Benediction

by Arnold, Jim

  “You don’t want to hear it?” Jason continued, as the driver hit the accelerator hard, blowing dust and dead leaves into my face.

  “I wasn’t talking to you, dude. Tell me.”

  “Paul’s got some sort of presentation he showed Tony, maybe others, too. A PowerPoint thing. About a new Safe Harbor command structure that would put corporate marketing under his control.”

  “What?”

  “He’d be your boss, Ben. Mine, too,” he almost whispered, and even though he was eight thousand miles away I heard him like he was sitting on the bench right next to me with his hand cupped to my ear.

  “Motherfucking bastard! I knew he’d pull some shit like this; they wait till you’re sick, then they kick you—”

  “What you want me to do?” he asked.

  * * *

  Finally, I found the Trevor. There was no way you could tell this building was a theater, unless you happened to spot their sign at the very bottom of a long listing of businesses that also had tenancy here: Dr. Ko, dentist; Sydney-all, an insurance company; Nora’s, a ladies’ boutique; and Masa, a sushi bar.

  I could see there was a queue. At least somebody was going to watch the movie.

  My filmmaker badge allowed me to slink through a preferred line into the surprisingly cavernous lobby, decorated in an overabundance of heavy, inexplicably tired red fabric, though the prevailing mood was light.

  Just inside the door was what looked like a reception line—two younger women flanked one tall bald man, all three of them smiling, beckoning, a riot of clipboards, cell phones, envelopes and badges in their collective arms. Beyond that, Australians mingled.

  “You must be Ben Schmidt, San Francisco?” the younger and thinner of the two women declared.

  Terrified, I flashed my default marketing director smile.

  “That’s me. Hello.” I put out my hand.

  She couldn’t shake it, as her arms were full. “I’m Phillipa, Ben, and this is festival director Michael O’Hearn.”

  “And I’m Anna, festival publicity; we talked on the phone just a couple of hours ago,” the other woman said.

  “Well, hello. I’m so happy to be here. I can’t thank you enough, again, for choosing Hell for the Holidays.”

  “It’s a wonderful little film, Ben, and we’re so glad you could come over for the world premiere!” Michael said, lifting his eyebrows high.

  As he uttered the word premiere, both Phillipa and Anna cheered, “Premiere, hey hey!” in unison.

  Michael took me by the arm and led me past the lines of men—men smoking, men taller than me (for the most part), Australian men who’d live out their lives in this place so far from where my own life was. For a second, I was conscious the faces that glanced back at me as we passed would be the only connection I’d ever have with any of them; they’d live out their existence and then die, and I’d do the same, far away. It felt lonely.

  But not for long. Christian Banner stood blocking the entrance to the screening room, entertaining a trio of what supposedly were adoring fans.

  Michael beamed, reminding me of a tall, skinny kewpie doll. “Ben, have you met our Canadian friend Christian?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We met earlier. How’s the homestay situation?”

  Christian didn’t skip a beat. “Wonderful. I can see the water from my room. Jessica and Al are here somewhere—I brought them with me and we’re going out later. You should come with us—we’re going to a place down Oxford called the Midnight Shift.”

  Michael, along with Christian’s trio of supplicants, nodded enthusiastically. I gagged at the thought of becoming a hanger-on in Christian’s entourage—his film wasn’t even being shown tonight. He was just an audience member like everyone else.

  “Michael, why don’t you show me where to sit? I want to work on my intro speech a little before we start,” I said.

  He took me inside, where a few people had seated themselves, waved his arm and said, “Sit anywhere you like. Probably better at the end of a row, though, so it’s easier to get out when I call you.”

  So much for any kind of velvet-rope treatment. He turned and walked back down to the exit. “Just going to chat up Christian a bit before the program starts.”

  Yeah, well, I thought, you and everyone else out there. Despite Christian’s hogging all the attention, it got more exciting because the theater began to actually fill up.

  This had been the whole point—the reason to make a movie in the first place. To show it to people, to entertain, make them think about how it is that people choose their partners, treat their kids, all that. I wished Karen, the actors, even Glenda were able to see this.

  My stomach began its customary meltdown. Despite all the years in marketing and having to hold forth at company meetings, presentations and the like, I wasn’t really comfortable going before an audience, especially an unfamiliar one. The fact that there was a weighty, half-full Defendor stuffed down my pants didn’t help.

  Eventually, Michael O’Hearn came back into the theater with his arm hooked into a shorter guy’s. There was a vacant seat next to me—Can they smell the stink of the urine in the pad?

  I whispered over and over, “Thank you for coming tonight. Hell for the Holidays is a story of what happens to a middle-aged couple when one of them—”

  “Ben? Ben. Wake up,” Michael said, giggling.

  I looked up. “Just practicing. Guess I had my eyes closed.”

  “No, they were, like, totally open,” the shorter man said, smiling.

  He put out his hand and I took it. “Ben, this here’s Dakota Jones. He’s got his picture tonight, too. So sit together. Ta.”

  Michael hurried off and the decibel level of the theater chatter rose. Dakota, like Michael, was either bald or shaved his head.

  What kind of fag had a name like Dakota Jones? “I’m so fucking nervous,” I said.

  “Piece of cake.” He seemed pleasant enough. “Did this last month in Philly. They loved me.”

  I laughed. “Which is your film?”

  “Randy House. A group of drag queens who all live together sort of ‘adopt’ a homeless teenage girl who’s in a wheelchair. Then they give her a makeover.” Dakota wrung his tanned hands—apparently the nerves were not as docile as he’d led me to believe.

  “I’ve heard of that one,” I said. This was such a lie. What a stupid idea for a movie, even for a short. Better to change the subject. “Where you from?”

  The lights dimmed. “Manhattan,” he said, as if I’d mistake him as someone from an outer borough.

  Then it happened really fast. Michael took the small stage and gushed about community support for the festival, the sponsors, and the filmmakers who traveled so far to be part of the celebration. He singled out Dakota and myself, but not Christian; I supposed that would happen the night of his own screening.

  Michael called us down to the stage, and one after the other, we were presented to the Australian boys, like debutantes who hadn’t been totally clued in about proper gown selection.

  Dakota went first. Someone hit an on switch.

  “Randy House. Fake girls mother a real girl, and find their nurturing hearts in the process to enlightenment.” He lowered his volume as he spoke his sentence, so that the last word was barely whispered. He finished by slowly circling his arm high above his head, ending with a flick-flourish.

  There was a moment of silence—or perhaps confusion—then applause. Dakota bowed and walked off the stage, and I was alone.

  Wearing my Defendor. Under a spotlight. Somebody coughed in the dark.

  “Thanks so much for coming,” I said. “We’ve had a few test screenings, but, really, this is the first time Hell for the Holidays will be shown to an audience not connected somehow to its making. So I hope you like it, and my producer, Karen, back in California, hopes you like it, too.”

  I should have stopped then—but I didn’t.

  “This is my first time in Australia. I landed just this morning, I
think, and so far it’s been a great time, and I hope you’ll continue to leave me with what will be good memories…”

  Internally I shuddered at this cheap appeal, as if any audience anywhere fakes appreciation of something they really don’t like. Michael nodded to me through the dimming lights, his festival director smile frozen on his face, and I made my way back to my seat next to Dakota.

  * * *

  The festival appropriated Masa’s, the sushi place at the other end of the theater lobby, for the postfilm soiree, and we’d packed in tightly.

  Wish I could say the screening was a resounding success. OK, in reality—I told myself while sipping the first martini at the reception after—it was hard to tell. They laughed in some of the right places. I heard a couple of sighs in the more heart-tugging scenes. At the end, there was applause; it was not raucous, but it was also not embarrassingly short.

  It looked like I’d achieved mediocrity in the eyes of the Australians.

  At least that part’s over, I thought. What did these foreigners know, anyway? A few younger, smoother, naked torsos on screen might’ve helped—wait, I didn’t have any—

  “Nice job, Ben.” A hand squeezed my shoulder, the center digit in particular poking into my skin. Dakota was behind me, a dripping cocktail in his other hand.

  “Watch it; you’re losing precious liquid,” I said. “And thanks. Randy House was, well, pretty fucking intense.”

  I’d hated his stupid movie. Sometimes it was just better to lie.

  Dakota had cast what I assumed to be a very in-shape lesbian-seeming athlete for the role of “homeless girl in wheelchair.” The only problem was, she didn’t look sad or helpless, was definitely not in need of a makeover and looked as if she could easily beat the shit out of the drag queens who “adopted” her.

  Perhaps this was his intention. Perhaps not.

  “Thanks, Ben. People do really love that movie; it surprises me how much,” he said. He cocked his head, looked thoughtful—a modest genius appreciated.

  I was sorry I’d lied.

  “Your movie was nice, but I didn’t really believe any guy would just leave his lover for a hot fuck with an artist with a substance-abuse problem,” he said.

  Some of Dakota’s drink dribbled out of the corner of his mouth. He looked around through the developing haze.

  “Guess there’s no law here against smoking in public places,” I said. There was no point in arguing with someone like Dakota, who had a certain kind of tunnel vision. Even though I’d known him for only an hour and a half, this much was apparent.

  There was, however, a certain appeal in that questionable confidence, and I loved that he massaged my shoulder without asking. We both watched Christian work the room—I suspected we shared the same conflicted love-hate feeling toward him.

  “To be young, pretty, talented, and to have a luxuriant head, full of… hair…” Dakota smiled at me. “Never mind him—we should go to the beach. You know there’s one called Manly?”

  * * *

  Dakota and I took the ferry from Sydney’s Circular Quay to Manly Beach, which was north of the city on the coast. Of course, we were more intrigued by its name and any possible gay-porn-bare-butt-lifesaver fantasies this might arouse than we were about the quality of the surf, the water temperature or any need for sun protection.

  And it was hot. I was also not sure about how the Defendor would work afterward if I went into the water—it would be saturated with saltwater. I’d have to remove it.

  Turned out Manly was populated with a lot of families this particular afternoon while Christian’s Crime Brothers unspooled back in Darlinghurst.

  “What is it with this fucking wind?” Dakota asked, his towel insistently wrapping and flapping around his pasty, city-boy legs. Indeed, the sand piled up against his seaward calf, making its own dune.

  I looked out to sea. “Where are those lifesaver guys, anyway?” Truthfully, this was more an acknowledgment than a complaint, for somehow we’d chosen a day where the weather at the beach differed considerably from that in Sydney proper. There was no one to save, and the boys knew it.

  “Fuck it,” Dakota said.

  Mothers and their children fled, holding wide-brimmed hats on their heads as the wind picked up. Soon, there was a lot of empty sand. Dakota rubbed some much-needed sunblock on my back, but his hands were sandy and they scoured my skin.

  “Goddammit, Dakota. Stop it.”

  “You’ll get burned,” he said.

  When he wasn’t looking, I put my hand down into the front of my tight, pale blue boxer-cut trunks, pulled out the yellow-streaked Defendor, and shoved it into my shoe, like a sock. I pulled the waistband up to minimize the red and purple prostatectomy scar, which to a discerning eye still had clear staple marks.

  “I don’t care.”

  He hadn’t mentioned my tatt, but that’s where his attention was drawn. “How long you have that bleeding heart?”

  About three years into our relationship, just as it was breaking up, Wayne—he of the gurney kiss—talked me into going down to the Venice Boardwalk on a trip to L.A. to get matching tattoos. Mine was on my left shoulder; his had been on his right. Identical bleeding hearts. Thankfully, no names had been burned into skin, a rare moment of restraint.

  I’d already turned away from Dakota and faced the ocean. “A few years; don’t remember exactly. Make sure my towel doesn’t blow away, OK?”

  I hurried over the blowing, burning sand, then looked down to see the new but predictable wet spot on the front of my shorts expand. As I ran into the surf, my shame was erased.

  * * *

  Dakota was more subdued on the ferry ride back. Sun drunk, I felt the boat’s vibrations agreeably pass through my ass and nearly make my teeth chatter. It had been a good decision to leave the festival for a while, even though I knew we’d have to come up with some good excuse for missing Christian’s screening.

  I’d even been successful replacing the Defendor once I quit swimming. Dakota was far too self-absorbed to actually notice what I was doing. Now, he was being cruised by a younger guy who sat on the bench opposite.

  Um, look at me, gorgeous, he’s really not your type…

  My mental telepathy experiments never seemed to work. In fact, Young Guy, who said his name was Alistair, totally ignored me, and it was only after about five minutes into their animated conversation that Dakota finally remembered to introduce me.

  Alistair was tall and lean, probably mid-twenties, with reddish blond hair and a perfect accompanying scruffy goatee. He also had that golden tan and near perfect skin and was exceedingly limber in that he pulled his flip-flopped foot up on the bench to rest against his crotch without any hint of discomfort.

  Dakota didn’t quite know what to make of this episode. Every once in a while, he’d glance at me with a kind of smirk, as if not believing his instincts or his good luck. My own gaydar told me that Alistair wanted to marry Dakota.

  Realistically, it was just as possible that he was a friendly foreign straight boy with an interest in New Yorkers.

  “Never been there, mate, but you could show me around, if I do come over?” Alistair said.

  “I’m a native. Absolutely. I know the city, what to see,” Dakota responded.

  With each gentle, rhythmic roll over another boat’s wake, Alistair and Dakota seemed destined to move closer together. Alistair gave him a playful shove on the shoulder, as punctuation for some point he’d made. Dakota turned his body away from me and toward him, opening up further to what surely was a seduction.

  I tried my telepathic powers again, this time aimed at Dakota: Get the number, fool.

  There was no need to worry myself over this, for it was Alistair who scribbled out something on a piece of a brown paper bag he pulled from his backpack—and just in time, as the ferry maneuvered back into its dock.

  The Alistair-Dakota connection made me dizzier than I would have been anyway, late on a hot summer afternoon after a day spent in the
sun. For the first time since my operation I felt something akin to horniness, not some vague idea of sex, but the real, carnal, wet and dirty kind.

  * * *

  Den’s Delight, recommended by Mark in what I’d now convinced myself was a codeine-fueled dream, was listed in my official Sydney guide as a gay sex shop in Kings Cross, the red-light district adjacent to the Mansfield. Conveniently, it was open all the time, which meant I could make a quickish investigative trip over before having to go to yet another festival event later that evening.

  It wouldn’t be necessary to make the full-on commitment of a bath-house, where one typically shed all clothing and walked around in a towel. In that case there’d be nothing to attach the Defendor to, designed as they were to fit nicely into jockey shorts and not much else. This way I’d keep my pants on and if things got too messy it would be simple enough to leave.

  I popped the blue Viagra tab. I’d filled the prescription Dr. Kim gave me right after he’d removed the catheter a few weeks earlier—like it was as easy as one, two, three: pull out penis tube, shove in Defendor quickly, hand out erectile dysfunction meds—and presto, change-o, prostate cancer patient good as new.

  The drug turned my face bright red, clogged my sinuses and gave me a headache: the new, higher price of wood. I threw back a few ibuprofen, put on my sunglasses and left the room.

  * * *

  Den’s had a cheap, tiled-mirror entrance, which made me feel only more conspicuous. The staircase went down, so the place was belowground, like hell. A vague, thumping bass beat emanated from somewhere mysteriously beyond, beckoning in a dark, erotic way.

  At the end of the dirty entrance hallway was a high desk. Behind it sat a very attractive young Asian man. I guessed Thai, having read something of the demographic makeup of Sydney’s gay scene. Mr. High Desk looked down his nose at me, as if I had disturbed him.

  “Good afternoon,” I said, and pulled out my wallet.

  “You want entrance?” he said, gazing at the top of my hair. “Fifteen dollar, five hour.”

  I put the two brightly colored bills on the counter over my head. One blew off and hit me in the eye.