by Jay Bell
Chapter Nineteen
Some ghosts haunt you for life. The best you can do is make room on the couch and get used to living with them.
That’s what Eric had said before Tim made the drive back to The Woodlands. Here it was, Spring Break, when most of his fraternity brothers were flocking to the beaches for booze and babes. And Tim? He was on a familiar street in a sleepy suburban neighborhood, standing across from a house that once felt like home. Not the whole house. Just one room on the second floor. Tim wanted nothing more than to knock on the door, pat Wilford on the head when Ben answered, and trot up the stairs to their special place.
In his mind, Ben was still seventeen years old, skinny legs exposed from the knee down, because of course it was summer. Whenever Tim pictured Ben, it was always summer. He wondered, if by some twist of fate he knocked on the door and Ben answered, if he would even be recognizable. Maybe Ben had changed since high school, finally hitting a growth spurt and taking on the features of a man. Would he still be impressed by something as trivial as Tim’s muscles or marvel that he could paint?
Remembering why he had returned to The Woodlands, Tim sighed and walked down the street to his car. Then he drove a few blocks to his parents’ house. He had memories here too, so many secret nights in his bedroom, but Tim had already muddied them in his senior year, tearing them apart and fighting them to exhaustion. The memories at Ben’s house—they were untouched, still pure in his mind.
“¡Gordito!”
Tim’s hand slipped off the knob as his mother opened the door. Smiling, she pulled him into a hug. “Mom! I didn’t know you would be here.”
“Of course,” she said as she ushered him in. “You called to say you were coming.”
Just to let them know. He didn’t expect them to wait for him. “Is Dad here?”
“No, he had to work, but I took the day off. Let me look at you!”
Tim basked in her attention. She took him to the kitchen, where she began heating up some leftover rice pilaf as a snack, promising to take him out to eat for a real meal.
“Then I thought we could go shopping,” she said. “You could use some new clothes. Look how big you are!”
She made this statement like he was still growing inches taller every day. Tim smiled anyway. He wasn’t expecting a welcome like this. Not by far.
“You eat. I’ll finish getting ready.”
His mother already looked fabulous, but Tim liked that she was getting dressed up for him. If only every day could be like this. He finished the leftovers, then put the plate in the sink and went upstairs to his old room. Little had changed, aside from the clutter. He hadn’t packed much when he left for Austin. Before leaving for college, Tim moved everything from his studio to here, knowing his father would want the space back. His paintings—and he had produced a lot of them that final year—were everywhere, all positioned so the fronts couldn’t be seen.
He flipped through them, scoffing at those he found embarrassing and setting aside the few he liked enough to show Eric. That familiar itch came back to him when he touched canvas, smelled the long-dried paint. How had he survived the last year and a half without this? Then again, painting at the frat house seemed impossible, even if he had the nerve to ask for studio space, so Tim dismissed the thought and took the paintings he still liked down to the car.
When he came back in, his mother was ready. The funny thing about parents was how easily they fell back into old roles. Tim might as well have been twelve again. His mother drove, then decided where they ate and where they shopped. She even tried to pick out his clothes for him. Luckily her taste wasn’t too different from his own, so Tim didn’t have to assert himself much. In the afternoon they walked the mall, both reluctant to call it quits, even though they had bought everything they wanted.
“Do you need cologne?” his mother asked.
“I have four bottles back in Austin.”
“Maybe you aren’t using enough,” his mother said. “Women like a man who smells good.”
He thought about telling her, right then and there. What did he have to lose? She would cry, but eventually she would get over it, he hoped. If not—well, he would miss days like these, but they were far and few between.
“When am I going to get a grandbaby?” Ella asked.
Tim laughed, mostly because his parents had never been ready for kids. But then he supposed grandkids might suit them better. Pick up the kids when they needed a fix and send them home when they were tired of them. His stomach sank. Of course she would be sad about that possibility flying out the window. Adoption was still an option, but he wouldn’t do that without a partner. For that matter, why should he come out when he didn’t have anyone? What was there to gain?
“We should probably head home,” Tim said. “I want to drive back to Austin before it gets late.”
“You aren’t staying?”
He shook his head. There would be no point once his father got home and his mother’s attention returned to him. Lucky bastard! Tim would love to have a person like that in his life, someone he could rely on. Someone who made him feel loved.
Then Tim realized that such a person already existed.
* * * * *
“It’s not about having something to gain,” Eric said. He was sitting at the dining room table, piles of mail and bills spread out on the wooden surface. The house had an office, but Eric always seemed more comfortable in an environment suited to food. “Coming out isn’t about convenience, either. You do it so that others can love you.”
“Funny,” Tim said, “I don’t do it so others will keep loving me.” He was beginning to regret telling Eric about his day out with his mother. Tim sat across from Eric, tipping back in a wooden dining room chair while watching him work. Eric wore half-moon glasses that made him look both silly and cute.
“They don’t love you,” Eric said, half-distracted by writing a check.
“Wow. Thanks.”
When Eric realized what he’d said, he looked surprised and shoved away the checkbook. “What I mean is that they can’t love you. Not completely, because they don’t really know who you are. The good news is that they love the version of you they know, and the real Tim isn’t so different from him. He just prefers guys, that’s all.”
Tim wasn’t convinced. “If it’s not that big a part of me, I’d rather keep it from them.”
“Because if you don’t, they might not accept you.”
“Right.”
Eric shook his head. “That’s one of the biggest misconceptions gay people go through. While in the closet, we want everyone to accept us, when in truth, people are only accepting a lie. Do you like women?”
“I’m a four on that Kinsey scale or whatever it was, remember?”
Eric peered over his glasses, looking very much like a stern teacher. “You know what I mean. Are you going to marry a girl, settle down, and spawn children like your friend Travis plans to?”
“No. Not a chance.”
“But that’s what they expect. What they’ve accepted isn’t you. Since you haven’t really been accepted by them, you shouldn’t worry about being unaccepted. Does that make sense?”
“In a convoluted way, I guess so.” Tim mulled it over. “Of course, right now I sort of have a neutral status, which is better than being unaccepted.”
Eric moaned dramatically. “Now I see what poor Ben had to put up with.”
Tim grinned. “There were benefits too.”
“I can only imagine.”
“Hey,” Tim let all four chair legs hit the floor, “do you want to see my paintings?”
“You brought some with you?” Eric perked up. “Of course!”
Tim went out to his car and returned with the six paintings that had made the cut. He showed them to Eric, one by one, making excuses for little things he wished were different. Eric was encouraging, saying two nice things for every self-criticism. When show and tell was over, Eric appeared thoughtful.
“What
strikes me most,” Eric said, “is how each painting is in a different style. I wouldn’t have thought they were from the same artist if I didn’t know better.”
“Yeah, well, most of them were painted at totally different times of my life. I experimented a lot, I guess because I was always looking for my own style. I just never found it.”
Eric tapped a pen on his lower lip while he thought. “It’s not too late.”
“To start painting again? I don’t know.” But Tim did. Even tearing apart his favorite work with criticism made him want to try again.
“I’ll hire you to paint me,” Eric said with a bashful smile. “You can’t be filthy rich without an arrogant portrait hanging on the wall. Marcello has three.”
“I’m not surprised.” Tim looked at Eric anew, hunched over the long dining room table, overwhelmed by a mess of envelopes, stamps, and checks—looking small in the face of it all. The secret burden of being rich. It would make a great painting. “I’d have to get back into shape, practice before I even try.”
“Do that,” Eric said. “I’ve always wanted to play patron to a real artist.”
Tim sat across the table from him with the one other thing he brought with him from home—his old sketch book. It was only half full, since he didn’t really enjoy sketching, but it made a good starting point. He scratched out some rough ideas, enjoying working quietly alongside Eric. That is, until he heard a gasp.
“What is it?”
Eric was holding up a magazine, the free kind made from the same cheap stock as newspapers. Mouth open in surprise, Eric turned it around so Tim could see the cover. He noticed first the title, set in rainbow letters: Gay Austin! Then Tim noticed the image below. There, for all the world to see, was a photo of himself, naked except for a pair of designer briefs. What he was wearing, was an annoyed expression caused by the hot surfer dude sticking a tongue in his ear.
* * * * *
Tim gripped the wheel with one hand, scrolling through the contacts on his phone with the other. Where was the bastard? Aha! Highlighting Marcello’s name, Tim pushed the button to call him and scowled against the morning light. His head hurt from the six-pack he had downed last night after Eric’s discovery. Tim had been a whiny nuisance and Eric had been a saint, listening to a list of worries so old that even Tim had grown tired of them.
“Good morning, Mr. Wyman!” Marcello sang in his ear.
“Fuck you!” Tim responded.
“I’d be honored to let you, if I weren’t such a domineering top.” Marcello chuckled at his own joke, before asking, “What’s wrong?”
“The cover of Gay Austin!”
“Ah, I just saw that myself. I wish the print quality of those magazines was better. They don’t do the photo justice.”
“You didn’t know about it ahead of time?” Tim asked, his anger taking a smoke break.
“I only deal in sales for the big clients. The little ones buy from our catalog.”
“Well, someone could have warned me about that before my face was plastered on the cover of a gay magazine!”
Marcello scoffed. “I thought you would be thrilled.”
“I’m in the closet, you asshole!”
“Oh!” The line crackled quietly before Marcello spoke again. “What’s the point?”
“Of what?”
“Of being in the closet.”
Tim snarled, hung up the phone, and tossed it to the passenger seat. What a dick! Gay Austin! was the sort of magazine given away for free in bookstores, along with other independent publications and real estate guides. Surely it was only a matter of time before someone recognized him.
He pulled up to the frat house, expecting his brothers to spill out the front door, howling with laughter. But when he got inside, everything was normal. The few guys who were awake were just as hung-over as he was, so no one paid him much attention.
Two days later, and still nothing had happened. Maybe he had overreacted. Tim hung around the frat house more than usual, waiting for the bomb to drop, but eventually let down his guard. He shouldn’t have. Returning to his room one night, he found a copy of the magazine on his bed.
“What’s this?” he said to Rick, but his roommate just stared at Tim with wide eyes, like he was going to be assaulted by a syringe full of gay at any second. “Did you put this here?”
When Rick didn’t answer, Tim tossed the magazine at him and went downstairs to the common room. The atmosphere got a whole lot thicker when he entered. Three brothers were lined up on the couch, each holding an open copy in front of their faces, snorting and snickering behind them. Tim noticed a couple more copies scattered around the room.
“Tim.”
He spun around. Quentin stood in the doorway. He was smiling, but his lips were tight.
“What’s up?” Tim said like nothing was wrong.
Quentin shook his head. No dice. He wasn’t getting off easy this time. “You want to explain yourself?”
“I needed some money and did some modeling.” Tim shrugged. “So what?”
“So what?” Quentin walked over and grabbed a copy from one of the guys on the couch. He looked at the front again, as if he couldn’t believe it. “It looks to me like you’re doing more than just modeling.”
“The other guy was straight,” Tim said. “It was just a job.”
“Oh, okay,” Quentin said sarcastically. “The other guy was straight. That’s good to know, Tim, because we’re real concerned about him.”
Quentin crossed his arms over his chest. A couple more brothers had entered the room, attracted by the raised voices. They weren’t looking too friendly.
“Is there something you want tell us?” Quentin pressed.
Travis walked in the room. The second he saw Tim, he turned and walked back out. Fuck him. Fuck everyone! Tim wasn’t going to stand there and beg for them to believe him. They never would anyway, not completely. “I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of,” he said.
The room grumbled like thunder before a storm, the tension desperate to break.
“Fag.”
And there it was, the first flash of lightning, the first drop of rain. Tim wondered if this was the room Eric had stood in years ago, facing accusations that shouldn’t have mattered. Instead of feeling fear, Tim felt oddly proud to be following in his footsteps. Eric was a good man, better than anyone here, and Tim wasn’t about to act like a coward when Eric had once bravely endured such hate.
“Am I a fag?” Tim glared in the direction the slur had come from. “Because last time I checked, I was your brother.”
“You can’t be both.” Quentin said.
That made it final. The others would follow his lead, no matter how they felt.
“Thanks, Big. Way to take care of your Little.” Tim made his way to the common room door, turning around to face them one last time. “I’m not the only one, you know. Not by a long shot.” Tim made eye contact with a lot of them—not the ones he knew about or suspected, but those who were probably straight. With any luck they’d start a witch hunt and end up burning themselves.
Tim went upstairs to his room—Rick fleeing for safety—and grabbed his suitcase from the closet. He didn’t have much to pack except for his clothes. He spent more time at Eric’s these days than he did here. Hopefully Eric wouldn’t mind him staying over a few nights until he found a place of his own. On the way out of the room, Tim spotted the magazine on the floor and picked it up.
“Call me whatever you want,” he said to himself. “I look damn good.”
He rolled up the magazine and stuck it in his back pocket. Then he left the frat house with his head held high. He heard laughs and jeers, but somehow they weren’t as upsetting as he’d always imagined. By the time he got in his car, he felt prouder than he had in years.
When he rang Eric’s doorbell, suitcase in hand, Tim put on his best puppy-dog eyes. “Will paint for food,” he said when Eric opened the door. “And a roof over my head.”
Eric smiled and ope
ned his arms wide, welcoming Tim home.
Chapter Twenty
People change. Catching them in the act, that’s the trick. No one has seen a wrinkle etching itself into skin, or witnessed the moment a hair turns gray. Stomachs become flabby and muscles begin to jiggle, the transformation not hidden and yet undetectable. None of this happens overnight, but age often comes as a surprise. Usually an old photo is to blame, indisputable evidence that skin had once been tighter or eyes brighter. Other times aging is revealed in a chance reflection, a moment of confusion over this older person who looks strikingly familiar.
For Tim, the process of aging was presented to him like a play, one he repeatedly dozed off through. He would wake from the distraction of everyday life and see Eric with fresh eyes, realizing how much he had aged in the last year. Or even the last six months. Eric insisted the chemo was to blame.
Winter had been hell for them both. Tim finally talked Eric into trying chemotherapy, even sitting with him while the drugs were pumped into his veins. Then came weeks of illness, with Tim taking care of Eric as best he could during his recovery. At the end of the month, when Eric was back to being his old self, he returned to the hospital for another round of chemo, and the cycle would repeat.
Convincing Eric to return for each subsequent treatment hadn’t been easy, but they made it through together. Having recovered from the final round of treatment, Eric seemed like his old self again. Except in appearance. Chemotherapy hadn’t stolen his hair, but his face was more gaunt and his frame thinner, as if a black hole was eating him up from the inside.
“Stop doing that,” Eric said, lowering the book he was reading.
“What?” Tim said innocently from the opposite end of the couch where he was curled up.
“Looking at me that way. You promised you never would.”
Tim shrugged dismissively. “I’m a painter studying his subject. That’s all.”
“Well, study me when I don’t look like hell.” Eric set aside the book and massaged his temples. “Do you have classes tomorrow?”