You Can Say You Knew Me When (33 page)

Woody’s phone rang again—the exact wrong thing. Worse, he moved to answer it.

“Don’t,” I said. “Stay here.”

“It won’t take long.” With a shove he propelled himself from our entanglement. Instead of marveling at the grace of his form in motion, as I might have only moments before, I found fault: the way he answered by barking his last name, “Nelson,” like a stockbroker; the fact that he put on his underwear, as if talking business required covering up. Even his preppie haircut was a betrayal, the curls cut to deny my fingers the chance to twirl through them romantically.

The call did indeed take long, and then he made another. When he came back, he took one look at whatever expression had affixed itself to my face and asked, “Where did you go?”

“I’ve been right here,” I replied, mockery in my voice. “You left for work.”

“It was important.”

“And there’ll be another
important
call in a minute.”

“Hopefully not.”

“I find it interesting that you spent the first part of this conversation outlining all of my defects but never once mentioned the fact that you’ve basically prioritized your job over me.”

“It’s my
job,
Jamie.”

“Your job is bullshit. The stock market pretty much proved that this week.”

“You don’t know the first thing about what I do.”

“I know how much it’s changed you.”

“I didn’t come here to be judged,” he snapped, retreating into the hall.

This reproach sent me into a rage. “Okay, go. Get away. That’s smart. Leave while it’s all really clear to you.”

In the bathroom, he ran the water, gargled, ruffled a towel, all at a clip. He re-entered picking up his clothes, which trailed from the kitchen. I caught the whiff of his scent—his actual body tang, not that bottled citrus—which electrified the air even though he’d tried to wipe me off in the bathroom.

“Are you saying it’s all about me?” I asked. “That none of our problems are yours?”

“You cheat on me, you disappear for two days with some kid—.”

“While you were home fucking Roger.”

“It wasn’t Roger!”

His shout stilled the room. I sat on the bed, waiting for more.

“It was a guy I met online,” he said at last. “I answered his ad. He came to my apartment. It was really fast and meaningless. I know I was acting out, and I’d be perfectly willing to talk this through if I had any indication that you were willing to do the same.”

He looked to me for a response, but I was busy filling in the picture of this
meaningless
sex, coloring between the lines, wondering who did what to whom. My stomach churned acid. I crossed my arms protectively and said, “You’re a hypocrite.”

“You hadn’t returned my calls. I didn’t know what to think. I sure as hell didn’t know what
you
were thinking.” I stared, unable to speak.

Then he said, “I don’t think you even like me, Jamie,” and left the room.

I bolted from the bed, ran to the front of the apartment, blocked his path. “I do like you. I do.
I love you.
It’s me I don’t like. Me, myself, and I. In that order.” Uncertainty flickered in his eyes. “I am not that far gone, Woody. You can still save me.”

“Jamie, I won’t
co
you.”

That would be psychobabble for
codependent,
a jargony adjective tossed out as an abbreviated verb, and it made me wonder what I was doing with someone who would respond to my desperate request for salvation with self-help lingo. I stepped aside and pushed open the door. I put on my celebrity-lawyer voice and said, “If the boyfriend won’t co, then you must let him go.”

He didn’t hesitate.

I stood naked in the doorway, our sex encrusted on my chest.

And then I did the honorable thing, the thing I never do, the spontaneous act of slate wiping. I stumbled into pants and ran out of my apartment without locking the door. I had to reach him on the street. This self-flagellation needed to be public. I spotted him, moving slowly, the forward lurch of his posture telegraphing dejection. He looked hurt, which was better than angry. Hurt was compassionate; hurt might allow forgiveness. Angry would not appreciate my gesture, my giving chase down Valencia, dodging baby strollers, shopping carts, dogs on springy leashes.

“Woody! Wait!”

He paused, turned, caught sight of me. Bless the forces of the universe, he waited.

I reached him and dropped to one knee, lifted my gaze, looked into his teary eyes, eyes that told me he would listen to what I had to say, he was
open
to it. And so I licked my lips, cleared my throat, and I said—.

I have no fucking idea what I would have said in that moment, if it had happened. I played the scene in my head as I crept back to bed, staring into the kitchen at the pink and red cake, two half-eaten slices cut from it, a mangled valentine. I could indeed make a run for it, a run toward Woody, toward the outside chance of fixing this mess, but no, no, there was not enough time, he was already too long gone. I didn’t know which direction he was walking—or driving, in his monstrous automobile. And even if I did chase him down and supplicate myself, most contrite, most repentant, most well intended, what did I have to offer?

Three days with no contact. Then, in the mail, my keys. Woody’s set. With a note:

He didn’t return my calls.

“What kind of person dumps you two months after your father dies?” Ian asked.

“What does that have to do with anything?” I countered.

“I always thought there was something calculating about Woody. All that therapy is so controlling.”

“You’re just mad because he won’t help with your hard drive.”

When Ian had called Woody, Woody told Ian he’d have to get computer advice from someone else, then told him it was over between us. Ian called me, annoyed that he’d heard this news secondhand. “I’m wallowing in pity,” I deadpanned. “I don’t need nobody but this bag of pot and this remote control.”

He came over to my apartment right away. When he opened the hall closet to hang up his leather jacket, out tumbled Darth Vader.

“I suspect this has something to do with your breakup,” he said, nudging it with his boot.

“If you want the details, let’s go somewhere else,” I insisted. I was finding it hard to stay in my apartment, which had begun to feel like a crime scene, complete with chalk outlines on the floor and bloodstains on the doorknobs.

Now we were at the Eagle, which still had a reputation as a biker bar even though it was mostly just a divey hangout for all kinds of unconventional types. The leathermen, with their harnesses and handlebar mustaches, had dwindled in number over the years, replaced by the bears, with their heavy bellies and beards and flannel shirts—a sort of lumberjack chic perfectly suited to Northern California. The Eagle even had a fire pit in the backyard. Ian and I stood at its edge, ashing our cigarettes into the blaze, while I caught him up on my road trip, on Jed—about whom no detail was too small for Ian—and on my failed attempt to pick things up with Woody.

“Woody’s not calculating,” I insisted. “I’m the one who played this wrong.”

“Gore Vidal says that the secret to long-term relationships is to not have sex with your lover.”

“Hard to call someone
lover
if you’re not having sex.”

“That’s when you become
longtime companions.”

I groaned. “A euphemism created by the
New York Times
obituary page.”

“How about
significant other
? Do we like that one?”

“Calling someone significant automatically makes them seem insignificant,” I said. “I always liked
boyfriend
.”

“Not deep enough,” he said. “A boyfriend is a crush who you wind up fucking for a while.”

Maybe that was it: We never evolved beyond the first crush, beyond boyfriends. We were unprepared to venture into the territory of long term, where you can’t rely on sex for fuel, where the labels don’t suffice, where people who can’t get married (or don’t want to) figure out how to map a new path. “Stuck in the boyfriend rut. That was me and Woody,” I told Ian. “Maybe we should have been fuck buddies and left it at that.”

Ian lifted his gaze from the fire and looked at me with disbelief. “If you think your relationship with Woody was just about fucking a cute guy, you’re clueless.”

“That’s because you never thought Woody was cute,” I joked.

He didn’t even crack a smile. “All I’m saying is, this wasn’t unfixable.”

“Well, I didn’t know how to fix it, and Woody didn’t want to.”

“Or the other way around.” He shot his cigarette into the fire.

Ah, fuck Ian. What does he know about relationships?

For three days I went to work, transcribing. The hours spent strapped into headphones, staring into a monitor, passed slowly and gave me a stiff neck, and I resented that half the money I’d earn would go to covering their incompetence. But I was relieved to be occupied. The job was done on-site, downtown, and the bike ride back and forth, a couple of miles each way, was invigorating, purposeful. Lunch breaks sitting on the Montgomery steps let me eavesdrop on the problems of strangers: bike messengers comparing near misses with taxicabs, clerical workers relaying office gossip over takeout containers, people on cell phones, more of them all the time, heedless of who was in earshot.

Evenings, I distracted myself with socializing, two nights at the movies with acquaintances I hadn’t seen in months, the third night out for sushi with my temporary co-workers. One of the other transcribers, a toothy, flirty, twentysomething guy named Shane, dragged me along after dinner to a new bar in the Castro, where the air was so infused with cologne it made me light-headed. Shane introduced me to a crew of his cute friends, who sipped cocktails through straws and lip-synched to Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears. These boys were primped and shellacked to a photogenic sheen, but even if any of them had been rougher around the edges—a little more mussed, the way I like ’em—I doubt I would have pursued anything. I was finally free to fuck around without guilt, but I felt myself pulled toward home, a newly unleashed dog staying put on the front porch.

That night, in my journal, I tossed around the idea that it was time to leave San Francisco.

W
alt’s invitation was for six o’clock. I biked over with late-spring twilight to guide me. I’d arranged to interview them, and the recorder rested heavily in my backpack, solid in a way that few things seemed lately.

As I waited at the front door, I could see the dance of the gaslight flame through the stained-glass pane. The bell was answered by an elderly man whose features I immediately recognized as aged versions of those in the photos I’d seen: the distinguished jaw, now jowly; the high forehead exposed under fine, pewter-hued hair; the once-athletic shoulders curved by gravity.

“I’m Jamie,” I said. “You must be Carter.”

“Indeed I am. Enter.” His voice was a thin rasp, as if from the aftermath of throat surgery. We shook hands.

I was led into the enormous parlor, still fascinating in its gothic opulence, but no longer the mysterious Wonderland it had seemed weeks ago. From the far end of the room, Walt emerged with a cocktail in hand, and at the sight of him an unexpected nervous flutter passed through my chest, a second-date skip of excitement.

“You’re alone?” Walt asked.

“Woody’s busy,” I said.

“That’s a shame.”

I nodded. “Is it just the three of us?”

“Plus Her Highness.”

“Always the last to arrive,” said Carter, slipping to Walt’s side, locking an arm around his waist. A stab of envy: Their ease with each other, and the longevity it grew out of, seemed wholly elusive to me, like a glamorous career path, architecture or couture, for which I had no training. I took a sip of what turned out to be a very strong vodka tonic. I asked about
Her Highness.

“Queen Elizabeth,” Carter said, “aka Betts, Betty, Bettina, Heavens to Betsy, La Liz. Am I forgetting anything?”

“Queen B,” said Walt.

“Is she coming in drag?” I asked.

“If you mean women’s clothes, no. But you won’t miss the tiara.”

Walt and I sat. Carter set up a TV table in front of each of us, then brought out toasted cheese sandwiches and bowls of tomato clam chowder. He apologized for the “lightness of the supper,” saying that he had spent the day looking for a new car to replace their old boat, and hadn’t had time to prepare. I thought about the sandwich Walt made me last time and wondered if they ever cooked, if their gourmet kitchen hid a snack-food lifestyle.

I brought out the recorder and placed it on the coffee table amid the candy bowls. I sketched out my research, my professional intentions, for Carter, who chuckled. “Radio? I better watch my French.”

“Let it rip,” I said. “Walt’s already given me a taste of your stories.”

“More than a taste, ahem,” Carter said, and I felt myself blush even though his smile invited an alliance. “Did he tell you that park-orgy story? He’s the only one in San Francisco who ever heard of it. The circle jerk that brought in half the Navy.”

Walt said, “You’re just jealous you weren’t there.”

“I might as well have been there, I’ve heard it so many times.” They sat side by side on a sofa, sweetly playing out this well-worn routine for my benefit.

Carter said, “Walt mentioned that you were asking about Don Drebinski.” I nodded. “I only knew him towards the end, when I was his travel agent. I knew Ron better. Don was busy with his nightclubs, and Ron was a lady of leisure.”

“Old money, wasn’t he?” Walt interjected.

“Gold Rush family. They inherited a lovely home in Pacific Heights.”

“May I?” I asked, indicating the recorder, but before I could press
PLAY
the doorbell rang.

Carter shuffled through the parlor. I heard cooing and cackling from the foyer, and in flitted Her Highness, circling the furniture like a sparrow on a gust of air. “When will this city modernize its taxi fleet? There are only twelve hundred cabs in a city of nearly a million people. It is absolutely unbearable.” He was a man of about five-foot-five who seemed taller thanks to a fedora, dark glasses, a pashmina scarf wrapped several times around the neck and a royal-blue greatcoat that trailed like plumage.

“Dearest,” Walt said, “may I introduce our guest of honor, Jamie Garner.”

I nearly froze in the up-and-down scrutiny of his big brown eyes. “I thought I was the guest of honor,” he said

“Be nice, you old showboater,” Walt said.

Queen Betts gasped in mock horror, one hand on breastbone, the other dangling from the end of an arm extended to me.

“I’d never want to take the honor from someone as lovely as you,” I said, pecking the back of Queen Betts’s hand. “I’m just here for the cocktails.”

“Charmed,” he said. With a shooing motion to Walt, he added, “Speaking of which—the usual.”

I said, “And how shall I address you?”

“Betts. As in all bets are off.”

He was silly but alluring, and stripped of the costume and hauteur, rather handsome: olive skinned, brown eyed, thick lipped. His shaved head was buffed to a gloss. I could visualize a younger Betts, his substantial mouth serving equally well for boyish seduction and full female drag.

Carter said, “We’ve just begun our interview.”

Betts’s gaze landed on the recorder. “Where’s the microphone?” He chose the seat closest to it, sitting upright, hands crossed in his lap like a finishing-school princess. Ready for my questions, though I had no idea what he had to offer.

“Shall we?” Walt said.

I began.

I looked at Walt, and he winked, a satisfied conspirator. I nodded back my thanks. The complete image of Walt-the-provider, the years he’d spent helming this circle of friends, came into focus in that moment. I was the latest beneficiary of the way he got things done. It wasn’t until later that night, when I reread my father’s letters to Ray, that I realized I’d already been introduced to Betts. Don’s friend. He was right there on the page:
one clownish queen name of Benjamin but known to all as Betty…just a showering of womanly fussing and flirtation.

The conversation continued, as the three of them swapped stories of the old days and of Don, but for me, the interview ended with this journey to Los Angeles—Teddy’s encounter with Betts’s
sordid
behavior, his fight with Don, his disappearance in LA, the trail going cold again. As the clock pushed toward nine, Carter announced his bedtime. Walt ushered a still-chatty Betts into a cab for a ride home.

Saying good-bye to me, Walt insisted that I bring Woody along on my next visit. I’d had enough tongue-loosening vodka by now that I finally came clean to him about our breakup. “I’m not sure it was meant to be,” I said.

“That sounds like Christian fatalism to me.”

“I messed up.”

“I always say, Don’t let the good ones get away.”

All along my bike ride home, Walt’s words echoed, and when I got to my apartment, before I did anything else, before I’d even slipped the pack off my shoulders, I put in a call to Woody. No answer. For someone who had insisted the best way to reach him was on his cell phone, he never seemed to have it on when I called.

I’d been doing a lot of taping lately, but I hadn’t listened to any of it, so that night, still buzzing from meeting another figure from Teddy’s past, I got to work. I patched my old recorder into the new one, made a digital copy of the interview I’d done with Ray Gladwell, then transcribed it. Listening to the flow of our conversation, my fingers simultaneously tapping out our words, I understood how talking to Ray had shifted my questions away from Danny Ficchino and toward Don Drebinski. Danny had inspired my quest—just as his departure had inspired my father to come to California—but once in San Francisco, Don took over. Don opened up San Francisco to Teddy—gave him a job, took him to a gay bar, introduced him to everyone who became important to him. Perhaps Don started out as a mentor, a big brother, but his interest in Teddy obviously grew deep and messy.
In the Woods
contained one reference after another to Don’s drunkenness. Was this a portrait of alcoholism, or did Don’s crush on Teddy just leave him susceptible to overdoing it? They were both drunk at Chick’s cabin when they had their shadowy sexual encounter, which culminated in Teddy alone in the woods, those hallucinatory woods I now knew firsthand. When he returned to San Francisco, Teddy saw the city differently, a
City of Lies
. End of story—or so I had thought. Now I knew that he’d gone with Don to Los Angeles, where I had to assume he reunited with Danny. (Dean Foster’s headshot was signed L
OS
A
NGELES
, 1961.) This visit to LA was the unknown terrain on the map I’d been charting, the part ancient explorers would have marked
HERE BE DRAGONS
. I had come full circle, through Don and back to Danny. The snake eating its own tail.