by Rick R. Reed
But no! I shake my head. From all indications, Don isn’t unhappy. He loves his cats! He seems to enjoy living single. “I can drink vodka and eat ice cream in my underwear in the middle of the night if I want to, and there’s no one to tell me it’s bad,” he’s told me on more than one occasion. Funny how our perceptions of ice cream and vodka differ—and how that perception makes all the difference between happiness and despair. Here’s me, too judgy, always thinking how pathetic, but maybe he has a point. And maybe his freedom is exactly his highest and best good—for him.
Who am I to judge?
Okay, so maybe Don’s life isn’t all that bad. But I know it isn’t for me. I know I don’t want to end up alone.
And yet this latest experience, this last time at bat, where I made myself vulnerable once again and got bitten for it, makes me wonder if real love will ever happen. I’m pushing forty, as I never cease to stop reminding myself. I go out sometimes to bars on the weekends, and I notice being not noticed the way I used to. I may kid myself that I don’t, but in my heart of hearts, I know it’s true. I don’t get the same number of looks I used to. Those admiring glances, the smiles, the little flirts I used to take for granted are getting fewer and farther between. Maybe that’s why I often tell myself I’m too tired to go out, that what I really want to do is stay in, pop some popcorn, and catch up on what’s recorded on my DVR.
When the truth is, going out, more and more, feels like an exercise in vanishing, in invisibility. Why didn’t anyone tell me that’s what happens to gay men as we age? We become invisible.
Well, I’m certainly making a good case for calling in and staying home and feeling sorry for myself! Later I can call Pagliacci and order in pizza. I can drift in and out of sleep and imagine that perfect man I’m never able to find. Perhaps I’ll hug a couple of pillows close to me and pretend they’re my dream man.
No. Feeling sorry for myself is not the answer. If I am going to make a three-day weekend out of it, I’m not going to waste it.
Even if I don’t follow Don’s advice to get under a man, I will put myself out into the world. I will hike Discovery Park. Or drive over to the Olympic Peninsula and wander around in the rain forest I’ve always heard about but never seen. Or if I don’t feel like being outside, I’ll check out the movies on offer at the Sundance Cinema over in the University District.
I’ll treat myself well, because if I don’t, who will?
And there I go again….
I shake my head. I’m just a silly old fool. I might as well go to work. After all, why use up a personal day when I’m feeling blue? Save it for when I’m happy.
I get up from bed and open my bedroom window blind. At least today is in better sync with my mood. Gray clouds mass over Lake Union, obscuring the Cascades in the far distance. Strands of fog swirl just above the water so that the houseboats across from me, hugging the shore of the Eastlake neighborhood, are almost hidden—just dark geometric shapes on the water. A couple of rowing shells cut through the lake. I envy them their freedom, knowing right down to my core that they’re blissfully happy, just like everyone else.
Except me.
And there I go again. I’d laugh about my self-pity if it weren’t so, well, sad.
I look at the clock and see that it’s almost eight. I slept right through my phone’s alarm, or shut it off with no recollection. I’ve done it before.
Whatever. No one, other than Don, pays much attention at Panorama Healthcare to when I arrive, when I leave, how long I’m gone for lunch. As long as I’m not missing deadlines, as long as I answer e-mails—which I can do from my iPad, right here in bed!—I don’t think most of my coworkers think twice about where I am or what I’m doing.
I guess some people would perceive this as the ideal job. But today it just adds to that feeling I was musing over earlier—being invisible.
I get up and slide into my robe. It’s chilly. The thermostat in the bedroom reads a cool sixty-five. I shut the window and turn the heat up. I start to head out to get myself some breakfast when I remember my phone. I’m curious if there will be evidence on the home screen of an alarm having sounded.
I trudge back to retrieve it from my nightstand. And I immediately see there’s a partial text.
From Jimmy. Or JD. Or whatever the fuck he wants to call himself.
Just seeing that he’s been in touch, while I slept, makes my heart skip a beat, makes me catch my breath. I care more than I want to admit, I realize.
Please. Can I talk to you? Just talk….
I press the Home button, key in my code, and go to text messages, my mouth suddenly dry. It almost feels like he’s in the room with me, watching.
I think about just deleting the message without even seeing the rest of it. But I can’t do that. Could you?
Please. Can I talk to you? Just talk is all I ask, Marc. I want to try to explain some things. And yeah, even though I know I don’t deserve even the courtesy of your attention for five minutes, I hope you’ll give it to me. I’m kind of an optimist that way.
Anyway, if you want, come by the diner for breakfast soon. Your meal’s on me.
I wonder how much talking we could do when he’s busy at the diner. And then I wonder why I’m wondering such a thing.
Are you really contemplating hearing him out? Seriously? What does that say about you?
I shake my head. Why should I do that much for him—give him that much consideration?
I consider deleting the message. In fact, my finger is poised to swipe so that it’s gone, but then I sigh and just leave it there.
I head for the shower.
AS I head south for work on the bus, I get an idea. A crazy, mean, stupid idea.
I pull the cord for the bus stop at Mercer, and I get off and start walking west on one of Seattle’s busiest thoroughfares. This route will take me to Becky’s Diner in lower Queen Anne. I had a similar urge so recently, except then I was contemplating the age-old dilemma of eggs or pancakes. Sweet or savory?
What I’m contemplating this morning, though, is neither sweet nor savory.
It’s bitter.
It’s mean.
It’s beneath me.
And as the traffic swarms by in a river of fumes, glass, chrome, and metal, I smile. I don’t care if it’s beneath me. I don’t care if I hurt him.
He deserves it.
I silence the little voice inside me, the one that says You’re above this, and continue on my way. I should be to Becky’s in fewer than ten minutes. I let my rage carry me forward, my sense of indignation and betrayal. There’s a kind of mad joy in it.
When I arrive, Jimmy sees me immediately. He grins, and I spy something—relief maybe—course through him. He gives a small wave, which I do not return.
From my experience, I know he waits on tables. Behind the long counter, with its red pleather and chrome stools, a heavyset woman with a kerchief, tattoos, and a raspy voice holds sway over the few people—all men—gathered at the counter. Most of them are sipping coffee, eating, or reading tablets or old-school newspapers.
I join them.
I smile at the woman, and she smiles back. She’s kind of pretty in a sort of Seattle hipster way, with dyed black hair underneath the kerchief, a nose ring, and a piercing just above her upper lip that makes me wonder how she ever removes it.
By way of greeting, she arrives quickly with a glass carafe of coffee. To minimize confusion about the nearly black beverage inside, she holds it up and declares, “Coffee.”
Obviously, there’s no choice in the matter, so I turn over the cup in front of me and slide it toward her. She fills it and sets a menu down. She taps its plastic surface. “The blueberry pancakes are especially good today.”
I stare down at it. Suddenly my face burns, and I feel this great wave of emotion rise up. I have a little trouble identifying it, even as it’s making me sweat, making it hard to breathe, making me feel like I could burst into tears. Blueberry pancakes—or any food, for that ma
tter—sound disgusting.
How stupid I am!
I gulp some of the coffee, and it’s way too hot. Pain radiates out from my mouth and throat, like needles. I wish I could spit it out, but I’m much too decorous a fellow for that.
The menu blurs before me, which is a good thing, because I don’t think I’ve ever been less hungry in my entire life. If I could see what else is on offer, the omelets, the french toast, the skillets, I think I’d puke. I shove it away and lift the coffee cup again. My hands tremble, and I spill some. It doesn’t burn me, but it splatters on the white button-down shirt I put on this morning.
Just to make everything worse, Jimmy comes up to me. At my shoulder, he whispers into my ear, his breath warm, “Hey.”
I peer at him out of the corner of my eye.
“There’s a booth that just opened up. You want it?”
I glance over his shoulder, avoiding his gaze, and look as though to verify he’s not lying to me.
“Nah. I’m good here.” Even though I don’t want to peruse it, I slide the menu back over in front of me and begin my best effort to focus. I call to the woman manning the counter, heedless of being rude, “Can I get a number three?” A number three is three eggs, three bacon slices, three sausage links, toast, and cottage fries.
I’m quite certain I couldn’t swallow one bite of it.
I stare desperately at the waitress, hoping she can read my mind and understand that I’m trying to separate myself from this guy at my shoulder.
She simply glares at me and nods. I don’t blame her. She’s in the middle of taking another customer’s order.
“C’mon, Marc, I’ll take care of your order. Did you get my text? Breakfast is on me this morning.”
I allow myself just a fraction of a second to meet his eyes. And what I read there almost breaks my heart. It’s such vulnerability, such a need to connect.
I am not this stoic man who can harden himself to earnest and entreating looks like the one Jimmy’s giving me right at this very moment.
I call out to the counter woman, who I’m sure I’m pissing off more and more, “Can I get that to go? I gotta get to work!”
Jimmy says, “What’s your problem?”
I turn and force myself to look at him for longer this time. Part of me wants to fling my scalding coffee in his face.
And the other?
The other wants to kiss him.
Both are as irrational as hell.
The dark-haired woman behind the counter finally moseys over. She’s smiling and continues to smile broadly as she delivers the following:
“Look. I don’t know who you think you are or what you think I am to you, but you order when it’s your turn. When I come up to you with a smile like this one—” She pauses to point up at her face. I notice how red her lipstick is and how she reminds me suddenly of that old screen siren Bettie Page. “—then you place your order. You wait your turn. Or you can get the fuck out of here.”
“It’s okay, Erma. He’s here to see me,” Jimmy says. He’s smiling and wringing his hands, hopping from one Converse-clad foot to the other. He touches my shoulder. “Come on, man, come to the booth.”
Someone behind him calls, “Can I get more coffee over here, please?”
Jimmy looks nervously behind him. “Right away,” he answers.
“I gotta work,” he tells me. “I missed yesterday, and I’m gonna get my ass fired. So would you please, please sit yourself down in that booth over there?” he pleads. “I have a break coming up and we can talk then. Okay?”
All I can do is shake my head. Words elude me. I reach into my pocket, pull out a ten, and fling it on the counter. “Erma?” I call. “I’m sorry.”
And I hurry from the diner, wondering if the bigger shitheel in this pair of shitheels—Jimmy and me—isn’t actually me.
Chapter 13
JIMMY
I WATCH Marc go. He rushes out the door as though I have something contagious, as if he can’t stand to even breathe the same air.
I wonder why he showed up here at all. The optimist in me thought he’d at the very least wanted to talk, wanted to hear my side of things.
But reality calls for a more pessimistic view.
“Hey! Waiter! How about that coffee?” The guy in the third booth from the door calls out again, reminding me of the duties at hand. I go grab the pot from behind the counter and approach the table, refill his cup.
With a lot of sarcasm, he says, “Thank you so much.”
“Sorry about that.” I give him one of my most contrite smiles, but it seems lost on him. As though I wasn’t even there, he goes back to staring at the book he’s reading after making sure I knew I was doing a lousy job of taking care of my customers.
I check on my other tables, asking everyone if their food is okay. I take note of a couple of requests for checks. I go to the back to tally them up, and while doing that, I let myself go back to the question of why Marc came in here.
Maybe it was to punish me? To make me see what my actions cost me? What I missed out on?
Who knows? I bring booth four and six their checks and tell them to pay Erma up front at the cash register.
Maybe I should just let him go. If he did indeed come in here to make me feel bad, he succeeded, but he also showed himself to not be as nice of a person as I thought he was. I know that’s a shitty thing for me to think of him, especially after all the stuff I inflicted on him, both two years ago and in the present, but there it is.
Maybe thinking he’s not worth it is my way of minimizing the pain I know is waiting in the corner to pounce on me once I’m 100 percent certain, sure-as-sure as this optimist can be, that there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I’ll get a second opportunity with him.
Distancing myself from him is a way, I think, of trying to undercut the future pain and the despair.
There’s a quiet moment in the diner as the breakfast rush empties out. I stand behind the counter with Erma, who’s a good kid, a fellow recovering addict who’s been clean for more than a decade. I look up to her.
“What was with that guy?”
I pretend I don’t know what she’s talking about. “What guy?”
She punches me in the arm—hard. Erma’s a take-no-shit kind of gal. “You know what guy. He looked like you were about to molest him or something. You should have seen his face. It wavered between looking totally sick and absolutely petrified.” She grins. “What did you do to him?”
I grin back. I am not going to fill her in. Like I’m kidding, I say, “If you only knew.”
I get busy helping her refill salt and pepper shakers. “He’s just a guy. We went out a couple of times.”
She shakes her head. “He’s not just a guy. Even this confirmed single gal could see you feel something for him.”
I cock my head.
“Oh yes, Jimmy. I’d have to be blind not to see how into him you are.”
“And I don’t get that.” I confirm her impression. “We’ve only been together a few times.”
“Oh, honey.” She finishes up with the salt and peppers and loads them onto a tray for me to dispense to the booths. “I hate to go all bad romance on you, but caring about someone isn’t always measured in length of time. You can be with someone for forty years and it still might not be right. Trust me. I know. My parents got divorced after they retired.” She chuckles, but there’s little mirth in the laughter. “And some people fall in love within minutes of laying eyes on someone else.” She winks. “It’s a scientific fact. Look it up.”
I take the tray and start setting out the salt and pepper shakers, thinking about what Erma said. Was it love at first sight? Not when he was in here the other day for breakfast, but that night I spent with him two years ago?
Back in those days, I stole from lots of tricks. And I couldn’t wait to get away from them. But with Marc, I wanted to stay, even if the notion was absurd. I mean, here I was sneaking his stuff into my empty backpack every time he trust
ingly left the room.
And yet… I remember lying on the bed with him. I was high and guilty because he truly seemed like this nice and vulnerable guy. Sweet.
I just wanted him to hold me.
That sounds crazy. But it’s true.
I felt something for him. Maybe, like Erma says, the moment I laid eyes on him. But I was too high, too warped to recognize love at first sight when it came up and tweaked my nose. Maybe that’s why I never forgot him.
Oh, why didn’t he forget me?
Erma’s right. What she saw on my face standing at Marc’s shoulder was real. Was it love? I don’t know for sure, but I still want to find out.
The bell above the door jingles, and I look up to see someone enter. There’s a guy about my own age standing there, and everything about him screams tweaker. I know all the signs—the oily, sweaty skin, the kind of crazed look in his eyes, like they’re bugging out, the way he restlessly shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He looks at the counter, the booths, me, Erma, as though his gaze can’t seem to find a place to land.
Erma, quick at sizing people up, calls to him. “The bar’s to the right.”
He doesn’t thank her, just heads off to the bar portion of the diner, which is almost completely separate from the eating section.
“That boy is fucked up,” she whispers as I return to the counter.
“No kidding.” I suddenly feel something for this character I’ve only seen for about a minute. Sadness. That feeling I had when I left the baths—that some of those inside were trapped.
He could have been me.
After a while, a few more people start to filter into the restaurant, early lunch, late breakfast. There’s what I assume is a lesbian couple, one with spiky bleached-blonde hair with pink highlights and the woman I assume is her wife or girlfriend, a stunning brunette who reminds me of Katy Perry. An older man, a regular named Joe, takes his usual spot at the counter with his usual book, Watership Down, which I swear he’s been reading through his little round rimless glasses for years—or at least ever since I’ve worked here. I don’t know if he reads it over and over or is just a slow reader. Somehow, it seems rude of me to ask. There are a couple of guys, whom I get no gaydar off of, who take the booth at the very back and immediately pull out their phones and begin staring into their screens. Why bother to go out to eat together?