Wisps of fog came toward him through the trees and turned into clumps of fluffy white as Tim got nearer to the ocean. Steve the weatherman was right about the fog on the coast. Now Tim thought about Phil again and the night they first met. Maybe he’d been dreaming about him last night, too—not a psychic dream, just a memory dream about Tim’s ill-fated birthday weekend at the Russian River with Jason.
On the dance floor, this vision came closer. He must know Jason. That was it. Everyone knew Jason. The sexy stranger was coming over to dance with Jason, and he would ignore Tim. But now it was the three of them dancing together, Tim included… arms, shoulders, heads touching… hands touching bare chests, palms groping asses, fingertips tugging at taut nipples and lips touching lips. This godlike man was kissing Tim in the middle of the dance floor while Jason watched and smiled and then headed toward the bar.
“My name’s Phil,” he spoke in Tim’s ear as they left the dance floor and ambled off in Jason’s direction. “You’re Tim, right?”
Tim nodded and kept walking. He couldn’t believe this guy—Phil—he had a name now—was following Tim to the bar. Jason bought a round of drinks for the three of them and shook hands with Phil. Would they really have a three-way? Tim wondered if something other than grass was in that pipe he’d smoked with Jason in the car outside. Phil and Jason would end up together. That was it. That much was a given. It was Tim’s birthday, and the closest he would come to getting laid would be to listen to Jason and Phil through the thin wall from the next room.
Maybe they’d all go back to the cabin and Tim would at least get a chance to see Phil naked. There was only one bathroom. Or maybe Phil would spend the night, and Tim would see him in the morning. Weren’t people more apt to spend the whole night in the country where they might have to drive miles home after sex?
But Phil spoke to Tim, not Jason. He gave Tim a wicked grin and said, “So… happy birthday, Tim! Have you had your spanking yet?”
Tim laughed and shook his head and hoped it was dark enough at the bar that his red face wouldn’t show. “What brings you here, Phil? Did you know it was Lazy Bear Weekend? I sure didn’t. You’re hairy but you sure don’t look like most of these guys. Do you consider yourself a bear?” Tim could hear his own voice babbling and tried to stop.
“I don’t know… whatever… I work out… I mean, I’m working this weekend, or I was, earlier…”
Some drag queen down the bar screamed with laughter that drowned out Phil’s words. Tim asked, “Sorry… what did you say?”
“I came up here to work. I play the piano and… um… some guy hired me to play for his dinner party. It was wild, too. It was in a campground, not far from here, right on the river.”
“A dinner party? You mean, like a cook-out with live music?”
“No, it was a full-fledged formal dinner… crystal stemware, linen napkins, candlelight and a baby grand.”
“No shit? Some queens must have more money than they know what to do with. Who was this guy?” Tim didn’t know where he got the nerve to even talk to this beautiful man, but the conversation continued as their eyes moved over each other’s bodies.
“He’s hired me before in the city,” Phil answered and stopped talking when the raucous laughter started again.
Tim wondered at people who were rich enough to keep piano players on call like chauffeurs. He couldn’t imagine anyone rich enough for a live-in pianist… unless he doubled as a chauffeur… or something else, maybe. Tim noticed Phil’s hand on his drink; the muscles seemed to start from the tips of his long, strong fingers and throb under the skin with the slightest movement. They were fine hands, nails trimmed and filed to perfection, sensitive fingertips and smooth as glass. Tim looked around for Jason, but he’d disappeared.
Phil leaned in closer. “Where’s your friend? Jason, was it?”
“Yeah… I don’t know where he went.”
Then Jason was back. He handed Tim his car keys and said, “Here, Tim. You’re okay to drive, right?”
“What, you wanna go already?” Tim asked.
“No, you can stay here… just so long as you’re okay to drive. I met someone who’s staying at the Triple R. He invited me back to his place. Happy birthday! It was nice to meet you, Phil.” Jason brushed Tim’s lips with a dry kiss and he was off.
Tim wanted to be hurt and angry but now his emotions were confused. Jason left him alone on his birthday, but here was this unbearably perfect fantasy-man coming onto him. And Tim had the keys to Jason’s red Thunderbird parked right outside and a place just out of town where he could invite Phil to come with him. It wasn’t a three-way, and it wasn’t going to be Tim listening to someone else make love on the other side of a knotty pine wall at the edge of a redwood forest. It would be him and Phil alone and it would be hot!
Tim tried to shake the memory of Phil from his head and kept driving. He needed to be at the ocean today. He didn’t care if it got cold. He wasn’t sunbathing. He just needed to stand near enough to the waves to feel small again. The smaller he felt, the more his problems would shrivel and the past would fade away, at least compared to the larger scheme of things. He only had to stand near enough to hear them crash and feel their salty spray on his face.
Maybe someday he would sell the duplex on Hancock Street and buy a little house out in the avenues. He’d find one hardly bigger than those earthquake cottages they built after the “big one” in ’06 with a postage stamp of a lawn and a tiny window for a planter box of petunias. He might learn enough Chinese to greet his new neighbors… who probably didn’t speak it themselves anymore, but might remember their grandparents who did. He took another hit off the joint. No way was he learning Chinese! Maybe he’d bring them some cookies instead. Maybe he’d bake them himself with pot inside.
At the ocean, Tim turned left instead of right and pulled into a parking spot that faced west. It was crisp enough to need a jacket. He pulled the collar up and found a scarf in the trunk. A long lonely walk along the sea wall above the Pacific was just what he needed before he drove home.
That night Tim didn’t want to bring his bad mood to work so he left a little early and took a long walk around Dolores Park. He sat on the bench at 20th and Church, the uppermost corner of the park, and looked out over the city. The sun set so early these days that the afternoons were hardly worth noticing. Still, he loved it here. The towers of the Embarcadero Center would soon be outlined in white lights for the holidays. The Bay Bridge always looked like it was decked out for Christmas. Was that snow on Mt. Diablo already or just clouds? Tim smelled a fireplace burning.
In Minnesota this time of year people might already be bundled up like Eskimos. If he walked around Loring Park in the winter he wouldn’t stop to sit on a bench if the wind was blowing… if he could even find a bench under the snow. Tim remembered walking home through Loring Park one night when the lake was frozen over and covered with snow. He didn’t realize he’d walked right across the middle of the lake until he reached the other side. Maybe that was how Jesus did it.
Tim checked his watch and headed toward the footbridge at 19th and Church. He had plenty of time, but he might as well be early as late. The smell of someone’s dinner made him hungry… pot roast with onions cooking. He didn’t like to eat a big meal before work, but he might have a bite of whatever Arturo had on special tonight or at least a cup of soup.
If he hadn’t been in such a bad mood he wouldn’t have left home so early. If he hadn’t gone for a walk he might have been home when Nick called. If any number of factors had been different things might have turned out so much better, but that would have been another tale. Tim was a lousy psychic, especially when it came to foreseeing the pitfalls in his own life.
A part of Ruth looked forward to seeing her old friends at Arts, but as she got ready for work she replayed the evening with Sam in her mind. Just as she pulled on her jacket to leave, the doorbell rang. Ruth pressed the button on the intercom. “Who is it?”
A voic
e crackled, “Delivery for Miss Taylor.”
Ruth buzzed the gate and opened her apartment door to see a brawny boy bound up from the landing with a vase of long-stemmed yellow roses. She set them in the kitchen sink to add water and read the card: Dear Ruth, Thanks for a lovely evening. I will think of you in my travels, and I promise to call as soon as I get back. Warmest regards, Sam.
Ruth whistled as she placed the roses on her bedside table and took one long deep breath before she headed out the door on her way to Arts.
She couldn’t help but hum along to Phil’s piano while she worked that night. She was tempted to burst into song whenever a favorite came up, but she controlled herself. Dan had always told her to cut out the lullabies when Dianne was a baby or they would give her nightmares. To hell with Dan, Ruth thought, but she wanted to keep her customers at the bar, after all.
It turned out to be a busy Friday night at Arts. Jake noticed that Tim was getting behind and offered to help. “Are you okay, Tim?”
“Of course I’m okay; I’m stoned. I don’t need any help, but thanks, Jake.” Tim hated to think that anyone noticed when he did something wrong, but the night did feel a little off-kilter. He brought the wrong food to one of his tables, something he never did. Then he brought cups of clam chowder to two guys who had ordered salads. They were cute guys, too, and Tim was intimidated by them. They were so focused on each other that they started eating the soup. Tim looked at their order slip and saw his mistake: “Sld – 2 – OV/ Thou.” Two salads, one with the house dressing, Arturo’s famous tangy vinaigrette and the other with thousand island. Tim made the salads and brought them out after the sexy lovebirds had finished their soup, as if everyone got soup automatically, but he hated making mistakes like that.
Then there was an incident with Phil, the piano player, which wasn’t Tim’s fault at all, but he overreacted to it. Tim had worked stoned lots of times without making mistakes, but tonight was different. Was he too stoned, maybe? He’d worked his entire shift on automatic pilot lots of times too, but tonight it was malfunctioning.
Tim always tried to keep his distance from Phil, even though his section abutted the little stage that held Phil and the piano. Phil kept a glass of Diet Coke at the far left end of the keyboard. Tim hated the idea that he had to keep an eye on it, but he made sure that whenever it was empty he replaced it with a full one. At least they didn’t have to speak to each other that way.
Tim hated Phil. No… if only it were that clear and simple. Tim didn’t hate anyone. It was just that anger was easier to deal with than pain, so he stayed angry at Phil, who had once hurt him very badly. They still had to work together and that was that. Tim couldn’t afford not to work, even though he owned Jason’s old house on Hancock Street free and clear. There were taxes and repairs, and Tim’s day-to-day living expenses to consider, or Tim would have quit his job at Arts the day they hired Phil to work there full-time.
At 10:30 or thereabouts… for sure by 11 p.m., when Tim saw that Phil’s glass was empty he brought it to the bar and reminded Artie, or whoever was on duty—his Aunt Ruth, tonight—that it was that time; Phil would want a shot of vodka in his Diet Coke from now on. Belvedere.
The better Tim knew these patterns, the fewer words would need to be spoken, and he could pretend that the sexy man at the piano was not the same man Tim wanted to hate.
“Hey Tim, this is rum, not vodka,” Phil said at the end of a soulful version of “Am I Blue?” Someone had requested the song and put a ten in Phil’s tip jar.
“What?”
“It’s rum. In my drink. I don’t drink rum and coke. You know that. I only drink vodka. Belvedere.”
“It is not rum. It’s vodka, dammit! I watched her make it,” Tim lied. He hadn’t really watched his Aunt Ruth make the drink, but she wasn’t as apt to make a mistake as he was tonight. And then, before he could stop himself, Tim said out loud, “What a jerk!”
“Who are you calling a jerk, buddy?”
“I’m not your buddy.”
“Taste this if you don’t believe me.”
“Asshole!” Tim regretted the word as soon as he said it, but there it was in the air between them… “ass-hole”… two loud syllables floating above the piano like a sour note.
“I could drink that cheap well rum on the house, but I pay for Belvedere. You know that. The bartenders always run a tab, and I get a discount, but still I pay good money.”
“Everything’s all about money to you, isn’t it! You don’t do anything without seeing the dollar signs attached.”
“Are you still pissed off about that time up at the Russian River? That was like… two years ago! When are you gonna get over yourself, Tim? Or are you always so utterly lacking in charm?”
“You’re the charming one, Phil. How could I ever come close? Why would I even bother to try competing with the master?”
“One of these days someone is going to teach you a lesson, and you’ll learn not to be so… so… I don’t know… I don’t know what it’s going to take to teach you, either, but you’ll learn. You’re not always the number one victim on everyone’s agenda, you know. Don’t flatter yourself. Sometimes there’s more going on than in your own little selfish worldview of things, Tim. And I can get my own damned drink. It’s time for my break, anyway.”
“Good!”
Phil flipped the switch that turned on the canned music and headed toward the bar. Arturo had installed the latest program he downloaded through a computer to play any style of music imaginable. It came from tiny speakers hidden all around the dining room, built into wall sconces and ceiling fixtures. Both Arturo and Artie were old-fashioned in many ways, but nothing was too good for the restaurant. Tim thought it sounded like the music his Aunt Ruth listened to in her car, something like Peter Nero or Ferrante and Teicher.
The food was ready for two of his tables at once, so Jake helped him carry it out from the kitchen. Tim only mixed up two plates. Then he picked up the melting glass on the edge of the piano and tasted it while he heard his Aunt Ruth at the bar, “I’m so sorry, Phil.” She laughed. “What a silly mistake.”
Tim tasted Phil’s drink.
It was rum.
When the dinner shift slowed down Tim remembered to ask his Aunt Ruth how her date went, trying not to let on that he was embarrassed and in a bad mood. He tried to act happy for her. “Jardinière—not too shabby! If you marry Sam will I become an heiress?”
“Tim, you’ve already got a nice inheritance from Jason. Besides, it’s far too early to talk about marriage. Sam and I had our first wonderful evening together, that’s all.”
“So then… you’re planning to see him again?”
“Yes, but not for a couple of weeks… he flew to Chicago this morning to meet with a client and then he’s going to Germany for a few days, but he promised to call me as soon as he gets back. He sent me flowers this afternoon, yellow roses, with the nicest card. Wasn’t that sweet?”
“I’ll say,” Tim agreed. “I’m the one dating the man who grows flowers, and you’re getting them delivered.”
“Have you heard from Nick, sweetie?”
“He left a message on my machine yesterday, but it didn’t say much… just that he’d called and his cousin still hadn’t showed up.”
“Did you call him back?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He didn’t ask me to. And I don’t want him to think I’ve got nothing better to do than sit around here pining away for him.”
“Oh, Tim…” Ruth regretted having asked about Nick in the first place. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m sure he’s busy.
“If his stupid cousin is that important, well…I don’t know what to think. I’ve got customers waiting…”
It was earlier, just past 9 p.m., when Theodore and Leonardo came into the restaurant. All heads turned to see the tall, broad-shouldered young man they had with them. He towered over the bear couple as they crossed the room to a table in Tim’s sectio
n. “Timothy Snow, I’d like you to meet my nephew, Craig Blume.” Theodore’s voice was loud enough for everyone in the restaurant to hear, but they were already staring. “Craig is visiting us from L.A. this weekend. He’s an art student at UCLA and a star athlete in track and field.”
“Nice to meet you, Craig. I ran track in high school,” Tim said when he shook hands with the boy. He hadn’t meant to turn the subject toward himself, so he quickly added, “Maybe you could have an art show here at Arts sometime.”
“I don’t think so… I sculpt marble… big pieces.”
“Oh, I see.” Tim rarely noticed younger men, but this kid was gorgeous. Even Phil flubbed a couple of notes on the piano when Craig took off his jacket. He was used to being the center of attention at Arts, and this boy’s physique under a pale green polo shirt was enough to make Phil stop and stare.
The more Craig drank, the more he flirted with Tim, whose earlier foul mood was lighter than it had been all day. He thought it was cute when Craig pulled out a credit card and said, “My treat. It’s the least I can do for my uncles when they give me a place to stay in San Francisco.”
“I think we should show Craig some more of the Castro,” Leonardo said. “Will you join us, Tim? We’ll buy you a drink at the Midnight Sun.”
“Thanks, I might as well. It’s Jake’s night to close, and you’re my last table. I’ll get my jacket and meet you around the corner.” Tim figured his options were to meet them or go home to bed alone. He almost said, “I have nothing better to do,” but that would have come out sounding rude. Ruth was so busy that she barely had time to say goodnight. Tim slid his arms into his jacket sleeves on his way out the door and yelled to her, “I’m gonna go have a drink with the guys, Aunt Ruth. Have a good night. I’ll talk to you later.”
Ten minutes later Nick walked into the restaurant. Ruth knew Tim would be elated to see him. “Nick, what a nice surprise! I’m sorry you just missed Tim.”
“Just my luck, and I found parking right out front. I’ll go and swing by his house, then.”
Russian River Rat Page 9