I sniffled again. I felt safe with Travis’ arm resting on my shoulders; I could have stood there for hours, feeling the warmth of his body, feeling his breath sweep my skin. But then he withdrew, and the moment passed.
“Blow your nose and dry your eyes,” he said. “You have to be brave in moments like this. You can’t let them know you’ve been crying.”
“I know,” I said. “I know...”
***
Three days after my evening with Ray, when I came home from classes, I checked my mailbox in the four-plex’s stairwell. A letter had arrived from the admissions office at FSU’s College of Law.
Holy shit.
My hands shook as I tore open the envelope.
“Dear Mr. Hunsinger:
“We are pleased to inform you that your application for admission to Florida State University College of Law has been accepted for fall term, 1977. You will receive a registration package under separate cover. These materials should be completed and returned to the College at your earliest convenience.”
The rest of the letter turned into a blur.
I closed my eyes, and then a shudder ran through my limbs. For a moment, I thought I might piss in my pants. I let loose a hoarse cry of joy, just as Fergal entered the stairwell through the building’s front door, wheeling his bicycle. He carried a backpack on his shoulders, and his marmalade hair looked like he’d just left a wind tunnel.
He looked at me like I was daft.
“Something the matter, Andy?”
After I grabbed him in a bear hug, I lifted him from the floor, and then I shouted like a lunatic.
“I made law school, Fergal. I’m in.”
***
On the second Saturday in June, on a sunny and humid afternoon, I heard my name barked through a P.A. system, and then I strode across a temporary stage erected in Doak Campbell Stadium, wearing a ridiculous garnet-colored cap and gown. I shook the university president’s hand, and then as I looked into the crowd, I raised a fist.
After post-ceremony photographs were taken, my parents treated me and my brother Jake, all four of my grandparents, Bucky Buchholtz, and Biff Schultz to dinner at a barbeque place on Tennessee Street. I ate ribs until they came out of my ears, chased them down with cold draft beer.
My undergraduate days had ended, and I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it. I wasn’t a beer-swilling fraternity boy any longer, and I certainly wasn’t the same guy who’d moved into McPhail’s ratty apartment, only nine months before. So many changes had occurred since then.
Exactly who was I now?
***
With spring quarter’s ending, eighty percent of the student population at FSU left town for the summer. Not me. Why spend three months in Pensacola, working some crappy job and living with my parents? If I stayed in Tallahassee, I could caddy at Capital City most every day. I could keep my apartment and my privacy.
Not that I really needed privacy.
After the incident with Ray, I’d avoided The Gate, afraid I might see Ray again. How humiliating would that be? He’d made me cry and beg? He might’ve told people about our session in Perry. He knew what a pussy I was.
I would do what Travis had done: avoid sex and romance all together. I had Fergal’s friendship. I had Biff, Austin, and Travis to spend time with, as well. My right hand was always available, and it would never deceive me like Dexter Hayward had. KY jelly was cheap, too.
School had ended for my brother Jake, as well. He would work as a counselor at a boys’ summer camp in western North Carolina, but before he left, during the second week of June, he came to visit me for a few days. I showed him around campus, and then I drove him to Silver Lake for a swim. Jake had a fake ID. I took him to The Pastime, where we drank three pitchers of beer, munched on roasted peanuts, and smoked a pack of Marlboros.
Afterward, Jake vomited in the parking lot.
Biff, Austin, and Travis invited us to a farewell-for-the-summer dinner party one night. The next day, Biff would leave for Jacksonville, to work as an intern at his dad’s medical clinic.
“I’ll keep the tongue depressor jars filled, take patients’ blood pressure, and maybe bandage a wound or two. It’ll be a learning experience.”
Likewise, Austin would volunteer at a children’s charity hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
“You wouldn’t believe the poverty down there. Kids run around with no shoes; they all have tapeworms. Families live in plywood shacks. Maybe I can help them a bit, and it’ll look good on my resume.”
Travis, who was a year behind Austin and Biff in school, would remain in Tallahassee. He’d attend summer quarter classes, remaining in the house by himself until Biff and Austin returned in the fall.
Carol Ann had already left Tallahassee for the summer -- she didn’t attend the dinner party -- but Maritza was there, dressed in a halter top, short-shorts, and high heels. We stood under the long leaf pines in the back yard, sipping from cans of beer and yakking away, while Travis sat on a bench, playing bottle-neck guitar. He played a style of Delta blues, using open-tuning. He wore a thin, stainless steel tube on his left middle finger, and he slid the tube up and down his guitar’s neck, forming chords and plucking individual notes as well. The sound he produced was both raw and edgy
The night was warm. Biff, of course, wore nothing but a pair of sandals. His cock wagged to and fro as he walked about. All the other guys soon shed their shirts, and when Maritza’s gaze fell upon Jake’s athletic physique, she flickered her eyebrows
“Andy,” she said, “you never told us your little brother was so cute. I’ll bet all the girls are after him.”
Jake lowered his gaze while his cheeks reddened.
“Don’t mind her,” Austin told Jake. “Cuban women are all man-crazy.”
Our hosts made sure Jake wasn’t left out of conversation. They asked about his college plans, what sort of music he listened to, and which sports he enjoyed. In response, Jake chattered away like he’d known my friends all his life.
“And tell us,” Austin said to Jake, “how was it, having Andy Boy as your older brother? Was he a good role model, or just a pain in the ass?”
“Andy’s the best,” Jake said. “I could always share my deepest secrets with him.”
“Awww,” Maritza said.
Jake told Austin, “Andy’s talented, too. Do you know he has a great singing voice?”
Travis stopped playing his guitar. Then everyone swung their gazes to me.
“You sing?” Biff said.
“I used to, I --”
“He sang in his high school choir,” Jake said, “and in several musical plays.” Then Jake turned to me. “Remember when you played Lieutenant Cable in South Pacific?”
“Ah-ha,” Biff cried. “You’ve been holding out on us, haven’t you, Hunsinger?”
“Look,” I said, “except for singing a few tunes with my neighbor, it’s been years. The only place I perform now is in the shower.”
Travis looked at me. “Do you know the words to the Beatles’ song, Blackbird? It’s on The White Album.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ve listened to it a hundred times.”
He patted the bench he occupied. “Come sit while I re-tune my guitar. Then you’ll sing the melody, and I’ll sing harmony, okay?”
I sat next to Travis. While he adjusted his tuning keys, I guzzled the rest of the beer I’d nursed. Excepting that one evening, when I’d sung with Fergal, it had been years since I’d sung before others. I felt a bit embarrassed, but still... a tinge of exhilaration crept through my bones; I felt a quickening of my pulse. I’d always loved performing, back in Pensacola. Why be shy about singing before this group of friends?
The others gathered in a semicircle around Travis and me. Travis plucked the opening note of the song, and then we hummed until we both sung in key. Travis looked at me and raised his eyebrows.
“Ready?”
I nodded.
Travis finger-picked the song while we both
sang. I was a tenor, Travis a baritone, so he sang a chord level below me. Combined with reverberations from the guitar’s metal strings, we created a pleasing resonance, one as pretty as any song I’d ever been a part of.
Our voices echoed off oak tree trunks, off the cinder block walls of Biff’s house. During the song, when I looked at Biff, he grinned like a kid with a birthday cake. I didn’t want the song to end -- my spirits soared like the music itself -- but when Travis and I finished the number, our listeners burst into applause.
Biff whistled through his teeth.
“I told you guys he could sing,” Jake hollered.
A shiver ran through me. I looked at Travis. Then he looked at me and gave me his lazy smile.
“We need to do this more often, Andy.”
Biff grilled pork chops over charcoal. We teamed the chops with baked sweet potatoes, steamed yellow squash, and a pan of cornbread I’d baked from scratch at my apartment. Afterward, in the living room, the stereo blared. When Biff brought out the water pipe, I wondered just how Jake would react. I’d never really discussed drug use with him, but when Austin passed him the pipe, Jake took a deep pull. He held his smoke without coughing.
I took a few hits myself, and once the marijuana hit my brain, the room developed a two-dimensional look. THC affected different people in different ways, I knew. In my case, I always grew introspective when stoned, and that night was no exception. I thought about law school and what lay in store for me. Would Biff’s description of my first year prove true?
Already, I’d received a schedule of classes, and a list of books I’d need to buy. My professors, a letter informed me, would post reading assignments. I should complete these before the first day of class. I shook my head when I read the letter. Would I spend my days and nights in the law school library, immersed in my studies? Would I never see my friends or family? Would I surrender my Capital City job?
Still...
Maybe a total immersion in law studies would be for the best. I could forget about finding a boyfriend and focus on my career instead.
My gaze fell upon Travis. He sat alongside Biff on the sofa. Biff handed Travis the water pipe, and then Travis took a pull. He held his smoke several seconds before exhaling a blue cloud. The glow from a battered floor lamp reflected in his dark eyes. His hair hung loosely, brushing his shoulders, and because he was shirtless, I could watch his chest and arm muscles move under his milky skin. To me, Travis had never looked as beautiful as he did right then.
Beneath that stoic demeanor, what sort of emotions bubble? What are his demons, his dreams and hopes?
I tried to imagine conversing on a personal level with Travis. How would he react if I asked if he were gay, or if I asked about the Myrtle Beach incident? I could probably expect a response like the one Travis had thrown in Maritza’s face, during our picnic by the river. My questions might sour the friendship we’d developed since I first visited the FSU track, and I didn’t want that to happen.
Austin passed me the water pipe. After drawing a deep toke, I closed my eyes. Then I held the smoke in my burning lungs.
Stop thinking so much, Hunsinger. It’s not good for you.
Hours later, around midnight, I handed Jake my car keys. “Drive us home, will you? I’m tired and a little too stoned to get behind the wheel.”
“You’ll have to direct me,” Jake said. “I don’t know the way.”
We cruised Tallahassee’s deserted streets. The Vega’s headlights shone upon Spanish moss beards hanging among limbs of live oaks lining both sides of the road. Jake was still shirtless, and I studied his carved chest, his rippled belly, and the thin line of hair spilling from his navel. Dark stubble smudged his cleft chin.
My handsome little brother.
How I loved him.
“I like your friends,” Jake said, “especially Biff. I’ve never met anyone like him.”
“Biff’s his own man, that’s for certain. He doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks of him; he just does as he pleases.”
Jake snickered.
“What?” I asked.
“Biff said the same thing about you: ‘Andy’s the ballsiest guy I know.’”
“Did he really?”
Jake nodded. “He’s right, you know. Not many guys have the courage to be openly gay. If you tell everyone you suck cock, certain people lose respect for you.”
I shrugged.
“So, how do you deal with that?” Jake asked.
I rearranged my limbs. “Being yourself actually makes things easier; you know who your true friends are. Take Biff, for instance. He’s totally straight, but he doesn’t care if I like boys. Being queer doesn’t define me in his eyes. It’s the same with my neighbor, Fergal, and with good old Bucky Buchholtz. They might not understand the whole gay thing, but they know I’m still a decent guy. I’m still Andy Hunsinger.”
Jake bobbed his chin. “Mom and Dad are okay with it, too, I think.”
“Are they?”
Jake rocked his head from side to side. “Okay, they seemed a bit shocked at first, right after you told them. We discussed you often, at the dinner table. I think they worried about your happiness, but now it’s like you’ve become a Buddhist or Hari Krishna -- a little weird, but nothing to get upset about. I think they’ve seen past it.”
Go on: ask...
“What about you?”
Jake crinkled his forehead. “What?”
“Are you okay with me liking boys?”
Jake turned his gaze to the windshield. “I’m fine with it, really. It’s just...”
“What?”
“You don’t seem too happy, Andy.”
I stiffened my spine. Then I rested my arm on the sill of the passenger door. Cool night air rushed through the Vega’s open windows, ruffling my hair.
“I’m not happy, Little Brother, not at all.”
Jake looked at me and shook his head. “I don’t understand. You have such cool friends. You’ll attend law school; you have your own apartment and the caddying job. What more do you want?”
“A boyfriend, Jake: a guy who cares about me, someone I can hold at night. But I can’t seem to make it happen.”
“How come, what’s wrong?”
I grimaced and shook my head. “I sure don’t know. I don’t have your looks, of course, but I’m not ugly, either. I should be able to find someone. But every time I meet a guy -- someone I like -- it doesn’t work. Either he doesn’t feel attracted to me, or he’s straight, or he’s fucked up emotionally. Or, of course, he’s already taken.”
I blew air out of my nostrils. “I can’t win,” I said.
When we halted at a stoplight, Jake drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Maybe you’re trying too hard. Maybe you seem a little too desperate, know what I mean?”
I shrugged.
“How long have you dated guys now,” Jake asked, “a year?”
I nodded.
“That’s not very long. I have friends in Pensacola who’ve never been in bed with a woman. A few have never even been on a date.”
“But that’s different, they’re high school boys. I’ve graduated from college; I’m twenty-two years old, for Christ’s sake.”
The light changed to green, and then Jake accelerated. At my direction, he turned onto Apalachee Parkway. Then we headed south, toward Franklin Street.
“Look,” Jake said, “I don’t know anything about gay life, but I do know this: you have a lot to offer someone. You’ll find a guy eventually; I know you will.”
Back at my apartment, after we brushed our teeth and used the toilet, Jake yawned while he pointed to the sofa in the living room. He said, “Do I have to sleep on that thing again tonight? There’s a loose spring in the seat; it jabs your ribs like crazy.”
I shrugged. “You can sleep with me if you’d like; there’s room enough for two.”
Jake looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “If I do that -- crash in your bed -- you won’t grab my cock when I’m
asleep, will you?”
I flickered my eyebrows. “I just might.”
Jake rubbed the back of his neck, feigning indecision while he swung his gaze to my bedroom. “I think I’ll take my chances with you, Big Brother.”
I rubbed my hands together while I stared at Jake with my lips curled back. “I haven’t lured a straight boy into my bed in months,” I said. “This’ll be fun.”
Jake cackled while he followed me to the bedroom. We both undressed, down to our briefs. Then, after we’d crawled under the covers, I killed the lamp on the nightstand. Beyond the window, our resident whippoorwill sang his sad and spooky tune. Jake bent an elbow, then he propped his cheek against his hand. His breath swept my skin and I smelled the toothpaste he’d just used.
“Remember when we were kids,” he said, “and we camped out in Dad’s pup tent, in our back yard?”
“Yeah, sure I do. I hope you don’t still snore like you used to.”
Jake giggled. “I always loved it, lying next to you and listening to crickets chirp. I always felt safe.”
There in the darkness, I mussed Jake’s hair. “I’ll always be here for you, Little Brother.”
Jake repositioned himself. He draped an arm across my chest and rested his cheek on my shoulder. His skin felt warm against mine.
“Good night, Andy,” he whispered. “I love you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Itchy what?” I said.
I spoke on the phone with Travis, early on a Tuesday morning, in July.
“Ichetucknee Springs State Park,” Travis said. “It’s only a ninety-minute drive from here.”
“What’s there to do?”
“Tubing, there’s a six-mile stretch of river. The water’s seventy-two degrees and clear as gin. We’ll float downstream until the Ichetucknee meets the Santa Fe; it’s a great way to spend a hot day.”
I twisted the phone cord around my finger while sweat beaded on my upper lip. Should I go?
I wasn’t working that day. At the time, business was dead at Capital City, at least on weekdays. Even on weekends, only the most dedicated golfers ventured onto the course. On a typical summer day, Tallahassee’s temperature and humidity levels would both reach ninety by ten A.M. On Saturday and Sunday mornings, I broke into a sweat whenever I pedaled my bike to the club; I wouldn’t even bother to put on my polo shirt until I cooled off in the club’s air-conditioned locker room. Morning rounds were somewhat bearable, but afternoon sessions became endurance tests for both caddies and golfers. Heat shimmered over the fairways, and the greens became anvils. One afternoon, Brian Ausley collapsed on a fairway. An ambulance took him to Tallahassee Memorial, where an ER doctor diagnosed Brian with heat stroke.
Becoming Andy Hunsinger Page 13