We Are Lost and Found

by Helene Dunbar

  I want to ask what he did to still be sleeping. And who he was doing it with. But those aren’t questions he ever answers, so I swallow them and clear my throat. Listening for any sign that Connor has moved from his perch of pillows to eavesdrop.

  My parents are going out of town this weekend, I say into the phone. And I owe you dinner.

  Dinner?

  Well, you took me out and all, I remind him. And, I mean, we’d have the house to ourselves.

  Well, then… Gabriel lets the sentence fade into a smile I can hear over the line.

  Yes, I answer. Well, then.

  In the living room, Connor is curled up on the couch, flipping through an old copy of TV Guide. From the cover, the cast of M*A*S*H wave goodbye. Smiling as if the war was some game, which I guess it was to them. They’re only actors, after all.

  Are you sure you aren’t sick? I ask. I mean, he must be if he wasn’t putting a glass up against the room divider to try to listen to my call or even giving me a hard time about it.

  Nah, too much to drink last night. Destiny had a show.

  Destiny? I ask. The one who can’t be bothered to walk upstairs?

  Don’t judge. Would you want to walk up five flights of stairs in six-inch stilettos?

  I stare at him, relieved that everything is back to normal. Kind of.

  Seriously, Michael, I’m good, he says weakly.

  Sure you are, tough guy. Remember that the next time you want me to schlep Mom’s soup from the Upper West Side.

  In an odd surge of brotherly camaraderie, I pull out the photo of me and Gabriel from my bag and pass it to Connor.

  What magazine did you tear this out of? he asks, smirking.

  Funny, I tell him. That’s Gabriel. Then I wait, oddly wanting my brother’s approval or at least an acknowledgment we’re on the same page for once.

  Connor stares as the photo and says, He looks…

  Then he stops and bends the photo in the light before saying, Hot. And familiar. He looks familiar.

  I promise you don’t know him, I say, grabbing the picture and putting it back into my bag. But I’m pretty sure I’m paler than my brother now. I refuse to believe in any reality where Connor would have crossed paths with Gabriel.

  As I’m cleaning up, I come across a small printed booklet. HOW TO HAVE SEX IN AN EPIDEMIC: ONE APPROACH, the cover reads.

  The table of contents makes me squirm with equal measures of curiosity and fear.

  But my parents are leaving town.

  And Gabriel is coming over. So curiosity wins out.

  The opening pages explain that since no one knows exactly how someone gets AIDS, no one can know for sure how to avoid it. It says while some people will give up sex altogether—I guess James isn’t alone with his fear—the pamphlet was written assuming most gay men reading it would want to find a way to have sex without getting sick.

  I flip back and forth from the table of contents to the relevant pages: Kissing. Sucking. Touching.

  All the things we might do.

  My face on fire, I skim the booklet, wondering how much I can learn in the five minutes before my brother wonders where I am. What I’m doing. What I’m imagining.

  It discusses how to talk to a potential partner. Estimating risk.

  Knowing your partner isn’t the issue, it stresses. Neither is the number of partners you have. The issue is the disease.

  Maybe James is the smart one. Maybe fear is the only thing that makes sense. But thinking about Gabriel reminds me that I’m not James. He might not want to have sex, but it’s occupying my mind more and more, and I’m desperate to know what this thing is that people have killed for, died for, loved for.

  What sticks in my head is: talking, washing, condoms, protect yourself, stay alive.

  Before I leave, I take a good long look at Connor curled up on the couch.

  Is he really hungover? Not like that’s out of character.

  Is it too late for him to take what that pamphlet had to say seriously? Does Connor ever take anything seriously?

  Have you thought about moving home? I ask him again, instead. At least there, I could keep an eye on him.

  Have you thought about pushing me in front of the F train? he asks, leaning his head back into the pillows. It would be less painful.

  On the way home, I pass a pay phone and then turn back and pull a quarter out of my pocket.

  I know you can’t simply call some random number and get advice. It’s like following horoscopes in the newspaper. Everyone in the world born in the same month doesn’t have the same life. And everyone who calls Dial-a-Daze doesn’t either.

  And I don’t even have one specific question I need answered; I have many of them.

  Is my brother going to be okay?

  Am I ever going to feel like I have a family again?

  Will Gabriel and I ever have sex? Am I stupid for wanting it more than being afraid of it?

  It’s like those ridiculous Magic 8-Balls and all I ever get are the little triangles that say: “Ask again later.”

  But twenty-five cents seems like a small price to pay on the off chance, so I call.

  This is the future, the recording says. Your future. A week ago, you might not have recognized the person you are today. A week from now you might be different still. Savor this time. Be proud of who you are at this singular moment.

  Have I changed so much in the last week?

  Will I change in the next?

  Will a night with Gabriel and whatever we do or don’t do change me that drastically?

  Will anyone else be able to tell?

  Next, I duck into St. Sebastian’s.

  I don’t remember the last time I prayed for anything.

  Please, I whisper, please let Connor be okay.

  Blood Makes Noise has been extended from its original limited run.

  How come you don’t seem happier about it? I ask James while Becky paints his nails an absurd shade of green.

  He pulls his hand back, earning a scowl from Becky. It isn’t that I’m unhappy about the show doing well, he says. It’s definitely nice to know how I’m spending the next few months. I’d just rather not feel like I was capitalizing on people’s fear in order to do it.

  James’s eyes linger on mine, and I realize how difficult it has to be for him to get up there every night and talk about fear: his and everyone else’s.

  My parents leave in four days.

  I wrestle with the idea of telling Becky that Gabriel is coming over to spend the night. More with the idea of telling James. But then, we decide to head to Howard Johnson’s, and when we get there, I tell them both.

  You need a safe word, Becky says.

  What?

  James swallows a laugh. She means you need a word so when your tryst gets to be too much and you’re screaming “no” and really mean “no” that he’ll believe you’re serious.

  It isn’t like that, Becks, I say.

  But really I guess I don’t know what Gabriel is into.

  I put my head down on my arms. This is a mistake, isn’t it? I ask, but I’m not sure if I mean Gabriel coming to my house or my telling James and Becky that he’s coming to my house. But of course they assume that I’m asking a real question about Gabriel coming over.

  Becky says, Maybe. James shrugs and says, Well, you could just rent a movie and lie around on the couch together.

  Then he says, Oof, when Becky elbows him in the ribs.

  Look, kitten, it never pays to be too safe now, does it?

  If you two could maybe stop for five minutes, I’m serious here, I throw in.

  I’m serious too, Becky says. And, as much as I hate to admit it, James actually makes a good point.

  James places his hands over his heart and swoons dramatically. Good lord, he says. Did you h
ear her? The world is ending.

  I cross my arms and wait. It’s a toss-up as to whether they’re more annoying when they’re arguing or agreeing.

  Speaking of safety… Look, I get it. It isn’t like you’re going to get pregnant or anything, Becky says as the waitress stops by with more water.

  James busts out laughing, while I try to sink under the table.

  Anyhow, Becky continues, voice thankfully quieter. Andy’s mom says as far as they can tell, the best way to reduce risk is to avoid taking in any bodily fluids. So don’t get caught up in the moment, Michael. I’d like you not to die.

  I think I stop breathing for a moment, but then mumble, Sorry, I opened my mouth. But it’s too late for Becky to let this go.

  Right, James? she asks, calling in reinforcements. Tell Michael that I’m right.

  James, pale, fiddles with the tiny straw in his drink and looks down at the table when he says, She’s right, Michael. We don’t want you to die.

  Becky gets suddenly serious and suddenly pissed off. Really? she says, narrowing her eyes at James. You, of all people.

  Me of all people, what? What does that mean? he asks, looking up.

  Becky throws her hands in the air and says, Oh, never mind. Michael, make sure you and Gabriel have condoms, just in case. Seriously, I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.

  Here I thought I was asking their opinions on what to make Gabriel for dinner. Not about buying condoms, or using condoms, or really even about needing them, although I guess that’s what this is all about, when it all comes down to it. Barriers.

  September 1983

  My mother keeps me busy running errands. Pick up their dry cleaning. Go to the post office. Bring home the groceries so she can make the food I can’t tell her I’m not going to eat while she’s gone.

  With two days left, I’m climbing the walls. When I can finally sneak away, I visit Becky at work.

  The minute the store is empty, she goes to the back room, digs into her army bag, the one with alternating checkerboard Canal Jeans buttons and rainbow Unique Boutique ones, and pulls out a small package wrapped in blue and tied with a green ribbon.

  Open it later, she says. Not around your parents.

  I poke the tissue paper and recognize the shape more from magazine ads than personal experience.

  I wonder if everyone’s best friend buys them condoms.

  I needed an excuse to go into that store in the Village anyhow, she explains, and I knew you’d chicken out. I was insatiably curious.

  Sure she was; she probably isn’t lying. And before I can ask about her visit to the sex shop, and what she bought, and who she intends to use it with because Andy hardly seems like the type, a woman comes in with five whining kids, and I back out of the store with only a wave.

  Do I call Gabriel to confirm?

  Make sure he hasn’t lost my address?

  Make sure he’s still going to be here at three?

  Make sure I haven’t lost my nerve?

  My parents leave at one o’clock.

  I change my sheets, throw my old stuffed frog into the closet, make sure the dishes are done, and that my father’s REAGAN FOR PRESIDENT: LET’S MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN poster is off the wall and stashed away in the back closet. Then I take the longest, hottest shower ever.

  The clock reads two thirty.

  I pace for thirty minutes.

  The buzzer sounds.

  I hit the button without saying anything.

  And wait for what feels like years for him to come up from the lobby.

  Gabriel knocks on the door. I open it, and then we stand there staring at each other.

  It’s surreal to see him outside the context of the club, even more in the doorway to our apartment.

  He smiles and walks in. Backpack slung over his shoulder.

  I look around and try to see the living room the way he must. It’s too green, with its wallpaper left over from the previous owners, and the bookshelf that’s bending under the weight of my mother’s glass bird collection, and the old family Christmas photo over the TV with me and Connor in matching sweaters that has been there so long I usually don’t notice it.

  Everything in me screams to grab Gabriel’s arm and pull him out of here as fast as I can. Instead, I take his bag and set it down next to my father’s chair. When I turn back, he pulls me into him and kisses me long enough to make me dizzy.

  And I know I’ll never look at this room the same way again.

  We head to my room. Gabriel tosses himself down on my bed and stretches out as if he’s always been there.

  His eyes travel over my desk, my old baseball trophies, a stack of dusty cassettes, a postcard from when Becky went to Disney World as a nanny for some friend of her aunt’s. They land almost audibly on my guitar.

  Play something for me, he says, in a voice that makes me shiver. You owe me one for that tumbling run in Washington Square.

  I freeze, wondering why I left the guitar out. Why I’m nervous to play for him when I know I don’t suck and I’ve dreamed of playing for him so many times.

  I force myself to pick it up, check the tuning, and strum the opening to a Simon and Garfunkel song.

  I still have this idea about writing a song for Gabriel, but every time I go to add a lyric, I come up with another question about him I don’t know the answer to.

  I don’t want to think about that tonight. The worrying gets to me enough when Gabriel isn’t here; I don’t want anxiety to ruin the time when he is.

  I look up and he’s hanging upside down off my bed, watching me with a ridiculous smile on his face.

  Worth stopping the world for, he says.

  And then:

  • We kiss in my bedroom

  • Kiss in the living room

  • He runs his hands under my shirt in the kitchen

  • I return the favor in the hallway

  When he runs his hand up and down my thigh, time does this weird erratic thing that makes me feel like Dr. Who, whizzing around in a British police box. It’s been seconds. It’s been years. I’m dizzy like I’ve been dancing under strobes for too long. Like I’ve been holding my breath and no longer need oxygen. Like I’ve learned to breathe nothing except Gabriel.

  Let’s go out and get some air, Gabriel says.

  I’m sure the look on my face translates into, What the hell are you talking about? What have I done wrong? Why am I the only one who doesn’t want to stop?

  Obviously Gabriel still needs oxygen, and that kind of sucks.

  I nod, though, because he’s smiling his crooked smile and because I don’t want him to think I only want to mess around and not actually spend time with him.

  I don’t want him to think of me like that.

  Even if I am.

  Like that.

  A little.

  I splash some water on my face, and we go out to get some stuff for dinner. I could heat up Mom’s lasagna, but I want something different. Something sexier. Something my mom hasn’t had her hands on.

  It’s five blocks to Zabar’s, a supermarket that my parents can’t even afford to shop in. We careen through the aisles. Cheese. Pâté. A box of black-and-white cookies. Gabriel buys a six-pack of wine coolers. I buy half a pound of Jordan almonds for no other reason than that there’s something I find kind of sexy about letting the colored sugar dissolve in my mouth. I can barely handle the idea of it dissolving in his.

  Just thinking about it makes me stumble up the curb at Broadway, untying the lace on my right shoe. I stare at it, my hands filled with bags.

  Wait, Gabriel says. He puts his packages down on the street and kneels, retying the laces. Before he stands, he looks up at me and smiles.

  I’m sure I’m blushing in a million shades of red, but all I can think is yes.

 
We spread the groceries out on the table. Bumping into each, apologizing awkwardly, then doing it again.

  And we talk.

  Becky is going to ask me what we talked about, so I try to commit the topics to memory.

  Gabriel took his sister to the Bronx Zoo. The polar bear was her favorite.

  He asks me to tell him about Connor. I try, but fail to describe the contradictions that are my brother.

  I take an almond, coated in pale blue sugar, and boldly put it in his mouth. I think about the sugar dissolving and about how I might, as well.

  Reading my mind, he leans forward, transfers the now-naked almond to my tongue. I’m on fire.

  The phone rings, and we pull apart as if a yellow cab just sped through the living room.

  At first, I don’t move to get it. I mean, how can I?

  But when Gabriel says, What if it’s your parents? I wander over to the phone in the living room in a daze, pick it up too late, and hear only the click of someone hanging up.

  I glance at the clock, watch it tick away my time with Gabriel. We have another twelve hours. Maybe fourteen. It’s like the minutes are turning to liquid and seeping through the cracks in the floor into the Hendersons’ apartment downstairs.

  When I head back to the kitchen, Gabriel is standing at the sink with his wet shirt in his hand. The muscles in his back handcuff my eyes and won’t let go.

  I spilled some coffee on it, he explains, and turns back to the sink to rinse it out.

  A subway rumbles by, and I’m glad it’s loud enough to cover up the sound of my jagged breathing.

  I take a step forward, unsure what to do.

  Gabriel glances over his shoulder and asks what I’m thinking, and I’m sure I turn bright red again because what I’m thinking is that I’m wondering what he sleeps in or out of. What he looks like at dawn when the sun wakes him up. What the stubble on his cheek would feel like against my neck.

  I want to see him disarmed, unguarded.

  Naked.

  I’m not going to tell him that, so I shrug. But then he turns, leans over, runs a finger down the side of my face. I move in to kiss him, but he pulls back and whispers, I mean it. I want to know what you’re thinking. I want to know how it makes you feel when we’re together. How you feel when I do this, he leans over and blows on my neck.