by Rick R. Reed
But he didn’t.
And, in the end, he used a metaphor that’s apt for me right now as I wade out of the water, the brilliant sunshine already drying and heating my skin.
He said, “I just can’t handle being with you. You’re a great guy. But I know, I just know, that you’re also drowning in a way, and reaching out to me is the same as a drowning man reaching out for the handiest thing to keep himself afloat, to keep himself alive.”
I argue with him, telling him he’s wrong (but maybe he isn’t), but his mind was made up.
On the beach, I see Juan sitting up, smiling and waving at me.
Yes sir, I’ll go home with you.
LATER, AS I head north on Winthrop Avenue toward the L stop at Granville, I think how my time with Juan couldn’t have been more disastrous.
I started having misgivings as soon as I entered his darkened studio apartment. Because of the contrast of the sun to the basement interior, I was almost blinded when we walked in the door. Gradually, I could make out a diffuse light coming in from a narrow window, little more than a slit, high up on one wall. When he said he lived in a high-rise, I was expecting panoramic views of the lake and the skyline.
Not this hole.
It smelled bad too. Like garbage left too long in the kitchen, something organic, yet rotten. Over all of this, not masking, but making things worse, was the stale smell of cigarette smoke.
As my eyes adjusted, I could make out how tiny the place was, with a door leading to what I guessed would be a bathroom, a kitchenette along one wall and, dominating the space, a messy queen-size bed, its coverings half on the bed and half on the floor. The sheets were coming off the bottom end, revealing the striped mattress ticking underneath.
Juan gave me a weak smile. I suspect he could tell I was a little put off by the squalor he was living in. “Sorry. I wasn’t sure I’d be bringing someone back from the beach.” Halfheartedly, he tightened the sheets on the bed and pulled up the comforter from the floor, laying it across the bottom.
“You like porn?” he asked, eyes brightening with hope.
“I guess. Who doesn’t?”
He squatted down in front of a small, wood-laminate entertainment center and popped in a videocassette. In minutes, the screen above the VCR came alive with a crowd of lined-up men, sucking and fucking.
He grinned. “LA Tool and Die—it’s one of my favorites.”
“Hot,” I said without much enthusiasm, eyeing the screen, then looking back at him.
He crawled over to the coffee table at the foot of the bed and opened a drawer. He took out a small vial and spilled some white powder onto its surface. Using a credit card he’d pulled from his wallet, he separated the powder into lines. He got up and went into the kitchen and returned with a drinking straw cut in half. He held it out to me. “You party, right?”
He slid out of his trunks, standing naked before me.
He was hard.
I was not.
I shook my head. “Not really. What is that?”
He looked at me like I was an idiot, a child. “It’s coke, man.” He waved the straw toward me. “You’ve done it before, yeah?”
I shook my head.
He kept holding the straw out to me. “Where have you been?” He laughed. “Don’t be so uptight. Do a couple lines. It’ll make the sex incredible.”
When I didn’t take the straw from his hand, he squatted at the table’s edge and quickly snorted up three lines. He rubbed some of the powder left over from them on his gums. “I don’t care if you do it or not, but, really, you’ll have a blast. Sex like you couldn’t imagine. Maybe I can even call a couple of my buddies over later.”
Despite the hardcore porn and Juan’s naked body, close enough to touch, I felt no desire whatsoever. All I could think of was Henry, imagining him seeing his daddy in this filthy place with someone he didn’t know two hours ago. Doing drugs. Taking part, perhaps, in a gangbang.
I felt ill.
I edged backward, toward the door. “Uh, sorry, man. This isn’t for me. Not today,” I said and thought, Not ever.
He snorted another line and crawled naked onto the bed. Staring at the screen, he lit up a cigarette and began tugging at himself. “Suit yourself. You still wanna stay, though, right?”
I backed up until I could feel his front door at my back. I reached behind me to grasp the doorknob. I turned it slightly. “I don’t think so. Sorry. I think you and I like different stuff.”
“Oh come on, sit down, do some blow, watch a little of this flick. It’s amazing.”
“No.”
I opened the door and felt like I could breathe again.
“Fag,” he said, not taking his eyes off the screen.
NOW, AS I climb the stairs to the L platform, I wonder how calling me a fag made sense given the situation we’d found ourselves in.
When the train pulls up, I board and collapse gratefully into an empty seat. Across the aisle from me, once the train is in motion, a bleached blond guy, with what looks like a big purple birthmark, eyes me and smiles provocatively.
I turn away, staring out the window, watching the backs of apartment buildings as the train picks up speed.
Once I get home, I’m grateful to be at my front door. I feel like I did as a kid in a game of tag—I’ve reached home base.
I’m glad I’ve discovered the beach a few L stops south, but thinking maybe I should be more cautious about who I let take me home.
Or maybe I shouldn’t go home with guys from the beach at all.
Once I open the door, I can tell something’s different. There’s an indescribable energy in the air. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, but it makes me feel violated.
I wander through the rooms, which doesn’t take long. One of the things that drew Violet and me to this place was its “vintage charm.” The ad for the apartment used just those words. High ceilings, crown moldings, original hardwood floors, a fireplace, and lots and lots of built-in cabinets. The sunlight streaming in through the big windows was magical.
It’s the built-in cabinet in the pantry that clues me in on why something feels amiss. The shelves behind the glass doors are empty. They weren’t that way when I headed out to the beach.
On the shelves were all of the good Lennox china we got as wedding gifts. I eye the shelves, pristine, empty, as though the plates, bowls, cups, and saucers had never been there in the first place.
I stoop a little to open the drawer beneath the shelving. Yup, all the silver flatware we also received as wedding presents is gone.
Getting a clue, I walk around the apartment once more. In the dining room is a little oak trolley, upon which, once upon a time, sat our silver service. We never used it, but it was a legacy from Violet’s grandmother, hence its place of honor in our dining room.
The silver service is gone too.
So is the oil painting of irises that once hung over our couch. The wall behind it is lighter, highlighting the loss.
I plop down on the couch. I don’t care about any of these things. And I don’t believe I’ve been robbed—the doors and windows are all still locked. Besides, the choice of items to steal are way too specific for a burglar, who would have taken stuff like, I don’t know, the stack of credit cards I left on my nightstand before heading out.
“Why, Violet?” I wonder aloud to the sunbeams radiating in through our big living room windows. “Did you think I would fight you for this stuff?” I shake my head, knowing that it couldn’t have been Violet’s idea to come in and highjack our wedding presents. No, I’m certain, with no one even telling me, that idea came straight from her mother, Fran.
I can see this, as much as being served the divorce papers, as a declaration of war.
This doesn’t have to be a battle.
I sit and absorb this betrayal for a while. “Why didn’t you just talk to me, Vi? I would have given you anything you wanted. You didn’t need to sneak in behind my back, for God’s sake.”
I get up and m
ove to the phone to try to call her once more.
Of course, the phone rings and rings at her parents’ house, at last ending up with the answering machine and its automated message. It’s the same old story. I haven’t spoken to Violet since she moved out. It’s the same story at her job, where they’ve obviously been put on alert—Vi is always in a meeting.
I hang up without a message. Nothing I would say would do much good, if they even allowed Violet to hear it.
My next call is to the attorney downtown.
I have a proposal for him, something simple, but I hope he can make it happen.
Chapter Nineteen
JOHN
Finally, Vince has cleared an evening with Arvin, his not-so-new beloved to come out with me. It’s been so long since I’ve seen the guy I thought was my best friend that I asked him to come out early and to do something different than what we usually do, which is go bar-hopping.
We’re seated at a table in the window of Las Mananitas on Halsted. Over jumbo, too-strong margaritas and chips and salsa, we watch the parade of boys go by, heading out to the bars. I was one of them once, now I feel I’m looking at them in a way that’s once removed.
“So you followed my advice to dump the guy?” Vince drains his glass and signals our waitress for another round of margaritas. I will need to be wheeled home in a wheelbarrow.
“Yeah.” I pop a chip into my mouth and look into his eyes. There’s concern there, and I know what he told me to do was the right thing, but these last two weeks have been miserable. I’ve picked up the phone to call Randy a dozen times. Only a supreme effort of will makes me put the receiver back in its cradle before he, or his machine, picks up. “I did.”
“And how did he take it?”
I wait until the waitress clears away our glasses and sets down two more margaritas.
“We should probably order some food to soak up some of this tequila,” I say before the waitress leaves the table. Vince orders the chicken quesadillas and I the carne asada. We’ve both been here so many times we don’t even need to look at a menu.
After she leaves, I answer. “He took it as you might expect.”
“Heartbroken?”
“Devastated. Wouldn’t you be?” I smile, but there’s no heart behind it. It may seem to Vince that I’m joking, but in all kidding, there’s always at least a little seriousness. Randy was beyond hurt when we had a brief phone conversation, (and yeah, bad me for breaking up over the phone even if breaking up might be too sober a term for the early days we were in).
“Well, he’ll be okay,” Vince tells me. “I mean, you guys hardly even dated.”
I want to ask how he knows Randy will be okay—he’s never even met the guy.
“He needs to get his own head on—you should pardon the expression—straight before he has a relationship. And you need to have yours examined before you launch into another infatuation with another married or otherwise emotionally unavailable man. It’s a pattern for you, you know. You’ll never win if you’re always betting on losers.”
He’s right, of course. Still, there’s a hollowness at my core that’s been there since that awful phone call. I’m ashamed to say that the call only happened because I, in a moment of weakness, picked up the phone instead of letting the machine get it. My sad modus operandi has always been to just stop calling or returning calls, and becoming a ghost.
No message, I told myself, is a message. Why can’t people ever get that?
Still, when I told Randy I couldn’t be his training wheels as he ventures into the gay world, I felt like someone forcing himself to choke down a big bowl of unseasoned spinach—you know it’s good for you, but it tastes like hell.
Vince eyes me once our food arrives, his head cocked.
“What?” I ask, even though I know the answer. I dig into my food.
“You. You’re trying to make me believe you don’t care when it’s obvious you do. You joke about Randy being heartbroken, but I think you’re the one. You should see yourself through my eyes.”
“I don’t want to,” I snap. What Vince sees is some lovelorn sad sack. Pathetic.
We finish our meal in near silence. When we do talk, it’s about trivial stuff—the heat wave we’re having and how it’s causing brownouts and blackouts all over the city, the new bars that have opened up in the Andersonville neighborhood, our respective jobs—how I save lives and he buries the ones who can’t be saved.
We settle up the bill. “Thanks for coming out tonight.”
“It was good to see you.”
“You wanna go for a drink?” I ask. “It’s comedy night at Sidetrack.”
He sighs before standing. When he does, he says, “Ah, I should probably just get home.”
“Home? You haven’t moved in together, have you?”
He waits a beat before answering, maybe out of consideration for my lovelorn feelings. “Yeah. I wanted to tell you. Just waiting for the right moment.”
He doesn’t say why he didn’t, but I can guess it’s because I poured out my heart over dinner how miserable I was over nipping this “thing” with Randy in the bud, despite feeling it was the right thing to do. But I hate that my friend doesn’t want to share his good news with me because he’s afraid it’ll make me feel bad.
Is the right thing to do always the right thing to do? I wonder.
“Arvin and I want to have you over for dinner soon. You and a date. You are dating, seeing people, right?”
“Sure.” The truth is, I haven’t been with anyone other than Mr. Thumb and his four sons in weeks. “That would be really nice. You sure you don’t want to come out for a quick one?”
Vince shakes his head. “Sweetie, if I have another, I’ll be under the table. Or under some guy, and I’m trying real hard to make this relationship work. Stay true.”
We head out into the night. It got dark while we were inside, but the shadows brought no relief. The temperature must still be near a hundred with the humidity about the same. It feels like someone threw a wet blanket over me when I moved from the refrigerated restaurant to now-tropical Halsted.
We kiss on the street, on the lips—a quick peck. Buddies. It’s sad that, even here in the gay epicenter of this metropolis, we have to look around guiltily after exchanging a simple gesture of affection.
Vince says, “Go on. Go to Sidetrack. Get drunk. Get laid.”
I nod.
He punches me in the shoulder. “Cheer up, buddy! I’ve never seen you like this.”
“I’ve never been like this.” And it’s true. I haven’t. I blow out a breath of air. “Go on home, now. Give that man of yours a kiss from me.” I turn back toward the restaurant. “I’m gonna grab a Gay Chicago.”
We hug once more, and I duck back inside to grab the paper.
When I come back out, paper in hand, I decide not to go to Sidetrack or any other bar. For one, I’m comfortably “happy” from the tequila I’ve just had. One more drink though and I’ll be stinkin’ drunk. Fine line, you know. For another, I’m no longer in the mood. I wish I could be. I wish I could go to a bar with a backroom and just get off like I once did without thinking about it, without worrying about silly things like, oh, jeopardizing my life.
This last thought makes me think of Dean Carvello. I wonder once more how he’s doing. I recall seeing him on my last night out and hope he’s found a measure of happiness, I really do. Despite his histrionics and the brush with stalking, I once cared about him and thought we had a future together.
Despite not wanting to head out for more drinks, I don’t want to go home yet, either.
I walk down Halsted and turn on Belmont, head west to the Dunkin’ Donuts at Clark. Hey, at least I can have a glazed doughnut and watch the parade of weirdos always hanging out at that corner. They’re often funny, sometimes scary, never boring. It’s cheap entertainment.
I go in and order a coffee, a glazed doughnut, and an apple fritter because I just don’t give a damn how fat I’ll get. Sometimes s
ugar and carbs are the perfect comfort food.
I sit down with my treats at a window table and open the Gay Chicago. I begin turning pages, looking at pictures of people out having fun at the bars—a cute couple celebrating their first anniversary, several different drag queens performing around town, a fundraiser for an AIDS charity, the dance floor at Roscoe’s.
It doesn’t take me long to find the obituaries. I’ve watched those pages grow and grow during the last few years as AIDS claims the lives of more and more of my brothers. It gives me a chill every time.
I’m about to skip over the section when I see someone I know.
I lose my appetite all at once.
I stare down at the memorial, hoping my eyes deceived me. But no, it’s there in black and white with a formal studio picture. Dean Corvello. I close my eyes as a jolt passes through me. When my breath returns, I read over the details—age, occupation, survivors, school information—and how Dean passed away after a “short illness.”
My heart feels like it’s moved up into my throat. My breath comes a little quicker. If I don’t repress the bile rising up, I could lose my dinner. Sweat beads pop out on my forehead.
I’m pretty sure this is what a panic attack feels like. I’ve never had one myself, but I’ve seen quite a few in my work. I don’t want to be sick, don’t want to have to breathe into a paper bag right here out in public.
But I’m wrecked.
Dean Corvello is dead? I thought, when we talked on the Belmont Rocks that night he’d just found out, that he was going to be okay. After all, he’d just found out. It could be a long time before an opportunistic infection made him sick, maybe even longer before something as extreme as death.
Our encounter was only a short time ago. Mere weeks.
But being diagnosed and getting sick could happen really quickly. The hateful virus could live in one’s system silently for a long time, doing quiet damage while the host is none the wiser. I’d seen enough instances to know how insidiously things worked when it came to HIV.
But still? Dean?
I’d just seen him! I remember trying to catch up to him as he left Roscoe’s in his harness and chaps, looking fit as a fiddle.