by Bob Smith
Why was Cheney trying to kill me? Was he trying to prevent me from changing the future? It made no sense. He had sent me back. Plus, the past had already been modified by my presence. Couldn’t he just return me to my time without altering any more of the timeline? Then a more ominous and intriguing idea occurred to me: what does he know about what I’m going to do that I don’t even know yet?
Ravi walked over to me with his ball in his mouth and dropped it in front of me.
“Can we bring Ravi?”
“Of course.”
Spending more time with sweet Ravi would make me miss Bartleby a little less. He’d also make our grim mission less grim.
The two of us got ready for bed. I kept on my T-shirt to conceal my scar. Junior looked under his sink for a spare toothbrush but came up empty.
“Is it wrong that sharing my toothbrush with you kind of grosses me out?” he asked.
“I’m glad you said it because it grosses me out too.”
Junior shut the bathroom door when he peed.
“You’re pee-shy around me?”
“I don’t know you well enough to feel comfortable.”
“If that statement doesn’t prove you need therapy . . .”
He came out of the bathroom in his white Calvin Klein briefs.
“How does she die?”
“You’ve had enough bad news for one night.”
“Tell me.”
“No. That’s it for tonight.”
He opened his mouth to reply but stopped.
“You’re right.”
We got into bed. The sexual tension between us had dissipated— Junior appeared to be genuinely upset—and I felt enormous tenderness toward him. I wanted to hug him but thought he’d take it the wrong way. Then I decided that was possibly the most fucked up thing I’d ever thought in my entire life.
“I’m really sorry I had to put this on you.”
“It’s all right.”
His voice wavered and cracked like a kid going through puberty.
“No, it’s not. C’mere.”
I reached out and enveloped Junior in my arms and hugged him tightly. He didn’t seem to know how to respond but eventually relaxed. After a minute, we self-consciously rolled away from each other.
“Good-night.”
“Good-night.”
I was glad Junior asked me to go with him. He sounded too young to handle my life.
6
AT NINE A.M. the ringing telephone awakened us.
“Don’t answer it,” I shouted when Junior threw off the blanket.
The answering machine picked up, and after Junior’s outgoing message played we heard a beep. “Hi, John.” There was a long pause. “It’s Mom.” Then there was another longer pause. “Call me.”
Junior shook his head. “She always sounds like she’s giving dictation.”
My mother never fully became comfortable leaving a message on an answering machine or voicemail. Her messages were either extremely brief, almost as if she thought leaving an impression of your voice on an answering machine would steal your soul, or they were long monologues as if the message were the equivalent of a note in a bottle tossed in the sea and she never expected a response. Her messages had become legendary among my friends. I couldn’t share with Junior about the time she’d called when our father was dying, “Ohhhh, I was hoping I would get you in person and not get this machine,” she’d said. “I hate to have to leave this as a message but I don’t know what else to do. Dad wasn’t doing well yesterday so I took him to the emergency room at the hospital. They admitted him right away. It doesn’t look good.” Then she switched to her most chipper voice: “Oh, by the way, this is Mom!”
She began to leave a message until Junior picked up. “Hi, Mom. No, I got home late. A catering job.” Junior wasn’t being honest. Of course he couldn’t mention he’d slept with himself last night. My life then was full of half-truths, things I said to protect my nice guy image, ignoring that admitting I’d stayed out late last night at a gay bar was probably less damaging to my reputation than being found out as a habitual liar. I got up to pee and then put on the teakettle to make coffee. After Junior began to drink coffee at the gallery, he had bought a French press for his apartment after his chef friend Lauren had insisted a French press made the best coffee. The purchase furthered my vision of myself as urbane. In Buffalo, coffee passively dripped into a pot while New Yorkers were pushy and leaned on their beans.
The doorbell rang and I jumped. In the South Bronx in 1986 only burglars and Jehovah’s Witnesses dropped by unannounced. It had to be Cheney. Although it didn’t make sense that he’d give us a heads-up for a second time. I reached for one of my Glock 22s, which I’d loaded before bed. Holding the gun didn’t make me feel more secure; I’d only shot a gun once in my life, with my father when I was ten years old.
“I’ll see who it is,” I whispered before walking to the front of the apartment and stealthily moving the window shade aside. Taylor, the young Taylor, was standing outside. Junior approached the door, and I put up my hand warning him to stay where he was. I found it difficult not to stare at Taylor. It was five years before we would meet, and he looked close enough to the young man I fell in love with to captivate me once again. Taylor’s body was hard, a quality in men that I’ve always found contagious. There were a few significant differences from how he looked when we’d first met. His black hair bristled, probably spiked with Tenax, the green aromatic French hair gel that I and everyone else used back then. He also sported a dyed fluorescent blue streak on the right side of his head. It’s an article of faith among gay men that a new hairstyle is an outward manifestation of an inner transformation; what stigmata are for Roman Catholics, highlights are for us. To his credit, Taylor was probably the only New Wave–styled young man who could correctly explain the physical properties of his blue streak with a lecture about protons and shortened wavelengths of light. A shiny red shirt clung to his chiseled body. If you have a displayable body, you can’t go wrong promoting your buffitude in snug-fitting polyester. It gains other men’s interest by showing off your physique, and also encourages them to think they have a shot with you since the cheesy style reveals you’re not that bright and will be easy prey.
Junior moved closer and I stiff-armed him.
“I’ll take care of it,” I whispered.
“Who is it?”
I didn’t say anything, trying to decide whether I should tell Junior about Taylor. It seemed excessively cautious that I was trying to keep them apart because I didn’t want to jeopardize their eventually meeting and falling in love—especially since I was planning to break up with Taylor. Perhaps I’d be doing all of us a favor if I introduced them now and they disliked each other immediately.
“I’m not sure I should tell you.”
“Why?”
Junior dropped any pretense of obeying me and glided past me. I tried blocking him, aware of the loaded gun in my hand. I didn’t offer much opposition, as I easily imagined the pistol accidentally going off with disastrous results. He easily maneuvered around me, opened the door, the first gate, and then gaped at Taylor through the second gate. He opened it and within seconds, the three us stood near the entrance to the apartment, under the stairs, uncertainly staring at each other.
“What’s the big deal?” Junior asked.
I remained silent, allowing him to fill in the blank while I tried to think of what to tell him.
“Is he someone from my future?” I must have blanched, because Junior asked, “Really?” Taylor examined Junior’s face as if he was trying to recall his name. I shifted nervously and Taylor glanced at the pistol in my hand.
“Are you John?” he asked me. Junior and I answered, “Yes.”
Junior studied Taylor but I couldn’t tell from either of their expressions whether each found the other attractive. They looked slightly bored but also expectant—the default expression of youth.
“He’s my boyfriend?”
&nb
sp; I don’t think Junior meant his question to sound as insulting as it did.
“And you’re him?” Taylor asked, gesturing with his hand to indicate Junior and myself. I considered lying, but nothing credible came to mind. I hate when my ability to lie fails me; it makes me feel that I’m letting people down when they can’t depend on my dishonesty.
“Yes,” I said.
Taylor carefully looked at each of us as if he was trying to determine whether the before and after models in the ad were actually the same person.
“I know,” Junior said. “It’s hard to see the resemblance.”
Taylor eyed my chest and arms.
“Yeah, because he looks great.”
Now Junior was insulted.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”
Taylor said his name, almost as an apology, and then offered Junior his hand. Taylor looked especially handsome when he was confused; doubt softened his features, while his fear of being thought ignorant prevented his face from going completely slack.
“How’d you find us?” I asked.
“You’re listed in the telephone book.”
I immediately panicked, thinking that Cheney could also look up Junior’s address. I stepped outside and walked up the two steps to the sidewalk. Two guys were playing a game on a table outside the bodega across the street, while another guy was sitting on the steps of a brownstone, smoking a cigar, between bites of a pear, which looked disgusting. I didn’t see Cheney, but we weren’t safe here. And now Taylor might be a target. Cheney knew he’d spoken to me. But Cheney couldn’t kill him or else no time machine. He might lock him up though. I had no idea what to do with Taylor, except maybe take him with us. Traveling with the two of them might be unpleasant—I pictured adolescent sexual tension mixed with incessant demands that I stop the car every time we passed a hunky farmer. But I couldn’t let Cheney change Taylor’s past. I wanted Taylor out of my life, but I didn’t want to remove him from my history. (Most of my relationships have been like life itself: even knowing the unfortunate ending isn’t enough to make me want to forgo the experience.) It seemed unfair that even on the second go-round of my life I still had no control over my destiny, that the future in the past was as unknowable as the future in the present. We all live with an innate sense of foreboding, but time travel only increased my anxiety. In addition to knowing for certain that bad things would happen, I had to worry about a whole new set of possible calamities. With a sense that I was probably fucking up all our prospects, I suggested that we should go inside. I didn’t like standing in front of the house with a gun in my hand. (Although part of me wanted my South Bronx neighbors to know I was packing heat.)
Once inside, Ravi sniffed Taylor for the first time, then Taylor petted him, causing Ravi to plop down on the ceramic tile floor, offering up his belly for a rubbing. The only seating in the apartment was either on the futon or the bed. Junior offered Taylor a seat on the lumpy futon while we sat on the sleigh bed, whose mahogany frame creaked heavily. “God, I forgot how much noise this bed makes,” I said before leaning against the headboard, while Junior scooted over to lean against the footboard.
“Why’d you come looking for us?” I asked.
“Curiosity,” Taylor said. “It’s not every day someone calls me up and claims to be my time-traveling boyfriend. Then a few hours later some psycho shows up asking about my time-traveling boyfriend. And when you told me I invent this time machine, I thought I should meet you.”
After hearing Taylor was responsible for my visit, Junior relaxed and asked him if he wanted some coffee.
“That would be great,” Taylor said. “Just milk, please.”
Junior hopped off the bed to get his coffee order. It was fascinating to observe my eagerness to please an attractive man, although it was so patently blatant that it made me a little ashamed of myself.
“There is something else,” Taylor said, after taking a sip of his coffee. “You started to tell me in our phone call that we’re boyfriends and then I change and become someone you can’t love. It sounds like we break up. Why?”
He sounded hurt; obviously that was the real reason he sought me out.
“We haven’t yet; I haven’t told you.”
“What did I do?”
Taylor bit his lower lip, a nervous tic I was long familiar with.
“It’s complicated.” I did owe him an explanation, especially after he saved us from being ambushed by Cheney.
Junior’s face jerked with impatience. “Tell him. It’s our lives, too.”
I decided to be blunt.
“You’ll become an asshole, join the Republican Party, and support the worst president and vice president in U.S. history, and if that vice president shows up here, and there’s a good chance he will, he’ll gun down all three of us.”
Taylor looked away from me while Junior gaped in disgust. I regretted saying anything.
“That was harsh,” Junior said.
“There’s more to it than that. You need to know everything before it will make sense.”
“Quit stalling and tell us,” Junior demanded.
“You’re withholding information,” Taylor said. “Information we have a right to know.”
They made a reasonable point; I was again playing God with them, knowing their destinies but refusing to reveal them, which is often the only way we can change our fates.
“You did some things I don’t approve of, and after a while I’d had enough.”
“I cheated on you? I can’t believe I’d ever cheat on you.”
“No, you didn’t, and thanks.” I tried to sound nonchalant, as Junior was observing us, and I didn’t want to start flirting with Taylor and make him jealous.
“You’ll support a Republican president in twenty years who’s worse than Reagan,” I explained.
“Worse than Reagan?” Junior asked. “How’s that possible?”
“Evolution. In the future assholes will be much larger than they are today.”
Junior suddenly snapped at Taylor. “You support Reagan?”
Taylor bridled at his accusation.
“I don’t support him. He’s ignored AIDS, which is unforgivable, although he’s done some good things for the economy.” This statement hardly seemed to mollify Junior—any praise of Reagan—nice hair— would have enraged me then—and I decided to hold my tongue about Reagan’s so-called improvements to the economy. I didn’t want to piss off Junior any more. At that moment, it was hard to believe Junior and Taylor would ever fall in love; although if they didn’t become boyfriends, wouldn’t I have suddenly returned to my own time?
“I don’t really give a shit about politics,” Taylor added. “Right now my life is all about physics. I go to the gym and think about atoms. That’s pretty much my day.”
Junior smiled forgivingly. He seemed to accept the need to work on your triceps as a legitimate reason to stay disengaged from participating in citizenship. Observing your own shallowness at first hand is disillusioning.
Junior rose from the bed and walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He leaned down, peered inside, and appeared to be taking inventory.
“There’s got to be more to it than that,” Taylor protested. “I don’t support idiots.”
“You became a Republican after 9/11,” I said.
“What’s 9/11?”
“I need coffee.” I got up and poured myself a cup before explaining again about September 11, 2001. I told them how the entire world watched the towers fall on television.
“You mean that wasn’t just a lousy phone sex story?” Taylor asked.
“No, it wasn’t.”
They had a lot of questions and were horrified by the details— people jumping from the towers, survivors with ash-covered faces walking the streets of New York. How President Bush flew around in circles for nine hours because he was afraid to return to DC. Then the revelation the following year that Bush and Cheney had been warned on August 6 about terrorists h
ijacking jets and had done nothing. Taylor and Junior were shocked, but not as shocked as I thought they would be. Their relative composure after hearing about watching people die on television was explained when they both mentioned watching the Challenger space shuttle explode six months earlier.
Junior closed the refrigerator and opened a cupboard and removed a yellow mixing bowl. “I’m going to make breakfast if you’re hungry.” His outburst of hospitality didn’t surprise me. I would’ve tried to keep Taylor in my apartment too.
“We have bacon and eggs,” I added, knowing they were a favorite of Taylor’s.
“That sounds great.”
While Junior cracked eggs into the bowl, I made bacon in the microwave. Taylor offered to help, but I told him to sit at the kitchen table.
“Vice President Bush is president in 2001?” Taylor asked.
“No, he wins in ’88. His son George W. Bush is president in 2000.”
“Who the fuck is he?”
“He’s nobody right now. He’s a failed oilman in Midland, Texas, but he’ll become governor of Texas, then run for president.”
“What’s the ‘W’ stand for?” Taylor asked.
“Worst,” I said.
“Two George Bushes become president?” Junior said. “I’m praying that you come from a parallel universe where there are four Nixons and three Hitlers.”
“No, sorry. We just have one of each.”
Taylor asked, “Is the second Bush better than the first?”
“No.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Junior poured a little milk in the bowl before scrambling the eggs. “Because the first one sucks.”
“He’ll seem like George Washington compared to his son. At least he didn’t invade Iraq, only Kuwait . . . but that’s . . . oh, never mind.”
I felt it was my duty to explain the differences between the two Bushes and the Gulf War and the Iraq War.
“You know how Karl Marx said history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce?” I asked. “Well, Marx had it backwards, and those two presidents are the textbook example of that phenomenon.”
“There must be some differences between the two,” Taylor said. He was an indefatigable fact-checker and preferred raw data to someone else’s summaries.