Men Who Love Men (10 page)

I let out a sigh. “Yeah. Come on. Follow me.” I turn to Jeff as I start to walk away. “By the way, your sister wants you to do something with J. R. today. Maybe take him out on the boat. The kid seems depressed.”

Jeff shrugs. “I just saw him and suggested we go jetskiing. But he said he just wanted to listen to his new CD. On a beautiful day like today!” He makes a face. “Kids. Who can figure them out?”

I head up the path toward the house after another kid I can’t quite figure out. Inside, I yank open the cellar door and pull the string for the overhead light. I gesture to Luke to follow me down into the musty darkness. Lloyd wants to remodel the basement into a game room, but that’s still another year or two down the road in his business plan.

“Okay,” I’m telling Luke as we reach the bottom, “I’ve already tossed some of the sheets down here. All the rooms are going to need fresh linens and towels for—”

I feel a hand grab my crotch.

“Henry,” Luke purrs, his lips at my ear.

I pull forcefully away. “I meant what I said, Luke,” I tell him. “No more of that.”

“No one will know,” he says, his eyes burning in the near-darkness.

“Do you want this job, Luke?” I draw close to him, meeting his eyes directly. “Or do you want to fuck it up? If you fuck it up, you’ve lost your best chance to stay close to Jeff.”

He backs off.

“Just as I thought. You wouldn’t want to screw anything up between you and Jeff.” I pause, rubbing my chin as I observe him. “What I’m not sure is, do you just want him because you find him hot, or is there more? Is it even just hero worship? Or do you think he can turn you into the next literary wunderkind?”

Luke says nothing, just stares at me.

“Let me tell you something, buddy boy.” I draw in very close, just an inch from his face. “Jeff and Lloyd are getting married, and they don’t need some sexy little number like you waltzing in and coming between them. And if you’re thinking Jeff will introduce you to his agent or send your manuscript to his publisher, you’ve got another surprise coming to you. Do you know how often Jeff gets approached to do that? Do you know how many wannabe writers with stars in their eyes try to foist their manuscripts on him? I can assure you he’s not going there with you, just like he won’t go there with anyone.”

I wait to see what he might say, but Luke remains silent.

“So,” I say, “what will it be then, Luke? If there’s not going to be any sex—with me
or
with Jeff—and if there’s not going to be any book deal at the end of this little houseboy stint, do you want to quit now? I’m just laying it all out for you, so you know your options. What will it be?”

He regards me steely-eyed for several seconds. The seconds stretch into a minute, in fact, before he finally speaks.

“Where’s the laundry detergent?” he asks.

I don’t move from my position. I just keep staring at him.

“The laundry detergent, Henry,” he says calmly. “How can I do my job without any laundry detergent?”

I hold his gaze for one second longer. “Behind you on the shelf,” I say.

“Thank you.”

Luke moves off to retrieve it. I head toward the stairs.

“I’ll toss down the rest of the linens,” I say. “And after you’ve got them loaded, I’ll show you where we keep the supplies for cleaning the bathrooms.”

“Yes, sir,” Luke replies as he stoops to gather the sheets on the floor into his tight, sinewy arms.

I turn away and head upstairs.

I was right. My job has just become hell.

T
hat night, I have a dream.

I’m back in my parents’ home, in West Springfield, Massachusetts. I’m fifteen. I’m getting ready to go out with my best friend Jack, the boy who introduced me to grunge music and, not incidentally, the first person who ever told me he was gay. Jack’s two years older than I am; he stayed back in school at least one grade. So he’s got his driver’s license, and in my dream, I’m once again riding around with him, reliving a night that seemed to sum up everything I was at the time.

And maybe still am.

Jack is driving—fast—in his mother’s car. It’s a Chevy Nova. I’m sitting next to Jack in the front seat. He smells of boys perfume—stinking up the car, but I kind of like it.

“We’re gonna get carded,” I tell Jack. “I just know it.”

Jack wiggles his wrist at me. “Stop worrying. We’ll get in.”

“But what if we get caught? What will my mother say?”

I
know
what my mother will say. “A
gay bar??
My underage son was found in a—
gay bar????”

The words carry a lot of weight. Jack’s been wanting to go to the bar for months, ever since he admitted to me that he was gay. I was too scared to admit to him that I was, too, so I compromised and said I was “curious.” It was a word used a lot in those days. Saying you were curious was better than admitting right out that you were gay, like Jack did. It also kept Jack from trying to have sex with me, the idea of which was both exhilarating and terrifying.

I like Jack. I may even be a little bit in love with him. But it’s not so much
him
I’m in love with. It’s the
idea
of him. Did I know this then, at fifteen? Or is it knowledge that came later, and only because I am dreaming do I seem to know it as a boy? No matter. Looking over at Jack as he drives the car, I am besotted with the image of him, the scent of him. Jack is everything I want to be but am not. Confident. Cool. Clear in mind and heart. And so I dress like Jack (lots of chains and cutoff flannel and Doc Martens boots). I wear my hair like him (spiky and uneven). I talk like him (learning words like
scumbag
and
bodacious
.)

But most importantly, I listen to the same music that Jack does, becoming fanatically converted to the belief that the only music worth listening to was coming out of Seattle. It’s a grittier, more American version of punk that Jack calls “grunge.” The pictures on the cassette covers of the various bands certainly seem grungy enough: guys with unshaven faces who look as if they haven’t bathed in days. Within no time I’ve bought up all the old albums of The Melvins and The Wipers that I can find, and I developed a dreamy crush on Mark Arm, lead singer of an obscure (to everyone else but Jack and me) band named Green River.

Tonight, a Springfield bar known for its large gay clientele is showcasing a local band that Jack is certain to make it big. “They sound just like The Melvins,” he tells me.

Of course, neither of us has ever been to a gay bar. So this is an opportunity we simply can’t miss.

“Do you think I’ll meet anybody?” Jack asks.

“If you do,” I tell him, “just don’t leave me alone.”

“What are you so afraid about Henry?”

I shoot him a look. “I
mean
it, Jack. Please don’t leave me alone!”

I snap down the passenger-side visor and check for nose hairs.

Jack is smirking. “What’re you gonna do when I move to New York?”

“You’re not going to move to New York. Your father won’t let you.”

“Yes, I am. Soon as I save up enough money. What—you think I want to work at Stop N Save all my life?”

Ever since his mother died during our freshman year of high school, Jack has been possessed with this idea of going to New York and becoming an actor. He figures he can drop out of school and make his way in New York—but he’s still just a kid. I don’t know where he gets off having such big ideas.

“My mother said I was better looking than any of the guys on her soap operas,” he tells me, for the three-hundredth time. “She said I could make it.” He looks over at me. “Springfield’s got nothing for me. I want to be an actor.”

“I
know
you want to be an actor
,
Jack,” I tell him. “Just keep your eyes on the road.”

He just snorts. I’m getting angry at a nose hair, trying to stuff it up my nostril with my pinky.

“My brother knows a guy who works at a theater on a Broadway. He’s going to introduce me to him. He can help me get some parts.”

“I don’t know why you want to move away,” I say. “Springfield’s not so bad.”

“Are you kidding? Springfield sucks. I’m moving to New York.”

“Why do you have to go to New York? There are theaters here. Besides, Springfield’s on the move. I read it in a magazine. The economy is good. Springfield’s going to become a Major City. Capital M. Capital C.”

“Where’d you hear
that?”

“I dunno,” I tell him. “Somewhere.”

I squint at the city’s skyline, glowing green against the purple sky as we approach. Even at night, one could make out the noble necks of the cranes, like sleeping giraffes. “They’re building a lot of new skyscrapers, you know.”

Jack snorts again.

We don’t say much else until we arrive. The Gay Bar is a lonely block of concrete tucked between two giant warehouses. Cars are parked all the way up and down the street. There’s a beat in the air: almost undetectable at first, no music, just a steady pounding, a bass vibration coming from inside the club.

“I hope I don’t hate this place,” I say, as we get out of the car and head toward the door. Jack isn’t listening.

We pay our covers. By the grace of God, the doorman doesn’t ask to see our IDs. Inside, strobe lights flash across the empty stage. Jack doesn’t like it. Grunge is supposed to be straightforward. No laser shows, no frills. “You can tell this place is usually a disco,” he gripes.

We hate disco. We hate glam rock. We might only be in high school, but we know what’s cool. We know the future.

“Don’t leave me alone,” I tell Jack again, never far from his shoulder as we move through the crowd.

The lights on the dance floor pulse on and off, with moments of total darkness alternating between red, gold, and green light. Each time a new color flashes on, Jack’s face looks different. We find a place close to the stage and position ourselves there. We don’t even try to order a drink. No use pushing our luck.

I look around at the people in the bar. Mostly older men, but a few younger guys are starting to arrive now, drawn certainly by the band. A boy who can’t be too much older than us stands a few feet away, his eyes flickering now and then our way as he checks us out. Thin and blond, he’s dressed like us, in a flannel sleeveless shirt and torn jeans, a wallet chain looped low along his hip.

“He’s sexy,” Jack whispers to me.

“Not really,” I say. I’m not sure why I’m denying the obvious. The guy is a bit wispy, but nonetheless very cute. Maybe I don’t like admitting that he’s cute because I think he’s looking more at Jack than he is at me.

Then the band comes on. They hardly meet Jack’s description of sounding like The Melvins. In fact, they suck—a bunch of pretentious local wannabe grunge artists trying too hard. And when you try too hard in grunge, you’ve automatically lost.

But Jack seems not to notice, or to care. He’s hopping and jumping and shaking his head. When the lead singer attempts to stage dive into what passes for—in Springfield—as a mosh pit, he pretty much just lands on his knees on the filthy floor. Still, Jack is pogoing away, and before long the wispy boy next to us has eased his way closer. I watch as the two of them start banging heads, pretending they’re in Seattle listening to Green River instead of in Springfield listening to a bunch of guys who probably work at Burger King during the day. Jack actually looks orgasmic—or in the throes of agony.

I don’t even try to keep up. I slip away to the men’s room, where some old guy with a big walrus moustache seems way too interested in how I’m peeing into the urinal. I quickly zip up and leave.

I don’t belong here. My first time in a gay bar—and all I’d really rather be doing is sitting in my room with Jack, shoulder to shoulder, our headphones clamped over our ears, listening to our music. That’s all I need. I don’t need to have sex with Jack—or with any other guy for that matter. Just shoulder to shoulder is enough for me.

I realize that I’m alone. I try to spot Jack in the crowd but he seems to have vanished. So has the wispy little boy.

“Hey,” a voice says behind me.

I turn. It’s the older guy from the bathroom.

“Hey,” I say, not wanting to look at him.

“You doing okay?”

I shrug. “Just looking for my friend.”

“He take off and leave you?”

“No, I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.”

“If you can’t find him,” Walrus Moustache says, “I’ll be happy to give you a ride home.”

“Thanks, but I’ll be fine.”

“I’m not trying to be a dirty old man,” the guy says. But that’s exactly what he is to my mind. He must be at least thirty years old.

I move off, scanning the crowd for Jack. Then I spot him, kissing the wispy boy in the corner. I watch them for a while, growing both aroused and uneasy. Jack doesn’t even seem concerned about where I am. Finally they move off, through the crowd, toward the front door. I follow.

“Jack!”

He turns to face me. “I’ll be back inside later,” he says, his arm draped around the other guy’s shoulders. “We’re just going to the car.”

“You’re not going to leave without me?” I shout.

He doesn’t answer. Under the harsh glow of the streetlight, the other guy no longer looks quite our age. He’s got to be at least in college. He might be as old as twenty-five. I wonder if he knows Jack is only sixteen.

I head back into the bar. Walrus Moustache is waiting for me.

“Your friend making out in the car?” he asks.

I shrug. “I don’t know what they’re doing out there.”

The guy smiles. “You feeling lonesome?”

He’s creeping me out. I just fold my arms across my chest.

He leans in closer. “You’re not having fun, are you?”

“No,” I whisper.

“I meant it,” he says. “I’ll give you a ride home if you want.”

I look over into his eyes. His breath smells like beer. There’s foam on his moustache.

And I start to cry.

Did it really happen? Did I really cry that night in the bar all those years ago?

I’m certainly crying in my sleep as I wake myself up from the dream.

How many years has it been since I thought of that night?

Jack was my first crush, though I can’t say it was ever really sexual. I didn’t want Jack; at least not Jack the boy who drove his mother’s car and talked about running away to New York. I wanted my own version of Jack—a Jack who didn’t want to leave, who wanted to stay with me, who would never have left me alone in a bar while he made out with some guy in a car.

Jack and I never did have sex. By the time I’d gotten over myself and jettisoned the “curious” label, embracing instead an unequivocal identity of “gay,” Jack was long gone from my life. He’d done exactly what he said he’d do. He dropped out of school, quit the Stop N Save, hightailed it out of Springfield and moved to New York. Whether he became an actor, I don’t know. We didn’t keep in touch. Jack disappeared from my life, if not my dreams.

At night, in my bed at my parents’ house, I would try to imagine a future for myself, the kind that Jack had found so easy to visualize for himself. It wasn’t New York that I dreamed about. It wasn’t fame and glamour and success. I’d lie there in my bed, imagining myself sleeping beside a man who I loved and who loved me back. My fantasies—which sometimes postponed sleep for several hours—were rarely sexual. Instead, they consisted of simple things—cooking together or watching TV or listening to music. And in these fantasies, the man of my dreams was always named Jack.

He didn’t have Jack’s face, or his voice, or any of his history—but still my imaginary lover bore the name of my friend who had vanished from my life not long after that night at the bar. That night, my friend Jack had found himself, come to some core truth about who he was in the backseat of his mother’s Chevy Nova. Was it that experience that gave him the strength to do what he did—to get out of town and follow his dream?

There was nothing for me to do but watch from a distance. Furious with Jack, I finally accepted Walrus Moustache’s offer of a ride home. I remember opening the door of his electric-blue Trans Am, crinkling up my nose at the smell of cigarettes. Looking back, I think I was both fearing and hoping for the same thing that Jack had found—that the guy would suggest we make out in the backseat. I understood then that that was what Jack had come to the bar for—not for the music. I wanted the same reward, even if it had to come from a man as old as this one was.

Lying here now in my bed, the leftover tears of my dream still rolling down my cheeks, I try to picture the man’s face. Surely I’m older now than he was then. It’s the moustache that stands out most clearly in my mind. I remember little else about him other than his car—and, of course, his words. Words that have often come back to me as the years went on.

“Where do you live?” he asks, starting the ignition, and I’m back in my dream.

“West Springfield,” I tell him.

He nods, and we drive in silence. He makes no move. He’s no gay basher, no dirty old man. He’s giving me a ride home, just as he’d promised.

When we get to my street, I ask him to let me off a few houses down from my own. My mother would certainly question why I was coming home in a strange car. The guy nods. He understands.

“That was your first time in a gay bar, wasn’t it?” he asks, turning to look at me.

I nod.

He smiles under that heavy moustache. “It’s going to get better,” he tells me. “You’ll have nights much better than this one.”

“Thanks,” I say to him.