Mirage

by Perry Brass

  We listened to the rest of the messages, and erased them. I wondered what he looked like. I was beginning to have a clear mental picture of him. I was sure he'd be all tall and blond, with a real Viking body. I wanted to kick myself for getting this mental picture—it was really just a stupid fantasy. But I knew that fantasies happened when you expected something; you hoped for it—and your imagination went into overdrive. Of course, this has led to a lot of disappointments.

  I cleaned up the waiting room downstairs, and sprayed some air freshener to get out the stale body and cigarette smells. We put out our clipboards to make the office look more professional. Wright went upstairs, took a shower, put on a clean white shirt and a striped tie, and met me downstairs. "We can't just tell him right away, can we?" he asked. I thought he'd gone momentarily crazy.

  I told him I didn't think so. Marshall might think we were terrorists or lunatics. Or both. So far, no one knew our secret—that we weren't simply two homosexual men living an obscure but not terribly unattractive life in Washington. We were—Oh, God, he'd never believe that. "But," I asked Wright, "why would he want to come back with us, if he doesn't have AIDS?"

  Wright sat on the edge of the desk, and tried to figure it out, like it was an engineering problem. "He wants to help us, right? I mean, it sounds like he is serious. And sincere. And, the answer is what more help could he give us?" He turned the problem over a bit more, and then concluded, "I guess he just came on your thought wave."

  A moment later, he rang the bell. It was dark outside. My heart started racing while Wright went to answer the door. He came back in with a fairly ordinary, dark-looking man. Medium height. Late thirties, maybe even forty. His shirt, a shapeless, rolled-up blue oxford, bloused out at his hips; his chino pants were just a bit too tight, like he had bought them five years ago and had not bothered to replace them when he "outgrew" them with a bit more weight. He had dark, hairy arms and wrists; large hands with blunt, clipped fingernails; coal-black eyebrows; raven-black hair, and the kind of complexion that produced a five o' clock shadow at three. He had nice sensuous lips, on a neat mouth, with very white teeth. He shook my hand heartily.

  "I'm George Marshall. Interesting place you have here." He looked around the sparse waiting room. "What was this Holy Resurrection business? Sounds like some sort of cult."

  I explained to him that the office was in a former funeral parlor. The sign outside made it safer for us.

  "Yeah, they don't like stiffs," he said. "I mean the neighborhood. When I first came to Washington, I lived close to here."

  I led him into the office, where it was cooler. We had a tray set up with some J & B Premium, some ice, and a few shot glasses. We sat down around Wright's desk. "This is one strange place," Marshall said, lifting his glass. "I mean, an AIDS foundation set up in an ex-funeral parlor. Strange."

  He took a short sip, licked his lips appreciatively, and asked, "You two aren't"—he hesitated, then said the word—"weirdoes. I mean I have this thing about getting involved with cults. The AIDS crisis has brought them out like fleas. Everyone's trying to get involved—the Catholics, who for the most part want to burn us at the stake, the Hare Krishnas, even the Mormons. They just love a bunch of dead fags."

  I decided I liked him. I told him we were definitely not part of a cult. "At least certainly not where we came from," I added. I asked him what he did.

  "I'm a researcher. I do private research, mostly for lobbyists. It's quite a job here in Washington. These lobbyists always want to have more information than the guy on the other side. It's like the tobacco people want to tell you that non-smokers get lung cancer, too. And they know to the last corpse how many non-smokers died of every lung disease—and in what year and where. They'll tell you that Joe Schmoe, who never touched tebaccy and was from way out in Colorado, where the air is as clean as a whale's dick, died of black lung back in '04. I do a lot of stuff like that. It pays the bills. I know the Library of Congress backwards and forwards. I can find half the statistics in the world. Boy, is that a funny place. You can get lost in there and not come out for a decade. You have no idea how many thousands of people, especially men like us—and I don't just mean researchers—work for the LC. All the knowledge we gays have at our control. We're like a bunch of little moles in there."

  I lifted my glass and pretended not to be listening too attentively. That was interesting. Like a bunch of little moles in there. . . . No wonder he was so suspicious of cults and strange types infiltrating his world. I relaxed a bit. I definitely wanted to get more of a handle on George Woodcock Marshall before we made any serious moves. One thing I liked about him was that despite his swarthiness, he had a clinical reserve. I could feel it. He wasn't just coming on to us. He was interested in working with us.

  "So what do you do?" George asked Wright. "I mean, what was your background, before you set up this foundation?"

  "Engineering. Architecture." Wright smiled confidently. "But actually, now I'm pursuing an old love of mine."

  "What is that, Mr. Smith."

  "No, please call me Wright. Assyriology."

  "My field exactly!" George bellowed. He looked directly into Wright's eyes. The air fairly crackled. I felt like I had completely disappeared. "I studied with old Noah Kramer at Penn. He was wonderful, cracking those old Sumerian codes like they were telephone numbers. Then Jacobsen at Harvard. Penn is still the place though. Where did you study?"

  "Michigan."

  "Never heard of Michigan, I mean for Assyriology."

  "It was a long time ago," Wright said nervously. "I forgot much of it, that's why I'm interested in relearning. Research. That sort of stuff."

  "Do you read any cuneiforms?"

  I could tell, but only because I'd known him for a while, that Wright was drawing a blank. It was like the battery on his vestigial knowledge bank had gone dead. Why, of all fucking things, had this guy turned out to be an expert in this arcane field? Wright turned to me. Did he expect me to answer? He turned back to George; the memory waves must have popped back in. "Some Sumerian; more Semitic Akkadian." Wright's face was beaming. "Of course, they have similarities."

  "You beat the hell out of me. I could barely decipher later Assyrian. I was never good at that. It's like I have a friend who's an Egyptologist. He cannot read hieroglyphics to save his soul. He understands everything—is a crackerjack in his field—just can't read those hieroglyphics. Now I know we're going to do fine together." He jumped up. "Let's have another drink."

  I told him to help himself. He popped a chunk of ice into his glass and splashed on some more Scotch. "I can tell you guys are okay. Scotch drinkers, forever may we wave!" He sat back down. "Jesus, I feel like Enkidu when he came out of the forests."

  "Who?" I asked.

  "Enkidu," George said, dryly. "Wright must know him. Right?"

  "No," Wright said smiling. "Not a hint."

  "Of course, you know. Enkidu was the boyfriend of Gilgamesh. He first appeared to Gilgamesh in a dream, as a meteor who fell to earth."

  Wright looked at me and closed his eyes. I could see a nervous reaction working behind his eyelids: like a half-screen of a computer had suddenly been revealed to him. "Enkidu, the beloved of Enki, the god of storms, winds, wisdom."

  "Yes," George said, looking directly at me. "Also, the playful young god of fresh clear water, and potent male sperm. They usually hide that in the translations. They don't want the Southern Baptist types to know that the Sumerians were a hot bunch of people."

  "Kept me awake many nights when I was in college," Wright said, suddenly embarrassed. "I hadn't come out then."

  "Fantasizing about Gilgamesh?" George said. "He was the world's first hero. Can you believe that? A Sumerian gay legend. And there it was on those tablets of clay, in that funny writing that looks like chicken scratch, hidden for thousands of years."

  Enkidu, the lover of Gilgamesh, the beloved of Enki, the god of clear streams and sperm. Ancient Sumerian words. I got up and went to the bathroom
on the second floor. I took my cock out to pee, and suddenly in this elemental act was brought back—for only a second, I was sure—to Ki. My body trembled. I'd stopped being Alan Kostenbaum again. What was the relationship between these things? I could not have been given this name by coincidence. Why did Wilfel call me this? And did Woosh understand any of this when he brought me here?

  When I got back downstairs, I saw George and Wright looking over the notes we'd taken from our interviews. "This is very interesting work," George said. "But exactly what are you trying to do?"

  "It's simple," Wright said, looking directly at George. "We felt that if we could study one man—who really needed our help—we'd develop a model for helping many men with AIDS."

  "And have you found that one man yet?"

  "No," I said. "Not yet."

  "Well, I hope you find him soon, and when you do, let me know. And in the meanwhile, Wright, I hope you and I can work on some texts together. I happen to know that in the LC, there are copies of some of the latest finds. Hundreds of tablets in cuneiform, just brought up. They're in the Oriental archeology section, and I can get to them anytime I want. You couldn't even go to the big museums in Istanbul and do better."

  George got up and we escorted him to his car, which was parked right under a street lamp in front of the sign that said Holy Resurrection Burial Society and Social Club. "I guess it does keep your car from being vandalized," George said. There was no one in sight on the street, so he turned to me and kissed me quickly on the cheek. "So, are you Enkidu to Gilgamesh here?"

  Suddenly, my legs trembled. I felt his beard stubble graze my cheek. I wondered what it would feel like having that stubble brush other parts—my feet or nipples, for instance? It was just a passing volt of thought. I hoped Wright couldn't see it. "I'm not sure," I said to him, referring to his question: if there were a Gilgamesh in my life, who would he be?

  He shook Wright's hand; that clinical coldness came back into his voice. "So, we're going to be partners?" the man, obviously lonely, asked Wright. Their eyes locked. I wondered precisely how far Greeland—who was waiting there someplace—could see into George Woodcock Marshall's mind.

  "We still have to find the man," I said to Wright in bed. "I don't think George Marshall is the right one."

  "Why not?"

  "He seems too devious. He would never be happy on Ki."

  "Perhaps. But I think he has the hots for you."

  I felt myself turning warmer. Did Wright really think so? "Just because he kissed me?"

  "Sure, he certainly didn't kiss me; and he's a lot more my type than yours."

  "Are you jealous?"

  "No. Wright McClelland Smith will not get jealous. At least he's going to try very hard not to. But I'm interested in George Marshall. I think even if we don't bring him back, there's a lot he can tell us."

  Chapter Seventeen

  I still wasn't exactly sure how he —the man we needed, whose quest brought us to earth—would eventually come to us, but a few months later in mid-September, he did.

  By then, I was engrossed in my new make-work world, namely, the foundation we'd set up—for the most part—as a cover. But how we found him, I'm sure, had nothing to do with the Smith Foundation, and everything to do with my own growing need for him.

  In fact, I'm sure that if we hadn't found him, I would have had to invent him in some way—which was perhaps part of his own magic. But once we did find him, I realized how much I had needed him. I know that happens: you discover someone and you realize his importance in your life has become a fact—you can't live without that fact. But the need was there all along, as it had been for me. And it was a need neither Greeland nor Wright had been able to fulfill.

  I know that from the time we met George Marshall to the time we met this man—beaten to a pulp, on a foggy night only a few blocks from the leather bar called the Eagle—despite being busy, I'd been in limbo. Making all the movements. Having no effect. Now I see that disconnected feeling as a natural prelude to what happened. I look back on it, and I see myself as I was, just before someone came into my life whose presence was so profound that he burned a hole right through it.

  Essentially, as we became more involved in the work of the Smith Foundation, Wright moved away from me.

  He always went about things pragmatically. He was meant to be an engineer. A problem solver. He wasn't some one who on a tropical beach at low tide could lift a nautilus shell from a pool of ocean water, and see the mysteries of life. No. Wright withdrew into his own shell of solving problems.

  One at a time.

  The withdrawal happened in a relatively short period, maybe a month after he met George Marshall. Although he'd been secretive enough before in his sex life—the evening runs; late trips to the baths; stuff like that—now I didn't see him for a whole day at a time. Still, as far as I knew, he never spent the night at George's house. And I was led to believe, simply enough, that their relationship was based on a shared interest in Assyriology.

  From almost day one, they spoke with each other often on the phone. A great number of mysterious terms came up between them. Sumerian. Akkadian. Elamite. Proto-Canaanite. Assyrian. They chuckled and laughed; traded words back and forth. Wright called George ummia, Sumerian for "expert." George's word for Wright was lugal, Sumerian for king. Sometimes they referred to each other as en, an ancient word for sovereign or to denote great respect, as in "En-George," or "En-Wright."

  I couldn't understand most of what they said. They were like kids talking in a private "club" language. There were many of these mysterious words, patiently excavated from the dirt mounds of time. George, himself, had been working without much success on a new "discovery": a series of photocopies of cuneiform-bearing tablets he had dug out of the back reaches of the Library of Congress. They had lain there—untranslated, uncataloged—for more than a decade. A few scholars had also been given photocopies of the tablets. But so far, no one had been that interested.

  Much of the tablets, like so many other unfired clay tablets containing cuneiform, was obliterated. "There are no names yet for these stories," Wright said to me proudly. "They're about forty-two hundred years old. George has been piecing them together for almost a year now. But he's not doing a great job."

  I asked what was so special about them.

  "I've seen them," Wright said. "And we've gone over what we can. I know that—for want of a better word—the tablets contain 'gay information.' He hasn't been able to decipher much so far. Perhaps only about forty lines of text. But certain phrases come out loud and clear. They talk about journeys men made together. Pacts. Promises. And lots of lists of who owned what—sheepfolds, stuff like that—the Sumerians were big on sheep folds.

  "Some of it is boring. But then certain physical acts—and pairs of men we might call lovers—are described in detail. In Sumeria, these relationships had no words for them. But sex could be spelled out very graphically. They talked about penises and butt holes, like they were just regular parts of the body. Hymns that mentioned 'kissing the penis' were common. The Greeks were rarely so frank. As in Greece, warriors who were equals often had homosexual relations.

  "So far, George has only been able to decipher a small part these texts. They are very, very old you have to understand. I mean, they go back fifteen hundred years before Homer. The language is so beautiful. When you read it, you're suddenly back in a place that's so remote—so far removed from anything that bothers us—you can't imagine it."

  But he was wrong: I could imagine it—the remote place that Wright wanted to go back to, and where he worked with George Marshal. For a while, I felt excluded. I wanted to be let in. I wanted to see what they did together.

  But then my feelings about that changed.

  I didn't know or understand what Wright and George did together. I didn't have as yet the "Rosetta stone" to their relationship. But as the weeks went by, it seemed to become more private and intense. It was like a sexual awakening without sex in it. They both
made this plain to me. I think they even went out of their way to do it. George announced he was into younger men—they were a fantasy item with him, although I gathered that he was too shy to pursue them. His head turned 45 degrees every time one came into view. He referred to young men as "action." As, in asking about a certain bar, "Is there any action there?"

  George's feelings were always kept on ice. Like he'd been hurt too many times. He was too off-handed around Wright; too casual; clinical. It was an attitude that dispelled sex. It seemed to me to be a tip-off that his relationship with Wright was in no danger of becoming a physical one. But it seemed to satisfy Wright. So I respected the privacy of their work together.

  It calmed Wright, when he was angry or agitated. It was like a bridge back into himself. Back to the old Wright McClelland Smith, who had been there before I had been; before Greeland had stepped in. It was a bridge away from the shadow of Greeland. I decided to tread carefully on that bridge—for my sake as well as Wright's—as our relationship threatened to become more turbulent. This happened specifically during those moments when Greeland's presence, which now gave us so much trouble, fired at close range between us.

  Now, possibly, you could get the idea that Wright was moving away from me in order to develop interests of his own—but in truth we still had a lot of interaction. He was not going to get very far away from me. He still managed to direct me as much as he could. And on most grounds, I still gave in to him. An example was the Smith Foundation itself, the center of much of my new busyness.

  At the beginning of the second week after we met George, Wright and I, as the two—and only—officers of the Foundation, held a Monday morning coffee meeting in the office. It was a bright morning, after a tense humid weekend, which we'd gone through arguing about the future—if there was going to be one—of the Foundation.