by Chris Kenry
My strategy for conquest was two-pronged: First, I made myself available socially, which was hardly difficult, for who could possibly have had more free time than I. Burl was never one to dine at home, and for that reason he was always on the lookout for a dinner companion. I slipped easily into this role, ready at a moment’s notice and in need of meals wherever and whenever I could get them.
Second, I submitted to everything he wanted to do. Of course this included sex, although it’s probably unfair to say I submitted to it, for that implies it was against my will, and that was hardly the case. Burl was by no means my type, but what with Paul’s death, and living at my parents’ place, opportunities for sex had been few, and consequently I was much less discriminating than I’d been in the past. Nor was Burl a demanding lover. In fact, I was the one who usually initiated sex when we’d return to his house, but my efforts were rarely rewarded with anything more than a sloppy kiss before he’d roll over and pass out.
The sex was actually the easy part; it was trying to keep up with his social life that nearly killed me: the drinking in dive bars, the rounds of parties, the tedious business dinners—at which I played the role of “nephew,” the golf games and tractor pulls and drag races—all of which I endured, an enthusiastic smile plastered on my face. Burl loved the cigar and martini revival that was then in full swing, and we spent hours in bars catering to those fetishes, talking politics or watching televised sports, which would have been fine if the night had ended after that. It rarely did. The martinis and cigars were just appetizers for the rest of the evening, which usually led to a wine-soaked dinner and then dancing shirtless to incredibly loud music in an after-hours bar with a bunch of club kids. The kind of evening I enjoyed when I was a kid. The kind of evening I even enjoy now, from time to time, but when it was a nightly ritual, as it was with Burl, it did tend to get stale. Stale or not, I needed the money, and that was the one thing about which he was not remiss. It was never really mentioned between us, but in the morning when I got up and got dressed I always found that sometime the night before he had stuffed at least fifty dollars—usually a hundred—in my pants pocket. I wanted to feel bad about it. Felt I should feel bad about it, but honestly I didn’t. The nights out on the town were work, so I felt I was justified in seeking compensation. Yet at the same time I realized that if I wanted to stick to my plan and convince him I was serious about becoming his boyfriend (which would of course lead to moving in together and opening another joint checking account), I’d have to start declining his money.
The idea was that this noble gesture on my part would convince him of the purity of my intentions, would show how I loved him for himself and not for his money. It was a risky gamble, especially considering my financial state, but one I was convinced would result in high profit, so, the next morning as I put on my pants, I removed the money from my pocket and placed it in plain sight on his bedside table. For the rest of the week I followed this same procedure. After the first few days, once he realized I hadn’t dropped it and he stopped restuffing it in my pocket, my plan seemed to be working, and I thought I detected in his eye a tenderness and an affection that had not been there before.
This all changed rather abruptly when I came over to collect him one Sunday morning for a brunch date. I had not seen him the previous night, as I’d gone skiing the day before with my brother (his treat, of course) and was so exhausted after driving home that the prospect of drinking and dancing into the wee hours seemed unbearable. I begged off, made some excuse, and told Burl I would see him the next morning a little before eleven.
It was all blue skies and sunshine when I came to pick him up, and I pulled up in front of his house between his big silver Mercedes, which looked like Helen Keller had parked it, and an enormous red station wagon. I rang the doorbell several times and was not surprised when there was no answer. I was sure he had not spent the previous night at home with a good book, or made it a Blockbuster night, simply because I had stood him up, so I fully expected to have to rouse him. I tried the door. It wasn’t locked, so without hesitation I went in. After all, we were practically boyfriends, and it would only be a matter of time before he gave me my own key. Disco music was playing faintly in the background, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear the sound of the shower coming from the master bathroom. I followed the trail of clothing, which was laid out night after night, since Burl usually started undressing as soon as he got out of the car or the cab. It was not unusual to find shoes and the odd sock on the walkway leading up to the house. The trail took me to the bedroom. I pushed open the door gently, and peeked in. All the blinds were open and the sun was streaming in.
Maybe he had made it an early night, I thought tenderly. I knocked on the bathroom door and pushed it open a crack. A cloud of fragrant steam wafted out.
“Morning, Burl,” I called sweetly. “It’s me. I’m a little early so don’t rush. We’re supposed to be there at eleven, which means if we make it by eleven-thirty we’ll be fine.”
I went back in the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed to wait for him to emerge from the shower. I thought briefly about joining him, as a sort of surprise, but I was already dressed and ready, and as I looked at my watch I saw that if he hurried we might actually make it by eleven-thirty. The shower stopped and I heard the glass door snap open and then shut again.
“I apologize about last night,” I called, “but we skied really hard, and traffic was terrible on the way down, so I really would have been a wet blanket. Where did you go?” I asked, examining a matchbook from Palladio’s on the bedside table.
He mumbled some response, made unintelligible by the towel, and I realized he must be hungover. I’d never known him to rise this early on a weekend.
“How ’bout a drink before we go?” I called. “A little hair of the dog to get you going? I can make a great screwdriver if you’ve got any orange juice.”
Not waiting for a response, I got up and went to the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of Stolichnaya from the living room bar on my way.
Burl’s kitchen was an epicure’s dream: an enormous, eight-burner Viking stove, granite countertops, German appliances, and glass-front maple cabinets—all of which went unused since he never ate at home.
That will all change, I thought as I stood examining the meager contents of the refrigerator. There was a big jar of maraschino cherries, a smaller one of cocktail onions, some rotting containers of Chinese food, and a bottle of Coke that was surely flat because the lid was missing. I closed the fridge and looked in the cabinets. Eventually I found an ancient jar of Tang and improvised a screwdriver from that, making Burl’s mostly vodka and mine mostly Tang. I went back to the bedroom, drinks in hand, and came face-to-face with a towel-clad man, smiling slyly, who was clearly not Burl.
“Who are you?” I asked, frightened, the drinks sloshing onto the carpet.
“Relax.” He laughed, pointing to the dripping glasses. I hastily set them on the dresser and looked around for something to wipe my hands with.
“I was on the swing shift,” said the toweled one, and he gave me a wink. “Burl said you’d be coming by for him today, but I don’t think he’s going anywhere for a while.” He nodded toward the bed. I looked at him and at the bed and then charged over to it and whipped back the down comforter. There was Burl, flat on his back, right next to where I had been sitting. His walrus body, clad in nothing but a very unflattering floral thong, was sprawled, spread-eagle, on the mattress. He flinched only slightly from the light, rolled onto his side, and emitted a long, rattling fart. I threw the comforter back over him and looked accusingly at the stranger.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” I demanded, although this last part was a wee bit redundant.
“Dude, relax.” He laughed. “It’s okay.”
He turned around, dropped the towel completely, and slipped on a pair of boxers he had picked up from the floor. His body was lean and smooth, except for his legs, which were quite hairy and up one of
which crept a tattoo of a dinosaur skeleton. I didn’t make the connection immediately, because the hair on his head was now a peculiar shade of ruby instead of black or white, and of course because I was more than a little distracted by his nakedness.
He turned around again and introduced himself, clearly not remembering me from either one of our previous encounters, although that really wasn’t surprising, since he had hardly gotten a good look at me on either occasion.
“I’m Ray,” he said. “You’ve gotta be Jack. Burl said you’d be here this morning and for me to wake him up about ten-thirty, and dude, I did try, but he’s out for the day, I think. We didn’t even get back here till almost seven and—shit!” he cried, grabbing my arm and twisting it to look at my watch. His hand looked surprisingly dirty for someone who had just emerged from the shower. “I have to meet my next guy in half an hour.”
He followed the clothing trail into the living room, picking up select items and putting them on as he went. I followed and watched, dumbfounded, as he got dressed. I wanted to say something but couldn’t, and was alarmed to notice that I was becoming aroused.
“You look familiar,” he said, dropping his pile of clothes on one of the white sofas and picking out a shirt and a pair of socks. “You been working Denver long?”
“What?” I said vaguely. I was confused by his question, yes, but also by the mere fact of his being there, and the gold rings that sparkled from his right eyebrow and his navel were mesmerizing.
“Denver,” he repeated, hopping into a pair of black jeans. “You been workin’ here long?”
“I don’t . . .” I started to reply but then hesitated, still unsure what he was asking. Anger and curiosity and an odd desire competed for dominance in my head . . . and below my belt.
“That Burl”—he chuckled, pulling a tight, green velvet T-shirt over his head—“sure can put it away. He dragged me all over town last night. We ended up at Amsterdam dancing with all the pretty boys. Not really my crowd, but the music’s good and it made Burl happy.”
He picked up his own watch and looked at it.
“Shit!” he said, and ran back to the bedroom. I followed, feeling angry and wanting to say something but not knowing what exactly.
“So how long you say you been here?” he asked, eyeing me curiously. “I know I’ve seen you around. Do you have an ad running?”
“Look,” I said, collecting my wits and rolling them up into a hard ball to throw at him. “I don’t know what you think, but—”
He pulled back the covers of the bed and shook Burl. I paused, intent on what he was doing. Burl’s body jiggled on the bed but he didn’t wake. He shook him again.
“Burl!” he yelled, very close to his ear. Burl’s eyes opened momentarily, rolled in their sockets, and closed again.
“He’s out,” said Ray with a shrug. “Guess there’s only one thing to do.”
He propped Burl up slightly in bed and pulled the comforter up, securing it under one of his chins, and kissed him on the forehead. He then picked up Burl’s pants from the floor, pulled the wallet from the back pocket, and started removing cash.
“You can’t do that!” I cried, and moved to grab the wallet away from him. He turned away quickly.
“Sure I can,” he said. “I’m taking two hundred, which I think is fair, since I got him home safely and stayed all night. Now, he was too drunk to really do anything and he won’t remember much of it later, but that’s not my fault, and I did stay all night.”
He stuffed the money in his front pocket and handed the wallet to me.
“You might as well take yours now, too, unless you wanna sit around all afternoon until he wakes up.”
“Look!” I hissed, snatching the wallet away. “I’m his friend, not some . . . some rough trade he picked up for a wild night. I think you’d better get out of here. I’m just his friend, okay? I don’t take money for being someone’s friend.”
He gazed at me, his amusement evident in his green eyes. He pulled on a suede jacket, removed a pack of cigarettes from an inside pocket, and lit one. He was suppressing a laugh, but one snorted out as he exhaled. He headed for the front door. I was enraged to the point of speechlessness now but I followed him nonetheless. When he was halfway down the front walk, he turned and gave a wave with his blackened hand and another condescending wink. I shot him a nasty scowl and slammed the door.
I stood for a moment, fuming, but then leaned forward to the peephole and watched his distorted body as he made his way down the walk and got into the red station wagon. When he’d gone, I stood for a minute in the foyer and then wandered back to the bedroom. I looked at the cigarettes and ashtray on the bedside table, at the wet towel on the floor, at Burl’s snoring head poking out from under the covers. I stood in the same spot for at least five minutes, considering. I was astonished, insulted, embarrassed, intrigued, and more than a little confused.
Eventually I walked over to the dresser and set down the wallet. I picked up one of the drinks and took a sip. Mostly Tang. I set it down and picked up the other. Mostly vodka. I took three or four giant gulps, enjoying the burning sensation as the alcohol rolled down my throat and into my stomach. Three more gulps and the glass was empty. I picked up the other glass and then walked calmly over to the bedside table, where I picked up the dirty ashtray. I then looked around the room for any other dishes and, seeing none, I went to the kitchen. There I emptied the ashtray in the trash and the glasses in the sink, and then put them all in the dishwasher. I then walked back to the bedroom, picking up Burl’s clothes as I went, and laid them all out neatly on the chair by the window. I picked up the wet towel from the floor, used it to wipe up the ashes on the table and the drink rings on the dresser, and then carried it to the bathroom and put it in the hamper. Returning to the bedroom, I fluffed Burl’s pillow and propped him up somewhat so that he wouldn’t choke on his vomit if it came to that, and straightened the comforter so that it covered his feet. I was going to leave, but I hesitated, and stood staring out the window for a good five minutes. I walked over to the dresser and picked up the wallet. Then, as nonchalantly as I could, I went over to the window. With one hand I twisted the blinds shut, while with the other I deftly removed two fifties from Burl’s wallet.
After all, I thought, we did have a date.
I slipped the wallet back in the pocket of his pants and took a quick look around. Satisfied, I left the bedroom and went out the front door to my car.
10
DESPERATE MEASURES
The day after the ill-fated brunch I got up early, resolved that my life would be different. I went and worked out and then actually went to a job interview at one of the newspapers for a data-entry position. The only requirements were fair typing skills and some knowledge of computers. Since I had neither, I lied on the application, thinking I’d charm my way through the interview and be able to learn what I didn’t know once I got the job. I hadn’t anticipated the skills test that they use to weed out the people like me who lie on their application, and for which they handed me a number as soon as I entered, telling me to wait in line with the other applicants, of which there were many, all looking more competent and skilled than myself. I didn’t waste their time. Instead, I left the building and walked toward Andre’s loft in lower downtown.
Andre had left the day before on a weeklong trip to Australia and we had arranged beforehand for me to bring in his mail (a staggering amount of magazines and catalogs) and water the plants. In return, I could use his phone and voice-messaging service until mine was hooked up, which, at the rate the phone company was moving, would be sometime in the next millennium.
I took the elevator to the fourth floor of the loft, went in, and promptly helped myself to what was left in the kitchen. After much hunting, I found a dry bagel and a small can of orange juice, which I took over to the sofa and ate while I checked messages. I dialed the access number.
You have three new messages. To listen to your messages, press one.
First message, sent Sunday at three-twenty-two P.M.
“Hi, Andre, It’s—”
Message skipped. Next message, left Sunday at six-nineteen P.M.
“Jack-o! I hope this is the right number to reach you. I thought we were goin’ to brunch, son. Hee hee hee. Hope I didn’t spoil your plans none. But hey, if you’re interested in dinner, in say, about an hour, get back to me. It’s about six-fifteen now. You need to get yourself a pager or somethin’. Maybe a cell phone. Toodaloo.”
Message erased. Next message, sent Monday at eight-oh-nine A.M.
“Hello? Hayley Mills calling Hayley Mills. This message is for Jack. Just checking to see how my evil twin is doing. Call me. Love ya. Oh, I almost forgot; you might wanna call Mom. I guess her little Nintendo bit some virtual dust. She’s a wreck—more so than usual, I mean. Call me.”
Message erased. End of new messages. To listen to your messages press one. To send a message press two. To disconnect, press the star key.
I should have hung up. Hindsight again. I should not have been nosy and listened to Andre’s message, so I’ll admit I have only myself to blame for the torment it caused me, but who, put in a similar situation, would not do the same thing? It was like reading postcards; you didn’t want to be seen reading someone else’s, but if no one was around it was completely acceptable. I pressed one.
First skipped message, sent Sunday at three-twenty-two P.M.
“Hi, Andre, it’s Michael. I know you’re out of town because I just came from brunch with Jack and he told me you’re in Australia. Say hi to Olivia for me. Ha, ha. Anyway, I just wanted to call and say hi, and give you the latest on your friend Miss Thompson. Well, a bunch of us met for brunch at the Dome and he shows up at like one o’clock, looking all moody and tough in his sunglasses, and chain-smoking. I mean, when did that start? Anyway, Christian, the little bitch, asked him why he didn’t bring Burl. As if we didn’t know why! That lush hasn’t seen a Sunday morning since he turned twenty-one, and he was seen by just everyone the night before making quite the spectacle of himself on the dance floor of Amsterdam with a guy who looked like Satan. Anyway, Jack just blew up, girl. I wish you could have seen it. Said he wasn’t ‘that drunk pig’s keeper’ and went on and on about fags and how catty and slutty we are. Uh, hello! I felt like saying, ‘Look in the mirror, Becky, we’re not the ones who have been screwing the drunk pig. We are not the shameless gold-diggers who drove our boyfriend to jump in front of a train!’ I’m guessing he and Burlina had a fight, which is good, because I’ll be the first to agree that Burl Crawford is one disgusting unit. Jack could do much better. God knows somebody’s got to take care of him. Poor thing, just doesn’t know what to do without Paul. Anyway, he settled down after a few mimosas, but he didn’t eat a thing, and kept getting up to go out and smoke. It was too weird. Then he just left without saying good-bye, leaving a fifty on the table—which was a relief because we were all dreading another awkward moment with the credit car—”