Where the Boys Are

by William J. Mann

  “Jeff,” she says after the waiter has taken our order, “I meant it when I said I want you to feel at home here.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “I’ve been coming to Provincetown for twelve years. I feel very at home here.”

  “Of course. But I meant at Nirvana. Our home.”

  She’s made the reference to “their” home already a couple times. Don’t think I’m not picking up on her subtle meaning.

  “Thanks, Eva,” I manage to say.

  “No, seriously. I really, really mean it. I want you to know that you are always welcome.”

  The waiter places two coffees down in front of us. I drink mine black. Eva doesn’t touch hers. She just sits there, hands folded over each other on the table, staring at me with those round button eyes of hers. She’s so small it’s almost creepy—except for those bazookas she tries to hide under her heavy wool sweater. She’s so busty and short, it’s a wonder she doesn’t topple over face first when she walks down the street.

  “So tell me about you,” she’s saying.

  “What’s to tell?” I smile. “I’m sure Lloyd has told you that he’s been hounding me to get writing again.”

  “I’m sure you’re a brilliant writer,” she says.

  I look at her oddly. “Why are you so sure of that?”

  “Just a hunch.”

  I sip my coffee. She still hasn’t touched hers. Part of me wants to give in, to be nice, but I have the sense that if I open up even just a little, this lady will suck me up faster than a superpowered Hoover.

  She fills up the dead air with her own voice. “There’s so much to do, getting ready for this house,” she blathers. “Permits and inspections and this and that. My head boggles sometimes. We have to go over to the bank today and open a joint checking account.” She looks at me intently. “Did you and Lloyd ever have a joint checking account when you were together?”

  Okay, I admit I’m on edge, maybe even looking for things to jump on, but there’s definitely something behind her words. “Did you and Lloyd ever have a joint checking account when you were together?” The implication is that A, we no longer are, and B, Lloyd is with her, and C, their fucking joint checking account makes them a real couple. Because she surely knows damn well Lloyd and I never did have a joint checking account.

  “You’re running a business,” I say, hoping that word forever dislodges the “our home” from her brain.

  She seems, however, oblivious to my chagrin. She just goes on chattering, like Henry at a circuit party. “Well, I was just wondering how you’d suggest we manage it,” she says. “You know, if Lloyd prefers to keep a running balance, or if he’d just rather someone else handle those things. I don’t mind. I’m good with figures. I have a feeling Lloyd’s more a big-picture kind of man, and that’s okay, because I do best with details. That makes us a good pair, I guess. You need the big picture and you need the details and you need—”

  “So how’d you find out your husband was gay?” I ask, interrupting her. “You catch him in bed with somebody?”

  She seems stunned by the question. “No.” She flushes. “He just told me.”

  I actually feel bad. It was an impulsive question, designed to shock, to shut her up. I soften. A little. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to be so blunt.”

  “That’s okay.” She quickly recovers. “You know, Lloyd is so much like Steven. Steven was a big-picture man, too. And very spiritual, like Lloyd. You don’t believe in all that, do you? Past-life regressions and psychic readings.”

  What has Lloyd told her? I pride myself on passing no judgment on Lloyd’s more mystical hobbies. Sure, I might make fun of them from time to time, but I have an open mind. Why would she think I don’t believe?

  I start to tell her just that, but she’s blabbing again. “I can understand skepticism,” she says. “I was a skeptic, too, but Steven promised to communicate with me—and he has. Through Lloyd. Lloyd has taught me so much. I suppose that’s why we’re together now. He needed someone to share this path with him. It’s something to be shared, the journey into spirit.” She stops talking and looks over at me significantly, touching my hand. “Lloyd needed someone to believe in him.”

  Okay, here it is. She’s crossed the line.

  “Are you implying I don’t believe in Lloyd?”

  She seems unnerved by the question. “Oh, no! Not at all! No way was I implying that, Jeff! I was just talking about myself. I wasn’t thinking about you.”

  I watch her for the rest of the time. She has exactly two sips of coffee. She talks only about Lloyd: about how much he’s taught her and inspired her, how much he reminds her of Steven, how wonderful he is, how handsome. “And gay,” I want to add but don’t. I just nod my head. All the way back to Lloyd’s apartment she keeps chattering about him, about their future together.

  “I’m still learning all of his likes and dislikes,” she gushes, a schoolgirl enthralled by the dashing quarterback. “Do you know he likes ketchup and tomato sauce but not fresh tomatoes themselves? Isn’t that peculiar?”

  “Yes,” I inform her. “I knew that.”

  But the only thing I find peculiar about Lloyd at this particular moment is the fact that he wants to share a house with her.

  Lloyd

  “You’re going back to Boston?”

  I can’t believe what Jeff’s just told me.

  He nods. “The snow is getting heavier. I should get on the road before it really gets too bad to drive.”

  Eva’s just left to move her car so the plow can get down the street. “It’s already too bad,” I argue. “Besides, we still have so much to talk about. We’d been making progress. And you promised you’d spend the night.”

  His eyes hold mine. “With Eva sleeping on the couch? The quarters are a little too tight for me, Lloyd.”

  I try to take his hands, but he won’t let me. “Jeff, please don’t go. I know she comes on a little thick—”

  “This is your thing, Lloyd. Yours and hers. I don’t belong here.”

  “Yes, you do …”

  “No, I don’t. The two of you have a lot of planning to do. Lots of decisions to make. You’ve got tile to pick out, checking accounts to open …”

  My heart drops. I feel angry. “So what’s waiting for you in Boston? Nothing but a trick on your couch.”

  Jeff narrows his eyes at me. “Better than some crazy straight lady.”

  “Jeff, please. Give her a chance.”

  “I gave her a chance. And she wasted no time in letting me know that I have no place here, that it’s about you and her.”

  “You’re being stubborn and defensive! She told you that she wanted you to feel at home here, Jeff!”

  He spins on me. His eyes look crazy. For an instant it’s the old Jeff in front of me, the one who threw fits, the one who didn’t guard his emotions like the Crown jewels in the Tower of London.

  “Can’t you see?” he says, his voice rising. “That’s just it! Her wanting me to feel at home. That implies she has the power to make me feel that way. Or not. Power that you’ve given her. Don’t be so dense, Dr. Griffith! You understand power differentials! You talk about them in lectures. You counsel your clients about them.”

  I shake my head. “You’re the one who’s feeling powerless, Jeff.”

  He seems to calm down. The passion in his eyes dissipates right in front of me. “Maybe I am,” he says. “Maybe I am, and I don’t like the feeling. I felt that way once before, Lloyd. I felt pretty powerless when you walked out on me after six years because you were feeling discontent. That was a pretty awful feeling, and maybe I don’t want to feel it again.”

  “Jeff, if you’re still angry at me for that, you need to—”

  “I need to make sure I don’t let you do it again.” He seems to suddenly stand taller, and his words are deliberate. “You say you want me to be a part of this, Lloyd. Yet I’m not. You never talked about it with me. You never asked my feelings. You bring in someone and expect th
at I’ll love her. That we can recreate what we had with Javitz. Admit it, Lloyd. That’s what you hoped for. That it was going to be you and me and Eva the way it had been with Javitz.”

  I just look at him, at a loss for words.

  “Well, that’s not fair to me or to her,” Jeff says. “She’s not Javitz.” He draws close to me. “She’s in love with you, Lloyd, and if you can’t see that, then I think it’s time for the doctor to heal himself.”

  He slips on his jacket and begins putting on his gloves.

  “I love you, Lloyd, but I’m not going to risk getting hurt again.”

  “Jeff, I don’t want you to leave.” Suddenly, the idea of spending the night alone with Eva seems unbearable without Jeff at my side.

  Then the front door suddenly opens and she stumbles back inside, trailing snow and slush across my floor.

  “Would you please remember to wipe your shoes?” I snap.

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” she exclaims, suddenly anxious and remorseful. She removes her boots and begins wiping up the snow with her gloves.

  “Eva, leave it,” I say, regretting my outburst and stooping down to assist her back up. “It’s fine.”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” She seems near tears. She looks from me over at Jeff. “Are you leaving?”

  He nods. “I want to hit the road before it gets too slippery out there.”

  “Well,” she says, and I marvel at how quickly she can transition her emotions. She takes Jeff’s arm, looking up at him warmly and strolling with him toward the front door. “I want you to know you are welcome here anytime,” she tells him. “Please know that, okay?”

  He looks over at me. “Thanks,” he says, and I can’t miss the sarcasm, even if she apparently does. “How very kind of you to say so.”

  She holds his hands tightly and beams. “It has been wonderful meeting you, Jeff.”

  He turns and leaves. I don’t even get to kiss him good-bye.

  That Night, Boston’s South End

  Henry

  “She’s a total freak show,” Jeff’s telling me.

  I try to balance the cordless phone between my shoulder and my ear as I unknot my tie, slipping it out from under my collar. The phone had been ringing as I walked through the door. “Worse than I imagined,” Jeff’s saying. “Way worse. Like psycho killer worse.”

  “Jeff,” I interrupt, “can you hang on just a second? I’m getting another call.”

  I hear Jeff sigh. I know how much he despises being put on hold for call-waiting. But Shane had left a message for me at work saying he was going to call tonight about something important.…

  “Hey, my sexy man,” Shane breathes.

  I laugh. “What’s up?”

  “Roundtrip to Philly just ninety-nine dollars.”

  “That’s what you were calling to tell me?”

  “The Blue Ball, sweetie. You said you couldn’t afford to go.”

  I laugh again. “Shane, I’m not sure …”

  “You’re not going to wait four more months to show off that physique again, are you? Come on, stud. All those circuit boys dying to see you …”

  “I’ll think about it,” I promise. “I’ve gotta go. I’ve got … someone on the other line.”

  “Who?”

  “My mother. See ya.”

  I switch back to Jeff. “I’m sorry.”

  “You know I hate that, Henry. I was ready to hang up.”

  “Jeff, I’m sorry.” God, he can be so fucking entitled. Shane calls Jeff a diva, and he sure is acting the part now. “So finish telling me,” I say. “I want to hear.”

  I unbuckle my pants and let them fall to the floor, pulling on a pair of sweats as Jeff goes on—and on—about how he thinks this is finally the end of him and Lloyd, that he must have been crazy to think they were getting back together, that this time Lloyd has really gone off the deep end with this crazy bitch, yada yada yada blah blah blah.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t give up yet,” I counsel. “Maybe there’s a reason for all this.”

  “Bullshit.”

  I stick my tongue out at him through the phone. He’s really bugging me tonight. I hate how whenever I try to offer advice, Jeff says, “Bullshit.” Had it been him saying the same thing to me—as he has numerous times—he would’ve expected me to thank him profusely for his insight and wisdom.

  “The worst part of it is,” Jeff’s saying, “when I got home, Anthony had gone out! Can you believe it? Out on his own!”

  I’m almost dumbfounded. “And what’s wrong with that?”

  He makes a sound in exasperation. “I don’t know where the fuck he is! He just left a note: ‘Hope you had a good time at the Cape. I’ll be back later.’ That’s it. Not where, not when.”

  “He needs to tell you where?”

  “He doesn’t Know Boston!” Jeff lowers his voice. “And Henry. He took his backpack.”

  “So?”

  “So he has his toothbrush in there and all that shit. I mean, is he coming back tonight? Tomorrow? Next week? What the fuck does ‘later’ mean?”

  I’m reaching the end of my rope. I can’t remember feeling this impatient with Jeff in a long time. Maybe Shane is right. Maybe I am too enmeshed with Jeff.

  “Look,” I say, trying to keep my voice level, “you told him you were going down to spend the night with Lloyd in Provincetown. Did you really expect him to sit at home hoping you’d change your mind and come back? Honestly, Jeff, sometimes you—”

  “I gotta go.” I can hear the petulance in his voice. I’m not being understanding enough. I’m not supporting him.

  I sigh. “Now don’t get mad at me.”

  “Henry, I’ve got to go.”

  “Okay, bye.”

  Dial tone.

  I’m actually quite pleased with myself. I didn’t buckle under the way I usually do, begging Jeff not to hang up, apologizing for my impatience and letting him ramble. And I don’t feel guilty, either, as I usually do when I’ve said or done something to upset Jeff. I don’t feel the need to call him back and check in and make sure he’s okay and ask if maybe he wants me to come over.…

  Okay. So maybe I do just a little bit. I put my hand on the phone for a second. Jeff’s my best friend, and he’s hurting—

  “No,” I say out loud. This time Jeff can just go through his dramas on his own. I have my own stuff to think about.

  I sit down at my computer. Dinner can wait. There’s something I’ve been thinking about all day, something I want to check. I log onto America Online.

  “You’ve got mail,” my computer chimes at me. There’s a message from my mother (“Don’t forget your Uncle Sol’s birthday”), two forwards from Jeff about how a Ralph Nader candidacy could give the White House to George W. Bush in November (“If that happens, it’s like going back twenty years”), and a quick note from Shane, obviously sent within the last few minutes: “Let me just repeat myself. Roundtrip to Philly just $99. Tickets gotta be purchased by midnight tonight.”

  I sign off. Sure, that’s easy for Shane to say. I discovered the Windex queen is a fucking architect, making six figures a year. “Whatever,” I grouse to myself.

  Sitting next to my computer are this month’s bills. My parents always warned me about spending beyond my means. Still, I went ahead and bought that black Jeep Wrangler after watching those bootleg copies of Queer as Folk. I love my Jeep, especially last summer tooling around off road in the dunes of Ptown. But with payments of three-hundred-plus a month, it’s an expense I probably could’ve lived without. No one needs a car in Boston.

  Here’s the deal. I make a decent living, but I’m always short on cash. Even after six years at the same job, steadily advancing through the ranks, I’ve yet to really save any money. Of course, I tell my parents I have, even making up some fake mutual funds I claim to have invested in. Otherwise I’d get one of my father’s famous lectures about how when he was thirty, he’d already made a killing in the stock market. He also had three kids and a
mortgage. At least I don’t have that—the kids or the mortgage.

  I take a deep breath and sign on again, this time under my “slut name.” Everyone I know has at least one slut name. Mine, like most, changes every couple of weeks. Currently my handle is MuslStudBoi4U, and my profile reads: Hot, good-looking muscle stud, 5’10, 175, brown/brown, swarthy, muscular. If I’m online, it means I’m looking. If u ask for a pic, u send first. I especially love that “swarthy” part.

  I scroll down through the chat rooms. There it is, the one I’m looking for.

  EscortsM4M.

  It takes several tries but finally I get in. I’ve noticed these chat rooms before; they’re always filled to capacity. No one is talking. I wait a few seconds, not sure what I mean to do by coming in here. I’d just been thinking about it all day. I glance at the screen names of others in the room: TopStud4Hire. StunningScort. XHndsmEscort. I check their profiles. A couple have links to personal Web sites. Hot photos and rates. Shane’s right: Two hundred bucks an hour. Even more for outcalls. One claims to be a porn star and charges three hundred fifty. An hour! Even lawyers and psychologists I know don’t get that much.

  I sigh and click out of the room, entering into more familiar territory. BostonM4M.

  Almost immediately: Brrrnnnng. An Instant Message. Some guy with a screen name of LeanMuslNBost. Sup dude, LeanMusl writes.

  I type back: Sup with u bro?

  I laugh to myself. Nobody talks this way in real life. At least none of us white South End gay boys who gather in this room every night at the same time. But it’s the online lexicon. If someone instant-messaged me with, Hello, how are you? I’m not sure I’d respond.

  Horny as hell, the guy writes back.

  Me 2, I type in reply.

  These chat rooms have replaced happy hours in the gay subculture. Sign on in the comfort of your own home and cruise the guys you would’ve met at the bar. I’ve never actually hooked up this way, of course, but I know plenty of guys who have. Jeff included.

  My second phone line rings. I turn the phone over to check the caller-ID. It’s Brent Whitehead. I groan. I haven’t returned Brent’s calls since I got back from New York. I’ve been dreading hearing about what a fabulous time he had in Miami. But I can’t avoid him forever. I press the TALK button and say hello, cradling the phone between my ear and my shoulder as I type.