by Rick R. Reed
I continue moving, but he pulls me back. “Want to stop here?”
I slow my pace. “Are you sure?” I look up and down the front of Lily’s. The door opens, and a patron comes out, an older woman with long gray hair and a bright yellow rain slicker. When she opens the door, she releases the sound of voices and laughter from inside, along with Adele singing “Rolling in the Deep.” She smiles at us and then moves off into the rain, head down.
Jimmy shrugs. “Why not? We could be really adventurous and grab one of those tables over yonder.” He nods at the outdoor seating. “Show we’re die-hard Seattleites.”
“I just meant… it’s a bar and you’re—”
“In recovery,” he finishes for me. “I know. But it’s cool. As I told you before, alcohol’s not my problem.”
It would be the perfect time to ask him what was his problem—or should it be what is?—since the old wisdom goes that you’re never fully cured of any kind of addiction, only recovering. But I’m hesitant. The moment seems imbued with a kind of magic. The streets of this busy neighborhood are quiet, and I don’t think it’s because of a little rain or it’s being a weeknight. I have the fanciful notion that the world’s stepped aside so we two can get better acquainted.
“Is it a gay bar?” I whisper.
He leans close and whispers back, “I don’t know. Does it need to be?”
Again, I’m struck—and maybe a little dismayed—by how conservative I am. Why do I think two gay men on a first date even need to know their place and be in a gay bar? So we’re more comfortable? God, I hope we, as a society, are beginning to put such thoughts behind us.
“Not at all.”
We step under the awning and search out the perfect table. The one near the wall, just past the picture window, kind of beckons. It has a corner of the building on one side, plus the front, and it looks cozy. I point to it. “How about that one?”
“You read my mind.” He starts toward the table.
“Uh, grab a seat. I’ll go in and get us a couple of drinks and let someone know we’re out here. What’ll you have?”
Jimmy sits down and calls over, “A shot of tequila with a Stella Artois back.” He grins, and even in the dark, I see the mischievous little boy lurking within the man.
“Right.” I turn to the door and start to pull it open to see if he stops me.
“A Coke!” he yells just before I head inside.
At the bar I order two Cokes. I still don’t feel right about drinking in front of him, even if alcohol isn’t his poison of choice.
He eyes my drink when I come back. “Tell me that’s a rum and Coke.”
“Nope. Same as you.”
“You don’t have to do that, man.”
I put my hand over his. “A Coke sounded good.” I take a sip. “Damn!” I close my eyes for a second, in ecstasy.
“What?”
“I’d forgot how good the full-sugar stuff tastes. I gave it up for diet a long time ago. I don’t think I’ve had fully leaded for years.”
“I can’t stand diet stuff. When someone asks me if I have a sweet tooth, I always say no. Then I tell them I have sweet teeth—all of them.”
We laugh together and grow quiet for a while. The rain is coming down a bit harder now, and it’s nice—a gentle, rhythmic patter on the canvas above.
“So you were telling me about your family.”
“Yeah, there really isn’t that much to tell. They were both smart, insanely so. Like Mensa smart. But they threw it all away on….” He trailed off, then picked up with “Bad habits. Mom wasn’t too awful, not at first. When I was born, she was a hotshot young professor of French literature on a tenure track at Kent. She used to read me The Little Prince in French when I was a kid. She wanted me to be bilingual.”
“And are you?”
He shakes his head. “That didn’t last long.”
I cock my head but don’t say a word, encouraging him to go on, letting him know I’m listening.
He takes a sip of his Coke. “I never did drink,” he says. “Not even when I was a kid and my buddies were sneaking beers and stronger stuff out of their mom and dad’s liquor cabinets. I’d seen too fast and too early what booze can do to a family.” He looked away. “It basically robbed me of my parents.
“They drank together—it was what they did for fun on the weekends. Except it didn’t take long for them to smack their heads and wonder, why not bring the fun into Monday? Tuesday? Wednesday? And so on and so forth. Meanwhile, Dad indulged other fun pastimes, like gambling at the racetrack near us, smoking weed, and chasing women. That last one was what eventually split them up. I grew up most of my childhood with just my mom.
“She never got over my dad leaving her. She knew about the cheating all along and could put up with it as long as he came home every night. She had this devotion to him I’ll never understand. I mean, the man was gorgeous—in a movie star way.” He smiled, but it was a sad smile. “The closest comparison I can make for him is George Clooney?” He looks at me.
I nod.
“Yeah, Mom knew about his infidelities. She had the attitude of not caring where he got his tires pumped as long as he came home to ride.”
Jimmy sighs. “But then, I guess it wasn’t about sex anymore. He met this young woman at Kent State, an undergraduate, maybe even a freshman. The complete opposite of my mom—all blonde and WASPy. And she didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, and was a total Christian.” He shakes his head. “They’ve been married for over a dozen years now. Dad’s a deacon at their church, and I have three little half brothers that I don’t even know.”
“I’m sorry.”
He waves my consolation away. “Ah, it’s okay. Dad leaving us was hard, but what happened after he left was harder.” He leans forward. “You sure you want to hear this?”
“I do.”
Jimmy takes a deep breath, like he’s about to plunge into even deeper waters. And I suppose he is.
Jimmy closes his eyes for a moment. Then he opens them to take a sip of his drink. The expression on his face is faraway as he stares out at the rain. I suspect he’s gone somewhere else.
“You want to hear a story?” he asks, not looking at me. He doesn’t wait for me to answer either. “Picture a little eight-year-old boy, cute as a button, with reddish-brown hair, a pug nose, and freckles. There’s a bit of the devil about him. But he’s a good kid.
“It’s Christmas Eve, and him and his mom are at least warm in their trailer. The wind howls outside, shaking the mobile home on the cinder blocks that pass for a foundation. Over the quilt-covered couch, the picture window looks out on snow—coming down hard.
“There are no Christmas carols playing. Other than the wind, there’s only the sound of applause and cheering as yet another game show unspools before us on our portable TV.
“Mom’s already half in the bag.” He stops, looks over at me, and I think he’s testing how I’m taking in his story. “No. Make that fully in the bag. One hundred percent shitfaced. She’s had her Christmas cheer, the same Christmas cheer she’s been having during the holidays, plus spring, summer, and fall. Vodka. She used to like good stuff like Stoli, but these days it’s bottom-of-the-shelf crap that’s a step up from grain alcohol. She’s snoring, leaning half over the edge of the couch.
“The little guy plucks a cigarette, burned down to the filter, out from between her fingers and places the butt in an overflowing ashtray on the coffee table.
“He looks at his ma and whispers It’s Christmas Eve, Mom. She doesn’t stir. He wonders if maybe she’s dreaming of sugar plum fairies. He sits beside her and lays his head gently on her arm. The fabric of her pink quilted housecoat is soft against his skin. She smells of cigarettes, alcohol, and a faint aroma of Jean Nate, which she uses in her bathwater. Is Daddy coming home for Christmas? he wonders. He barely says the words aloud because a part of him knows how stupid it would be to wake her. He’s learned from past experience that rousing his drunk mother doesn’t alw
ays work out for the best. She’s been known to slap his face, which is preferable to the alternative—a cold stare and a retreat into her bedroom at the back of the trailer with a slam of her door.
“But there’s this part of him, see? This part that’s part sad, part mad that it’s fuckin’ Christmas Eve and he’s sitting here with her and she’s passed out drunk. There’s no tree, no presents, not even the fuckin’ Grinch or something on TV. So he asks again, louder, Is Daddy coming home for Christmas? He knows the answer, but he’s mad and getting madder. He keeps repeating the question over and over, louder each time, until he’s screaming the words, not even aware anymore of the TV or even his mother’s presence in the room. He’s kind of lost in a void where he’s a victim and feels justified in screaming because life is unfair.
“He doesn’t even notice his mom wake up. It’s in the middle of a scream that he looks over and sees her staring at him, her mouth open. It’s weird. She looks like she doesn’t even recognize him.
“Finally she comes back to herself. She leans forward to grab a cigarette out of the pack on the coffee table. She lights it and picks up the remote to begin a little channel surfing. Go to bed, she tells him, not taking her eyes from the screen.
“He listens because he’s a good boy.
“But later, in the middle of the night, he dreams of hoofbeats on the roof of the trailer and wakes up in the dark. He lies still for a minute, still in the web of the magic his dream cast. And then it all comes back to him—his reality.
“The TV’s still playing in the living room. He creeps from his closet-sized bedroom and stands beside the couch. His mom’s stretched out on her back, mouth open, snoring like a lumberjack. Ash covers the front of her robe, and drool runs from the corner of her mouth.
“Not a pretty picture. But this is his mom, right? And he loves her.
“He gets an idea. He wants to give her Christmas. So he goes into the kitchen. One edge of their counter has a stack of newspapers. His mom gets the little local rag on weekdays and the big Pittsburgh paper on Sundays. He pulls the funnies out from the Sunday paper and then tiptoes by his mom, headed for her room. Even then, he’s wise enough to wonder why he bothers with the tippy-toes. He could march through in steel-toed boots with the high school marching band and she wouldn’t wake up. He could drive a Mack truck through.
“In her bedroom, he goes through her drawers. He finds an old bracelet made of silver and garnets—her birthstone—she used to wear. He wraps it up in a sheet of comics, tucking the edges around to secure it. He finds other things—a maroon sweater, soft as a bird, a book called I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a cassette tape of someone named Bonnie Raitt, and an old jar of bath salts. He wraps all of these things in the funny papers, smiling, removed for a while from the little trailer, just thinking about making Christmas.”
Won’t Mom be surprised in the morning?
“He takes his gifts and sets them at the foot of the coat rack by the front door. It’s no Christmas tree, but it’ll have to do.
“He goes back to bed. He lays there, too excited to sleep, until the gray light of dawn creeps in through his blinds. He hears Mom moving around at last, and he can barely contain his excitement. He forces himself to lie still, listening to the tearing of papers.
“And finally he creeps from his room. His mom sits on the floor, her presents scattered around her. When she looks up at him, her face is wet with tears. She doesn’t say anything, just holds her arms out to him.
“He goes to her and lets himself be held. He can’t remember the last time she hugged him, and this hug, this squeeze so hard it hurts a little, is all the Christmas he needs.”
Jimmy stares down at the table. I admit, I’m a little choked up. A couple of tears have leaked out and run down my face. I don’t know what to say.
He looks over at me, searching, I suppose, for my reaction.
I get up and move toward him. I reach down and place my hands under his arms to raise him up. I gather him in my arms and I kiss him, deeply, heedless of who might be scurrying by, losing myself in his trembling warmth as the rain patters down above us.
Wednesday
Chapter 7
JIMMY
I OPEN my eyes to darkness, a boom of thunder, a flash of lightning, and a question.
Why?
Why did I open myself up like that? Why did I tell him so much stuff about my childhood? About my mom? And God, that Christmas!
Was I trying to play on his sympathy? Trying to build up a foundation to make it easier for Marc when he eventually remembers? When he knows the truth of who I am and what I did to him? Was the reason selfish? Just wanting to be seen in a pitiable light? Was I thinking that maybe by doing so, he’d come to love me? To think Oh the poor guy—he’s had it rough?
I turn over in my bed and grab my phone off the stack of books I use for a nightstand. I hit the Home button and the screen illuminates. It’s a little after 3:00 a.m. Another flash of lightning lights up my small room with silver light, making it appear to be a sad set from some old black-and-white movie.
A grumble of thunder follows, and I think it’s strange. Where I grew up, in West Virginia, thunder and lightning were common, especially in the summer months, when we could endure some pretty wicked storms. Seattle doesn’t have that so much—even though it’s a city famous for its rain. Here precipitation is gentler, a little more understated—gray skies, drizzle, mists. Downpours happen, but not as often. And thunder and lightning? In the winter? Almost unheard of.
I wonder if the weather is a reflection somehow of my inner turmoil.
I sigh and try to relax back into my pillow, which smells vaguely of my sweat. My eyes have adjusted a bit to the darkness, so the room takes on gray tones. I stare up at the ceiling, tracing with my eyes a hairline crack that runs from the old cut-glass light fixture to a corner. I think a spider crawls along it, using the crack as a marker.
But that could just be my imagination.
I attempt to stop myself from wondering why I opened myself up so much to Marc the night before. Maybe it was just because I wanted to. Maybe it was simply because I wanted him to know me, to see the parts of me that were vulnerable.
Maybe I just want, at last, finally, to make myself vulnerable to another person, to hand over for a moment the weight I carry around.
To be seen.
Deep thoughts, mister, for three-o-fuckin-clock in the morning!
Yet I could see something in his eyes as I talked. There was more than sympathy there, but a need to share the burden, a desire, maybe, to know me, the real me, more intimately.
I turn over in bed, eye the pack of smokes. I know there’s only a couple left, but now that my focus is on them, I can’t resist. Feeling like my head weighs a ton, I force myself to sit up.
Kevin made me promise when I moved in that I’d always take my smoking outside, and I always have. But it’s late, and my legs feel like lead flows through them. It’s not so much that it’s raining outside that deters me, that tempts me to break the rule. It’s the whole thought of getting dressed, making my way through my bedroom, the living room, the front hallway, and the vestibule that stops me. It seems like a journey of a thousand miles.
I grab my lighter and one of my last smokes and take them over to the sole window. I lift it, letting in the fresh-washed smell of the air, with just a tinge of salt from the Sound a few blocks away. Seems a shame to pollute it.
I squat in my boxers by the window and light up. The nicotine hits, and already, with just that first puff, I feel calmer. Someday I’m gonna have to confront this addiction. But not yet.
I take another drag.
Maybe I told him all that so I could get to the kiss. I close my eyes, savoring the memory of what just might go down as the best kiss of my life. And, as a guy whose lips have been smashed up against the lips of more men than he’d care to mention, that’s saying a lot.
It was like rest at the end of a long journey.
&n
bsp; It was like weight being lifted from my shoulders.
It was like a magical reward for allowing myself to be open and vulnerable.
Even I didn’t know that, at the end of my tale of holiday woe, a kiss would be exactly what I needed to put a bandage on my pain, to demonstrate that someone had finally, finally, finally listened to me and understood.
But Marc knew. He understood that when I finished pouring out a story I’d never told anyone before—one that, for sure, I had hardly ever even allowed myself to confront—what I needed was a kiss.
And not just any kiss—but one filled with electricity, passion, and best of all, comfort.
I shake my head, remembering and staring out at the rain-slicked street below me. That kiss must have lasted for five minutes, maybe more. It was like our two bodies melded together, became one. Believe it or not, that kiss was better than any sex I’d ever had.
Is that even possible?
It was. Trust me.
I think we only broke apart because we heard the door to the bar squeak open and a cough. We broke apart like two guilty kids, grinning sheepishly at the guy with the salt-and-pepper beard who’d emerged.
I don’t think he even noticed us. He was too intent on lighting up his cigarette, a need I know only too well.
I look down at my own smoke, burned now almost to the filter, and think about using the cherry at its tip to light the last one in the pack. That would be so indulgent, so wasteful. Smoking, besides being filthy and unhealthy, is also something I can’t really afford.