Lake Life

by David James Poissant

  “Jake, what do you do all day?”

  Jake’s back tenses, but he doesn’t leave the window. The blinds snap shut with a spray of dust. “It’s research.”

  Bullshit. “That’s a lot of research.”

  “A new series,” Jake says, not even trying, really, to sound convincing.

  But when he turns, Thad’s unprepared for the sight before him. Jake’s face is ashen. His chest heaves. His knuckles are white, hands balled around the hem of his shirt.

  “You don’t get to do this,” Jake says, his voice faraway-sounding. “I support you. You don’t even have a job. What I do in my studio is my business, and what I do with my dick is my business.”

  “Jake.”

  “You fucked Marco,” Jake says, face twisted by whatever sobs he’s holding back.

  Thad shakes his head. “Don’t turn this around on me. You fucked him first.”

  “We didn’t fuck,” Jake says. “He just—no, fuck you.”

  For all they have in common, it’s the four years’ difference in their age that, some days, matters most. What’s four years? Thad thought meeting Jake, kissing him, climbing into bed. But the bridge from twenty-six to thirty is wide, and Jake is a young twenty-six.

  “You need help,” Thad says. “Either you’re an addict, or you’re depressed and medicating with sex.”

  Jake laughs. “You think everyone’s depressed.”

  He’s not wrong. Thad tends to project. But he isn’t projecting now. Happy, well-adjusted adults masturbate. Plenty look at porn. But they don’t do so for hours every day.

  “I’ll call Steve,” Thad says. “Maybe he can fit you in next week.”

  But Jake’s not listening. He appears to be in a trance, jaw slack, eyes wide. Then the trance is over, and Jake’s on his knees on the floor. He grips his chest. He wheezes. There’s fright in his eyes, and, right then, Thad doesn’t care about pornography or Marco or the things Jake’s said. Right then, all Thad wants is to help the man he loves.

  He doesn’t hesitate. He joins Jake on the floor.

  Time passes. He holds Jake’s hand. Gradually, Jake’s breathing slows. His tears subside.

  “They’re called panic attacks,” Thad says.

  “I know what they’re called.”

  They move to the bed, Thad’s back to the headboard, Jake’s head in his lap. Thad runs his fingers through Jake’s hair.

  “This has happened before?”

  “Yes.”

  “How often?” he asks, but Jake shuts his eyes, and Thad knows better than to press. He doesn’t want to trigger another episode. The first was hard enough to watch. For all Thad’s history with depression, with anxiety and suicidal ideation, he’s never suffered panic attacks.

  “No shrinks,” Jake says.

  “No shrinks,” Thad says, though Steve will hear about this, if not from Jake, then from Thad next week.

  Jake’s hair is damp, as though from a fever freshly broken.

  “So,” Jake says, opening his eyes, “are you disappointed or relieved to learn your boyfriend’s more fucked-up than you?”

  It’s not a contest, Thad wants to say. Instead, he says, “Everyone’s fucked-up.”

  The room’s so bare, it’s hard to be in, the walls adorned with hooks and nails where family photos used to hang. The house may still belong to his parents, but Thad can’t say the house still feels like home.

  “I think that kid’s death messed me up more than I’ve been letting on,” Jake says.

  In Bushwick, they aren’t the kind of people who keep blinds closed. Here, they’ve grown afraid to lift a shade or leave the room for fear of what they’ll see outside. Boats and divers. Hooks and chains.

  “Yesterday, I didn’t feel a thing,” Jake says.

  “Yesterday you were in shock.”

  Jake takes deep breaths. His hands unclench.

  “I’ve never been afraid of death before,” Jake says. A very young twenty-six. “When I believed in heaven, death wasn’t scary. You die, you go to Disney in the clouds, then it’s cotton candy and Space Mountain forever.”

  “You don’t believe in heaven?” Thad asks.

  “ ‘Ooh, heaven is a place on earth.’ ”

  Jake’s hair has so much product in it, Thad’s hands feel oil-slicked, and he wipes them on the sheets.

  “What is it with you and eighties songs?”

  “I’m a child of the nineties,” Jake says. “We all want what we can’t have.”

  Of the many things Thad wants but doesn’t have, he wants most to be well.

  He was seventeen the first time he tried to kill himself. He stood on a chair and used a belt cinched to a basement pipe. A quick kick should have ushered in oblivion, but the belt was old. It snapped and sent him to the floor. Embarrassing to end it all only to have to end it all again. In school, they’d read Jack London’s “To Build a Fire,” and the teacher had talked about how freezing was like falling asleep. That sounded peaceful, so Thad left the belt, the chair, climbed the basement steps, shed his clothes, and stumbled, in his underwear, outdoors into the snow.

  What came next was not peaceful. He remembers shivering, then shaking, the shaking so violent he feared his teeth would pierce his tongue. A motorist found him facedown on the side of Stone Quarry Road, delirious, frostbite setting in. He still has a four-toed foot to show for it.

  He tried playing the incident off as a drunken accident, which might have worked, had he been a drinker, had he thought to pull the belt down from the pipe. But there it hung, an accusation in leather and brass, the first thing his father saw coming down the stairs.

  Thad spent two days in a hospital bed, foot bandaged, IV X-ed in the crook of his arm. A man was there, a man in a sweater vest who smelled like peppermint and called himself a mental health professional. The mental health professional asked him about his motives, his fears, his hopes for what came next.

  But how to put a thing like that into words when so many things made him anxious—crowds, loud noises, parties, loneliness—when so many things inspired fear—failure, disease, rejection, suffering, death? This last one tripped the mental health professional up. If Thad feared death, maybe he didn’t really want to die? Which was when Thad knew this wasn’t the mental health professional for him.

  In the future, better doctors would help him see. Depression doesn’t need a why. Depression is a maze you can’t logic your way out of. In Thad’s case, depression means medicine, and on good days, the medicine helps.

  Thad’s mother, after, was the hardest to face. Her mouth said, I love you, but her eyes said, How could you? Hadn’t they been good parents? Hadn’t they loved him, supported him, taken him to his first pride parade when he came out?

  She hadn’t meant to make his suicide attempt about herself. Thad has to believe that or hate his mother for making him feel so bad.

  These days, he takes his pills. He sees Steve. He does his best to keep bad thoughts at bay.

  “If Jake left you,” Steve asked once, “what would you do?”

  “I’d be fine,” Thad said, lying, knowing Steve knew he was lying. Steve didn’t have to ask what happened if Thad left Jake. Deep down, both knew who’d be the first to leave.

  But that was before today. Thad’s stronger now. He knows what he wants.

  Jake’s head in his lap is heavy, but he doesn’t ask Jake to move.

  “Why no therapists?” Thad asks.

  “I don’t do drugs.”

  “I’m not talking pharmacology,” Thad says. “Just conversation. Professional help.”

  He rubs Jake’s temples, massages his ears.

  “When I turned eighteen,” Jake says, “my parents sent me to Arizona, one of those turn-you-straight camps. No exit, no phones.”

  Oh, Jake.

  “Every night we had to cuddle with a counselor. They didn’t call it cuddling. They said our fathers didn’t love us right, that we needed ‘the right kind’ of masculine affection.”

&
nbsp; Thad’s read about these places, though Jake’s the first person he knows who’s been to one. A reminder that Thad is fortunate. Fortunate to have the parents he has. Fortunate to grow up in a college town.

  “Ten minutes a night,” Jake says, “we got on the floor. Each of us was paired with a counselor, and my counselor was Charles.”

  “Jake, if you’re not ready, you don’t have to tell me this.”

  “There were three positions. Side by side was easy, like posing for a picture. The counselor put his arm around you, no big deal. The second position, you had to sit between his legs, but there was breathing room. The third they called the ‘motorcycle.’ Between the legs, and back to chest. Butt to crotch. The patient was supposed to choose. I always chose side by side. But the last night, Charles said, ‘Tonight, God’s telling me you need the motorcycle.’ ”

  Jake brings a hand to his face, bites a thumbnail, and spits.

  “And what could I do?” Jake says. “This guy’s forty. I’m eighteen. Plus, he’s a man of God. And I wanted to get better. I wanted to be cured.”

  He offers Thad his hand, and Thad takes it.

  “So I get between his legs, Charles pulls me to him, and that’s when I feel it. He doesn’t thrust. He doesn’t move. But it’s there, pressing against the small of my back. For ten minutes. And that was the last time I sought ‘professional help.’ Honestly, I’d kill myself before I’d see another shrink.”

  The second time Thad attempted, he was twenty.

  This time, he meant it, razor up the arm and not across. Seeing the blood, he passed out before he could do arm number two, then woke on his dorm room floor wanting to live.

  Fifty-eight stitches and a quart of blood later, he was alive.

  “Lucky duck,” the doctor said, a kind woman, Indian, sari on under her white coat. She wore a visor over her face, the plastic kind cops wear to break up fights—surgical riot gear.

  “I’m supposed to be on a date right now,” she said. “I was almost out the door when you came in. Lucky for you, because I’m the best.”

  Thad watched the needle burrow in, wink out, watched his arm close up like a turkey, stuffing trussed. At some point, he realized he couldn’t move. He was shackled to the table.

  “Sorry,” the doctor said. “It’s the rule.”

  “Never again,” Thad said, “I promise,” and the doctor nodded like she’d heard those words before.

  “I hope not,” she said. “When I’m finished with it, this arm will be a masterpiece.”

  The next week, he sent the doctor flowers. The week after, he stopped in to say hi, but the man at the check-in desk only eyed him before asking him to leave. They were not in the habit of bringing former patients back to say hello.

  Thad never got the doctor’s name, or else he got her name and lost it in the frenzy of post-surgery Percocets. But he thinks about her often. He hopes that she made that dinner, that her date stayed at the restaurant table, waiting. He hopes that the doctor is happy and in love and saving lives.

  Nine toes and a ribbon of scar tissue up his arm. And never again. Never, unless—

  No. Unless is the end. Unless is how the thoughts start every time.

  Jake’s quiet so long, Thad thinks he’s fallen asleep. But when he releases Jake’s hand, Jake’s eyes open.

  “I’m sorry that happened to you,” Thad says.

  “I’m over it,” Jake says, though of course he isn’t. No one ever is.

  In the next bedroom, murmuring, sighs. Michael and Diane are fighting, or else they’re fucking. The wall is thick enough, it’s hard to tell.

  The smell of dinner creeps under the door, last night’s chicken recycled into soup.

  Jake’s head leaves Thad’s lap, and Jake sits up. They face each other on the bed.

  “What do we do, then?” Jake says. “About us?”

  But Thad is staying quiet. It’s Jake’s turn to talk. They’ve moved into one of those rare spaces, a planet inhabited by them and them alone—this moment, these bodies, this bed. There’s less gravity here, more goodwill. Here, you have to tell the truth, and Thad welcomes it. Time to say the things that need saying.

  “It’s my fault,” Jake says.

  Of all the things Thad thought Jake might say, he hadn’t expected this. But confession is a coin flipped, spinning, and Thad waits to glimpse the other side.

  “I pushed you into something you didn’t want,” Jake says.

  “We said no exes.”

  “I’m not talking about Marco,” Jake says. “I knew the first month we were together. I told you I only did open, and I saw the worry written on your face. I thought you’d come around. You thought I’d change. But here’s the thing.” Jake takes a breath, exhales. “It’s never going to be just us. I don’t want that. But I want you. I can’t imagine life without you. But I can’t imagine life with you alone. I need more experiences than that.”

  Gravity, goodwill. Thad floats, and for the first time, sees himself through Jake’s eyes.

  Before Jake, he’d been with one man at a time. He’s tried to change, for Jake, but he’s never loved the love they make with other men. Still, he’s gone along with it, refused to speak up, afraid to be alone. And Thad can’t say who’s selfish here, can’t say which is worse, to coerce openness or compel monogamy. Which is when he knows this isn’t just Jake’s fault.

  Or, fuck fault. Fuck blame. They are men who want different things. To be together, one must bend, and Thad’s been bending for two years.

  “Jake, if you want to be with other people, you should be with other people. But I can’t join you. I need to be with one man, and, for that man, I need to be enough.”

  The atmosphere evaporates, and gravity returns. Thad’s stomach hurts, and there’s an ache behind his eyes.

  “Maybe there’s a way,” Jake says. “I could let you pick the guys. I—”

  “Jake.”

  “Seriously? You’re going to make me do the hard part? You’re going to make me choose?”

  “I can’t make the choice for you,” Thad says.

  Jake stands. He puts on pants. Then he’s out the door, and Thad returns the laptop to his lap. He opens Jake’s browser history. With a click, he erases it all. Then it’s on to files, folders, cookies, cache.

  If only he could find his way back to that bubble of no judgment, no gravity. But there are so many men.

  He deletes. He empties the recycle bin. He purges the other bodies from Jake’s life.

  19.

  Always, there is more to pack.

  Soup on the stove and a while until it’s warmed, Lisa builds a box. Fold, fold, tape Fold, fold, tape. Her fingers are pruned, skin still pink from the bath. She could use a tall glass of cold water, but she doesn’t want to leave the bedroom to get it. Beyond the bedroom, family members lurk. They want to make her feel better. They want to help. But Lisa doesn’t need help. She needs to be left alone. Too much has happened the past twenty-four hours. A family has lost a son. Her son doesn’t want a family.

  What’s wrong with her boy? She’ll talk sense into him. Michael will be a father. Lisa will be a grandmother. Everyone will be happy. End of discussion.

  Diane asked her to keep the pregnancy a secret, just as Lisa asked Diane not to speak of June. Neither, of course, is a promise either’s bound to keep. It will be hard keeping track of who knows what, who doesn’t, who’s pretending not to know, but this is what it means to be a mother. Open secrets. Broken promises.

  She fills the box with lake house clothes she won’t need for the week: spare underwear, a bra, old bathing suits, some of which haven’t fit since Bill Clinton was in office. She’s never been big on clothes, but she likes swimsuits. One piece, two piece, solids, florals. There must be ten of them. In Florida, she’ll buy new ones. These should go to Goodwill, but they won’t. Always, she’s had trouble getting rid of things.

  The door opens, and Richard’s in the room.

  There’s still space, bu
t she tapes the box shut. In Sharpie, she writes Swimwear, Undies, Bras.

  “How was your bath?” Richard asks. He sits on the bed. He doesn’t ask her to join him, and she doesn’t.

  “You know what next week is?” she says, then apologizes for asking. He knows. Of course he knows. A mistake thinking fathers love their children less, though it took her some time, figuring that out.

  They only forgot June’s birthday once, years ago. It was Richard who remembered. He was quiet, too quiet, the next day, and she knew. She’ll never forgive herself for forgetting. And though the forgetting doesn’t mean she loves her daughter less, still she hopes never to forget again.

  June’s birthday is always a question of what to feel or say, of how to be in the world. Summers the boys are with them, Thad will notice—Mom, you seem sad today. Summers when the boys have yet to visit, when it’s she and Richard, they eat dinner in silence and go to bed as early as they can. Those nights, all of it is there in her husband’s eyes: the ambulance ride, the wake, the funeral; the casseroles she threw out by the trash can full because people believe that, grieving, you can’t cook; the tranquilizers, grief groups, couples counseling; then church, then work, the big move to New York; then the making of Michael—tentative, accidental—and the lake house, before life began anew.

  This time next week, the house will not be theirs to eat their dinner in. Already they will have vacated the premises, the moving van ferrying their possessions to New York. The morning of June’s birthday, they will sign on the dotted line. By midmorning, the closing will be done, and they will spend the day making the twelve-hour drive from Christopher to Ithaca. Dinner, if they bother to stop, will be McDonald’s or IHOP, something unappetizing and fast.

  On the bed, Richard is quiet, perfectly composed. Some days she wishes he weren’t so even-tempered. Just once, she’d love to see him scream, to throw a lamp or punch a wall, to see him helpless in a bathtub, sobbing. But that’s not her Richard.

  After June died, they attended an interfaith support group. One night, a Catholic mother prayed for the souls of unbaptized babies in limbo. That was the first time Richard walked out. He left quietly, but the next week, after enduring a laying on of hands, he left loudly, and he left for good. Lisa continued to attend without him. She didn’t need to agree with everyone’s ideas of God to go. Being with other grieving parents was enough. Richard seemed happier saying nothing, staying home. Seemed, for in reality, Richard’s silence disguised a kaleidoscope of hurt. Lisa couldn’t see it then. She’s spent her marriage learning how to look.