by Rick R. Reed
“Exactly. Even when we first met, and I told him he was HIV positive, even then I didn’t think he’d die from it. And he didn’t. What I never expected was that I would lose him to something else.”
“Cancer’s a terrible thing.”
“So now I just—I don’t know—feel so empty, so lost. It’s like I have no direction anymore.”
“You have a job, don’t you? A good one, even if doesn’t pay a lot, one where you actually do some good in the world, help folks. You have friends, don’t you? Your mama’s still kickin’, and that’s more than a lot our age can say. When’s the last time you called her?”
“Ah, don’t make me feel guilty. I’ll call her on Sunday.” I take a deep breath. “All of what you said is true. And I’m grateful.”
“It’s always better to be thankful for what you have, rather than mourn what you don’t. Cornball maybe, but I think that’s the key to anyone’s happiness.”
“You’re right. You’re right.” I want to argue with him. Tell him how alone I feel every night when I come home to the little condo Harry and I bought together. The peculiarly lonely sound my keys make when I set them on the metal tray on the table by the door. The silence rushing in, where once Harry would have music playing, anything from Led Zeppelin and “Stairway to Heaven” to Rosemary Clooney singing “Come On-A My House.” The place, still cleaned every other week by a woman named Paulina, is pristine. I miss the smells of Harry’s cooking. It didn’t matter what it was—a roast in the oven, beans in the slow cooker, maybe just onions and garlic in a fry pan. It made me happy when I walked in the door. Those things made it home.
Now it’s just a house.
But if I tell the father that, he’s just going to say I’m feeling sorry for myself—and I am—and that I should take a different attitude. Embrace the silence. Cherish my memories. Harry lives on. He’ll always be with me.
I know all the answers, but I can’t seem to take them to heart. I can’t seem to make myself believe.
I drain my teacup and set it down. I stand. “Thanks for being there, Father. I appreciate it.”
“You remember what I said.”
“I will.”
“And one other thing.” The priest scratches at his neck and gives me a grin that can only be described as wicked. “And I know as a priest this is a horrible thing for me to say, but I’m gonna say it anyway.”
I cock my head.
“Go out and get laid.” He gestures with a pointing finger up and down my body. “That shouldn’t be going to waste.”
I chuckle. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
“You do that.” He winks. “The Lord won’t mind.”
“You’re terrible. You should be defrocked.”
“I should be so lucky. Now go on, get out of here.”
“See you next week.”
Julio nods and gives a little wave.
CHAPTER 12: ANDY
I STILL feel a little shaken after I get home from my meeting with Evan. Even though the possibility of Carlos being dead had crossed my mind, I still feel stunned by it.
I try to put the conversation and the news out of my head as I take a quick shower, refill Ezra’s food bowl, surf through the three hundred or whatever channels on my TV only to find nothing, and remind myself I should make something to eat. I’m not hungry, but know I will be later. I go into the kitchen and open a can of tuna to make some tuna salad, which sends Ezra completely crazy. He rubs frantically against my legs, sending up mighty yowls. It’s almost as though the chubby little guy is in distress! I’m tempted to just set the can down before him but know I’ll be cleaning it all up later, probably off the white rug in the bathroom. I quickly chop some onion, a stalk of celery, and add a ton of mayonnaise to the salad. It’s comforting—so sue me. I mix everything together, put some bread in the toaster, and, while it’s toasting, do what I want to avoid—pour myself a large tumbler of gin and tonic. There’s no lime, but that’s okay. Extra gin can make up for the loss.
I sit down in the living room with my meal, such as it is, and try the TV again. I go into the On Demand menu and bring up an episode of House Hunters I’ve seen before. I turn the sound down low as I watch a gay couple look at shoebox-sized houses in West Hollywood and marvel at their close-to-a-million-dollars price tags. I wonder if I will ever be part of such a couple, searching for our perfect nest, or if I will spend the rest of my days here, in this lovely condo, surrounded by my things and perhaps some feline companionship.
When the drink and the sandwich are gone, none of the shock of discovering Carlos, my Carlos, is dead has worn off.
Why does this bother me so much? It’s not like we ever had a relationship. I probably took longer to channel surf and eat than the amount of time we actually spent together. He might have been a complete jerk, an asshole who couldn’t be faithful, a user, or someone who didn’t like animals. He might have been a lot of things, but I’d never know. Not now.
That was the thing that ate at me—that I’d never know. Finding out Carlos was dead removed both hope and possibility. I think, over the years, he was always in the back of my mind as the one that got away, that “great dark man” that Quentin Crisp says doesn’t exist. He would be my fallback when my marriage, as it inevitably would, fell through the cracks. He would still be there as I tried on a couple of different guys, never managing more than two years with each, and would have all the right attributes, the ones the guys I convinced myself I was in love with lacked.
I ponder how I’ve put Carlos into some sealed box, there just for me, always unchanging, waiting. That isn’t fair to anyone.
Yet I look back at those star-crossed gazes on the ‘L’ back in the early 80s with bittersweet nostalgia, not just because of the stark and exotic beauty of Carlos himself, but because of who I was then. What I was. A young man, a boy really, filled with all sorts of dreams and aspirations. Life was full of promise and possibility. I would write the great American novel or would at least settle for being a bestselling author, someone to rival my hero, Stephen King. I would marry and have babies, and we would be happy behind our white picket fence. Happiness was out there as something to be attained, if only I trod the right path. It took me years to learn that happiness is not something one attains, but fleeting, like sunshine. It comes and goes.
And look at me now, I think. Fifty-five years old with a reasonably good—yet boring—job downtown with a window overlooking the Chicago River and the gothic spires of the Tribune building, a gut-rehabbed turn-of-the-century condo that, with its gleaming hardwood, designer colors, Room & Board furniture, and state-of-the art appliances, would be right at home on one of those HGTV shows… and a cat. I mustn’t forget my chubby ball of ginger fur, Ezra, who has been with me, without judging, for years. I smirk. He’s the only real constant in my life.
Now, now, don’t go getting all maudlin on yourself. You have Jules and other friends, people you consistently do things with on the weekends—restaurants, plays, the occasional band at a local club—you have coworkers who care and can make you laugh.
Most importantly, you have a gorgeous, kind, and smart son who thinks the world of you. Watching him grow up has been a gift whose value is immeasurable. You have an ex-wife who, in spite of the fact that you knocked all the support beams out of her life in year seven of a marriage she expected to last a lifetime, still calls you friend and invites you over for supper.
You’re not alone.
It’s just that I feel like Peggy Lee asking “Is That All There Is?” Where’s the hope that young guy on the ‘L’ had, heading out to his first job on the west side? Where did all the energy go? What happened to those deferred dreams? How did I end up here? A gay guy with a cat?
When I left my marriage, amidst all the tears, heartache, and accusations, I had hopes that I’d meet that special man. Maybe he would be Carlos, maybe he wouldn’t. But he’d be someone with whom not only would I have a great physical chemistry, but also someone w
ith whom I’d have the kind of connection where I could tell him anything, where he’d be comfortable to talk to.
I felt that intuitively that night with Carlos all those years ago. I have always imagined if my mother hadn’t called, Carlos and I might have started a forbidden affair that wouldn’t have stayed forbidden for long.
I would have come to my senses.
Why? Because I would have realized that being with a man was my rightful place. It was not something to fight or be ashamed of but something to be celebrated, because it was about love.
But then you wouldn’t have your son. How can you have regrets?
And therein lies the truth. I don’t have regrets. Even the “mistakes” I’ve made, my marriage, my failed relationships, have all made me who I am today, for better or worse. And I know there are treasures galore scattered amidst those things I so foolishly call mistakes.
Are there mistakes in life at all?
I turn the TV off and stare out at the treetops along Lunt Avenue. I feel a sense of loss, probably not so much about Carlos, but again, about losing a dream, an ideal. I had set myself up when I started looking for him. There was an excitement and an optimism I don’t think I’d experienced in a long time.
Setting myself up that high, it was only inevitable that Evan’s news would lay me even lower.
I turn to the cat, who’s curled up at the other end of the couch. “What should I do, Ezra?”
He looks at me with his yellow-green eyes and blinks.
“You’re right. You’re always right. I shouldn’t give up hope. I should keep trying. There may be no perfect man out there for me, there may be no perfect love, but there may be one out there who will fit. And I am far too young to give up.”
As though he’s satisfied with the words he’s put in my mouth, Ezra closes his eyes.
I stand. In the kitchen, I rinse my dinner dishes and put them in the dishwasher.
I head into the office and my computer. I had set up an account on OkCupid ages ago, and nothing much had ever come of it, other than a dinner date at a French restaurant where I sat in numb shock as my date flossed his teeth at the table after our meal.
Maybe there’s somebody better….
I mix myself up another gin and tonic and take it with me to my desk. I sit down, bring up the OkCupid website, and log in. There I am. The picture’s a little old, taken by Tate one glorious autumn day at Rosehill Cemetery. I’m sitting on the steps of someone’s tomb in a sweater and cargo shorts, looking away from the camera, pensive, every bit the sensitive artist I wanted to project. I like to think I look the same as I did in that picture, taken when Tate was still in high school and taking a photography course, but I know the truth is many more threads of gray weave through my hair and I weigh about twenty pounds more. I sigh and delete the photo. I bring up the camera app on my computer and peer at myself looking back. The light is harsh, making even my olive complexion appear pale, sickly. I switch off the desk lamp and get up to quickly turn on the overhead. That’s better—my skin tone looks warmer, more even. I don’t look like death warmed over. What I do look like is a middle-aged man who was once good looking but now hopes for “distinguished” or “interesting” on his best days. My salt-and-pepper hair is buzzed close to my scalp in an effort to hide both the gray hairs sprouting with increasing frequency and the thinning patch at the top of my head. My eyes are still warm, although the camera mutes their green color and they look more brown than green. The signs of age are there—the deepening grooves around my mouth and eyes that I hope a prospective suitor will imagine were etched there by laughter—and the rimless glasses I have not removed lend an air, I hope, of intelligence. It’s me. Now.
I read over the bio I’d composed a few months ago.
Dark-haired man with arresting green eyes with a passion for good books, good movies, the outdoors, travel, and cooking seeks a like-minded soul for adventures in and out of the bedroom. I am a regular runner and am in good shape; you should be too. Hoping to find someone who can make me laugh, someone who can wipe away the exhaustion at the end of a long day, and who can, as they say in the song, send me.
I decide I don’t like what I’ve said. It sounds too vain. There’s too much about what I expect from the other person. Why not just be open? Honest? I do a quick rewrite, editing out things like “arresting green eyes”—for God’s sake!—and “adventures in and out of the bedroom.” I leave in “someone who can make me laugh” and add that I hope to find a guy who will be as comfortable in conversation as he is in silence. I offer that I can give back everything I’m asking for. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll revise in the morning, when I’m not feeling so morose.
I click out of OkCupid and head off to bed, Ezra trailing me.
I’ve traveled someplace, and I don’t know where. All I know is that I’ve come home and it’s early evening. Curiously, home is not my condo on Lunt Avenue, but the little studio apartment I lived in right after graduating and moving to Chicago, on Sheridan Square in Evanston. The little room, even in the dim light pouring in from my only window, illuminates the furniture I had back then—the twin bed with its corded bedspread, the little table I found in the trash that I both ate and wrote on, the stereo system, my aquarium tank and its two inhabitants, Samson and Delilah, gerbils I hoped would keep me company. They were too busy raising multiple families of their own for that.
But make no mistake, the time is now.
Yet it’s not.
Although I am the same man I currently am, things have shifted. Alison and Tate are waiting for me in the cramped space, and Tate is curiously quiet.
Anger radiates off Alison like heat, scorching. She is as she was in her late twenties, shortly after we married. Her blue eyes flash at me, and her frown trembles on the verge of tears. I don’t understand why she’s so angry. But I know it’s me. It’s always me.
Tate—all of six years old—in a striped T-shirt and Levi’s, rolled at the cuff, obviously senses the tension hanging thick in the air. He is morose, silent, his large hazel eyes watching.
“Tate,” Alison says, “go outside and wait for Mommy.”
Tate doesn’t speak but turns toward the door. Before he has a chance to open it, I drop to my knees and hold out my arms. “Hey, how about a hug for Dad?”
At last he smiles and runs into my arms. I hold him tight, tighter, with an inexplicable feeling of loss overcoming me.
All at once, Tate is gone, and I am alone in the room with Alison, who paces back and forth. Although tears glimmer in her eyes, her voice is hard and her words flinty, able to cut. “I can’t let you see him anymore.”
The simple words just about cause my heart to stop beating.
“It’s not fair,” she continues. “Your lifestyle, Andy. I can’t inflict that on the boy. He’s young. Impressionable.”
“You can’t take him away from me,” I whisper, trying hard to get some breath to put behind my words, but the air seems to be disappearing.
“I can and I will. I already talked to the lawyer. I have a psychologist who will testify that your lifestyle will harm Tate.”
“My lifestyle has nothing to do with what kind of father I am to him,” I protest. “I love my boy.”
“I can’t let you see him anymore.”
I feel choked, hemmed in. Hopeless. The room has gotten darker, and I realize I am suddenly alone.
I will never see Tate again.
I awaken from my dream with hot tears spilling down my cheeks. The sense of loss the dream has left in its wake is overwhelming. As dreams can, it has snatched up my psyche and made me its slave—I feel hopeless and lost. I have to remind myself that, although there was a custody battle when Alison and I divorced, everything worked out as best it could in the end. I was part of Tate’s life, a loving constant, as he grew up into a young man. We were together every weekend. I saw him for dinner one night a week. I went to the school plays, recitals, and one season, the basketball games. I remind myself of these
things aloud, whispering them like a prayer in the dark and silent room. I have to. The dream has left me with vestiges of loss that are so real they’re hard to shut down, despite my “it’s only a dream” protests.
I sit up, get out of bed, stumble to the bathroom, and take a piss. I splash cold water on my face and stare at myself in the mirror. “You have not lost your son,” I tell myself firmly. “You never did.”
I think of how close we have been through the years, the Christmas Eve we once spent at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, when one half of the program was classical Tchaikovsky and the other half was Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite. That night, Tate had given me a gift I will always treasure—his five all-time favorite books. He knew his dad. He loved him.
He loves him.
Yet the dream reawakened the fears of loss I had back when we were going through our bitter and contested divorce. Back then, in the early 90s, a judge could rule I was unfit to be around my son or enforce something absurd like supervised visitation. Back then, all I could do was worry that I would lose my son, if not completely, then in some profound way.
That hadn’t been the case.
I crawl back into bed. Ezra moves down from his spot on the pillow next to me to nestle between my legs. He isn’t so stupid; he knows where he’s warm and protected. I’m the stupid one, knowing I won’t move again throughout the night unless he does first. I dare not disturb his slumber. I smile to myself and hope Ezra’s dreams are more pleasant than my own.
I lie awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling, the crown molding I had put in last fall, and wonder why that dream came to me when it did.
Was it the simple fear of being alone?
Was it something to do with being shunned for being who—and what—I was?
Was the dream trying to tell me something?
I wonder if I’ll be able to get back to sleep. Even if the dream’s parameters and sense of time were unreal, the fear and the emotion it engendered were all too real.