished enemy. The epitaph read something like: “Soldier, Statesman, Author, Patriot, But Still a Disappointment to His Mother.” I flopped into my old easy chair. I was in no hurry to paint her; if anything, I wanted to stretch this out. A part of me was ready to dash Geraldine off, be done with her, as I’d attempted to do all my life. I took a deep breath, not simply to get a grip, but to drink in the tranquilizing smells—the oils, solvents, varnish, the narcotic elixirs of my studio. Instantly I was back in first grade, when the teachers would announce “art period” and break open the vaulted door to the semiprecious supplies. Memory was olfactory above all, yes? The rich vanilla whiffs of construction paper were even more intoxicating than the fibrous touch of the generous, thick weave of public school paper in those days. I was convinced that I had sucked and chewed and swallowed crayons from

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infancy. The peach fuzz of my boyhood forearms stiffened with anticipation even before the teacher made the announcement and merely gestured at the art closet door. The pungent aromas of the various pastes and heady glues: is there an erotic charge to all this, still, that keeps me voluntarily entombed in my studio, day after day, year upon year? Is Geraldine the latest excuse? Her portrait will certainly put this to the test, the studio as sanctuary and utter escape, as opposed to its purported goal of examination without remorse. I stood and thumbed through blank canvasses. Small … large … midrange … Does it matter? Whatever size, with this one I’ll never have the last word. Nor should I. What is there without mothering, without parenting—perhaps someday, without fathering? No, this one’s for you, Mom. I’ll try, best I can, to keep you center stage. I saw malachite green, cold and hard, as I assembled my palette and squeezed tubes. Lime greens, pissy yellows, some murky grays, but green was indelible. Once it hit watercolor paper, for sure, but even on this linen surface, greens had a way of staining, for better or worse. Chartreuse. Blinding as the belly of a hummingbird in bright sun, darting, heart flipping a million beats a minute. I began.

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You know, all the kids in high school thought I was from Upper Montclair, not the seediest slice of Maryville. I never knew how you did it, outfitting me in cashmere sweaters—of course I didn’t know what cashmere was at the time—while the other boys were clad in flannel shirts from Robert Hall on the strip in Paramus. But your clothes: from those discount mazes the size of a football field with the chemicals that stung my eyes. You looked like a showgirl in a shocking yellow scarf, but I knew darn well your shift was from the basement of S. Klein-on-the-Square. Despite or because of your birdlike size, you’d elbow through those ladies during the monthly going-out-of-business sale, everyone bolting downstairs like greyhounds when they opened the doors. Shouting! I burned with humiliation when you bragged at snatching up a two-buck prize from the squall. I painted swirls of clashing colors; I was way too distracted to find her face. Don’t worry, Mom, there’s going to be Payne’s gray aplenty soon enough. How interesting that the bright reds you sported were accentuated by their opposites: bleak, disturbed, desperate, or black. I identified with you instantly, at least overlapped like shingles of tar. Dad always said how I’d not stopped howling my entire first year, that it drove him to yet another moonlighting job so he could catch some sleep on the bus ride back. I knew right off there was something fundamentally wrong with the world; in other words, yours. Ours. It wasn’t so much a deep-

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seated pain I internalized as a bedeviled ambition to fight, to make it all right, even though the odds were so stacked against you. Three miscarriages and then me. I knew we were different from other mothers and sons before I could speak. I seized upon my mission to man our fortress in the making. It was so regal a post, until that day when you and Dad huddled in the kitchen with the doors closed, which they never were. We had no privacy in our second-floor flat. But kids know, kind of like mothers, when there’s something in the air. I was prepubescent, eleven or twelve. The thrill of my life was Halloween: make-believe, anything goes. Sound familiar, Mom, with your marble-sized, ersatz pearls? “There’s something about him; it’s not right,” you said. “Well, he can’t catch a ball, let alone throw one,” grimaced Dad. My heart stopped. My ear was so pressed to the kitchen door I thought you might hear the blood thrashing in my head. “One of his testicles hasn’t dropped,” you said, anxious as ever, now about this. “He walks like a girl,” he said. “But he’s so tall and gangly,” you said, “and sure that’ll change, pray God.” “I think you should take him to the doctor’s,” said Dad. “I mean, Jesus, Gerri, he was Aunt Jemima last year, and here he wants to dress up like her again? Those skirts.” Now, it’s all in dehydrated history books, as consequential as leftover soup, eaten or tossed, surely you’d agree, from this vantage point? I allowed the barest of dark lines with a pencil-thin brush atop the morass of competing colors. They suggested an eyebrow here, a fingertip there. Let’s just bag a lifetime and cut to the chase. You outlived the bowling league brawls, shriveled further, and turned gray. Your only kid’s marriage was crashing to a halt. I thought you’d be thrilled, a parting gift: at last, he’s leaving that woman. But sadly, you were left without work and without your husband to shove around. He could never match you in jousting, so I tried to shut you up. Gerri, honestly, I thought that’s what you always wanted. My distancing myself from you, year by slogging year, I figured would give you a good bone to gnaw on, or some resistance. I fancied myself a grinding stone to keep you on your toes. But on the other hand, when things were shaky for me, I watched you downshift to muck and misery. If I wasn’t successful, it was all your fault, dashing all your dreams. God knows I didn’t know what I was doing at the time, but somehow the message I received from Dad was: Go your own route, Peter. She’ll still be squawking even if you become president of that Madison Avenue slick-works and keep Becky and six kids in cashmere and then some. I expected my ditching convention would feed you all the more with worry over my fate, which was your reason for being. Worry you perfected to a trace of a raised eyelid here, like that—hardly a stroke of my finest line, becoming stoically silent, nary a whisper, let alone a screech. We’ll always be collaborators, Mom, since you taught me to be shrill when

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I found it advantageous, which, frankly, was a welcome antidote to Dad’s reticence. I often wonder whose advice sunk in deeper. Dad said, “I don’t care what you do with your life, Peter, as long as you’re happy.” Your edict: “I don’t care what you do, Peter, as long as you make something of yourself.” I chose one over the other, but hopefully you’re not overly thwarted that at age fifty-three, stranded with an old dog on an island in the middle of nowhere, I’m having the time of my life. I painted away, furiously, gloriously, on basically an abstract canvas. Lines, faces more or less, seven or eight of them, vaguely my mother, began taking shape. Clearly I was in thrall to my recent years of bold or soft colorscapes with minimal composition. I’ve gone back on my word, Mother. I’ve been doing all the talking. This linen’s been reduced to a sounding board. I promise to do you justice. But when you think about it, I never did stop talking to you, albeit in my head. You encouraged me to be creative, duplicitous, to please you and please myself. Don’t they say women and gay men have much in common? We’re allies in guile and stealth, ultimately holding the trump cards in manipulating our worlds. Be happy, Geraldine! You could have had a straight son who did nothing but honor and obey you; a clone! I so hoped you were beaming at that one reviewer from McGill of my oils, “Bauman gives ether the substance of a rock.” I mean, is my head still swelled? And yours? I know, you only think about another hundred grand in my bank account, but still. I do wish you’d been there in the flesh and not just hearing my regurgitations about it now. The diamonds, Gerri; the odd huge emerald at the opening, they were real. I said I would cut to the quick. I’m sorry, but you do inspire a soliloquy. So, finally, I came out to you, me all of forty-three: big oaf tackles hundred-pound crone in pink housecoat. You and Dad were freezing at an inspection of my new bachelor pad. It was seasonally sunny on the Gulf Coast, but raw November in Buck Hill, New Hampshire. Why ever did I coax you there from your warm sands, the two of you like inexplicably beached whales, bloated, gasping for breath but basically content. Your life of navigating forever choppy waters was now at a standstill. Dad was out fetching a new book of crosswords and I seized my chance. I sat you down on the kitchen stool opposite me at the butcher block, eye to eye. Who’s leading which lamb to slaughter, I thought, my balls turning to mush. “Mother, I’m gay. I’m fine, I’m dating, Becky’s great, the kids are great, but this you should know about me, certainly if you’re to be a guest in my home. For two weeks. Or whatever,” I said, fumbling and looking away. You started to sway. I thought you were going to fall off the stool. I rushed around to grasp your fragile, brittle shoulders. Your eyes watered but were unable to blink. “Don’t touch me,” you said. “I need to lie down.” You struggled to breathe.

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Cruelly, I said, “Your last visit here, with your friend Trudi, I overheard you bashing Barry, whom you’d met many times and with whom I was having dinner that night for a break. ‘Do you think he’s a gay?’ you said to Trudi, referring to Barry. ‘He looked like a swish to me,’ she said. ‘That sort turns my stomach rancid,’ you agreed. Well,” I went on, “do you realize how many people you know are likely homosexual?” “Don’t use that word,” you said. “Uncle Henry, one time in that ‘Wilde For You’ T-shirt, a true fop with his black pearl tie pin: he was never with a woman in his life!” Foolishly I attempted to slide in the knife between your tiny ribs of steel. Recklessly, I’m stabbing the blade at you point-blank, but missing. “And your nephew Brian,” I carried on, “volunteering for the seminary at fourteen, girls swooning over him, the handsomest kid on the block, caught applying mascara?” I started doing battle out of habit. So absurd, so for naught, and you practically fainting by this point. Finally I stopped, my frenzied appeal like trying to blast a ghost with a shotgun as if the enemy were corporeal. I helped you to bed in the guest room. You managed to say, at first with a stammer, then with gusto, “For God’s sake, whatever you do, don’t tell your father. This would kill him.” I closed the door. You laid prone and stared at the ceiling, hands at your sides balled into fists. You were trembling, but I could tell you would survive and knew you had far worse. So Dad returned, waddling now in his eighties, a slumped walrus to your Tinkerbelle to the last. He shuffled about until he found me in the studio pretending to paint. “Where’s your mother?” “In bed. She’s resting.” Off he went, to return moments later. “Christ, Peter, what happened while I was gone? Your mother’s sobbing, says she wants to go home right away. I’ve never seen her in such a state.” So I sat Dad down on the same kitchen stool and mouthed my spiel. I was a zombie by then, but that never silenced a Bauman. “Dad, I told Mom I’m homosexual. That I’ve probably always been, although I’ve loved women, but at this point in my life, this is the way I’m meant to be. I thought she, and you, should know, seeing as how we spend weeks together in Florida and here. It’s all water over the dam, as far as my own family and friends are concerned. I know it’s difficult for you to …” He slipped off the stool, spry, for him. I had run out of steam. Soaked in sweat, I was trembling myself. He came around the counter and put his arm over my quaking shoulder. “Peter, I don’t understand any of this, but your mother and I love you. What else is there to say?”

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Am I rubbing it in again, Mom? I don’t want to do that. I just need to say that you know and I know that Dad died a year later from pancreatic cancer and not from the loss of his son. You carried on for several years, chirping over your vodka tonics to new girlfriends who replaced the ones you outlived. It was such a wonderful leave-taking; me holding him in the hospice like the time he’d embraced me in my kitchen. I told him the time had come for the morphine drip, that the nurses said to talk to him even though he was comatose, that he could hear every word, though it was a few days beyond his capacity for a hand squeeze or a sclerotic twitch of one side of his mouth by way of reaction. While you were cheering up the drooling, sunken elders down the hall in their wheelchairs, I held Dad tight and told him I loved him, as Julie had taught me to do, to you, to him, to her, at the conclusion of every phone call since she turned a fervent fifteen. I thanked him, for the final time, for his simple gift to me to heed my heart’s calling, not put you down for your contrary advice but simply to acknowledge there are two sides to the coin. He’d unloaded UPS trucks until 2:00 am five nights a week in a godforsaken Newark warehouse, scraping to save for my college. He dropped out of Rutgers after one year, drank bathtub gin, and served for forty-four years as a file clerk in a Manhattan cubbyhole, one of ten thousand souls, his first gift to me as an example of what not to do. His heart leaped at my winning the full scholarship to Cornell, while you feared that an English major could wind up teaching brats in grammar school. He’d seen black and white teenagers copulating in the idle UPS trucks on their midnight breaks while he forewent his break to leave an hour earlier in the middle of the night. So I thanked him for the gift of my lifetime, the foam beginning to rise into his mouth and strangling his last shortened breaths. The real gift was your being in the hallway and my being there as his final next of kin on earth, and the privilege of witnessing his strength and tenderness while living, and his grace at their relinquishing. Suddenly I am no longer fearful of my time to come. Dad made it so natural, as it was for me to tell him it was time for him to go, and that all was good for me, for you, my family, my future. I’m just sorry, Mother, when you and I had our parting—so I could attend to one week of urgent work back in New Hampshire, leaving you in the ravages of breast cancer—I thought I’d see you once more, the very next week, in Florida. “Oh Peter, I love you so much,” you said, and I flinched. It was overpowering and so foreign to be talking straight to each other. It was too late for that. Plus, I assumed you would hang on for months, if not a year. Cancer grows so slowly as our metabolisms ebb. I was flying back the following week. Nevertheless, you and I both sensed

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this could well be it. I left you speechless at the door of your little house, with the nurse hovering respectfully in the background. You clung to your walker and formed your mouth into an “O” of agony. To distance myself, to deny the reality of your possible death, I gaped back at you and thought you’d perversely composed yourself like the unrepentant ogre swallowing his offspring in Goya’s “Saturn Devouring His Children” so that his power could not be passed on. In that moment, our last beholding the other, yours was the penultimate human face as an open wound when all is hopeless despair. I staggered at the shock of it, and still do. “Well, one more guilt trip for old time’s sake,” Barry said. “A barb that can never be retracted without ripping apart flesh.” You died the next day. I’m sure we have that in our power to do. But look at you now, Gerri. You’re a composite of a dozen faces, a myriad of moods—anger, anxiety, laughter, all of it. I stepped back; I’d been at this particular session morning, noon, and night. I’d forgotten to eat. I’d been heedless of Fred’s whimpers. Golly, Mother, I’ve made a mountain range of bright colors. Your nose and eyes are aiming in so many directions. Of course I’m not finished. I’m just getting my rocks off, so to speak, which includes the substance I’ve made of your butterfly emotions. Admit it Geraldine, at least for the time being, this canvas is a Mount Rushmore of women carved in obdurate stone.

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Geraldine emerged step-by-step on the easel. Over the many weeks, things had calmed down. The Mount Rushmore of faces was melding into one. She was to be ageless, the way the face of a loved one inevitably coalesces in memory into a single image, years after departure. The eyes, the nose, the mouth, the heart of the matter—can they really self-destruct like the carcass? I stroked mindlessly away, absolutely absorbed. Will I do Dad? What’s there to discover? I thought of this as a compliment. I think the peak experience, as Maslow would say, for me with you as my mother, was in your mother’s flat, somewhere in the bowels of Brooklyn. I was ten, standing tall in my new, white bucks and Easter tie and coat. I remember you were terrified of my shoes getting soiled in all the filth. You chattered a mile a minute and refused to sit down. “Mother,” you said, “we have just a quarter hour. We’ve got tickets for Call Me Madam in the far balcony, but I can’t miss a single note!” The damp, foul floor was littered with beer bottles. Pabst Blue Ribbon. I stood there bug-eyed with disbelief. The walls—I knew we were in a basement because we’d climbed down two flights and there were no windows—the stone walls were slimy, with strange insects sliding over them. There were rags and dirty towels on the floor instead of rugs.

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“Geraldine, for God’s sake, sit down! There’s a folding chair over there,” my grandmother slurred as if her mouth was filled with pebbles. I didn’t know how to address her; it had only been a few times that we’d met. The place stunk of pee and stale beer like the subway toilet I had to use coming over. I knew you were mortified because it wasn’t just your usual patter in overdrive; I’d never seen you so anxious to avoid any semblance of normal talk. Grunting, your mother managed to hoist herself out of her easy chair, which had collapsed to near flat from her bulk or the chair’s dereliction or both. Her gray hair was plastered to her head as if she were sweating, but I didn’t understand at the time she was so sick. She smoked and coughed the whole time, stubbing out her butts in a rusty coffee can half filled with putrid water. My final memory was the most piercing, but I didn’t know why. It was the crushed backs of her slippers, one foot plodding after the other, getting something for me—a trinket, a St. Christopher’s medal, something you later tossed. I wanted to hug her but was repelled by her stench. I felt so guilty, for years, for not touching her before you grabbed my shoulders and rushed us to the street. You were so worried about my white bucks, while I kept wondering, even through blasting Merman, why we hadn’t brought her some cough medicine, a clean housedress, at least a new pair of slippers with the backs intact.

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There was a streak of vivid orange now on her brow. The glare of Thalo green across the cheeks was there to stay, no question about that. How can orange and green be complementary colors on the wheel, yet look so disjointed in this oil? I paid this no heed and made no attempt to blend the fractious hues. So then, Mother, I sealed my fate. I was your staunch little knight, your savior, your prince. How proud I was to fill the bill. Into my teens and adulthood, I had no trouble excusing your excess. The louder you barked to your taxi drivers at your job, the more delighted I was at your outdoing Ethel Merman. The higher your heels, the more you would strut in and out of church, the more I glowed inside at my calling: salvation in the American dream. Your father died ages before my time. Even his dying of lung cancer, so you kept saying until you broke down and confessed, spiked my ambition that much more. My grandfather, a ditch digger in the Lincoln Tunnel at ten cents an hour, poisoned to death by toxic fumes? Unthinkable, my winning the Princeton Award in junior high as the boy with the most promise. You did it, Gerri; you lived most of your dream—except for my shortfall, no? The house was so tidy, if tiny, and not a true ranch. Ceramic cocker spaniel bookends, plastic rhododendron, pine-paneled cellar with an actual bar. When the kids were included in seasonal extravaganzas with the bowling club on the Jersey shore—pig

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roasts, steamers, clambakes, barrels of beer—I’d think back on your mother and father and swear we’d all gone to heaven. I’m not painting your Broadway billboard smile; that’s already imprinted for life, a slice of reassurance, to which I still cling, that you did not live in vain, that you overcame the horror at least enough to be able to laugh after a few belts of booze. No, if anything, this remembrance is all about grit, degradation, and reclamation rolled into one. I hope this is increasingly not me but you here at work. “Wops” and “spics” from the city started moving into the newest developments in Maryville, ever encroaching upon your paradise, which had been safe since my infancy from the Flatbush “kikes and coloreds” that you fled. The pendulum of my enthrallment inevitably began swinging in the opposite direction. The first Jews bought a house a block away. Soon there was a synagogue. “Oh dear God,” you groaned. Adam Weinert was my best friend by sophomore year. His father was a doctor—a heart surgeon no less. Some kids threw rocks through the new synagogue window, the big one with elegant, abstract stained glass and exotic symbols that thrilled me with their bravura, so unlike the pastel greeting card art in our neutered Lutheran-Methodist-Presbyterian hall. My heart sank at the smashing of that glass. “Serves them right,” you said. “Stick to your own.” I’d done colored pencil sketches of that window for art class. Some jagged, broken lines insinuated themselves around the eyes. Despite the fomenting of my own inner voice, I continuously forgave you. We visited one of your three brothers, remember, Uncle Tim in Long Island City that time? He had four kids and was penniless and palsied, but happy. He seemed overjoyed to see you—and me. His hand could never stop shaking as he tried valiantly to light his cigarettes, one after the other, tip to tip, as if he couldn’t suck them up fast enough. I rooted for him to do it without spilling ashes all over himself because it seemed that after his first deep inhalation, he was able, momentarily, to relax and steady himself. He called you Ger. I knew he loved you, even though you said your whole family never did after you left the Church and married a Protestant. Bauman. A kraut, no less. Your brothers didn’t come to your wedding because of that, but Uncle Tim, you made his eyes sparkle. Your kibitzing with him was for real and made me happy. Why are little boys such blotters for their moms? All boys, or just odd ones like me in the making? Surely it’s no different for little girls, with either parent in distress and hoping to make things right. Remember the holiday and birthday cards I constructed for you? Pop-out hearts and hugs, likening your wit to Jack Benny’s, your lungs to Roz Russell’s? Thank God I found and married Becky. I’m sorry it crushed you, she being a woman of independent mind. But by then, I’d figured out that every one of my

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prior girlfriends, third grade heartthrobs to Cornell, were all sass. Viper tongued. Slim and pretty. Just like you. They all poked fun at me, lovingly, usually. I was such an easy target, so earnest. It took me four decades to acknowledge they were all depressed, super bright, overeager, and trying to fill their hollow spots with flash, which evaporates. Look at me, love me. And I did. But they would enfeeble me and keep me uptight as a soldier at their disposal. Little did I realize that it was mostly the gay thing laboring for birth. I especially couldn’t handle beautiful and brainy girls who cavorted like airheads. Anything approaching my playing the opposite, macho thug, shot up the red flag. I did love women, still do, but our equipment simply doesn’t align. Ah, but with Becky, Bec, I took a quantum leap away and truly left you in the lurch. So where does this leave us, Geraldine? I can call you Gerri now and then, since at this point I’m mostly not your son but someone else. The boy sentinel’s no longer on active duty, just on reserve. Look at this. Do you recognize yourself? I have to subdue the color. I get carried away with that. You make it easy to do so, but it’s all surface and not what this exercise is about. Not to worry: I’ll never exhibit this or any of my portraits. Just stepping stones in my path. It does remind me of the self-portrait I saw at the Tate of Rodrigo Moynihan, one of the Queen’s finest. Realistic, in a slapdash way. The nostrils, like here, so telltale: how one is breathing, how one is. It’s the one place on the body, like a rabbit’s in the aim of a hawk, where tremors cannot be clothed. Thank God for the vodka, Mom. Usually it scared the shit out of me: uh-oh, here she goes, after two sips. You were delicate; you couldn’t help unleashing the tongue. “Let’s hope Julie outgrows her baby fat by forty.” “So what if Becky’s making tons of dough? Where does that leave you? I know, I’m an old b-i-t-c-h.” You said it, Gerri. And then on to, “She made you a gay. This is not what marriage was meant to be.” I’d long since left you, let alone forgiven you. Maybe that’s why, on our final visit, on your last drink to ease the cancer more than unload, you set the record straight. I knew your mother had no taste for you, the turncoat who gave her lip. I knew she completely adored your brothers, their Catholic wives, their Catholic kids, them picking up the baton of poverty rather than be upstarts and ingrates like you. I knew just looking at the few old photos at Coney Island taken by your friends that you saved, never ones of your family, that you were a total flirt. Anything was better than being slapped hard in the face and beaten by the nuns until your knuckles bled. “The Shanty Irish,” you’d croon, ad nauseam, with false price in your girlhood, further drowning me in guilt at my good fortune. I knew that you were “the apple of your father’s eye.” I figured out that he was drunk and unemployable by his midforties, as was your mother. It had been decades since she’d been a charlady for Mrs. Meyerwiez, “so generous for a Jew.” I knew they clung to the scrapheap of life and you were shaped by striving to have a real family. I just wish like hell,

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Mother, you didn’t wait until the bitter end to come clean, to no longer clutch to offal-besmirched Flatbush as the source of your shame. Shame, yes, in relation to Dad, to me, your new life in New Jersey relative to the Irish slums. But that you primarily fortified yourself with that: that your parents had no use for each other than to buy or steal beer; that he had sex with you from age thirteen; that he forced you to work nights at Solly Herman’s pharmacy at fourteen—he happily lied, to “a decent Jew,” about your age—so there’d be something to eat; that the boys were trapped in drudgeries of their own by then. No wonder you hustled us in and out of your mother’s squalid cave. It wasn’t just the squalor. She knew. She couldn’t have cared less. She’d been relieved. And you became pregnant and had an abortion at fifteen on a table in a greasy deli kitchen in the Queens. By yourself. With money you’d pilfered from the pharmacy job. Could you ever forget for one second? Did you need three miscarriages as a reminder? No. Only my becoming a queer did you in. My loss of income to devote my time to painting, Becky’s munificence: those you could handle. But I rue the day I told you I was gay, you perched on my kitchen stool and quivering like a high-strung bird on display with more than your nostrils flaring. Thank God you didn’t last so very long. Cancer killed you, but I think we can fairly say I was a good shot of morphine that hastened the end. You and I both knew, our last visit over vodka, that it was finally safe for you to confess your past. In our last moment together, I wanted to believe I loved you all my life and that my pulverizing guilt at leaving you there, seizing hold of your walker and fixing that grasping gape of agony, was ultimately offset by my heart bursting with pride. What guts in a weenie of a woman, hair dyed dime-store red until your seventies with shocking white at the roots, your fake pearls big as golf balls making true gemstones of your bright blue eyes, and your poison-chartreuse angora sweaterpants combo, garish anywhere but at a Florida shuffleboard park: you outlived it, Gerri. You were quite a dame, if not the Virgin Mother. Your shackles never showed. They were dragged along in the underworld by us both. Did you ever tell Dad? I doubt it. I hope not. The symbiotic churning of my guts was plenty enough of a kindred spirit. I can only hope. Am I finally lovable even though I’m happy and no longer needing you to be my incessantly clucking mother hen? Well, it’s over. And if I do say so myself, this painting is damn good. Laced with electric green, along with black-and-blue. The cage door’s flung open. The hummingbird’s heart is flicking at a thousand revolutions per minute. Soar, Geraldine, soar. Fly away, Mother, at last. Maybe someday I can, too.

YEAR TEN

Chapter 15

M r. N i c e Gu y

I clicked the mouse—never sure whether it should be once or twice. “Dad,” Julie had said patiently. “It’s crazy you’re not dating. There’s a whole world of men like you starting over.” “Damn,” I mumbled and opened another profile with answers to questions left blank: What are you reading? Where have you traveled? What’s in your fridge? The critical stuff. “Whatever you do, Dad, don’t reveal your full name, Vermont, or email addresses. I’m sure there are psychos out there—they’re no big deal, if you’re sensible.” Fred was whimpering. His breathing had become increasingly labored, and I strained to distinguish a short whine meaning time to trot outdoors. As Fred peed, I inhaled the frigid air. The stars glowed like shards of broken glass. The lake was eerily still, and there were no creaking insects, both signals of considerable cold still to come. I hadn’t shut down the computer. The monitor emanated a viper green florescent blur, insisting that the greater cosmos be acknowledged in this otherwise sylvan scene. Why bother? I’d filled out a profile on the Web site. If somebody’s interested, fine. If not, fine. For now, to bed, Fred, and book.

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I hadn’t painted seriously in months. My bank account was flush. I earned little and spent less. The house was handsomely furnished from the bonanza years of big sales. I had no desire to travel, especially after the slaughter of tourists at the Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut’s tomb. I followed Fred’s lead and ambled on walks each day, submitting to the lake’s moods of the moment. Fred 235

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slept while I read or was interrupted periodically by phone calls from Arlene, Allison, Becky, and others checking in. The bustle of their city lives was increasingly unfathomable. Mostly it was my children who were responsible for my malaise. Julie, now single, was busting her chops at a West Virginia work-study medical school so she could ultimately aid abused women. Derek, engaged to a natural blond symphony cellist, was teaching at Harvard Medical School. The faster their lives spun into their respective vortices, the more sluggish I became, as if it was their turn for hands at the helm. I stopped doing interval training by the poolside clock and swam my laps leisurely, with plenty of time to think of nothing in particular. Perhaps it was the solace of having Barry nearby, living and working at his new job in Burlington. Then, too, it was the doldrums of mud season, with forsythia, lilac, and tulips poised to bloom but holding off. Fed up with cruising online, I rented DVDs from a new Web site. I would never need a movie theater for the rest of my life. Imbued by the farmlands lining the Champlain Valley, I was gladly lying fallow. Wrong image; it implies another burst. Lost as one should be in Thomas Mann, I was startled, then annoyed, by my ringing phone near bedtime of a Tuesday night. “Hi. This is Ted Fellows. I live in Darby, Vermont. I found your profile but couldn’t answer. My computer’s on the fritz.” “Oh, hello,” I stalled. “You didn’t say much,” said Ted, “but since we’re practically neighbors—” A mellow, unassuming voice. I usually said something jovial, if not witty, in such a circumstance. I was not in the mood. “Darby. That’s on the west side of Route 7?” “It’s hill country. Beautiful views and removed from the craziness of Manchester.” “Oh, the factory discount outlets.” “Actually, I own one—an outdoor power equipment dealership.” This landed with a thud until I thought, how down-to-earth, cool, in fact: a gay man selling tractors to rednecks. I sat up. “Ted, wait a sec. How did you get my number and my name?” He laughed. “I was so frustrated at not being able to write back, I checked out the area galleries. You said you showed your work in one. And you were the only Peter I ran across. Hope I’m not being too—” “No. Good grief, at my age, why beat around the bush? This is better than coy correspondence, as in the days of Jane Austen.” “Jane who?” “I mean, it’s nice you called. I don’t think we have ax murderers in Vermont.”

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“Excuse me?” I explained Julie’s concern. Ted explained his choice to live in Vermont: access to ski areas, elbow room, and a good place to sell tillers, chain saws, stump removers, chippers, and his latest, a walk-behind field and brush mower. “With it, I’ve made my own network of cross-country ski trails.” “I gather you’re not a city type.” “I grew up near Altoona, PA. My parents are retired there. Dad was a Christmas tree farmer; Mom was a nurse.” “You sound like an ordinary guy.” “I’m ordinary, I suppose, but my life is incredible. Work five minutes from home—my home on a hundred acres. Charlie can run wild.” “Charlie?” His son; he’s divorced. “My chocolate lab. Named after Charlie Brown.” “How cute.” I regretted sounding condescending. “Actually, Fred is after Fred Mertz, the affable sidekick.” We chatted on. “Listen,” I said, “it’s getting late, but let’s talk again. You never know.” “Excuse me?” said Ted. “I meant, this has been fun. If you’re willing to share your number …” Ted did so, and we hung up. I sat on my bed in a stupor. Is he twenty-five? Seventy-five? Oh, shut up. He sounded like a very pleasant chap. Ordinary. Not a cellist, not a PhD. Neat that he doesn’t know Jane Austen. But a love interest? I flicked off the light and crashed, head upon pillow. Isn’t Barry enough? Life is so wonderfully numb, like the mighty lake now at rest before the next storm. So what if my hard-on is almost hard once again? We’ve had our fair share of flings, it and me. I drifted off, expectations shelved, as they should be by a man in his midfifties, as playthings of the past.

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“So, are you a Sox fan?” asked Ted Fellows at the start of our next visit by phone, which I initiated on a whim. Between the novels on my nightstand, I had glimpsed the number scribbled on a bookmark. I hesitated. “You mean Boston, not the ones in the Midwest?” Silence translated as stupefaction, catching Ted off base, as it were. “You’re more a doer than a spectator, huh?” inserted Ted politely, without a trace of irony. “The sports section goes right into the recycle bin. But I ski. Downhill.” “We should do Stratton sometime. Conditions are grim at the moment. But, hey, there’s a cross-country trail or two still open at the higher elevations. My own paths are turning green.”

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I tried to imagine this jock in the flesh. “By the way,” I said, “how long have you lived in Vermont? And where before that? How old are you?” It all slipped out. I’ll forever be the nosy New Yorker needing full disclosure. “The boring old basics. I’m forty-eight. Started working right after Lehigh— I was an engineering major—for a Caterpillar dealer in Williamsport, PA, close enough to the folks. Next I got my own repair shop for small engines.” I stared at the wall. “I have three siblings, all married, all near home in Pennsylvania. I’m an uncle seven times over!” “And they’re all cool with who you are?” Another disconnect. “Well, sure. Peter, I’m not into the gay scene. I don’t find it offensive or anything. It’s just not for me.” “You ever felt a debt to the screamers, or Stonewall?” “We all do our thing. I don’t hide it, but I don’t wear a badge.” “You sound rock solid, Ted.” “Compared to who, you? You have a dog. You live alone in the country and go about your business. You have family. We have a lot in common, seems to me.” This reached my groin. “You’re right. We both have acreage to control. That brush mower sounds nifty for whacking sumac.” Easy now. I’m done with blind dates. As Ted talked—attachments, power takeoff, new battery technology—all I heard was the affable tone of voice, oboe stalwart, not piccolo prissy. The guy’s sane, straightforward, and reaching out but content. The question is: Am I?

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Phone calls continued for a few more weeks; my patience did not. A time was set for lunch, with Fred, at Ted’s place in Darby a few hours south. Not exactly neutral turf, but it loomed as a chaste double date chaperoned by our dogs. The roads in Vermont at the end of April were reminiscent of my fleeting boyhood in Eisenhower America: pristine woods, hardly a car on the road, laundry flapping wistfully in the breeze. Wending my way along the gently curving hardtop, I found this leave from my routine oddly relaxing, a foray once again into fantasy. Is this flirtation of an idea—bliss only with another—its essence? Just an idea? Even if a coupling is consummated with a compatible soul, isn’t this very sidestepping of self the critical component for two to mesh? Short of the ironclad discipline of meditation or yoga or biofeedback, what was the point of partnership if not to create for the other this level of balm, or at least the occasional, serious, deep sense of reprieve?

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Dream on. I smiled to myself. Get ready to meet a real man, another person bursting with ideas and anxieties of his own, and daily if not hourly opportunities to clash out loud in our attempts to overlap. I neared the turnoff. The directions were simple, since the landmarks here were few and far between. The used Saab I recently acquired made its way over the deeply rutted dirt road, it being premature for spring crews to repair it. Fred worked his way slowly from slumber into a sitting position, sensing a destination. What the fuck am I doing? Ted’s spread sounded as simple but sumptuous as a page in Vermont Life, the state’s organ of seduction, as if one were needed to coax city folks to the sublime. The woods were so clean compared to my wind-battered island. These trees had been freshly pruned by marginal branches crashing silently to the forest floor under the weight of wet spring snow. The brooks gushed furiously, and the stones lining them were polished to a high gloss in the gleaming sun. My bay, by contrast, was a conflagration of driftwood, busted Styrofoam cups, broken bits of docking, and impedimenta from last summer’s Labor Day barbecues. Stands of evergreens saluted as I climbed a long hill; Ted had said the views were pretty great, and that I might want to visit sometime with my watercolors. I reached the end of the mile-long driveway often bordered by neat stacks of firewood. A culvert allowed cars to cross over a smaller, quietly bubbling brook. A field of grass, not mown since the prior fall but gemstone green with new growth, gave the impression of an estate, nothing fussy, just lovingly tended. At the mountain views, shimmering violet, I gasped. There were the small barns Ted had built, with stained brown vertical boards and subtle cranberry standing-seam roofs. No pretentious landscaping—just a hemlock here, some apples there. A vegetable garden, fenced in from deer and rabbits with sturdy posts and invisible chicken wire, was freshly turned and ready for the first planting of spinach and peas. A row of asparagus, tips barely poking through, was laid out astride another line of posts and wire that supported raspberry vines, last year’s tangle long since clipped. The Saab now crunched slowly over attractive gravel neatly contained to a car’s width. All this made the dwelling itself seem modest, an afterthought, and above all, a complement rather than a detraction from this marriage to Mother Earth. The house, too, was stained deep brown, with no colored trim, a plain dark red roof, and a huge, gray, stone chimney—its single concession to flourish. I marveled at the reverence “flatlanders” had brought to the state. This outpost was hidden to all except birds and those in a low-flying plane. Everything manmade appeared embedded in the soil, especially the house’s north side, a moss-covered berm.

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The car shook violently on the passenger side, opposite to where I’d been gawking. Fred warbled his bark as best he could. Claws scratched metal. I cringed at flashes of leaping chocolate brown. Ted jogged up from behind. “Charlie! Charlie, get down! Sorry,” he called through the windshield. “Still a pup at two. No damage to your door; we’re in luck.” I sat frozen an extra few seconds before reaching for the door. It wasn’t just Charlie with a fine chocolate mane. Ted had a full crop combed back in the obsolete but elegant style of ’30s movie stars. I also registered a scant space between the two front teeth, which, for some bedeviled reason, was unstoppably sexy. “What a spot,” I said on emerging. “Thanks.” Ted shook my hand. “I think Fred’s ready to be greeted by Charlie, now that you’ve got him by the collar.” Fred haltingly slid off the seat to the ground, both dogs’ tails wagging wildly as their black, wet noses bounced off each other like amusement park bumper cars. Charlie romped in circles, aware of but frustrated by Fred’s advanced age and limited capacity for frolicking. “They’ll be fine,” said Ted. “You picked a great day. We can go for a walk before lunch.” He turned and started toward the house. I followed as the dogs impatiently sniffed each others’ butts, eager to get to the fun and games. “You manage all this on your own?” “Yeah. Remember, I’ve got labor-saving machines.” He obviously spends all his time at this. But he contacted me. The house interior was lumberjack Spartan except—he was gay, supposedly— the wooden floors were spared of nudity by two hooked rugs. He had no curtains, but there was an old but undistinguished pine chest, a comfy, brow-beaten leather sofa, and dog toys galore. I eyed a beautiful, burled maple bowl, reassured. “Coffee?” asked Ted. “Had mine for the morning, thanks. What a view from this bay window.” I tried not to gush. The grand range of mountains was every bit as breathtaking as my lake. “This is a painter’s paradise. But why paint? Why do anything?” Ted let a flicker of confusion pinch his dark brown eyes. “It’s my labor of love. All work but all pleasure. Say, you up for a walk?” he added rhetorically. Soon Charlie was leading Fred at foraging through the underbrush as Ted stomped off in front, with me riveted on Ted breaking twigs underfoot and now and then tossing aside an errant dead branch. The icy air was punctuated by golden sluices of sunlight, which made their way to my neck and ears and hands. Ted was wearing only a faded jeans jacket, open at that. His cotton

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turtleneck had done what those shirts fortunately do—shrink from years of laundering to reveal more of the torso than intended or suspected—nicely so in Ted’s case. Remember: lunch only was the invitation, which is the sensible order of the day. You’re glued to his jockeying ass; he’s showing off his hiking trails carved by his walk-behind, self-propelled field and brush mower marvel. Get in step! Ted would toss a comment over his shoulder, without breaking stride, about the winterkill, the lightning damage, or his last bald eagle sighting. I prayed Fred’s weakening hindquarters could keep apace with Charlie, who expended thrice the energy dashing after chipmunks—as if he had a chance. An hour and a half later, we had circled back to Ted’s homestead. I was soaked in sweat. Fred’s tongue hung limp, the old pooch unable to retract it fast enough between gasps. “That was a workout!” I exclaimed. “You need to shower?” said Ted unflappably, as he directed his attention to the kitchen. “Thanks, no, I’m fine,” I said as Ted suddenly peeled off his clinging, damp turtleneck. “I’m just gonna wash up,” Ted said to the fridge. “Be right back. Make yourself at home. Ice water’s here in the jug.” He walked off. I wiped my brow with the back of my sleeve. The dogs crouched on the porch floor, Fred still panting. I downed a glass of cold water, clear as the intense cobalt sky, and sat in a padded rocker. Sun bounced playfully off every surface—wood, glass, stone—and harmonized the few fabrics and simple textures into a wonderfully marbleized mosaic. I wished Ted would take a few extra minutes to freshen up. I felt my eyes slide shut. I didn’t want to rush things; I didn’t want to move. Again I was bombarded by the young lab careening into the living room and leaping onto my lap, with Fred wagging along. Fred would positively crash for two days after this. Had I nodded off? Ted reentered wearing an oversized, rumpled polo shirt in the dastardly, hopefully short-lived fashion that had sleeves hanging well over elbows. All the more scintillating was the hint of upper chest as he twisted among containers and utensils. “I make my own bread,” said Ted, carefully sawing the loaf. “And I grow all the fruits and veggies I can. Turkey sandwich okay?” “Sure!” I answered, averting my gaze. We’d said practically nothing during the hike. It was as if all the crucial statistics—family, college, career—had been exchanged by phone and, far as this Ted Fellows was concerned, he and I could just get on with the business of making friends, or not. What remained to be said? Domesticity was never so

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cozily arranged. It was the very ideal of Western Man and what I’d striven for since fleeing the so-called Garden State. Some of us stay hidebound to the land, whether to avoid urban mayhem and create a retreat, or actively seek nature in the raw, that being the only way we can compose our poetry. And Ted’s impeccable Quaker-simple barns—if they’re not poetry, what is? Ted cleared his throat, and it was just that: not a premonition of speech. He sliced tomatoes with the delicacy of a diamond cutter. I did not feel excluded, but the reverse. I felt woven into a friendly web of unspoken complicity in the art of making lunch. Such strong, veined hands now juxtaposed to the paperthin slices of Bermuda onion shot an erotic charge up my long legs. The tenderness of this man unwrapping the lunch meat and assembling the wobbly ingredients after his forced march in the woods where he heaved logs and hurled rocks infused me with an admiration I reserved for those few souls who could integrate opposites, seemingly without effort. I was hypnotized now by his thick fingers placing fragile, glistening pieces of lettuce atop the rest. I was dissolving and materializing in the sun-struck vapor of the living room, seeing the kitchen, the cook, and the guest as a continuum, neither touching one another nor detached. “How about a beer? Early in the day, but, hey, I’m off from work,” said Ted. “And we hiked a pretty decent climb.” He often smiled without parting his lips. This time, he showed the crack between his teeth. I was smitten.

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We each had two beers plus brownies Ted confessed to making for the occasion. Small talk on small engines got us through lunch. We stretched out on lounge chairs, side by side on the open deck, where the midday sun felt more like the Fourth of July. “I should have brought sunblock,” I said. “I’ll get some,” said Ted, scooting off. Ted had revealed the nature of the old van parked under an open shed. He was a volunteer driver for the county’s elderly services agency. He had mentioned, during the last call before our meeting, that he’d had a lover for several years, which were unfortunately turbulent ones. Mitch was still in Albany; they had shared a house, Ted having moved his business there from Pennsylvania. It was from Albany that he moved on to Vermont, not a great distance, but a final break from Mitch. I took this news, along with Ted’s also volunteering as a town fireman, as proof of his level of commitment. They were likely a few of the odd facts in his depths that, like bubbles, would inevitably rise to the surface. Best of all, here was a life lived beyond power tools and canning jars.

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He’d returned recently to Altoona to help his parents through an illness, which said volumes. All this seeped into my system while I placidly viewed the shifting masses of purple and cerulean blue that shaped the mountain ridge above the woods. Arms folded, eyes glazed by the liquid mountainscape, I hadn’t realized Ted was standing at my side with a tube of sunscreen. I arose, clumsily, from my leaden position. “Thanks,” I said belatedly. Ted shrugged. “I’m afraid the damage is done. It’s deceiving; the sun at this angle’s so bright, yet so low in the sky. It’s almost about to set.” “It’s late,” I said. “The beer made me sleepy. And look at our hounds.” They were flat on their sides, eyes clamped shut. I stared at the dogs, so serenely collapsed. Ted stepped forward, hands at his sides, and placed a light kiss on my cheek. Slowly I turned to face him. Ted didn’t move. He grinned broadly, the tooth gap at full attention. I smiled but felt my lips retreat into a nondescript horizontal. Ted moved closer, touching his lips to mine as gently as his initial kiss. We drew apart. Ted let the sunblock drop to the deck. He reached for my hands and held them loosely. His deep brown eyes were now as simple and unflinching as his barns and earth-bermed house. His gaze held me tenderly, not possessively. “Peter, I think I’m falling in love with you. I say I think, because for me, well, it’s never happened before, love at first sight.” My knees started to buckle. I was speechless. All I could do, all I should have done, was to return Ted’s sweet kiss.

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We went for a walk hand-in-hand. An overnight stay was now assumed. The setting sun sent orange sparklers hurling among the leafless, black branches at the edge of Ted’s meadow. We crossed over one of his rough log bridges partially covered with wild grape. We talked of erosion control and alfalfa versus rye as a cover crop. The sun dropped, the mountains turned from deep vermilion to impenetrable black, and the chill swept forth. Ted put an arm around my shoulders as we strolled back toward the house, the place suddenly in shadow save for the glow from the fire Ted had set, which made a red corona of the big bay window. My mind had long since been blasted from further thought. I was beyond being aroused. That simple thing had come and gone dozens of times. In its place was utter relaxation. Ted and I would make love. I had advanced far enough beyond the early trials of sexual dysfunction that it barely crossed my mind. I no longer needed the little blue pill. Forty-eight and fifty-four. Hayseeds, yet men of means. It all flowed as naturally as the brook tracing the

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border of Ted’s lush meadow. Sultry heat from the crackling fire enveloped me as we headed to the bedroom. The dogs followed. “Charlie’s not used to this,” said Ted shyly, while showing no hesitation at disrobing. He gestured toward a chair where I could lay my clothes. “This is his bed, too.” “Well, of course,” I fibbed. Fred was seriously frowning as Charlie leaped into place at the foot of the standard double bed that had been built for the pre-Wheaties generation. “Okay,” said Ted scooping up Fred’s backend and helping him onto the bed as Charlie stomped in circles like a wagon train in the Wild West before it was safe to hunker down. Fred stood there, perplexed but happy to be at ground zero. Ted’s terrific erection slapped from thigh to muscular thigh as he wrestled the goose down comforter from the dogs to claim a modicum of flat sheet. I started laughing, standing by my side of the bed, wondering like Fred what to make of it all, my penis plump but not as ready as Ted’s for this sideshow of warm flesh. Ted, grinning widely, hopped in the sack and yanked me down to his level. My nose was thrust into Ted’s taut stomach, which was bifurcated by a thin, dark line of fur from navel to groin. This led to the obvious, until Fred walked over Ted’s torso and settled down on the pillows. Now Ted was laughing, which caused Charlie to bolt from his eiderdown nest and lunge at Ted’s face with his tongue. He went on to lick my left eye and armpit, tickling me, until he took refuge at the foot of the bed in Fred’s concave cocoon. Any semblance of arousal down the drain, my chagrin, then irritation, vanished the minute I awoke the next morning, sated as a babe on mother’s milk. The buttery, cinnamon-soaked coffee cake Ted was to turn out within the hour was every bit as juicy and succulent as the hamburgers he’d grilled over the fire the night before.

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“Thank God I have you to talk to, face-to-face,” I said to Barry in his new Burlington digs. “Ted hardly said a word.” “Wasn’t that nice for a change?” responded Barry, whirling salad dressing in his new mini food processor. The third floor of an upright Victorian afforded a fine bird’s-eye view of Lake Champlain but an oceanic take on the sky to the west and spectacular sunsets the year around. “You and I hash everything to death.” Said with pride. “Barry, you know talk for us is essential.”

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I slouched in my own rejected easy chair and ottoman, which I’d replaced with something sleek but less cozy. Too late. “This is asinine, like swooning day and night over Charlotte Hooper in sixth grade.” “He sounds like a perfectly nice guy,” said Barry without conviction. “Go for it. I’m tired of hearing the same old story that your pecker will shrivel and fall off if it’s not claimed from lost and found.” He grunted as he squeezed the garlic press. “This Chard is super. Think I could switch to beer after all these years?” “Get serious, Peter. If you start aping this man, he’ll wind up in your scrapheap, and you know it.” He sampled the dressing, which met his satisfaction. “Sit down here and talk and drink,” I said. “The food can wait. I can’t.” Barry did so. He tossed himself lengthwise and shoeless onto the sofa, with its dozen intentionally mismatched, yard-sale pillows. “Don’t tell me you’re becoming a domophiliac,” I’d said upon first inspection of the nest, using Barry’s term for a lover of domesticity, rampant among gays. “Hardly,” Barry had snapped, “with all this junk? Actually, I’m best as a Bohemian,” he quipped, blithely masking the fact that he’d taken a 50 percent pay cut to direct the Camel’s Hump Youth Center in the tawdriest block of downtown Burlington. “So now,” he said presently, sipping his wine, “tell all.” He wasn’t interested; he looked exhausted. I recalled the youth center, a dilapidated storefront crudely painted pink and aquamarine and sunny yellow, like the shacks of St. Croix or Soweto. At least it was one bold bid for cheer. It overflowed with kids from broken homes, with marginal mothers, a place of refuge for them, if not calm. “No, you tell me, Barry. After two months, it’s high time I heard how this headhunter found you the perfect place to cap your career as a caregiver. Look at you. You’ve lost at least ten pounds. And you need a haircut.” His usual bumper crop of lustrous black hair lay greasy and collapsed against sallow, white skin. Barry clicked his teeth. “I thought you’d never notice, stud.” “C’mon, Barry. Are you okay?” He drew a breath. “I got the city to donate a discarded school bus, which the bigger kids painted fire engine red. With graffiti, of course. And I got the Chevy dealer to put it back on the road. So, it’s happening, for real.” He elevated his full, black eyebrows. “The first urban summer camp in New England!” I nodded, sipped. “That’s not what I meant.” “You know—actually, you probably don’t know,” he rattled on, “this unlikely town is filled with Sudanese refugees. The center’s not just for the borderline homeless.”

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“I did read that the tavern on that block is closing because of drug deals. Cripes, what a neighborhood.” “No, this is great news! Camel’s Hump is turning the tide. I got parents to be present at the hearing for the tavern’s liquor license reapplication. They got others, and they all spoke up. The license was denied. Part of the vision to reclaim lives. What else am I good for?” “Now you be serious, buster. I am asking if this is cool, so far.” Barry looked off. “I haven’t had a moment to dwell on that. There’s a demolition crew across the street from the center thundering all day. But the kids can play in the street, which is closed from ten to three. I’m hoping to start a night shift and hire a paid worker to manage the place, since many of the moms can only find jobs with the most god-awful hours. The twenty-fourhour Laundromat is next door, often with unsavory types, so this scheme is a stretch. But, yes, Peter. I’m going top speed. You know this is how I’m wired. It won’t be forever. At fifty-one, I am catching up to you.” “I hope you don’t get sick, being exposed to all those sniveling kids.” “Sick. Peter, you have no idea how I’m thriving. The last years with Len—” “Oh that,” I said, as if I’d heard it a hundred times over. My role, if anything, was to help Barry rocket into the space beyond. Barry didn’t so much stare as offer me a look of sympathy. “Peter Bauman, the worldly wise. Imagine. Falling head over heels and likely to land on your tush, as if it’s the first time. For you both, no less, heaven help us.” “I’ve been trounced before,” I said. “Sorry. No one can match your reverse Cinderella story, your walking barefoot over smashed glass slippers.” Barry snickered. “Now look, Peter,” he said, shifting gears. “If we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together, more or less, we had better go for the bareknuckle truth. You don’t need a whitewash over the path to and from Darby, Vermont. If your heart’s really in this, as could be his, then you better deal with more than your dick.” Never had Barry acted so invested in my social welfare. Suddenly I froze. Is he jealous? I had gushed, besotted, to Barry on the phone every night for the last two weeks. And God bless it, it had been a long time coming. Of course it wouldn’t last. Still, Ted Fellows is my best shot in a bloody decade. Now my best pal is going to piss all over it? “Barry, what’s wrong?” Barry held his wine glass between his knees to steady it. His gaze bore through the wall, and his eyes glistened. “Just stuff I never told you. Thought I didn’t have to, it was that obvious. Now I’m not so sure.” He swiveled slowly, soberly, to face me.

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“What are you saying? What could be worse than you’ve already spilled? I know about the cellar, your suppers alone, boys Len brought home, your looking at but not listening to the little TV. You want to break my heart some more?” I regretted the final quip, canceling any seriousness with which I was willing to listen to and support my dearest friend. This was underscored by the cast of Barry’s eyes, which drained to ashen gray from their normal ultramarine sharpness. With oily black hair lank on his blue-white forehead, he was as cadaverous a man as I’d ever beheld. Barry peered stonily at the wall. “So my brother Mark is visiting for a few days. Len, for some reason, was away at a conference, likely with a trick. But it’s good. Mark and I have our first solid connection sans spouses in years. It goes on for two days and nights. It got very personal. I confided to Mark about Len’s fooling around. “‘Barry, he treats you like shit. You’ve got to get away from this guy,’ he says. I tell him I didn’t really care about the boys. I said I thought it was my fault, becoming less attractive, working too hard. I told him I knew I was getting more and more depressed, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I paid all our bills, but it was never about things being mine—the house, cars, the whole lot. It was ours. We’d made a home, if mostly in shambles psychologically, but we’d survived. “‘Don’t you dare think that way,’ Mark starts shouting, almost as loud as Len. ‘Don’t let this person do this to you! There’s always a first time to stand up.’ I almost felt empowered for a few minutes. I could just about sense something sinking in. “On the third and last night, Mark and I are having dinner when Len returns home. I make him a triple scotch. He throws it down. Len, as always, is charming the pants off Mark. Wrong analogy—Mark’s straight. But anyway, I crash into bed downstairs, and Len and Mark are still going at it. They’re drinking and loud; I don’t really get the drift. Mark leaves the next morning. “Outside, at his car he says, ‘Well, Len told me what a worthless shit you were, how he’s had to take care of you, because you never get your emotional act together. It was all I could do to restrain myself from punching in his ugly red face. He just kept putting you down, and I got pissed to the boiling point. Barry, I’ve got to leave. This is your life. You know I love you. But for Christ’s sake, leave him.’ We hug and he drives off. I go inside and face Len. “‘So,’ he says, ‘your brother and I had a very interesting talk after you went to bed last night. About you, of course. Your slide into depression. Mark knows that despite your professional competence, you’re a totally fucking selfish, lazy shit. Don’t just stand there; get me another cup of coffee while you’re up. We

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both agreed, Barry, that I’ve done all I can for you. You need a shrink. You need help. You’re fucking falling apart.’ “‘According to my brother,’ I say, not moving one inch toward the kitchen, ‘it was you who did all the talking.’ Len’s eyes near pop. His neck veins are about to burst. ‘What did you say?’ he spits out. Then he stands and starts socking me with clenched fists. He’s battering my head, face, and shoulders, and hammering at my chest. I just crumple up into a ball at his feet. He’s kicking me in the ribs, the back. Honestly, I didn’t feel a thing. I must have crawled away. “Weeks later, when I tried to mention it, Len denied it and said I was hallucinating. About that time, I’d been working out in the gym, three sessions a week. I had to stop. I never said anything to Len. He wasn’t working, just moping in bed, on the phone, reading, whatever. I was so sore I could hardly walk. “‘How’s the gym going?’ Len says one day. “‘I haven’t been there for a few weeks.’ “‘Why not?’ “‘My chest’s been hurting.’ I wasn’t trying not to make a big deal of it. I kept thinking that was sort of a climax; he had come to his senses, and we’d start over. “‘You’re fabricating, embellishing this whole thing,” he hollers. ‘If you’re hurting, go to the fucking emergency room. Get a fucking x-ray. You’ll see it’s all in your head. I insist on it! Go there, right now!’ “And so I do, and there are no broken bones. Just two cracked ribs. I’m told I just have to live with it. I report all this to Len. “‘You must have bruised yourself on the way to the hospital. Or banged yourself with weights in the gym. Happens all the time.’ “This goes on and on. Finally I agree with Len that I should see a psychiatrist. Len told me what to say—my ineptness, how my selfishness and jealousy mask my low self-esteem. My mother never gave me enough attention, he said; she was too busy with her brood. My father thought I was a wimp, due to my hanging out with girls instead of boys. And so I see this doctor, I don’t know how many sessions, and the shrink finally prescribes an antidepressant. I keep seeing him, but tell Len that I’m going to confess to the doctor about having been beaten. “‘Liar!’ Len screams at me, and he threatens me again with raised fists. I rush to the cellar and lock the door. Len helps himself to more scotch. “I tell the shrink the truth, that I’m suicidal, and that Len had hit me several times, on several occasions, before the beating. It had been just slugs here and there; once, though, I had to replace a broken tooth. I tell him none of this had really reached me until Len called me a liar; this lodged in my gut. I confess to the doctor that the night after the beating, Len had said ‘Come to bed with me.’ He hadn’t said that for over two years. I hesitate, feeling guilty for not

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immediately heeding his invitation. I give him a blow job and he falls asleep. I felt I was worth something again. Never once in my life, until this shrink, did I hear myself utter these things. I can’t believe what’s coming out of my mouth. Oh God, I’m being accepted again! I thought the next week, when Len pulls out his prick on the sofa after who knows how many drinks. And of course I slide further into depression, on medication but evermore suicidal, realizing the full brunt of my worthlessness, not, as Len claimed, for my not being big-hearted enough to allow him his tricks, but that I did. “‘You want me to be happy, don’t you Barry? Well, I’m happy! Now, you want to deny me that?’ I’m swamped with the uselessness of it all and that I could have stooped so low. I cancel appointments with the psychiatrist, not wanting his encouragement. It’s the work with him, the reckoning of my baseless behavior for twenty-five years, that I can no longer endure. Len ran up over thirty thousand on my credit cards before I could cancel them. “This goes on, I don’t know, for weeks, months. I don’t know how I stomached it, the acknowledgment, the absurdity—laughable but for the pain. I lived through it, Peter. Don’t ask me how. I guess this is how—what I just told you. Do you understand, finally, what our relationship is all about? Why I haven’t needed to draw lines to all the dots? I am a new person. That we laugh together, ordinarily, is proof. Sure, I have the scars, so I can’t forget. But do you understand why I’m dealing, day in, day out, with broken women more than their kids? Women who can’t or won’t escape?” Barry took a deep breath and sank further into the sofa. “I’m sorry,” he finally said, shifting his face from the wall to me. “I don’t want to throw gloom on your rainbow, after all you’ve been through in the cancer and penis departments. I’ve probably waited to lay this out when it might matter—to you. It’s mostly encrusted for me. But I want you, at least, to succeed, Peter. With your eyes wedged open. At least a fraction. Before you slide into the blinding sandstorm. I was ‘madly’ in love with Len. Step by bloody step, I made it onto terra firma. If not for Len, I might never have confronted my obsessions. I’d still be there, or with somebody else. He was so awful that even I, yes, a worthless shit, had sown in me at least a germ of gumption that could grow like a good cancer. Like your bad cancer is defining you as slog your way back with blind dates—yes blind, but this is progress, I swear. It’s forward, not circular, I just know, in your case. You have all kinds of bells and whistles ready to go off if this nice guy is not for you. You’ll know, I hope, a little more about where it can lead if you don’t keep your marbles—if not your pecker—in check.” Neither of us had touched the wine. My chin was on my chest. I raised my eyes to Barry’s. I rushed to the sofa to enfold him. “I can’t believe you’ve lis-

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tened to my prattle all these years.” I choked on the words, clutching Barry to my chest. I started crying. “Oh, Barry.” “Maybe it’s leading up to someone serious,” said Barry, limp in my arms. “Ted, perhaps. How do we know the real thing—well, a male partner in our cases—if we’ve never experienced it before?” he continued matter-of-factly. His shoulders heaved, his face pressed to mine, and our cheeks slid on two sets of tears. “Trial and error,” I managed. “But what comes after ‘error’?” “Jackpot, when, as Arlene claims, you just know,” said Barry hiccupping on his sobs. “Let’s drink to that, for one or the other of us.” “Or both,” I added, inhaling my running nose and wiping Barry’s bloodshot eyes. “Listen, this is the perfect occasion,” he said, “to open my fiftieth birthday bottle of Dom Perignon. So what if we’re having leftover stew?” Finally we stood, and I held Barry as tightly as I could. Best hug I’ve ever given, or received. We kissed on the lips, me finally releasing Barry to deal with dinner. I want to take care of him, like I did Geraldine … no! No more of that one-sided malarkey.

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Ted and I continued to date, partially, for me, in retaliation for Barry’s cataclysm. Ted and Charlie had come to Split Rock Island in mid-May for a Saturday night and Sunday that were as resplendent with sun and warmth as had embraced our first meeting in Darby. Typical of Vermont, spring sprang without foreplay, and my island paradise was ablaze with purple and yellow shrubs of every sort. Although we checked in frequently by phone, with Ted being equally initiatory, I found he was more and more a man of few words. This could rattle me, as when Ted first arrived at the lake, he was silent. It was Charlie who expressed unbridled enthusiasm, making a beeline for the water. Ted stared intently, taking it all in: the broad lake, the quiescent bay, the slabs of rugged rock. Not everything need be spoken, I assured myself as we strolled to the new gazebo, which I designed, like the best of loveseats, to accommodate only two Adirondack chairs. The idyll was angled over the lake at the tip of my peninsula and completely surrounded by water. The idea was to facilitate the best of unhurried conversation. Screened-in and bugless, the gazebo was like a beautiful cage for two humans to isolate and glorify what people so easily overlook. Advanced beings from outer space would peer in and say, “See, they can do it.” Now, as during our first such visit in the gazebo, our time could simply be the joint witness-

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ing of a chartreuse streak in an orange cloud, or a walleye leaping two feet from the depths and shattering the surface into a quarter hour of ripples. Ted said something about fish. I nodded, giving me the excuse to study his profile. A few moles on his forehead, one on his nose. Homely, but endearing. They brought his beauty into a more accessible range, somewhat like the space between his front teeth. The thick lashes were long and nutmeg brown; there was no denying their perfection. “Tell me about Mitch,” I said. “What happened, eventually?” “I’d rather not say, Peter. A sore subject. It’s so nice and easy just hanging out with you.” He was ditched, he fell hard, he needs to move on, but he’ll do so at his own pace. Maybe, like Barry, he’s finding it near impossible to ever again let go. I wanted to take Ted’s hand, but it had receded to his lap. At his own pace. Ted’s lips had tightened. The gazebo for conversation, fine, but what about petting? Charlie scratched on the screen door, begging for stick-hurling service. “How about the canoe?” I offered after we had temporarily satisfied Charlie; Fred was content to sit by the shore and oversee the game. To the canoe trip, Ted readily agreed. This early in the spring, weekend powerboat traffic was minimal, so the lake was glass calm. The dogs panted at the shoreline as we slipped out. I plotted how I could have sex outdoors without being rimmed by Charlie. Our lovemaking thus far had been vanilla to the extreme: casual, mutual masturbation. Fine with me, I considered in the stern as I directed the canoe’s course across the lake to the Adirondack side. And don’t talk. Silence while canoeing had been de rigueur ever since Warren. Just the sight of Ted, let alone his touch, spun me into an overheated state. So what if this is the mother of all adult crushes? What the heck do I know? Maybe infatuation, all I’ve been missing since Becky, is the essential glue to keep it going, not just a catalyst; according to the naysayers, in love can’t last. Screw that. I’m making up for lost time. My cluttered mind was in deep violation of the spirit of the outing, this canoe with two strong men making mellifluous progress across the wide lake. We were stroking in sync, like the Cornell crew. I could tell Ted was thoroughly enjoying this. Speech was irrelevant. If only that could last. We pulled ashore on a pebble beach, which led to the one gorgeous hike over the foothills. By summer, this hidden cove would be crammed with fishermen and hikers and boaters. But now, we had it all to ourselves. “Now this is wilderness!” exclaimed Ted. For him, this was an outburst. “The sheer cliffs mean this stretch will be forever uninhabitable. It’s unique along the whole one hundred and twenty miles of the lake.”

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Ted shook his head and smiled, exposing the aphrodisiac gap. “The trail I mentioned is right over there. The dogs’ll be fine for another hour. C’mon,” I urged, blood thudding like timpani. I led us I until realized that Ted would appreciate a faster pace. “Here, Ted, you go first.” We were wearing shorts. The path was rock free, so I could focus on Ted’s calf muscles, which worked like a motion picture of the human heart pumping and releasing as smooth as silk. We have to break, I figured, the water bottle strapped to my side. “Ted! Over there. Wanted to show you the tornado damage. See that swath?” Ted stopped, his nicely carved arms haphazardly bent, and then shielded his eyes from the sun. I had landed us on an atypical patch of flat moss. “Wow, that must have been quite a force,” said Ted. Take his hand. No, step forward and take a kiss. No, we’re too sweaty. We were both heaving breaths. Go for the jugular: take hold of his neck and slide your hand to his chest and smile. “You’re right, it’s not too far,” said Ted as he turned to take in the view. “I can see light at the ridge through those trees.” We reached the ridge. “Nice view to the west,” said Ted. He peeled off his Tshirt and wiped himself down. Pulse surging, I mimicked Ted’s ease at undress and did likewise. I handed him the water. “This is so much more out of it than my neck of the woods,” Ted said, swigging and surveying the scene. He thrust back the bottle. I stepped to a section of wild grass. “The trail continues a few miles to the road.” I squatted on my haunches, as if taking a break, as if I, too, was taking stock of the trees and the hiking potential. Ted edged to my side but stayed standing, his crotch at nose level and inches away in the scent of musty leaves and sweat. Do it. I placed a hand on Ted’s butt, letting it slowly make its way over and down to the rear of one thigh. We exchanged a sweet glance. I shifted to better position so my other hand could reach Ted’s fly. Ted leaned over and assisted me in rising, interpreting my gesture as an attempt to hoist myself. At least steal a kiss … “You said this was called Rattlesnake Mountain,” said Ted, again peering off into the wilderness. “I assume that it takes its name from the shape of the ridgeback?” “Well, in fact there are timber rattlers here. Never on the path.” Ted looked stricken. “Gee, this is the outback! We’d better head home for the dogs, but I’ve really liked this walk, Peter.” He led our way down to the shore, the wide-open lake, the all-seeing sun.

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We’d had a pleasant few days, with a few tumbles of sex. Ted Fellows was convincingly laid-back. He appeared to be in total but effortless command at making a salad, walking the dogs, doing the dishes, and fixing the toilet tank in my home without being asked and without a shred of presumption, however, that he was anything more for now than an agreeable guest. I’m the problem, hopefully unbeknownst to Ted. I was waterlogged with shame at my self-absorption over this poor chap. Whether Ted was present or simply in my mind’s eye, I was as glued to the figure of this man as I would be to a model in a life drawing class, recording every nuance of brow and employment of muscle. The better part of me knew perfectly well our connection had barely begun. Remember Barry and how contorted he’d been made by love. Still, I’d be seized by the wrenching sense of void without Ted, though we were in fact sitting or walking and talking side by side—but not touching, physically or emotionally. Ted, so at ease, punctured and penetrated my nervous system with the elixir that only he possessed and could dispense. I’d never taken heroin, but I assumed my desperation for a fix was every bit as vile, maybe worse, since it defied purchasing, requesting, or even articulating. In a flash of clarity, I would think, Surely this will pass. Or on a note of levity in Barry’s voice, It’s simply an initiation rite. Hel-lo, Peter. Welcome to the world. I was aghast at wanting to turn every suggestive glance from Ted into a fullblown erotic opportunity. Look what we missed! We didn’t skinny-dip after the dogs were asleep. I saw the world in the form of the Ayatollah pointing his finger at me: All you gays think about is sex! Alone again, I took long walks along the lake while Fred slept. Well then, what is it that drives two people to crave unions? If it’s just love and trust and mutual support, I have that with Barry. But to share the pleasures of the body with only one other soul: now we knock on the door of mystery. Could I have that with Barry? Between us, that’s still a mystery. Shouldn’t sex be like traveling deep into a foreign country with no knowledge of the tongue, where one is sequestered and disrobed under a giant rhododendron in Bhutan, witnessed only by strange, white owls? Too much togetherness, verbal dissection, perpetual talk of money and children and illness, needn’t block escape into caverns of sexual license. As polar opposites, they should in fact enhance it. Am I a sexaholic? I wondered while padding around my studio and toying with doing some watercolor sketches of Ted nude from memory. Me, a sex freak? Laughable. It’s not sex I’m obsessed with, it’s Ted.

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Ted had a business obligation, which meant I had to cancel my visit to Darby. I moped around the yard. There was the stick Ted had tossed for Charlie; there was the idle canoe and paddles he’d parked just so; here was the flannel shirt Ted had borrowed; here was the muffin recipe book—carrot ginger, the likes of which Ted had never before tasted. “I’m a living parody,” I said to Fred as we strolled the causeway in a light rain. I couldn’t believe I’d let this happen. I consoled myself by dwelling on the memory of the framed print of an oil painting—mountains, a stream, and a deer—in Ted’s bathroom, reminiscent of Winslow Homer. This piece shouts his backbone belief in basic values. Ted Fellows is reciprocating my interest. Unfortunately, I want to ravish him on the spot, and he’s being sensible and mature. Weeks went by. We exchanged more visits, meals, phone calls. The lake was warming up, enough so that Ted arrived hauling a powerboat behind his pickup. “This lake was made for waterskiing,” said Ted, for him a hyperbole. The boat got rigged up to the dock. Charlie vaulted into the boat. Fred hesitated on the dock; I had to carry him over the threshold. “Poor guy,” I explained. “His cataracts.” “Charlie can be the spotter,” said Ted, taking charge of the outing. I evaporated into a benign mist of well-being: Ted feels so at home. He was wearing a cross between ordinary boxer swim trunks and a Speedo. It was made of the most provocative, slightly clinging fabric, allowing the viewer to fill in the blanks. Just this, the sight of him, our unforced companionship, our dogs, the proximity of his tawny flesh, the undulations of his muscles dealing with the motor, just knowing we’ll sleep wrapped up in each other again tonight: what more in the world could I possibly want? Ted gave me instructions on operating the boat so I could pull him on skis. Ski, singular: his slalom ski. But I was half listening. I was thinking that for fifty-four years, I’d kept so busy, a slave to my own deadlines, that I’d missed out on so many moments. Simple, single minutes—that is a lot when one’s ego is on hold—with my children and friends, one at a time. A telling smile between two strangers—a lift! Being with Ted is teaching me a new way of accepting the invitation of the world to be its guest. I drove the boat, with its monstrous outboard, as Ted whipped over the wake on his single ski, the fine spray three times his height. Then he’d leap over the waves in the opposite direction, fanning the water and creating an instant rainbow from the boat’s vantage point. The dogs did not take their eyes off of him. I was elated.

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“Good job, Peter,” said Ted as he scrambled up the ladder, water streaming down his tight chest, further soaking the swim trunks into definition. “Your turn.” I had water-skied a few times, but always on two skis. This I accomplished on the very first pull with Ted at the helm—total fun. It seemed eons ago that I’d been so crazed over the minutia of Ted’s every move. “You should try it slalom,” said Ted after he’d taken another run. “Just do everything as before—legs bent, arms straight, and keep ’em straight—don’t try to pull yourself up. Only difference is you’ve got to keep pressure on your rear foot to have enough resistance to pop up and onto the surface. Want a go?” He touched my elbow, zapping voltage head to foot, but I acknowledged it was only a gesture of physical support in the swaying boat. After three attempts, Ted circled back and let me reach the rope and handle. I shouted, “Maybe another time.” My nose was plugged to overflowing from the geysers that had pounded my falls. Ted dove in and swam to my side. His hair was completely slicked back, and his nut-brown eyebrows glinted in the sun: a new look, which thrilled me. “Here, let me show you the arm position.” He came behind and enveloped me, arching his arms and shoulders over mine. He kept instructing but tucked ever closer into my backside, to the point I felt Ted’s plump genitals massaging the crack of my ass. Ted’s hands next reached down and grabbed my rear ankle, ensuring it was secure in the foot strap. In so doing his firm nipples grazed my bicep. I waited for Ted to return my smile, but he swam back to the boat. My mind was blank. My body went slack. Ted called out a summary of the moves to execute. I took a mental snapshot of Ted’s body and bulges. The next thing I knew, I was up and sailing over the lake, gliding as if I could walk on water, my spray half the size of Ted’s but magical still.

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The next day, I thought, God damn it, I was an English major. Why didn’t I learn from Tristan and Isolde? Do I, too, have to break the hymen of love’s devouring underbelly? I kept thinking of Barry: through thick and thin, this is what it takes. Ted and I were merely dating. One psychiatrist said you fall in love with whomever you’re fucking. Blunt, but it did ring true. Our phone calls involved the likelihood of rain, the alternatives to hiking and biking in the forms of a dog obedience trial in Rutland, and a Tunbridge tractor pull competition. I plunged into a black mood, fouler than any I’d had in the past ten years. I stopped fabricating explanations and, for sure, droning on with Barry. In fact, of late we’d hardly talked, at least about Ted, since my infatuation had escalated

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and seized me like an octopus’s tentacles. My travails were the last things Barry needed to have regurgitated. Hopefully, I thought as I attempted to read, it’s a stage of growth, and I’ll catch up to Barry’s aplomb. Perhaps Ted is subconsciously testing my capacity for endurance. Perhaps he’s a gift from the gods to expose and thwart my attraction to somebody who’s this or that. Ted is just himself, an ordinary, potentially loving bloke. A nice guy who’s probably eager as hell for me to dismantle my greedy expectations and get on with hanging out. Letting love happen of its own accord. Or not. Neither this pallid thought nor a string of others nor the novel I was holding could engage me, and I slid into deep slumber. After midnight, my eyes opened wide. Forget it. I sat bolt upright in bed. Dump him. He’s nice, but he’s nothing. What’s been the point of facing reality, with Geraldine, Luke, Barry, and most of all myself reflected back from the faces on canvas? I’ve let it boil down to this—a good lay? My heart was racing; my mind was clear. Mother alone, the stupidity, often savagery, of sex.

*

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“I’m sorry, Ted. We’re having fun, but for me something’s missing, and it shouldn’t be by now.” At first there was silence. Good. Don’t fill in the blanks. “It was fun,” he finally said. “Maybe as friends, we could hike sometime with the dogs,” he added bravely. “Sure, Ted.” “You’re a good man, Peter.” This was his first compliment ever. Before we could end it, our conversation concerned the heavy rain and the heat spell and how neither one was bound to last.

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“Good for you, sweetie!” said Barry. He sounded relieved and not only for my sake. “Think of it as a scab that’ll soon fall off. Just don’t pick at it.” “I’ll miss snuggling as stacked spoons.” “Stacked spoons is not face-to-face.” “And we couldn’t talk.” “Words, quiet, whatever. You didn’t connect.”

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An oil painting emerged in black and blue and white. Where this would lead, I hadn’t a clue. Fred hobbled to the lakeside and crouched down in his favorite spot to monitor his master’s swimming laps. I wondered if I could teach Barry to operate a powerboat.

Chapter 16

Bar ry

It was a fine, midsummer day, with a slight chop on the lake. The water was glazed bright blue, a hue more typical of September. Scattered among the evergreen foothills of the Adirondacks were faint splotches of ochre, the next shift in the palette to catch my attention and announce that the waning of warmth was but a few weeks off. I sat stiffly on my porch wicker sofa despite the voluptuous cushions into which I ordinarily sank. Not today. Not staring at the blue-black lake, the luminous, cloudless sky, the reality of the moment. It was a moment I’d forever remember, even if it happened to be a day of grays, an angry sky. That the scene was brilliant helped to affirm my decision. All was crystal clear. It was a Thursday midmorning. Barry sat at my side, equally silent and somber, feet planted on the floor. He had taken the morning off. He reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze. My hand was limp. Fred looked up at us, unsure of whether to wag. His muzzle was solid gray, but his mouth was forever arranged into a smile. He was such a happy dog. “Most of his life, I never allowed him on furniture,” I said. “Don’t you think this is an exception?” I laughed, sort of. Barry and I wedged apart a few feet as I patted the empty space. Fred leaped up lithe as a puppy, did a half turn, and collapsed facing the lake, his warm flanks pressing ours. He grunted from the effort and settled his head atop my leg. Gently I dug fingers into the scruff of Fred’s neck; Barry stroked his back, now a skeletal ridge, the reverse of the swollen belly. A month shy of fourteen, Fred’s cancer had spread to the point where he was operating on part of one lung. His hacking cough had advanced so that we were up half the night. Tom Segal, the local vet, guessed Fred could last a month or two. Tom was due any moment to give Fred a shot to put him instantly away. 258

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“It’s best,” I said, my stare unwavering from the mountains opposite. “He looks at me so apologetically during his coughing fits.” “Sweetheart, don’t,” said Barry. “You didn’t want to wait until the decision’s made for you, with Fred left peeing and shitting on the floor, unable to walk in or out. Fred’s still in decent shape, aren’t ya, good fella?” added Barry, including the head and ears in his stroke. Fred was doing his imitation of a cat purr. He had two sets of hands on his back, and he was sprawled on the sofa: it didn’t get any better. “He had a great life,” I said, choking. Barry paused patiently. “No, you had a great life with him. He knew he’d won the doggie lotto when you claimed him as a pup from the Humane Society.” I heaved a sigh. “You’re right. Still, so fucking hard. No more dogs. They don’t live long enough. Thank God I have you.” “He’s been everybody’s dream dog. And, at times, he’s been a displacement for the people kind of love. And that’s been good for you, through the ups and downs.” It registered that I’d just been criticized. “Are you making a point about the real thing versus animals?” “No.” Barry looked defensive. “What would the world be without pets? Not everyone is blessed like us, who have each other.” “Thank you for putting it that way. Still, I often wondered, if I’d never had Fred, could I have left New Hampshire and come to Vermont on my own?” Barry didn’t respond. The hand stroking Fred included mine as it came to rest on Fred’s head. Fred was sound asleep, his loud wheezing interrupted by that gurgling dogs do when they’re chasing rabbits to their heart’s content, deep in slumber’s wild woods. Tom Segal arrived. Barry and I stood to greet him as Fred slid off the sofa to be at his master’s side for life’s next episode. Tom was young, handsome, and sporting the sweetest of smiles. “It’s so thoughtful,” I said to Tom, “making house calls for this. I couldn’t imagine a better way. For Fred, or for me.” My voice cracked. We’d arranged a large beach towel on the sofa, not knowing what to expect. We sat down again, allowing ample room for Fred. He jumped sprightly back in place, his spot still warm. Barry’s and my strokes, however, did not calm him into a blissful stupor as before. There was this new person, whom Fred had to engage with his smile and his rheumy, loving eyes, his ears flattened in trust at the stranger’s inclusion. You never know; he could be a bank teller with a biscuit, a young man with a Frisbee, or there could be a treat in that little black bag … Tom set aside the coffee table and kneeled in front of the sofa. “Hold him gently, fellows; it’ll just take a few seconds for him to go right to sleep.” Fred’s

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head was now pressing the top of my leg. He lay absolutely still but alert. He’d had needles before; it was no big deal. Fred was good-natured and content as a critter can be. He went limp, then felt like a big sack of rocks in my lap. Barry helped Tom carry Fred’s body in the towel to the rear of Tom’s SUV as I slumped into the sofa and let salty tears just go. Fred was to be cremated. Barry and I planned to dig a hole at random so that when the sod was replaced I’d never know just where Fred’s ashes and dog collar were buried. Barry returned and sat at my side. “He’ll always be embedded in you and Split Rock Island. And especially in your portraits, Peter. Fred sure taught all of us about eye contact.” I hugged Barry, and, for the longest time, wouldn’t let go. We walked handin-hand to the gazebo, where we sat for an hour without saying a word, the silence amplifying my sobs.

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A few weeks later, into August, we were on the porch and starting a very good bottle of Central Coast Shiraz. “You’re looking better these days,” I said. The sun that had just passed over the Adirondacks was a fireball of red. The afterglow would be worthy of a mental snapshot. “There’s color in my face for the first time in years,” said Barry. “The Kids in the Swim program has kept us blessedly outdoors.” “It’s going well?” “Now that you’ve shown interest, sweetie, how about volunteering your place—don’t give me that look yet—for a few hours, Peter, on Labor Day weekend? Before you put away the swim raft.” “I thought you’d never ask,” I said. “Not that I’m champing at the bit.” The wine was magnificent. “Of course you can bring the troops. And I know it’s also to impress that cute young guy working at the Center part time.” “Strictly eye candy,” said Barry. “Have we been reduced to that?” I asked. “Excuse me. I was dating Barney so-and-so this spring.” “You already forgot his name.” “He was seriously interested in me, Peter.” “No wonder you broke up with him.” Barry glared at me then stuck out his tongue. “No, I know he called it off,” I retreated. “Probably because you told him you’ve considered adopting an orphan.”

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“Not a baby. I said perhaps a preteen.” I shook my head and hauled my bare feet onto the low wicker table. “What truly bothers me, Barry, is that, even though you were drunk at your fiftieth, you announced to one and all you were giving up sex.” “No one took me seriously.” “I did. I know you best. Despite your history, I’m not giving up on you.” Barry tossed down a slug and looked to the lake. “Savor that, for God’s sake!” I barked. “There is more to life than s-e-x.” “Speak for yourself.” “I am,” insisted Barry. “No, you’re not. You’re chastising me.” “Oh, Peter, when are you going to act your age? You went so gaga over that vacuous Ted, as if the dumb delights of childhood can be reheated and served on a platter.” “Look, Barry, you had quite a head start. Ten years in the seminary, no less. Before the scandals and what started them.” “Not worthy of response.” “But adult, real gay sex, Barry. Okay, so I’m a twenty-four-year-old in a fiftyfour-year-old body.” “Granted, the physique is solid. It’s your brain that scares me.” “Oh, shut up.” We sipped in silence. A gorgeous explosion of smoky purple shot through with scarlet had already gone in one eye of the artist and out the other, right down the mental drain. “Have you ever noticed,” I said quietly, recrossing my ankles, “that we never discuss anything? We flirt.” Barry gave me a pained look. “There’s always this tension between us, as if we’re slightly embarrassed in the presence of each other. We do this minuet, jockeying to land a little joke. At this point, why should we care what the other thinks? Nothing we utter could inflict lasting damage. That we can speak our hearts and minds is the whole point.” “I couldn’t disagree more,” said Barry, “about any tension. Sure, laughing pulls the rug out from taking ourselves too seriously, but wisecracking as a form of flirtation? What are you trying to say, Peter? Something about us now or us in general?” “Both. When I met you, the thing that stuck to my ribs was your describing dealing with nuisance calls, remember? When they ask for ‘the lady of the house’?”

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Barry chuckled. “I hiss in my bitchy, Bette Davis best, ‘Speaking.’ They stammer and hang up every time.” “You’re too much.” From the corner of my eye, I could read the measure of satisfaction across Barry’s lowered lids. “Anyway, I think humor, though essential, still can deflect intimacy.” “I think our horsing around is hardly from tension but from ease—the ease it takes to be flip with one another and not insult. It’s a release, not a withholding; we know we’re on the same wavelength. That’s what’s so wonderful about two friends, us, with no holds barred.” I froze. Barry and me. We’re not just friends … I had drained my wine. Shaking, I poured us more. “All right, then, I’ll say it. I’m doing the flirting. You’ve taken your vows. I most emphatically have not.” Barry rested his wineglass, drew a leg up onto the sofa cushions, twisted around, and looked me flat in the face. “What did you just say? About me and you?” “I think that maybe, possibly, we should do it. Sometime. At least be open—” “You are out of your mind. You have lost it.” “You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever known.” “Thank you, Peter, I feel likewise about you, but that is—not the same.” My vision was lost in the now ash-colored clouds, not a flicker of cheer. “I meant physically, sexually, the whole package, not just your St. Francis of Camel’s Hump, your too-good-to-be-true kindness and gentleness. There, you even have Fred, hands down.” “You are flirting, aren’t you?” Barry grabbed my hand. “I would never, ever, jeopardize our friendship. It’s too—precious. You’re my life, now, more than ever.” “For me, too.” “I know you’re hung; Becky got tipsy one night. You think that, for me, is where it’s at?” “See, now you’re flirting. You didn’t need to say that.” “Peter. No way.” Barry withdrew his hand—our hands had become sweaty— and he crossed his legs. “Oh, just drop it, Barry. Look at me. It’s me, Peter, your partner already. We just take it from here and love each other however we do.” “On the heels of how you behaved this very summer with Ted?” “I think you’re in denial, Barry, about me, us, about the possibility for any love in your life.” “I think you’re acting desperate after Ted. You haven’t been painting. Fred is gone.” “Do you realize how happy I was when you moved here?”

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At this Barry blushed and looked aside. He was finally, believably uncomfortable. “So,” he began after a long pause, “what if, for theoretical purposes, we did discover—no, pluck from thin air—even the slightest hint of mutual attraction, that way?” “You mean, what if we fall in love?” “In the full sense, yes.” “God damn it, Barry, we are in love! We don’t have to ‘fall’ there from some cartoon cloud in the sky. We’ve already arrived.” “No, I mean, including that part—just a sliver—of how you were with Ted. That part is valid, in perspective, I grant you.” His face was a rubber mask of reactions, shifting from shock to clarity to confusion. I seized Barry by the shoulders. “Barry, I swear I would never hurt you like you’ve been hurt. You need us. Please try again. Could we even be capable of the derangement you had with Len? Look, you say your only purpose is to reclaim lives—” “I do that every bloody day, and rather well.” “What about me? What if it did become a passing chapter for us? We’re already living until death do us part.” Barry squirmed aside. He poured rapidly to finish the bottle. “Peter, we know each other too well.” “What’s that supposed to mean? That partnership is only as good as kept secrets—to titillate and keep up the wooing?” Barry’s face shaped a rebuttal then withdrew it. “We’ve barely scratched the surface, Barry. Besides, I’ve seen your dick. And you’ve seen mine.” “Limp.” “Oh yeah? We’ve slept together how many times?” “We passed out,” said Barry, twisting away. “In our underpants—you were so modest. We still had roaring hard-ons, all entwined, waking up—” “Mortified and quickly rolling aside,” Barry addressed the lake. “I know you’re vulnerable. And I’m an old lech,” I pleaded. “I want to be vulnerable; I want to risk this, Barry. I need to match you. You’re where I need to go. And you need to—uncross your legs,” I said, a bid for levity. “What if I don’t turn you on?” said Barry, not suddenly concurring but patently obfuscating. “I’ll put a bag over your face.” “What if my dick isn’t big enough?”

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“I’ll put a bag on your dick and stare at you like a goon, like everyone stares at you, with those incredible blue eyes in a face that could make Brad Pitt change his mind about girls.” “You’re nuts, but I do love you.” Barry leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Sleep with me, Barry. I’ll open another bottle of wine, and we can hop in the sack under the influence. Think of it as a quick lay to see how it goes. Are you going to force me down on my hands and knees?” “Let’s just hug, nice and tight, and call it a night,” said Barry, sidling into my embrace.

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I had my way; at least, we opened another bottle of wine. I didn’t light candles. Barry started laughing over it all. Laughing we did well. Our heads leaned into each other, and I wrapped my arm around Barry, drawing him closer. At last his guard was down. I don’t care about sex. If we can just sleep together, naked, and play—what we do best—letting nature take— “There’s something I haven’t told you. Something else. I should, Peter. It’s not fair. Given how you professed all this, though ‘this’ being your latest hit …” I sat up. We both did. Not entirely sober, but more so. “I’m sorry. That was cutting of me,” Barry apologized. “You’re forgiven. Even though I disagree. Ted was my only date in over two years. It’s you I—” “I didn’t tell you about the headhunter.” He paused. “That found you the Burlington job.” “Yes. Well. I lied. It wasn’t a fib. I lied. I did what I never forgave Len for accusing me of. What I’ve never done before, like this.” “Like what?” “There was no headhunter, Peter. I moved here for the job, with the huge pay cut, to be near you.” I flopped back in the squishy cushions, my mind racing. He planned this, wanting it more than I do. No, he wants only proximity, in spirit not flesh. “I’m not sure what this means, Barry. I’m—I’m still thrilled that you’re here, but …” “You don’t have to say anything, Peter. I can’t explain or understand it myself.” We finished the wine as if it were water. I stood, took Barry by two hands, yanked him to his feet, and led him to my bed. Barry flopped on it fully. I wrestled off our clothes, flinging them to the floor. I left on our briefs, whether for old times’ sake or as a safety net, I hadn’t the foggiest.

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“You’ve got beautiful skin, Barry. And great abs. Here, I work myself silly in the gym and pool, and you never lift a finger.” “Says who?” “You see! There’s all kinds of stuff about each other we don’t know.” I slid a hand over Barry’s smooth shoulders and then rolled him onto his back so we’d be face to face. “Not so fast,” Barry mumbled. “Sorry,” I said softly, having shrugged off the wine buzz. Lightly, I kissed Barry’s forehead, then his ear, his neck. I was getting turned on; Barry was not. “No!” he cried, sitting up. “Peter, I can’t.” He wriggled away, rummaged through the clothes, then found and hustled into his own. “Forgive me.” “If you’ll forgive me.” Barry let out a huge sigh. He came to the bed and leaned over to plant a slow kiss on my lips. “It’s you who’s gorgeous, Peter. Hasn’t anyone told you that?” “Never you.” Barry rushed to the door. “Don’t call. I won’t either. No more tonight.”

*

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We talked on the phone the morning, afternoon, and evening after. The next night, we met for dinner, tucked into a corner banquette at our favorite bistro with its fabulous fish, excellent martinis, frisky waitress, and candles, of course. “You were absolutely right,” I moaned. “I’ve driven us to the edge of an abyss. I’m all billy goat randy, and you’re flopped there in a heap.” “I don’t need to have sex to get close, or closer, at least not right now,” said Barry. I could only sip the stinging drink, a silver bullet to the brain. I needed all my wits. “I’ve got to stop pegging you as damaged and me as some vulture on the prowl. If anything, you’re healthier for facing off your demons, while I’m ignoring mine.” “Demons are gods we haven’t yet befriended, so sayeth Joseph Campbell. Meanwhile, they’ll trip us up until we pay heed.” Barry, too, eyed his martini with trepidation. “Darling Peter, you do have a tendency to leap before you— take more stock of the situation.” “But with you? Jesus Barry, you’ve been so focused on me, my love life, my well-being. Stop avoiding my determination to take more care of you!” I grabbed one of his hands. “You know, I have learned a thing or two in ten years of hopping in and out of beds. With and without a hard-on.” Unbeknownst to me, this was overheard by half the café.

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“Shh,” whispered Barry, flushed with embarrassment for my sake, and squirming at his being grilled. “So I’m the push and shove,” I said angrily, “and you’re the deep thinker. We complement each other!” Barry composed himself by taking a sip and interlocking his fingers, elbows on the table, and leaning into my space. “Yes, I’m more introverted and you’re more extroverted—that’s okay. Your problem is plugging up. You’re always encouraging me to put my crap with Len on the table. But what’s roiling inside you, pal, that keeps glorifying a fantasy lover as distraction? I admit I’m still dealing with—” “An inferiority complex,” I said flatly. “Yes!” Barry raised his voice. “My very point! I’m still living with—” “Len, for Christ’s sake. Get over it, Barry.” Barry looked aside. Finally he faced me and raised his left wrist. “See this?” he said accusingly. “That scar’s from some accident when you were a kid.” “No, Peter. There’s a deeper vein of self-disgust. It’s still being unearthed, but I’m getting close.” “What are you talking about?” “My father in a drunken rage broke this wrist. He snapped it like a twig, yanking me off the ground when I couldn’t catch the football like a bullet to my gut.” I attempted the intake of a large breath but managed only a series of pathetic inhales. The voices in the restaurant became the frenzied shrieks of off-key violins. I reached to caress Barry’s right wrist, but abruptly he leaned back. “And I’m left-handed,” said Barry. “Now you understand my chicken-scratch handwriting.” I stretched my hands out under the table and tightly held Barry’s knees. Ali the waitress detoured to our table, a tray of hot food aloft for others. “Matt behind the bar says you two should shut up and start drinking. We’ve never seen you before in a lovers’ quarrel.” She winked and scurried off. Barry and I did what we were told.

*

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I stalked my studio like a caged beast, replaying the end of our latest call. “Barry, won’t you at least consider living with me here on the island? Think of the meals alone. Drinking and not driving,” I had joked. “Such a long commute,” Barry had said.

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“Nowhere near as big a move as your coming to Vermont in the first place. It’s a king-sized bed. We can cuddle, what we both like best. All right, separate bedrooms. A trial separation.” “You’d have to do all the cooking, at least dinners.” “I’d be happy to,” I said. “I know. But I’m a better cook.” More of our badinage. And this time, it really was drawing a veil over our consternation, diffusing it by mutual consent. As always, we’d never once completed a phone conversation without sharing a laugh, without Barry’s checking in on my kids, and vice versa, presently the hooligans of Camel’s Hump Youth Center. Pacing, I reconstituted all the talk … talk … talk. I exhausted that and went on to silent pictures: Barry forever grabbing the dishcloth out of my hand, saying, “Go take Fred for a walk;” cleaning every tumbler until it was spotless after a dinner party, the washer loaded and turned on before he left. This is Barry, the same guy who took twenty-five years to disgorge himself of Len, who was no more vicious than his father it turns out, before he could untie the knots of selfabuse. What is Barry but a man who gives himself totally to others, not seeking but receiving, at least from his career, heaps of satisfaction in return? “Kin altruism,” so the theory ran for selfless gays, tending children not their own, honored in other cultures as ombudsmen, unthreatening go-betweens among warring tribes, respected as neither male nor female but for their gifts as a social bridge. Is my happiness all Barry needs and wants? I fingered my dried, idle brushes and scanning the cobwebs in the studio. Would I settle for that? Of course not. So what’s the point of pushing it? For the first time in this mad dash, I paused to consider the downside of a sexual liaison, as apparently Barry could so readily envision. I do have other options for sex. I tried to think of them but drew a blank. I struggled to imagine instructing Barry in an entirely different tone of voice, as I had countless lovers, what hand or which finger felt best placed just so … Barry and I had enunciated each other’s flings in graphic detail. Can we reinvent ourselves? Barry did enormously after Len. Why not again? I glanced at the oil I’d started, of clashing blacks, blues, and whites. I’d set it aside. It made no sense; it never moved beyond a passing whim. I sat on my stool and gazed at the odd, irksome canvas. Gradually, the blacks became hair; the whites, skin; the searing blues the eyes of one man only. How can I presume to engage ever deeper with Barry without having attempted his portrait? With that thought I jump-started my dead battery. I began to shape the masses of blunt color that confronted me at my easel, at first with ambivalence, eventually with zeal. Barry was to couple with me

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on canvas. It might work, or not. I slashed away, so grateful to quarantine my flood of thoughts about Barry and replace them with paints. Maybe a clue or two might erupt in the process of how Barry and I should proceed. Stop thinking! Your mind’s a self-made prison! You’re an addict, a thoughts junkie! Stalled on an ear or eye, introducing too much compromising, realistic burnt sienna and chromium green shading, my brushes would pause. And into the vacuum, with the force of a hurricane, rushed a torrent of uninvited words. Has Barry been trying to seduce me all along, just being coy, or worse, clever? Have I been left blind by a decade of impulsive dating for reasons no longer viable but lodged into place? Barry is right on every count and I am wrong. As he said recently: when it happens, you just know, so to hell with all these machinations of the restive heart. If it’s taken Barry a quarter-century to heal, then he’s being true to himself in taking baby steps, and I must honor that. A quarter of a century? He was only twelve when his father broke his wrist! The painting began to resemble Barry. Too much so. As with any portrait, I was after the combination that would unlock the core. It was fine if that employed the realistic as a means, but that was not the bottom line. The mood of color had much more impact; the eyes and lips were the most revealing and elusive. I’d never studied Barry’s lips, which were usually in overdrive. I knew them by heart, in the physical sense. But to settle on the right blend of muscle tension and release … I was far too invested in the outcome to continue on a dispassionate course. Besides, a portrait of Barry promised to be an endless work in process. I leaned the painting against the wall and selected a blank canvas. It was four feet square, likely to be oversized head and shoulders, only the essentials. Although I loved to render hands—a minefield of little revelations—I saw them in this case as compromising the face. No flattery whatsoever for this painting. Bald as I can make it, ugly or nice, whatever bursts forth. I squeezed fresh paint of every color generously onto my palette, set up a mirror next to my easel, and dug in.

*

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For days I painted, liberated for the first time ever while doing a portrait. Why haven’t I taken a cue from Rembrandt, who posed for himself all the time? One does not follow in Rembrandt’s footsteps, even in one’s dreams. The portrait added layers and blemishes to itself, like aging, toughening skin that’s so baby soft at its inception. By week’s end, I was attacking the flesh with a palette knife. I scraped and hacked away mercilessly, with carved lines and deep circles under the eyes, to which I assigned no accusation or forgiveness.

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The next session, I fine-tuned with sables. I became totally lost. As reflections about myself passed through, they dove below the surface. Briefly exposed, they were amorphous: simple flashes of hurt, anger, shame. If anything took shape in the irises, it was fear. The fear of contracting AIDS. It left an indelible claw mark on my psyche, as well it should. Not the first fear of volunteering with Barry at the Boston hospice during the onslaught’s outbreak, me taking a night shift and not wearing gloves, collecting and emptying bags of urine, kissing a man’s forehead on impulse years before it was even hypothesized that saliva or sweat might carry the virus. No, it was more the fear that had wormed through my guts like an invisible, unfelt parasite slowly sucking away at my fun in having sex, which was never truly fun, after cancer but especially before. It became so entangled with panic and guilt, which was justifiable given the levels of risk, my stupidity, and my inexperience. Those were the years before I seized upon the mission of my true nature for hunkering down with that one good soul.

*

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I’m in a Manhattan bar, not just any bar, but the bar of the Carlyle Hotel. According to Luke, it was a great place to cruise. Kennedy had slept there, fucked there, with guards at the door to his suite. There’s this guy who is well dressed in a black, open silk shirt; he’s slovenly and pretty drunk, but he has a good manicure and Southern manners. He begins fingering my fly, grinning at what he found. It didn’t take much. Suddenly, we’re slurping sixty-nines in the guy’s elegant room. The man’s black silk boxers lasso his ankles; he’s too drunk or in a rush to manage their removal. He’d worn horned-rimmed glasses; he was safe. “I was one of Tennessee Williams’s lovers to the bitter end,” he said when we were finished. One of. The following week, the pain in my penis erupted in disgusting yellow phlegm. Terrified, I found a Boston clinic where I could be treated for gonorrhea instead of at the family practice in Buck Hill. It’s a crowded bar in Montreal, not any bar, but a “boy bar,” legal there, the dancers flitting on the bar with erections like blimps banging up and down on their bellies and legs to the roar of the disco beat. I’m slack-jawed along with the rest, aware of the hot, heavy breathing by my neck, the crowd pressed shoulder to shoulder; it’s standing room only for the midnight show. I feel the hand on my almost painful hard-on, never moving my eyes from the dancer while Hot Breath brings me off with a hand dug deep into my pocket. I rush into the frigid night air of the street, pants sopping wet, chin pressed to chest, unable to eye even strangers.

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It’s up against the wall of my dumpy motel room along the littered beach outside San Juan. Not any beach, but the “gay” beach, where after dark, you don’t dare wear jewelry, watches, wallet, or rings unless you’re a total fool, according to the manager of the dump. So I avoid the sleazy beach and go to bed with a professor from Chicago, the University of Chicago. He wears wire-rims, and I met him at the motel bar bedecked with faded and filthy pink plastic flowers. We do it standing up, furiously, my back against the wall, arching ever so steadily as my knees give way, and I crumple to the greasy floor. A few weeks later, the professor calls from his hospital bed in Chicago, where he’s being treated for Hepatitis B. “You better get vaccinated. If it’s not too late.” I do, and it wasn’t, but the needle that went into my butt was four inches long. I wait months for the sinister symptoms, and don’t tell a soul. Such wonderful sex in New Orleans, where jazz abounds, with a lithe master swimmer during and after a meet. We miss the celebratory supper and awards ceremony. The swimmer confesses by phone a week later that he’s HIV positive. “But as long as you didn’t have a tear in your gums, you’re fine, Peter. I really doubt …” I sleep maybe an hour the night before my next test results. I check all my clothes at the entrance to the club in San Francisco, except for my sneakers. Clothing is not optional; it’s not permitted here. I had sunbathed nude on the roof all day long. There are fabulous bodies with every blink of the eye. I’m lust riddled as never before as I step into the shadows of the club. Dante could not have conceived of such hellish delights. The cellar is billed as a jack-off club, which are suddenly in vogue because people take the epidemic for real. Men are slithering over each other in the murky light or watching or gaping or joining in. I lose my proud erection; the stench is overpowering, and I slide on the foul cement floor. Did I touch a doorknob and then my eye? I drown in stress for the next few months until the next HIV test, again negative, but even then it doesn’t matter: it can lie in wait for years. The Heavenly Bodies men’s retreat in Hawaii is as safe as the crystal sea. Nude all day and night, with group-orchestrated mutual masturbation. I’m taken by surprise by one of the camp counselors, a veteran of Heavenly Bodies, after I crawled into the bed of my private thatched hut. “I’ve been hoping all week you would fuck me with that, Peter,” he says, whipping off the sheet, squatting above and pinning me down, inserting me into him. The counselor is a tall, sun-bleached surfer god. Lean and tight otherwise, he’s all wet hole as he greedily rides up and down, better than being in any woman. Dear God, why aren’t I wearing a condom? But it’s

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too late. I go for a swim in the floral, fetid, moonlit ocean, drowning the scum, if not my shame. I contract anal warts and will have them removed months hence by my Buck Hill physician, who comments neutrally, unbelievably, that STDs are rampant nowadays. The blond twins in Amsterdam came way before that, on my pilgrimage to the Rijksmuseum for the Rembrandts. I’m in the gay bathhouse, which is boisterous, a beer hall reveling in voices, naked bodies young and old, big guts or no. It’s a suck-and-fuck fest that’s as merry and as ordinary as a Deutsche oompah band in Europe’s—the world’s—most celebrated city of sexual revelry. The twins are in their early twenties and white blond with sculpted bodies; what do they want with me? Yet here they are, soon in my tiny bedsit, as I fuck each in turn and they laugh and kiss me all over and beg for more. Who carries condoms for preventing pregnancy? At least it’s before the holocaust of gay disease. I’m getting a blow job in the dunes of outer Provincetown, and when I partially open my eyes, there’s the state trooper on horseback, getting down from the saddle; my partner sees nothing, his head buried in my groin. The officer pulls out his nightstick. “This is against the law, boys. You’re under arrest.” I get by with cash, credit cards not being taken at the police station. The obliterating punch of guilt stabs me every time I see a squad car. And before all this: The drunken sailor in London takes me to a room in the worst possible dive with broken windows. I’m ecstatic to punctuate my tour of the Tate with such abandon. The sailor is cute in a thuggish way, his cock nearly bursting through the seamless front of his white uniform pants. He flings me on the hard, messy bed. He rubs his own cock, bolts the door, grabs the dresser, and shoves it roughly against the door. He turns and grins at me, now crouching and backtracking on the bed, slipping onto the floor opposite. The sailor dashes off his cap but doesn’t otherwise undress. He yanks out his big, purplish cock. I scramble past him, but he snatches my arm, forcing it into a hammerlock, and pins me face down on the reeking mattress, a stink I will never forget. He squats on my hamstrings with all his might, wedging apart my thighs, and with two free hands begins to fumble with my belt and fly. I wrestle around and take him fully in my mouth, quickly adding my hands to the effort, just as quickly making him come. The sailor laughs, eyes closed, and crashes onto the bed. I spit and topple the dresser, unlock the bolt, and flee. I run into a strange, night-blackened neighborhood and don’t stop for countless blocks, still with the aftertaste.

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I’m in college, after one of LeRoi Jones’s angriest of spewings in a black-box theater in SoHo. Maybe I feel emboldened … white boy, I think, you better make it on the streets if you’re ever going to be a man. A guy in skin-tight jeans, the jeans filthy but emblazoned with the bulge of his penis in unmistakable shadows, passes on an empty street adjacent to Washington Square after midnight. Handsome townhouses—it can’t be all that bad, goes the English major’s mind. A few paces later, I look back. The man is standing and facing me squarely, rubbing his dick. Any semblance of self or of self-preservation vanishes instantly in the rank gutter at my feet. The man climbs over one of the elegant iron fences by a trimmed boxwood hedge into a cubbyhole of garbage cans at cellar level. I follow quickly into the secret, delicious, silent cave. The guy is missing some teeth. His eyes are fiery red. With one hand he pinches his own nipples, and with the other continues fondling himself, then me, and says, “Nice wood, wanker.” I come on the spot. “Not so soon, sucker,” he whispers and whips out and clicks open a switchblade that shines ice white from the glow of the streetlamp half a block beyond. I’m seized by trembling. “No, wait, please,” I stammer pathetically. The guy digs out his salami of a penis and grabs my neck, shoving my face forward. The knife is pressed next to my eye. “Please. I’ll do it,” I plead. “Shut up or I’ll kill you,” he snaps. A light flicks on just above us. “Fuck!” he hisses and clamors onto the garbage cans, crashing and banging them about. He’s gone. I freeze, can’t move a muscle; I have no breath. A man and a woman open a sash and shout, “We’re calling the police!” “Yes, please!” I cry. “I’ve been mugged!” Where this comes from I would never know. “Help me out of here,” I gasp as I clumsily climb up and over the hedge and fence. The couple had slammed the sash. Suddenly, lights are glaring in the entry hall and outside on the landing and steps. I’m standing in floodlights. I’ve forgotten to zip up my fly. I race off in the opposite direction, my long legs and athletic heart serving me well until I run out of breath, run out of sight, but never escape the memory.

*

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*

I stepped back from the painting, startled by its bluntness even after days of softening brushwork. It shows. The fear of night sweats watching for signals of HIV for ten, fifteen years. I perched unsteadily on my stool, still trying to make sense of my work. I thought of the purple bruises, year upon year, that I was forced to make friends with, a painfully slow process over a week, until the mark reddened, then yellowed, then faded, no longer carrying the possible verdict of Kaposi’s sarcoma. Of course, with that aspect of the plague I’m endowed for life, like the cancer police. Okay, in the case of AIDS, it’s just a few more years to a full decade after my last transgression. All this was there on canvas, certainly in one eye, the domineering, heartless, unwavering right.

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“I get so fed up with guys like you, the ‘worried well,’” groaned Luke at the onset of his lingering death. “I don’t care what you say of your umpteen trips to the bird sanctuary. Always in broad daylight; the fist fucking in the Fens happens after dark! You’ve had, and will have, the most lily-livered sex of any man I know, Peter Bauman. And good for you. Go back to being straight.” He smiled and coughed and spat up pink sputum. His brain would soon be a sponge. “I’m so sorry to hear about your friend Luke, Peter,” said my mother. “Tch. Way too young to die.” I didn’t tell her why. This happened before I came out. Before she and I each came out to the other. Geraldine. These eyes are hers, not mine. Have I ever been able to see my own or myself in relation to potential mates? I feign interest initially, then drop them, “justifiably.” Look at this face, Peter! I wanted to shout at the canvas. This is Barry’s! His is the soul you’ve been denying in yourself. You, too, have a grief to embrace. Lee, Luke, Allison, Arlene, Becky, the whole lot. You’ve been hounding them for what’s right here.

*

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*

It had been two weeks of studio toil since my confrontation with Barry. I was drained. He and I continued to party, sometimes at Barry’s pad but mostly at mine, soaking up every drop of the glorious, ebbing summer by the lake. Our kisses of greeting and farewell had always been on the lips. They were shifting into ones often slurping, or laughing and clicking teeth; either way, seconds longer. Barry pulled me up on skis in my new powerboat and finally, by the end of August, on the slalom. “Just don’t ask me to get wet,” said Barry. “Maybe when the water hits eightyfive. Preferably ninety.” “For that, we have to go to the hot springs in Death Valley.” “Name the date.” “See, Barry, we can’t stop flirting. Anyway, now that you’ve moved in, the least I can do is build you a hot tub.” “If I were you, I’d wait to see if it lasts. My living here, not the flirting.”

*

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*

Kids in the Swim was scheduled at Split Rock Island the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. I hosted an all-day outing, and grilled hotdogs over an open fire. I rigged up a tube to pull behind the boat with my ski line, circling the lake with three kids at a time until I was dizzy; the kids never were.

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Barry climbed onto the red Camel’s Hump bus decorated with goofy graffiti in fat yellow and pink lettering. On the rear bumper, Barry had plastered a sticker of his own choosing: Don’t Believe Everything You Think. One boy, Kalimba, ten or eleven but straining to be punk, was last to board. He wore the obligatory elephantine shorts that fell to his calves, the matching tentlike top, a nostril already pierced, and a scar across his cheek, raised and rubbery, that was for real. I knew his mother, a Caucasian, was in jail for dealing crack and drawing a firearm on police, in Burlington, Vermont. I’d seen her picture in the paper: wild tangles of dirty-blond hair, diminutive, pretty eyes, but lips fleshy and distorted with hate. Kalimba’s father was jet black, a worker at the construction site opposite the Center, and the boy’s caretaker after the Center closed for the night and before it opened next day. Kalimba was pretty much left on his own, Barry reported, for long stretches, which could threaten his father’s custody. Barry was hoping to avoid that. Does Barry wish for the opposite so he can adopt this boy? A gay man can do so in Vermont. Kalimba was the only kid who asked to see my studio. He said nothing there, but his eyes widened at the slew of frank portraits, then softened as he stroked sable watercolor brushes across his cheek, the one that was brutally scarred. “Barry can bring you back sometime, and you can try watercolors.” “Yeah,” he said and let slip the most tentative of smiles. Kalimba was now lingering by the water’s edge, skimming thin pieces of shale, forcing me to collect him, not that the busload was anywhere near settled down and buckled up. “Can I call you Kal like the other kids do?” I asked. The boy pouted his lips thoughtfully but didn’t respond. And then he said, kicking at a stone, “You and Barry. Him and you, you live here, right?” “Yeah,” I said, falsely pert. “Are you like …” “We live together.” “You like them … you make it wid each other?” “That’s between me and Barry,” I said, stung with remorse at my ingratiating answer. “My ole man, he says Barry’s a—pre-vert.” “You know what that means?” Kalimba was mocha, but he blushed deeply. “No. Yeah. Fag.” He giggled to the side, ashamed now by his curiosity. Tell him flat out! They teach this on Sesame Street. “I love Barry and he loves me,” I attempted. “Listen, Kal,” I continued, bombarded with images of the

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boy’s bigoted dad, his imprisoned mom, the ugly scar red scar on such a sweet face. “Is Barry a good man or what?” “Barry, he a real good man,” smiled Kalimba broadly, flashing his brilliant, unblemished expanse of teeth. “He, like, get my mom and dad to … to rap about …” “You?” “Yeah,” he exhaled, relieved to have me complete his thought. He lifted his soft, sloe eyes and pressed his lips, holding my gaze with the reverence of an old dog trusting his master, before scooting onto the bus. I strolled to the gazebo and sat down, alone, in such an aching void without Fred at my feet. But Barry would be back. Was I honest with Kalimba? As honest as Barry has been with me? There’s only so much truth in a self-portrait, even for the artist—more internal dialogue. The best boils down to conversation, I said silently to the scattered, soaring birds. I stretched out my legs and folded arms, soon hugging myself to ward off the creeping chill. The lake was temporarily calm, another of those magical moments I so loved sharing with others. Proof—I already had a lifetime myself—of the universal order and peace that was possible with nature. A fish leapt and slapped the stillness to second the motion. Inwardly, I smiled. My eyes sunk deep into the Constable sky, the pastel Turner roilings, the lyrical Frankenthaler abstractions, Lee’s otherworldly obsessions, as might my light watercolors and dark oils follow their own ineluctable course, I fervently hoped.

*

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*

“Anybody home?” There was a soft tapping on the gazebo door. “Hey! You survived.” Barry kissed the top of my head, nuzzled my neck, and collapsed in the matching Adirondack chair. “You made quite an impression on Kalimba.” I shot him a look of mock alarm. “Can we please get married before we have children?”