The Lost Language of Cranes: A Novel

by David Leavitt

  Philip had answered this question many times. "Well," he said, "there are different ways of knowing. I mean, I wanted men, desired men, all through junior high school, but I guess I didn't figure out that that had anything to do with my life until I was thirteen, fourteen."

  "And all through it, you were never at all attracted to women?"

  Philip opened his mouth, was about to speak—then closed it. There was no question. He shook his head.

  "And you've never slept with a woman?"

  Again he shook his head.

  The table was vibrating a little. Underneath it Philip's left leg shook with violence. Across the continent of the table Owen reached, and Philip wondered for a moment if he was going to take his hand. But his arm stopped at the sake pitcher, poured some more into his cup. "Forgive me for asking so many naïve questions," he said. "This is all new to me. I feel very ignorant."

  "It's okay," Philip said.

  "Let me ask you then—how could you be so sure, when you were so young? How did you know?"

  "Well, it was very simple," Philip said. "It was nothing psychological; it wasn't a decision I reached. The fact was that I got sexually excited by the thought of men. I got erections. With girls—I felt nothing."

  Owen laughed. "Well, I guess you really are gay then, huh?"

  Philip's eyes widened.

  "I was just wondering," Owen went on, "because—well, it seems to me, everybody's fundamentally bisexual, don't you think? At heart, I mean?" He poured more sake, stirred a piece of sushi in his dish of soy sauce.

  But Philip shook his head. "No," he said. "No, I don't think everybody's fundamentally bisexual. I think some people are, and a whole lot more are basically one way or the other—either homosexual or heterosexual. I think this whole bisexual thing can become an excuse, a way of avoiding committing yourself, or admitting the truth. It means you can duck out when the going gets rough."

  Owen looked blankly at Philip, clearly bewildered by his vehemence. "I didn't mean to offend you," he said. "I was just—well, looking for common ground." He cast his eyes toward the table. "I mean, I've had sexual feelings toward men sometimes, some sort of attraction."

  "Which is fine," Philip said quickly, sitting up in his chair. "I know gay men who feel occasional attractions to women, too. The point is, you're basically heterosexual, and that should be what defines your lifestyle."

  Owen didn't answer. He poured more sake into his cup—the flask was almost empty—and looked out the window.

  "So," he said, after a few seconds, "are you still going—you know, to that theatre, that porno theatre you mentioned?"

  "The Bijou? I've never been back."

  "And Eliot," he said. "How did you meet him?"

  Philip smiled, and dutifully repeated to his father the story (beginning by now even to bore him) of his introduction to Eliot. "I feel," he concluded, "like I'm in some sort of strange transitional period which I don't really understand very well. Like I'm still not sure what happened, and yet I have no idea what's coming next."

  "Are you—seeing anyone now?"

  "No. Too scared of AIDS, I guess."

  "Oh yes, that," Owen said casually. "Waiter?" he called. "Can you bring us another sake?"

  The waiter arrived with the flask. "For whatever it's worth," Owen said, "I've invited that young teacher—Winston Penn—to dinner next Sunday. He was very happy. He lives alone out in Hoboken, you see, above an old tavern, and he hardly ever gets a good home-cooked meal. I hope you'll still plan to come."

  Philip smiled nervously. "Sure," he said. "I should check my schedule, but I can't see why not."

  "Good, son. I'm glad. You'll like him."

  "I'm sure I will."

  After they paid the bill, Owen walked Philip to the subway. He was stumbling just a little, couldn't quite keep up with his son, and when Philip looked at him, concerned, he shrugged. "Just the sake," he said.

  He was glad they had had this talk, Owen told Philip. He felt better about their relationship than he had in years. And falteringly, Philip agreed. It was a good thing. They should do it again.

  At the subway, Philip said, "Dad? Will you send my love to Mom?"

  Owen smiled. "Of course," he said.

  "I miss her a lot," Philip said. "She doesn't call me. She doesn't seem to want to see me. It makes me very sad. I call her sometimes—but she sounds so nervous, not at all like herself."

  "Well," Owen said, "maybe it takes longer with the mothers. She'll come around. She just has a lot to sort out. Give her time."

  "I will," Philip said. "Or at least, I'll try."

  Then he disappeared into the subway. Owen waited a few minutes, watching him descend. From Broadway, he walked a few blocks to the crosstown bus. The late March air was brisk. Flowers bloomed in clay pots on fire escapes. The bus was filled with couples—old couples and very young couples, middle-aged couples, black couples and white couples, Japanese couples, Chinese couples, Korean couples. Owen recognized among them a pair of ex-Harte boys out with their girlfriends, but neither of them seemed to notice him. When they're applying, I'm king, Owen thought bitterly, but once they get in... He laughed, because he was drunk, anesthetized, his pain still palpable, but numbed, exerting only the vaguest pressure. Somewhere in the back of his mind a voice wondered if Rose might be worrying about him, but this voice too was hardly audible, exerted only the vaguest pressure. The bus stopped at Second Avenue. It was a nice night, a night to walk, and he walked.

  Philip was going to save himself. Philip was going to get Winston Penn and save himself, and save his father, too. He smiled to think of it, and somehow that idea of Philip, as an extension of himself, of his own desire, made perfect sense to him. They could help each other or hurt each other. It would be easy either way. And suddenly he wondered: Does Philip know? Could Philip have seen? Perhaps he should have asked fewer questions. But after forty years of evasion, he had no will left in him for hiding things, for analyzing how much a remark might reveal, for quickly changing the subject to avoid incrimination. Fear had motivated him to such evasion, and tonight he felt drained of fear. Perhaps there is only a set quantity of fear one can feel in a lifetime; if so, he was sure, he had done his penance, used his due.

  Perhaps it was genetic.

  On Second Avenue, he passed a bar called Bullets which for about ten years had been called The Squire's Pub, then for about five years Sugar Magnolia. Some sixth sense for these things told him that in its current incarnation it was a gay bar catering primarily to the moneyed crowd—older men, some married, many looking for younger boys. He had always hurried past it, his eyes focussed on the ground before him, but tonight, catching in his peripheral vision a dark Hispanic boy lounging in the door and the sleek red sign in the window, he stopped. He had imagined, before, that if he stood too long in front of this bar without moving, either Rose would come upon him or lightning would strike him dead. Neither of these things happened. People passed him in the street, oblivious, did not shout out, "Owen Benjamin, dean of admissions at the Harte School, what are you doing standing in front of a. gay bar?" "Excuse me," a voice barked, and a man brushed past him, hands on his shoulder, but he was not the police, not a Harte parent, not Rose, not Philip. The problem was that Owen was in the way of the door. "Sorry," he said, and the man glided into Bullets as casually as Owen might have walked into his own apartment building. It seemed astonishing, daredevil, like walking on a tightrope across a moat of crocodiles. And as at the circus, nothing happened.

  He turned to look inside the bar. Behind the smoky glass window, figures lounged against wooden counters, talked, drank. A man in a business suit hurried in, a trio of pale youths in leather jackets hurried out, all oblivious to Owen. The obliviousness disappointed him somehow. In certain ways he wanted to be noticed as much as he wanted not to be noticed.

  He thought of pacing around the block once, then decided to be braver than that and, marching up to the door, pushed through it. It gave gently as a cur
tain at his touch. A smell of cigarette smoke engulfed him. The room was dark, but not as dark as the theatre. He let his eyes adjust. It was not a large place. In the corner an old-fashioned jukebox played Tina Turner at a reasonable volume. Twenty or thirty men were milling around the bar, standing at the counters and sitting at the few tables, most of them Owen's age, their collars and ties loosened, their jackets around their arms. In addition, some much younger thin black men and muscular Puerto Ricans stood in trios and clusters, not speaking, their eyes roving the room.

  Cautiously, still shaking a little, Owen made his way to the bar. "Gin and tonic," he told the bartender in a surprisingly normal voice. He looked around. No one was noticing him. He took off his jacket, loosened his collar and tie. The bartender, a huge man in a muscle T-shirt, handed him his drink in a tumbler. "Thanks," he said. It calmed him to talk, to have something in his hand. He paid and moved away from the bar, looking for a place to stand, and chose an empty corner where he could hide in semi-darkness, not quite invisible, and watch.

  There was not that much to watch. Nearby, some men in their thirties were arguing loudly over the stock market. In the corner, near the jukebox, a young couple kissed, caressed, danced, gyrated, crotches grinding together. All of it was interesting to Owen. The men in the bar were relaxed; they might have been anywhere. That was the most interesting thing about them.

  Out of nowhere, a man was suddenly standing next to Owen, against the wall. They turned to observe each other at the same moment. The man nodded; Owen turned away. A flash of lust seared through him at the mere possibility of contact. He turned again, looked cautiously. The man was in his early forties, dark, bearded. He had on a white shirt, no tie, a jacket, and he was drinking beer out of a bottle—a gesture Owen found, at the moment, astonishingly sexy. He turned away and could feel, like radar, the man's head turning, his eyes scanning him. Then he turned away again. Owen looked back. The man was drinking his beer, staring straight toward the bar. He looked strong; his legs, bound in tight denim and boots, moved slightly to the rhythm of the music.

  Owen gulped from his drink, praying that the gin would give him confidence. Soon he felt braver. He turned, looked at the man, who turned and looked at him. They nodded slightly and said, "How're you doing?" at the same moment.

  "Fine," they then said, again at the same moment, and laughed.

  Then the man turned again to face the bar. His legs moved to the music. His head moved to the music. He took a swig from his beer bottle.

  Owen looked at his feet, at the floor. But before he had a chance to make a decision about what to do, the man turned to him, holding out his empty beer bottle, and said, "Can I get you something from the bar?”

  "Uh—sure," Owen said. "A gin and tonic?"

  "Okay," the man said.

  "Oh, let me give you some money."

  "No, no," the man said. "This one's on me." Then he walked away.

  After a few sweaty moments he came back, bearing another beer and a gin and tonic for Owen. "I'm Frank," he said.

  "Owen," Owen said.

  They shook hands. Frank's hands were enormous, enveloping.

  "You come here a lot?" Frank said.

  "Not really."

  "Me neither. I just work in the neighborhood sometimes, and then I drop by after work."

  "What do you do?"

  "I'm a contractor," Frank said, and nodded to the rhythm of the music. Owen nodded as well. They nodded together. Frank laughed.

  Then he turned around again, faced the bar. For another few moments, they stared at nothing.

  "This bar used to have another name," Owen said. "Did it?"

  "Yes, it was called Sugar Magnolia."

  "Oh." Frank turned, looked Owen straight in the eye.

  "You married?" he asked, his eyes focusing on Owen's ring.

  "Yes," Owen said.

  "Thought so." Frank looked away again. "Me too," he added.

  "Really?"

  "Uh-huh. It's tough, you know?"

  "I know."

  Across the bar the gyrating boys had disappeared. "It's a good, stable stock, goddamnit," said one of the brokers. Owen closed his eyes, opened them again.

  "My wife," Frank said, fingering the chain around his neck. "She's real naive. Good Catholic background. We got married when we were eighteen. She—she just wants to take care of the kids, go to church. She doesn't want trouble, you know?"

  "Do you live in the city?"

  "Staten Island," Frank said. "But I have a friend's place for tonight." He looked at Owen.

  Now Owen was confused. Was the friend also married? Was there some sort of brotherhood of married gay men in the world, loaning each other apartments, finding each other in bars? He began to fear for a moment that Frank just wanted to induct him, to be his friend. Maybe the rule was that they were only supposed to sleep with the younger men.

  "The other night," Frank said, "some kids came in here. One of them shouted at the top of his lungs, 'Dad! What are you doing here?'" Frank laughed. "You should've seen these guys drop their glasses—like that." He snapped his fingers.

  "Funny, I guess," Owen said, and Frank nodded. He seemed restless, shuffling on his feet like an adolescent boy. Finally he turned and his face bore down on Owen's, so that Owen could feel the bristles on his beard, smell the beer on his breath. "Listen," he said. "Are you a nice guy or what? Because what I really need right now is a nice guy, someone who knows what he's doing, not some schmuck. I mean, there are a lot of schmucks around, you know what I'm saying?"

  "I know what you're saying," Owen said. "I need that, too."

  "I want a man," Frank said. "You know what I'm saying? When I saw you across the bar, I thought—hey, there's a guy who looks—different. Sensitive."

  Owen was dazed. 'Yes," he said. "Yes."

  Frank moved closer, so that their thighs touched. "So, like I said, I've got this place for tonight. Do you want to go there with me? I mean, it could be real nice. You know, like that song. 'We've got tonight, who needs tomorrow?'" He smiled. Owen smiled. "I don't know that song," Owen said. "But I certainly understand the sentiment."

  "I'll just go get my coat from the check room," Frank said, and he moved away. Owen leaned against the wall, breathing steadily. He was surprisingly relaxed. He didn't feel like he was doing much of anything out of the ordinary. All he knew was that he yearned for Frank to get back from the check room as fast as he could, and when he did, Owen could see Frank was in a hurry as well. The place he had for the night was a studio apartment in the East Nineties, he told him. Owen nodded. He put on his jacket, and they walked out of the bar together, into the public street, full of people he might have known. Frank hailed a cab. On the way, in the cab, he held Owen's hand.

  It was a small apartment in a walk-up building, decorated simply and sparsely, like a motel room. Almost as soon as they arrived, Frank turned on the overhead light, and Owen took his coat off in the brightness. Out of the dark bar, Frank's face was a little pockmarked. His stomach sagged over his pants. There was something faintly dirty about his clothes and hair. And suddenly the dreamlike prospect of this moment, nurtured in the bar, gave way to something different—two older men, both married, both a little out of shape, meeting to make love, to touch each other and make each other feel better. Not an unpleasant prospect. Besides, Owen had had his fill of fantasy. He wanted something real.

  Still, when Frank embraced Owen and kissed him, Owen was overwhelmed.

  They fell on the floor and made love, and like so many men making love that night, were careful, respectful of rules. They did not do what they might have wanted to. At one point Frank quietly pulled a rubber out of its plastic casement, threw the torn packet across the room, eased the thing over himself. It seemed the most natural thing in the world.

  After they finished, Owen dragged himself from where he lay on the bed up onto his elbows. "I've got to get home," he said. "Rose is probably crazy with worry "

  Frank lay stretched nake
d on the bed, his hands behind his neck, and Owen was suddenly astonished by the two shocks of black hair under his arms. They stared frankly at him, like an extra set of eyes.

  "What are you going to tell her?" Frank asked.

  Owen shook his head as he pulled on his pants.

  Frank got out of bed. At the kitchen table he scribbled something on a piece of note paper that said "P.&R. Contracting / Construction Company. Frank J. Picone, President." "Here's my work number," he said. "Call me?"

  "All right," said Owen.

  They kissed once, and then Frank let him out the door.

  Out on the street, the sky was surprisingly still. A few kids were milling around on the sidewalk. It was then that he realized he was only two blocks from Harte, which seemed to him suddenly funny. And as after all longed-for changes, he himself felt changed not in the least. The Harte School loomed as always. It had loomed for years before he knew it, and would loom afterwards, oblivious to his tenancy. But he was somehow able to walk past it tonight a little easier. If anything, he felt lightened of a burden. He had done it. He had made love—real love—with another man. It was no longer a hurdle he had to get over, and for that he was grateful. Besides that, he thought to himself calmly, my life will continue as it has unchanged. I will continue as I am. Unchanged.

  He looked at his watch and saw that it was two-thirty in die morning. Had Rose gone to bed? He prayed that she had as he hailed a taxi, wondered what he'd say to her if she were still up. Sure enough, the light was on in the window when he got back. He tipped the driver too much, said hello to the doorman, headed up in the elevator. Rose was reading in the living room, in her bathrobe. She did not get up when he walked in.

  "Hello, honey," Owen said.

  "Hello," said Rose.

  He kissed her on the cheek. She did not raise her eyes from her book.

  "I was worried about you," she said softly.

  Owen walked to the window, opened it. He did not say a word. Several beats of silence passed, and he knew Rose was counting them. She had her eyes closed tightly, her hands squeezed together; the book dropped to her lap. No book; no lies; no excuses.