Openly Straight

by Konigsberg, Bill

  Probably not, but you can never be too careful with these things.

  “Do you think Toby and Robinson?” Ben said as we reached cruising altitude and I’d popped my ears so that I could hear.

  I looked at him. There was no irony in his voice, nothing that told me he was pretending what happened last night hadn’t happened. No Brokeback here, I realized. Ben was too good for that.

  “I don’t know. Hairy butt and all?”

  “Perchance,” Ben said.

  My brain was spinning. Maybe all the guys were doing gay stuff, like if we dug a little bit, we’d find out that Steve and Zack were buddies too. “Do you think it’s, like, everyone?”

  “Everyone what?”

  “Never mind,” I said.

  We played cards and I ordered spicy tomato juice, which was apparently only available at high altitudes, since I’d never even heard of it before.

  “People are really stupid about gay stuff,” Ben said while shuffling, after I’d beaten him twice.

  “Yeah,” I said. “People really are.”

  The silence was deafening. There were so many things I wanted to ask him, but I was too afraid. How did straight guys do this? Tiptoe toward the line and then maybe cross it, maybe not, without ever discussing the rules? It was exhausting, and I wasn’t even sure if there was a line. I mean, nothing had happened, really. Just two guys sleeping together. It happened out in the wild all the time. Of course Ben had no idea that I was hard as a rock for a good half hour. I was pretty sure he hadn’t been, which made me wonder more whether he was simply a nice straight guy with a close guy friend whom he happened to love. Could I be that too, if I tried? Would I want to be?

  As we flew over Ohio, and then Indiana — I knew this because the annoying pilot kept telling us where we were — I felt like I needed to say something. It was burning the back of my throat, all the not saying.

  “Did you and Bryce ever do that?”

  Ben looked up at me. “Ever do what?”

  “I dunno. Sleep in the same bed?”

  He laughed. “No.”

  “But we did.”

  He laughed again, his warm, translucent eyes looking into mine without any fear. “Thanks, Captain Obvious.”

  “I just wonder … what it means, if it means anything, you know?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I guess it means we’re comfortable with each other and we love each other, I guess.”

  The old, bald guy in the seat in front of us looked back, saw how big Ben was, and turned forward again. I looked away from Ben too, because I was afraid what my eyes would reveal if I kept looking at him.

  “Huh,” I said.

  “Well, I know what part of it means, and part of it I don’t. I guess that’s all I can say,” Ben said.

  I laughed. “Maybe you could just explain that cryptic statement.”

  Ben lobbed his head from side to side. “Perchance I could.”

  We looked at each other again, as if we were both asking permission, permission to talk, permission to be open. It seemed crazy to me, given how we talked about everything.

  He said, “Part of it means what I said. I love you. You love me. We love each other.”

  “Right,” I said.

  He went on, “The Greeks were smarter than us, and they had different words for different kinds of love. There’s storge, which is family love. That’s not us. There’s eros, which is sexual love. There’s philia, which is brotherly love. And then there’s the highest form. Agape.” He pronounced it “aga-pay.” “That’s transcendental love, like when you place the other person above yourself.”

  “You are so going to get into Harvard.”

  He laughed. “So, obviously our friendship is to some degree philia.”

  “Like pedophilia or necrophilia?”

  “That’s disgusting,” he said. “But, yeah, same root, I guess.”

  I nodded.

  “And I don’t know about eros. I guess that’s the part I mean by ‘I don’t know.’ I mean, for me, my eros has always been pointed toward girls.”

  “Girls like that,” I said. “Me too.”

  “I guess I’d like to think of what we have as agape. A higher love. Something that transcends. Something not about sex or brotherhood but about two people truly connecting.”

  That was the thing about Ben. He could get away with saying shit like that. I totally couldn’t. I wasn’t big or masculine enough. In my mind, anyway. But Ben could get all agape on your ass, and you’d just sit there like, huh. Agape. Interesting.

  “Agape,” I said. “I like that.”

  A smile crept across his face. “Me too.”

  “So we’re not … aga-gay?”

  He laughed. “I knew you were thinking that. I guess I sort of was too. You know what, Rafe? If I was ever gonna be aga-gay with anyone, it would be you.”

  The guy in the seat in front of us turned and looked at us again. Ben glared at him and he turned back around. I don’t know what shade of red I turned or whether Ben even noticed.

  “Me too. With you,” I said.

  Ben reached over and touched my hand, and I opened my fist, and he put his hand in it. It felt warm, slightly damp. I wanted to put my lips on the area between his thumb and forefinger, and keep it there, forever.

  “Like in India,” I said.

  He smiled. “That’s right.”

  Leave it to my dad to wear Birkenstocks and his tan gardening shorts to the Denver airport in late November.

  He stood there, on the other side of security, waving ecstatically. I looked over at Ben. “Here goes nothing.”

  “Oh, please, you’ve got it good,” he said.

  “My two favorite guys!” Dad yelled, hugging me tight and kissing me on the cheek. Then he grabbed Ben and hugged him too. Ben seemed to hug him back.

  “Good to see you, Mr. G.!” Ben said.

  “I like that, Mr. G. Go with that. Or just Gavin.”

  “Okay, Mr. G.,” Ben said, and I cracked up.

  We got to the outside curb and found it was a sunny, crisp day, not too cold. It felt so good to see the mountains in the distance; this was home. Mom was in the Prius, and when she saw us she moved from the front to the back, giving Ben shotgun. “You’re bigger,” she said to him, pecking him on the cheek. Then she turned to me and gave me a big, warm, Mom squeeze hello.

  I couldn’t stop looking out the window at the mountains as we drove west on Route 36. Ben was telling my parents about the last week. I could see my mom and dad exchanging looks through the rearview mirror, wondering everything I was wondering. Here we were, four people in a Prius, wondering.

  My mother had been really cool when I called her about inviting Ben. She offered to pay half of Ben’s ticket, which I readily agreed to, and then my dad called me later and offered to pay half of the second half.

  “Claire Olivia came by earlier this week. She was trying to gauge how much you’d hate a surprise party when you got home,” Mom said. “I estimated a lot.”

  “You estimated correctly.” I had explained to Ben that Claire Olivia and I had made up, and now ours was an amicable split.

  “Oh, come on, who doesn’t like a surprise party?” Dad said.

  I raised my hand, and without any coaching from me, Ben raised his too. My parents laughed.

  “You two,” Mom said. “Way, way too much.”

  “Who knew that you had a doppelganger from northern New Hampshire?” Dad said. It was always hard to get my dad to give up words like doppelgangers and privileging. Teaching English overwhelmed his life occasionally. Ben either knew what a doppelganger was or didn’t care, since he didn’t ask.

  When we turned west on Canyon, I was truly happy to see my hometown. We passed the Pearl Street Mall, which, even on a cool November day, was packed with African drummers and street dancers. To our right was the Laughing Goat, and on our left was Bud, Bong and Beyond, where my mom got her medical marijuana — something she thought I didn’t know
about. I’m not exactly sure what pain she was in, but from the prescription label I saw in her bedside drawer, I’m guessing she sometimes wasn’t in any pain at all.

  When we turned the corner and parked in the driveway, all I wanted to say to my parents was “Really? You needed to do this?” Or maybe, “Couldn’t you get people to park farther away from the house?” Because the extra cars gave my surprise party away. Then my major exhaling gave away that I had figured it out.

  “Humor us,” Mom said. “Pretend that you like people, and that you like seeing people who love you. Just for a bit.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Sorry, Ben.”

  “Hey, no big deal for me,” he said. “Always up for a partay.”

  “Remember? No partay for you,” I said, flicking him in the shoulder. He laughed, and I glanced up at my dad and mom, who were sharing this “aren’t they precious” look, which thankfully Ben did not see.

  We got out of the car, and I was glad at least it was a little late in the year for an outside party, nice day notwithstanding. An indoor party would be smaller and easier to handle. And then I heard the noise, and realized that, no, not for my parents it wasn’t. Not for Gavin and Opal Goldberg.

  We went around back, and there it was.

  “Surprise!” seven people yelled.

  “Wow!” I said. “This is, wow! I’m shocked.”

  There, in winter coats, were Claire Olivia; Claire Olivia’s parents; Aunt Ruth and Uncle Sidney; my grandmother Chloe, who has a superhuman resistance to cold, in a yellow sundress; and one other kid I only kind of recognized, wearing braces and an olive-colored peacoat. And I thought: Mom. Why would you do this to me?

  The kid. He was one of the PFLAG kids.

  The backyard was set up with purple streamers hanging from the trees, and a table with drinks and snacks, and then the pièce de résistance: a tofu pig on a spit.

  My dad ran across the yard to the table, where he’d set up a boom box, and pressed play. Within seconds, the yard was filled with the sounds of a ukulele and steel guitars, or whatever they use in that mellow Hawaiian music.

  “Oh, we’re going to a hukilau

  A huki huki huki huki hukilau….”

  “It’s a mountain luau surprise party!” Dad yelled, all cheerful.

  Ben started cracking up, and I knew that he’d be fine. It was me I was worried about.

  “Of course it is,” I said. “Of course it is.”

  I gave Claire Olivia a big hug, holding her tight. I didn’t feel like letting go. She and I were never real huggy people, but I had underestimated how much I’d really missed her.

  “God, it’s good to see you,” I said.

  “So we’re good?” she asked in an ex-girlfriendish monotone. I almost laughed, because the acting was not up to Claire Olivia par. But I didn’t want to press my luck.

  “We’re fine,” I said. “I’m really glad you’re my friend.”

  Which made her smile, and it was a real smile, so I knew I’d struck the right chord between honest and, well, the other thing. We hugged again.

  “And I guess this would be Ben,” she said, from inside the hug, and I nodded and let go, and they shook hands. Then Claire Olivia excused herself to get some punch.

  “Has this happened before?” he asked.

  “Not this, exactly. Usually it would be like my parents to do a karaoke rap or something. I think we got off easy.”

  He laughed. “Your parents are hilarious.”

  I said hey to my aunt and uncle and Claire Olivia’s folks, and then I went over to study the tofu pig. Ben followed. I don’t know how they’d made a whole pig out of tofu, but it looked frighteningly real: the burnt pink faux animal appeared to be swallowing and shitting a metal pole at the same time. It had a perfect mauve snout with cashew-shaped nostrils set below two cavernous eye sockets that made it look forever shocked, like it breathed its final, unassuming tofu breath just as the spear appeared.

  My grandmother Chloe came over and kissed my ear from behind.

  “Don’t you just love tofu?” she effused, staring at the beast. “You can do anything with it!”

  You can, but should you? That’s what I was thinking. And I wouldn’t have been surprised if Ben had been thinking the exact same thing.

  “Hey, Chloe,” I said.

  “Good to see you and your special friend!” she said.

  I looked at Ben, who seemed, as usual, not particularly shocked.

  “Hi,” he said.

  When Grandma Chloe walked away, I whispered, “I think she thinks we’re boyfriends.”

  “Yeah, I got that,” Ben muttered. “Very … singular, I guess. Your family and mine are, well, not exactly doppelgangers.”

  “Nice word usage,” I said, and then we went to be social again.

  Lavender leis hung from the low branches of the pine trees. Next to the spit, Mom had set up a table with a carved-up biological ham, platters of pineapple, and a mammoth bowl of fruit punch — pink, of course.

  “Let’s carve this beast up!” my father bellowed. He raised the carving knife and plunged it into the belly of the tofu pig. Grandma Chloe clapped.

  Yep. This was my party.

  When I had a moment, I walked up behind my mother and put my chin on her shoulder. “Mom, what’s with the pink punch and inviting a kid from PFLAG?”

  She looked annoyed. “We invited LOTS of people. This is all that we have so far.”

  “Ouch,” I said.

  “Oh, sweetie,” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder and squeezing. “It’s the day before Thanksgiving. I’m sure people wanted to come, but families have plans, you know.”

  “Of course,” I said, still pouting, and I had a new thought that I’d never had before: I was a handful. A second before, I’d been complaining that there was a party. Now, there weren’t enough people.

  “Would you trade me for Ben?” I asked.

  She laughed. “No, sweetie. You’re ours for keeps. Of course, the way Ben looks at you, I’m not sure he’s not yours for keeps too!”

  I looked at her, and we shared a moment, and I could tell she knew that I was in the midst of trying to figure that out, and it made me feel, I don’t know, less alone, to know that my struggle wasn’t entirely secret.

  “I need to tell you stuff. Later,” I said.

  “You can tell me anything, sweetie,” she said, her eyes twinkling like she already knew. “Anything at all. I’m just so glad you’re home.”

  We hugged again. Then she took me over to say hello to Josh, the PFLAG kid. He was a couple of years younger, and I wondered if he felt out of place at this weird party. He didn’t seem too worried. I didn’t know him at all. Before I left, my mom was always introducing me to kids from the PFLAG group, like, Hey, Rafe, you’re gay. Meet Josh, who also is gay.

  “Congratulations,” Josh said, and I turned to him, wondering if he meant having a father who could slay tofu. It took me a few seconds to realize he meant going off to boarding school in Massachusetts.

  “Thanks,” I said. “So, uh, how have you been?”

  “Okay, I guess,” he said. “I had to get a root canal.” He scrunched up his face.

  “That sounds awful.”

  “It really hurt. They gave me some pills after to make me sleep. I woke up and there was this blood stain on my pillow. The stitches must have like fallen out.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  I was aware that this scintillating conversation was suddenly the party’s main event, and I searched and searched for a way to keep the dialogue afloat. I had nothing. Thank God for my mother, Boulder’s version of Barbara Walters. She started asking all the important questions: which tooth, how was the pain now on a scale of one to ten, who was the dentist. The kid shifted in his shoes as he tried to survive my mom’s third degree, no doubt wishing he hadn’t said anything at all.

  Then it was limbo time. Grandma Chloe insisted on going first. The limbo was apparently invented to break the backs of olde
r people, because the way Grandma was contorting was making me really nervous. Her body started to shake as she approached the bar, so the bar holders raised it a bit, and Grandma exhaled and moved forward, her neck craning back, clearing the new height by centimeters. The strap of her lemon yellow sundress had loosened, and by the time she came up, her right boob was proudly on display. My parents clapped loudly, and everyone else sort of looked at the ground, horrified, as she redressed herself.

  I looked over at Ben, who was clearly enjoying the spectacle of my insane family. A part of me was glad he was seeing it. Because even if there was still one major thing he didn’t know about me, he was now getting a pretty good sense of where I came from.

  “Rafe goes!” my mother yelled, her red hair bobbing as she jumped up and down in her faded overalls. My dad took out his phone and got ready to capture the moment. Claire Olivia pushed me forward. I hid my face. I just wanted to stand still, you know? Most of all, I did not need Ben to see this.

  He looked amused, as usual. What the hell, I thought. I faced the bar, took a deep breath, and sauntered forward, shaking and shimmying my locked arms. The sound of two parents and a grandma clapping enthusiastically while a bunch of embarrassed kids cringe is pretty singular, and I heard it in my throat. I wondered: Shouldn’t I be smiling? So as much as I didn’t want to, I forced my cheeks into something that resembled a grin, and shimmied my torso exaggeratedly. My mom hooted. Actually hooted. I swayed my hips, and then I bent backward, starting from my knees.

  “Go, Rafe!” my dad yelled from behind his iPhone.

  I exaggerated the bend farther, until I imagined myself as a pretzel, contorted the way my parents wanted me to be. I was a tabletop, with two legs in the front, bent ninety degrees at the knees. Piece of cake. If they wanted, I’d get lower. If they needed me to be the kind of kid who dances, that’s who I’d be. I mean, why stop now? Why sweat the details, like the fact that I don’t dance in public because I’m Rafe, not my mom, not my dad, but Rafe, a guy who is more comfortable watching than being watched?

  I did more shimmying while passing well under the bar, and I was done. No one else wanted to go, so that was the end of that.