Dangerous When Wet: A Memoir (14 page)

Well, I had the few drinks and had by midnight found myself a hot little country boy who worked at Walmart. I sprang for the room. I had it all figured out. We’d be in that room and done by one. But I hadn’t counted on one thing: passing out.

“Shit! Shit!
Shit!
” I roused Walmart. “Come on, babe. We gotta go.”

“How about one more round?”

“No, ma’am! I’ve gotta go.” I frantically pulled on my clothes.

Maybe Mama Jean will still be asleep. But if she’s awake
 … This fiasco had to come just a day after she was still smarting from reading my journal, which detailed the exploits of a trip Michahaze and I had taken that October to Paris, the Loire Valley, and uptight Zurich. The pages were lit with Parisian bathhouses, booze, and a colossal fight in Zurich.

*   *   *

Michahaze and I became one of those couples you see fighting on the street and wonder why they can’t do it elsewhere. I now know how those public fights happen. They’re an explosion that’s been building but comes with no warning. It doesn’t often happen in private, because it takes external events to light the bomb.
Douse liberally with alcohol and enjoy!

We were in Zurich, guests of Michahaze’s rigid, Swiss ex-lover, Lars. It was near the end of what had been a lovely vacation—Paris for three days (just Michahaze’s best friend from college, Big Daddy; Michahaze; and I); then on to the Loire Valley, where Lars had a farmhouse; finally to clean, controlled,
dull
Zurich.
Switzerland is the Canada of Europe, and my apologies to Canada.
I couldn’t appreciate the surrounding gray Alps, the winding cobblestone streets, or the centuries-old, turreted buildings. All I could see through the steady mist of drizzle was a land and a people obsessed with the forbidden, aka
verboten
. Everywhere I turned absurd signs told me what I
couldn’t
do in Switzerland. U-turns:
Verboten!
Sawing a park bench in half:
Verboten!
Nude skiing:
Verboten!

I got into a discussion with Lars and his girlfriend about my favorite drug, Ecstasy.
Girlfriend? What is that about?
Lars’s already straight back stiffened further, his thin lips pursed tighter, and his beady eyes got narrower as he said, “Vell, this Ecstasy is
verboten
in Switzerland.”

“Well,” I said as I took a swig from my glass of red wine, “it’s
verboten
in America too, but we still do it!”

After nearly a week under Lars’s controlled roof in the Loire Valley and then at his apartment in Zurich (“Today ve vill do this and that—but not that—and eat at precisely seven thirty-five p.m.”), Michahaze, Big Daddy, and I finally had a night of freedom without Lars, who had another engagement.

Having drunk only wine the whole trip, we were on a quest for a stiff drink of vodka, and Lars was adamantly opposed to the idea. “You don’t want to buy vodka in Switzerland. It is
very
expensive.”

“We’ll pay! We’ll pay!” we cried. Reluctantly, he led us to a store where the best vodka we could find was Smirnoff. We bought a fifth and polished it off before going out. There was no ice in the apartment, so we drank warm vodka tonics.
I’ll go to any lengths for a drink.

After a dinner of wine and cheese fondue, we headed for the gayborhood, excited about a young night of options before us—maybe Michahaze and I would try a bathhouse. We had visited one in Paris and had a three-way, which wasn’t our first. We had also had a three-way at our apartment on Gay Pride Day the previous summer. It happened after a day of drinking and after the Ecstasy kicked in, so kind of organically. (These situations occurred without us setting parameters and usually me pushing the boundaries.) In the Loire Valley, Michahaze and I had wonderful sex several nights in a row. We hadn’t been so passionately regular for months. Despite the sex, I would find myself bored during after-dinner conversations, and the fantasies of leaving Michahaze—thoughts that had been gnawing at me for over a year—kept creeping in.

We went to a lovely
rendezvous
bar (Swiss term for a more social and formal bo
î
te, as opposed to a
cruise
bar, a pickup joint). We bellied up to the bar and ordered a round of drinks. At the end of the bar stood a dream of a man in black trousers, a black turtleneck, and a hunter-green wool blazer. Tall and dark, he had the sexy stubble of a two- or three-day holiday from shaving. He was dreamy, the kind of man I would order. I remember once complaining to Michahaze that we didn’t have many gay friends. His reply: “That’s because you try to sleep with everyone we meet.”

I quickly introduced myself, Michahaze, and Big Daddy, and we asked him about the scene, which cruise bars and baths we should hit. Felix was his name. He lived in Zurich. He had a lover, also Swiss, but the lover lived in New York. Felix gave us the rundown. It was too late for the baths, as they closed early. He knew lots of bars. Why not follow him to one?

At the next bar, while Michahaze and Big Daddy struck up a conversation with some people, I moved in on Felix. With the bluster of a third of a bottle of vodka and change, I told him he was beautiful. That I wanted him. The feeling was mutual, he said. I told him that I wanted us to be naked and told him explicitly what I wanted to do to him once we were naked.

With a lick of his smiling lips he said, “Perhaps we should go for a walk?”

“I don’t think my lover would like that.” I quickly rethought that.
We have gone to a bathhouse. We have had three-ways.
Fortified with liquor courage, I asked Michahaze if he minded.

He minded. “Just what are you saying?”

“Just kidding.”

Too late. I had crossed a line. No going back. I explained that I hadn’t thought he would mind since we had just had a three-way in Paris. Michahaze couldn’t believe his ears. I couldn’t believe my mouth. We stood in the seedy, smoky, crowded, small bar and melted down.

I’d been having doubts for the last year, I told him. “I think you’re a wonderful person but I don’t know if I love you anymore. I think I need to be on my own.”

“Are you saying it’s over?”

“Yes, I’m saying it’s over.”

The look of stunned hurt on his face, like a child who has just been hit, was harder for me to take than his next move. He took off his ring and shoved it in my hand. “You’re
horrible
! Just
horrible
!” His hurt had burned into anger. “What would your mother think?”

“Don’t bring her into this!” But she was always there, even when she was an ocean away. She constantly haunted my thoughts, especially when I was doing something of which she wouldn’t approve. The mantra in my head wasn’t WWMJD? (What would Mama Jean do?), but WWMJT? (What would Mama Jean think?). She became my conscience, a termagant sitting on my shoulder in her lynx-fur coat and shaking her finger. I kept air-biting her finger until she went away, the way our dog Brennan used to do when she scolded him.

I took off my ring and put it in my pocket along with his. While he repeated how horrible I was, I fondled the rings in my pocket and shook my head humbly in agreement. I heard the ping of something hitting the stone floor. I thought it was a coin. Before I could stoop to see what it was, the bartender was showing us out the door. Our behavior was
verboten
there.

We continued our fight on the cobblestoned street. I told Michahaze he needed to go home to get away from this. He refused. I begged him to let me get a cab. After a breathless silence, I said, “Well, I’m going back in the bar.” Even though I was saturated with guilt, I still wanted Felix and was on autopilot. A stiff dick knows no conscience, as Mama Jean always said.

Practical Michahaze emerged. How would I get back home? What would I do for the rest of the trip? Despite all of the horrible things that I had said, he was still trying to salvage what was left of us and look after me, which made me feel even more guilty and still in love with him. We finally left together in silence and went back to the apartment. Michahaze crawled into bed and I crawled on the floor, still in my street clothes, to further humble myself.

“I wish I had a gun, Michael, because I’d kill myself. You’re right. I am awful.”

His face turned away from me in disgust. “Oh, stop it. Go to sleep.”

I felt for the rings in my pocket. Only one was there. That ping on the stone floor I’d heard in the bar had been my ring. I returned to the bar the next day to look for it, but like the black beret from college, it was never to be seen again.

I wanted that ring back. I wanted Michahaze back. Michahaze, despite my drunken transgression, never left.

*   *   *

I had written down this tale in my journal, which also contained enchanting tales of recreational fun with drugs such as Ecstasy. Mama Jean helped herself to the journal on that Christmas visit. “I’m worried about you.
Seriously
worried about you,” she said, glaring at me as my red diary sat in her lap. “Do you know what you’re doing? The drinking is bad enough, but do you know what that drug, Ecstasy, does to your body? I’ve read about it.” She crossed her arms in a giant
X
to let me know that she knew the slang term for it, but the gesture looked more like a giant
verboten
sign. “And going into those seedy places in Paris where you can catch God knows what. Remember, Jamie, a moment’s pleasure isn’t worth a lifetime of regret.”

Do I call her Pandora for opening my red box? No.
I didn’t bother to register anger because I knew that the contents of the diary trumped my feelings. Besides, the journal was under her roof, so fair game. I told her that I was an adult and was having a little fun. That I was in control of it. Careful. Blah, blah, blah.

Now, back in Beaumont at Christmas, a day or so after that revelation, I was dragging in at five
A.M.
My hopes that she was still asleep were defeated when I walked in the back door and the lights were on. I walked down the hall to the open double doors of her bedroom and sheepishly looked in.

Dad, looking drained, was standing just inside her bedroom. “Jamie, your mother has been up all night, worried sick,” he said like a weatherman announcing a hurricane that’s about to—

Hit!

“God …
damn
it!” Farther into the cavernous room of peachy pink sat Mama Jean in her floral nightgown on the edge of her king-size, floral bedspread that matched the floral fabric of the quilted headboard that matched the floral fabric of the window drapes that matched the floral wallpaper behind the bed.
It is a not-so-secret garden.
She was holding the phone in her hand. She slammed it down on the cradle and screamed, “Where the
hell
have you been?! I’ve been calling all over town, not knowing if you were dead or alive.”
Dead seems like a better option for me right now.

“I fell asleep at a friend’s,” I lied.

“A friend’s?! Bullshit!” Her teeth were bared and her eyes were narrowed in a white-hot glare.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry” was all I could say.

“You ought to be on a couch somewhere!” Her phrase for anyone whom she felt was in need of psychiatric help. I was speechless.

As I walked away, she fired one more shot. “And I feel sorry for Michael!”

THIRTEEN

The Short and Long of It

Les Hommes Bookstore was a mere two blocks away from the Works gay bar. I sometimes popped in there for a quickie after a night of carousing, if nothing panned out at the Works, which I had renamed the Last Chance Saloon. Les Hommes was not a Barnes & Noble or a cozy little hole-in-the-wall specializing in used and rare books. It was a gay porn shop with “buddy booths” in the back for impromptu assignations. I don’t think any books were traded there, but the patrons were certainly used if not rare.
Les hommes
means “the men” in French,
merci beaucoup
.

It was on a side street, and even though booze wasn’t served, it had a speakeasy feel. The gray metal door with its twelve-inch-square, blacked-out window faded into the streetscape. You wouldn’t notice it unless you were looking for it. A buzzer was at chin level next to the door. I rang and was immediately buzzed in. I made the cut. I climbed up the dimly lit stairs, careful not to trip on the peeling linoleum. Even though it was a flight up, the place had a distinctly subterranean feel, like entering the underworld. At the top of the stairs I passed through another door (no buzzer required for this one).

The main floor was harshly overlit. Fluorescent lights exposed a wide assortment of children’s fairy-tale videos:
Pinocchio, Bambi, Cinderella
. Mayor Rudy Giuliani had recently cleaned up sleaze in the city, and the ridiculous compromise that businesses such as Les Hommes had to make was the devotion of prime shelf real estate to family products. I didn’t browse the selection, but walked directly to the bulletproof Plexiglas cashier window.

“One for the back,” I said, and pushed my eight dollars through the money slot. The Indian man behind the window rang me up on the manual cash register, staring through me like a zombie. He could have been a tollbooth clerk on the New Jersey Turnpike.
Kah-clunk,
I heard as he depressed an unseen button to release the turnstile that allowed entry to the buddy booths. Above the turnstile a plastic sign read
NO REFUNDS. NO REENTRY. NOT RESPONSIBLE
 … The
FOR LOST OR STOLEN GOODS
line had broken off. But
NOT RESPONSIBLE
just about summed it up for a place like this.

The buddy-booth section consisted of a long row of plywood cells along a grimy hallway of broken red and yellow tiles lit by slightly dimmer fluorescent lights. The booths were no more than three feet square and featured a small screen with flickering blue movies. The rows of doors opened in with metal slide locks near the top.

I had been here before, and it was never a sure thing. The clientele usually seemed old and desiccated to my twenty-seven-year-old eyes, but occasionally a hottie lurked behind one of the plywood doors of the place, reminding me of a porno version of
Let’s Make a Deal
.