by Damon Suede
Andy flipped the edge of the photo. “You were married how long?” The question sounded calculated.
“Twenty-two years. No. Nineteen. We were together before that. High school.”
Overhead, the evening sky swirled clouds low enough to touch. A soupy fog had settled over the hot city, like rain that refused to fall all the way to the hot pavement.
Ruben wondered who he’d been arguing with. It seemed important and pointless at the same time.
Andy pushed a wrapped gift box at him. “I didn’t wrap this.”
Inside was a thick pile of folded cotton. A sweatshirt? An embarrassing rush of gratitude sloshed inside Ruben.
Andy’s face lit up. “Good?” He had just put it on his plutonium card, but a gift was a gift.
Ruben brought it up to his face, irrationally happy about an item that probably cost forty bucks. It was navy blue and had a shield with three crowns under the word COLUMBIA and a ribbon of Latin at the bottom.
Andy leaned on the ledge to nurse a whiskey. “College, not country. Hence the U.” He tapped his temple.
“Yeah. Fuck you.”
Andy raised his glass in a toast. “Motto: ‘In your light we see light.’”
Ruben shrugged. “Which means?”
“Do I know?” Andy laughed until Ruben joined him.
After all the swank clothes, this could’ve seemed like nothing, but given the past week it seemed like everything. A little secret joke between friends, if they were friends, which they weren’t. Well, not exactly. Ruben petted the cotton with his rough hands.
Andy watched him. “Now we’re both Ivy Leaguers.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“Most of the Ivy League has no fucking idea. People think it means fancy or whatever. The Ivy League is just a group of private colleges that play games against each other.”
“Cool.” Ruben smiled, ridiculously pleased by the heavy cotton pullover. Even as a joke, it felt like kindness.
“It should fit.” Andy flipped the tag to check the size, standing too close as usual, whiskey on his breath.
Extra-large. “It will.”
“Not if you keep working out.” He gripped Ruben’s delts once, in exactly the right place to send a spike of sweet pain down his legs. “Fucking animal, huh.” The hand stayed put.
The praise pleased Ruben more than it should. The hand made him fucking uncomfortable, but in a snaky, sexy way that made his dick prickle. He should’ve brought up AA the moment he walked in, but Andy had distracted him again with the sweatshirt, the squeeze, the bromantic joking.
Ruben shrugged. “I’m Colombian: big arms, fat dick. Girls love that shit.” Why act this way around his boss? What did he have to prove?
Andy played along. A grin caught one corner of his mouth and crumpled into a naughty smile. “White boys gotta mop up the leftovers, huh?” Was he trying to make fun?
They both laughed and even the sound felt phony with the sweatshirt in his hands.
At moments like this, Ruben wondered if they were doing a skit for each other, exaggerating stereotypes and feigning ignorance they weren’t guilty of. Guys did it all the time, pretending gross things were normal. Pretending women weren’t people. Pretending they didn’t have emotions. A trap, all of it.
Ruben had had mancrushes before—not sexual, but intense friendships amplified by chemistry and circumstance. In high school and boot, he’d joked around with his buddies like anyone does, dares and grab-ass. Marisa had a gay cousin who looked like a model and acted like a pimp. Gross. When Ruben had stripped, he’d hung out with a couple dudes whose hotness had its own gravitational field, but he’d never actually wanted to get with any of them. He’d felt it, but as an impersonal thing. Gravity. If anything he’d prayed their charisma would rub off on him so he’d score with the ladies.
He’d never wanted a man before. Not like this, in his bones and at his core, with a feverish longing that cooked the air every time Andy smiled at him.
Andy smiled at him. “You look so serious.” A chuckle.
“I’m so fulla shit.” The words slipped out unbidden.
Andy looked up sharply and stopped chuckling.
Ruben spread his blunt fingers. “We both are. Fucking frauds.”
Blink. “Sometimes.” Andy took a swallow. “I wasn’t—I joke to break the ice.”
Ruben frowned. “What ice?”
Andy stared at him for a couple heartbeats. For a moment, Ruben wondered if that same cold shark voice he’d heard behind the door would be turned on him, but no.
“Andy, here we are, you and me. What do you expect to break by acting like some generic asshole you’re not? That’s like drinking to medicate an awful situation.”
“I think you make me—” Andy blinked. His face pinked. “—nervous, sometimes.”
“How? I’m forty-one. I’m a divorced alcoholic with a crap resume and no options.” He didn’t want to be anonymous here, now.
“C’mon.”
“I’m not fooling anyone, not really.” Ruben looked at him in the dim light. Unaccountably, he thought about Marisa, and his eyes misted. “No one fools anyone. Not really.”
“Okay. Okay.” Andy set the glass down again in slow motion. “No one is as stupid as we pretend.”
“Truth?” Ruben pointed at the glass. “You only drink when you want to lie. You ever notice that?”
Andy frowned, looking right into his eyes. “You think I’m a liar?”
“I know you are, white man. I live here behind the curtain, remember? I seen the face you got before you make a face.” He gave a mock bow. “Likewise, I’m sure.”
This was how he talked to Peach. Hell, he could almost smell the menthols.
Andy tapped the glass. “Everyone lies. But I’m not drinking this because I’m lying to you. It just tastes good.”
“And it’s anesthetic.”
Andy frowned, wary. “I’m not in pain.”
“Not you. Anesthesia for the truth.” Ruben cracked his knuckles and looked out at the low-hanging fog beyond the terrace.
“You think I’m an alcoholic.”
Ruben shook his head. “Not really. I don’t think that stuff owns you.” He squinted at the glass. “But only you’d know. With me it’s like a spark in a dry forest. In an hour, I can go from one drink to national emergency and they’re calling the army reserve.”
“That why you got divorced?” The question came from right beside him. Andy’s face had gotten closer than he expected.
“No. Well, yeah in a way, but not because of Marisa.” Ruben looked down at his lap, his brown hands holding the glass of melted cubes. “Alcoholics don’t have relationships, we take hostages.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, man.”
“Dude, I am a professional drunk, currently retired.”
Andy picked up the drink slowly, waiting, maybe.
Ruben swallowed and nodded at no one. “Addiction is completely egotistical. No one else, nothing else matters as much as the crazy, fatal shit you want. Before I got sober, I lived like a bulldozer with no brakes.”
“You mean AA? Twelve Steps?” The words came out of Andy’s mouth like a foreign language. “You go to meetings though. Still, I mean.”
“I don’t have the Desiderata tattooed on my gut, but yeah. When I say I’m headed to church I mean a meeting.”
“AA has church?” Not joking. Andy leaned forward, kind but unsmiling.
“It has God. Or… a power greater than us. Whatever. Some kind of ordering principle bigger than you and your shitty problems.” Ruben sighed. “We are powerless over alcohol but we got a Higher Power.”
Andy frowned. “Not necessarily God.”
“I don’t like all the God business. I was raised Catholic, but I don’t go. Not for a long time. I don’t need all the show biz and guilt. I sure as hell don’t want communion.”
“Communication instead.” A snaky smile slithered across Andy’s mouth.
“Well… yeah. I guess. And a lot of meetings are in a church, but Sunday School bullshit wasn’t gonna restore me to sanity. Those angry Jesus people are worse than drunks. I only got sober once I realized how lucky I was. Alla things coulda gone wrong that didn’t. Something watched over me, something too big to put a word to. So I let it.”
Andy smiled and nodded like he wanted to show he was patient, that he understood, which he couldn’t.
“Catching bullets is nothing, man. I gotta full-time job as a drunk, just keeping myself retired.” Ruben held up his hand and counted off by tugging at his rough fingers. “I’m trying to work all my Steps, the whole dirty dozen.” At least, he meant to. “I call my sponsor from any ledges. I don’t pick up any bottle I don’t needta.” He knew he’d been avoiding his Steps and tried not to think about Peach’s advice. Lighten up.
“I didn’t think. You should’ve said something.” Andy’s voice had gone hushed and deliberate again, the voice he used in private.
“Authenticity. You gotta look right at your stupid life and live it true so other people don’t get mangled.”
Andy looked at the topaz finger of liquor in the glass pointing at him. “I get that.”
“Every good thing I said thank you. Every bad one, I said sorry.” He swallowed. “Hard.”
“I bet. Paying the price.”
Ruben looked up at that, in warm surprise. “Yeah. Exactly.”
“Twelve Steps.” Andy nodded. The fog churned just above them, smearing everything with sky-sweat.
“Every Step is the same Step. You put your foot down.”
“Hard,” Andy whispered.
“Like you wouldn’t believe. ’Stead-a drowning my fuckups in poison, I just started looking, just looking, at my life head on. That sucks, let me tell you. Seeing the people around me instead of being a self-centered prick.”
“You don’t seem self-centered.”
“Then I fooled you. “
“You’re like some kinda knight. A paladin. Held in check.” Andy laughed.
“No.”
“I meant it as a compliment. Like you keep everything bottled up and in reserve.”
“Then you’re not very observant.” Ruben shrugged.
Andy shut his mouth—snap—biting the air. His eyes swam with something ugly and sad. “You’re a good man, Ruben Oso.”
“Dunno.” Ruben frowned in a friendly way.
“You know plenty. Best bodyguard I’ve ever had.” Andy sounded serious.
“Anyone who can fog a mirror could do the job.”
“I don’t think so. You’ve got hidden talents.” He winked.
Ruben scowled. “What’s that mean?”
“I’m onto you. You’re nothing like you seem at first.”
“How do I seem at first?” Ruben knew the answer, but he wanted to hear the lie Andy would tell. “For real.”
Andy frowned before he answered, “Angry…. Stupid…. Stoic.”
Ruben snorted. “Good.”
“But that’s not how you are. Even a little.”
“Saves me time.” Ruben shifted. “Make you a deal: you stop pretending you’re a rich asshole, I’ll stop playing spic thug. Fair?” He took Andy’s hand and shook it, ignoring the smooth slide and how soft the skin felt against his callouses.
“There’s dinner.” Andy headed for the terrace door and tugged it open without spilling his drink. “Thai.”
“Cool.” Ruben held the door for him to step through, trying not to feel like a dude on a date.
There were bags on the coffee table, but Andy wandered toward the wet bar. “Florida must’ve been easier than New York. Growing up, I mean.”
“Howzat?”
Andy frowned. “Big Cuban community.” His face looked like a blank billboard: he had no idea he’d said something ignorant.
“You mean ’cause we’re Hispanic too?” Ruben laughed. “Man, the Cubans don’t get along with the Dominicans who don’t get along with the Puerto Ricans and everyone shits on the Mexicans. And all of ’em gotta chip on their shoulders about South America. You should hear the Spaniards.” Ruben huffed under his breath. “My pops hated all that picking and bitching. English only for us. We were American, period, fuck you.”
A muscle in Andy’s square jaw ticked. “We’re both bastards, then. I grew up camouflaging myself as a blue blood until I could escape to New York so I could look down on them.”
“I pretended to be white and so did you. Except there’s no such thing as white. Not really. Even you.” Ruben grinned.
“Nah. We’re all the ghosts of our own childhoods.”
“Sorry. People are selfish. Even people who can afford not to be,” Ruben said.
“Money’s shit. You should ignore what people have. That’s luck. Pay attention to what they want.” Andy took a swallow. “That’s what matters. Everything you need to know.”
Well, what do you want? “You still beat them.”
“Yeah. None of it mattered. They’d gotten theirs. I had to get mine. I was the boy most likely. Brain. Balls.” Andy shrugged. “I was the white sheep of the family. Rules. Grades.”
“Jesus.”
“Tell me about it.” Andy seemed about to admit something, but nothing else came.
“So what happened?”
“Reality. My parents got divorced finally. My mom picked up another stodgy white-collar prick while I was in college.”
“Why? I mean, what did that change?”
“I’d colored inside the lines my whole life and then there were no lines. My dad was living in Thailand with a girl younger than me. My mom married someone I knew she hated. My dad’s former partner, no less. Mr. Tibbitt. Insurance douche with a Lexus and an embezzlement habit.”
The confession made Ruben lower his voice. “He still your stepfather?”
“Stepfucker.” Andy nodded once. “I kept sticking pins, but he stuck around. Stupid. Me fighting him just made my mother more loyal.”
“Sorry.”
“I have to pay her an allowance because he keeps going bankrupt.” A clinking swallow of booze. “Like a… a habit.” A lunatic smile. “My mom won’t fight him.”
Ruben tried to imagine fighting with his parents over money, even now. He made a sour face.
“I know, right?” Andy stared like a snake at his drink. “I got my revenge. He tried to move into Manhattan ’bout ten years ago. I killed that shit quick.”
Ruben loved his folks, but he didn’t ask their help for a reason. “He’s that bad?”
“Kicked me out of our house, treated me like a maggot till I got my MBA. Fired me from my dad’s firm right after, so he could gut it. Now he’s trying to rewrite history so I’ll let him invest with Apex. My family.” He raised the glass in a mock toast, then started to take a sip and stopped.
Ruben chuckled. “Nice. Regret can break a man. Does your mom…? What?”
“I’m a prick.” The smile slid off Andy’s face. He glanced down at the glass in his hand. “This probably doesn’t help. Me sloshing this shit in your face.”
“S’fine, Andy.”
“Dumb habit, though.”
“Just ’cause I’m a drunk doesn’t mean anyone else has to be. It’s not contagious.”
“Still.”
“I gotta live in the real world, huh? People drink. People drug. People fuck themselves up all over, anyway they can.”
Andy laughed, but his eyes were serious as he rinsed out the glass.
“No one’s got a gun at my head, not even you, Mr. Bauer.” Ruben pressed his mouth shut. He’d already overshared. Side effect of any Twelve-Step program. If Andy wanted to talk about it more, he’d ask.
“Still, it can’t be easy having it in your face alla time. My family drinks.”
“Anyone can be a monk in a monastery. I want to live in the world, man.”
“I get that.” Andy nodded. “I’m not as stupid as you think.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid.”
/> “Naïve, then.”
Ruben had no intention of arguing on that score. “Okay.”
“Sure. God you’re a dick sometimes, Oso. Anybody ever tell you that?” Andy laughed.
Ruben laughed back. “Yeah. Plenty.” I like him too much.
“Likewise, I’m sure.”
“Stubborn, maybe.” Ruben sat on the couch and leaned back, then crossed his arms, aware of Andy checking out his guns. “Marisa used to rag me about wanting to be special. Not holding me back, but because I spent so much time telling everyone how special I was gonna be that I forgot to actually do anything worth remembering.”
“Oh, man.”
“Right?” Ruben laughed at himself, trying to remember being young enough to think the details mattered, that anyone gave a damn. “She’s a good woman. And we tried, but we were, I dunno, young and stupid for a long time and then I just stayed stupid while old crept up on me. Same shit as everyone else.”
“You think there’s such a thing?”
“As shit?”
“As same.” Andy pulled a goofy face. “What’s the same as anything else really? Not much. I mean, people pretend for the sake of convenience, but expecting life to provide cookie cutter people, problems, whatever….”
“Mmmh.” Ruben bobbed his head in agreement, but couldn’t find the words.
“Know what I mean?”
Ruben knew exactly.
An expectant silence settled over them.
Andy looked at him and he looked back and everything changed, everything and nothing.
Ruben opened his hands in happy surrender. “Thanks for, y’know.”
“What?”
“Talking. Listening.”
“Welcome. Not that big a thing.” Andy turned, swaying a little on his feet, and sat down next to him, closer than necessary, as usual.
If Andy was a woman, Ruben would’ve called this flirting.
If Andy was a woman, he would have dropped an arm across those shoulders or slid a hand up the smooth thigh into the cotton boxers or pressed them both into the cushions, onto the rug.
If Andy was a woman, Ruben woulda used his size and strength, taking the reins of sexual tension to steer them into bed.