I Loved You More

by Tom Spanbauer

  A dream bigger than that, better, I couldn’t imagine.

  THE NEXT MORNING Margaret’s at her stove frying eggs. She’s smoking a cigarette. The reason I notice the cigarette is because after smoking cigarettes at night, a cigarette in the morning always made me sick. I’m filling the percolator with coffee. I’m feeling sick. Hank’s in his white T-shirt and his jeans, sitting at Margaret’s round oak table in the kitchen of her double-wide, buttering whole wheat toast. None of us got to sleep before three, six o’clock New York time. Hank slept on the couch. Me on an air mattress on the floor. Sleep, if you can call it that.

  Outside, the sun is bright coming in through the lace curtains. The fresh coffee smells good. I’ve never seen Hank look so hungover.

  “How do you like your eggs, Hank?” Margaret says.

  “However I can get them.”

  Margaret puts out her cigarette in a big, green glass ashtray, washes her hands in the sink, puts lotion on them, then sets a big oval orange plate of fried eggs, ham, and hash browns onto the table. Both Hank and I go for the food. We didn’t really get any supper. Margaret sits down at the table, slides her chair in. She makes the sign of the cross, folds her hands. I know I probably should too. But I don’t. Instead, Big Ben gets up, pours coffee all around. When Hank sees Margaret, he bows his head, too.

  Idaho. This is what we do in Idaho. We pray. To Jesus Christ to have mercy on us. To the Virgin Mary to save us. To all the saints to intercede for us. We pray for the poor souls in purgatory. We pray for the missions in Africa. We pray for the defeat of communism. We pray so that it will rain. We pray it won’t rain. We pray for more snow pack on the mountains. We pray it won’t freeze. We pray for our immortal souls. We pray we won’t go to hell.

  “Happy Birthday, Sis,” I say.

  “Yeah,” Hank says. “Happy Birthday.”

  Margaret slides an egg, a slice of ham onto her plate, grabs a piece of toast.

  “I didn’t tell you,” Margaret says. “Kevin’s rented a stretch limo. A white Cadillac. Tonight, we’re going to hit all our favorite bars in Pocatello.”

  A hitch in my breath. Something behind Little Ben’s eyes fries a little. Hank looks up, too. Margaret sees my look and, fast as she can, she says:

  “It’s a white stretch Cadillac,” she says, “with a driver. It’s one of Kevin’s birthday presents.”

  Hank’s black eyes are checking me out. Christ I’m always an open book.

  “You still going to make it to the reading?” I say.

  Margaret goes for her pack of Virginia Slims, pokes out a cigarette, lights it, inhales deep.

  “What time is it again?” Margaret says. “Eight, right?”

  “Eight sharp,” I say. “Wilbur Tucker’s hitting the fire bell eight o’clock sharp.”

  “Oh sure,” Margaret says. Exhales. “Anyway we should make it by eight.”

  IN MARGARET’S TINY bathroom, Hank showers first. Hank shaves while I shower, or tries to. He can’t keep the steam off the mirror. Halfway through my shower, the hot water goes. I let out a yell and jump out of the shower. Hank’s got a towel wrapped around him, white shaving cream half on his face. His black eyes look over at me, at my body, and his eyes look down. No big deal. Every guy is curious. I go to cover my cock and balls but I don’t. Little Ben acts like I think a straight guy would. That it’s perfectly normal to be standing naked in a tiny room so close we’re almost touching.

  MARGARET WORKS AT the university and she’s set the book-signing gig up. She didn’t have much time. Big Ben had made the whole Idaho Book Tour thing up on the spot in the Strand Book Store. In the two weeks, she’s managed to get the book signing and the reading at the Blind Lemon advertised in the Idaho State Journal, plus she got the ISU bookstore to agree to let Hank and me bring our own books to the book signing and not take a cut.

  That morning, we load our books into the tiny trunk of Margaret’s blue Mazda sports car. Margaret drives us to the university, Hank and I jammed in both on one seat. Hank’s on my lap, or let’s say his body is part on my left leg and part over the gearshift. Hank’s either got to bring his left leg close into him so Margaret can shift, or he has to open his left leg way out so she can reach between his legs to shift. That’s when it starts, the laughter. Then halfway to the university, Sis drops her cigarette. Somewhere down between our tangle of hips and legs and arms, there’s a cigarette burning. By then we’re laughing so hard Margaret has to stop the car. Good thing there’s no traffic on the country road. The cigarette has rolled down by my left foot, I can see it, but can’t get to it. Sis reaches down through our legs and I look and I can see the manicured, polished nails of her hand feeling around down by my foot.

  “Little more to the right,” I say.

  Sis’s hand goes onto Hank’s white tennis shoe. It ain’t long and Hank says:

  “The other right.”

  Laugh. That’s what we do in Idaho. So hard I have to roll down the window.

  Finally somehow Margaret gets her Virginia Slim back, and gets it back between her lips and we’re off again. Hank’s big arm at the back of my head. My head pushed down into his armpit. Mennen. Red potatoes, raw, and earth. Never smelled Hank up that close. Sweat is what tells the tale true.

  In the parking lot, Hank has to reach down to grab the door latch because my whole left side is dead and my right side is too smashed against the door. When the door opens, Hank and I fall out, two of the three stooges.

  Idaho. The Book Tour.

  Hank and I each get our suitcase of books out of the trunk. Margaret’s just pulling away when I grab the car at the open passenger window. Margaret stops the Mazda. She looks at me like she’s always looked at me. A mixture of tenderness and something else. Her little brother.

  “Remember,” I say, “eight o’clock.”

  “Okay,” Margaret says.

  “Kevin knows that the reading’s at eight, right?”

  “See you then,” Margaret says.

  “Blind Lemon,” I say. “Wilbur Tucker rings the fire bell at eight sharp.”

  HANK AND ME, both our suitcases are luggage. You know, those Samsonite-looking things. Hard rectangular boxes with latches that snap. A lock in the middle that tiny keys unlock. Hank’s is covered in a faux dark brown leather, and mine is powder blue. I can’t even remember where I got this fucking powder blue piece of shit luggage, but there it is, heavy, really heavy, in my right hand.

  That moment. Little Ben standing in the ISU parking lot next to Hank, in the wind, in the hot noonday Idaho sun, holding onto the handle of my stupid powder blue suitcase filled with my twenty-four books, watching Margaret drive off in her blue sports car. I should have known better. But what there was to know wasn’t knowable yet.

  That first time, my first book, I thought there was no longer any reason for the world not to pay me attention. I’d shown that I could do it, make something of myself, make art, important art, and the New York Times had said so. The truth is, I thought the publication of my book had bought me passage. From then on my destiny would be different. Finally, I could get on the sailboat. At One Fifth Avenue, I’d take the elevator up to the penthouse with the arched tall corner windows. Switch on the crystal chandelier you could see in there at night. The blue plate on the kitchen wall. Pressed starched linen. Chablis Grand Cru. Truffles. Café de Flor. Havana, Cuba. People to love you like Hemingway.

  Love. The hole in me I didn’t even know was a hole it was so big would be filled and I could stop the way I lived in the moments of my life, empty. Love, not a speck of it.

  Havana, Cuba. Now there’s where I should’ve gone. Instead I go straight to Pocatello, Idaho.

  If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.

  In a world of shit. And Little Ben didn’t have a clue.

  You never go back to your hometown if what you’re looking for is love.

  “IT NEVER FAILS,” Hanks says. “As soon as I walk onto a college campus, I always got to take a shit.”<
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  In the student union, everything is like it was. Clean, shiny expanses of windows, granite floors, mopped and waxed. The sun shining in. Back in my day, Friday at noon, things would be hopping. On this Friday, though, from where I’m standing, there’s only two tables of people in the cafeteria. No receptionist at the front desk. On the events calendar, a happy face with magnetized letters that say: Have a fun weekend! Outside on the quad, I count seven people.

  In the main floor lavatory, the toilet stall where Hank’s taking a dump is the place where I scored my first ounce of marijuana.

  Twenty-four hard-bound books are heavy. I set my fucking powder blue suitcase down. The air condish seems to be running overtime. Still, beads of sweat roll down from my armpits.

  IN THE BASEMENT, just as you walk into the ISU bookstore, on the right of the door is a wooden table covered with orange and black ISU Bengals stickers. Behind the table, two orange plastic chairs. Overhead bright fluorescence. On the table, a sign, swirly red letters, outlined in gold: 1:00pm – 3:00pm author signing. There’s a woman at the cash register who smiles when we walk in. She looks up from her book but doesn’t greet us. The black and white clock above her head is straight out of grade school. Hank sets his suitcase down, unloads his suitcase. I unload mine. Gold, diamonds, rare pearls, truth, the way we touch our books, lay them onto the table, one book on top of another, spine to spine. Hank with his yellow orange books, me with my blue green. In two piles, in three piles, finally four short piles each with one book propped against a pile so passersby can see the cover.

  By one o’clock we’re set up. Hank’s piles of twenty-two books in front of him. My piles of twenty-four in front of me. Hank and I move the orange chairs around, sit our asses down onto the hard plastic. Hank’s wearing his good white shirt. I’m wearing my blue Oxford shirt. Good Catholic boys. On time. Prepared.

  In the glass partition, bright wavy reflections of Hank and me. Hank’s forehead is way too shiny. He’s sweating Budweiser big time. I don’t look at my reflection. In lighting like this, you don’t look at your reflection. The display table next to us is piled high with Bengal Tigers, stuffed with potpourri. Lavender, eucalyptus, patchouli. Hank cuts one of his famous farts and it isn’t long and we have to move a bunch of those Bengal Tigers over onto our table.

  1:45. HANK SAYS, “How many years ago you say you graduated from here?”

  At first I say, “seven,” and then add again, then say, “seventeen.”

  Seventeen years.

  Across the double doors from us, at the cash register, the woman is middle-aged with light brown hair in a flip. Under the overhead bright fluorescence her hair looks gray. Her dress is a blue printed shirtwaist that goes below her knees. It looks gray too. Twice now, she’s come over and asked Hank and me if we would like a refreshment. Each time, Hank and I say no, and each time, after she leaves, Hank says, “A refreshment? What is a refreshment?”

  “She’s Mormon,” I say.

  “That explains it?” Hank says. “A refreshment? How do you know she’s Mormon?”

  “The frock,” I say. “The hair. You just know.”

  2:15. THE UNRELENTING fluorescence from above reflects onto the glass counter. A faux German beer mug with ISU Bengals printed on the side sits next to the cash register. I put my hand on the glass counter, lean onto it. The way the Mormon Lady smiles at me would freak any New Yorker.

  “Excuse me,” I say. “The campus seems so empty. Where is everybody?”

  That smile of hers stays put.

  “It’s the weekend,” she says. “Most students have gone home.”

  “Wow,” I say. “It’s so different from when I went to school here.”

  That smile doesn’t change one centimeter. I expect the Mormon Lady to ask me when that was, or how long ago was that, or that must have been decades ago, but she doesn’t say anything. Her glasses are tortoise shell, big and round.

  “This book signing was advertised in the Idaho State Journal, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she says. “In Buzz of the Burg, just last Wednesday.”

  “Has anyone called or ordered any books?”

  She takes off her big round tortoise shell glasses, folds them, lays them next to the faux German beer mug. Her eyes are blue, but under the light look gray.

  “No,” she says. “No one has called.”

  The place on the glass where my hand has rested leaves a smudge. I walk across to our table, sit back down in the orange plastic chair. At the counter, The Mormon Lady’s got out the Windex and a rag.

  Hank says: “Maybe these people’s children, who are just now graduating from high school, will come in and buy some books.”

  Hank laughs his chest up when he says that, but for a reason I don’t understand yet, his words hit hard, almost knock the breath out of me. I can tell how I look by how Hank looks at me. Little Ben is all over on my face. Of course I’m trying to cover up, and of course I can’t.

  “Gruney! Baby!” Hank says. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” I say.

  Hank scoots his orange plastic chair up against mine.

  “Your sis will show up tonight,” he says. “Don’t worry.”

  Hank’s knee touches my knee. That’s all it takes.

  “It isn’t just that,” I say. “I don’t know. I just thought.”

  I’m biting my lip. Little Ben’s fucking chin is going to start turning into rubber bands any second.

  “It’s been almost an hour and a half,” I say. “No one is here. I thought at least Bob and Jim and Brent, maybe Fred, from high school would show. They all read the newspaper. What the fuck? And then there’s my fraternity brothers and Diane and Mitch and Lloyd and Suzanne. They all work here at the university for Chrissakes.”

  “You heard the lady,” Hank says. “It’s Friday and everyone’s gone home.”

  Over at the cash register, the Mormon Lady is pretending she can’t hear us.

  Hank says: “Did you make plans to meet with any of these people?”

  Hank’s question is like a foreign language. Plans? Big Ben doesn’t make plans. I was reviewed in the New York Times. People should just know.

  “Not really,” I say.

  “Did you send out any invitations?” Hank asks.

  “No,” I say.

  “Why?”

  “They’re all Mormons,” I say.

  “Then why the fuck do you expect them to show up?”

  Things start crashing in about then. The dream in me, ancient and so strong I hadn’t even considered that it wasn’t real. Like the dream I was dead and everybody who’d hurt me was standing around my open coffin crying their eyes out. My dream of coming home had played so many times in my head, I couldn’t imagine any version where I wasn’t the exalted hero.

  In that moment, under the bright fluorescence in the hard orange plastic chair, I tried my best to answer Hank, one part of my mind trying to contact another part, but I didn’t come up with anything. Couldn’t say what I didn’t know yet.

  Havana. I’d have been much better off in Havana, Cuba.

  What Hank says next, he says no different from how Hank usually says things. Direct. No nonsense. And way too loud.

  “Do they know you’re gay?”

  The Mormon Lady looks up. The black and white clock above her head, the red second hand, stops. 2:37. Everything stops. All the traffic lights in Pocatello, the seven people left on campus. Stop. My heart. My breath. Even Hank stops.

  A pain right between my eyes. Dizzy. Fire on my heart like the sacred heart of Jesus. My stomach doing flips. Last night’s margaritas, today’s bad gas. Then something really weird. Something my body remembers but thought it had forgot. But it’s more like a somebody.

  It’s Little Ben, the tormented Catholic nightmare version of him, me. That picture in the Baltimore Catechism of Heaven, Limbo, Purgatory, and Hell. At the top, the clouds and the sun and the bearded white God in a heavenly gown, the trumpets, the rays of
light, the angels. Then down and down and down, the descent into suffering, Limbo, Venial Sin, Mortal. How my eyes went down, straight to the nastiest, the most miserable of all, at the bottom of hell. Every time. That naked guy down there, with his front to you and he’s got no cock, just a straight line down there, his crotch like a woman, flames all around him up to his ass. Suffering without hope.

  Little Ben down there all alone in hell. Just him and his original sin.

  Everybody up in heaven pointing down at him and laughing.

  THAT MORNING ON her bed, on the white chenille bedspread I don’t remember, September or October 1948, lying in the patch of sun. The Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder. She is my mother, without her I will die. I look close into her eyes to see how I’m going to be. She sprinkles the white powder on my cock and balls, around my bum. It feels cool and dry and something else. I kick my legs, let go a big smile for my very first time.

  The audacity to get hard in front of the Virgin. Our mother, Mary. My mother, Marie.

  My sin.

  The first time Virgin Mary Marie was alone in a room with a hard dick she could control.

  All those Vatican statues with their cocks lopped off. Somewhere down in the catacombs, drawers and drawers of Dead Lorca severed penises.

  Cock-hating, fucking Catholics.

  How can a cockless man in hell, full of hate, flames up to his ass, no fucking way out of this mess, do anything but blame himself the way his mother blamed him? Then the humiliation, the degradation, the sharp needle adrenaline rush, the sick pain he begins to jones for: to lose, to lose, to lose and never win, to always be wrong, off, to be cast out, never to be good enough, big enough, hard enough.

  Mother Church, Papal Bull. Hell is your Virgin mother got inside you. Once that shit gets in, it grows and grows and doesn’t stop growing. The world outside a loop, outside what is inside, one example after another after another. How you’re not good enough. How everybody else has got it better.

  THE BLACK AND white clock above the Mormon lady’s head says 2:38. Hank’s face is up close. Gay is a blinking red neon word between his black eyes and mine.