by Chris Kenry
“Call me,” she said sternly, squeezing my biceps. “Tonight!”
I nodded and followed the guys toward the exit.
Looking back, that was the real beginning of my paranoia. After that day in the emergency room my sister became determined to discover the secret she felt sure I was hiding from her, and I became equally determined to keep it hidden. She took to dropping by my apartment at odd hours, often when I was working, and referred a steady stream of clients to me for fitness training, which was annoying because the more I put them off, saying my schedule was full and I couldn’t possibly take on any more clients, the more determined most of them became to actually obtain my training services, figuring that if I was so booked up I must really have something good to sell.
“I know you’re up to something,” Carey said one day on the phone. “Do you have a new boyfriend?”
I rolled my eyes, but then decided that this might be a good explanation to throw her off the scent.
“Yeah,” I said sheepishly. “I’ve kind of been spending a lot of time with this new guy.”
“I knew it!” she said. “It must be pretty serious if you’re getting all your blood work done. That is why you were at the hospital, isn’t it?” she said, satisfied with her effective detective work.
“Exactly,” I said. “He’s kind of a special guy, and it’s the first guy I’ve really dated since Paul.”
“Well, I want to meet him. Maybe we can go out to dinner some night, just the three of us. I’ll prescreen him before you show him to Mom and Dad.”
“That sounds great,” I said, but weeks passed and I kept putting her off and putting her off and again she became suspicious.
Andre was also suspicious, and he had obviously been in contact with Carey, which made it worse. He had invited me out to lunch and to dinner and to cocktail parties but I had politely declined all invitations, saying, not untruthfully, that I was far too busy with work and with my new boyfriend, whom I named Dirk. I was busy, yes, but I also felt uncomfortable with the amount of lying I was doing and knew that I’d be forced to weave ever more elaborate lies if I were to socialize with either of them. Not that lying would have hidden much at that point. I was, as they say, getting a reputation in the gay community for my ever-widening network of business, and I was sure these rumors had been picked up by Andre’s acute radar. These suspicions were confirmed when I began receiving “anonymous” packages in the mail. CDs and videotapes mostly. Some, like Donna Summer’s Bad Girls disc, and a copy of the video Butterfield 8, were easy to decipher. Others, like the Ella Fitzgerald disc, took more time and thought, but then I’d listen to it and get to the song “Love for Sale” and I’d know that it was the one I was intended to hear. I probably should have said something, responded somehow, because the packages clearly indicated that Andre had a sense of humor about it and was probably more intrigued than scandalized, but I guess I was a little ashamed, so I said nothing and tried to ignore the packages. Tried and failed. Over time my paranoia, fueled by uneasiness over the Carlyle blackmail, my sister’s intrusiveness, and Andre’s packages, got worse. I felt like they were all knocking at the door of my microbusiness facade, trying to expose what was really behind it. I felt that everyone was suspicious of me, and I in turn became suspicious of everyone. I began to suspect the guys of moonlighting, or of hiding money from me, even though the money was coming in faster than I could count it and everyone was happy. I also began to fear that the phone was tapped and felt certain that I was being followed. Consequently I started using my cell phone for almost all calls, and took elaborate, circuitous routes to reach my destinations whenever I was driving or walking. I was certain a police raid was about to occur and took to phoning Warren almost every day to ask if he knew anything. He calmly reminded me that vice raids were extremely rare on businesses like mine, but assured me time and again that he would still tip me off if he caught wind of anything.
As if that wasn’t enough to worry about, one of the two vacant units on our floor was also rented at about this time. This was bad because up until then we’d had stomping rights—no need to worry about tricks coming and going, or the odd noises coming from the rooms, or the guys roaming, scantily clad, to and from the showers. Suddenly, with the arrival of this new tenant, all that had to change, and we had to be much more cautious.
The new tenant was a heavyset, red-haired man, about thirty-five, with a beard and mustache and tiny eyeglasses. Invariably he was dressed in khaki pants, a striped dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a paisley bow tie. I introduced myself the first time I saw him in the hall, mistaking him for a lost client.
“The name’s MacNamara,” he said cheerfully. “Rob MacNamara. I’ve rented the office right next to yours.”
“Oh ... have you?” I said, trying to conceal my surprise. “Great. Welcome. I’m Jack Thompson,” I said, vigorously shaking his hand. “We run, uh, a sort of fitness training company. Mostly one on one. Weight training, aerobics, that sort of thing. What do you do?”
“I’m a writer,” he said. “A journalist. I write for Tally-Ho, but I’m writing a novel now, and that’s why I’ve rented this space. It gives me a place away from the office and away from the wife and kids where I can work.”
Tally-Ho was one of the weekly papers that did long, mildly interesting exposes on corrupt city officials, or local pollution scandals, but was known mainly for its many pages of comics and its extensive section of personal ads.
“A writer,” I said, trying to sound impressed. “Wouldn’t it be quieter on the ground floor?” I asked, hoping that maybe he hadn’t considered that.
“I suppose it might,” he said, giving me a creepy smile. “But I’m all moved in; I might as well stay awhile.”
“Yes,” I said, my mouth twitching, “might as well.”
I was suspicious of him from the beginning, but I grew more so when I repeatedly found him wandering the hallway at all hours of the day and night, and when he kept coming in to our office to use the phone, since his “hadn’t been hooked up yet.” At these times he almost never got hold of the person he was trying to reach and would just stand there, holding the receiver to his ear, scanning the room, examining the papers on the desk or the gay magazines fanned out on the waiting room table.
Who doesn’t have voice mail? I thought to myself one day as he stood there holding the phone, the cord stretched to its limit as he tried to peer into room one, the door of which was open a crack. He never leaves a message.
Then one night my paranoia got the best of me. I was heading down the hall to the bathroom and saw that he was locking up and leaving. I said good night and waved and then waited in the bathroom until I heard the downstairs door slam shut. When I was sure he was gone, I sauntered, ever so nonchalantly, back down the hallway to his door. The door and handle were cheap and old, and it took me less than three minutes’ work with a credit card (the first time I’d used one in months!) to jimmy it open. Once inside, I saw the gold dome of the capitol lit up outside his window. There were no window coverings, so I probably shouldn’t have turned on the light, but curiosity got the best of me and I flipped the switch. The room was bare except for a folding chair and a card table on which rested an old electric typewriter, which, I noticed on closer inspection, was not plugged in and had no ribbon. It was all very strange. He spent so many hours here each day and yet the place was so uninviting and uncomfortable. I mentioned it to Ray later that night (who was surprisingly unfazed to hear I was jimmying my way into strange offices), and he said that yes, it seemed strange, but then MacNamara probably thought the same about our office and its obvious lack of anything resembling exercise equipment.
“Maybe he just wants a place to get away from the wife for a while,” Ray said.
I nodded, but wasn’t convinced. What a pathetic retreat, I thought, remembering the card table and folding chair.
And maybe it was karma. Maybe paranoia begets paranoia, but after I broke into Rob’s office
I became convinced that someone was repeatedly breaking into mine. I’d arrive some mornings and feel certain that the papers on the desk had been shuffled. Or, during the course of the day, I’d notice one or two of the files out of order and would panic and look around, expecting Allen Funt to jump out. I thought of installing an alarm system, but instead Ray brought in his large stuffed shepherd. He placed this sentry in front of the desk and connected it to a motion detector that made a barking noise whenever anyone touched the door handle. This became very tiresome and succeeded only in putting my nerves more on edge.
When I was away from the office the paranoia got worse. I grew more certain I was being followed and started lengthening my routes even more, doubling around and back before finally reaching my destination. Driving was worse, as I would park a minimum of five blocks away from where I was going, and would then walk up and over, up and over, over and back, etc., in order to be sure no one had followed me.
On one such day, I arrived fifteen minutes late to my microbusiness class because I’d taken such a labyrinthine route from the car that I’d actually gotten lost! When I walked in, everyone was cheering and jumping up and down, but it was not, as I initially thought, because of my arrival. I stood there for a moment, confused, but then went over to my seat.
“Can you believe it?” Sharise said.
“What?” I asked. “I missed it.”
“We got the governor and Sister Melanie to speak at our graduation!”
“What!” I cried, and felt all the blood rush from my face.
“I know, isn’t it great!” she said, and put her hand up for a high five. I raised mine weakly to hit it and missed. We had tossed out ideas for possible candidates some weeks before and had decided to send our fantasy requests to the governor, the mayor, Ben and Jerry, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, and Sister Melanie. I thought the list so ridiculous that I had completely forgotten about it. And yet, as I sat there regarding my cheering classmates I realized that of course the governor would come, of course Sister Melanie would come. This was right up their alley: a program designed to get people off welfare through entrepreneurship. And who could ask for a more diverse group: an African-American who was also a single mother, three Latinos, an elderly woman—it was a politician’s dream! Until you add me to the pot. Me, an upper-middle-class white fag hustler. I moaned and put my head down on the desk as I realized that now we would be getting media attention.
As if reading my thoughts, Tina handed back our graded business plans. I’d been unanimously approved for the five-hundred-dollar loan. Then she announced that we would each be getting calls from the Denver Business Daily newspaper because they wanted to do a profile of the program and focus on the individual participants and their businesses.
“It’s a great opportunity for you to get some free publicity,” Tina said. “They want to follow each of you around for a day and see what you’ve learned, how your businesses operate.”
I felt the rumblings of nervous diarrhea and quickly left the room.
Ray and I had also started working on a business plan for the gallery, fueled largely by my sudden desire for legitimacy. We found a large space on Broadway that we liked, near enough to downtown to ensure that it would get a lot of foot traffic. It was in an economically depressed area that had been declared an “enterprise zone” by the city and, as such, would exempt us from several taxes if we opened a business there. We had been looking to rent, but the owner wanted to sell, and the price seemed very reasonable, so we had Antonio and Victor look at it. They checked out the structural soundness, the electrical and plumbing, and listened carefully to our descriptions of what we wanted done. Since it was an old building that had been neglected over the years, their bid for the renovation was high and would necessitate Ray’s and my getting a loan. I shuddered at the thought of debt, and shuddered even more at the thought of once again resurrecting the issue of my relationship with Ray, since we would have to purchase the building jointly if we were going to buy it at all. We had never resolved the issue of how I felt. Or rather, we had left it hanging, unanswered since that confused night in bed, but Ray seemed less concerned with it, or was at least keeping his thoughts on the matter to himself, so I followed his lead and did the same thing: I kept my internal struggle just that—internal.
And yet when I thought about it I felt a new kind of anxiety. I felt something had changed in me, most notably when I’d stood watching the TV screen as Ray was being attacked. I felt an ache that I’d never felt before. A desire to switch places, to protect him. Watching the attack was the first time I’d felt anything like that, but since then I had noticed it creeping into my day-to-day dealings with him. I found myself wanting to help him, wanting to do things to please him, with no ulterior motive, and that confused me more than anything. I had always looked out for myself, had always done things with an eye on the payoff for me, but suddenly I was factoring someone else’s feelings into the equation. Was this love? I wasn’t sure. It was disconcerting to discover, at the age of twenty-six, that I didn’t know how to recognize when I was in love because I’d never been there before. I spent every free night with Ray, we had sex, we laughed, we argued, and we never seemed to run out of things to talk about, but was that love?
25
Parental Consent
Hole will always be remembered in my mind for his bluntness, and thank God he was so blunt because had he not been, the gallery idea would probably have remained just that: another idea, heaped on the pile of unrealized ideas. I was sitting with him at his little desk one afternoon, going over the business plan Ray and I had been working on to get his input before I submitted it to the bank, but it was obvious my interest in it was only halfhearted. I gave vague answers to his questions and was doodling on the pad of paper I held in my lap.
“Why the hell are we doing this?” he asked, slamming his pencil down on the desk. “You’re wasting my time and yours and I’ve got much less to waste than you, my friend.”
I sat looking down at my doodlings, embarrassed, and then for some reason I started to cry.
“Oh, Christ,” he said, in a voice that was somehow soft and shrill at the same time. “Don’t do that. I didn’t mean it in that way. I meant ... well, hell, I mean it seems like you’re just going through the motions here.”
He reached for a cigarette. I switched off the oxygen tank, opened the window, and came back and lit it for him.
“You wanna tell me what’s the matter?” he asked. “You can’t have that thin of skin that you can’t take a little criticism. Criminy.”
I shook my head and then in a sobbing gush I told him all about the troubles with the microbusiness class and Sister Me1anie and the reporter from the Denver Business Daily and my nosy sister and Andre’s little packages. I told him of my fear that I was being followed and that my phone was tapped and how I was sick of always looking over my shoulder. I told him of my desire to get this gallery off the ground and get out of hustling, but also of my fear of doing so because of my confusion about my feelings for Ray, of how I thought I was in love with him but I didn’t know for sure and why should it matter since we work well together and we like to be with each other, yadda yadda yadda....
He listened attentively until I got to the part about me and Ray and then he started laughing, and the laughing turned into a violent fit of coughing, which led to his gasping for breath. I quickly crushed out his cigarette and started the oxygen flowing and in a few minutes he was breathing easily again.
“Oh, you’re killin’ me!” He chuckled, his eyes teary. “Fuckin’ killin’ me. I don’t know about the other troubles—sounds like you may be screwed, frankly—but what is this shit about you and Ray?” he asked, laughing and slapping the table.
“Now maybe I’m not the best judge, but I’m not blind, and if you two aren’t in love then the Pope’s not Catholic. Fuck, I could tell there was something going on that first night I saw you together in Monroe’s, remember? When I wa
s sitting up on the bench with that key-pounder. You think I stayed up there for the pleasure of it? Hell, no! Or on Sundays, when we go to Patricio’s, or whatever the fuck it’s called, and you two sit and coo over each other.”
“We don’t ... cool”
“The hell you don’t!” He coughed. “Or when you argue, oh, that’s the fuckin’ cutest. You’re like two college roommates with all this unresolved sexual tension. Christ, sometimes I just want to push you together and scream ‘Mate, goddamnit! Mate!’ ”
I laughed in spite of myself and he handed me a tissue.
“You love him, Jack. Fuck, trust me if you don’t trust yourself. And he loves you. And that’s ... well, that’s something.”
I nodded and looked over at him and his eyes were misty. I handed him a tissue, which he slapped away, annoyed.
“Now let’s look at those figures,” he said, turning back to the desk, “and see if we can’t get this picture show open. You’ve wasted enough of my goddamned time.”
A week later Hole and Ray and I all piled into the lemon yellow Coupe de Ville and drove up Seventeenth Street to Colorado National Bank, where Hole cosigned on a loan with us. Two days after that, we drove to the realty office in Cherry Creek and closed on the property. We then owned the building and had enough money to complete the necessary renovations.
After we’d finished, we celebrated over lunch, and then took Hole back to his loft, as it was time for his daily bath, which he was looking forward to because he had a new, very attractive nurse. On our way back to our respective vehicles (I had a long walk to mine), Ray and I discussed our plans for the rest of the day.
“Will I see you tonight?” he asked as we stood on a corner, surrounded by the noontime crowds.
I opened my Day-Timer and looked at my schedule.
“Let’s see,” I said, going through the day, “I have two clients back-to-back starting in twenty minutes, then I have class at three, and then I’ll meet the guys at the new place and give them the key. After that I’m meeting my parents for dinner, which should last about two hours, but it looks like I’m free after that. Oh, no, wait. Damn. After dinner I have an appointment at this new gallery with the sexiest man in Denver, so hey, maybe some other time.”