If I Must Lane

by Amy Lane

  “Well, if I get in the way of you getting laid, let me know, right, mate?” Ian grinned, and Joel blushed for no good reason he could think of.

  “Whatever. Look, man, just get this stuff.” He had a thought. “Do not stop, do not pass go, do not get anything but what’s on that list.”

  “What about some takeout for dinner?”

  “And dinner. And by the time you get back, I’ll have clothes ready to go in the washer, and we can go together.”

  Ian blessed him then with the widest, sweetest, most grateful smile. “Well, if I must do laundry, I couldn’t ask for better company.”

  “So,” Melody said seriously while washing out the pie tin, “you keep his life for him, and he pays for dinner. Sounds like you’re his houseboy or something!”

  Joel had to roll his eyes. “Not even that glamorous. And it’s not like that. He just… he loses track of the world so thoroughly, you know? All those clothes on the floor? It was just easier for him to go out and buy new clothes than it was to find what he needed in what he already had. I went through and organized, and he had, like, three pairs of the same jeans!”

  Melody laughed for a minute and then looked at him thoughtfully. “Doesn’t that get old though? You know, keeping someone’s life for them?”

  Joel shrugged. “He’s kept it up since I organized it. And trust me, he’s got his own life. In fact, I think he fucks anything with a pulse!”

  “Oooh… lots of hot women coming in and out of your pad?”

  Joel flushed. “Like I said, …um, anything with a pulse.”

  Melody turned to him in titillation, her well-crafted eyebrows reaching her hairline and her mouth making a little moue. “Really. An equal opportunity kind of guy?”

  Joel’s blush intensified. “Yeah, um, I can’t say much for his taste, though.”

  The boy with the unbuttoned jeans and bare chest was pretty, Joel would give him that. The kid’s hair was tousled, carefully streaked, and his little heart-shaped face and brown eyes were truly charming.

  Joel would have been more impressed if he hadn’t found the boy rifling through Ian’s pants and palming his credit card.

  Christo! Joel had to shake his head. On the nights that Joel worked late, he would sometimes find Ian gone when he got home. In the morning there would be a stranger doing a red-faced walk of shame out of Ian’s room. Usually the stranger was female, but not today.

  “Hey, you, what the fuck you think you doing, punto? You get the hell away from shit that don’t belong to you!” Joel’s accent—the product of being brought up in a mostly Spanish-speaking home—only came out when he was back at home or really, really pissed off.

  The kid started guiltily and dropped the jeans and wallet, scattering the credit cards on the (clean!) floor. “Hey, baby, don’t get mad at me because your boy got takeout last night!”

  It was probably the ingratiating smile on the kid’s face, but in about two seconds, Joel had him pinned to the pretty purple wall with his forearm at a slender, corded throat. “I could give a shit what he sleeps with, as long as it doesn’t take him on the twinkie express when it’s done.”

  “Yeah?” the kid hissed. “What’re you gonna do? For all you know he liked what he got!”

  Joel rolled his eyes. “Yeah? For all you know, he thinks you someone dead who was doing some sexy math in his dreams.”

  In less than a minute Joel had hustled the kid out onto the landing and slammed the door in his face, ignoring his cry of, “But I don’t even have my shoes!” Then, in as quiet a huff as he could manage, he tiptoed into Ian’s room. He tried to ignore Ian’s sprawled, naked body on top of the covers as he began to quietly pick up the clothes on the floor he knew for certain weren’t Ee’s.

  “Mmmmm,” Ian groaned, just as Joel was about to close the door and let him sleep, “Joel? S’that you?”

  “Yeah, popp, uh, Ee. What you… what do you want?”

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Saturday chores?” Joel tried, and Ian sat up sleepily. God, his chest and abs really were cut! And his… never mind. Joel wasn’t going to look at that. It was huge, but he wasn’t gonna look.

  “Saturday?” Ian murmured. “Don’t we usually get breakfast on Saturdays?”

  Joel resisted the temptation to say something catty, like Well, yeah, did you want to take your Friday Night Special too? And instead concentrated on the fact that Ian seemed to have forgotten about Twink Lightfingers who was standing half-naked on the landing.

  “Yeah, Ee,” he said with a sigh, “but first I’ve got to take out the trash.”

  Later, over pancakes at IHOP (because it was Ian’s favorite, that’s why) Joel read him the riot act.

  “For Christ’s sake, Ian, he was stealing your cash! I hope you at least wore a raincoat, you feel me?”

  Ian blinked. “Why would I want a raincoat, Joel? I was having sex.”

  Joel put his face in his hands, closed his eyes tight, and prayed that when he looked up and opened them Ian would be kidding.

  He wasn’t.

  “A condom, Ian, I hope you used a condom!” Oh God, he was not having this conversation with a twenty-something bisexual college professor. It was not possible.

  “Why would I?” Ian asked seriously. He looked anxious. It was as though he understood he’d done something wrong, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it was. “It’s not like either one of us can get pregnant, right?”

  “Disease, Ee?” Joel realized he was on the verge of tears. How had this man managed to live on his own and be this innocent? “You know, HIV, herpes, shit that’ll make your dick fall off?”

  Ian’s eyes were suddenly saucer-shaped, and his mouth was wide open. Oh yes, now the light bulb was on. “Oh, well, shit, mate, I never thought about that! I just….” He cocked his head, something suddenly occurring to him. “And how would you know about that? I didn’t know you swung that way, do you?”

  Joel shook his head. “I want to Catholic school, where they teach you everything with a healthy dose of ‘God will hate you if you do that, but if you want God to hate you go ahead’. Or maybe that was Sister Margaret.” Joel tried a laugh, but Ian was looking more and more distraught, so he tried some kindness instead. “Look, Ee, we’ll get you tested. It’ll be no big deal.”

  “Do you believe that?” Ian asked suddenly, a pinch around his eyes. “You don’t believe that God hates me, do you?”

  Oh crap. Heaven save Joel from literal mathematical geniuses. “No,” he said softly, trying to do anything to take that pinched look from those Easter-sky eyes. “I think as long as you care about the person, and you’re being good to each other, God’s all fine with it. But that’s why this worries the hell out of me, Ian. You don’t even like these people. I mean hell, I don’t think you even remember that kid’s name!”

  “Benji,” Ian supplied helpfully, and it was all Joel could do to not make gagging motions with his fingers.

  “Yeah, whatever, it’s like when I’m not there, you wander out and bring back a warm body. You deserve better than that, Ee. What you’re doing is dangerous, and you could get hurt, and I don’t want that to happen.”

  Ian shrugged and looked away. “I don’t know, mate. I used to be okay, but now… you’re not there. It gets lonely in the place, right?”

  Joel did laugh now. “Jesus, Ian! Get a cat!”

  That lost look went away, and Ian looked across the table and grinned back at him. “That’s an idea. I like cats.”

  They were sitting near a window, and Joel found himself fascinated by the way the light hit that halo of curly blond hair and brought out the reddish hints in Ian’s eyelashes. He stopped himself and thought of a way to keep Ian safe.

  “Okay, then, you look for a cat, and I’ll promise to call when I’m going to be late, deal?”

  The look on Ian’s face transcended “pleased” and bordered on “sublimely happy”.

  “Right, mate. If I must!”

&nbs
p; Joel and Melody made it to the couch, each one sitting on the end and tangling their legs companionably in the middle. Melody was channel surfing with the sound off, listening avidly to Joel’s latest story, and when he was finished, she leaned her head back sleepily. Joel was pretty tired himself, but, well, he missed his big sister. They’d bickered, like most children, but he’d always loved knowing she had his back—bullies at school, his first broken heart (a girl from public school their father hadn’t approved of)—she was Joel’s own personal pit bull, and really, until Ian, his best friend.

  “Honey, that’s sweet and all, but really, don’t you think you got enough to take care of with this Ian person? You really want a cat?”

  Joel felt his expression go soft and a little dreamy. He couldn’t help it—he knew how it must look, but…

  “Ee actually takes care of the cat,” he said truthfully. “Ian feeds it, and he’s the one who took it to the vet when we first got it.”

  Melody snorted, her eyes half closed in sleep. They’d talked until nearly one in the morning. “So he can’t take care of himself, but he can take care of the cat? How’s that work?”

  Joel shrugged. “I think he thinks the cat’s more important.”

  A week after their little sex-ed discussion, Joel came home to find a little tin of high-priced cat food on the landing.

  The thing eating out of it and snarling through spittle-covered whiskers barely passed for a cat.

  “Ian?” Joel called, jostling his bike and his backpack over his shoulders and hoping they could co-exist for just a few more steps. He’d just come from work and was wearing his bike shorts. “Ian?” Gingerly he reached over to open the door (Ian rarely remembered to lock it) and swung a leg over the threshold. The cat—a dark brown short-haired behemoth with pale tortoise-shell stripes on its side—stuck out a massive paw and clawed his bare ankle.

  “Ian!” Joel screamed, not wanting to kick this new development off a three-story landing and not wanting to lose any more blood, either.

  Ian popped out of his room—shirtless, as usual—and trotted over to help Joel through the door.

  “He got you? Why would he get you?”

  Joel glared at the cat who looked at him and growled some more. “Because I interfered with his evil plan to rain destruction down on mankind,” he said sourly, and the freaky thing licked its whiskers and damned near smiled.

  Ian laughed, and now that Joel was safely inside, he sank to his haunches and scratched delicately under the cat’s chin. The feline monstrosity had the balls to purr.

  “Hullo, you manky bastard,” Ian murmured. “You giving Joel a hard time? You can’t, you know. He was here first.”

  Joel looked at the cat in a mixture of humor and horror. “Well, it’s nice to know I rate!”

  Ian’s grin appeared again, and Joel wondered why the cat suddenly looked more like a cat and less like a refugee from a zoo. “Rate? Brother, you’re more important to me than Riemann!”

  Joel had to blink. Wow—Riemann was like the guy’s god—or at least the subject of his latest paper. Joel took a big breath and realized most of his irritation with the animal was gone. All that was left was his perpetual good humor.

  “Jesus, Ian! I said get a cat —I didn’t say to just let one wander up to the house.”

  Ian turned that sunny smile up at Joel one more time, and although he refused to admit it, Joel’s heart stuttered in his chest. “I don’t know, brother. That’s sort of how I got you, isn’t it?”

  Joel’s mouth went sober. He met Ian’s gaze and flushed, and Manky Bastard (as the female cat would forevermore be known) sank her pointy, street-cat teeth into the ball of Ian’s thumb.

  Ian shouted and stood, and the little opportunist took that moment to run inside the apartment and sit, snarling, in the corner of the bathroom between the toilet and the tub. Joel, still a little dizzy from that long look he’d shared with Ian, went out and got cat litter, a box, and a pooper-scooper, and they put it where the cat seemed to want to stay. Ian had already bought enough food to last the damned cat a year. (They still hadn’t gone through even half the Fancy Feast under the counter.)

  Joel made two appointments the next day: one for the cat, which Ian kept, and one for Ian, because his thumb turned blue and doubled in size. Joel took Ian to that one. While they were there, he made Ian take a blood test too.

  The results were negative, and Ian had promised to go back after the window period was over. “Well, if I must!” Whenever he said that, Joel had no doubt he’d do it.

  Melody seemed to have gotten her second wind. She sat up on the couch and was staring avidly at Joel’s face. Joel wondered if she could see something he couldn’t.

  “So now you gots a cat?” she asked, her face soft in the glow from the television. Joel had no doubt his sister could be hard as nails when she was driving a bargain or running her staff, but with him, she was all Little Mommy.

  Joel nodded and grimaced. “You should see Ian with her. He brushes her, feeds her shit that cost more than my food, and she thinks he put fish in the damn ocean. But she’s sick. I think she’s just old.” He shuddered. “I hope she’s okay. Ian really loves her.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Melody’s voice went up at the end of that, and Joel found himself sitting up and looking at her funny.

  “What was that for, mammi? It sounds like you thinking something you shouldn’t!”

  Melody shook her head. “I’ll tell you when I’m ready, little brother. So, you think he’ll take care of the cat when he can’t take care of himself?”

  “I know he will,” Joel answered softly. That was one story he didn’t want to tell Melody. For some reason it just hurt too much.

  Joel had been gone for a two-day seminar. He’d asked Ian repeatedly, “You going to be okay, Ian? You going to be okay?” But he had to go—what, he was going to tell work he was going to turn down free training because his roommate was a flake?

  He got back to find a mound of open, empty cat food tins on the floor, and Ian sitting shirtless on the couch. (He was always shirtless. The man would have clients come over to get their taxes done, and he’d meet them in cargo shorts, flip-flops, and sweat.)

  He was eating cat food out of the tin, and he was stinking drunk.

  “Ian?” Joel asked, dropping his luggage on the floor inside the door. “Ian, what the hell? You said you’d meet me at the airport! I had to take a cab!”

  “I’m sorry, mate,” Ian said, sounding more than distraught. “I was gonna.” He nodded solemnly. “I was gonna… but I woke up this morning, and there was nothing in the fridge but beer. And cat food. There was lots of cat food. So first I drank the beer, and then, when I threw up, I ate the cat food!” He sniffled a little, sounding pathetic, and then he had what looked to be an attack of clarity.

  “What kind of asshole lets a friend down like that?” he asked himself cruelly, and he sniffled again.

  Joel stared at him in blank horror.

  “Jesus, Ian,” he said softly, walking to the refrigerator and feeling lost. “There’s corndogs in the freezer, you know that, right?”

  Ian started to giggle softly, and he put the cat food down on the floor next to the couch. “Thank God, mate. I thought I was going to have to puke again!”

  Joel told himself it was anger as he threw the corndogs on the plate and broke out a can of corn to nuke with them. Jesus. He and Mel had been fixing themselves dinner since the third grade; you’d think a certifiable genius with an IQ of 170 would be able to fix his own goddamned lunch, would be able to….

  Joel turned to Ian, who was sitting on the couch looking so dejected that Joel’s heart lurched.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered, not even trying to meet Joel’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m a pain in the ass. I know I am. I- I’m up all night and I never wear clothes and… I just… when you’re not here, all I am is the stuff in my head. I’ve got curves and hyperboles and Riemann and Gauss and they’re sayin’ shit and the world loo
ks clear but time… it just passes, and I don’t see it. How come I know mathematical theory, but I can’t count to sixty? What kind of right is that? And the only thing that makes me more than the shit in my head is doing something for Bastard or…” Ian swallowed, hard, “or when you’re here. You’re the only one who makes me… real.”

  Joel realized that helpless tears were running down Ian’s face. Oh God. He hadn’t even said a word—not one goddamned word—and here he’d gone and made Ian cry.

  The microwave dinged in the silence between them, and Joel grabbed a towel and brought the plate over, not forgetting the fork for the corn and the ketchup.

  Ian took a bite of corndog and seemed to pull himself together, smiling that sunshine smile through his muddle-headed misery, and Joel wanted to do something, stroke his face, pet his wild hair, do something that would reassure him.

  He thumped him heartily on the thigh and hoped that worked okay. “Look, Ee,” he said softly. “I’m mad at you because you’re my friend here. I come home, and you’re falling apart. How’s that supposed to make me feel? I can take care of you for you, but you can’t take care of yourself for me? C’mon, Ian, I worry about you.”

  “I was just fine before you came along, I swear!” Ian nodded eagerly. “I pay bills. I’ve got money. I make it to my lectures.” He smiled for a moment, shaken out of his despondency. “You should see me give a lecture, mate. I sound… smart, you know?”

  Joel nodded seriously, because he actually had seen Ian lecture one day, when Ian hadn’t known he was there. Ian had been poised and intelligent, and even funny, but that man was hard to see in the lost soul Joel was feeding now. Something in Ian’s handsome, sweet-natured face haunted him. Ian may have stayed alive, he may have made it through school across an ocean and into a job, and he may even have managed to pay the bills (he was, after all, an accountant), but whatever he had been before Joel got there, Ian had obviously not been “just fine.” No amount of thinking about teaching the guy to take care of himself would ever assure Joel that he would be “just fine” without Joel, himself, personally, to help in the task, and he just didn’t want to think any further than that.