Men on Men

by George Stambolian (ed)

“I’ll wait then,” Benjamin said.

  Art looked doubtful and said, “No telling when he’ll show you know.”

  “It’s important I know he’s all right,” Benjamin said.

  “Want a drink?” Art asked.

  “Whiskey,” Benjamin said, feeling that he should pay to stay there.

  Red! Red! How are you, sweetie? I was hoping you’d pull yourself out when you got word of my little tale.

  ENGLISH. ENGLISH. I’VE BEEN HEARING NOTHING BUT RUSSIAN.

  This is one of the warmest and most fitting voices to tell of Benjamin’s last hours—his own spirit. Red, this is my little horse, Brian. He’s a doll, huh? And feel that, pretty nice, huh?

  MMMMMM, NICE BODY. NICE EVERYTHING. (I MUST EXPLAIN, WORDS DON’T COME EASY. I’VE BEEN IN A RUSSIAN WOMB FOR SEVEN MONTHS NOW.) SO, WE WENT TO THE BAR NAMED RODEO. I WANTED BENJAMIN TO BREAK DOWN. TO GET ANGRY WITH HIMSELF. TO CRACK THE DEAD BLOCK. THERE HE WOULD BE IGNORED. CLASPS AND SNAPS WOULD POP IN HIS BRAIN. HE WOULD BECOME UNHINGED, WHICH FOR ME WOULD BE A RELIEF. I WANTED HIM TO BE ALONE, BE SAD, BE OLD. BUT NO, HE WOULD NOT SEE HIS FOLLY. HE SHOOK. HE WAS STRONG AS THE DAY WE SAILED FROM AUSTRALIA. (MMMM I REMEMBER THAT YOUNG SAILOR.) HE WAS FINISHED FOR ME IN THAT BAR. LET ME OUT! I AM A FLAME. I AM A DRIVE. I AM PERSECUTED, BECAUSE I BUCK AND I AM ORIGINAL. I WILL FIND MY OWN HOLE TO FILL IF I CHOOSE. IT HAS MADE ME STRONG AND IT HAS MADE THE LIVES I’VE LED WILD AND EMOTIONAL. REMEMBER ROME AND CALIGULA, BLUE? I LIVE TO THE HILT WHEN I CAN. I MADE TEDDY PURNHAGEN’S BRIEF SPIN REAL. BEFORE WE BOARDED THAT SHIP WE HAD ONE HELL OF A TIME. AND WITH BENJAMIN, I KNEW IT WAS OVER. I’D JUST ABOUT FALLEN ASLEEP. I WANTED OUT. I WAS TIRED OF JANE PAULEY’S FACE AND WATCHING PEOPLE WHO HAD ANSWERED QUESTIONS CORRECTLY FOAM AT THE MOUTH OVER A WEEKEND TRIP TO PALM SPRINGS. GIVE ME BEDSPRINGS BABY! ANYWHERE! I KNEW I HAD TO GET BENJAMIN OUT. HE WOULD HAVE TO OPEN HIS HEART AND FREE ME. BRIAN MET A SUCKY YOUNG MAN AT RODEO AND FELL HEAD OVER HEELS FOR HIM AND SPENT FOUR DAYS WITH HIM, FORGETTING COMPLETELY ABOUT DOGS AND NEIGHBORS BACK IN ROCKAWAY. AND ROCKAWAY, FOR THAT MATTER, WAS BORING TOO. BENJAMIN HAD ENTOMBED HIMSELF WITH ME, PULLING THE SHADES ON A CLEAR DAY SO HE COULD FLIP OFF HIS WIG AND MASTURBATE TO PORN VIDEO. NOT MUCH FUN AFTER A WHILE. I AM A SEXUAL SPIRIT. I KNOW THE OTHER QUEER SPIRITS. WE LIVE IN SACRED HEARTS. ALL HEARTS ARE, YOU KNOW. SACRED. AND WE SHOOT ARROWS THROUGH THE EYES OF YOUR MEN AND WOMEN. WE ARE GETTING STRONGER AND LIGHTER, NOT DARKER WITH BLINDS PULLED. I FOUGHT MY WAY OUT OF BENJAMIN WITH THE HELP OF ALL THE SPIRITS IN RODEO, AND FINALLY WAS FREE AND DASHING FROM DICK TO DICK TO DICK TO DICK. I MADE THE ROOM HOT. BENJAMIN COLLAPSED, HOLDING HIMSELF TO THE WALL. HE SWORE, “I WILL LIVE.” AND HIS HEART ATTACK STARTED. HE WAS INVISIBLE. SOMEONE CALLED HIM AN OLD DRUNK. SOMEONE ELSE SAID THE BAR HAD HAD IT BECAUSE OF PEOPLE LIKE HIM, BUT BENJAMIN STOOD THERE. HE JUST STOOD THERE AS HE HAD AT AUNT EV’S AND TOOK IT. HE WITHSTOOD THE PAIN OF LOSING ME, AND FINALLY GAVE UP THE GHOST, AS THEY SAY. AND AS HE SLID TO THE FLOOR, NOW GET THIS—HERE THIS MAN IS DYING, AND HE IS RECALLING THE ENTIRE SPLENDOR OF HIS LIFE, AND BELIEVE ME, IT IS ALL SPLENDOR AS YOU ARE BIDDING FAREWELL TO YOURSELF, AND GET THIS—HIS FINAL THOUGHT WAS, “FALL SO YOUR HAIR STAYS IN PLACE.” THAT WAS HIS DAMN VANITY STAR, WHICH I HOPE IN THIS NEXT TEMPLE WILL BE A LITTLE MORE REALISTIC. YOU SEE, AS I LEFT RODEO AND BENJAMIN, THERE WAS THIS MAN PASSING SPERM INTO A WOMAN IN A SMALL FLAT IN A TOWN ON THE BLACK SEA, AND HER WOMB LOOKED VERY INVITING AND WARM, AND I SETTLED IN WITH THIS SWEET LITTLE SPUD OF A STUD, WHO IS DEFINITELY GOING TO BE RED IN ALL WAYS, AND I SEE QUEER VODKA DAYS AHEAD TILL WE DEFECT.

  Hmmmmm, that’s that then, another one down for the count.

  ONLY ON HIS TERMS, DOWN ONLY ON HIS TERMS. WE KNOW BETTER.

  Don’t go yet, Red. Let me finish this. Brian is getting itchy, anyway. We can go out. Ride music. Separate from these grave souls for the night.

  WE CAN TANGO AND SING SIOUX SONGS.

  Oh, the Sioux. Don’t remind me! The Sioux!

  AND THE MONASTERY CHANTS. YOU LOVE THOSE.

  You’ll never let me forget it either, will you, Friar?

  I’LL WAIT, COMRADE.

  Good. And that was Benjamin’s Red Spirit. Benjamin’s body was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital where he was pronounced dead from a massive heart attack. An attack similar to that of Sir Queen’s. He had made out a will, thanks to Phil Donahue’s show, and left his house and his possessions to Brian with one stipulation—that Brian take care of Felicia.

  The last star over the Rodeo Bar. Benjamin’s constellation encircles the Earth, wrapping petals, forming a rose in bud. And now, Red and I are going out for a while to reminisce.

  No good-byes? Nothing? I wait for my blue spirit. I sit at the desk. Naked. Hard and waiting. I read all of this. I should have given Benjamin a call. He really cared about me. Mark was just such a knockout. He’s a dancer. He loves to show off. He can be a saint in the Church of Brian Malventano, and I’ll make Benjamin an angel. My religion of sexual meditation will flourish. I’m going to take Weiner and Felicia, and I’ll rent out both the houses out here in boring Rockaway, and I’ll move into Mark’s apartment in Soho. I hope pets are allowed. I wait. I stare at the paper. I’m waiting. Hard and waiting. I’m waiting.

  MAINE

  Brad Gooch

  RUSS, A NOT-THAT-YOUNG-ANYMORE GUY, is walking down a dirt road. He has on khaki shorts, a white T-shirt, tennis sneaks with no socks; a short sprouting haircut. Summertime. The T-shirt obviously washed recently.

  Russ gets to a rocky area in the middle of which is a swimming hole. A few teens are jumping and dipping. He sits on a pile of cut-down wood. The sun is nearly in its eleven o’clock position. Big rock music sound is trying to make itself heard from a little transistor box set on a nearby boulder. The swimming kids’ skins are shiny like wet seals.

  Russ gets up, already stuffed with just hanging around. Makes his way farther down the road. Through a tunnel of dark green saturated leaves. Russ is from a small town in Pennsylvania. He is spending the summer up here in a rented cabin secluded away from all the other houses on Vinalhaven, Maine. Vinalhaven was a big supplier of marble at the turn of the century. For example, the marble pillars inside the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Now most of its men are lobster fishers. Their sons all seem to drive Camaros. Russ is using the inheritance from his father’s death to rent his cabin.

  Gets to the end of the dirt road, which opens out now to scratchy pastures broken off at the landsend. Big cliffs drop dramatically down into the glittering Atlantic Ocean. Vinalhaven is far out into the water; the island reached only by ferry; and so the ocean seems more wildly itself than the tamer ocean which washes the vacation beaches of New Jersey. Asbury Park is the closest Russ ever was before. Water is slapping the rigid rocks.

  Over there, beyond a brown weedy patch, he sees three local guys. With them are two chunky Labrador dogs, frisking away like mad. Russ heads over to the group, his heart warming up, like coffee seeping into the conical filter paper when boiling water is being poured gradually in.

  The dogs continue animatedly, but the three locals just look up at Russ first with uncomprehending dull looks. Finally Jason, one of them, starts to speak. He is the one dressed in blue-jean overalls with no shirt underneath. His skinny handsome arms are covered with the same black hair as on his head.

  JASON: You’re one of the summer people.

  RUSS: My name’s Russ.

  JASON: I’m Jason.

  RUSS: Who are your friends?

  JASON: Bill (a pudgy, mean one) and Teddy (short and blond and ready to go for it).

  Russ bows at them. Bill smiles “Hello.” Teddy puts his Nike-running-sneakered foot up on a mound, and stares out to sea.

  JASON: You wanna talk to us about something?

  RUSS: It’s just I’ve been on this island for two weeks now. I’ve got a house on the other side, on an inlet sort of. And now, just last night, and today, I’ve started going batty from no one to talk to. (Forces a series of little laughs) I guess you don’t get th
at way living here.

  Things quiet down in the circle, as Bill and Teddy and the dogs rustle themselves and go for a walk into the even hotter horizon. Sounds of wood being chopped close by. Jason is scraping a mud blob off black penny loafers he is wearing with no socks. Shiny enough otherwise for the black wax to reflect a pale sun glare.

  JASON: Where you from?

  RUSS: Nanticoke, Pennsylvania.

  JASON: What are you doing stuck there for Chrise’ sake?

  RUSS: How do you know what kind of place it is?

  Jason stands up, impatiently, looks around to see if he can see his friends, obviously fed up somehow with Russ.

  JASON: Most of the summer people come from New York City, or Europe. The kinds of places I want to get to.

  RUSS: If you come by the house I’ve got Tequila. You know it? It’s powerful stuff. From Mexico.

  JASON: Not in the daytime. (He makes horizontal slats out of his black eyes.)

  RUSS: Tonight? I’ll explain how to get there. And you can drive up….You can bring a friend if you want, too.

  JASON: Yeah?

  Russ gives directions. They split up. Jason makes tracks as he slides down the cliffs and off around a corner to look for the rest. Russ goes back the way he came, through the inky leaves, past the chilly empty swimming hole, over to a bush full of berries. He lifts up his bike which he had left leaning into the damaged bush, a black Schwinn with clunky cross-bar—not the kind with ten speeds—gets on, wheels off.

  Russ’s cabin is a new-style A frame with a wraparound terrace, all made from the same authentic, yet spruced up, wood planking. There are large glass sheets for windows. Inside, a fireplace in which he has built the beginnings of a fire. Right now Russ is relaxing with his legs up on the railing, looking out over the inlet waters as the sun finally spreads over the entire land, leaving the sky to the dark. Russ is sketching a drawing of a dragon eating a sun which looks, because of its many lively jagged rays, like an octopus.

  Russ runs a one man advertising shop in Nanticoke. He is a rare bird who would stay in an immobile town like that, with no prospects, and would come on vacation himself to this kind of island, with not much tourism, most visitors coming regularly each summer to family houses, left over from richer days, and then the inbred lobster-fishing villagers. The air is getting cooler now. Is dark enough for Jason to use the headlights on the little metal truck he is driving up the driveway in. He is with a girl, Sharon.

  Russ is happy to sec them. These people have come all the way out here to meet him. They will all three try to beat time together. The regular Vinalhaven people usually turn in by ten. By now it is already nine. Russ goes out to shake hands with his guests, the first since he arrived.

  RUSS: Jason. I’m glad you were adventurous enough to come.

  JASON: There’s no adventure in me going anywhere on this island. This is Sharon.

  Sharon looks about eighteen or nineteen. She has light brown scraggly hair. Almond eyes. Is dressed in blue flannel shirt and cheap green cords with pink beat-up canvas shoes. She is rubbing her hands flat upon one another. If Sharon were a rock, rather than a girl, she would be limestone.

  RUSS: I just put up some coffee to boil. But you’re still welcome to have the Tequila, the Tequila I promised this afternoon.

  JASON: (Caveman bluntness) Good. (Then, pronouncing out all the vowels) Te-kee-la.

  They go inside. It is now definitely black outside. So their shapes are reflected in the large windows. Russ is drinking a mug of coffee. Jason and Sharon, short yellowy glasses of Tequila.

  SHARON: I’m pregnant.

  RUSS: (Jaw actually does drop) No. You’re kidding. You’re so young.

  SHARON: It’s true.

  RUSS: By Jason? (to Jason) By you?

  JASON: Seems that way. Born in a car near where we were today.

  SHARON: (Rolling eyes) Not born. Conceived.

  RUSS: How do you know?

  JASON: By figuring out the months.

  Russ stands up, feeling himself lighter now, having lost the pressure on his shoulders and in his back; not needing to entertain himself anymore; or to try to get anything rolling on the island; he has just been admitted into the center, or one of the centers, of its life. Vacation, tourism, reflection, are notions fast slipping out behind him in the exhaust.

  SHARON: ’Cause we can’t tell anyone yet on the island. So you seem the safest bet. And we couldn’t stand not telling anyone. We talked about it in the truck on the way up.

  Sharon pours the rest of her hot drink down her tired-out-from-telling-about-the-baby throat.

  RUSS: (to Jason) Is there somewhere we can all walk to?

  JASON: No. No use walking around at night. Bears. Snakes.

  SHARON: (Solicitously, to Jason) Plus we have to be getting back soon. I think I heard the curfew horn already.

  JASON: (Slapping hands together, standing up, as if applauding) Right. Right.

  Russ feels like he is a parked car, unattended on the street, with an alarm that won’t shut off, its metal parts vibrating out of control. He also knows that this panic is completely inappropriate and tries to stall for time, wondering what to do next.

  RUSS: But you guys just walked through the door. And it’s a long way.

  SHARON: I’m no guy.

  Jason sits down again. Russ relaxes a little.

  JASON: We’re used to it. All we do around here is drive around in our buggies, listening to music from Rockport. At night that road leading to the cliffs is a make-out strip. Except when there’s a full moon. The cops are in on it. Paid off. By a slush fund.

  Russ laughs and laughs. He points at Sharon’s still regular looking stomach, implying that that’s how she got the life growing inside her. In addition he is relieved the ball is still rolling.

  SHARON: (Correcting) He means the younger kids. Fifteen. Sixteen. Not us. The ones who don’t work yet. They make a slush fund together. Then in the summer, on Fridays, they line up all day in their cars to be sure to get a place on a ferry to get to the mainland. Every time a ferry is leaving they gotta be there to move theirs forward, or else lose it.

  Sharon loves being an expert on something. In classrooms she is the kind who is never an expert, just a mimicker, trying to say what she’s heard. Jason too feels pleased at this new dimension (tourist guide) brought out in Sharon by Russ.

  RUSS: (Happy) One thing we could do to save time would be for you two to be my guests tonight.

  JASON: (Slightly suspicious) We’re already your guests tonight, Mr. Bozo.

  RUSS: I mean you could sleep here. There’s a bed and a couch and …

  JASON: (Looking over at Sharon with an “I told you so” look, referring back to an earlier talk they had had in the truck about Russ) No way. Don’t rush me, man. It would look funny.

  RUSS: (Unusually involved) So you just come in and tell me, the only person on the island, that you’re having this big secret, and then walk out? You know what I’m saying? Who’s rushing who?

  Quiet in the room, as vibes die down stirred up by Russ’s convincing emotional shout.

  SHARON: (Touching Jason on front shoulder area) He is right about that. I think.

  JASON: (to Sharon) And what do you tell your mother? I mean mine don’t care anymore, so long as I’m on my boat at five. But there’s no way you can stay out all night with two guys in some out of the way …

  RUSS: Or we could take Sharon home, if there’s no other way, and then you and me, Jason, we could come back here, if there’s no problem for you. That would be second-best.

  JASON: I flat don’t get it.

  This time Russ touches Jason on the front shoulder.

  RUSS: Come on. For more Tequila.

  JASON: (Feeling excruciated inside) I have to work tomorrow. You don’t have to worry. You’re only a tourist.

  SHARON: (Upset) Jason! How can you go off like that? Maybe he’s not just a tourist.

  JASON: (His jaw made out of stone as he says the words
) Are you some kind of wild card?

  RUSS: (Looking Jason in the eyes, saying each word deliberately) No I am not a wild card.

  Jason puts his hand to his forehead. The one time he got in a fight in his life he just wanted to swing and sway until he got his way. Usually he just teases around in a fight and backs off in a frontwards way. But now he feels that spooky wanting-to-win coming on.

  JASON: Sharon I’m … I’m waiting for you to smooth me out babe … baby… .

  Russ is leaning hard into a kitchen counter, the Formica’s angle making a slit across his tummy. He is watching Jason and Sharon reflected in the window. But then too he is remembering the advice of his social worker therapist in Nanticoke (the only licensed psychotherapist in town) about how he watches his life as though in a window and how he must stop that behavior right away. Russ shimmies his whole body, like a Tiki dancer, and then turns.

  Sharon is writing her phone number on a pad.

  SHARON: (to Russ) Call me if you want. I’m not a fighter. I’m a lover.

  JASON: (Shaking his one hand loosely) Whoooa! Get a load of that. You should be the first female to run for office. Whoooa! (to Russ) How old are you?

  RUSS: Twenty-seven.

  JASON: Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve trusted you sooner. I’m only twenty.

  RUSS: (Wisely) We’re just animals, Jason. Animals. We had to test each other first. Like on The Wide World of Sports.

  JASON: Huh! It’s far out when it happens.

  RUSS: (Feeling a twinge scared of Jason now, and of Jason’s effect on him) So it is pretty late. I’ll call that number, Sharon. Someday soon.

  JASON: No that’s OK. Deep down I really want to spend the night here. I mean if you can manage to get me rolling at five, out that door, with coffee. I could dig a night in the country. This is wilderness over here, compared to where Sharon and me live, or I mean the neighborhood, built up, where both our parents’ houses are.