“Then you must find a man here and become a daddy,” Nando says in a way that’s both hopeful and forlorn.
“Sooner or later we will be rescued.”
“Rescued? From what?”
“I mean, sooner or later I may have to return to Canada. Luca needs to go back.”
“But you must stay. This is your home now.” Nando’s voice becomes a little panicked. “All I want is happiness for you. Just don’t leave!”
I’m confused. Nando seems to desperately want me to stay, but at the same time he still won’t let me touch him. “Relax,” I say. “I’m not going anywhere for a while.”
Nando furrows his brow. Then with renewed enthusiasm, he says, “I am certain you will make a fine daddy. With your permission, I will talk to my sister.”
“No, don’t do that. I am not ready.” I rapidly wave my hands back and forth. “I don’t even know if I am fertile.”
“Oh, you are fertile.” Nando holds his elbow high in the air the way people on the island do to make the sign for a big erection. “Do not worry about that.”
“Hey, just cause I can squirt juice does not mean that I can make a baby.”
“Everyone knows that. But you are fertile.” He can barely restrain the smirk on his face.
“You can’t tell. Nobody can really tell until you actually make a baby.”
“Everybody knows you are fertile.” Nando looks perplexed, as if he’s telling me something that I should have already known.
“Oh, c’mon. How can you…?” And I stop, afraid of what his answer might be.
“There are many women who wish to have a baby with skin as pink as a seashell, hair like gold, and eyes the color of the sea.”
I freeze with my mouth hanging open at the sudden realization that the game I’ve been playing for the past months is more than a game.
“Nando, are you telling me I am going to be a father?”
“No, Yabai, do not be ridiculous.”
“Oh, thank goodness. You scared me.” I lie back on the edge of the pool.
“You cannot be a daddy until you have first made an arrangement with a woman.”
I sit back up. “I can’t even imagine looking at a baby who has my eyes and face.”
“Oh, do not worry about that. Tuss and many of the woman have already seeded themselves with your juice, and in a few moons, we will see how many new pink babies we have.”
My mouth falls open, but I’m silent. Have I been deceived? No one has hidden anything or lied to me. I feel sick.
“Yabai, you do not appear well. Perhaps you should return to the cottage to sleep.”
I stagger off toward the cliff, my window between two worlds, or maybe it’s just a spot with a nice view and a pleasant breeze. Part of me is horrified that a woman might be carrying my child. Part of me is ecstatic at the prospect of seeing a new life that came from me—something I never allowed myself to dream about.
A couple of hours later, Nando finds me there staring out to sea. He sits next to me and puts his arm around me without saying a word.
“Nando,” I start slowly, “I have decided to accept my responsibility. I will try to be a good father.”
“Wonderful. I will talk with my sister tomorrow.”
“That’s not what I mean. I mean if any of the new babies are mine, I will accept that I am their father.”
“You cannot!” Nando withdraws his arm and bumps me with his shoulder in one sudden sharp movement.
“What do you mean, I can’t? It should be easy enough to tell if a baby is mine or not.”
“All the new babies already have fathers. The arrangements have been made. You cannot steal someone’s baby. Oh, that would be very bad, very bad indeed.”
“But if the baby is obviously mine?”
“You do not understand. Juice does not make you a daddy. It only makes a baby. You must make an arrangement if you want to grow up a baby. A baby is not a possession.”
Nando stares out to sea with me for a moment. Then with a forlorn expression on his face, he turns and says slowly, “If you wish to be a daddy, it is best that you choose a mate. There are many men who would love to be your mate and grow up a baby with you.”
“And what about you? Why are you not a father?” I challenge.
“I cannot be a daddy. I will never be complete.” Nando looks wounded. He stands up, his eyes cast downward. “Don’t make me talk about this, Yabai. It is too shameful.”
“I thought you said we can’t know our destiny because it doesn’t exist yet.”
He walks away without further words. I let him go. If he won’t tell me, I can’t force him. I’ll just have to wait.
GUY STOPPED talking, leaned back, and stretched his arms like a bodybuilder about to do bench presses. His tattooed biceps bulged out beyond the sleeves of his plain blue T-shirt.
Richard studied him. “Let’s continue talking about your feelings of being pushed into the shadows. Would it be so terrible to try and fit in?”
“You mean lie so I can fit in?” Guy barked.
“Why would you assume you have to lie or hide?” Richard’s tone was professional.
“Doc, we all hide the truth.” Guy cocked his head. “Have you told your parents yet?”
Richard frowned and crossed his arms. “Yes, as a matter of fact I just did. But this is not about me!” Richard punched out the words.
“Oh? And I’m willing to bet after your visit to your folks you linked up with a fuck buddy on Grindr on your way home. What’s that called? Oh yeah, acting out.”
Richard clamped his fists and scowled. “Your comments on my personal life are quite invasive, you know?”
“Hmmm.” Guy poked himself in the chest three times. Then he slid forward, reached out, and touched Richard lightly on the shoulder. Richard moved back into his chair.
“What are you doing?”
“Just checking to see if you’re real or part of my fantasy.”
Richard said nothing.
“Truth is the nutrient of the mind and lies are poison.” Guy shrugged. “Wasn’t it Bion who said that?”
“And what’s your point?”
“Nothing. It’s just I remember two people in this room agreeing to tell the truth.”
Guy stuck his finger in his ear and wiggled it, then continued. “Beautiful, smart, and athletic. Excellent grades in school, volleyball and swim team, right? Oh, and popular. Yes, I’ll bet you are the almost perfect son.”
“Why are you still focusing on me?” Richard barked.
Guy inflated his broad chest and half grunted, half yawned. “Because I was the other boy—the boy who wasn’t quite good enough, teased in gym class, arms like a chicken, and a chest like a sparrow—the boy nobody wanted to be friends with.”
“But all that’s changed now. You’re well educated, successful, and from the size of your biceps and pecs now, you can hardly feel like a sparrow anymore.”
Guy continued. “As a child, I ate cakes to fill my loneliness.” He paused and looked directly at Richard.
Richard breathed in and out slowly, as if he were contemplating something. Then he held up his hands in surrender. “Haagen-Dazs Cookie Dough ice cream. I have a tub waiting for me in the freezer at home.”
“Hostess Twinkies.” Guy laughed.
The harshness drained from Richard’s face, and he laughed too. “I guess it goes to show you that even headshrinkers can be human.”
“Just don’t let anyone else find out.”
“No, I promise.” Richard lowered his head in mock submission.
Guy stood up and moved toward the door. “By the way, nothing quite like too much borrowed cologne and hair gel in the morning to let everyone know you didn’t shower at home.”
Richard dropped his head to his shoulder and took a quick sniff.
“How do you know my cologne is borrowed?” Richard challenged.
Guy grinned. “CK One. Not really your style, is it?” He stepped through the do
orway, leaving Richard shaking his head.
Chapter 14: Short Penis
“DOC, YOU can suck a stranger’s dick without so much as a how do you do, but the minute you become friends, sex is a no-go zone,” Guy announced as he entered the studio.
“Intimacy and relationships have different forms, and sex can complicate a friendship,” Richard said while he continued to stare at his computer screen.
“Why?” Guy challenged.
“I wish I knew.” Richard closed the file, looked up, and shrugged.
“Still haven’t sorted that one out either—the lines between love, friendship, and sex. Do they really exist, or are they just another way we partition our emotions?” Guy sat down on the sofa. “Maybe sex is a currency we use, continually trying to trade up. If you only have sex with people who are young, beautiful, popular, and rich, that means you must be important and valuable too.”
“Must friendship always involve sex?” Richard clicked on the tape recorder that was sitting on the corner of his desk and moved over and sat down in the swivel chair.
“Good question.” Guy paused for a moment. “Doc, did you know they have two different ways of saying ‘I love you’ in Italian? One is for a lover. The other is for love between friends and family. It kind of translates as ‘I want goodness for you.’”
“Ti voglio bene.” Richard’s eyes twinkled.
“Doc, I didn’t know you could speak Italian.”
“I can’t. Just three weeks in Tuscany last summer.” He grinned and shifted comfortably into his chair.
“I have a little theory,” Guy said.
“And I’m sure you’re going to tell me about it.”
“Well, it goes like this. Men mostly make friends based on shared activities. We need to do something together in order to become and stay friends.”
“Like what?” Richard leaned back and folded his arms.
“Like anything….” Guy squirmed. “I don’t know, like fishing, for example. And when that something is over, the connection is broken.” Guy mindlessly caressed the tattoo of a fish on his forearm.
“It’s common for many older men to feel lonely.”
“Especially old gay men.” Guy stopped caressing the fish and sat up straight. “We have no place, no shared activities, and so we end up either recluses or silly old faggots chasing after twinkies who largely regard us as pathetic or invisible.”
“That’s pretty harsh, don’t you think?” Richard absently swept his hand over the traces of salt and pepper that had started to appear along his temples.
Guy scoffed. “Ha! You’re still young, but soon you’re going to find out that nobody pushes their way to the front of the line to buy old fish and potatoes.”
“Have you ever tried the Queer Seniors group at the 520 Community Center?”
“If I wanted to spend time with some selfish, self-involved, self-absorbed old prune, I can spend time with myself.” Guy curled his lip.
“Not everyone is an old prune. How can you meet people if you don’t try?” Richard said in an exasperated tone.
Guy didn’t respond. He rested his forehead in his palm and shook his head. “Every time I’ve gotten mixed up with someone, I’ve done something to screw it up.”
“Friendships are often temporary. People grow and change along with friendships. It doesn’t necessarily mean you screwed it up.” Richard’s voice was once again patient. “Come on. You must have had some friends in high school.”
Guy sighed. “Here we go again with the lab rat stuff. Okay, there was this one boy named Larry. Yeah, I guess Larry was my friend. We didn’t really have that much in common. In fact, he was pretty much everything I was not. He was tall, muscular, and handsome. He had a big group of friends, so we didn’t hang out together at school. After school and on Saturdays he started to come by while my folks were in the store. His mom was always at her church, and his dad drank. We didn’t talk that much, mostly just hung out in front of the TV. To be honest with you, I never really knew why he wasted his time on me at all. Maybe it was because his folks didn’t have a TV. You know there were still families that didn’t have TVs back then. But even after his dad finally broke down and bought one, he still came around.”
“Maybe it was because he liked you?”
Guy flinched, as if Richard had just made an absurd suggestion. “Like I said, he was handsome and he turned me on. I guess I had a crush on him.”
“Was there something more to it than just physical attraction?”
“I felt safe with him. The other boys left me alone. No one gave me too much trouble ’cause Larry said I was okay.
“One summer when we were both sixteen, Larry and I spent two weeks back at my parents’ cottage, just the two of us. That’s when it first happened. Of course we had talked a lot about sex before, adolescent boy stuff, but we had never found the courage to do anything. Then one afternoon we were lounging on some sunny secluded rocks down at the shore, Larry in his orange Speedo, me in my baggy stretch brown boxers. We had found my dad’s secret stash and stolen a mickey of whisky. Halfway through, we started to talk about sex and gave ourselves boners. The next thing I knew he had his hands down my trunks, and it wasn’t long before I had my face down his Speedos. For the rest of that short vacation, we wanked and sucked each other raw. I remember one day going for a record. Larry came six times and I came eight.”
“Eight times?”
“I was young and horny. It was the only time I ever beat Larry at anything. Ha, you know I still have fantasies about Larry.”
“Did sex change anything between the two of you?”
“Yeah, when school started again he joined the football team. Shortly afterwards, I came around the hall corner, and Larry was there with a group of his new football friends and his arm around a girl with big tits. They were laughing and joking about some kid they said was a faggot. They had shoved this poor kid’s head down the toilet in the boys’ washroom. I looked at Larry, but he just looked past me as if I wasn’t there. Then he leaned over and kissed the girl on her mouth. From then on, Larry never came over or spoke to me again.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“Like he had stabbed a jagged spike into my chest.” Guy bit his lip. “Later I realized how absurd it was for a loser like me to assume I could be friends with a guy as cool as Larry.”
“What did you do after that?”
“I became invisible. I hid for most of high school, and in the summer, I spent as much time as I could alone back at my parents’ cottage. In our final term, Larry got his girlfriend pregnant. They were going to get married after graduation. One night, right before his wedding, he showed up at the cottage in his pickup truck. He was drunk and wanted to do it.”
“And?”
“We did it, and I never saw him again. Heard he got fat, had a couple of kids, and bought a house overlooking the high school football field.”
“But I still don’t see why you blame yourself because Larry obviously had unresolved sexual issues.”
Guy shook his head and continued shaking it slower and slower until he finally became still. “I guess you’re right. I just felt so… I don’t know, worthless, guilty.” Guy lifted his head and stared at the wall as if his gaze had the power to change time and events. He began to speak.
IT’S JUST before dawn, and Pico as usual is perched in the bow of the canoe. I’m fidgeting, trying to make myself comfortable midway down, while Kizo and Luca are knee-deep in the surf. Molap pushes his canoe into the water beside us and barks orders at Den, his partner, to hold it steady. Then he yells up to his son, Tiki, to bring him his net. A shy, skinny boy appears carrying a bundle so large he can barely see over it as he staggers down the beach to the water’s edge.
“Watch what you’re doing, boy. You’re trailing my net!” Molap grabs the bundle from him. Tiki stands motionless, his small feet sinking into the wet sand as Molap wades back to the canoe.
“Molap,” Den says carefu
lly. “Don’t be so harsh with him. He is still only a boy.”
“Well, it is time he grew up and started to act like a man,” Molap growls.
“I’m his father too, you know!”
“If you don’t stay quiet, I will leave you both on shore.” Molap throws the bundle of net into the bottom of the canoe and turns to retrieve some spears from the shore.
Den curls his lip at Molap, then looks over to Tiki, who is still standing somberly at the water’s edge. Holding his closed fist to his mouth, Den makes a couple of loud kissing noises and launches them toward Tiki. Tiki smiles and catches the kisses, then pounds his chest twice. Den winks and climbs into the canoe but says nothing more.
Suddenly Kizo gets a strange expression on his face. “Hey, Molap,” he calls. “Lend me one of your spears?”
Molap sneers. “Why do you want my spear?”
“Kizo….” I point to the two spears lying along the gunwale beside me. Kizo shoots me a look.
“We are four, and there is only you and Den. Come on,” Kizo pleads. “We are almost brothers. Our mothers come from the same house. Don’t be a short penis with me and give me your extra spear.”
Molap scrunches up his face and growls as he tosses the spear over to Kizo. Den leaps into the canoe with his back to Molap, drops his head, and laughs. Molap grunts, pushes his canoe out, climbs in the stern, and paddles off toward the reef. I can see Den still shaking, holding in his laughter as he waves good-bye.
“Why did you call Molap a short penis?” I ask Kizo as he paddles us out.
“Oh, I was just having a bit of fun with him.” Kizo grins.
Pico jumps up and down in the bow, repeating, “Short penis, short penis.”
“Hey, don’t worry, little buddy,” Luca says. “Your penis is not that short.” He punches me on the shoulder, almost sending me toppling overboard.
“Thank you, Long-Dong Silver.” I grab the back of his loincloth to steady myself and give it a sharp tug. Luca yelps.
Eating the Moon Page 14