Men on Men

by George Stambolian (ed)

He doesn’t know a single person with AIDS and hopes he never does. He wouldn’t want to have to cook up excuses not to visit the hospital. He wouldn’t even want to get letters from such a person and have to worry that the licked portion of the envelope might be infected. That’s the way he thinks. The previous summer he wore shorts almost every day to show off his lesion-free legs.

  Upstairs he ran into his neighbor Tabitha in the hall. She always seems to be in the hall—throwing out garbage, getting the mail, coming or going with her half-wit kid Charles. “Hi,” Jimmy said. “Fine,” Tabitha said. He doesn’t like her. She’s pushy, yet has a somnolent air about her. And he’ll never figure out why some black people answer the greeting “Hi” by telling you how they are. She asked him if he was giving the super anything for Christmas. He said he was. How much, she wanted to know. He said he wasn’t sure yet. He knew how much but didn’t think it was any of her business.

  “Do you think five dollars is enough?” she pressed.

  ‘‘Well, you know, whatever you can afford.” He would have given nothing at all before five bucks. “See ya,” and he went inside.

  He stood there staring at his bed—six months old and no one but him had ever been in it. Long before he moved out of his ex-boyfriend’s, who he’d met at a bar in the West Village, sex had become the only reason to stay together—they figured they were both relatively “safe.” The days when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other were gone however, and the apartment was thick with tension, which would have been only slightly relieved by occasional visits to back rooms or baths, but even these outlets were precluded by their fear of death. Now he masturbates a lot—twice a day, minimum—usually with porn magazines that he keeps piled under his bed, and sometimes with photos of Dean sprawled and propped up around him on pillows.

  He opened his sock-and-underwear drawer and removed a pack of them—snapshots he took on the beach in Provincetown shortly after they’d met. You know you’re welcome to bring a friend. That’s the way he has always imagined his mother would put it, her hand on her throat, gagging on the word “friend,” if she ever broke down and invited him to bring someone to the house. Dozens of times over the course of his four years with Dean he pictured what this would be like. Perusing the photos, he pictured it now and saw his parents and sister visualizing the two of them “sodomizing” each other, while they all bent over backwards trying to act normal and easygoing. He wouldn’t have accepted such an invitation; he will when he knows he’ll feel comfortable holding a man’s hand on the couch, just as his sister used to do with her husband Steve; and he’ll introduce the man as his boyfriend, not his friend.

  What invitation. What man.

  He stuffed the pictures back in the drawer and made a beeline for the phone. “I’m not going to Barbara’s on Christmas,” he told his mother. “I’ve made up my mind.”

  On Christmas afternoon, Jimmy and Flo were sitting next to each other on one half of Barbara’s L-shaped sectional sofa. Flo had sat first, Jimmy after getting himself a scotch-and-soda. His feet were flat on the floor and he was slumped back into the sofa, watching his knees, as though afloat on an inner tube. A fist, shoved against his face, was forcing his mouth off to one side and his elbow was embedded in the foam-rubber arm of the sofa.

  Flo dipped a potato chip into a bowl of onion dip but the chip cracked and three-quarters of it remained stuck in the dip so she left it there and while chewing on the undipped piece she said, very low but still using her vocal cords, “They’re whispering in the kitchen.”

  Out from around his fist Jimmy muttered, “She should have the crinkly kind so they don’t break.”

  Flo lit a cigarette and crossed a leg, then crisscrossed her wrists on her knee and held the cigarette between two fingers that pointed straight up. If not for her cigarette and his drink, they would have passed for a couple of unpopular relations at a wake.

  “What do you think they’re whispering about?” he asked.

  “Who the hell knows,” she answered quickly, looking away at the Christmas tree, exhaling smoke at it.

  He looked sidelong at her leg. “You have a very small run in your panty hose.”

  All in a split second she looked at his eyes, he saw her do this out of his peripheral vision so he looked away, and she looked at her leg. “Where?”

  “There.”

  “I can’t even see it. Don’t point things out, James, if you can hardly see them.”

  The blender was going in the kitchen now, competing with Barbara’s voice—two shrill whines.

  Jimmy took a ceramic figurine from the end table next to him. “This is the mouse I gave her last year.”

  Flo glanced at it. Her daughter collects mice. Mice hugging. Mice in bed—snugly, asleep. Mice kissing—hands behind backs, faces bent toward each other, eyes closed. Mostly from card shops, although last year Jimmy discovered some quality mouse collectibles and decided to try and improve his sister’s taste by starting her on a particular Irish set he thought was the least corny.

  “I’m sure she thinks it cost the same as the Hallmark crap,” he said, gesturing at the other mice, but also taking in, while he was at it, the kitschy Christmas decorations that covered every flat surface and much of the wall space. “I don’t know why I bother to spend money on good things when people don’t appreciate it. Daddy would—”

  “Oh, shoosh.”

  “He’d just as soon have a Milky Way than—”

  “Use a coaster.”

  “—than the candy I get him from Li-lac.”

  “Be nice, will you, please?”

  “I have all intentions of being nice,” he said, replacing the mouse.

  Flo sighed. She flicked an ash fleck off the gray wool pleated skirt Jimmy had given her that morning. She was also wearing his most recent Mother’s Day and birthday gifts: an off-white silk blouse and dark burgundy pumps that matched her hair. They were all going to exchange presents there at Barbara’s, but Jimmy had figured Flo might want to wear her present so he gave it to her at his parents’ house, three blocks away. He’d done his shopping at a Fifth Avenue department store, and when he had the skirt wrapped he chose a box with the store logo rather than the generic Christmas one. The expensive French perfume, which came in its own box, was in a small shopping bag at his feet, with the Li-lac candy and a new mouse.

  “James, use a coaster.”

  “All her furniture has a Formica coating. You don’t need a coaster.”

  Fluttering her eyes closed, Flo looked away at the tree again, shaking the foot of the crossed leg. “She’s got that blender on too long,” she said just as it was shut off. In a minute, Barbara came in with a tray, followed by her father.

  “Ooh, chi-chis!” Flo exclaimed, dinching the cigarette.

  Barbara smiled stiffly and placed the tray on the coffee table. Three stemmed glasses were filled with a white frothy concoction. Barbara and Dan sat next to each other on the other half of the L-shaped sectional. She perched herself on the edge of it; he sat back comfortably, his bony knees in the air, like Jimmy’s, only he wasn’t deliberately slumped. The coffee table held the chips and dip, cheddar cheese and Ritz crackers, Hershey balls wrapped in festive foil, and mixed salted nuts. A roast was in the oven, almost well-done.

  “Well,” Dan Arbooz said, raising his glass, smiling self-consciously, “Merry Christmas, everybody.” Not one with words, and gawky with displays of sentiment, he was Bob Cratchit-shy now. Jimmy would have found this endearing in a twelve-year-old boy.

  “I think I left the blender on too long,” Barbara said. “Are they too watery?” She was looking at her drink when she asked this.

  “No, no,” Flo answered, knowing the question had been directed at her. She tipped the glass away and dabbed her mouth with a paper Santa cocktail napkin. “Perfect.”

  “Christmas in Hawaii,” Dan chuckled.

  Jimmy began to sing. “Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say—”

  “On a bright Hawaiian Chri
stmas daay-y,” his mother joined in, laughing.

  Barbara turned the sides of her mouth up; this was a smile.

  Her father remembered the tune but couldn’t place it. “What’s that from?” he asked.

  “The Arthur Godfrey Christmas album,” said Jimmy. “You still have it, you know. I saw it this morning.”

  “Oh, we should have brought it,” Flo said, lighting another cigarette.

  “I have Christmas albums,” Barbara said, waving the smoke away. She’d been a popular, pretty girl in high school, but now, at twenty-seven, her face is tight and pinched; she has large hips and shapeless legs, easily bruised, and a high-pressure job that she hates but says she likes. A Christmas album of hers was playing at that moment, one by a famous mellow-pop songstress whom Jimmy loathes. The A-side had been on when Jimmy, Flo and Dan got there. Jimmy had wanted to take the arm and press the needle screeching across the record—it’s what Barbara did once when he was eleven and she was thirteen to a record of his when he refused to lower the volume. A slapping and hair-tugging fight ensued but Dan Arbooz interceded and separated the two while Flo screamed at the top of her lungs from the kitchen: “You goddamn ungrateful snots! Why did I ever have children!” Dan told Jimmy never to hit a girl in the stomach because it might prevent her from having babies. He hadn’t been anywhere near her stomach but rather than pursue this point he said that he would feel sorry for any baby she ever had. It was said in anger but he meant it and he still thinks it. Long after brother and sister had barricaded themselves in separate rooms and Dan had gone outside to hose down the sidewalk, Flo continued to rant and rave in intermittent bursts until she’d finished making supper. In those days she flew off the handle whenever her children fought like cats and dogs—an almost daily occurrence—but after she went back to her secretarial job Barbara and Jimmy fought less and when they did Flo usually ignored them. Years later, by the time Barbara married that moron Steve, her fits were rare and always directed at Dan. They ceased completely once her only son and favorite child broke her heart.

  “Where’d you hear about these again?” Dan asked his daughter, raising his glass.

  “Hawaii!” Jimmy said. “Where else? That’s why I thought of the song!” He might have been talking to an idiot. Flo tossed him a quick combination of knitted brows and pursed lips, instantly gone. Barbara was chewing a nut and fingering another one. “This dip is delicious, Barbara,” Flo said. Jimmy got up to refill his scotch-and-soda. He hates drinking in the daytime.

  Barbara and her ex-husband Steve discovered chi-chis on their honeymoon in Honolulu; they are the same thing as piña coladas, only with vodka, not rum. During their two years of marriage she made them whenever they had her parents over but she stopped after the divorce. Dan Arbooz liked Steve; they were both route salesmen—Steve for Miller beer and Dan for Drakes Cakes. They used to talk about “stale” and “returns.” Dan misses him because no one else is interested in this topic. The fact that Barbara was now miserable over her breakup with Ted enabled her to quit being miserable over her divorce from Steve. Jimmy and Flo both understood that the revival of the chi-chis was meant to signal this, but Dan didn’t get it because he didn’t remember that Barbara had stopped serving them in the first place.

  “Let’s open the presents,” Flo cheerfully suggested. Her cheerfulness in the presence of her daughter, whose very sight depresses her, comes automatically, like the nonchalant manner in which she talks about her to Jimmy.

  Barbara took a pile of presents from under the tree and Jimmy noticed, on top, a wrapped box the exact shape and size as the perfume he’d bought. Dan self-amusedly rubbed his hands together at the sight of the wrapped loot. Among other things, Flo and Dan gave Jimmy three books from a long list he’d given Flo. He was very appreciative; he admired the books, riffled and smelled their pages. Dan got what he always got— pajamas, shirts, socks and underwear—and was very happy. Jimmy was trying to decide what to do about the perfume.

  Barbara opened one of her presents and removed a matching skirt and jacket; she said nothing.

  “You don’t like it,” Flo said, watching her daughter scrutinize the cut. “I think it’s beautiful.”

  Jimmy was about to agree but he kept his mouth shut.

  “I don’t know,” Barbara said tonelessly. “I’ll have to try it on.”

  “I have the receipt with me,” Flo said.

  Barbara suddenly looked right at her mother for the first time that day. “You always buy what you like—what you think I should like.”

  “Take it back. I have the receipt.”

  “You always do this. It would be nice to get something from you for a change that I don’t have to return. You must know my taste by now.”

  No one moved.

  “It’s a beautiful suit,” Flo said. “Vicky was with me. She even said, ‘Oh Flo, Barbara will love this.’ ”

  Barbara’s exes watered; she sprang up and rushed into the bedroom. Dan Arbooz hadn’t said a word during the exchange but now he sat forward and clasped his hands.

  “You better go in there,” Flo said to him.

  “Why?”

  “Because. She’s crying.”

  Dan got up and went down the hall and knocked on the door; it opened and he went in.

  Flo stood; she went to the window and looked out at the snowless, sunny, almost balmy day. Jimmy watched her as she adjusted the blinds to admit more, then less, light, as though signaling an SOS to someone across the street. His insides surged with apology. He wanted to save her. Let’s leave, he wanted to say.

  “See if there’s any more in that blender, will you?” she said.

  He picked himself up and went into the kitchen. “It’s empty.”

  “Fix me a vodka-and-tonic, honey.”

  He also made himself another scotch-and-soda. He sniffed the air. He opened the oven door a crack and looked in. “Looks like an extremely well-done roast beef in there.”

  “Shut that. And don’t say a thing about it.”

  “Oh,” he said, bringing their drinks, “I just remembered.”

  “What,” she said, turning from the window.

  “A Christmas Carol is on—the good one. The one with Alastair Sim. We can just catch the end.”

  “Put it on,” she said and sat back down. “And don’t flick the stations so fast.”

  Finally Dan and Barbara emerged from the bedroom and went into the kitchen. Barbara opened the oven door. “Oh, great,” she said to her father. “Well, there isn’t going to be any gravy,” Flo and Jimmy heard her say. “There’s no juice in this pan. It’s all dried up. Everything’s going to be all dried up,” she said, slamming the oven door. Jimmy wanted to slap her.

  “It will be delicious!” Flo bellowed from the living room. “It smells delicious!”

  Jimmy suddenly took the perfume from his shopping bag and thrust it at his mother. “Merry Christmas!”

  “Oh, James! Another present?”

  Barbara materialized in the archway between the dining room and living room with an oven mitt poised against her thigh. She looked as though she might pull a small pistol out of it.

  “Oh, I don’t believe it!” Flo exclaimed, delighted. “Oh, James I never expected …” She made a great fuss. She dabbed perfume behind her ears and on her wrists. She was very happy. She really hadn’t expected it. Barbara’s face was flushed and her jaw had clamped shut. She marched over to what was left of the pile of presents on the coffee table and grabbed the perfume she had bought. “Don’t even bother opening this. It’s the same thing.” She tossed it back under the tree.

  “Oh, no!” Flo laughed. “So, I’ll have two!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll never finish one. You’ll get tired of the smell and want a different kind within a year.”

  Flo placed the perfume on her pile and lit another cigarette.

  “Do you have to chain-smoke?” Barbara said. “You’re stinking up my apartment. ”

  Flo turned to
the TV and ran her tongue across her upper lip, shaking her head slightly, but Jimmy couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “You knew she chain-smoked when you invited her here.”

  “Shush up,” Flo said to the TV screen.

  He turned back to the TV and stuck with it. He felt Barbara’s eyes riveting him; he half-expected the sofa to flip over backwards. Dan Arbooz was in the kitchen all this while, carving meat, listening but not saying a word, as though he’d been hired for the day. Barbara stood there facing them, her feet spread wide, her hands—one of them still in the oven mitt—on her waist. She looked defiant, courageous, and somehow only a bit ridiculous.

  She looked at the TV. It was her TV. Jimmy looked at Barbara. Barbara looked at him. He looked at her TV.

  “We’re just watching the end,” Flo said. “It’s ‘Scrooge.’ ”

  It was the part where Scrooge does the jig with his shocked housekeeper. “I’m as merry as a schoolboy; I’m as giddy as a drunken man.”

  Barbara turned on her heels and went back into the kitchen where her father was still carving the roast. “Now we have to watch a mode,” she said for the benefit of the two in the other room. “While my dinner gets cold.”

  “Jesus Christ Almighty,” Flo murmured to herself and to Jimmy. Then, “Shut it off, James,” and she got up.

  Jimmy shut it off just as a reformed and contrite Uncle Ebenezer was being admitted to his nephew’s home, a scene of merriment and familial bliss. The obvious irony—the kind that happens all the time in life but never in good fiction—was not lost on Jimmy or Flo.

  The dinner was uneventful. They discussed what movies they’d seen lately. There was a big, very popular one they’d all loved except Jimmy who found it “sloppily sentimental.” This did not cause an argument, just a few moments of silence, and then a change of subject. It went on like that and then Flo, Dan, and Jimmy left right after coffee. In the car, Jimmy swore aloud from the middle of the backseat that he would never go to his sister’s again. He watched the backs of his parents’ heads, looking from one to the other four or five times, waiting for a reaction, and when none came he slumped and felt like a jerk.