One Man Guy

by Michael Barakiva

  “Are you okay?” Alek’s mother asked her.

  “I’m okay. But I wish I could say the same of the Kirikians’ buregs,” she complained, folding the rest of the pastry into a napkin. “They’re so dry. I guess that’s what happens when you bring in a Macedonian woman to make them and you pretend that you made them yourself. You think any of us would make buregs this dry?”

  “Of course not, dear,” Mr. Hovanian, a tall, prematurely balding man, agreed. “Isn’t that right, Nanar?”

  “Yes, Papa,” Nanar said quietly.

  “I think the Kirikians’ buregs are okay,” Alek’s dad ventured.

  Mrs. Hovanian laughed heartily. “That’s very kind of you, Boghos, but I can’t help but notice you didn’t take any.”

  “Have you tried any of the sarma?” Alek’s mom asked.

  “We’d like to, but it’s all stuffed cabbage,” Mrs. Hovanian complained. “Not a grape leaf to be seen. I was hoping for some dolma as well, but all the stuffed peppers were gone by the time I reached the table, and I decided against the zucchini, since I find the summer squashes too stringy. But of course we love your tabbouleh, Kadarine. Nanar, tell Mrs. Khederian how much you like her tabbouleh.”

  “It’s always the perfect ratio of bulgur to parsley to vegetables, Mrs. Khederian,” Nanar responded on cue.

  “It’s a family recipe.” Alek’s mom beamed in response.

  “Boghos, Kadarine, would you excuse us for a moment?” Mrs. Hovanian said, getting up. Her husband and daughter followed her. “We’d like to ask the Kalfayans about carpooling for the vacation. And please, no one mention the kufteh they made for last year’s trip. The beef was so overspiced, I was sick for the whole vacation!”

  Alek’s mother watched them leave. The moment the Hovanians were out of earshot, she said, “Can you imagine how difficult it must be going through life finding fault with everything?”

  “That must be very hard for you to imagine,” Alek deadpanned. No one in his family, however, noted the irony.

  The Hovanians returned a few moments later, beaming. “The Kalfayans will be renting a minivan, so we can get a ride up with them to Niagara Falls,” Mr. Hovanian reported happily.

  Nanar turned to Alek. “I was so sorry to hear you won’t be able to come on the vacation, Alek. I was looking forward to spending more time with you.”

  Alek was touched by Nanar’s sincerity. “Nanar, please don’t worry about it.”

  “And Mom and Dad are letting Alek choose next year’s vacation,” Nik said. Alek waited for the insult or cut-down to follow, but instead, Nik continued eating his bureg. Nanar’s kindness apparently transformed Nik into a normal human being.

  “Mom, Dad, just make sure you leave the number for your hotel so that I can get in touch with you in case anything comes up and you’re out of range.” Alek stabbed a strip of lamb with his fork and shoved it into his mouth.

  “We’ll make sure to leave all of that information with the sitter,” his mom assured him.

  “What sitter?” Alek smiled back at his mom.

  Alek’s mom looked confused. “What do you mean, dear?” she asked, trying to keep up appearances for the Hovanians’ sake.

  “Well, Becky’s parents have been leaving her alone since she was thirteen.”

  “But that’s just for a weekend—this is for a full week.”

  “It’s not really a full week. You’re leaving Tuesday and coming back on Sunday, so that’s only five days, really. Besides, I’m fourteen! Are you saying I can’t take care of myself?”

  “Alek,” his father began, “why don’t we talk about this later?”

  Alek knew this meant, There’s no way we’re going to let you have your way, but since we don’t want to appear tyrannical in front of the Hovanians, we’ll just wait to tell you no when we’re in private.

  “You know, Papa started taking Mama on his business trips when I turned fourteen,” Nanar offered.

  Alek looked at Nanar with gratitude for resuscitating his chance for a few days of freedom.

  “Really?” Alek’s mom smiled weakly.

  “I think it’s really good for kids to have some independence. It helps them grow up,” Mr. Hovanian explained. “Besides, with e-mail and cell phones and Facebook—”

  “You have a Facebook account, Mr. Hovanian?” Alek asked.

  “Of course he does. We both do!” Mrs. Hovanian confirmed. “How else do you think we keep up with the AGBU and the United Armenian Fund?”

  “With all of this technology, keeping track of your kids has never been easier. Even when you’re away,” Mr. Hovanian finished up.

  “And if anything did happen, I could just run over to the Eisingers,” Alek added. “As long as it’s not too early—I’d hate to inconvenience them for an emergency.” Alek admonished himself immediately for taking the jab before he’d clinched the deal, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “I guess if we gave you a list of rules that you’d have to follow or be grounded for the rest of your natural life, and you made sure to check in every day, and night, it might work,” Alek’s mom conceded.

  Alek looked over at Nik. This is exactly the time when he’d usually say something to spoil things. As expected, Nik opened his mouth to speak.

  “Oh, Mom, relax. He’ll be fine,” Nik said.

  Alek stared at his brother, dumbfounded. But Nik just continued to eat and stare into Nanar’s eyes.

  Alek’s mom looked at his dad for approval. When he nodded, she said, “No more than one friend over at a time, bed by eleven, no more than one hour of television on school days—”

  “Wow! A whole hour! You guys are getting soft in your old age.”

  His mom ignored Alek’s jab. “And you call every day…”

  “… at least once,” his dad added.

  “… at least once to tell us everything is okay.”

  “Deal.”

  * * *

  The eerie orange light flickered, daring Alek to enter. He vividly recalled Jack shoving and mounting him the last time he had dared to go to the other side. But he had promised himself that he would apologize to Ethan today, and since he’d failed to do it during Algebra, he had no option but to brave the tunnel, Jack, and the rest of the Dropouts.

  Alek took one step, then another. When he was halfway through, the lights blinked out, stranding him in darkness. Alek forced himself to continue stepping forward, keeping his focus on the promise of light at the end.

  When he finally emerged, he saw the D.O.s skating, flipping, and skidding through the parking lot they’d claimed. Before he could locate Ethan, he heard Jack’s voice boom across the parking lot. “What’re you doing here, dumb-ass?”

  “Screw you, asshole,” Alek responded without missing a beat.

  “Nice,” Alek heard a voice offer. He turned around and saw Ethan hovering on his board, lazily circling a traffic cone. “I thought I was going to have to bail your ass out of this one, just like last time.”

  “You’re not going to have to save me anymore, Ethan.”

  “Is that because I’m going to be too busy going to hell?”

  “Look.” Alek took a deep breath. He found himself wanting to look at anything but Ethan—the untied lace on his left shoe, a guy with a baseball cap on backward retaping the top of his skateboard—but he forced himself to make eye contact. “I’m really sorry about that.”

  “You better be.”

  “I am.” He wished he could be alone with Ethan, but if this was where the apology was going to have to happen, so be it. “I think I did some serious overreacting.”

  “No shit!”

  “I just thought—”

  “You made what you thought pretty clear that day. You thought that I was embarrassed to be seen with you in front of my friends. Well, let me tell you something, dude. Every one of those guys, even the ones who can be total assholes like Jack, accept me for who I am. I’m not saying they threw me a parade when I came out, but they don’t care about
my being gay. Which I think is pretty awesome, especially considering that none of them are. So they were just having some fun that day. Everything else was your own shit.”

  Ethan’s words stung Alek, but not because they weren’t true. He swallowed his response, and his pride. “That’s why I’m here now, Ethan. ’Cause I know I acted like a jerk. So I came to say I’m sorry. Here.” Alek pulled a package out of his JanSport backpack and handed it to Ethan.

  “What’s that?”

  “I think apologies are easy. You just say ‘I’m sorry’ and expect everything to be fine. Gifts are better. They say ‘I’m sorry, and I’m willing to spend a few bucks and some time and effort to show you how sorry I really am.’”

  “Nice, Polly-O.” Ethan nodded his head in approval.

  “Well, open it already!”

  Ethan sat down on his skateboard with his back to Alek and ripped open the package. When the wrapping paper lay on the ground in shreds, Ethan held up the contents. “A book?” he said.

  “Flip through it,” Alek instructed. Ethan did, and Alek continued talking. “You remember how, when you used to buy CDs, they came with these great little books that had all the lyrics? Well, I made a little booklet of all the Rufus lyrics. I put them by album, so it starts with Rufus Wainwright, and then come Poses, Want One and Two, Release the Stars, All Days Are Nights, and then Out of the Game.” Ethan didn’t say anything, so Alek continued. “I’m sure you already know most of the words, but I just thought it would be nice to have them all printed out together, you know.”

  Alek hoped this would at least get some kind of reaction from Ethan, but he still didn’t say anything. After a few more moments of silence, Alek added, “I hope you don’t think this is stupid, but I didn’t really know what else to get you. I mean, I don’t know anything about skateboarding or…”

  Ethan’s shoulders started heaving. Alek took two steps backward.

  “You know, if you don’t want it, I can take it back,” Alek offered huffily. Putting himself on the line was one thing, but there was no way he was going to let Ethan laugh at him for the peace offering that he had spent most of the weekend putting together.

  Ethan turned around to look at Alek, and Alek saw tears running down his face.

  “Come with me,” Ethan said. Without waiting for a response, Ethan got on his skateboard and began to skate away. “I’ll see you guys later,” he called over his shoulder, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

  “Later, Ethan,” Jack called back.

  “See you tomorrow,” a spiky-haired guy yelled.

  Ethan turned around. “What’re you waiting for?” he asked Alek, who had been standing frozen like a Rodin statue. Alek grabbed his backpack and ran after the boy on the skateboard.

  11

  Ethan jumped off his skateboard and unlocked the front door to an attached brown row house with a key hanging on one of his many pocket chains. He wove through the piles of books, records, CDs, DVDs, magazines, and newspapers stacked on the shelves, in every corner, and against every available wall surface. It was hard to make out what kind of furniture was in the house because everything was drowning in piles.

  “My father likes things,” Ethan offered wryly, answering Alek’s unasked question.

  “What does he do with all of this?” Alek exclaimed, gesturing to the books and CDs and DVDs.

  “He’s read or listened to or watched every book, album, or DVD in this house.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  But Ethan was on the move again.

  Alek followed Ethan into his room, thinking how terrifying this setting would’ve been just a few weeks ago.

  “Close the door,” Ethan said over his shoulder. Every wall in Ethan’s room was covered with images, making Alek feel like he’d stepped into a kaleidoscope. Even the ceiling was plastered with pictures.

  From underneath his bed, Ethan pulled out a medium-size green plastic bin. As he started to work his way through the contents, Alek tried to decipher the magazine cutouts, posters, and printouts staring at him.

  All of the images were of men. Some were movie stars, like Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Jude Law, and Johnny Depp. Some were athletes: Alek recognized Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, Rafael Nadal, Dwayne Wade, and Joe Mauer. And some, Alek realized, were gay celebrities, like Anderson Cooper, Neil Patrick Harris, and Alan Cumming.

  Then there was an entire wall dedicated entirely to models at various points of undress. Alek guessed that he saw more seminude men in Ethan’s room than he had seen in his life cumulatively. He couldn’t find one totally frontally naked man, but many of the men were naked from the waist up, and some of them were entirely naked but photographed from behind. Finding himself blushing, Alek refocused on Ethan, who finally found what he was looking for. He slid the green plastic bin back under the bed and turned to Alek.

  “Look at this.”

  Alek stared at the booklet, dumbstruck. It contained the lyrics to all the Rufus songs, organized by albums, almost identical to the one Alek had given Ethan.

  “I’ve been racking my brain, thinking about every conversation you and I have had,” Ethan said. “And I’m sure I didn’t mention that I had this. So I can only conclude that it’s pure coincidence that you made it for me. And that’s freaky, man.”

  “Why? I’m sure that lots of people know you love Rufus.”

  “This wasn’t given to me by just anyone. It was a gift. From my ex-boyfriend.”

  Ethan’s gaze went to a framed portrait on his desk of him with his arm around a handsome, tall guy with a solid jaw and curly blond hair.

  “Is that him?”

  “That’s Remi.”

  “Why’d you guys break up?”

  “Long story.”

  “If you don’t want to tell me you don’t have to, Ethan, but I wish you would.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just … well, it’s embarrassing.”

  “More embarrassing than telling someone to go to hell?”

  Ethan laughed in spite of himself. “Well, not that embarrassing. Nothing would be that embarrassing.”

  “So what’re you waiting for?”

  Ethan hopped on his bed and lay down on his stomach. Alek sat on the floor next to the bed, looking up at him.

  “Well, Remi was one of my dad’s students at NYU. He came here from Australia. My dad thought he was mad smart, but that his papers weren’t up to par. So he told Remi to stay after class one day and asked him what was going on. Turned out Remi could barely work on school because his life was falling apart.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, his folks lost all their money right before he started school, so he had to hold down all of these jobs and barely had time to do his homework. He couldn’t afford student housing, so he was sofa-cruising from one friend’s apartment to another. My father freaked when he found out that Remi had spent some nights on the street, so he told him to stay in our guest room until he found a regular habitat. I think it was only supposed to be temporary, but by the time spring semester rolled around, Remi was still here. My dad liked having him around, and he did all the shit that my dad hated, like dishes and laundry and vacuuming. And of course I didn’t mind because by that point we were pretty serious.”

  “But he must have been way older than you.”

  “Not really. He skipped a grade, so he was only seventeen, and I’d just turned fifteen. It wasn’t that big of a deal. And look at him.” Ethan handed the portrait on the desk to Alek. “He was the kind of guy that turned heads.”

  “Did your dad freak out when he found out you two were together?”

  “I don’t know if he ever knew, honestly. Most of the time, I think he’s totally clueless. I guess he thought Remi would be a good influence, like the older brother I never had, and in a lot of ways he was. Remi turned me on to Rufus, and although I had hung out a lot in the city before I met him, he had a knack for finding cool people and places. He alwa
ys said that if he were stranded in the desert he wouldn’t survive a day, but in a city he knew how to get by. He’s the one who taught me the bathroom train trick and how to do the city on ten bucks for the day—”

  “Hey, that reminds me. I still had five bucks left over.”

  “That’s because I decided to skip the last part.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you were being a salty bitch. It’ll just have to wait for the next time we get to the city.”

  Alek inhaled sharply. His mind started racing with the possibilities of what another day in New York with Ethan could entail.

  “Now where was I?” Ethan sat up. “That’s right. Remi knew just how to navigate his way through the city. Wait until I show you his Barnes & Noble trick, or his umbrella special.”

  “What does that mean?” Alek sat up eagerly.

  “I told you, you’ll have to wait and see,” Ethan said playfully, leaning forward for extra emphasis. Alek scooted back slightly, stretching his legs out.

  “I know this may sound stupid,” Ethan continued, “but I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. From the moment we met, everything felt so right.”

  “Well, he sounds just about perfect,” Alek said.

  “He was,” Ethan replied. “I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “Well, it’s just that sometimes…” He trailed off, looking away.

  “What, Ethan?”

  “Sometimes he did things that really upset me. But I knew it was just me being immature.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, some nights, he just wouldn’t come home. I’d wait up until two or three for him, and nothing—not a text or call or anything. And whenever I asked him where he’d been, he’d say he was studying late at a friend’s place. But then the next day we’d be chilling with one of his friends, who’d let it slip that they’d been out clubbing the night before. You know—shady shit like that. And, like, I didn’t really care. I mean, he was in college and he could do whatever he wanted. But I just wished he wouldn’t lie to me about it, you know? Especially when I knew he was hooking up with other guys.”