Men Who Love Men (21 page)

He smiles. “What’s up?”

“Oh, I just had dinner with”—I pause—“a friend.”

“Going out dancing?”

I’m not sure I should tell him my plans, because I don’t want Martin tagging along. I know that’s mean, but it’s how I feel.

“Maybe,” I tell him. “I’m…I’m looking for a friend who’s in town.”

He nods. “Well, there sure are a lot of people here. But they say next week is going to be a whole other story.”

We step out of the street and up onto the sidewalk. “Yes,” I agree. “After Labor Day it’s like a pall settles over the Cape.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

I smile. “I am and I’m not. Sure, the relative quiet in September is a nice change after the frenzy of August. But it gradually gets more and more quiet. Pretty soon stores and restaurants start shutting down. For me, every change is just a reminder that February and March are not far away.”

“Is it really that bad in the deep of the winter?” Martin asks.

“Well, you’ll find out.” I laugh. “It can be wonderful, if you’ve got a project and a boyfriend. But for single guys…”

“Like us,” Martin says.

Suddenly I feel uncomfortable. I just smile and start looking through the crowd again for Shane.

“So I found a place to live,” Martin tells me. “I move in this week.”

I look at him with some surprise. “Well, you sure beat the odds.”

“I don’t know why I was so sure I could, but I did.” He gives me a wide grin, and I notice that he has beautiful teeth, white and straight and even. “This whole move to Provincetown has been one leap of faith.”

I can’t help but give him a genuine smile in return. “Well, I admire you for it. Not everyone has the courage to just give it all up and make a change like that, especially in…”

My words trail off.

Martin laughs. “Especially in middle age, you were going to say?”

“No,” I lie. Indeed, that was
exactly
what I was about to say.

“It’s okay,” Martin tells me. “I suppose forty-five
is
middle age.”

“Actually,” I say, trying to undo my embarrassment, “if the life expectancy is about seventy-two, middle age is technically thirty-six.” I smirk. “Which means I only have three years to go.”

“Oh, Henry, you have nothing to worry about in that department.”

“Sure I do,” I tell him. “In gay life, middle-age arrives even earlier.” I explain to him my “shoulder season” theory. Martin just smiles and shakes his head.

“Henry,” he tells me, “age is merely a construct. It’s all in our heads.”

“Maybe so,” I say. “But try telling that to all those guys out there.” I nod toward the street, where a steady parade of hot shirtless boys files past, arms interlinked, laughing among themselves.

“I don’t try,” Martin says. “Why tell something to someone who’s not ready to listen?”

I give him a canny look. “But you think I
am
ready to listen?”

“You brought the subject up.”

I’m feeling generous all of a sudden. “You want to grab some coffee?”

“Aren’t you looking for a friend?”

I shrug. “I’ll see him on the dance floor, I’m sure. And it’s too early yet to go dancing.”

“Okay,” Martin agrees.

This is good
, I tell myself. I can make up for being such a shmuck when I turned him down for a date. I’ll buy the coffee. That’ll even things out.

We head back to Spiritus and order a couple of cups of joe. We both take them black. “Helps me stay awake if I’m going out,” I tell Martin. We find places on the stoop out front and position ourselves to watch the street theater pass by. There goes Miss Richfield on her bike, all mouth and hair ribbon, hawking her show. A couple of straight tourists stop as she passes, the wife shouting at the husband to get the camera: “Quick, before she’s gone!” It’s like they’re on a safari, and they’ve just spotted a giraffe.

“So,” I begin. “You must have left behind a lot of friends in Pittsburgh.”

“Oh, yes,” Martin says. “My whole life was back there. But those who really love me encouraged me in my decision.”

I smile kindly. “And those who didn’t really love you?”

He smiles in return. “Well, those would be the ones who really thought they loved me the most. And they were dead set against my making the move, saying I was running off half-cocked in a midlife crisis.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “Chief among them was my ex-boyfriend, who thinks I’m crazy as a loon for doing this.”

“I guess that’s why he’s your ex.”

“Precisely.”

“How long were you together?”

“Twenty-one years.”

I almost drop my coffee into my lap. “Twenty-one years? God
damn
! And you ended it?”

Martin gives me a confused look. “I thought you would understand why. He just couldn’t grow with me, just couldn’t understand what I needed to do with my life.”

“But still,” I say. “Twenty-one years…”

“Paul’s a kind and good man,” Martin says. “But he’s still just as emotionally insecure as he was when I met him.”

I’m still trying to understand what he’s telling me. “So you gave up a
twenty-one-year
relationship so you could move to Provincetown and be a carpenter?”

“Yup. I sure did.”

I smile ruefully. “Look, I can understand you wanting to make a change. But after all that time together, wasn’t there a way of working it out? Coming to some mutually agreed-upon solution? Maybe he could have come with you.”

Martin is looking off into the crowd in the street. “We tried very hard to make the relationship work for a very long time. But for the last eight or nine years I knew it was coming to an end. It took me that long to work up the courage to get out of it.” He smiles. “That’s when my friend Bert convinced me to get away for a weekend and come to P-town. The moment I got here, I knew this was the answer I had been looking for.”

I want to be happy for Martin. Really, I do. He’s following his dream, just as I did. He’s taking a chance, which I admire. But I can’t help but think about his lover back in Pittsburgh, who for twenty-one years had believed he’d found the One, that he wouldn’t have to grow old alone. I can’t help but think about that poor, brokenhearted man, left in despair by Martin’s sudden decision to leave him and move away.

“Of course, Paul had Barry to console him,” Martin tells me, as if he can intuit my displaced sympathy.

“Your dog?”

“Oh, no,” Martin tells us, a crooked smile playing with his lips. “Barry is a hot little college kid we took in and with whom Paul began a hot-and-heavy affair about a year ago. I doubt he’s missing me all that much.”

“So you had an open relationship,” I say.

Martin nods.

I sigh. “Maybe that’s why the passion between you faded out.”

“Who knows? All I know is that eventually we were strangers to each other emotionally.” He looks at me intently. “I
needed
to make this move, Henry. It was time.”

I’m still feeling sad for Paul. “My hunch is,” I say, “that even with Barry around, no matter how hot he is, Paul is brokenhearted.”

Martin shrugs. “He probably is. And there are times I miss him too. For twenty-one years, we did everything together. We met when we were both twenty-four. For two decades, Paul made a wonderful home for me. He’s a great cook. I can hardly boil water.”

“Maybe I’m a romantic,” I say, then start to laugh. “Hell, there are no maybes about it! I
am
a romantic. And I just wish there had been a way for you to do what you needed to do while still keeping Paul in your life.”

Martin is shaking his head. “The most important relationship you have in life is the one you have with yourself,” he tells me. “And by being faithful to Paul, I was being
un
faithful to myself.”

I have no answer to that. It sounds like something Lloyd would say.

“So what about you, Henry?” Martin asks. “Why is such a handsome, friendly, smart, sensitive, well-built guy like you still single?”

I suppress the urge to protest his choice of adjectives. Instead I just shrug. “The hundred-thousand-dollar question,” I say. “I ask myself the same thing all the time.”

“And what kind of answer do you come up with?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t.” Suddenly I think I see Shane in the crowd—a tall blond guy in a funny jester hat waddling head and shoulders above the rest—so I stand up, ready to wave him down. But I’m mistaken—it’s some other tall blond guy in a funny jester hat—so I sit back down and face Martin again. “I think the best answer is that I’m just unlucky.”

Even as I say it, I’m hearing Lloyd’s counsel in my head: “There’s no such thing as luck. We create our own destinies.” So I’m not surprised by Martin’s response.

“I think when people say they’re either lucky or unlucky, it’s just a cop-out,” he tells me. “There’s usually something else going on besides just luck, whether it’s for good or for bad.”

“I bet you don’t believe in coincidences either.”

He smiles. “And to which coincidence are you referring?”

I smile back. “Believe it not, that was my first time at the dick dock.”

“Mine too.”

We both laugh.

How odd this is. Here we are, having a deep conversation about life and love, despite the fact that Martin once sucked me off under a dock. Yet I’m no longer embarrassed by the memory. Martin clearly isn’t. It seems it was just part of life’s adventure in his view. No luck, no coincidence. That blow job was meant to happen in order for us to be sitting here, having this talk.

I look over at him. Luke was right: Martin
does
have amazing eyes, surprising orbs of brightness set deep into his face. So much life inside there, so much experience. In his eyes I see evidence of his entire life, plain and obvious. It’s like counting concentric rings in a tree trunk.

“Aren’t you afraid of being lonely?” I ask, surprised that I actually articulate the question. But it’s out of my lips before I can stop it.

“Sure,” Martin replies, finishing the last of his coffee. “But I’m more afraid of wasting time. We’re not getting any younger, my friend.”

No, we’re not. And though Martin has got more than a decade on me, I understand what he means.

Suddenly I can’t wait to find Shane. Suddenly I seem to understand something that had eluded me before. I ended the relationship with Shane because he didn’t fit the fantasy image of Mr. Right. And ever since, I’ve been wasting my time—spinning my wheels, treading water so I don’t drown. Shane had
loved
me. Shane had wanted to spend his
life
with me. Happiness had been right there in my clutches, and I threw it away. All because Shane didn’t fit the physical ideal I’d imagined for my lover.

I stand, looking down at Martin.

“Time to go dancing, eh?” he asks.

“Yes.” I take his hand in mine. “Thanks for this talk, Martin. Really. It’s helped me clarify some things.”

He gives me a small smile. “Well,” he says, “I’m glad I was good for something.”

“You know,” I tell him, “just the other day I was wishing for a wise older gay uncle. And I got him. Thanks.”

Somehow Martin doesn’t seem flattered. He lets go of my hand and smiles wanly. “You have fun out there tonight, Henry,” he says.

“I intend to,” I promise.

I give him a thumbs up and head back out into the throngs on the street. I make my way to the A House, where a line snakes down the street from the entrance. I keep turning around, expecting to see Shane behind me, head and shoulders above the crowd, in a funny hat or eye makeup. What will I do when I see him? An embrace, a kiss, and then I’ll pull him out onto the dance floor. No one is more fun to dance with than Shane.

But he’s not behind me in line, and he’s not inside either, when I finally get in. I take four laps around the place just to make sure. Could he be at Paramount, the other big dance club in town? I leave the A House and head across the street to check. But he’s not at Paramount either. Maybe the Vault? Or Purgatory? But Shane’s not into leather. Still, I pop into both places to check. Still no sight of him.

Where the hell could he be? It’s Sunday night of Labor Day weekend. He’s got to be out here somewhere!

I decide to call him on his cell. But I immediately get his voice-mail. He’s got his phone turned off.

I wait for the clubs to all let out, hoping to catch him in front of Spiritus. But no Shane. I just stand there, eyes searching the crowd. A couple of guys try to cruise me, but I avoid making any contact.

Where the hell is Shane?

I never find him. I trudge back to my apartment. Flopping down onto the couch, I flick on the TV, wishing I’d replenished the ice cream in the freezer. I content myself with watching Lucy Ricardo try to get a loving cup off of her head. I’ve never understood this episode. If she got herself
in
there, why the hell can’t she get herself
out
?

It feels like the question of my life.

A
perfect day has dawned. The sun, in primary yellow, blazes in an unbroken expanse of blue. Not a wisp of humidity, just warm dry air, with temperatures edging ninety and a light, salty sea breeze blowing in off the bay. The streets are already filling up with tourists at eight o’clock in the morning. Riding my bike, I’m threading my way through them as quickly as I can without hitting anyone. I don’t want to be late.

I finally spoke with Shane this morning. He called a little after seven, knowing I’d be awake, tending to the guests. I was thrilled to hear his voice. We plan to meet at Tips for Tops’n at eight fifteen.

“By the way,” I asked him, “where the hell
were
you?”

“When?”

“Last night! I tried calling you. I looked everywhere for you.”

“Oh, I didn’t go out. A bunch of us stayed in and watched a movie. Almodovar’s
Law of Desire
. Ever see it?”

I had to laugh. Shane staying in on the Sunday night of Labor Day weekend to watch a movie. I couldn’t imagine it.

But I can imagine him. All six lanky blond feet of him. I wonder if he’ll have any sparkles on his face when I see him. Or maybe he’ll come into the restaurant wearing a funny T-shirt, with fake boobs drawn on it or something. I’m already smiling thinking about what craziness Shane might—“Watch out!”

Ahead of me a young mother in bright pink shorts is frantically attempting to push her two little kids out of the path of my bike. I swerve abruptly to avoid them, and before I can stop, I crash into the wooden fence in front of the Unitarian Meeting House. Over the handlebars I fly, landing hard on the grassy lawn.

For a second I black out. The next thing I’m aware of is the pain in my right shoulder and hip, which seem to have taken the brunt of the impact, and the crowd of people gathering around me.

“Hey, man, you okay?” some guy is asking me.

“Yeah,” I say, with some difficulty. “I think so.”

“Do you want me to call an ambulance?” some woman asks, hovering.

“No, no, I’m fine,” I insist, trying to stand. But I’m dizzy. My feet collapse under me, and I’m back on the grass.

“He almost hit my kids,” I hear the mother in the pink shorts saying. “He wasn’t looking where he was going.”

“I think you should go over to the clinic,” someone else is cautioning me. “Make sure nothing’s broken.”

“I’m fine,” I insist once more. “Just a little dizzy.”

But when I try to stand again, I realize I’m shaking. My whole body is shuddering uncontrollably.

“Here,” comes another voice, one I recognize. “Let me help him.”

I look up. And there, suddenly looming against the bright blue of the sky, is Shane, pushing his way through the ring of people surrounding me.

“Come on, Grandpa,” he says, extending his hand. “If you don’t watch out, they’re going to take away your license.”

I grasp his hand. I find I’m able to stand, and some of the shaking subsides. Though the pain still throbs, I can tell nothing is broken. I’ll have some pretty big bruises, but the soft grass cushioned my fall and prevented any major damage. I look over at Shane and he gives me a wry little smile.

“You didn’t tell me you’d joined the Flying Wallendas,” he quips. “What—was the guesthouse biz getting a bit boring?”

How good it is to see him. He’s not dressed as I expected. Nothing outrageous. Just a plain white tee and a pair of khaki shorts. His blond hair is short, with no special colors. Dressed so conservatively, he could be any old tourist, his long, gangly arms and legs pale from lack of suntanning. I suspect this may be his first trip to Provincetown all summer. How unlike Shane.

Still, it’s him—I’d recognize that look in his eyes anywhere. It’s the look he’d often give me when I was being cranky or unreasonable, a look that said,
You are a crazy fool but I love you anyway.

I take hold of his arm and he helps me around the fence. I spot the mother I almost hit, and offer her an apology. She’s not very gracious. She just yells at me to watch where I’m going in the future and hustles her children into the Whaler’s Wharf mall. I’m glad I didn’t hit the kids, but in that moment I wouldn’t have minded leaving some tread across
her
pink ass.

My bike is pretty banged up, but it’s walkable. “Henry, Henry,” Shane is saying, pushing my bike for me down the street. “Always causing a commotion.”

I grin. “Well, nobody can ever say I didn’t fall for you.”

“Oh, yes, they can, sweetheart,” he says. “They can definitely say it.”

My grin stretches wider. “Shane, it is
so
good to see you.”

He gives me one eye. “You should just be glad you’re not seeing Dr. Lenny over at the clinic. You sure nothing’s broken?

“I’m pretty sore,” I say, “but I’m walking.”

Shane stops, steadies the bike on its kickstand, and begins feeling my arms and shoulders. “Bend at the elbow,” he says.

I obey. He runs his hands down the length of my arm, from shoulder to wrist.

“Any pain at all when you bend?” he asks.

“No,” I reply. “It’s just sore.”

He stoops down in front of me so that his face his level with my crotch. He runs his hands up and down my thighs. I can’t help but smile as I notice the glances of passersby. We are, after all, in the middle of the street.

“Lift up your leg,” Shane commands. “Bend at the knee.”

I do as he says. He’s feeling my calf now.

“Doesn’t hurt to bend your ankle?” he asks.

“Nope. It’s just my butt and my right hip that are really killing me.”

He moves around behind me. He begins to knead my butt. I get it. Shane was always hot for my body. He was the first to actually suggest I could make money by selling it. So he’s getting his jollies feeling me up. In public, yet. It’s so Shane. Always doing something outrageous.

“Well,” he says, standing up, “I think we can rule out any broken bones. But you’re going to be pretty black and blue.”

“Told you so,” I say.

“Can’t be too certain about these things,” he tells me, returning to the bike and resuming our walk. “Did you hit your jaw? Your hand?”

“No, Nurse Betty. I’m fine. Nothing a little Motrin won’t take care of tonight.”

He shakes his head. “I think you need a full-time bodyguard, Henry.”

I grin. “You applying for the position?”

“Been there, pal, and done that.”

I look over at him. It’s obvious to me now that I really hurt Shane by ending our relationship. I’ve always liked to believe it was a mutual decision, and certainly Shane was far more even-tempered and mature than I was when Joey broke it off with me. But Shane was in love with me. And likely still is, the way he felt me up back there. His little quip about me needing a full-time bodyguard was his way of saying he’d like to get back together.

“Ow,” I say suddenly, as a jolt of pain sears my thigh.

“Ah,” Shane says, “the shock is wearing off and the pain is setting in.”

“Oh, man.” I groan. “Yeah, all of a sudden…”

“There’s no way you can sit in a restaurant like this,” Shane says.

“You want me to walk you back to the guesthouse?”

“No,” I insist. “I’m going to be fine.”

Shane makes a face. “Then let’s go down to the beach where you can stretch out on the sand. I’ll call my friend to bring us down some food and coffee.”

I can’t help but smile again. Shane doesn’t want to share me with the public. He wants some quiet, intimate time alone with me. Just the two of us on the beach.

We head down the alleyway across from Spiritus as Shane flips open his cell phone. “Eddie? Would you be a love and pick up two egg-and-cheese bagels from the Connie’s, and two large Columbian coffees? Henry’s hurt himself, so we’re just going to sit on the beach.” There’s a pause. “Yes, a bit of a bike accident.” Another pause. “The beach across from Spiritus. You will? Great. Thanks love.”

It’s low tide, with tangles of seaweed delineating the high-water mark. Gulls make wide swaths through the blue sky. Plopping himself down on an overturned red rowboat, Shane watches me carefully as I ease myself down on the sand.

“I’m not sure I’ll get back up again,” I tell him, as the muscles in my thigh and butt burn in pain.

“That’s what I’m here for, sweetheart,” Shane says. “To pull you up.”

I smile. Over the course of our relationship, Shane certainly pulled me up many times. I’d get depressed or antsy about something—Lloyd, the guesthouse, my mother—and Shane would always be there, with a funny story or a carton of Chunky Monkey ice cream. In fact, it was probably Shane who got me started on my ice-cream binges. No matter how much weight I gained from them, I can’t help but remember those nights with Shane with a certain glow of nostalgia, the two of us shoulder to shoulder watching a movie, eating ice cream and popcorn.

Of course, at the time, I was always vaguely discontent, my mind only half present, and Shane sensed it. I was always wondering what was going on outside, beyond the four walls of our settled existence. Shane would see how I’d look at other guys when we were on the street, the way my eyes would wander away from conversations with him and follow some hot number who’d just walked past. I was still in tip-top shape then and I got cruised a lot, and Shane would see how I’d respond. I’d pretend not to notice guys looking at me, but when I thought Shane wasn’t aware, I’d sneak a peek back, maybe even offer a smile. Shane never said a word. It’s as if he accepted it as part of the territory of being in a relationship with me.

I was a schmuck. I was so unfair to him. I took for granted the one man who actually loved me—loved me enough to want to commit to a long-term relationship with me. I was forever on the lookout for something better, someone hotter. And because of it, I’ve ended up alone.

I look up at Shane, who’s staring down at me with concern.

Might it not be too late?

The very thought sends me reeling.
Me, back with Shane?
Could I really make it work this time?

“So,” he’s saying to me, “what else besides a bruised butt is new with you?”

“Not a hell of a lot,” I admit. “Same old same old.”

“I hear Nirvana is doing a thriving business.”

I nod. “It’s been a great summer.”

“And Lloyd and Jeff?”

I look off at the water. “They’re getting married.”

“How
nice.”

Shane was never all that keen on Jeff and Lloyd. Early on, he spotted my obsession with Jeff, and later he understood all too well my crush on Lloyd. Once during the course of our relationship he complained that our bed was getting crowded, with both Jeff and Lloyd—figuratively, of course—in there with us.

“It
is
nice,” I say about my friends’ wedding plans. “I was surprised at first, but I’m getting used to the idea. They’ve asked me to be their best man.”

He snorts. “Don’t know why you’d be surprised. When you’re in love, you get married. And no matter how annoying Jeff and Lloyd can be, it’s always been clear that they’re in love.”

I cock my head to look up at him. “Have you suddenly become a romantic, Shane?”

“I’ve always been a romantic,” he tells me. “You just never noticed, Henry.”

“Maybe not,” I admit. “And I’m sorry if that’s the case.”

“Apology accepted.” He smiles down at me. “So what about you, babycakes? Any boyfriend since Joey?”

I shake my head. “Still single after one year and almost five months. Not that I’m counting.”

“Not a date in that whole time?” Shane looks aghast. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Not many,” I say, patting my belly. “Mostly I stay in and watch old sitcoms and eat ice cream.”

“Yes, I can see you’ve put on a bit of weight.”

Leave it to Shane to state the truth. No beating around the bush or playing nice from him.

“Lately, though,” I say, “I’ve had a series of encounters, all of which have left me more confused than ever.”

Shane folds his arms over his chest. “Talk to Mama.”

“Well, for starters, there was this twentysomething kid Luke, who I tricked with and who’s now a houseboy at Nirvana.”

“I thought fraternizing with the staff was a no-no.”

I nod. “It happened before he was hired. And the reason he maneuvered himself into working there is so he could be near Jeff. He’s an obsessed fan.”

Shane smirks. “If we’re lucky, he’ll turn out to be Kathy Bates.”

“Stop it. That’s
exactly
what worries me.”

“No, it’s not,” Shane says. “You’re worried that Jeff will have him, and then you’ll be cut out of the picture.”

“I don’t
want
to be in the picture with Luke,” I insist. “Okay. So maybe that’s part of it. I admit Luke is very, very hot, and I definitely was very attracted to him. Maybe my ego was hurt. Lloyd thinks Luke tapped some of my own shit, and that’s why I’m so suspicious of him.”

“Pray tell, what shit did he tap?” Shane shudders. “Really, that’s a terribly unpleasant metaphor, Henry.”

“Well, he tapped my insecurity, I guess.” I laugh. “I’m not feeling as confident about myself these days, in case you haven’t noticed. Hank the studly escort has left the building.”

Shane narrows his eyes at me. “Henry, you’ve
never
been confident about yourself. Even when you were one hundred and seventy-five pounds of rock-solid muscle, you were not confident about yourself. I always needed to boost you up.”

I smile up at him. “I know. And I miss that, Shane.”

He tightens his lips. “Go on. Tell me more about this confused love life of yours.”

“Well, the experience with Luke left me feeling kind of down on myself. So then this really hot guy Gale asks me out. Short, but perfect body. Like sculpted out of clay. We’ve had two dates. We kiss but that’s all. He wants a relationship. Not a one-night stand.”

Shane makes a face. “I can see where you have
nothing
in common.”

“Stop being so sarcastic. The problem is Gale’s very extreme. He wants to make sure I’m exactly the right one, exactly Mr. Right, before we have sex. It’s because when he commits to someone, he expects it to be total. Not just sexual monogamy but emotional monogamy too.”