by Nick Nolan
He hopped out of bed to clean himself in the bathroom. He snapped on the light and snatched some tissues from the box on the counter beside the sink, then carefully wiped the evidence from his cock and stomach and chest as he checked his face in the mirror.
Did he look as queer as he felt? He was approaching his eighteenth birthday, and the problem wasn’t going away.
“You are a faggot,” he whispered contemptuously to his reflection in the mirror over the sink, wincing as the word caught his ears.
“You are a goddamn fucking faggot.”
He threw the clumped tissues into the toilet and flushed it, switched off the light, then tiptoed his way back into bed, shivering. He buried his head under the stack of pillows and tried to push out the roaring waves outside, but it made no difference. He flipped over onto his back, then his side, then his belly, then back again. He sighed. He asked himself, Why was being gay so bad? After all, Carlo was, and he seemed OK.
But he knew why it would never be OK for him. Every movie or TV show or commercial that depicted a cheerful dad, a fashionable mom, and their normal, self-assured kids bit him like a snake, sending bitter poison from his heart up through his spinal cord to his brain and down through his body to his arms, hands, and feet. I’ll never have any of that was what that snake was made of. And when it bit, its teeth took days to let go.
He’d learned long ago to avoid the greeting card aisle of the supermarket; the categories held little relevance to his life, and their captions made him furious. Once, while in a particularly black mood, he’d stopped to read through the categories he’d never buy: For Dad, For Grandfather, For Grandmother, For Sister, For Brother. And he wondered, Do people really feel this way about their family members? But the ones that really pissed him off said things like God Bless You, Mother, on Your Birthday, and A Mother’s Kiss Is Sent from Heaven. He sure as hell would never buy those. And neither, apparently, would he now have any use for the final three categories: For Wife, For Son, or For Daughter.
He switched on his nightstand lamp and tumbled naked out of bed, then made his way to the nearly empty closet where he kept his shoebox of mementos up on the top shelf next to the sealed one belonging to his mother. He slid his from the shelf and lifted the top, then found what he was looking for: the only picture he’d ever seen of his father and him, taken at the beach just after he’d been born. He hadn’t looked at it in years.
He held it under the lamp on his desk while studying his father’s image and decided he’d been stunningly good-looking, even by today’s standards. And with him, Jeremy, just a typical fat baby, eyes bugged and mouth slack. His shirtless father beamed at the camera, holding him by the armpits so his legs dangled in the air, diaper threatening to drop onto the sand. Had his mother held the camera, or had it been Aunt Katharine?
He shuffled over to the gilt mirror hanging on the wall, then examined the man in the photograph while scrutinizing his own features. Their faces shared the same heavily lidded eyes that narrowed into squints when laughing, the high cheekbones set off by hollow shadows underneath, twin ruler-straight noses, and square jaws with identical clefts. They even had similar mouths, which relieved him, as he was self-conscious about his full lips as well as the slight gap between his two front teeth. Their similarity was striking; now that Jeremy had matured—and cut his hair—he figured they could have passed for brothers.
He held the picture in his left hand and began petting it slowly with his right. Over and over again, he drew his palm slowly over the photograph of his father holding him. He reminded himself that touching the glossy paper might ruin it, but he didn’t care. The simple gesture inexplicably calmed him, momentarily assuaged the lifetime of feeling like an orphan.
“If you were here, we could spend time with each other,” he whispered to the image as he stroked it. “We could talk about everything that’s going on, and you could handle Mom and give me advice on what I’m going through.” A great sadness swelled up from the deepest part of him, and his throat knotted. “You could teach me how to drive and help me with my swimming and tell me you’re proud of me and that you’d be there for me and love me no matter what I did or who I was.” Tears streamed down his cheeks as he continued pawing the picture, simultaneously feeling both unexpected relief and embarrassment from what he was doing.
Then he collapsed onto his bed. His body heaved with sobs as he held the photograph to his bare chest, biting his pillow, while wails of grief for all that might have been gushed forth. But almost immediately, he began to feel ashamed and stupid, so he quieted himself, afraid someone would hear him and think he’d set himself on fire or cut off a toe. He lay hiccuping and sniffling for a while, then finally drifted into an exhausted sleep.
Two figures ambled along the moonlit beach, bare feet sinking into the wet velvet sand, squishing in between toes, relaxed strides leaving twin trails of skidded footprints; one man-size, the other tiny. Waves slapped the shore while rustling palm trees swayed and tossed their shaggy heads. A waterfall thrummed in the distance.
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” the young man said to the little boy, his voice deep and sonorous, like he was inside a cave. “I was worried. I was afraid something bad had happened.”
Jeremy looked up at the smiling face of his father and marveled at how beautiful and crystalline his skin was in the moonlight. He glowed actually, as if he were lit inside by a million tiny white Christmas lights.
“You’re here. I can’t believe you’re really here,” he replied excitedly. “All this time I thought you were dead.”
“I know. But what’s important is that we’ve come together finally. That’s what counts.”
Jonathan held his son’s hand, a miniature copy of his own. He grasped it gently, and the boy squeezed back.
“But where were you?” The small face blinked up at his father, the hair blowing atop his head reflecting silver moonlight.
“I’ve been here all along.”
“Where?”
He laughed as he bent down, lifted Jeremy by his armpits, laid him gently over his right shoulder, then maneuvered his crooked arm under the boy’s behind so they could have their faces at the same level. He turned so both looked across the black nighttime sea.
“I’ll tell you someday. But now, I want you to see something.” He raised his arm to point skyward. “Up there.”
Jeremy searched the inky sky. “What is it, Daddy?”
“There, Jeremy. There is the Father’s Star.” His pointing hand stretched away from his body until it hovered far over the water, like a kite riding a brisk summer wind. “Make a wish, my son.”
Jeremy then spotted it—a glistening speck high above the horizon that dimmed all but one of the lesser stars around it, pulsing pink one moment then silver the next. It was simply dazzling and somehow magical. Seeing it called up pleasantly mysterious feelings, like a scent from his childhood that he couldn’t place. He stared at it and let the sensations inside him swell.
“It’s beautiful. What’s it mean?”
“If there’s something you need, you wish on it, and it’ll come true.”
“Is that all I have to do?”
“I’ll tell you the rest in a moment, but something’s wrong. Tell me.”
Jonathan bent over and dropped his son onto the sand, then caressed the hair on his head. As he did so, Jeremy was transformed into a young man. “I want to be…a real man. Like you,” he said, now eye to eye with his father. “I’m afraid I’ll never be one. I don’t know how. And you’re not here to show me.”
Jonathan chuckled deep within his chest, stretched himself a hundred feet tall as he did so, then pulled himself down to meet his son’s eyes. “You do know how,” he said.
“But I’m gay.”
“Who you fall in love with has little to do with it; to be a man you must be three things: courageous, honest, and selfish.”
Jeremy cocked his head. “The first two I can see,” he agreed, nodding. �
�But to be selfish? How’ll that help me?”
“The three are inseparable,” he began, placing his hands on his son’s shoulders. “Courage is needed to be honest with yourself, and once you know your true nature, you must be courageous enough to be selfish about your needs. The happy man pursues that which he needs, but at the same time uses great caution while pursuing that which he wants. You’ll see that by doing this, you’ll be able to give unselfishly to others and to illuminate your life—as well as another’s—with love. Otherwise, you will only exist, chasing someone else’s dreams instead of your own. It is a paradox that some people never figure out. Do you understand?”
“I think so. But how does wishing on a star come into this?”
“I don’t know, Son, but it does. Maybe it has to do with God, or whatever made all of this, as well as the force that keeps you breathing when you’re asleep, or makes your heart speed up when you’re angry or excited or in love. It’s the spell that makes the trees turn their leaves orange and birds fly in a perfect V. It’s the force that created you when your mother and I made love eighteen years ago—we shared a moment in time, and now here you are. It’s the miracle of true friendship and laughter and empathy and the drive to improve yourself.” He curled his arm around his shoulder. “There are many forms of magic out there, Jeremy,” he whispered. “You don’t have to understand how it works so much as you need to honor it. Magic, like love, is a phenomenal tool. And it’s always there.”
At once, the star began pulsating brighter and brighter until it washed the landscape around them into a world devoid of shadow or dimension. A ringing like a thousand wineglasses rubbed by wet fingertips grew from a hum to a deafening symphony as the star exploded with blinding radiance.
“Magic, my son, magic. Close your eyes and make a wish. Now!”
His mind spun behind his eyelids. Which wishes should he pick? Was it more important that Tiffany stop drinking forever and his parents be together again, or for him to find true love, or that he embrace himself and dive into the passions that stirred him so deeply, or that he become a real man? He decided finally that they were all important, so he wished for them all—after all, Jonathan said he needed to be selfish. Then he opened his eyes and found his father, as well as the entire beach, and even the star itself, fading away.
“What do I do now?” he shouted, as Jonathan’s image dimmed, retreating genielike to the magic bottle that was his childhood memory.
“Believe in magic,” whispered the reply.
“Where will you be?”
“I’ll be watching.”
“But who’ll show me the way?”
“Mr. Blauefee. Arthur knows all about the magic.”
He lay blinking at the ceiling as it brightened with the sunrise. His father had a moment ago seemed so real to him, so real that his voice still echoed in his ears. Quickly, he tried remembering his father’s messages, but as he ran the dream through his conscious mind, the details began disintegrating like wet toilet paper.
He extricated himself from his twisted comforter and tottered toward the bathroom to pee. “Have courage, be honest and selfish, believe in magic.” He flipped on the light and lifted the toilet seat. “The Father’s Star,” he muttered, watching the stream of amber urine as it foamed the water inside the white bowl.
Chapter Seventeen
Jeremy, on his balcony, cocked a hip against the railing and looked out at the estate’s ancient oaks, their twisted silhouettes like clipped black construction paper against the tangerine sky and sea. He was worried: he only had an hour before Carlo was to pick him up, and he hadn’t pulled together a costume yet. And he’d looked for Arthur to help him since early this afternoon but discovered that the man was out running errands and wouldn’t be back until dinnertime, which was usually about a half hour ago.
With relief, he heard a car roll down the driveway.
Jeremy found him hefting bags of groceries into the kitchen.
“Arthur? I need your help with something. Please, please, please?”
The man appraised him. “I thought you were leaving at any minute for some sort of Halloween extravaganza.”
“I’m supposed to, but I need a costume, and I don’t have anything to make one out of.” He grimaced. “Do you have anything I could borrow? Just for tonight?”
Arthur sighed and placed the bags on the counter. “You help me put these away, and we can talk about it.”
With their task completed, they hastened to Arthur’s quarters, where the man threw open his closet doors. “Hmmm…Halloween costumes.” He scratched his chin. “I haven’t gone to any parties in quite a while, so they must be…way back…here.” He dug his hand deep into the end of the racks and pushed hard. “Shoot. Nothing’s here anymore.” He shook his head. “I’d forgotten I gave just about everything away. Sorry, old buddy.”
He saw the boy droop.
“Oh! Hold on there.” He reached all the way to the left side and lifted a bulky object forward into the light, something carefully preserved in black plastic. “I knew I’d kept this for a reason. It’ll be close to your size.” He laid it on his bed and pulled the heavy zipper open.
Jeremy looked: it was a military officer’s uniform in blackish-blue wool with red piping, brass buttons, and gold stripes. He saw that a double bar, inlaid with multicolored squares, was pinned above the left breast pocket, and a spotless white belt had been buckled across the midsection, as if the soldier wearing it had simply evaporated.
“Wow. Where’d you get that?” He pictured the expression on Reed’s face as he entered wearing it.
“I was in the Marines. First Lieutenant,” he declared.
“You?” Jeremy blinked.
“Is that so hard to believe?” he asked sharply.
“No, of course not. I mean, you totally look like a Marine. It’s just that I thought…”
“You thought they didn’t let faggots in,” Arthur said flatly.
Arthur too? “No. Actually, I didn’t even know you were…gay. No one told me.”
“I figured your aunt warned you right off,” he explained, “seeing as she instructed me, in some very well-chosen words, of course, to keep a healthy distance from you. ‘Our nephew Jeremy is terribly vulnerable, you see.’” He mimicked the clip of her patrician speech perfectly. “‘We trust you implicitly, but we also believe it wouldn’t be wise to inadvertently influence his developing personality,’ or something along those lines.”
“That sounds like her,” Jeremy giggled. “But when I sounded surprised you were a lieutenant, what I meant was, What are you doing working for them here? You’re not old enough to be retired, are you?”
“Technically I am, but that’s not the point, and thank you.” He sighed. “Jeremy, do you remember when I said I was married in every sense of the word, except legally? And that my spouse passed away?”
“Yeah. On my first day here.” He connected some dots in his head. “He didn’t die of AIDS, did he?”
“No, thank God. We were both…are both, I mean…I’m fine.” He paced to the opposite side of the room and sat on his desk, his hands grasping the edge. “I was stationed in Germany when my partner, his name was Danny, was killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center. He was a civil rights attorney who worked in Tower One. After the attacks, when I didn’t hear from him, I requested an emergency furlough to New York, but they were only allowing personnel to leave who had immediate family that’d been affected. I was out of my head, hoping for a miracle that he was unconscious in some hospital somewhere, so I finally broke down and told my commanding officer that he was my lover and I had to find him.” Arthur looked down. “He’d been missing for nearly two weeks before they found his body, or what was left of him. And I thought the military would respect my grief, that they would honor the tragedy.” He shook his head. “Instead, just as the country went to war, I was discharged. So I came back here to Ballena Beach where I grew up.”
“Jesus, Arthur. I can’
t even picture what that must of been like.”
“Thankfully, Jeremy, few people can. But similarly, I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through all these years, either.” He gave him a smile. “At least I have some really happy memories, and that keeps the bitterness away. I’ve just learned to be thankful for the time Danny and I had together.” He nodded. “And you know, old buddy, we both have something pretty special in common.”
“What’s that?”
“We’ve both lost the man we loved most on this earth under tragic circumstances. And that makes us both very strong, very special people.” He held out the uniform. “Go try it on. You probably have only a few minutes before your friend comes, so you might as well use my bathroom to change. I promise not to peek.”
Jeremy closed the door and shucked his jeans and sweatshirt, then slipped on the funky, high-waisted pants and buttoned the complicated jacket over his T-shirt. When he finished, he lifted his head and gazed into the medicine cabinet’s mirror, startled by the dazzling young officer staring back at him. He turned from side to side. The coat was a bit loose through the chest and arms, but he figured he could manage for an evening.
“Does it fit?” asked a muffled voice behind the door.
“I guess.”
“Then get out here.”
A bashful Jeremy opened the door.
Arthur grinned. “You do it justice. I should hope I ever looked that good.”
“So don’t I need some kind of hat?” He raised his eyebrows hopefully.
“I was saving the best for last.” Arthur presented, from behind his back, a white lieutenant’s cap with a black patent-leather brim. Gently, he placed it on the boy’s head, as if this were his coronation. “The brim always goes two fingers over your nose, like this.” He tugged the visor down so it covered Jeremy’s eyebrows and shielded his eyes, making him look both mysterious and somewhat unrecognizable.