Russian River Rat

by Abramson, Mark

  “We were…” Tim paused, “…seeing each other for a while.”

  “You both live here in town?”

  “No.” Tim began to wonder if Fred knew Nick, why wouldn’t he have known that Nick didn’t live in Guerneville? This time Tim got one stripe on the break and missed the next ball. “I live in San Francisco. Nick lives in Monte Rio, a few miles out toward the coast.”

  “Right… I knew that… of course he does.”

  Tim hadn’t seen the next part coming, but it was as slick a con-game as they come. Fred made shots like Tim had only seen on television. He ran the table on his first turn and turned back to Tim with another grin. “I guess you’re buying.”

  “What are you drinking, Fred?” Tim pulled out another twenty. He was a good sport.

  “The bartender knows what I drink… Long Island iced tea… top-shelf…”

  Tim felt foolish to be hustled for such an expensive drink, but he put his money on the bar and signaled Charlie for another beer. Fred said, “I’m going to step out, have a smoke and make a phone call. Watch that drink for me, will you?”

  “I’ll guard it with my life,” Tim said with a smirk.

  “Tim Snow… what a coincidence!” Tim turned to see Phil, the piano player from Arts, with an older man who wore heavy gold bracelets and brought with him a sickening cloud of cologne. Phil was the last person Tim wanted to see. He should have known he’d run into him again at the Russian River. It was bound to happen sooner or later, since the bad blood between him and Phil stemmed from something that happened there. It was a long time ago, but for Tim, the humiliation was still so bitter that it could have been yesterday.

  “Hello, Phil…”

  The older man tossed a fifty onto the bar, told Phil to order him the same and headed toward the toilet.

  “What brings you here, Tim?” Phil asked. “Where’s your boyfriend? What’s his name? Nick? And who was that young cutie you were waiting on at work last night? He was really something! Did you catch up with them later? I noticed you two booked out of there together awfully fast. ”

  Tim didn’t want to talk to Phil, and he sure didn’t want to talk about Theodore’s nephew, Craig! Fred came back and reached between them for his Long Island iced tea. “Excuse me, fellas… well, who do we have here? Is this the mysterious Nicholas Musgrove at last?” Fred smiled his gap-toothed smile at Phil.

  “No,” Tim said. “This is Phil. Phil, Fred. You two should get to know each other. You might have a lot in common. Excuse me…”

  Tim walked out the back door of the bar again, down the alley and back to the Triple R while he thought some more about the night he first met Phil, when the red Thunderbird convertible still belonged to Jason who had handed Tim the car keys before they left the dance floor, and Jason took off with some trick he’d just met.

  Tim drove Phil back to the two-bedroom cabin Jason rented for Tim’s birthday weekend. They didn’t bother to put their shirts back on. It was a hot night, and they were still sweaty from dancing. Once they got moving the night air on their bare skin felt good with the top down. Tim drove slowly, carefully. He’d heard about the cops up here who loved to catch gay guys leaving the bars—breathalyzer tests beside the road, then off to the Santa Rosa jail, expensive lawyers, big money to get out of some really dumb trouble.

  The Thunderbird glided down River Road, and Tim leaned his head back, almost afraid to look at this gorgeous man beside him. This couldn’t be happening. Tim glanced over for a glimpse, and Phil slid his hand up Tim’s thigh. Tim looked up instead, tried to take in the sky. He’d forgotten how many stars you could see outside of the city. Tonight the Milky Way looked pure white, flowing liquid, creamy. Tim took a deep breath, and the air was so thick with the smell of summer he could hardly take it in.

  The whole night was like a dream, not one of his crazy psychic dreams he couldn’t understand. It was more like a wet dream. Phil was right out of a movie… a porn movie… or more like he’d just stepped off the pages of a magazine, all glossy and slick and perfectly lit on the dance floor earlier. Even here in the car with the stars shining down through gaps in the redwood trees, their light coming from millions of miles away.

  Tim didn’t turn on the lights in the cabin, but let the night’s glow reach in through the open windows. He led the way to the bedroom where he’d thought he would sleep alone tonight on his birthday. It was silent here and dark enough that it took a while for their eyes to adjust. They peeled off their boots and socks and stood face to face for one deep rough kiss before Phil turned him around. Tim could smell Phil’s hot sweet breath on the back of his neck, heard the sound of his belt unbuckling, the thud as it hit the floor with his jeans, felt their sweat-streaked nakedness come together across the bed—two men on white sheets on an old bed in a rented cabin in the ancient redwoods on a night when no wind was blowing at all.

  Tim shook his head to stop the memory. He didn’t want to think about Phil. As soon as Tim got back to his room at the Triple R he tried calling Nick again, but there was still no answer at his parents’ house in Alameda. He felt dirty and took another shower. While the water streamed down his back, he thought about what had just happened tonight: Why did Fred ask if Phil was Nick? They looked nothing alike. If Fred was an old friend of the family, how could he mistake a dark swarthy Italian like Phil for blue-eyed, blonde-haired Nick? Tim didn’t much care who Fred was anymore, and he sure didn’t care about Phil. He loathed Phil. All he cared about now was reaching Nick, touching him, holding him and talking everything out.

  Chapter 17

  This time when Tim woke up it was daylight of a brand new day, and he wondered where the hell he was. He’d been dreaming but he couldn’t tell if they were visions or just regular run-of-the-mill dreams. He saw rippling water and smooth white stones, a stream of blue-black running water and then Nick’s face surfaced; his long blonde hair swirled around his head and floated. The water was deep, a bottomless river, moving past Tim’s sight.

  Then Nick’s face vanished, and the long blonde hair freed itself like tresses fallen from the barber’s scissors. The hair floated away, and the face reappeared but bald, and the eyes were different. Tim had stared into Nick’s eyes long enough to know them well. The water was still and stagnant now. The bald man resembled Nick, but when the face broke the surface, the shiny scalp reflected moonlight, and the eyes were glassy—the eyes of a corpse.

  Tim blinked and looked around the strange room. He focused on a window, a desk, the black screen of a television in one corner. Tim remembered checking in at this room at the Triple R Resort in Guerneville, just across from the bar. He was an hour and a half from home, and who knew how far from Nick? A fire in the wood-burning stove would feel good, if only he had the motivation to light it. He saw his breath above the bed. If he stayed on here, he would light the stove, but for now he left the warm blankets, took six steps to the toilet and reached for the thermostat on his way. He cranked up the heat as far as it would go.

  If he could reach Nick he would convince him to talk. If Nick’s parents answered, Tim wouldn’t know what to say. They must have seen the papers by now. If Tim’s Aunt Ruth was right, the family must be in shock. Tim’s dream arranged itself in his consciousness. Even if it was one of those dreams, his psychic dreams, what good would it do? What did it matter now?

  Talking to Nick was his major concern. Tim would apologize about Craig, that boy at the Midnight Sun, and he would make Nick believe him. As the hot shower warmed him up, Tim pictured every love story from the best years of Hollywood. He and Nick—in black and white—would rush into each other’s arms while the music swelled. Tim tried to imagine whether his apartment or Nick’s cabin provided the better backdrop for their dramatic reunion. Either place would do. He just knew that the black and white picture would burst into Technicolor with a crescendo of tympani and violins and trumpets when they kissed.

  “Hello, Musgrove residence.” At last, a female voice with an accent on the o
ther end of the phone.

  “Hello, is Nick there?”

  “No, señor. Nobody here. I am the housekeeper.”

  “Oh… hello, my name is Tim Snow, and I’m a friend of Nick’s. I really need to reach him. It’s an emergency,” Tim hated how his voice went into a soprano’s range and took on a pleading tone. “Can you tell me where he is?… or when he’ll be back?”

  “The whole family is gone, señor. I only come on the weekend. There is a note. Hold on, por favor… I go get it.” She set down the phone, and Tim heard a dog’s bark echo down an empty hallway. “Yes, here it is, señor. Mrs. Musgrove says there was a death in the family. They flew to New Orleans for the funeral. They will return later in the week.”

  “Did she leave a phone number in New Orleans?”

  “No, señor. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay. Thanks, anyway… gracias.”

  There was no sense in lighting the wood stove now. Tim turned off the thermostat, tossed his things in a backpack and paid his bill. He put the top down, rolled up the car windows and turned on the heater. All he wanted now was to be home. His dreams flooded back… Nick’s face underwater turning into his cousin’s dead face. Tim dreaded an hour and a half on the road in the old red Thunderbird. He wanted to click his heels together three times like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Or he’d be happy to ride on the back of Margaret Hamilton’s broomstick.

  Tim turned down Main Street and passed the Rainbow Cattle Company on his left. That guy named Fred was on the sidewalk out in front. He looked even paler and more disheveled in the daylight. Fred was smoking a cigarette and shouting into a cell phone. Tim could hear his voice, but he couldn’t make out the words. Tim wondered why people who talk with their hands do so even more when they’re on the telephone. The ashes from Fred’s cigarette scattered across the sidewalk.

  Someone pulled out of a parking space, and Tim thought about stopping. He might see if he could learn anything else from that old friend of the family. Tim wondered if Fred knew about the funeral in New Orleans. Maybe he was on the phone right now making arrangements to go there and join them. No… he was just a two-bit hustler. Whatever Fred’s story was, Tim just wanted to be home.

  Traffic was heavy on River Road, and it was slow going until he got on Highway 101 just north of Santa Rosa. Tim breezed through the city and noticed the signs for Rohnert Park up ahead. Maybe Jen would have heard from Nick. Tim decided to make one more stop at the nursery. At least he could tell Jen that he was going home.

  She was on a tall stool behind the cash register, reading, when Tim walked in. She jumped and shoved her magazine below the counter. “Tim, you startled me!”

  “Sorry, Jen… I’m on my way back to San Francisco. I reached someone at Nick’s parents’ house. The whole family went to New Orleans for a funeral—Nick, too.

  “I know, Tim. I just talked to him a few minutes ago.”

  “You did? You talked to Nick? Did you tell him I was looking for him?”

  “I told him that you called from Monte Rio and again from the Triple R.”

  “What did he say? Did you give him the phone number?”

  “No… um…” she hesitated. “He sounded… well, Tim… he just sounded so awfully… tired. I tried to give him your number at the Triple R, but he said there was no need… said he wouldn’t use it anyway… I’m sorry, Tim.”

  Tim couldn’t believe his rotten luck. If only he’d gotten to the nursery a few minutes earlier, he could have been standing here when Nick called. He could have grabbed that phone out of Jen’s hand and made Nick listen to him, convince him it was all a big misunderstanding!

  Maybe it was better not to care, not to get involved. Keep things free and easy… that was the way it was with most guys. Hadn’t Jason tried to teach him that? All that ever came of caring too much was hurting each other’s feelings over the stupidest things.

  “What else did he say, Jen?” Tim had come too far to be dissuaded by a second-hand remark from Nick’s employee. Maybe she misunderstood him. Maybe Nick didn’t mean it the way it sounded. “Did he tell you when he’s coming back? Did he leave you a phone number in New Orleans?”

  “His cousin’s funeral is Monday morning. That’s tomorrow.” She pointed at the calendar beside the cash register as if Tim didn’t know what day it was. “He asked if Kent and I could handle the business ourselves for a while. He wants to stay on and visit some old friends in New Orleans. I told him we’d do our best. I told him to take it easy and try to enjoy himself. He sounded so tired, Tim. I’m worried about him. I didn’t know he and his cousin were that close.”

  “Did he leave a telephone number?”

  “Tim, I promised I wouldn’t call him unless we had an absolute emergency!”

  “Jenny, this is an emergency, dammit! I did something that hurt him, and I have to talk to him and explain. Won’t you please give it to me?”

  “I don’t know, Tim.” Jenny let a little whine crawl into her voice. Tim didn’t have anything against her, but that voice reminded him of every whiney person he’d ever disliked in his life. It also reminded Tim of the way he must sound right now.

  “I’ll owe you big time, Jen!” He tried to force a smile and sound enthusiastic. Otherwise, he was tempted to wring her scrawny neck.

  “Oh… okay. Maybe you can cheer him up. It’s in the office. I left the door open. You can use the phone on Nick’s desk. The number is on the notepad right on top.”

  “Thanks, Jen. I really appreciate it.”

  Tim sat down at Nick’s desk and took a deep breath. He had never been alone here before. He could almost smell Nick, and it lifted his spirits to see a small, framed photograph of the two of them on Nick’s desk. It must have been taken at Arts, but Tim didn’t remember… they smiled into the camera cheek to cheek. He wanted a copy for his refrigerator, or better yet framed beside his bed. Tim heard someone pick up the phone in New Orleans. It was another maid, this time with a southern accent. Yes, Nick was there. Hold on.

  It seemed to take forever till Tim heard the voice he wanted to hear. “Hello?”

  “Nick! Oh, thank God! I’m in your office. I was on my way back to the city but I stopped in here to see if I could find out anything, and Jenny let me use the phone.” Tim was so relieved to reach Nick that he talked twice as fast as normal. “Nothing happened with that kid, Nick. He was just drunk. You’ve got to believe me! I’m so sorry for how it must have looked. He was Theodore’s nephew. I drove him back to their place, and he threw up all over my car. Then I went home and I got your note and…”

  “Tim, hold on a minute.” Nick stopped him. “Slow down… Listen… I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Maybe we’ve been going at this a little too fast. Maybe you need some space. I know I do…”

  “No!” Tim hated that word. “I already have way too much space as it is, and we’re not going fast enough, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Maybe it’s just me, then, but I don’t want to tie you down.” Tim wondered why Nick was talking so slowly. He was there for a funeral, but still…

  “You can tie me down any time you want to, Nick.” Tim tried to laugh, but he couldn’t get his voice to go there. “I meant that figuratively, but…”

  “Tim, I have a lot of family stuff to deal with right now.” Nick wasn’t laughing. He sounded terrible and Jenny was right; he sounded tired. “My grandmother is here and both my parents too, and I’ve got cousins and aunts and uncles in New Orleans that I haven’t seen in years and…”

  “I know. I mean… I can imagine… Nick, I’m sorry about your cousin, Nate. Do they think he took a dive off that bridge into too shallow water?”

  “They might think that,” Nick said, “but naked? Why would he dive off the bridge naked at night? We used to swim there all the time when we were kids. He knew better than to dive from that bridge. People break their necks that way. I think he was dead before he hit the water, but his body was cremated, so…”

  Tim was s
o glad to hear Nick’s voice that he pretended to be interested in Nick’s cousin, just to keep him talking. “Gee, Nick, why would anyone want to…?”

  “I don’t know, Tim. Nate and his partner pulled off a big drug bust in the French Quarter just before he left for California on vacation… to see me.”

  “Wow!”

  “Listen, Tim, we’ll talk again sometime, okay? I have old friends here I want to look up. I’m going to stay on awhile after the funeral. I know the work at the nursery will get backed up, and I’ll be really busy when I get home, but… we’ll talk, okay? That’s all I can promise.”

  “Nick, you’ve got to believe me, how sorry I am about your cousin and… you know… that boy and everything,” Tim pleaded. “You know I’m not into chicken.”

  “That kid at the Midnight Sun was right out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue, Tim. I can see why you’d be tempted. I would be, too. Besides, you never promised me anything. I never asked you to. It was a shock to see that, but I wouldn’t want to hold you back. You live in the Castro, after all. Go for it. You shouldn’t need to deprive yourself for the sake of my feelings…”

  “Nick, he was Teddy’s nephew,” Tim interrupted, as if that would automatically rule him out. “He was up from L.A. to visit. He was only in town for the weekend. They came in for dinner, and I ran into them at the Midnight Sun afterwards.” Tim stretched the truth a little; they’d invited him to join them for a drink after dinner, but Nick didn’t need to know that. “Nothing happened between us.”

  “Like I said, Tim… we’ll talk, okay? I’ve got to go now. Maybe I’ll call you in a few days, Snowman. Goodbye.”

  “Bye, Nick.” Tim copied down the New Orleans number and stuck it in his pocket. He thanked Jen again for the use of the phone on his way back out to the parking lot.

  “At least he called me ‘Snowman’ again,” Tim said out loud as he turned the key to start the Thunderbird and head back to the city.