The Price Of Dick (28 page)

Now that
Alex was single again, we flirted with each other like school kids. It was harmless, good fun. I was most assuredly attracted to him. How could anyone not be? However, I was two decades older than he was, and in spite of how much he had helped me look better physically, age wasn’t something that would roll back along with the improvement in my fitness level. I ran slower than him, kidding him it was to watch that fine ass jiggle in his practically see-through running shorts.

He
’d write a new inspirational quote on my bulletin board next to the refrigerator every time he came over. He believed good thoughts created good chemistry. No bad thoughts; no bad chemistry. The only bad chemistry that walked into the house, if rarely at this point, was Dick. Alex and I had created a text code between us to avoid confrontation: CCN meant Closet Case is in, CCO meant Closet Case is out—or all clear.

We
’d watch movies together in my room after our late runs. That way there’d be no unexpected, hostile encounters with Dick if he decided to come home without warning. On occasion we’d fall asleep in my bed with a bowl of popcorn between us; his head on my chest. I loved waking up feeling his soft hair under my chin. The natural constraints of friendship softened the more he became a familiar fixture. He’d brush his teeth while I was showering. We pissed in front of each other. Sometimes together, having a battle with the piss streams. Before long, he’d begun to step in the shower with me so we didn’t run out of hot water. Having his golden, naked flesh inches from me was a test of pure physical restraint. It was tough to keep my hands off him; difficult to maintain that friendly distance, but I did. I knew the rebound curse, and I wasn’t going to open either one of us up to any more problems than those already circling our camp. The important thing: I was happy again. I looked forward to getting up and facing the day and creating. I whistled fun tunes and hummed cheerful songs like a Disney character.

Inside the whirlwind that circled me
due to the book publicity, I hadn't a thought as to how its release directly affected Dick. I was enjoying my life and achievement, keeping his Bad Mojo out of my thoughts. The continuing success of my book would turn out to be the final
baiser de la mort
to what little remained of our relationship. My fame was publicly unmaking the very bed he’d made up, the years of carefully constructed lies about who and what I was, this man he’d lived with all these years. It never crossed my mind as my little gay love story climbed the bestseller chart that I’d yanked myself out of his closet and jumped up on stage to tap dance a gay musical for the whole world to witness. I was fucking up absolutely everything for him just when he was trying to whitewash the character I played in the script of his life. That damn script was the whole reason he’d started dating Dolores. Every time anything appeared in the media about me or my book, I was unknowingly exposing him for the fraud he was. It would only take one more bit of publicity to expose him. One thing that would ignite the fuse and cause an explosion, blowing him completely out of his cozy closet. Like the interview I was asked to do for a local television station.

Even though it wouldn
’t air right away, for Dick, the television interview would be like a slowly ticking time bomb. Everything I’d never said, that he’d hoped to never hear me say, would be revealed in that interview. I didn’t know it at the time, but it would wind up airing the week after he’d broken up with Dolores, the day before his promotion at work. Karma would kick him in the ass with a steel-toed boot.

Only recently the various local media
outlets had been adding special coverage for the upcoming Pride Day. It was a month away, and the TV reporter, herself a lesbian, had read my novel and called me to see if I’d care to be featured in the broadcast. I welcomed the extra exposure for my book, and at Alex’s urging, I agreed.

I was
quite nervous. Alex offered to help me prepare. He was excited—the way I should have been. He walked me through mock interviews. My tongue-tied answers were more funny than informative. I came off less literary and more bumbling Clouseau. No one was
less
ready to be in front of a camera than the man who had been behind one most of his life. Alex wouldn’t let me give up or feel insecure.

“
Even the best actors have to practice. It ain’t easy. But you can do it,” he said.

The next day I was in a salon having my hair styled, nails manicured, and eyebrows waxed. All the indulgences
many gays enjoy regularly that were not a part of my routine. I got haircuts, not styles, clipped my nails and never once even plucked my brows. Then, we went clothes shopping. He wanted me to look Lee Child distinguished rather than Kurt Vonnegut frumpy. I was a bad gay. I knew nothing about fashion. I was at his mercy. I felt out of place as the object of all his attention, yet oddly charmed at the same time. He doted on me in a singular way. I couldn’t remember anytime that someone made me feel so special or important, so cared for in an up close and personal manner.

We
—he—settled on a collegiate-type contoured and collared beige pullover with some designer-brand label, and very expensive khaki slacks. He selected a watch to accessorize the new look.

“
And now something for good luck,” he said. Slipping off the unusual ring I’d seen on his right hand, third finger since we’d first met. “This is the symbol of the lotus, which in Buddhism has a particular significance which applies to you,” he explained. “The roots of the lotus are in the mud, and the stem winds itself up through the water. The blossom lies upon the water in the sunshine. Its fragrance fills the air.”

I listened as he delicately took my hand in his to try the ring on each finger to see which
one it would fit. His touch was like warm silk. He found the ring would only fit my pinkie, and he carefully slipped it on.

“
It signifies the journey of our soul through the murkiness of the material world, through the waters of experience, and finally to enlightenment. Just as your journey has been, J.J. You came through the mud, through the waters of your experience. It’s now time for you to flower.” His eyes danced like faceted emeralds in front of me.

The words that spilled from my mouth were less a thought than a compulsion.
“I have an overwhelming urge to kiss you,” I told him.

He smiled and winked.
“The ring is supposed to bring you good luck. Not me.”

As a man having lived his life behind the
camera lens, I can say that in all the world, there’s nothing more intimidating than seeing a crew haul in and set up lights, a microphone and sound system and video camera in your living room, then point them straight at you. Abject terror stabbed the center of my chest. My breath caught. Blood left my head. In fact, it seemed it had left my entire body. My face felt numb.

The reporter sensed
my fear. She was a striking black woman named Dionne. She said her mother had named her after the singer who became more famous for being the first cousin to Whitney Houston than for her own singing. It was polite, casual conversation to calm me down.

“
This is simple stuff, Mr. Johnstone. Just look directly at me. Pretend the camera doesn’t exist. You’re talking just to me.”

Ironically, she was rehashing the speech I gave to all my new models before a shoot
. Yet there I was; professionally dressed, looking better than I had in years, the author of a successful novel, yet feeling insecure the minute my eyes honed in on that polished round piece of glass staring inhumanly at me.

Alex
brought me a glass of his iced chai tea sweetened with honey. He bent and whispered, "Time to bloom, J.J. Every challenge you’ve faced has brought you to this moment to do some good. One seed, many flowers. Just tell what’s in your heart. Help others come into the sunshine.” And with that he cupped my chin and kissed me on the mouth. I felt all the life and strength pour from him into me. It felt like I imagined kisses were supposed to feel. It filled me with purpose. I was fearless. All of his coaching for this moment was in my head like a bulleted outline. It was as if it had flowed from him to me magically.

Dionne and
I talked about my epiphany; my transition from shooting straight romance to gay romance, the challenges and stigmas that worked against me for years that had gradually began to turn the tide because of mainstream television and motion pictures. I spoke about how I wanted my work to be used to further the cause of marriage equality, to mark the consciousness of society with an imprint that we, the gay Americans, were here, and not going away. I explained ways in which I hoped things would change because of that imprint. Finally, I told her why I was compelled to write a sweeping, epic gay romance that was directly created for consumption by the mainstream public, not just gays.

“
I wrote something for us,” I explained. “But it is also universal for them. I wanted to show that love, itself, is universal in the hope that one day there wouldn’t be an "us and them." That one day gay marriage would be as ordinary as any marriage. That jewelry shops and wedding planners would welcome us equally with open arms."

I said I dreamed that one day
, television and magazines would feature ads with gay couples and it would no longer be remarkable. That we’d be as mainstream as love itself. It all poured out of me like I was reciting heartfelt passages from a cherished play. The words that had laid hidden in me for so long were now out. Dionne, for a brief moment, looked as if she might cry, but she regained her composure.

“
One last question, Mr. Johnstone.” She’d laid her notebook aside and leaned in toward me. I could tell this was not a part of her script. “National Coming Out day is just around the corner. What words of encouragement do you have for those who still haven’t come out?”

This time I turned to look directly into the lens as if I was speaking to each person out there. I sensed it was the most important thing I could say to anyone who was gay.
I knew enough about the subject now to speak with some confidence.

“
I’m going to steal a phrase from my book. ‘You can’t dream in the light, if you can’t live in it’,” I recited.

She thanked me. The camera light went off
, and the crew stood and clapped. Dionne hugged me, shook my hand hard, then told me I was an inspiration. Alex smiled at me with tears in his eyes.

I was the Lotus.

Tick, tick, tick.

The Dolores saga was quickly drawing to its inevitable conclusion. As always, Dick had no intention of making their relationship permanent. After all, it wasn’t real. It had been air-popped for public consumption, slathered with salt and butter for everyone to sniff and ooh and ah. But when the popcorn was gone, the show was over. His boss was convinced of his über-manliness, so his promotion was as good as in the bag. He certainly didn’t want to have her around to share his spotlight.

Tick, tick, tick
. If he’d been listening, he’d have heard the ominous crackling noise of the burning fuse that I’d accidentally lit that was set to go off during the last week of the month.

A week after I taped the interview,
Dionne called to ask if I’d like to participate in the Pride parade that was now three weeks away. The event coordinator had extended the invitation, wanted to have me on the City’s Celebrities float. Dionne thought it would be a nice way to expand the viewership of my interview that would air on the local nightly news the same day as the celebration.

Alex
jumped for joy and into my arms when I told him that I’d accepted. I’d never been to a Pride parade so it was not only an event, it was a new experience.

The countdown had begun. Dick knew nothing of the interview or the Pride parade.

Two weeks later, he broke up with his girlfriend. I’d suspected it when I began to see more of him in one week than I had in the previous two months. And when his phone rang constantly and he refused to answer it. It was the same pattern as before. We still orbited in different spheres. Communication was delivered in alien-speak: one sentence questions.

“
Are you done with laundry?”

“
Where is the dishwasher soap?”

Impersonal
, the least amount of interaction required.

He began drinking heavily again. All the liquor I
’d purchased for the models disappeared. Four bottles of rum, two of vodka and a half bottle of gin. He’d bring in a case of beer every night. All but two would be gone by the morning. My liver wept for him.

Alex
and I were back to the text message warnings: CCN and CCO. I’d meet him outside for our nightly runs, then sneak him back in afterwards to shower and sleep in my room until Dick left for work in the morning. Our relationship was still chaste but growing closer. We were becoming inseparable. We continued our practice of snuggling in bed watching movies until we fell asleep, hearing Dick’s westerns through the door.

*  *  *

J.J.'s world of weird continued onward. Dick went to get fitted for a new suit for his promotion. He bragged on the phone so I could overhear that he was spending two grand on it. Yet he still bought no groceries for the house. He ate at restaurants to avoid bringing in food I might consume. I thought it best to ignore his pettiness, so Alex took me grocery shopping.

We drove to one of those
specialty stores I’d never been to, halfway across town, because Alex said it had a better assortment of items for
accidental vegetarians
. His excitement over our participation in Pride was contagious. Our prominent participation in Pride, as he put it. I had already invited him as my escort and he called all his gay clients and friends and asked them to meet us after the parade at a bar that was along the Pride parade’s path.

The whole
drive to the store, he was online on his phone checking the status of my book's sales. He couldn't have been more invested in its success if he’d written it himself. In the past week it had risen from number twenty on the bestseller list to number nine. He watched it like it was in a horserace with the other books.

I still wasn't
a fan of grocery shopping. I usually made a short list of essentials so I could run in and out in just a few minutes. Alex was not like that. He loved food, loved to cook, and had a million ideas for things to cook for me in keeping with my new meatless diet. I pushed a cart behind him as he gathered his selections. I loved to watch him. He had a way of looking lithe, like a dancer; boyish in his spontaneity. He sensed my growing restlessness and sent me to the produce counter with the simplest of the tasks. Cabbage, carrots and cucumbers. In this store they were all organic, and pricey.

“
J.J.” A voice called from down the aisle of pyramid-stacked fruits and vegetables. I turned to look, and saw a young dark-haired woman with a nose-picking girl of eight or nine hanging from a locked-hand grip. She smiled at me as if she knew me. I didn’t recognize her. She closed in on me, her smile growing. “Gosh, you probably don’t recognize me. It’s been so long. I’m Christine...er...Christy.”

I stared at her harder. My mind replaced her long, mousy b
rown hair with a shorter blonde style, and subtracted a few years. Realization dawned. Christy, one of Dick’s long-ago girlfriends. The one he’d dumped because she didn’t make ‘fiscally sound decisions.’ I remembered secretly reading her email. She was delighted I remembered her. I held cabbages in my hands to keep from having to shake hers. One look at her nose-picking child and I knew where her hands had been.

She
chit-chatted for a minute or two about her life, marriage and motherhood before she hit me with the hard stuff that I knew would come.

“
I read your book. It was beautiful. A great love story. I’d never read a homosexual book before, but I saw your name and just had to get it.”

I blushed a little,
thanking her. I still wasn’t comfortable with the praise.

“
So, you’re gay?” she asked. She had moved in close so her voice was just a whisper. There seemed to be no sub-text in the way she asked the question. Merely curiosity.

“
Yes,” I answered. I no longer felt obligated to hide myself for anyone’s benefit.

“
You’ve always been gay?”

“
Since my first breath,” I said, proudly.

“
Dick knew this?”

“
He was aware of it, yes.”

“
You know he told me that you weren’t?”

I nodded again.
“I am aware of that, also.”

She stood back, absorbed the information quietly and thoughtfully. Her eyes went far away for a moment and then
focused back on me. She was figuring things out for the first time.

“
He hurt me pretty badly, J.J.” A sob clouded her voice. She rubbed the wrist that held her daughter. I looked down and saw the thin white relief of a length-ways scar on it. From a razor. I turned and saw a matching one on her other wrist. My heart held a long note of horrible, guilty realization.

“
I didn’t know what happened. I was in love, very much in love. I gave everything of myself to him. And then it ended, and I didn’t know why. He wouldn’t tell me why. He came up with strange excuses that made me think something was very wrong with me, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was. It took a long time...and a lot of...help to bring myself back.”

I saw the wounds reflected in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it from deep within. I remembered how I dismissed her, just glad that Dick was finally back at the apartment to help me with my work. My conscience was stinging me for my heartlessness, my selfishness.

“
So, can you tell me why?” Her eyes were earnest. She thought for a moment, and then the question came. “Is it because he’s gay too?”

Something happened inside me
in that instant. I made a decision to do something I’d have never done before, but I knew I had the words that could heal this woman’s wounds. The truth that could set her free. I could undo Dick’s lie to her.

“
Yes, he is,” I said in a clear, distinct voice.

It was as if her face unfolded in front of me, loosening her sorrow and letting it fall away. Her shoulders sank with a sigh of relief.
“Then it wasn’t me?” She almost laughed as she spoke the words. A knot which had been tied inside her for years seemed to come undone in front of me.

“
No. It wasn’t you. It never was,” I told her. “It was him.”

Tears pooled in her lower lids. A smile fluttered to her face as she reached out to touch my arm. Her gratitude was soul-deep. She looked like a child wanting to dance.

“I’m sorry he hurt you,” I apologized. I hope she could feel my own apology in that sentence.

“
Has he done this to others?”

I nodded.

She covered her mouth, shook her head. “That is so wrong. So evil.”

I agreed.

She kissed my cheek and silently walked away with her child in tow. I turned with my cabbages to see Alex a short distance away. He’d watched the entire episode. One glance at his face told me I’d done the right thing.