He just shrugs and replaces his headphones, signaling an end to the conversation.
Lloyd motions for us to leave the boy alone. We walk back up the sand a few feet. J. R. remains there looking out over the sea.
“That kid is getting too spoiled,” Jeff whispers hard.
“He’s nine years old,” Lloyd argues. “Cut him some slack.”
Jeff just sighs.
“He’ll come around,” I offer.
Jeff runs his hands through his hair. “I love that kid like he’s my own son. But it’s hard.” He looks over at J. R., then back at Lloyd and me. “I never knew how fucking hard parenting could be. I want to avoid all the mistakes my parents made with me, but damn. I’m starting to see everything they did in a far more sympathetic light.”
As much as I feel for J. R., I didn’t come out here for a child psychology session. I have work to do back at the guesthouse, and I’m getting impatient. “Can we finish up here?” I ask. “Let’s just decide where—”
“And what’s up your ass, Henry?” Jeff’s folding his arms across his chest, looking at me now. “Why are you so cranky?”
“I’m not cranky.”
“Yes, you are, Henry,” Lloyd says, moving in. “And since we seem to be processing emotions this morning, let’s hear what’s up with you.”
I try to laugh. “You guys, I’m fine. I just have things to do…”
“Your date last night sucked, huh?” Jeff asks.
“No.” I steel myself. “It was fine.”
Jeff is shaking his head. “Whenever anyone describes something by saying it was fine, it’s code for, ‘It sucked.’”
Lloyd smiles. “Come on, Henry. Out with it.”
“There is nothing to come out with.”
“All right,” Jeff says. “So when are you seeing this guy again?”
“I don’t know. Soon.” I can feel the defensiveness rising in my throat. “He said he’d call.”
Jeff makes a wicked face. “Oh, no, the dreaded ‘I’ll call you’ kiss-off,” he says, smirking.
I stick my tongue out at him.
“Henry,” Lloyd says, “something is bothering you.”
I sigh. Why is it that Lloyd can cut right to the quick with me? Why is it that around him I can’t keep up any pretense? I turn to face him. “Okay,” I manage to say. “Something weird happened.”
“With Gale?”
“No, afterward.” I don’t want to look over at Jeff, whose eyes I can feel boring into me. “I went…oh man…I went to the dick dock.”
Jeff bursts out into laughter. Lloyd shoots him a look. I figure I’d better finish my confession before I chicken out.
“And some guy there…I didn’t know who it was until afterward. I…I think it was a guest.”
“Oh,” Lloyd says.
“Don’t be pissed at me, Lloyd,” I plead, trying to tune out Jeff’s hysterics. “I really didn’t know until after he—”
“Got up off his knees?” Jeff asks, cracking himself up.
“Yes!” I shout. “Exactly! Until he got up off his knees!”
“Who was it?” Lloyd asks.
“Bert.”
“Which one is Bert?” Jeff wants to know. “Is he hot?”
“Some would say so,” I tell him, defensive again. “But I’m sure he wouldn’t fit your high standards, Mr. Jeff Almighty.”
Lloyd is shaking his head. “No, it wasn’t Bert,” he says conclusively. “Bert and I sat up talking together from midnight until two a.m. He didn’t go out last night.”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“Positive.” Lloyd shrugs. “You got blown by someone else. What makes you think it was a guest?”
“Because he said…” Once again I refuse to look at Jeff. “Because he said he hoped I made him some especially good muffins this morning.”
Jeff shrieks in laughter, doubling over, barely able to stand.
Lloyd is having a hard time holding back his own smile. At least he’s not angry. “It’s not a big deal, Henry. You didn’t know.”
“I can’t believe you went to the dick dock, buddy,” Jeff says, his grin a mile wide. “So Gale didn’t put out, huh?”
“Will you shut up, please?” I nod my head in J. R.’s direction.
“He can’t hear us,” Jeff says. “And if he can, it sure won’t be the first time he’s heard about the dick dock.”
“I think,” Lloyd says, sage that he is, “what’s really bothering you, Henry, has nothing to do with getting a blow job by some stranger.”
At that moment the sun edges just a little higher in the sky, and its light reflects in Lloyd’s green eyes. Suddenly I want to cry looking at him. I just want to sit down on the sand, curl up into a ball, and cry.
But I don’t. Of course not. I’m sick to death of Henry Weiner’s self-pity party, so I just jut out my chin and let loose with everything that’s been building up inside me.
“You want to know what’s wrong?” I say, louder than I intended. “Okay, I’ll tell you what’s wrong. Here I am, traipsing out with you guys to pick your perfect little wedding spot, listening to you bicker about where and when and who, and meanwhile I’m reduced to getting blow jobs on the beach from some big old bear because I can’t find even one guy who I like who might like me back.”
Lloyd starts to respond, but it’s Jeff who moves forward. He’s not laughing anymore. He takes my hands in his and finds my eyes with his own.
“Buddy,” he says.
This is why I love Jeff. This is why, despite all his bullshit, all his narcissism, all his teasing, I love him with all my soul. It’s not the same kind of love I feel for Lloyd, but in some ways it goes even deeper than that. Jeff knew me when I was a scared, skinny outcast. He helped me become someone else—someone stronger, someone wiser. There are times, like now, when I forget that side of myself, that strong, confident person Jeff helped me become. But Jeff never forgets that version of Henry Weiner, and he’s always here to remind me of him when I need it. He doesn’t even need to say anything. He just holds my hands, looks into my eyes, and says, “Buddy.” I get emotional, biting back the tears.
Now Lloyd is at my side, putting his arm around my shoulder. “You will find someone, Henry,” he says. “Remember what we’ve said about trust.”
I look into his eyes, then back to Jeff’s. These are my two best friends in the world. The emotional sustenance I have with them is quite unlike anything most people ever experience, even with lovers of many years. I know I’m fortunate. So why do I feel so unfulfilled?
“You know,” I say, my voice thick with emotion, “Gale brought up an interesting point.”
“What’s that?” Lloyd asks.
“He wants a monogamous relationship.”
Jeff lifts his eyebrows. “Well, then, you’ve struck gold.”
“Not exactly.” I smile. “He said having this kind of emotional connection with friends—the kind we’re having right now—would be cheating on my lover if I had one.”
“That’s fucked,” Jeff says.
“Maybe, maybe not.” I look from him to Lloyd. “Why should we single out sex as the only thing we need to keep exclusive in relationships? It’s not even the most important thing.”
“Well,” Lloyd says, “the argument could be turned around to say why keep anything exclusive? Why not be as open as possible, sharing everything with the entire world?”
I laugh. “Then there would be nothing special in a one-on-one relationship, no point in even having one.” I give them each a smile. “Look, you guys. Be honest. You’ve been nonmonogamous for most of your time together. Sexually and often emotionally, too. But you’ve always held back one small but significant part of yourselves, a part that you’ve kept reserved only for each other.” I find Lloyd’s eyes. “I know. I’ve experienced that.”
“Henry,” Lloyd says kindly.
“It’s cool. It really is. Because I want what you have. Maybe I’d shape it a little differently,
but the love you guys have for each other…” My words trail off, as the doubts I’ve had about the depth of their love resurface. But such doubts feel absurd right now, or at least beside the point. “Here’s what I want. I want to find someone who will love me enough to want to marry me, the way you guys are getting married. And sometimes I think…”
Again my words trail off. Jeff, still holding my hands, pumps me to finish. “Think what, buddy?”
I face him. “I think that maybe the closeness I have with the two of you prevents me from finding that one special someone.”
Jeff lets my hands go. I notice the look that passes between him and Lloyd.
I know what they’re thinking. “Javitz felt the same way, didn’t he?”
They both nod. Javitz was their best friend before I came along, an older mentor who they both loved and cared for as he died from AIDS. They’ve told me how Javitz sometimes expressed feelings very similar to the ones I’m describing now. He’d say that as close as the three of them were, their friendship just couldn’t completely substitute for a satisfying one-on-one lover—a lifelong dream Javitz never managed to find.
I can see Javitz’s experience helps them to understand my struggle a little better. “I don’t want to die without having found the One,” I say softly.
“Henry,” Lloyd says, “you’re only thirty-three and in splendid health. You’re not like Javitz, staring down the corridor of his mortality. Yes, we could all go at any minute. We could walk back out into the parking lot and get struck down by the shuttle bus. But you need to trust that you have the luxury of time, Henry. Why is it so hard for you to trust?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, but it is. Like Gale’s comment that he’d call me. You were right to laugh, Jeff. It’s the most-often-repeated lie in the world.”
“I wasn’t right to laugh, buddy,” Jeff says. “He’ll call you.”
“Do you want him to call you, Henry?” Lloyd asks.
“Of course I do. He’s hot. And smart. His ideas about relationships seem extreme, but I’m willing to work with that.”
Lloyd gives me a wan smile. “Well, if he had his way, the three of us wouldn’t be having these little powwows on the beach anymore.”
“I wouldn’t let a lover come between us,” I vow.
But even as I say the words, I wonder. Would I? If I found a man that I loved, who loved me back, who made me laugh and made me happy and wanted to marry me—would I turn away from Jeff and Lloyd if he asked me to do so?
“What about Luke?”
I’m startled out my thoughts by Jeff’s question. “What about him?” I reply. I can feel my defensiveness rising again.
“Do you have feelings for him? You guys tricked and now—”
“It was a trick, that’s all.”
“But you’re pretty hostile about him now,” Jeff continues.
Lloyd is looking at me strangely. “Why are you hostile? I thought he was working out well.”
I wasn’t planning to go into this with Lloyd, at least not yet. But there’s no way to avoid it now that Jeff has brought it up.
“I—I just have some suspicions about him,” I say, already certain that Lloyd is going to call me paranoid and insist it’s all about my difficulties with trust. But I forge on anyway. “I think Luke is kind of a schemer.”
Lloyd smiles. “I think you’re still intrigued by him.”
“I am not!”
“Come on, Henry. It’s obvious the way you watch him.”
“I watch him because he’s after something.” I look over at Jeff. “Like Eve Harrington in All About Eve.”
Jeff flutters his eyelashes comically. “And are you casting me as Margo Channing?”
Lloyd smiles. “Well, it is obvious that Luke’s hot for you, Jeff. That much is clear.”
“It is?” Jeff asks, in a tone I find sickeningly disingenuous.
“Yes, my love,” Lloyd says indulgently. “It’s your choice in how you respond, but remember he is an employee.”
I watch Jeff’s eyes. I remember his conflicts over having sex with other guys as he and Lloyd plan their wedding. Not that he doesn’t want to have sex with them—the drive is there—he just doesn’t feel it’s right. How long will he be able to resist Luke’s charms?
Now, see, for me, if I were waiting to exchange vows with Lloyd, the drive for other guys would not even be there in the first place. There would be no conflict. If I were planning to marry the man of my dreams—my soul mate—then I wouldn’t even be looking at another guy. No one but Mr. Right would even be on my radar screen. No conflict. None at all. All my love, every last bit of it, would be directed at the man I was about to—
A little voice suddenly says “Bullshit” in the back of my mind.
I’m stunned. I actually rock back a bit on my heels.
Bullshit.
How much have I been kidding myself? How much of my romantic notions are just that—rosy, idealistic dreams? Maybe, in fact, Jeff and Lloyd are as real as it gets, and what they have between them is the best I can hope for. Maybe true love—the way I’ve romanticized it—doesn’t exist. Maybe it’s simply about two people finding each other and making the best of it, the way Jeff and Lloyd seem to be doing. Because, in truth, part of me doesn’t believe they are really, truly happy. Part of me thinks they’re just glad not to be alone as they move into their fourth decade.
I look at them now—back to bickering about where people should stand, how many people to invite—and I wonder if maybe long ago they gave up the kind of romantic preconditions that I cling to so fiercely. If that’s the case—if they are, in fact, settling—how can I believe that they are really, truly in love with each other?
But then I spot Lloyd making Jeff laugh—something he says, a lift of his eyebrows, a shrug of his shoulders. They speak in shorthand: one word, one gesture can conjure up a dozen years’ worth of images and emotions. Instantly the tension between them shivers and breaks. Jeff reaches over and wraps his arms around Lloyd’s neck, pulling him close. They share a kiss, the sun glinting from between their profiles. I have to look away.
What the hell do I know about love?
“Uncle Henry.”
I look around. J. R. has walked back up from the water and is standing behind me.
“What’s up?” I ask the boy.
“Do you think me and you could walk back now?”
“Well, I don’t know if Jeff and Lloyd are finished here yet,” I tell him. But then I glance back at the two of them, shoulder to shoulder now, hands linked, strolling away from us toward the water.
I shout after them, announcing that J. R. and I are heading back. They lift their free arms to wave at us without even bothering to turn around. They’re probably glad to be rid of us.
“Come on,” I say to J. R., dropping my arm around his thin shoulders. “Let’s go home.”
We move off down the sand.
“You okay, buddy?” I ask the boy.
“Yup.”
“You sure?”
The boy just nods, adjusting the volume on his iPod.
“If anything is bugging you,” I say, loud enough so that he can hear, “you know you can talk to me. You can talk to Uncle Lloyd or Uncle Jeff, too, of course, but in case, for whatever reason, you don’t want to, you can talk to me. I promise to be cool.”
J. R. barely nods.
I sigh. What I wouldn’t give for an older, wiser uncle to drop his arm around my shoulder and offer to help me with my problems. I wouldn’t be so tightlipped as J. R. I’d tell him exactly what was troubling me.
That is, if I could figure it all out myself—which, at the moment, seems impossible to do.
I make a conscious effort to leave all my doubts and confusions behind me on the beach, to refuse to carry them back with me to the guesthouse. Forget about Jeff and Lloyd. Forget about Mr. Right. Forget about what’s real and what’s not and what falling in love really means.
But there’s one question I just can�
��t seem to leave behind.
Who the hell blew me at the dick dock last night?
MY BED
Another night of strange dreams. Once more, I’m back in West Springfield. I’m wearing the orange-and-white polyester uniform of my first job—at Roy Rogers Hamburgers and Fried Chicken. On my head sits a little orange hat. In my hands I hold a bag of lettuce. I’m refilling the salad bar, much against my wishes.
Men Who Love Men Page 13