I have promised to be true in the telling of this tale, dear friend, so I will tell you that I allowed César to have intercourse with me. Oh, I can hear you now—intercourse, how very delicate. What you mean to say is he fucked you. Yes, César fucked me, or rather we fucked each other, but there are times when a physical act becomes transcendent. That was perhaps the only time in my life that I have ever made love to anyone. As César began to push inside me, I let out a small cry. “Sometimes love hurts just a little bit, sugar. Breathe out—one, two, three, like that. And say, ‘I love you so much, I do this for you.’ And then the pain will go away.”
So I breathed out—one, two, three, and repeated the words, losing myself in his eyes. And he was right. The pain went away.
The next morning the announcement of who had received certification and the scores for their arrangements were posted on an easel outside the room where we had worked. I had scored in the upper 10% of the group and was given a distinction. César had received an honorable mention for his Moribana arrangement. He suggested we celebrate with a picnic in Central Park, but I told him that I absolutely must return to my hotel. “I haven’t even spent one night there. Besides, my suit is there, and my good shoes, and I want to wear them to the gala tonight.”
“A suit. You will look like a revival preacher.”
In truth, I planned to shop for a new shirt and tie—perhaps even an ascot or scarf, but I wanted to surprise him. “You can call for me there. We will have a date.”
“What time do you wish me to call for you on this date, my sweet?”
“The gala begins at eight. Come at seven.”
“I cannot wait that long. I will die.” He held his hands over his heart as if pained and pouted his lips.
“Seven. And then we will go to the gala.”
“And you will never leave me ever again?”
“Never.”
“Then, until tonight,” he said, removing the apricot-colored scarf from his neck and tying it around mine. “Te tengo en mi corazón mi amor. I will hold you in my heart, my love.”
I walked the blocks back to my hotel alone, wrapped in the warm glow of love, rehearsing how I was going to tell my mother that I was not coming home. She would be surprised, shocked, hurt, but she would understand. I would make her understand. However, Mother had her own surprise waiting for me.
When I walked into the lobby of the hotel to retrieve my key, the clerk gave me a funny look before handing me a stack of messages. “Someone has been trying to contact you since late yesterday. They say it is urgent for you to get in touch immediately.” As I boarded the elevator and rode to my room, I tried to fathom why Mother’s doctor would be calling me in New York. Surely this was not a good thing.
My suspicions were correct. When I called the number on the message sheet, Dr. Everett answered almost immediately. “Malcolm, where the hell have you been? Not that it matters right now, but you need to know your mother has had a stroke.”
“Is she going to die?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “But it is very serious. She has paralysis and some speech loss, but those may be able to come back some with rehabilitation. She wants you here. She needs you here. This is going to be a long, hard road for her—for the both of you. You need to come home right away. She is awake and asking for you.” Then a final exasperated, “Where the hell were you? I have been calling since yesterday afternoon.”
“Out,” I said. “I have been out.”
“I can only imagine,” the doctor replied. I could sense the condemnation in his voice.
“Yes, well, I will get the next plane home,” I said.
“That would be a good thing.”
“And Dr. Everett,” I added, “please don’t call me Malcolm. I go by M.R.”
“Whatever,” said the doctor. “Just get your tail home.”
In the movies, there is always the scene where the jilted lover waits—whether in the bustling train station, the empty town square, or the noisy hotel lobby. In my scenario, I imagined César waiting in the hotel lobby for me that night holding a single rose in his hand as a token of his love, what he said when the hotel clerk would have told him I checked out without leaving any message, wondering if he went to the closing night party looking for me, tried to envision him dropping the rose in the gutter. Or did he press its petals in between pages of a book? I played it so many different ways in my head. I did not have the courage to call him, the courtesy to even leave him a message. Besides, what could I say, “Mother is ill. Must leave. I’ll keep you posted.” I knew that when I boarded the plane for home, I was closing the chapter on César once and for all. I could not leave any trace of myself for him, could not give myself any hope for return. It would have been impossible to leave if I had. So, I took my suitcase (which had never been unpacked), had the doorman hail a taxi for me, and returned to Morris.
I am not sure what happened to César. I did try to contact him once after Mother had died and I was really down in the dumps. I thought I would tell him that I was free now to leave, to return to New York, to him. I don’t know that I expected him to forgive me, to want me to come back, but that shred of hope was all I had at the time. However, the directory assistance operator said she had no listing for a César’s in New York City. I knew that César would never leave New York, and it crossed my mind that perhaps he had succumbed to the gay plague that was sweeping the big cities at the time, but decided that the operator had just not been able to locate the number. I did not try anymore after that. But the things that César gave to me, I have kept forever. He was right—customers do call me Mister Vale, and after all these years, I doubt if anyone ever remembers my given name. I wear a scarf every day around my neck just like he did, tied in the same way he tied it that afternoon. But even more, I live by his philosophy, so all the rednecks and shit-kickers and born-again bitches who come into my shop every day cannot touch me or hurt me because I am a butterfly. I am a work of art. I make beauty wherever I am. And I know what is what in this world. Te tengo en mi corazón mi amor.
Lonnie followed me into the house after we parked the van. I tried hard not to remember how the left half of Roger’s head had lifted away from rest of his face like a shard of glass splintering off a shattered vase. His eyes had opened at the sound of the explosion in his ear, and as his head fell back against the white brocade of the wingback, it seemed as if he had thought of one last thing he wanted to ask. “Why?”
That was the question burning in my head as well. Why did it have to turn out like this? Surely there could have been another way. I warmed a plate of food for Lonnie, who seemed to have no difficulty eating. In fact, his appetite was as hearty as ever. When he was done, he leaned back in his chair and motioned for me to sit. He took a swig of his beer, and said, “We got some things to figure out.”
I sat down at the table. Perhaps he would explain it to me, give me some insight that would help me to understand.
Instead, he said, “I don’t think I can be coming around here anymore.”
“But why? Roger is gone. He won’t tell anyone.”
“This is a small town. There is bound to be some talk.”
“Not from me,” I said. “I swear I have never mentioned you to anyone.”
“But from someone. Someone will see me coming here or leaving. And I don’t want anyone talking about me like that. You got to understand. Ain’t no one can know about me and you. Can’t no one see me here or know about me and you.”
I was suddenly angry for Lonnie, sad for the shame he must feel, wanted to protect him.
“Men have . . . special friendships with other men,” I said. “There is no reason to be afraid or ashamed.”
He turned his head sharply toward me, his eye burning. “Don’t you think I don’t know that? I been around enough to know what’s what. When I was—before I was old enough to be on my own, I lived in a place, a place where they put boys like me.”
“A foster home?
”
“Foster homes is for those that can get taken in. Or shows potential for getting placed somewhere. Where I was is where they put boys who nobody wants or who has done stuff so they needs to be looked after.”
“A group home.”
“Yeah,” he sneered. “If that’s what you want to call it. Birchwood Boys Home. About the only good thing it did for me was help get me ready for living on the inside.”
I didn’t ask what he meant by this because I knew he meant prison.
“In those places, there are men like you there that do for other men. But sometimes there are men who do for each other, but it ain’t nobody’s bidness but their own what they do. When I was a boy, I had me a friend. He was about my age. Well, some of the boys talked about us. Said things. Called us queers. It didn’t bother him any, but I fought the ones who said it. Told them if they ever said it again, I would cut off their peckers and make them suck their own dicks. But that didn’t stop some of them. So I had to show them that I meant bidness.”
“What happened to your friend?” I asked.
“He had to go away,” he said.
I wanted to ask where, how long, but knew it wasn’t allowed, that Lonnie would never tell me more than that. But who had been this friend?
He took a swig of his beer before continuing. “That friend of yours, Roger—he was like those boys at Birchwood. He needed to know what was what.”
No, I wanted to say. You’re wrong, Lonnie. Roger was kind and caring and sweet and tender. He was sad and lonely. He only wanted friendship and affection. He didn’t need to be killed. But I didn’t say anything.
“Anyhow, it don’t really matter now, does it? There’s only one way to make sure somebody don’t talk. Otherwise they has something on you and can use it. Now, the way I see it, M.R., is that you and me is in this thing together. It wasn’t my fault that your friend invited himself over here. He was the one to blame. And you should have stopped him from intruding into where he didn’t belong. But what’s done is done, and now we need to put that behind us.”
“But surely there is a way,” I said. “We can be careful. We can go to Whiteville. I will get a room there for you to stay.”
“No,” he said. “That won’t do. Besides, now I got to know that you have my side in this.” I tried to look deep into his eyes, to see what kind of hurt could be housed there, but he looked at me hard and cold, and I knew that if he did not trust me, I would soon discover what Roger had said was true. Lonnie did not plan ahead—or so I believed then. He only acted according to what was required in any given situation.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I said.
Lonnie thought for a moment. “Maybe if I was to come over and work for you a bit. Like that first time I came over here was to bring you the van. Didn’t nobody give a whistle about that.”
“But the van only needed to be serviced,” I said. “And you can’t work in the shop.”
“No, I reckon not,” he said. “But I could drive the van for you. You have to take the flowers out to people sometimes, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. “I do a great many deliveries—to churches, to the funeral home, to the hospital. But I don’t need anyone to drive me, and I have never employed a driver before. It would look odd to people.”
Lonnie thought again. “But if you couldn’t drive yourself.”
He waited for the full implication of this to sink in.
“What’s to say if you had an injury and couldn’t drive? You could call over to JB’s and ask him to see if there was anyone could make deliveries for you. And then when I was to come in and out of here every day, I would be coming through the front door and nobody would wonder why.”
I heard him talking, but my mind had shuddered, stalled at the word injury. What exactly did Lonnie have in mind for me?
“Besides,” he said, “the way I figure it is you would be demonstrating your loyalty to me. My friend was the only one who I ever knew was loyal to me.”
“I am loyal to you, Lon,” I said. I didn’t know what he had planned, but it couldn’t be worse than losing him.
“Well, I guess you’re going to get a chance to prove that then, aren’t you? You know, it wasn’t my fault that things went the way they did tonight. You was careless. You was the sloppy one. And look what come from it. So, now we are linked, and I need you to show me that you is on my side. Or else I am going to leave here and never come back. And if I ever hear any talk about me that you said, then I can tell you . . .”
“Lonnie, I will never say anything to anyone about you, about us, about tonight.”
“Then you need to prove that to me. I’m gonna give you a chance to prove that to me. Why don’t you wash up here and give me a minute. Then we will see how loyal you really are.” He pushed away from the table and was out the door, into the black. I scraped what was left from his plate, washed and dried the dish, and placed it back in the cabinet, my hands shaking so terribly that I thought I would chip the plate. Just as I was finishing, Lonnie called to me from the porch. I wondered if he had been there, watching me. In the dark night it took a moment for me to see that he was holding a stick of some sort in his right hand, but an oddly shaped stick. Or perhaps not a stick at all, but a crowbar.
“When I was on the inside,” he said, “there was a fella who wanted to get out of work detail, so he said the best way to lay off was to have a broke leg. Said a broke leg would heal, wasn’t like getting shot or stabbed, but it would lay him off for a while.”
“What are you intending, Lonnie?”
“You need to prove to me that you got my side, that you want me here.”
“I want you here more than anything.”
“Then sit here on the step. You can tell people you was coming out the back door and tripped.”
He made it sound so logical. A broken leg was so much more easily mended than a gunshot wound or a gash from a knife. “Where will you . . . ?”
“The bottom’s easier than the top. And you is pretty skinny to begin with.”
I lowered myself to the step.
“I won’t say it won’t hurt,” he said. “But don’t holler out. Someone might hear. And when I leave, you can get yourself into the house to call the doctor. Or else wait for someone to find you in the morning. Are you ready then?
“Yes, I’m ready.”
And as he swung the crowbar back over his head in a high arc, I thought how easy it would be for him to bring it crashing down on my head, smashing my skull. Then he would never have to worry about me saying anything to anyone. That what had happened tonight would disappear with me. But I knew deep inside that Lonnie didn’t want to bash my brains in. At least not yet. He wasn’t done with me. There was more to come.
And as the crowbar began its descent, I remembered what César had said to me all those years before: “Sometimes love hurts just a little bit, sugar. Breathe out—one, two, three, like that. And say, ‘I love you so much, I do this for you.’ ” I do this for you.
4
People had to order flowers for Roger’s funeral from Tabor City and Mullens. I remember that Joanne Jackson was actually snippy with me on the phone when I told her that I wasn’t taking orders.
“But, Mr. Vale,” she said. “I do think it is important to make a nice impression considering the circumstances.”
“I don’t know that you have heard, but I have a broken leg. I can’t stand.”
“Yes, I did hear. But you are supposed to be a professional. You could always sit on a stool while you worked if you really wanted to.”
I hung up and took a pain pill. Yes, I could probably have sat and put some flowers in a vase for her, perhaps I could even have balanced on my crutches long enough to put together a spray, but it didn’t seem appropriate. Roger was dead. I had watched him die. Besides, I knew that Joanne Jackson was a gossip and what she really wanted was the inside scoop. Not that she would have suspected I had any involvement with Roger’s death—what
she was interested in were the “circumstances,” which certainly had caused a stir in town. Though the police were quick to rule his death a suicide, there was no note, and so speculation and rumor were like a wildfire in a dry cornfield. The most generous in town speculated that Laverne’s long illness and death had simply driven him crazy, and the holidays had proved to be too much. The evidence was clear. He had been drinking heavily for months, not acting himself. If only someone had taken the time to help him. A heavy helping of grits and guilt to serve along with the Christmas ham.
The more vicious were interested in the sordid nature of his death. Roger was found wearing bra and panties with half his head splattered all over Laverne’s off-white living room. Surely that all meant something! Was Roger a homo? Was he a transvestite? Perhaps he was engaged in some sort of Satan worship or maybe even a sex game. After all, there were two cocktail glasses, washed and left to dry in the dish rack, and a half-eaten plate of cheese and crackers. Who has guests over for drinks and snacks before blowing his brains out? The autopsy also said he had had anal sex shortly before his death. I remembered the whimpers, the grunts, the groans coming from behind the closed door to Roger’s room. I tried not to think about what that had meant.
And then there was the matter of Laverne’s jewelry and her car. Her sister said some of her earrings and a necklace were missing, and Laverne’s Cadillac was gone from the garage. She said the jewelry were pieces that had been promised to her personally by Laverne. I wasn’t sure whether Laverne’s sister was due to inherit the jewelry, but I was pretty sure she would know exactly how much loot there was and where it was kept. As for the car, Laverne had been dead and buried for some time, so no one had seen her car or even thought if Roger had gotten rid of it. To most, Laverne’s sister was just a greedy grave robber, willing to steal the pennies off her sister’s eyes. However, I suspected she might have been on to something.
The funeral was held quietly with only Lorraine’s sister and her husband attending. Roger’s family had died off years before, and even though he had sponsored a generation of Little League teams and while half the town had attended his barbecues and golf events for the country club, no one wanted to be seen standing at his graveside. It would be as if they were complicit in his hidden decadence.
Lovesick Page 29