The Wanting Life

by Mark Rader

  “Is that right.”

  “Yes,” Luca said, his eyes dancing over Paul’s face now. “Ever since I’m a boy. Blond hair, blue eyes.” So honest. So unrepentant.

  Paul inhaled deeply, the hand on his shoulder rising like a leaf on a swell of water. “Do you know what time it is?” he said.

  “Hmm,” Luca said. “Eleven thirty, maybe twelve?”

  “I should walk back.”

  “Maybe I said too much,” Luca said. “I’m sorry.”

  “No,” Paul said. “It’s okay.”

  “You could stay here, you know,” Luca said. “You drank that whole bottle.”

  “Where would I sleep?” Paul asked. “On the couch?”

  “I suppose, yes,” Luca replied. “If that’s what you prefer.”

  “Okay,” Paul said. “I think I may do that.” His words were clipped and robotic, his heart singing and sad.

  That night, Paul washed his face and pissed, and then Luca did the same. They parted ways at the edge of the living room and said good night. For a while, Paul’s heart thumped dumbly as he stared at the dark ceiling, the night silent but for the occasional chain saw buzz of distant motorbikes, shouts from the street. Before dawn, after waking from a shameful dream, he got up to pee again and stopped beside Luca’s slightly open door. There he was, asleep on his top bunk, nose whistling. A slab of flat tan stomach between his ghost-white T-shirt and underwear. Legs tangled in sheets. The hand at the end of his dangling arm branched with thick veins. All of which might have been his—had he only been less virtuous.

  In the morning, after a shallow sleep, Paul woke to a blur that was Luca, wearing jeans and no shirt, standing a few feet from him, watchful, sipping coffee, holding another cup in his hand. He patted the floor for his glasses, curled them on, remembered where he was.

  “I made you coffee,” Luca said, skipping past pleasantries.

  The kitchen was softened with cool light like a Vermeer painting. Church bells faintly gonged. They ate small, hard clementines and buttered bread. Luca told him he’d dreamed of being in school again and everyone was supposed to make a papier-mâché version of themselves and fill it with things to fall out, like a piñata. But the kids near him kept taking all the candy he’d chosen and started beating the piñata in advance. Maybe, he said, this was because they had been talking about teachers the night before.

  “Did that happen to you as a kid?” Paul asked. “Getting teased?”

  Luca raised his eyebrows. “What do you think?”

  Around seven thirty, still early, they took the stairs down and stood together at the door, not embracing or shaking hands. Luca squinted and said, “So, the beach? What do you say?”

  Paul agreed. He couldn’t bear for this to be the end. Simple as that. Not next weekend, because Luca had a shift at the restaurant, but the weekend after. He could look into the cost, the place. Maybe they could stay the weekend. Paul said might as well. “You never gave me your number,” he added.

  Luca smiled. “We don’t have a phone here. I’ll just call you from the pay phone in the restaurant.”

  “You sure?”

  Luca smiled and playfully reached out to shake Paul’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to stand you up.”

  In the days that followed, Paul swung between trying to forget himself inside his books and notes and feeling desperately social. He sought out the Franciscan brothers he’d gone skiing with in Switzerland for lunch, twice. He tagged along to a beer hall dinner he would have usually waved off, got quite drunk on Dunkel Bräu. Obediently, he replied to the letter from his mother (maple syrup season decent but not great, Britta had taken up with some guy named Ray, any news on what flight he’d be taking back? any requests on a homecoming cake?), mentioning, in only a sentence, and not by name, a local guy he played bocce with occasionally—an acquaintance. He was looking forward, he added, to being finished, to having his degree, and was curious (he’d lingered before choosing this word) about what the future would hold. Curious, concerned, terrified: take your pick. The food and the beauty of the city he’d miss, but it would be nice to be able to turn on the radio and listen to Braves games again, though apparently they were now called the Brewers. The usual stuff, in other words: trumped-up platitudes, a spirit of gratitude, and only mildly cheeky, gentle humor. His mother, an optimist, would not have done well with knowledge of his continued uncertainty—an uncertainty he had referred to only in the most oblique of ways. He was her pride and joy, and in the letter he let her think he was happy.

  Usually he attended Mass on Wednesday and Sunday mornings, but he found himself going more often. In the quiet moments of the service, on his knees, he asked God to guide him. Wrapped in prayer, he felt safe, but a bit like an automaton. When he took Communion and felt the wafer slowly dissolve on his tongue, Paul tried with all his might to imagine the act as the taking in of the spirit of Jesus—the greatest possible human wisdom and goodness. Always it was a trick of the imagination, a test of faith—to imagine this wan little circle as sustenance for the soul, a flat white pill to eat away the darkness inside you.

  One night, after listening to a Bach cantata, whittled down to his most vulnerable self, he remembered the talks he’d had in the fellowship hall of St. Mary’s with Father Allan after school, Father Allan who had recruited him, given him the recruiting literature, talked about the clerical life. Father Allan, probably gay like him, now that he looked back on it. Tommy Ott had been there too, though he’d shortly thereafter bowed out, not certain he really had the call. Folding chairs, the smell of cleaning product, Father Allan bent forward, elbows on his knees, one hand gripping a fist, as if ready to both fight and pray. There are sacrifices to this life, Paul, as you know, he’d said. But they pale in comparison to the bounty of the rewards.

  The bounty of the rewards: the phrase had been noble enough to stick in his mind ever since. Spiritual rewards, Father Allan meant. An elevation of the spirit. The earthly transcendence one might get in serving Christ full-time—and the richness of heaven. A special place beyond the regular, vulgar, judging world, he’d thought at thirteen. The position he’d always wanted, in other words. A place above, a place to hide.

  They met at Termini Station in time to take the nine a.m. train to Formia. Luca was wearing black shorts and a white T-shirt and carrying a tan canvas beach bag. Paul was in his khaki shorts, a yellow shirt, and stuffed in his school bag was a change of clothes, his three-year-old guidebook, his toothbrush. On the way out of Il Castello, he’d hoped not to run into anyone, but Jim Conklin, an eager first-year from Nebraska, seeing that he seemed bent on leaving, stopped him to ask where he was off to.

  Naples, Paul said, still walking, as if in a hurry. I’m going to see if their pizza is as good as advertised.

  You know, Jim said, that sounds like a great idea.

  For a woozy moment it seemed like Jim might invite himself along, but Paul kept moving and soon was gone.

  Then Paul and Luca were sitting together, a few inches apart, two friends going on a trip, amid other young people, families, a sweaty old couple slugging water from wine bottles. Paul had missed him; only a few seconds in Luca’s presence again confirmed it. He had busied himself so he wouldn’t feel himself missing Luca, wouldn’t be overwhelmed with missing Luca, but he had missed him still. Luca smelled faintly of incense, his temples were slick with sweat, and he had stories to tell of his roommates’ time at the concert. As Paul listened, the city giving way to the scruffy countryside, he felt his chest contract with pleasure. It was hot, his armpits were dripping onto his sides, but the cooler air streaming in the windows was the promise of cold water, relief. Two days they’d have together. One night.

  At the train station in Formia, they hopped on a bus, which led them into town. Most of the buildings were whitewashed, as the guidebook had said they would be. Check-in at the hotel wasn’t until the early afternoon, so Luca suggested they go straight to the beach. On the walk there, they stopped a
t two stores for a little bottle of sun lotion, two Cokes, water for Paul’s Thermos, salami, and a loaf of day-old bread, so they wouldn’t have to leave the beach to eat. A narrow road widened to a view of the water, sapphire blue. Along the beach, grand hotels faced the water, each with umbrellas for rent. But the free spots were what they wanted—what spending money they had they agreed not to waste on an umbrella. Their own hats would do: a straw fedora for Luca and an old Milwaukee Braves cap for Paul, a present from his uncle so he wouldn’t forget Wisconsin while he was gone.

  The towels they’d brought were not beach towels but bathroom towels, and side by side they rolled them out, one green, one white. Luca immediately peeled off his shirt, shoes, and socks, then dropped his shorts to reveal a smaller swimsuit. He was eager to be here, the grown-up boy who spent all those summers on the water. Paul felt self-conscious. Underneath his shirt, he was as pasty white as his legs and arms were, with a little winter gut. Not that Luca didn’t already know this, not that he or anyone else would care. But even so, he was aware of how he was on display here. Part of the big skin show. In fact, what was he doing but already gawking at the men wearing what was really just skimpy, shiny underwear?

  Luca sat, back hunched, knees bent, and glugged water. He asked Paul if he could help put sun lotion on his back, a logistical necessity. But this time the job seemed illicitly slippery. Already, Luca’s back was a little warm.

  “Aren’t you going to go in the water?”

  “I will,” Paul said.

  “What? With your shirt on?”

  “I’ll take it off,” he protested. “I don’t see what the rush is.”

  When, ten minutes later, he did, Luca looked at him.

  “You’re so pale.” He picked the sun lotion back up. “Turn around. I’ll get you too.”

  “I’m half Polish,” Paul said. “We don’t tan, we burn.”

  “I’ll make sure to give you extra then.”

  Well covered, Paul lay down, head propped up on his bag. The clip-on shades over his glasses reduced his squint. There wasn’t the slightest breeze. In the stillness, he sank into a silence within himself that was like the space he made for prayer, which shouldn’t have been surprising. Beaches were places of worship too. Pagan churches. God, the sun—a powerful force that could scald you if you weren’t careful, but also a giver of light, of life. Hmm, he thought, his mind drifting, I should really jot that down.

  As the sun rose higher in the sky, the beach came alive and Luca said he was going in. He jogged to the shore, small hipped and loose legged among the flashing brightness of other bathers. He wasn’t an Adonis; he was slender in a boyish, nonmuscular way, a creature who had endured a shocking and lasting hurt and who wanted happiness. He ran until the water reached his crotch, then walked a bit and dove forward. Gone for a moment, then a wet shaking head. In less than three weeks, Paul thought, he would be flying back, to return to his early life. But now, here he was.

  “How is it?” Paul asked when Luca walked back.

  Luca’s poufy hair was a slick waterfall spilling in all directions. Droplets fell from his elbows, his ears. He slid a little wet curtain of hair clear of his right eye. “Cold but nice. You should go in.”

  When Paul did, the water was so cold he gasped. But he knew he’d get used to it—his body would adjust. Soon they were eating their bread and ham. They napped, swam again, and napped again, hats covering their faces. Paul suggested they drop off their things at the hotel and said he’d like to go visit the ruins of Tiberius’s grotto, a bit farther east along the beach. It was one of the former emperor’s many summer villas, built around a.d. 14 inside a cave that looked out to the sea. His Fodor’s had called it a must-see.

  Luca shrugged. “Okay. If you really want to.”

  “You don’t want to come?”

  “It’s just that I’ve been there many times,” Luca said. “I used to come here as a kid, remember?”

  “So I should go by myself?”

  “Well,” Luca said, “maybe I’ll see how I feel after we go to the hotel.”

  The room was even smaller than Luca’s. Two beds, one chair, a view of a white alley. A dusty ceiling fan that wobbled side to side when Paul turned it on. Luca said he was going to take a quick shower, wash the sand off. There was a shared bathroom at the end of the hall. Paul waited, imagined the shower, waited. He heard the sound of an ice-cream truck coming down the street. Clouds shifted, giving way to a sheet of sunlight that made the whitewashed wall blinding for a moment. He pulled the clip-on shades from his shirt pocket and clamped it back over his glasses and looked out. No view of the water here, only a wall, the tips of trees.

  When Luca emerged he was shirtless, drying off his hair, his armpit hair straight and patchy. The top button of his shorts was undone, something forgotten in haste.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to come with you.”

  The relief Paul felt was almost embarrassing. “I think you made the right decision.”

  Luca smiled. “I didn’t want us to fight.”

  There was only one person standing at the railing that looked out onto the grotto when they arrived—a balding redheaded man sitting on a portable stool, sketching the scene expertly in his notebook with a brown crayon. The rock face above and around the cave’s dark mouth was craggy and a dirty tan color, spotted here and there with dense bushes that looked like broccoli. Behind the shallow amphitheater the entrance of the cave made were two deep hollows like empty eye sockets, and jutting out was a pool of cloudy green water lively with dark fish cordoned off by a huge square wall. Standing before it, Paul felt what he felt when looking at most of the ruins he’d seen in Italy: a sadness at how forlorn the thing seemed—so far removed from its original function—muted by an appreciation for its resilience. Except the sadness wasn’t as potent here, maybe because of the cave, which had existed for millions of years before Tiberius and his ambition…and would exist for millions of years after.

  Paul’s Fodor’s said that statues depicting scenes from The Iliad had once been on display in the grotto; replicas of them were in the museum nearby. He’d always loved reading aloud, and now he read verbatim from the entry to Luca, three paragraphs long. But when he finished and looked at Luca for a reaction, Luca had his camera to his face and was sizing up a shot.

  “Were you even listening?” Paul asked. He tried not to sound annoyed, but he was.

  “It’s hard to listen when I’m trying to look.”

  Annoyed, Paul closed the fat book on his finger and let the moment pass. Norb, he thought, indignant, would have patiently listened to every word, then followed up with a comment or question of his own; that was the reaction he’d wanted. But Luca was different from Norb, wasn’t he? Different from anyone else he knew. More vulnerable, less serious, not one to read books. This difference bothered him in theory, because it meant the things that made him happy weren’t necessarily going to be the things that made Luca happy, and to sniff those out felt like work. But he knew it wasn’t necessarily bad, the differences between them. Opposites attract and all that. Maybe that was the kind of couple they were.

  Neither of them was hungry yet; it was only six. So after leaving the grotto they walked around the town as Luca looked for things he wanted to photograph. As he walked beside his friend, Paul couldn’t help but size up the scenery too, cropping things into white rectangles, remembering from his grade school art class the rule of thirds. The shadow of Luca’s straw hat, he noticed, looked like a nest. The white walls all around reminded him of a landscape after a huge winter storm. Home. A few times, he and Luca lingered on the same things at the same time. Two little boys crouching, playing marbles, the slanting sunlight hard against their faces. A chicken peeking out of a balcony frontispiece. An old man fanning himself with a folded newspaper in an alley. But more often than not, the opposite was true. Paul wondered if, by watching Luca long enough, he might come to understand the man better—recognize what he liked, what he ignor
ed. Think and see like Luca did.

  A half hour into the walk, they fell silent for a while. It worried him. He didn’t want to yammer on like he had at the grotto, but with every passing second of silence, he felt judgment was being cast on their compatibility, the foolishness of his hopes—this friendship, or whatever it was. On seeing an old man on a bike, he told a story about his great-uncle Anton, who owned one of those turn-of-the-century bikes with a gigantic front wheel and tiny back wheel—and Luca said things in response, never not looking around, then fell back into silence. Every little shift now in mood seemed critical, either a warning flare of conflict or an opportunity to get closer that shouldn’t be missed. He had the urge to touch Luca, a hand on his shoulder, a big daring embrace from behind. When they exited the side streets and were back walking along the main road, a kelly-green Alfa Romeo convertible slid by, an old man driving, a beautiful young thing with wild blond hair beside him. Young enough to be his granddaughter.

  “Which do you think cost him more, the car or the girl?” Luca asked.

  “In the long run, the girl,” Paul said, and they laughed.

  Relief.

  They window-shopped the restaurants near the town center, went into the cheapest one. Dinner was a bottle of the house red, spaghetti with sauce, and a cup of cuttlefish soup, the local specialty, to share. They ordered, ate the free bread, drank. Luca told Paul he had some color on his face now, and Paul said Luca did too: a flush of pink strongest under his eyes, at the top of his cheeks.

  “So,” Luca said, “what are the two most interesting things you learned in your program?”

  “Why two?”

  “I don’t know. Because two is better than one?”

  They hadn’t talked at all of his studies, his priestly life—in fact, they’d steered clear of it almost completely. “You’re sure you’d find this interesting?”