by Nick Poff
Ed climbed into his truck and headed out of Porterfield. The weather had finally cleared, resulting in a beautiful autumn evening. As Ed drove along Highway 401, he listened to the radio and tried to avoid thinking about the past week. The Larsen-Feiten Band came on with “Who’ll Be the Fool Tonight.”
“Probably me,” Ed groaned.
Although he had made numerous trips to Carlton’s over the past few years, he still felt nervous going there. It had nothing to do with the fact that Carlton’s was a gay bar in a city where being gay wasn’t all that cool. After all, Ed reasoned, things had changed a lot for gay folks in the past few years. No, he froze at the idea of all those men, posing and looking. Ed had not perfected the fine art of cruising, and wondered if he ever would.
He thought back to the first night he’d finally summoned up the courage to go in. When he had seen the small neon sign reading CARLTON’S over the door, all he could think of was Rhoda Morgenstern’s unseen doorman. That drunken, moronic voice played over and over in his head: “Hello, this is Carlton your doorman.” To make conversation he said as much to the bartender, who turned out to be Carlton himself and who had obviously heard that line more than once. Ed had almost died of embarrassment. But Carlton was a decent sort, not to mention a good businessman. He had smiled and told Ed his screwdriver was on the house. Ed had warmed to Carlton, but never quite to the bar itself.
Ed walked in just after ten o’clock, still rather early for a gay bar on a Friday night. A few guys were playing pool, and some of the regular barflies were parked on their usual stools. Music thumped in the makeshift disco room. “A Lover’s Holiday,” a song Ed liked, was playing in the empty room. It was such a joyful tune, and the idea of a man rescuing him from a dull party fit into the thoughts he’d been having lately.
He glanced around the bar, taking in his potential rescuers, and thought he might be better off stranded for a while. The night’s still young, he thought, sighing to himself.
He picked up his usual screwdriver at the bar and wandered beyond the pool table to where a jukebox was playing, competing with the music from the other room. He leaned against the wall, sipping his drink and watching the pool game. What the hell am I doing here? he asked himself, as he always did. He looked toward the door and almost dropped his drink in surprise. Oh, my God! I was right!
Mailman Rick had just walked in.
He wasn’t in his postal uniform, of course. He was dressed pretty much like Ed, but Ed had that face so memorized he knew it was Rick. He watched Rick approach the bar and buy himself a beer. Ed was so undone he turned around and faced the jukebox. For the millionth time he wished he had the balls to just walk up to a guy and start a conversation. He stood, frozen, looking over the song titles on the jukebox. When he finally summoned up the courage to turn around, he saw Rick sitting at the bar, talking to a regular named Russ who was devastatingly handsome and well aware of it.
“That figures,” Ed muttered under his breath.
Ed, with a shaking hand, raised his drink to his mouth and took a sip, still watching Rick and Russ. Rick laughed at something Russ said. Not only handsome but witty, Ed thought, wishing the guy would drop dead on the spot.
The bar was getting a bit more crowded. Several younger guys walked to the end of the bar, blocking his sight of Rick. Ed took another gulp of his drink, trying to convince himself to move away from the jukebox. He wanted Rick to see him, but was terrified Rick would not acknowledge him. Not only that, but he realized he needed to pee rather badly. Aw, crud. At least the men’s room was in the opposite direction. Surely he could make himself walk that far.
Ed slipped around the jukebox and hurried into the empty men’s room. He took care of business, then stopped to wash his hands. He looked at himself in the smudged mirror over the sink. Was there something in his face that did, or would, appeal to the mailman? Glen had insisted over and over that Ed was a nice-looking guy, but at this moment Ed didn’t believe it.
He pushed open the door to walk out and almost knocked over someone trying to walk in—Rick. Ed was so surprised he could only blink nervously and stare into the face of the man he’d been thinking about for weeks. Now what?
Rick regained his balance and said, “Whoops! Sorry!” He glanced at Ed, then looked closer in the dim light, frowning. “Don’t I know you?” he asked.
“Uh . . . ,” Ed said, still blinking.
A smile suddenly lit up Rick’s face. “The certified letter! I knew I recognized your face. Well . . .” Rick paused a moment, still smiling. “Not that I’d forget it.”
Ed couldn’t believe it. Unless he had completely lost his mind, Rick was flirting with him. Any moment now Rod Serling’s gonna walk in here and say, “Ed Stephens doesn’t know it, but a big joke is being played on him in The Twilight Zone. ”
“I’d certainly know yours anywhere,” Ed managed to say.
Rick laughed. “Small world, isn’t it? Imagine, running into someone else from Porterfield here.” Rick shifted his eyes from Ed’s face to the floor. “I, uh, I kinda need to get in there,” he said, looking back at Ed, his smile changing into an embarrassed grin.
“Oh!” Ed moved out of the way.
“But, hey,” Rick said, reaching for Ed’s arm. “When I come out, could I buy you a drink?”
A warm tide of relief swept over Ed, washing away his anxiety. He looked at Rick’s hand on his arm, then up at Rick’s face. He laughed suddenly, surprising himself.
“Actually I’d like that a lot.”
Ed walked, on legs suddenly weak, back to his spot next to the jukebox. He propped himself against the wall and looked for the drink he had left behind on his trip to the men’s room. It was gone, probably picked up and discarded by a passing waiter. Oh, well, at least I’ll be empty-handed and ready for another when Rick comes back. Rick! The name bounced around his brain in a constant echo. I am not crazy. He really did look at me the way I think he did. Screw the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes. I think I just hit the jackpot I really want.
His thoughts suddenly veered off in another direction. What if, he asked himself, the guy is a creep? Then what? I don’t care how cute he is, I am not dating a creep, and I certainly won’t get naked with one. Ed very much wanted to know if Rick was as hairy as he thought he was, but also realized he didn’t want to know badly enough to risk spending time with someone who might have the personality of dryer lint or who was overly impressed with himself. After all, most of the guys Ed had experienced were all graduates of the Fuck and Ask Questions Later school of thought. He was an average guy, with the average guy’s above-average sex drive, but since the first time he had seen Rick, Ed knew he was looking for something much more than a quick romp.
Rick walked out of the men’s room and smiled when he saw Ed. Ed couldn’t help but think that even if the guy turned out to be a creep, he had one hell of a nice smile.
“Hi, again,” Rick said.
Ed looked into Rick’s eyes, and that same electric charge he’d felt the day before ran through his body.
“Can I buy you that drink now?” Rick asked.
“Sure,” Ed said, dropping his eyes, embarrassed at the way he had been staring at Rick.
“Tell you what, why don’t you grab that last table over in the corner, where it’s quiet, before someone else does?” Rick said, pointing. “I’ll get us something to drink, and meet you there. What’ll you have?”
“Uh, screwdriver,” Ed said, looking up again.
Rick’s smile now wasn’t much more than a small grin, but unless someone had slipped something into Ed’s first drink, he could tell Rick was pleased to be with him.
“You got it. One screwdriver coming up.” Rick’s grin broadened back into his warm smile as he turned to the bar.
Ed stumbled around the pool table to the small, round table Rick had indicated. He pushed aside some empty beer bottles and an overflowing ashtray, then sat down where he could watch Rick at the bar. Ed saw Russ approach Rick,
then Rick smiled and shook his head. Damn! Rick’s blowing off the hottest guy in the bar for me? He found himself shaking his head, as well. At some point very soonI am going to find myself at home, alone in my old double bed, waking up from this dream. He looked around the room. No, Rod Serling still wasn’t in sight.
Rick brought Ed’s drink and his own beer bottle to the table. He pulled out the beat-up chair on the other side of the table and flopped on it with a sigh.
“I tell you, it feels good to sit down after a day on my feet!”
“I can imagine,” Ed said, feeling a smile racing across his face.
He couldn’t have explained it if he tried, but for some reason he had a sudden desire to holler out loud and dance around the pool table, and Ed was no dancer. Somewhere deep inside of him a big bubble of joy was growing, and he felt its warmth spread though his body much more than the warmth of the vodka from his drink.
“Well.” Rick seemed to be at a loss for words. “Uh, how ’bout a toast to, uh, Porterfield?” He raised his beer bottle, looking a bit sheepish. “Sorry. That’s all I could think of.”
Ed chuckled and raised his glass. They clinked, glass to beer bottle, and drank to Porterfield.
“Actually, it’s not a bad toast at all. You are definitely the first person from home I’ve ever seen here. Sometimes I think I’m the only gay man in that town.”
Rick nodded, smiling. “Me too. Moving there was a bit of a culture shock, let me tell you.”
“Where are you from?” Ed asked, taking another sip of his drink.
“Indianapolis. Born and raised, and probably would have died there if fate hadn’t’ve stepped in and sent me off to good old Porterfield.”
Ed looked at him questioningly.
“Oh, it’s a long story,” Rick said, settling back in his chair. “How do you feel about long stories?”
“I think I’m up for one.” Ed hoped it would indeed be a long story, as it might give him time to calm down.
“Okay! Well, my sister, Claire, lives in Porterfield with her three kids, Judy, Josh, and Jane. Her husband lived there, until recently, when he packed a bag and disappeared one night. Are you familiar with the name Hank Romanowski?”
Ed thought a moment. “Yeah, I remember him. He was about two or three years ahead of me in school, a big, good-looking guy. Kinda rough around the edges,” Ed said, not revealing that Hank had been a first-class hoodlum in high school.
“That’s Hank. Although rough around the edges is putting it nicely. He met Claire when he was doing highway construction work down in Indy. He swept her off her feet, and the next thing you know, Judy is on the way. They got married, and he insisted they move back to his hometown. My parents about died, let me tell you. They’re both teachers, incredibly liberal, but when Claire brought Hank home for the first time, I thought they were gonna call the cops. They took my being gay a hell of a lot better.”
He caught Ed’s surprised look. “Oh, yes, they know. Like I said, they’re both liberals, used to march in the antiwar protests and all that. Hell,” he said, and chuckled, “they probably would have stood up at Stonewall, if they’d known about it. That’s just the way they are. Compassionate to a fault where a cause is concerned, but definitely not where Hank Romanowski is concerned. They smelled him from a mile away. So did I, for that matter, but Claire was pregnant, and determined to marry this guy.
“Funny thing was, things went really well for them for a long time. Claire finished school here in Fort Wayne and got a job as a dental hygienist in Dr Wells’s office in Porterfield. She had two more kids, Hank had a decent job doing construction, and it all looked good from the outside. Inside, it was getting ugly. Hank began to cheat on Claire, and his drinking got a hell of a lot worse. Mom, Dad, and I suspected things were falling apart, but Claire wasn’t talking. Finally last winter, ole Hank just took off. Jumped in his crappy old Firebird and blew town. No one’s seen or heard from him since.
“Well, at first I was all for hiring a private dick and tracking him down, at least so I could beat the snot out of him, if nothing else. But I began to think that Claire was probably a lot better off without him. Mom was all for Claire moving back to Indy, but Claire wouldn’t hear of it. She had her job, and she thought the kids had been through enough without having to change towns and schools and make new friends.
“Still, Hank’s taking off like that flattened her. I think she’d been through so much already, she just . . . oh, she didn’t fall apart, but she was really having a hard time adjusting to being a single parent. We were talking on the phone one night, and she kinda jokingly said she was going to see if they had any openings at the Porterfield post office. At first I thought she was crazy, but then the more I thought about it, the more the idea appealed to me. My nieces and nephew are great kids, and it began to seem like a good idea, me moving up here to help out, as opposed to Mom getting her way and uprooting the bunch of them. Plus, I had my own reasons for thinking a change of scenery wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
“Anyway,” Rick said, grinning, “to try to make this long story a little shorter, I moved up here in July, got a job at the post office, and began delivering mail on your street about a month ago. Claire’s life has suddenly gotten a lot easier, and the kids are thrilled to have Uncle Rick around full-time. It seems to be helping everyone, except my mom, who’s now added me to her worry list. But that’s nothing new.”
“Wow," Ed said softly. "That’s quite a story. I mean, that you’d be willing to do that for your sister and her kids. My sister is the greatest, and her kids are okay, but I don’t know if I could do that. But then again, her husband’s a pretty cool guy.”
“There was nothing cool about Hank Romanowski,” Rick said flatly. “Look up asshole in the dictionary, and there he’ll be! Oh, it may seem like some great noble sacrifice I’m making, but for the kids’ sake, I’m glad to do it. Besides, you do what you gotta do for the people you love.”
Ed’s admiration of Rick grew. Nope, the guy was no creep.
“Man,” Rick said, looking embarrassed again. “Here I am, hogging the conversation! What about you? I don’t know anything about you except your name is Ed Stephens, you live on Coleman Street, and”—Rick dropped his eyes to the table, then raised them to Ed’s—“you’re awfully cute. By the way, my name’s Rick Benton. I just realized I never introduced myself. Hell, I feel like I already know you!”
Ed was blushing from Rick’s observation, not to mention the fact he already knew Rick’s name, or at least his first one. My God! He thinks I’m cute. The Dream Man thinks I’m cute. Somehow Ed managed to get past that to say, rather casually, that Ralph Graham had told him Rick’s name in passing.
“I guess I felt like I knew you already, too,” he said, looking again into those beautiful, dark brown eyes.
Rick looked steadily back. Ed knew he was not fooling himself. Something was definitely growing between them, not unlike the something currently growing in his jeans.
“I’m a handyman,” he finally managed to say. “I used to work for Marsden Electric, but I’m self-employed now. Like it a lot better, too.”
“A handyman,” Rick said, admiration in his eyes. “Wow! You mean you really go around, toolbox in hand, fixing things for people?”
Ed nodded, a fresh blush on his face.
“How ’bout that? A gay man who can fix things. That is so cool. Well, I know I already kinda said this, but I’ll say it again. You have got to be the cutest handyman in Porterfield, Indiana.”
Ed’s blush deepened, reddening his fair-skinned cheeks. He bolstered his shaky self-confidence and was able to reply, “I know you are absolutely the cutest guy who ever delivered mail in Porterfield.”
Rick lowered his eyes and smiled. “Thanks.”
“How’d you find this place?” Ed asked, to change the subject.
“Oh, Claire told me about it,” Rick replied, his gaze once again upon Ed. “Just like my folks, she’s cool with the gay thing. I
think she’s worried about me, since I haven’t had much social life outside of her and the kids since I moved here. She all but pushed me out of the house tonight, telling me to have some fun if it killed me.”
“You’re looking pretty alive and well to me,” Ed said, shocking himself at his own boldness.
“You too,” Rick said quietly, smiling again.
The bar was getting crowded. Ed noticed a long line of guys waiting for drinks at the bar, and he could just make out the bobbing heads of the dancers in the disco room. “Upside Down” was playing. Ed, who was not typically gay about some things, was definitely a gay man when it came to Diana Ross. He’d loved her since he’d first heard the Supremes on the radio years before. His foot tapped the beat against the floor, and he thought about asking Rick to dance.
“I love this song,” he commented.
“Me too.”
Rick’s smile became bashful.
“I’d ask you to dance, Ed, but I’m not all that good at it. Besides, I’d much rather dance to something slow with you.”
At the idea of actually touching Rick, that electric charge went through Ed again. “That would be nice,” he said softly. “And don’t worry, I’m not much of a dancer either!”
They both laughed. Rick took a long sip from his bottle of beer, and Ed raised his glass to his mouth, surprised to see that the ice had almost melted while they had been talking. He knew beyond any doubt that he wanted to get to know Rick Benton better—hell, a whole lot better—but wasn’t sure how to go about it. He didn’t want to do anything to offend Rick, and more importantly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to rush whatever was happening between them.
“I really like the music they play now,” Rick was saying. “But sometimes I miss the music from my high school days, in the late sixties.”
“Me too.” Ed couldn’t help but wonder what else they had in common. “I graduated in 1970. How about you?”
“Broad Ripple High, class of ’69,” Rick said mock proudly, “which makes me twenty-nine. And you’re . . . what? Twenty-eight?”