Pee-Shy

by Frank Spinelli

  “How is your uncle?”

  “He died of AIDS the year after my mom passed away.”

  I heard the pain in his voice. I didn’t know what to say. Once again there was a long pause as conversations from the surrounding tables suddenly amplified. I heard mariachi music in the background and wondered whether it had been playing the entire time. Finally, I offered, “That must have been so tough on you to lose both your mother and your uncle Vito back-to-back.”

  “It was,” he whispered. Mark reached over and placed his hand tenderly on the back of Jonathan’s neck.

  “I feel fortunate to have met him,” I said. “Let’s toast to Uncle Vito!”

  We clinked glasses. I watched Mark, saw his concern growing as Jonathan drank more. “Honey, why don’t you have some water?” he said, sliding over a glass. Ignoring him, Jonathan stared at the margarita in his hand. He appeared sullen and detached, as if he had already departed us and was swimming in a sea of tequila, drowning in painful memories.

  “Seriously,” I said. “What did you think when I told you that I spoke with Bill Fox?”

  “I was surprised.” Jonathan set his glass down. It hit a fork, which flipped in the air before landing on the ground.

  “Maybe you should slow down?” suggested Mark.

  Jonathan ignored him and said, “I still don’t know how you got in touch with him.”

  “I told you. He wrote a book.”

  “Yes, I found it on the Internet, but it’s out of print.”

  “Well, I can lend you my copy if you’d like? It makes for great toilet reading.”

  “The nerve of him,” said Jonathan. He was beginning to sound incoherent.

  Mark slid Jonathan’s drink out of his reach and replaced it with a glass of water. Jonathan waved at him with disgust. “So, how did you find Bill?” asked Mark, refusing to let Jonathan have his margarita back.

  I leaned in. “In his book, he used actual names and their addresses. I found his sister very easily. She’s lived in the same house since 1982. I simply called Information and got her number. Then I left a message on her answering machine. A day later, Bill called me.”

  “What did he say?” asked Jonathan. “I’m dying to know.”

  “We talked about a lot of things. First, he said he didn’t remember me. Something about my name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place the face. Then I asked him about the boy he adopted, and he told me he adopted fifteen boys over the past twenty-five years.”

  “Did you confront him?”

  “No, I couldn’t. I was so nervous I could barely talk. He was very pleasant. Said he wanted to meet me for coffee sometime . . . Can you believe that?” Hearing my own voice left me unsettled. The cantina felt uncomfortably warm. I sipped my drink and rested my eyes on Jonathan, who was staring at me, riveted. I took a slow inhale and continued. “Jonathan, I need to talk to you about what happened. On the phone, you said you didn’t remember very much.”

  “It’s just that it’s all so fuzzy.”

  There was that word again, fuzzy. I wanted to reach over, slap him across the face, and knock the fuzziness out of his head, just as my father used to smack the side of my grandfather’s old television every time the picture went static. I felt my face heating up. It hurt me to have to confront Jonathan in his fragile state, but I had to know. “You do remember being molested?” I asked, folding my hands firmly together under the table.

  Jonathan squeezed his eyes closed. “I know he did something. I just can’t remember the details.”

  “Do you remember his house, his mother, Beatrice?”

  “Yes.” He nodded, his eyes still shut tight. “She was that creepy old lady who sat in the living room.”

  “Norman Bates’s mother,” I interjected. My hands were now clenched around each other, forming one big fist. “Do you remember his bedroom with the Farrah Fawcett poster over the bed?”

  “No . . . I mean, kind of.” He opened his eyes and stared off into space. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you remember so much more than I do.”

  Jonathan looked so much like that little boy who maintained a bewildered expression throughout grammar school that it seemed merciless of me to continue prodding him, yet I wasn’t able to help myself. “Jonathan, try and remember!” I pleaded.

  “It’s possible Jonathan can’t remember every detail,” offered Mark. “It’s understandable that he might have blocked out these memories.”

  I ignored Mark and maintained my focus on Jonathan. “You must remember the day I came over to your house and we sat on your mother’s bed? Remember, I told her everything that went on between me and Bill?”

  “I do remember that, because my parents hounded me that night for hours, asking over and over if Bill had done the same to me.”

  “Yes, and you lied. Remember? You said Bill didn’t touch you.”

  “Is that why you stopped being my friend and dropped out of the altar boys?”

  “Funny how you remember certain things more than others.”

  “That’s when you started hanging out with Seth Connelly and Tommy Scalici?”

  “I never hung out with them.”

  “Yeah, but you laughed when they made fun of me. You knew Tommy was making me deliver his newspapers every morning before school, and you still laughed when they picked on me in class.”

  “I was mad at you. You lied to your parents. If you had only come forward, things would have been different. Your parents would have gone to the police. Maybe other boys would have come forward.”

  Jonathan sat up abruptly, clenching his fists. “What did you expect me to do? My mother made me invite you over that day. The next thing I know, we’re sitting on her bed and telling her how you gave blow jobs to Bill. When she asked me, I froze. What did you expect? She was my mother, Frank! I was petrified. She may have been a cool lady to you and everyone else, but she was a tough mom, always getting into my business.”

  “And my mother wasn’t?” I countered. “Don’t bullshit me, Jonathan. Your mother was more understanding than mine. The truth is that you had the chance to come forward. I opened the door. Instead, you turned your back on me.”

  Mark placed his hand between our faces to stop the shouting. Jonathan and I sat back in our seats. I remained quiet, breathing heavily and feeling pain churn below my ribs while Jonathan chewed angrily on ice cubes. Mark removed his glasses and began rubbing his eyes with the balls of his palms.

  The waitress came by and took our dishes away. “Would you guys care for any dessert?”

  Mark shook his head and asked for the check.

  I felt as if I was in a Mexican standoff, staring into the face of someone who was once so close to me and now was a complete stranger—but more than a stranger, a liar. I read somewhere that victims of sexual abuse often split into two categories: those who remember vividly and the others who completely shut out the painful experience of the past. I don’t know why I thought I was going to be able to jar Jonathan’s memory.

  It dawned on me that Eric was right. Meeting Jonathan again after all these years hadn’t gone as intended. Parts of Bill and some of the events we experienced as Boy Scouts had been intentionally deleted from his memory and re-edited so he could stomach the past. I’d retained a full director’s cut. This night of fun, erased by confrontation, brought with it waves of shame so consuming I felt like I could just cry right there at the table like a little boy.

  We didn’t speak again until the waitress brought over our check. Jonathan snatched it up. We argued over who would pay, and finally, I conceded.

  Despite everything, I wanted to leave Jonathan and Mark on good terms. So I thought of the only topic we hadn’t discussed. “Do you remember the time my sister took us to see Xanadu?”

  “Of course,” Jonathan replied.

  “I recently bought the soundtrack on iTunes.”

  “Xanadu, the movie?” asked Mark.

  “Is there any other Xanadu?” I said, sarcastically.
r />   Jonathan scrunched his nose. “Poor thing hasn’t seen it.”

  “You’re gay, and you haven’t seen Xanadu? I thought that was a prerequisite, like being a fan of Cher or Liza Minnelli?”

  “You’re wasting your time,” insisted Jonathan. “He grew up in Kansas. I’ve taught him everything he knows about being gay. In fact, he hadn’t seen The Wizard of Oz until he met me. Imagine that, a boy from Kansas who’d never seen The Wizard of Oz.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  Mark was blushing. “My parents were born-again Christians. I had no choice.”

  “Well, Mark, Xanadu just so happens to be the most amazing roller-skating musical ever made.”

  “With the best soundtrack of all time,” added Jonathan.

  Jonathan and I stared at each other and then spontaneously broke out into song, “Suddenly the wheels are in motion.” Then we laughed out loud together.

  “We sang that duet all night. Jonathan, of course, insisted on singing the Olivia Newton-John part.”

  “Of course you did, honey,” said Mark, tapping the back of Jonathan’s hand.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said. “It’s been a long night of reminiscing.”

  Jonathan staggered as we headed down those same cobblestone streets. Mark caught him by the arm so he wouldn’t fall. Regaining his balance, Jonathan gave him a grateful smile. I stumbled once or twice myself, but after a while the cold air had a sobering effect. They escorted me all the way to my hotel, and we said our good-byes outside the entrance.

  As they made their way down the cobblestone road, I watched as the boy from Kansas helped his wobbly partner down the street. The full moon cast a shimmering glow on them like a spotlight in a musical number. For a while I stood at the hotel entrance staring after them. In my head I heard the music from “We’re Off to See the Wizard.”

  Then I shouted out, “Good night, Scarecrow, I’ll miss you most of all.”

  Mark looked back at me, utterly confused. When Jonathan turned around, our eyes met. In the failing light, he looked like a little boy again. But he’d stopped being a boy a long time ago.

  CHAPTER 27

  Alaska in Colorado

  I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING still wearing my jeans and one of my socks. I don’t remember making it back to my hotel room. The minibar was wide open, and empty wine bottles littered the floor beside the bed. I found my shirt outside the bathroom. Stepping inside, I flicked on the switch. Under the fluorescent light, I didn’t recognize the man staring back at me in the mirror. The whites of my eyes were layered with a reticulum of tiny red blood vessels. I immediately switched off the light and pissed in the dark. Then I washed my face with cold water. When I noticed an empty canister of Pringles on the floor next to the toilet, I felt an incredible urge to vomit.

  I showered and got back into bed. My head was throbbing. My flight would depart in four hours. Lying there in the comfort of soft sheets and fluffy pillows, I convinced myself that it would be smart to check out of the hotel early and head over to the airport. I didn’t want to stay in Denver any longer than I had to. There should be an Elite Club at the airport, I told myself. I can start drinking again. This seemed like the best idea I’d had all weekend. This decision—to drink more—did not concern me at the time. Clearly, it had become a habit to help forget that annoying pain below my ribs.

  In the cab, I contemplated my motives for coming, and thought about how foolish I was for expecting things to go the way I’d planned. Now my impression of Denver was tarnished by the disappointing evening I spent with Jonathan and his partner. The quaint shops and old-fashioned railroad station appeared ridiculous now in the harsh light of day—some pedestrian attempt to live in an alternate reality where Christmas existed all year long. I wanted nothing more than to return to New York, back to my reality, so that I could continue my investigation, even without Jonathan’s help.

  The car pulled up to the desolate airport. Inside, I whisked by the security guards. Just beyond the checkpoint, I dipped into the men’s room before heading to the Elite Club. The restroom was more spacious than any airport restroom I’d ever been to in the entire New York tri state area. I was amazed by how high the ceilings were. Along the far wall was a series of stalls, more than I’d ever seen in any men’s room. On the opposite side were rows of urinals—clean, white, shiny fixtures—which glistened with the undeniable promise of hygiene. In another adjoining room, there was a chain of sinks, each with its own soap dispenser and mirror. This bathroom was an architectural manifesto, the Taj Mahal of bathrooms, as if designed with paruretics in mind.

  Most men’s rooms have very few stalls and worse, the urinals are usually aligned in such a way that if you’re standing at the sink washing your hands, you can stare directly at the men urinating behind you. Having the sinks in another adjoining room alleviates this problem. This restroom had been designed by someone like me.

  Incredibly, the whole place was empty. To be sure, I knelt down and looked under the stalls for feet. There were none. I moved across the restroom toward the first stall. My heels clicked on the tile like tap shoes. I felt like Fred Astaire tapping my way offstage, except the handicapped stall was my dressing room.

  Inside, I felt sheltered by the magnitude of this colossal space created for disabled people, with its four metal walls suspended from the ceiling, and roughly ten square feet in diameter. I shut the door behind me and began my routine. First, I secured my carry-on to the coat hook on the back of the door. Thinking this was going to be easy, I quickly unbuttoned my pants. I pressed my palms firmly up against the cold tile wall. A smile grew across my face as I waited for the urine to flow, but there was none. I took a slow, long inhale. Right away I saw Jonathan stumbling down the cobblestone road with Mark propping him up so that he wouldn’t fall. It hurt to think about him, but I couldn’t help but remember. Then I felt the hair in my nose tingle with the sudden reminder of that putrid smell of tequila, and my stomach churned.

  Olga Koniahin. Olga Koniahin.

  Denver had been such a failure.

  Olga Koniahin. Olga Koniahin.

  My head throbbed with frustration. I pressed my forehead up against the comfortingly cool tile wall. Standing there, half-naked, with my genitals exposed, I saw myself as that pathetic boy in my grammar school restroom with a bleary, red-eyed Consalvo taunting me to pee for him on command. That I even needed a ritual to pee sent a convulsion of anger rippling through my body.

  Olga Koniahin, Olga Koniahin.

  Suddenly, I heard someone enter the restroom. I ignored whoever it was and continued chanting quietly to myself.

  Olga Koniahin . . .

  I heard the shuffle of tiny feet on the tile floor, followed by the heavier steps of adult shoes. “Come on, Alaska, time to make pee-pee.”

  “But I don’t have to go, Daddy.”

  “Well, try, baby. We’re going to get on a big plane for a long time, and I want you to take a nap. Okay?” They entered the stall next to me. “Come on, Alaska. Let me help you.” I heard the distinct sound of ruffles. “That’s a good girl,” he urged.

  Girl!

  My urethra clamped down completely when I heard the sound of tiny feet beating against the porcelain bowl like a drum. I imagined Alaska was barely five years old and wore a china-blue satin dress, white crinoline, and matching patent-leather shoes.

  “But, Daddy, I don’t have to go.” Her sweet, high-pitched voice rose up from the stall like bubbles.

  “Come on, Alaska. Please pee for Daddy. You can do it, baby,” he begged patiently. His reassuring voice filled me with an inexplicable anxiety. I desperately tried to block out their voices. I needed to focus.

  Olga Koniahin, Olga Koniahin.

  “Alaska, if you go pee-pee, then Daddy promises to buy you ice cream.”

  “Oh, Daddy, really?”

  Anger boiled up inside me, rising like mercury in a thermometer.

  Shut up, Alaska. Olga Koniahin. Olga Koniahin . . .
<
br />   “Come on, baby, concentrate.”

  Olga Koniahin, Olga Koniahin.

  My eyes were closed tight. My forehead pressed firmly against the tile. I began pounding it softly against the wall, quietly at first so that they wouldn’t hear, and then harder and louder because I knew they weren’t listening. The only other discernible sounds in that restroom were coming from their stall. Meanwhile, I was chanting quietly and twisting my nipples to the point they didn’t feel like nipples at all but more like rubber.

  “You can do it, baby. Come on now. Pee for Daddy.”

  Shut up!

  Hovering over the toilet, hands pressed up against the wall, I tensed every last little muscle in my groin and emitted three farts into the quiet, sterile air of the Denver International Airport, Concourse B restroom.

  Alaska’s laughter filled the entire restroom. Suddenly, I heard the tinkle of tiny droplets hitting toilet water like the faint echo of a distant applause. But they weren’t mine.

  “Good girl, Alaska,” said her father, heaving with relief. “You did it! You peed for Daddy!”

  The tinkling continued for several seconds, a crescendo of accomplishment as Alaska giggled enthusiastically. Finally, it came to a halt. Suffused with pride, she happily asked, “Can I have ice cream now, Daddy?”

  “Yes, you can. You can have anything you want, baby.” Furious, I punched my fist against the wall, zipped up my pants, and burst out of the stall. Just as I was about to exit the restroom, I heard the sound of tiny feet tapping against the tile floor behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the real Alaska—my urinary warden—as she hurried past me and opened the door.

  Once I was alone in the restroom again, I turned around and walked back into the stall to begin the ritual, but my feet no longer clicked like Fred Astaire’s tap shoes. Now they echoed with hollow disappointment.

  WHEN I GOT BACK FROM DENVER, I asked Chad out to dinner. If I was going to pursue Bill, I needed to be completely honest with him about everything.

  We ate at an Italian restaurant on the corner by my apartment. The weather was warm and inviting, unlike my chilly stay in Denver. Sitting outside under an umbrella, we ordered white wine and pizza. We sat in silence, staring at the passersby and holding hands under the table.