by Chris Kenry
One day, toward the end of the trip, we were relaxing in the evening sun in a café on the Piazza del Campo in Siena, drinking our second or third Campari and soda, having just agreed that we’d found the ideal spot in all the world.
Siena is a medieval city that has wisely banished the automobile from most of its narrow streets. At its center is an expansive, orange-brick piazza, surrounded by tall brick buildings and a soaring clock tower. In July and August, this is the sight of a rather barbarous horse race, but it was quiet then; the flap of pigeons’ wings as they ascended to the clock tower and the low murmur of the other patrons in the café the only disturbances of the tranquil sight.
I was talking lazily, commenting on the cathedral we’d visited that morning, and about a German couple I’d met, but I soon realized that Paul wasn’t listening. He was looking very solemn and seemed nervous about something.
“You all right?” I asked. He nodded and smiled but it was clear that something was bothering him. He shifted his weight in his chair and then reached in the pocket of his jacket and removed a small, purple-velvet box, which he set down on the table and nudged toward me. I was surprised, because the one thing we had really not done the entire trip was shop, and I wondered when he’d sneaked away to purchase something. He smiled but said nothing. He put on his sunglasses and gazed absently at the clock tower.
I said nothing and quickly flipped open the box. Inside was a key, not an elaborate brass number, or a tiny diary key, but a plain old ordinary suburban house key.
“I don’t get it,” I said, and looked at him, confused.
He continued staring out at the plaza. Several times he started to say something but then hesitated. Finally he turned to me, clearly wanting to touch me, but the café was crowded, and he was always shy about such public displays.
“I . . . I don’t want to scare you,” he said, his voice soft and low. “So this can mean something or it can mean nothing, or you can use it whenever you’d like, but I don’t want you to take it the wrong way. What I mean is, I don’t want to scare you.”
I looked down at the key, suddenly understanding its meaning, and I felt happy.
“It’s a key to my house and I’d . . . What I mean to say is, if you’d like to, I’d like you to move in with me.”
“And where will you live?” I asked, and grinned over at him.
“Well, right,” he said, relaxing a bit. “I’ll live in the garage out back, I guess. Look, can’t we be ... I’m serious about this. Nothing would make me happier than if you were to move in with me. I know you’ve just finished university and aren’t quite sure what you’re going to do, but I’d like to be a part of that, and I don’t mind carrying you until you find something.”
I smiled and pressed his hand in mine, the key between our palms.
“I will,” I said, and gazed reverently into his green eyes....
Okay, put on the brakes here. Pull the needle off the record. Push the pause button on the remote control, and wipe that Vaseline off the lens! Let’s analyze this situation more closely in the clinical light of hindsight. Clearly, clearly, I can see that our troubles began there in tranquil Siena. The barbarous horse race may as well have commenced right then. The charm was wound up. The die was cast. The seeds of destruction were planted in all too fertile soil. It sounds like I’m being overdramatic, and maybe I am a bit, but the transfer of that key was what started the demise of my integrity and, consequently, the demise of any respect we had for each other. I was just out of college and truly had no idea of what I was going to do with my life. I had never been on my own as an independent entity, and was of such a nature, and at such an age, that I knew nothing other than relying on the support, financial and emotional, of others. Paul’s offer to “carry” me was the equivalent of pouring a big glass of whiskey in front of an impressionable and inexperienced youth and saying, “Umm, yummy!”
He paid all of my bills and kept an elegant roof over my head, rent free. He spoiled me like a child and I reacted by behaving like one, accepting his largesse, and continuing to accept it, for years until I was littie more than a swollen sponge. I took it initially thinking it would last only a short time until I started a career and made my own money, but, over time, it dulled me, made me lazy. I became dependent on him, and this gave rise to resentments on both sides.
Yet, if the truth is told, it was probably more my fault. Paul gave me tremendous opportunities, but I lacked the character to recognize them as such. The problem was, I didn’t need assistance, or generosity, or opportunity handed to me on a silver platter. I needed to struggle. I was fresh from college but I needed to learn. I needed to take the knocks the real world offered and fight to forge myself into an independent being. The arrangement we agreed to that evening in Siena numbed that fighting spirit, lulled it into a drowsy complacency, from which it did not stir for the next three years.
3
BURL
When I had calmed down, about an hour after leaving Wendy and the lawyer, a thought occurred to me, and I drove as quickly as I could to a 7-Eleven. Inside, I put my card in the ATM, entered the access code for the joint checking account Paul and I had opened two years ago, and did a balance inquiry. It spit out a receipt, like a mocking tongue, that showed a balance of $2.90, indicating that Wendy, the crafty bitch, had gotten to it before me and had withdrawn all but the minimum needed to keep the account open. She couldn’t close it out completely without my consent.
Feeling discouraged, I stepped outside and lit a cigarette. I usually don’t smoke, but every now and then, especially in moments of high drama like the one I envisioned myself in then, it seems the only thing to do. I sat down on the curb in the parking lot and pouted. Again I tried to cry, but I couldn’t, as the situation was more pathetic than tragic despite my dramatic attempts to perceive it otherwise. I sniffled self-pityingly for a while, thinking, Oh, God, what am I going to do? How could this happen to me? Where am I going to go? But I came to no great conclusions.
Since my eviction I had been staying at my parents’ house, but I clearly couldn’t stay there forever. What was I thinking? I wondered to myself. That I’d be in the will? That Wendy would be kind and give me some money and a place to live? I should have seen that coming way back when the lawyers came and changed the locks. I guess I just assumed that I’d be taken care of as I always had. Like a tightrope walker in the circus I had the air of confidence that comes with the knowledge that there is a net below. Someone had always been my net, there to catch me, or protect me, or make sure I was protected. I had no reason to think differently. Now everything was changing fast, and I was beginning to suspect that the net beneath me was probably moth-eaten or maybe was not there at all.
I chain-smoked three cigarettes, gazing blankly at the sun as it disappeared behind the mountains. I glanced across the parking lot at the pay phone and an idea struck me. I got up, walked over to it, and dialed directory assistance. When I got the number I’d requested, I hung up and waited a few minutes, mentally rehearsing what I would say. Finally I dialed. It rang several times before being picked up. The sound of loud disco music playing in the background assured me I’d dialed correctly.
“Hello, Burl?” I yelled.
“Hello? Whosere?” he slurred. Evidently the phone had woken him up.
“Burl, it’s Jack.”
“Whosat? Jus’ a minute.” From the sound of the phone bouncing on the floor I gathered he’d either passed out or gone to turn the music down. I’d begun to give up hope when the music stopped and I heard his feet shuffling back. He cleared his throat and said, in his best professional voice, “Burl Crawford here.”
“Hey, Burl, it’s Jack.” There was silence for a moment, followed by a poorly feigned recognition.
“Oh, yeah! . . . Jack! How ya doin’? You musta left without sayin’ good-bye this mornin’, son. Hell, you ’bout wore me out last night, I tell you!”
“Burl, this is Jack Thompson. I was Paul Oswald’s boyfrie
nd....”
I envisioned his thoughts then as a train chugging along through the alcoholic fog. Finally it reached the station.
“Oh, now a’course it’s you!” he boomed. “I have to admit, though, I had you pegged as my boy from last night, and I can’t tell you how glad I am you’re not him! I’m gettin’ old, Jack!” he whined. “I can’t keep up the pace with you kids anymore.” Then, lowering his tone to a whisper, he added, “But damn if I sure don’t like to try!”
“Burl.”
“This one last night, ooowee!”
“Burl.”
“The cutest little behind, why I coulda—”
“Burl!” I shouted, not wanting to hear the particulars of his trick’s ass. “I think I’m in trouble!”
“Okay, okay.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and took a deep breath. “I’m . . . It’s just that . . . I guess I’m a little bit scared.”
“Well, hell, if you think you’re in trouble you’ve probably called the right person, because I’m always in trouble.” He laughed heartily at his own joke.
“I need to talk to you tonight if I could,” I said.
“Yeah, sure, a’course. But what do you mean you think you’re in trouble? You’re not sure?” he asked, slipping into his gentle lawyer voice.
“No. Listen, we’ll talk about it when I get there. I can be there in about fifteen minutes; is that okay?”
“I’ll leave the light on for ya.”
On the drive across town I thought maybe I’d made a mistake turning to Burl. He was the type of fag who saw any verbal exchange with a male under the age of thirty as a veiled invitation to bed. This, combined with his affinity for the bottle, made him invariably annoying.
Burl Crawford had once been a highly successful prosecuting attorney in his native Oklahoma, but his penchant for young boys had gotten the best of him, and he had been jailed briefly and disbarred when an amateur video of his came to light showing him in several compromising positions with two young men just under the age of eighteen. Needless to say, he lost his job but avoided a heavy sentence because neither of the two would press charges. He was a pervert, yes, but he was an amusing and generous one. His job gone, he had no choice but to leave and try to start over somewhere else, which he had done quite successfully in Denver, opening his own consulting firm. He was lucky, in that a person with a less-developed sense of humor might have caved in at the shame of being caught in such a situation and having his career ruined, but not Burl. He was like a lovable, mischievous cartoon character; a giant anvil might fall on him, but he’d just pop back up, dust himself off, and go on to find more trouble. He was never repentant for his actions because he never saw any of them as really wrong.
Most men, or, for that matter, most people, want to be wanted. We all want someone who is attracted to us and excited by us, someone who yearns for us (as long as this yearning is not psychotic in nature), or at least someone who can fake it. Burl was seemingly an exception to this. He did not seem to care one way or another if his partner had a genuine attraction to him. In fact, I think he liked it better when they were reluctant, because then, when they did give in, he had the added satisfaction of having persuaded them with his charm. It was flattering to his ego in an unusual way. Watching him in action, at a bar as he plied his victim with liquor, or at a dinner party, as he casually placed the hand of the boy seated next to him on his crotch, I was always reminded of a rather grotesque poem I’d read in school. In it, the narrator tries to entice a woman into the sack with the dubious argument that they’ve essentially already done the deed, since they were both bitten by the same flea, and in that flea their blood commingles. Burl’s strategies usually worked, but if not, he could always bring out the added enticement of money.
Burl was nothing if not colorful. He had shown up at Paul’s memorial service late, his trick from the night before in tow. He wore a yellow satin shirt, a gaudy pair of Versace sunglasses, and reeked of cologne, which only slightly overpowered the reek of alcohol. He carried with him a half-empty Bloody Mary.
“In case they don’t have communion,” he had said with a wink.
Later, in the receiving line outside the church, he hugged me tightly, for a very long time, and caressed and patted my ass while whispering in my ear how sorry he was. He said to be sure and call if I needed anything, and because “Well, hey, you’re single again.” Bad taste? Definitely, but with Burl it would have been more of a shock if he had offered weepy sentiment. Sentiment was one of the few things Burl chose not to wear on his sleeve. He kept his private side just that—private. He and Paul had been good friends, but on what exactly they based their friendship, I never knew. They were both heavy drinkers, frequented the same bars, and were always having boy troubles: Paul with me, and Burl with whichever little trick was trying to weasel money out of him in any given week. I knew he’d liked and respected Paul, so that’s part of the reason I called him. My own brother is a lawyer, too, and I could have gone to him, but I thought Burl would be more receptive to my role as victim. More malleable.
He wasn’t as stupid as I thought.
It was after nine when I arrived at Burl’s house, and true to his word he had left a light on for me. Probably the bedroom light, I thought as I rang the bell. A moment later he whipped open the door. He was wearing a burgundy and gold silk bathrobe and heavy, black-framed glasses with very thick lenses. A lit cigarette dangled from his lips, and he raised a nearly empty highball glass and shook it coyly.
“Drink?” he asked.
“I think I could use one.” I sighed, and walked through the dark foyer into the living room. I heard more disco music playing on the stereo, and noticed, with a sad feeling of jealousy, that he had the same Bang & Olufsen stereo I’d hoped to collect from Paul’s house earlier that afternoon.
Burl’s living room was dramatic in its severity. No earth tones here, unless you considered black and white earthy. It was a large room that seemed all the larger because of the whiteness: white walls, white trim, white carpeting. There were two overstuffed black leather couches each facing an enormous glass coffee table, the legs of which were in the shape of male caryatids. On that table, among the ornamental marble obelisks, the silver candlesticks, and the sticky coasters, there was a selection of the soft-porn-passing-as-art-books that are so popular with gay men, and which I hate so much. One corner of the room was dominated by a big-screen TV, in front of which sat, like a sacrificial altar, an overstuffed black leather La-Z-Boy. On one side of this was an overflowing pedestal ashtray and on the other was a similar caryatid-supported end table with the heavy burden of four remote controls. A bachelor’s paradise. Burl stood in the far corner facing the wet bar, which was all black granite and chrome, above which were several glass shelves displaying row after row of liquor bottles.
“I hope you like Manhattans,” he called, “‘cause I’ve had a hankerin’ for ’em all day.” He turned down the stereo and brought me a drink, the size of which was worthy of the name Manhattan. We clinked glasses.
“To us,” he said, and gave me a sly wink. I rolled my eyes, took a sip of my drink, and wondered, as it burned its way down my throat, where this was leading. I tried to compose my thoughts and to remember the details of my meeting with Wendy. I took another, larger sip and sat down. Burl sat very close and threw one arm over the back of the sofa behind me. This action revealed more of his expansive thigh than I cared to see, so I looked up, only to be confronted with his face, less than a hand’s distance away from me.
“So,” I said, leaning forward, and purposely setting my wet glass on one of the photo books, “have you met Paul’s sister?”
“No, I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, but the word on the street is that she’s a pruney bitch.”
I smiled, remembering her leathery face. “Oh, no, not at all,” I said. “She’s a peach.”
Burl raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, ever so nice,” I said, affecting an English acce
nt, my voice sharply sarcastic. “She invited me back to my house today, and we spent all afternoon together reminiscing about Paul, sharing our private memories, poring over the family albums, comforting each other in this time of loss. She’s really quite lovely, and we’ve become very close. She’s even invited me to come visit her at her place in the country—Bitchstead or Monstershire, or wherever the hell she’s from.”
I downed the rest of my drink and coughed.
“Yes, ‘pruney bitch’ describes her well,” I said. “Unfortunately, she’s a pruney bitch who is now in possession of all my stuff.” I fell back into the couch and leaned into his shoulder. “Please tell me she’s not legally entitled to it,” I whined petulantly. He got up, grabbed my glass, and walked toward the bar. I sat up again, confused, and decided that maybe I’d better treat this more as a professional consultation.
“Like I said on the phone,” I continued, trying to shake off the effects of the drink, “I need some legal advice. Can she really do this?”
Burl said nothing. I could hear him mixing and pouring more drinks. When he finished, he brought them over and set them both on coasters. He then walked over and plucked a remote and a pack of cigarettes off the end table. He turned off the music completely and offered me a cigarette. I declined, so he lit one for himself and sat, this time on the sofa opposite me.
“She can’t, can she?” I asked again. Still he said nothing but smoked pensively, his eyes roaming the ceiling.