I open my eyes. I discover it’s not Lloyd I’m pressing up against, chest-to-chest. It’s some other guy, a blond hunk with incredible pecs, an awesome taper, and abs that look like speed bumps. Hello, baby. His eyes are burning into mine, so intense that I have to literally blink back from his gaze. The guy would be totally perfect except for one thing: he’s what Brent would call profoundly “R. C.” Rhythmically challenged. He moves like a marionette whose operator has rheumatoid arthritis.
“Sup,” says R. C.
I smile. Stiff or not, the guy’s abs are definitely lickable. “Sup with you?” I ask back.
“Jeff.” Lloyd is suddenly behind me again, his lips in my ear and his arms encircling my waist. “Can we talk?”
I turn fast, pressing myself into Lloyd’s torso, a little embarrassed, as if he’d caught me in the act of something.
“Yeah,” I say quickly. “Let’s move over to where we can hear ourselves think.”
I take his hand. I don’t know why suddenly it all feels so scary. But it does. In moments like these, I always think about Javitz. Usually I do my best not to think about Javitz. But whenever I get scared or confused, suddenly he’s right there—right there, but of course, not really. That’s the fucking problem.
I guess this is the point where I’m supposed to fill you in about Javitz and tell you why he mattered and how he figures into the story. Those of you who never met him need to know why this guy still has such a hold over me and why his death makes me run away from emotion and all that. Well, forget it. I’m not going there. Not tonight. I’m here to have fun, to forget. You’ll just have to find out from somebody else.
Lloyd
I can see all the thoughts going through Jeff’s head. I can see him getting guarded and defensive, which only makes me all the more anxious to tell him what I need to say. As we head off the dance floor, I know he’s thinking about Javitz—or, more accurately, trying not to think about Javitz. I also know he’s not going to tell you more than that. So I guess it falls to me.
You see, Jeff dealt with his grief over Javitz’s death by diving headfirst into hedonism. I think a lot of guys on the circuit have done that. It will probably come as no surprise to you that I dislike the circuit. I attended enough parties in my twenties to know what I’m talking about. Looking around me as we leave the dance floor, I see so many wounded souls. We’re the despised gay tribe, after all, and our wounds run very deep. It’s why gay men seek so many sexual partners, I believe, and why they take drugs, and why they bulk up—becoming as big as the bullies on the playground, so big and strong (they subconsciously believe) that no basher or virus can ever touch them.
I don’t mean to use the word they as if I’m separate from the rest of the gay population. I don’t want to come across that way, though I admit that at times I do feel outside gay culture. The only reason I’m here in this cesspool tonight is because of Jeff. I want out as soon as possible, away from this collective denial of what makes us whole. It’s just not part of the way I live. Where Jeff and so many others have dealt with their pain and grief by indulging in sex, drugs, and disco, I took the other route: I became celibate. After Javitz’s death, my celibacy became a fast of my soul, a cleansing of my spirit, an honoring of what we had all been through together. I found refuge in Provincetown, a place Javitz had loved, sitting in quiet contemplation on the breakwater, listening to the wind and looking at the stars.
Some background here on me. I’ve always believed our souls have paths. Maybe not the soul nor the path that my father, a Lutheran minister back in Iowa, taught his congregation about. But in some ways it’s the same thing: we come from somewhere, we make certain choices in this life, and then we go somewhere else. I was raised on a farm, where I slopped pigs and slaughtered chickens and watched the cows give birth to calves, and I discerned early a pattern to life. It’s about finding your fate, your purpose, your place in the cycle. Each life that we live in succession is founded on what we did (or did not do) in the last. I grew up with a fear of getting stuck, of missing my turn, of being trapped on the farm, a chicken with my neck never far from the block. I’ve always questioned my place, chafed at limitations. The last of twelve kids, I was the only one to go to college, to leap into unknown territory. My siblings never ventured more than a few blocks from Mom and Dad, and all are now happily settled with kids and chickens and pigs of their own. And as much as they try, my parents can never quite figure out just what their son the “doctor of philosophy” does for a living.
Sometimes I had a hard time with it, too.
You see, about a year before Javitz died, I quit my high-paying, high-stress job as coordinator of a crisis program for a major Boston hospital. It came on the heels of all sorts of shake-ups, not least my decision to live apart from Jeff. I moved to Provincetown with the hope and the prayer that I could find something else to do with my life, to get back on the path I was certain I’d lost. But my disconnection to my life only got worse after Javitz died. There had to be more, I told myself; there had to be life beyond the walls of grief. Passion had long been my holy grail: where could I find it so that it wouldn’t again slip away, where it might settle into the integral fabric of my life?
That’s when this dream first took hold—the dream I want to share with Jeff now. That’s why I wish so fervently that Javitz were here—physically here—here and now, in this stinky, sweaty club, so I could feel him, touch his greatness, partake of his profound wisdom. Am I doing the right thing? I want to ask. Is all this crazy?
“I’ve made a decision,” I tell Jeff when we finally find a space away from the madness of the dance floor. “I wanted to wait to tell you until tonight because I thought the new year would be perfect to talk about it. It’s a new start for me. A new beginning.”
Jeff raises his eyebrow but he says nothing.
“I’m going to buy a house,” I say quickly. “A guest house. A bed-and-breakfast. In Provincetown. With Eva.”
There. All the pertinent info is out. And Jeff’s face shows no change in expression. I wait for the reaction, but there is none.
Had he even heard me?
Jeff
I heard him. I just can’t remember who the fuck Eva is.
“We decided for sure tonight,” Lloyd’s continuing. “We looked at the place last week. It needs a little work, but it’s really in great shape. In some ways this is a tribute to Javitz. You know, it’s the money he left me, and he loved Provincetown so—”
“You’re buying a bed-and-breakfast?” I ask slowly. “That’s what you wanted to talk with me about?”
Lloyd tries to smile. “Yeah.”
I blink once, twice. “And you’re buying it with … Eva?”
“Yeah.”
I shake my head, trying to comprehend. “This is the woman you met at the seminar? The lady with the house on the Upper West Side who was having the past-life regression party tonight? The party you wanted Henry and me to come to?”
Lloyd nods.
I’m flabbergasted. “Since when have you wanted to run a bed-and-breakfast?”
Lloyd looks a little embarrassed. “Well, actually, I hadn’t really thought of it before, until Eva started talking about it. But it just seemed perfect. You know how aimless I’ve been since Javitz died. You know how I’ve wanted to do something new, take some new chances. This feels like it could be it.
“So you’d be—staying—in Provincetown.”
The weight of what he’s saying finally settles down on me, like a heavy, wet blanket.
“Yes, Jeff,” he says. “Eva and I would live at the guest house as well as run it.”
I struggle for words. “And you’ve known her, what? A month?”
“Three months, Jeff.” Lloyd is acting defensive, and I can tell he doesn’t enjoy it. I know how much Lloyd hates being put on the defensive.
But I don’t feel particularly sensitive to his issues at the moment. “Lloyd,” I say, “running a bed-and-breakfast isn’t easy.”
His cheeks flush. “Do you think I think it is?”
“I don’t know what you think. I certainly didn’t know you wanted to run a guest house.”
Lloyd glares over at me. “I’m sharing good news here with you, Jeff. This is good news.”
I shrug. “If you see it that way.”
I see the anger boil up behind his eyes. My calmness is infuriating him. I think he’d have preferred that I threw something. Or stalked off in a snit the way I used to.
“I know what you’re thinking, Jeff,” Lloyd snaps. “You think I’m just going off on another flight of fancy. Like you thought when I moved to Provincetown. I know you, Jeff. I know you think I’m blundering into something, with someone I don’t know, that I haven’t thought it through. You think I’m still floundering, not knowing what to do with my life. I know how you think, Jeff. Do you give me no credit at all?”
I’m watching him calmly. “Lloyd, I think you’re maybe putting some words into my mouth.”
“Isn’t that what you think?”
“I don’t know what I think. Okay, yes, I do. I think you are blundering into something, but if you want to blunder, go right ahead. I want to dance.”
“Is dancing really more important than talking to me?”
I sneer. “I paid good money to dance. We can talk anytime.”
“You know what, Jeff?” he sputters. “If you can’t be supportive, then just don’t say anything, okay?”
He storms off. I just stand there, shaking my head.
What the fuck just happened? Funny how your whole perspective can suddenly shift, become something entirely different, in just a matter of seconds. In my mind I’d already been rearranging my closet to accommodate Lloyd’s clothes. But Lloyd isn’t moving back to Boston. How stupid of me to think he would. Like he’s ever been able to make a commitment to me. Ten minutes ago I was pretending to be ambivalent about the whole idea. Now I feel nothing but a shattering disappointment.
All I want to do is get back out there on the dance floor and forget the whole thing. At the moment I don’t care where Lloyd has gone. I just need to dance.
Henry
I turn around and there’s Jeff.
“I need to talk to you,” he says. He glances over at Shane, who hasn’t left my side. Not for a moment. “You’ll excuse us for a moment, I trust?”
Shane turns his hands up toward the ceiling. “Certainly. One of those mysterious huddles the beautiful boys are always having. What was it this time? A little snort of Miss Tina?”
Jeff ignores him and pulls me by the arm off to the other side of the dance floor. He looks me straight in the eyes.
“Lloyd is buying a guest house,” he tells me. “A bed-and-breakfast.”
“Jeff, I’m a little too twisted to play non sequiturs with you.”
“Listen to me, Henry. He’s buying it with that woman. Since when has he ever wanted to buy a guest house?”
“What woman?” I ask.
“The one he wanted us to go see tonight and get sent back to the Dark Ages with.”
I laugh. “Well, a bed-and-breakfast might be a fun thing to do.”
Jeff scoffs. “Get a grip, Henry. It’s a shit-load of work. You ask any of the guest-house owners in Provincetown. What’s Lloyd want that for?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you should ask him.”
“I couldn’t. He stormed off in a huff when I didn’t jump up and down and shout ‘Yippee!’”
I fold my arms across my chest. “And the reason you didn’t, Jeff, is because you were hoping he’d move back in with you in Boston. Admit it.”
Jeff scoffs again. “He can do what he likes.” God, I hate when Jeff’s disingenuous. He thinks he’s fooling people, but he’s just so obvious. He sniffs, “I just think he’s in over his head. He doesn’t realize all the work it’s going to be.”
“Look, Jeff.” I get up close to him so that our eyes are no more than a few inches apart. “You read my lips for a change. You want things to be the way they used to be with Lloyd. Admit it. Make it easier on everybody.”
Jeff sighs. His eyes can’t lie, not so close to mine. I step back, suddenly uncomfortable with our proximity.
“Well, it’s a moot point now,” he says.
“Go find him before he leaves,” I tell him. “You will be miserable to be around if the two of you have a fight.”
He sighs.
I give him a shove. “Go. Work it out. And if you’re going to leave with him, at least come back and say good-bye.”
Suddenly, Shane is hovering over us. “Are you through plotting to take over the world and exile all of us uglies to Antarctica?”
“Excuse me,” I snap, annoyed, “but we’re talking here.”
Shane winks and withdraws a few feet.
Jeff can’t resist a smile. “I think the Windex queen is hot for you, Henry.”
I roll my eyes. “Jeff, he offered to pay me.”
“Pay you?”
“Shhhhh. Yes. Pay me.”
Jeff looks stunned. “You? He wants to pay you?”
I make a face at him. “You don’t have to act like it’s so incomprehensible.”
Jeff laughs. “So you gonna let him?”
I suddenly can’t answer. I just keep looking back and forth between Jeff and Shane, surprised by how much the idea fascinates me. After all, Jeff and Lloyd are in the midst of one of their things—I sure can’t count on them being around the rest of the night. And I don’t particularly relish the idea of being alone on the first night of the new millennium, either.
Jeff’s acting distracted again. “You’re right, buddy,” he says, looking back into the crowd. “I should go find Lloyd.”
“Then go.”
He turns to leave, then spins back. He pulls me to him, embracing me tightly. “Just be careful, buddy, okay?” he looks at me intently. “I love you, you know.”
I feel my throat tighten.
See why he’s my best friend?
I watch as he heads shoulder-first into the throng. I take a long breath, keeping my eyes on him until he’s disappeared. I’m not even aware of Shane stealthily moving back beside me.
“So how about it?” he whispers in my ear.
I look up at him. He’s not that bad-looking. Ordinary. The way I used to be, before Jeff.
“Let’s dance,” I say, taking Shane’s hand and leading him back onto the dance floor.
Lloyd
I find myself standing in the line snaking out of the men’s room, my arms folded across my chest and a black cloud hanging over my head. Why the fuck isn’t the line moving? All these vapid boys doing their fucking drugs in the fucking toilet stalls and none of the rest of us able to take a pee.
Then I laugh. I let out a long breath and realize I don’t really have to pee, that heading here had been merely an excuse, a place to go after walking away from Jeff.
I shake my head. I had behaved exactly the way Jeff used to. And he’d acted like me, standing there all calm and psychoanalytic. He had learned the game all too well.
I turn around to find him. I’ll apologize. I’ll admit that maybe there was some truth to the questions he raised, and ask if he’ll help me look at them. You see, I want Jeff to be a part of this. That’s how I should’ve presented it. That’s how I should have led off. I’d like you to help me with a project…
But Jeff isn’t where I’d left him. He’s slipped back into the writhing mass of bodies.
I sigh, not wanting to wade out there again. Suddenly behind me I feel hot breath and a pair of hands. “Hey, sexy,” someone whispers in my ear.
Some drunk guy is grabbing my ass. I can smell the alcohol and cigarettes even without looking around at him. God, how I hate these places. I shake the guy off and take a deep breath. I fight my way back onto the dance floor to find Jeff.
It doesn’t take me long. He’s looking for me, too.
“Jeff, I’m sorry,” I say.
He smiles. “Me, too.
”
I put my arms around his neck and kiss him. The dance floor must be 110 degrees. Steam rises between us.
“I guess I was just feeling a little sensitive,” I say. “Jeff, I want you to be a part of this. I really want your support.”
He’s nodding. “I know you’ve been wanting to find something new, Lloyd. I was just a little surprised, that’s all.” He gives me a smile. “I’ll support you in whatever you choose.”
“That means so much for me to hear.”
I kiss his neck. I can feel my dick getting harder, even without any X to goad me on. I run my hands down Jeff’s arms, felling their hardness, the curve of his biceps, the solid horseshoe of his tris. I want to make love to Jeff tonight. I want to consummate this moment, ensure that our reconciliation is real.
“How much longer do you want to stay?” I whisper in Jeff’s ear.
“A while,” he says, and immediately I pick up on the distance.
I pull closer. “I was hoping now that the clock had struck, we could go celebrate on our own.…”
Jeff smiles tightly. “Well, I’m having fun here.”
I move my head back so that I can look at him. “Jeff, you know I came here just to see you. You know I don’t like hanging out in these places very long.”
“Maybe if you just gave it a chance, Lloyd.”
“I don’t like being mauled by strangers. I don’t like the drugs.”
“Why is that all you see?”
“Jeff, I only came here to be with you.”
“I understand that, Lloyd.” He gives me a smile that seems sincere, but I’ve known him long enough to recognize it’s anything but. “And I’m appreciative you came so we could be together at midnight. But if you want to go, I understand.”
I try to keep contact with him, but Jeff closes his eyes, leaning back and moving to the music. I know what he’s doing. He might not throw fits anymore, but he’s still pissed. He’s learned how to say he’s sorry but not how to live it.
Damn him. Maybe I had brought it up wrong, but that was no reason to wash four months of progress down the drain. Well, I know one thing: I’m not going to stick around and play that game. I’m not going to beg him to come back to Eva’s with me. I’m also not going to stay in this stink-hole much longer.
Where the Boys Are Page 3