King Perry (24 page)

“I thought you loved Alcatraz.”

“It turned out okay,” he says. “But I’m not built that way. I may live in California, but we’re not all into tarot cards and bear walking in public. I can’t do this crazy shit.”

“You can’t eat here, you can’t walk like a bear, you can’t spend the night on Alcatraz. But you did those things. I saw you. And by the way, yesterday on the pier you told me that you once got a tarot card reading, so don’t tell me you can’t do shit you have already done.”

“I saw a psychic.”

“Fine, psychic.”

Before he protests further, I put my hand up. “Gimme a minute.”

As we pass the gift shop, the trickle of tourists becomes a steady stream, flowing into two giant plateaus overlooking the bay, the delta at our human river’s end. Abruptly, I take his left hand with my right so that our fingers intertwine. He tries to jerk away, but I keep my grip steady.

I say, “This is San Francisco. We’ll blend in more. I’ve got a plan, I think.”

“Oh my God,” he says, shaking his head.

“It’s okay. I’ve gotten out of situations like this before. Give me two minutes, Perry.”

As we near the top tier observation deck, photo headquarters of the western world, the energy around us intensifies. Move three feet in any direction and you ruin someone’s picture. All around us I hear conversations spoken in languages I cannot understand, and to my ignorant ears, every conversation expresses the same ideas: Beauty. Elation. Astonishment.

Our neighbors negotiate friendly introductions with each other, smiling and nodding, like guests at a big wedding who don’t know each other’s names, but know that as of right now, we’re all related somehow.

Conversations in English demand eavesdropping.

“You’re from Raleigh? I had an uncle who lived there for many years.”

“Would you take our picture?”

“Enjoy your vacation. It was nice chatting with you.”

“Yes, we saw that yesterday. But have you been to…?”

Perry and I stop.

The Golden Gate Bridge appears, fully formed, as if it leapt out from behind a curtain. My jaw drops, as always. The first time I saw it, I felt so completely overwhelmed by the raw power of this functional art, so drunk on its qualities that eluded conscious description, I only managed to pull together a single coherent thought:
Oh. Engineers. Got it.

Sure, it’s big, it’s orange, and it connects San Francisco to the coast. That’s one level. But no words go as high as this bridge, no words adequate to explain the joy this thing inspires. Nothing captures the sweeping majesty of the cables, the sheer improbability that a thing like this could exist except outside of fantasy. You might also stare at the Golden Gate and think,
Oh. Poets. Got it.

But appreciating this majesty takes a certain quality—wonder—which is hard to hold, wriggly as a baby duck. Wonder is always difficult until you forgive whoever destroyed your love of surprises.

“Pretty,” he says without emotion.

There may as well be a fucking unicorn prancing in the foreground.

“Don’t you think there ought to be a unicorn prancing around out here? Seriously, this is a sci-fi book cover of an alien—”

He turns to face me. “Vin, I can’t do this.”

“I know,” I say, tracing the side of his face with my index finger. “I know, Perry.”

They always hate remembering.

“Hey,” I call over to a thirty-something couple who have finished taking each other’s photos. “Would you take our picture?”

I grab the camera strap around his neck and lead him to them, re-asking, not giving Perry a chance to speak. I extricate the camera from his sun visor and hand it over.

“That sure would be great. Thank you.” I make the necessary small talk and clasp my arm strongly around Perry’s shoulder. “It’s all set. Just press right… yeah, right there.”

“Smile,” the woman says to us.

Perry smiles, but it’s weak.

They are polite, these tourists, and so they make sure we’re both really ready and click the button. The photo taken, I thank them and they wander off. I walk up to two grungy, black-clothed teenage boys and ask them the same question.

They look at me warily.

“Would you mind? Big help if you did.”

One of them shrugs in mild alarm. I see him shoot a look to his friend, perhaps wondering, “Why is this old man asking me?” Nevertheless, he slowly wraps his black-painted nails around the camera while he trades secret looks with his friend.

This time, I put my arm around Perry’s waist so it’s clear we’re not just buddies. Perry’s body tenses. I jab a thumb at Perry’s tie-dye shirt and say loudly, “You guys know that Iowa is Hawkeye country, right?”

The boys say nothing, trying hard not to laugh.

“Say
sleeeeeeaze
,” says the one, and his friend can stand it no more, hawking razor-sharp laughs and then staggering away. I thank the picture-taker before he sulks off to join his friend.

“Vin,” Perry says, gripping my forearm, but I resist him, stepping up to a family of five, the kids happily trailing the wake of their parents.

“Bill-lee!”

I hear the name shoot right past my ear.

What the fuck?

My voice wavers as I say, “Would you take our photo?”

She said
Billy.
It’s just a name; don’t freak out over nothing. Smile, goddamn it.

I put my arm around Perry, but this time my heart isn’t in it. Did she say
Billy
or was that
Willie
? I already don’t remember, can’t tell. Does it even matter?

Snap.

I didn’t even smile for that one.
Focus the fuck up, you moron.

What the fuck is with all this Billy shit? I don’t have time for this. That guy at St. Anne’s who looked like Billy, then that woman now calling out that name. Coincidences. But I am leery of coincidences. They start to feel like something more, bigger plans, greater connections. But this isn’t a good time.

“How is this helping?” Perry says. “Seriously.”

“Oh, it’s helping.”

Why the hell did I say that? Talk, you fucking moron!

“Perry, soon they’ll notice the duck’s missing. We should get proof that we spent the afternoon here.”

That works. That
really
works. Okay, this isn’t a disaster. Keep going with this.

I say, “My camera has that feature where it prints the time and date right on the photos. If someone bothered to write down my license plates and follows up, we’ll have photographic proof we spent the afternoon here. Who steals a duck and then takes pictures at the Golden Gate Bridge?”

He refuses to meet my eyes.

“We can get them developed at one of those 24-hour photo places.”

Thank you, kings, for that inspiration. Stay humble, and quit thinking about Billy. Don’t fuck this up.

“Plus, I rarely use my real identity when I check in to hotels. I have all kinds of fake ID. They don’t even know who I am.”

“Oh my God,” he says.

“God also owns various fake IDs,” I say, turning to someone new. “Take our picture?”

She agrees, and I hand her the camera.

Snap.

Every photograph taken helps bring him to the roiling point. My few disastrous attempts at making blueberry jam gave me a powerful insight for kinging: how to keep a substance roiling, the state after boiling, the simmering, bubbling, seething place where angry little bubbles continuously explode. That’s Perry right now, roiling. We reached boiling last night on Alcatraz, and he spent all morning roiling. Considering how the jam experiment ended, perhaps I should drop the roiling concept. I didn’t know jam could explode.

I subject him to this ritual about five more times, in various states of affection. My tongue is never down his throat, but still, I make it obvious we’re a couple. Photo-takers ask where we’re from and if we’re enjoying the city. I tell people that I’m from the Midwest and Perry lives here. I explain I’m visiting my boyfriend, sometimes curling my hand into his, noting his passive acceptance of my affection. Two helpful couples highly recommend Alcatraz.

“It might be too late to get tickets for the next week,” says one older gentleman with his wife. “But you should try anyway. You
have
to do the audio tour.”

Perry half grunts and half chuckles; he can’t help himself.

I shake both of their hands. “Awesome advice. Thank you.”

Perry remains angry and bewildered, especially considering we have barely moved ten feet in the entire time we’ve been here. He seems both surprised and uninterested in the chatty conversations I initiate about cheap San Francisco hotels and how Iowa has changed over the years. A University of Iowa graduate chats up Perry until he discovers Perry has no connection with the Hawkeyes, not even as a long-distance fan. Minus Perry, we all chat happily, words attempting to express how lucky we feel to stand here on such a resplendent day. It’s bright but chilly; the sun beams madly on California’s famous Gateway to Marin County.

After our latest helpers walk away, I say, “It’s resplendent today. I just thought of that word, and it fits, right? I like it because it’s luxurious to say the word
resplendent
. Say it.
Resplendent
.”

Perry shoots me a glare, but he’s not actually bothered by my word shit. Instead of tensing him, his shoulders shift down; his next photographed smile is slightly more authentic than the previous ones. It’s as if he can’t figure out how to react. He’s not exactly exuberant, but he’s opted for something like glum tolerance, another expression caught in between.

Besides, who can easily exude exuberance?

“I know a resplendent way out of this,” I say during our next break. “I’ve given it some thought, and luckily, King Aabee dealt with something similar.”

His eyes flash back to rage. “You’re joking. Now?”

Roiling very much achieved.

“I can’t,” Perry says. “I tried, but this is too much.”

I take his hands, gaze softly into his fury.

He’s right. It’s too much. Perry has been under constant assault: every unanswered question on Pier 33, every minute on Alcatraz, from cake dropping and fake bacon to demanding his wallet. I insisted he memorize a fairy tale while sexually exhausting him. I keep requiring forgiveness for each new affront, and he keeps forgiving. But it’s never enough! The sky is bleeding, crimson slashes against an otherwise purple day.

This moment is everything, the real fulcrum of the weekend.

If Perry stays, the scales tip toward his kingship within the next half hour. If not, he remains lost. But right now, nothing is clear, other than it hurts, it always hurts. Why does this shitty world work this way?

Yet I believe the dam blocking his stunted heart might crumble at last, the expected, thunder-splitting boom sounding instead like the soft click of a 35mm camera. We’re that close to the edge.

Don’t quit, Perry. Don’t walk away this time. Stay and love.

I shake my head. “Dude, you won’t believe the predicament that King Aabee found himself in.”

Perry steps backward, pulls his hands free.

“Stay, my king,” I say, breathing more endurance into him, my sparkling orange and pink love. “Stay for this. Stay and love.”

His empty stare accuses me, more articulate than words.

I step closer, feeling my love for Perry spark off me as I open my heart to him. Feel me, Perry, loving you with all my love.

I flash to King Mai, whose crown I’m wearing as I say, “Find your curiosity.”

Perry says, “No.”

Even that single word betrays hurt. But if he is to survive tonight, Perry’s capacity to love needs to get bigger. Stronger. This is the moment where he grows something special.

“Diego, the Tourist King, found himself in trouble, and before any other king could volunteer to assist, King Aabee cried out, ‘I will go. Send me!’”

I lean in and move my hand to the back of his neck, strumming small circles with my thumb. His skin feels hot to my touch, pulsating and simmering.

“King Diego managed to get himself locked up in a Turkish prison, which surprised no one as he was always offending someone. Diego asked the questions locals did not ask. He either tried too hard to fit in, or he didn’t try hard enough. But he didn’t mind being a tourist. It was once considered an honorable profession.”

Perry says nothing.

I hug myself around him, engulfing him. One good push would separate us easily, but this isn’t about physically trapping him; it’s about tipping the scales. Everywhere around us I hear clicking and sputtering at the famous landmark. Not by accident I chose a dazzling bridge as the backdrop for the weekend’s Fulcrum Moment. I need every bit of symbolism and power available.

Huskily, I speak into his ear. “To become a tourist assumes a certain vulnerability, to wear the wrong shoes and not know the right times for meals. To drive too slow, alert for photographable moments, because you’re awestruck that beauty exists in the world and, amazingly enough, we all happened to find it on the same damn day. To be a tourist is to be filled with wonder.”

Despite the chattering sea of people around us, Perry’s and my world is completely still. Perry permits me to curl him into my arms, but his posture stays rigid, his breathing shallow. Perry and I might push the boundary of “overly affectionate” to those around us, but nobody shies away. Looking over his shoulder, I see a few folks cast uncomfortable glances our way, but they’re in San Francisco and, I would guess, trying to be okay with it.

“To boast
wonder
takes great courage. Being left speechless with joy is not for the weak. We forget to be surprised at everyday miracles, like toast springing up, the mesmerizing blue in the sky, or even simple friendships. To touch and remember this delicate sense of wonder, we travel. We deliberately let ourselves become tourists to welcome in this unique delight. Wouldn’t you like to be
filled with joy, Perry
?”

I cannot see his face, but I can feel his breath as his irritation melts into something else. Perry’s head tilts forward a few inches, resting the tip of his forehead on my bicep.

It’s done.