He made me think, Glenn. What did I expect him to do? I guess in my silly half-assed way I thought he’d come home every night and we’d fuck the daylights out of each other. That’s about as far as I’d gotten.
But obviously that was on another channel altogether from my going to college and becoming a writer or whatever else I wanted to do with my life. The two things just didn’t fit together. Maybe if I’d just graduated from college I could have thought about doing that. But even if I did, Glenn isn’t the kind of guy who would want to take a stand and say, “Hey, okay, I’m queer and I’m going to live with this kid.” He’d never box himself in that way.
And I realized something about Glenn. And people like him. Beautiful people. Sexy people. People everyone loves. Maybe I’m one of those people myself except that I don’t think or act the way they do. They’re sort of like things in nature. The Grand Canyon. Sunset over the ocean. A beautiful cliff where the water breaks. They just stay still and let everybody rush and crash around them. You can love them but you can’t make them act. They are just there. They don’t see life like I do at all. As going somewhere, becoming something. They just exist.
I guess if you’ve been beautiful all your life there doesn’t seem to be any reason to make plans to try to interest someone in you, create something. You are the subject of so many people’s fantasies you don’t have to have any of your own. You are the dream. You don’t have to have any.
So Glenn Elliott isn’t ever going to do anything about me. He’s just going to stand by until I kill myself, or Mom finds out and kills me or kills herself or kills him. It’s all the same to him.
And Mom can’t act since she hasn’t really figured it out. Despite the sort of wild life she’s had I think she still thinks everything works out all right. And here it is, working out all right. Being a really nice person can be a disadvantage. You’re not suspicious. You think everyone is just as nice as you are. Glenn Elliott fits into that part of her life where she needs him, and the other parts of her life, like her real estate and me, are separate and she doesn’t even think they might be overlapping.
Which leaves me. The person to act. So what am I going to do exactly? I’m young. I’ll fall in love again. But I think there will always be like this little room inside me with someone in it crying. Crying because when you fall in love you can’t just be whirled away to a desert island somewhere and live the rest of your life lying in someone’s arms being happy. That’s the dream, and I know I can adjust to reality, but I’ll never adjust completely. I’ll never stop wishing there was somewhere to go with love that was worthy of the way you feel.
And I know that Glenn Elliott Paul will always be in that little room with the crying person the way he is now. Those smooth muscles, that beautiful face, that beautiful cock. That smile and those squinted blue eyes that you think only you noticed were so wonderful. That make you feel that he never had seen anyone as wonderful as you before. Like some god that you worshiped and that you’ll never stop worshiping in that little shut away room inside yourself. Right down under your stomach somewhere.
So we had a council of war, Macha and I. What is to be done? What is to be done? I told her that Ken was an old boyfriend of Glenn’s. She said that he was sort of like doing his duty in bed and that wasn’t her idea of a great romance. And besides she was jealous of my great romance with Glenn. And that if she couldn’t have a great romance like that she didn’t want me to have one either. She’s very much into being fair. She thinks I have to stop seeing him.
Which is where I had kind of gotten myself. I know he won’t say anything or do anything about it. If I’m just not around he’ll concentrate more on Mom. And if he has another boyfriend on the side or a girlfriend, that’s his business. And her business. Even if I don’t like the idea of AIDS and everything, I can’t very well tell her he’s a switch-hitter. And maybe if he’s switch-hitting with somebody besides me she’ll come out of her fog and figure it out. She did with my father.
So. So. So. Macha and I are going to see if her parents will let us live together in the little apartment they have over their garage. That used to be for servants, I suppose. We’re not going to pretend we’re lovers and besides there are only two single beds up there, which would be pretty hard on serious lovers anyway. We’re going to explain to our parents that we want to test run what it’s like to be on our own. And we’re both going to get some real kind of part-time jobs that we can work full-time next summer before we go to college. I’m going to see if I can’t find something over at the Miami Herald. Macha’s mother knows someone who works over there. And Macha has decided that she wants to be a lawyer so she’s trying to get some kind of part-time thing in a law office. And we’re going to get serious. Except when we go out on weekends with Myrtle and go slumming. I’m going to start calling him Fred exclusively from now on.
And we’re hustling Fred into doing something real. Like being a stand-up comic or something. If you can call that real. He’s going to start going back to college this fall in the evening. He’ll do something great once he gets started, he’s so smart.
And I’m going to explain all this to Mom right away. It isn’t as though I’m going anywhere. I’ll only be five blocks away. But this way she’ll have to concentrate fully on Glenn. And she knows I’m not moving out to do drugs or have a wild sex life or anything like that.
And we’ll see how it goes. As Glenn said, nothing dramatic. Nothing confrontational.
What would probably be best would be cloning. A replicant that you could leave behind so you don’t have to disappoint anyone. And then you could go on and see what the true scenario of your life will be.
And so there will be all these different possible scenarios. Mom will marry Glenn Elliott and they will live happily ever after. She might even have a little Glenn Elliott or two. Which would be very weird but okay.
I might fall in love with Macha and we will be very happy together forever and ever. Unlikely.
I might fall in love with Fred and would have some sort of meaningful relationship over a period of time. We’ve already done the groundwork. Unlikely, but not out of the question. Strip off those dresses and he’s quite a hunk of a guy.
Or even sailor John might develop into a reality in my life.
Or Glenn might suddenly decide that he really loves me more than anyone else in the world and insists that I stay with him forever. My heart pounds even to think about it, but I don’t see how Mom could ever fit into that kind of scheme so I kind of have to put that in the category: nearly impossible.
Or maybe I’ll slip out of this high gear I’m in and start slipping around to meet Glenn and start fucking and getting fucked by him again and maybe my being so noble and getting things all sorted out will amount to nothing. But I wouldn’t like that.
I guess I have to kind of count on Glenn’s just letting me slip away like one of those waves crashing on the beautiful rock and rushing out to sea. Which I think he will do.
And now Macha and Fred and I have to get dressed up and go out to the movies and compare notes on Mel Gibson and then go the Winter Palace and fool around and get on with our lives.
I’m like the man in the yellow boat that I saw rowing in from the ocean. When I get to the shore I have to put the boat on my shoulders and walk wherever it is that I’m going.
My Worst Date Page 24