Pennsylvania Station

by Patrick E Horrigan

  He closed the sketchbook and lit a cigarette. He thought of Angelo. He might have been up for something, especially since Frederick had left them alone for several hours, but he was different when Frederick wasn’t there. He became elusive, hard to get, less talkative, less willing to translate things into English. Curt felt he was merely tagging along as Angelo chatted with shopkeepers, restaurant owners, people they encountered in the park. He wasn’t nearly so attentive a travel companion as Frederick. He began to think he’d done something wrong, said something inappropriate, to make Angelo lose interest. He’d wanted Angelo to kiss him. Tried to touch him, find opportunities when they were alone, or when no one was looking, to initiate some physical contact, like the contact they’d had in the car. But Angelo wasn’t going for it. He was merely polite. It was a relief when they finally reunited with Frederick that evening. But by then Frederick seemed to have gotten into a funk.

  Well, he didn’t understand any of it. He lit another cigarette and paced the room. He was scrutinizing his naked body in the mirror when Frederick entered.

  “Good morning,” Frederick said somewhat shyly and gave little more than one-word answers to Curt’s questions—Did you see the sunrise? How come you didn’t take your sketchbook? Is something wrong?—until Curt had to press him to find out exactly where he’d gone and what he’d done. “I went to mass at Trinità dei Monti. A whole group of nuns prostrated themselves before the altar. When I first saw them, I thought they were sculptures, they were so still.”

  “Strange.”

  “Beautiful…in a way, that kind of life.”

  “What kind of life?”

  “Contemplative. Religious.”

  Curt, still nude, lay across Frederick’s bed, vaguely hoping to seduce him. “Do you wish your life was more contemplative?”

  “My life already is rather contemplative,” he said and turned to enter the bathroom.

  All day long Curt noticed the change in him. He was present but withdrawn. He didn’t need Curt, apparently, in the same way he did yesterday and the day before. Nothing overt, nothing he could put his finger on, but there was a detachment. He didn’t touch Curt the way he normally did. Didn’t check to see how Curt liked his coffee or how he was feeling. Often he could be annoyed by Frederick’s constant “wifely” attention, but now that it was taken away he missed it. But he didn’t want it back, exactly. To be honest, he welcomed the extra breathing space. There was less talk, less analyzing things, less effort to enter into each other’s thoughts, and as a result less conflict. They bickered less than ever. He felt washed clean of something. As the day unwound, and they walked around St. Peter’s Square (Frederick convinced him he couldn’t leave Rome without seeing the Vatican, and passively he agreed), waited in line to enter the Sistine Chapel, wandered the long halls of the Vatican museum (standing before Raphael’s Transfiguration, Curt found the figure of the walleyed boy, possessed by demons, oddly disturbing, and for the rest of the day he was unable to get the boy’s face out of his mind), they moved like sleepwalkers in a kind of narcotic state. Around 4:00 PM, Frederick proposed a quick visit to the Galleria Doria Pamphilj before it closed. He wanted to see Velazquez’s portrait of Pope Innocent X and started to say something about how it occupied its own intimate corner gallery, and the scene in Daisy Miller when Daisy and her Italian boyfriend are discovered there together, sitting beneath the stern gaze of the old pontiff. Curt wasn’t really interested, especially after the long day in the Vatican Museum, so he proposed instead meeting Frederick later back at the room.

  Upon reaching the hotel he decided to go up to the restaurant and see if Angelo was still working. He found several waiters washing up, setting tables, when Angelo emerged from behind the bar already in his street clothes. He asked jovially for a report of Curt’s day. As Curt enumerated the things they’d seen, he realized tonight would be his last night in Rome and his last opportunity to see Angelo outside the restaurant. He wondered if there might still be a chance for something physical between them. Angelo looked spectacular in his leather jacket and sunglasses, a pair of perfectly polished mirrors. He hadn’t removed them when Curt appeared.

  “What are you doing right now?” Curt asked.

  “I am going to meet some friends. Would you like to come?”

  Curt admitted, frankly, he had something more intimate in mind. Angelo laughingly dismissed the proposition. “Come with me and meet my friends. Where is Frederick?”

  “At a museum,” he said, and remembered his promise to meet him back at the room. He said he could join Angelo and his friends for an hour or two, perhaps, but Angelo was driving up to Tivoli and wouldn’t be able to bring him back until quite late. Curt knew it would be wrong to disappear on Frederick like this. Despite Frederick’s coolness with him all day, he’d been a perfect gentleman, and to abandon him now—he imagined Frederick standing innocently before a building, looking intently, not hurting anyone, moved, as he always was, by architecture—he knew it was a comfort to Frederick to come home at the end of each day, to fall into his arms, feel human flesh against flesh, forget about architecture for a while, not think too much, just feel, touch—he knew Frederick wanted that from him, needed that from him—and he was happy to give it, and often such intimacy, innocent as it was, turned into something more, something fiery, ferocious—he imagined Frederick fucking him—they might spend the rest of the evening in the hotel room fucking, they could order room service, watch Italian television, and he would feel safe, not chasing after Angelo, who at bottom really didn’t seem all that interested anyway… To abandon Frederick now, he admitted to himself with reluctance, would be a show of ingratitude beyond all imagining. “Well, I guess I better go. I promised Frederick—”

  “Then I see you tomorrow, yes? You will leave for Venice tomorrow?” He was already heading toward the elevator.

  Florence, then Venice, Curt explained as he trailed him like a puppy. Holding the elevator door open, Angelo scrawled onto a slip of paper the name and address of his Venetian friend Paolo—“An artist, he will love to meet you I am sure”—and tucked it into Curt’s breast pocket, giving him a pat on the chest. “Sorry, are you coming down?”

  When the elevator door opened onto his floor, there wasn’t time for more than a brief, rather impersonal “Ciao.”

  Curt let himself into the room, closed the door behind him, fell onto his bed, and cried. Eventually his tears subsided, and he dozed.

  By the time Frederick returned, he was gone.

  As a result he was forced to entertain himself on his last night in Rome. Of course he knew well how to do this and was, to some degree, just as happy to eat a quiet dinner in the hotel, enjoy a cigarette and a Scotch in the hotel bar after dinner, then read and retire early, for the train to Florence left first thing in the morning—but that was the problem, for the pleasures of his dinner, drink, cigarette, and book were attenuated by the anxiety that Curt might not come back at all that night, might force them, by his irresponsibility, to miss their train, or worse that something might have happened to him. He bit the nail on his thumb. After a few more glasses of Scotch, he was able to fall asleep with the hope that Curt would turn up in the morning.

  Curt, meanwhile, went out wandering the cafes of the Via Veneto one last time but failed to make contact with anyone Italian or tourist (he wasn’t in a mood to socialize—why, then, had he come here in the first place, he asked himself, sitting at a café on the Piazza Barberini, watching the cars drive by and the people passing along the sidewalk, a group of drunken friends loudly singing “Stormy Weather,” couples enjoying the warm night air and the festive atmosphere of the street, but it had none of the allure of La Dolce Vita, and there was no Marcello Mastroianni or Anouk Aimee or Anita Ekberg to sum it all up in one glamorous personality), and so finally he trudged back to the hotel at 2:00 AM, drunk, depressed at his failure to find a home in fashionable Italian society, even as an exotic outsider. Frederick’s suitcase was already packed, he not
iced, when he slipped into Frederick’s bed. He pulled the sheets over the two of them and wrapped his arms and legs around Frederick, who only half-responded.

  Frederick had little to say in the morning, though he didn’t show displeasure. He was oddly neutral. He seemed more concerned about the business of checking out and securing their transportation to the train station, finding their way to the train, to their seats on the train, and getting settled in for the journey to Florence. Conversation was light, intermittent, consisting mostly of straightforward observations—look at that church tower over there, probably a fortress, see those clouds, must be a storm coming… It was only as they were approaching Florence, and the excitement of entering a new city melted away their resentments and anxieties, that Frederick was able to ask, as if his uppermost feeling all along had been one of concern for Curt and Curt alone, “How was your night last night?”

  “You were asleep when I came in.”

  “Actually I was awake, but I wanted to be well rested for this morning, so I just tried to remain still.”

  “Well, my night stank. I went to a few cafés and came home.”

  “What were you looking for?”

  The question could have been taken a number of ways. But the station was approaching, the red roofs of Florence and then, suddenly, an enormous dome came into view. Already Frederick was taking down the suitcases, and passengers were filing off the train.

  Forty-eight hours was all they had in Florence—just enough time, they discovered, to see a few of the major sights, have a few splendid and one or two mediocre meals, walk the Ponte Vecchio, stroll around the center by night (they were staying at the Hotel Savoy, another grand establishment chosen by Frederick), and leave feeling they’d only just gotten acquainted and would have to return someday. They spent most of Saturday at the Uffizi. It wouldn’t have been Curt’s choice, but he was getting used to Frederick’s routine. Superficially they had never seemed so compatible in all the time they’d been together. And yet they were not as physically affectionate as they had been in Rome. Curt, for all the excitement and beauty of foreign men, was not feeling particularly sexual in Florence. While Frederick was occupied in the bathroom, prior to their venturing out on their last evening, Curt masturbated, making sure Frederick couldn’t hear his heavy breathing as he reached orgasm. It was a relief to get that out of his system. This must be what marriage is like, he thought. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t exciting. By the time Frederick emerged from the bathroom, Curt had managed to wipe away all traces of his moment of ecstasy and to control his breathing. The only giveaway was his temperature. His body was still warm, and if Frederick should touch him he would know at once. He rolled out of bed and walked to the window. Frederick asked him if he would be ready soon and what he was hungry for. Curt reached for his pants and, slipping them on, heard something crinkle in the pocket—the note from Angelo with the name, address, and phone number of his friend in Venice. He hadn’t mentioned it to Frederick. Down below Giuseppe Square was alive with the sound of bells, laughter, and the occasional high-pitched roar of a motor scooter.

  “Curt?”

  He turned from the window to face Frederick.

  “What are you hungry for?”

  “Anything.”

  Frederick indulged Curt’s wish to use the movie camera in Venice. How could he not? Every vista, every corner, every piazza, every bridge afforded a picture like a stage set. Everyone was an expert picture taker in Venice. He went so far as to film Curt sitting contentedly, like he’d just gobbled the mouse, in the gondola from the train station to their hotel on the Grand Canal. At dinner that evening—the restaurant spilled out onto the veranda overlooking the canal (Frederick made the reservation as soon as they checked in to ensure they got dibs on one of the tables outdoors)—Curt was in a receptive, listening mood, unusual for him. During their meal, a couple sat down behind Curt. Frederick choked at the sight of the man. He could have sworn it was Jon. He had to watch him closely to be sure one way or the other—but even then he had his doubts. A person could change a good deal in five years, and married life had a way of transforming some men into chubby Buddhas from the slim, fit, younger men they had been. To say nothing of hair loss. But this man—even his laugh sounded like Jon’s.

  “What is it?”

  “Sorry, it’s rude of me, I know. The man behind you looks…like someone I know.”

  Curt turned.

  “No, don’t look!” Frederick said under his breath.

  “It’s all right, I’m pretending to look at the scenery.” Turning back to Frederick, “He’s handsome. Someone you…?”

  Frederick hesitated to explain. Not long after Curt moved in with him, he had described the bare outlines of his relationship with Jon, though he’d been careful not to use his name. Curt, he remembered, seemed quickly to lose interest in his story and, apart from the portrait photograph of him and Jon during the war, which Curt had requested from his mother, certainly never, in the months since then, showed any further curiosity about his wartime love. But maybe it was the air in Venice—the water was inky and glittered with reflected lights from the palaces along the canal—gondolas and vaporettos and the occasional utility boat glided by—maybe it was the wine, or the way Curt had made himself so agreeable these last few days—or the realization there needn’t be any secrets between them now because, in a way, there was little left to lose…

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.”

  Curt slouched a couple of inches lower in his chair. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear after all. Frederick took his posture to mean, I’m all ears.

  He’d been drafted, Frederick said, by lottery in January of ’42 at the age of twenty-seven. He was sent to Fort Dix, New Jersey, for basic training. Immediately he was perceived by the other men at the base to be an intellectual—sensitive, delicate, a smooth-handed, white-collar worker from New York. They nicknamed him “The Professor.” He soon fell in with a group of men known as the “college crowd,” one among them in particular, Jonathan Foley, variously nicknamed “Pinup Boy” and “Billy Budd” because of his extraordinary physical beauty. Frederick was riveted by him—the perfection of his features, the poise of masculinity and femininity in his body and carriage. Eight years younger than Frederick, he had dropped out of college in his third year to enlist. He’d gotten bored in school—too smart, perhaps, or too lazy, or too much of a snob to work hard to succeed. He had a girlfriend back home—Cathy—and the real reason he enlisted, Frederick always suspected, was to get away from her, though just about everyone was joining the war effort, one way or another, in those days. It was universally understood in the barracks that the men in Frederick’s circle were homosexual or at least not staunchly, conventionally masculine and heterosexual. Not normal in some way. Frederick was surprised, however, to discover that there was a place for him in the military, that he fit in, that he wasn’t ostracized for being queer. He grew strong. He had to admit he marveled at his own physical abilities, his strength and agility during training. Though grueling, basic training was rewarding, and Frederick was eager to prove to himself and others he wasn’t a helpless fairy.

  There was an unwritten rule among his friends in the barracks that they would never have romantic relations with each other since that would jeopardize the all-important camaraderie they’d built up. But Frederick and Jon did engage in an intense, quiet flirtation. Much eye contact and allowances for seemingly trivial physical intimacies—a brush of hands in passing, a touch on the back to get the other’s attention—but they were immensely significant. Warily they allowed themselves to come closer and closer until, around the seventh week of training, they were transferred to Camp Hulen, Texas. In a Pullman car of the troop train, they saw to it they shared a berth. During their first night, Jon flung one leg, then an arm over Frederick, and Frederick responded. They had furtive sex, quick and passionate. From then on they were lovers. They seized every opportunity to be alone together. They were recklessly i
n love, though Jon frequently expressed ambivalence about his homosexuality, spoke often about Cathy, told Frederick he saw marriage and children in his future, though he also said he couldn’t imagine not being with Frederick now that they’d found each other.

  One weekend they got passes to leave the base. They stayed with a local family and shared a small guest bedroom, squeezing themselves into one of the two beds. Frederick didn’t know how to kiss—his knowledge of kissing came mostly from the movies, and he’d never seen two men kiss. Jon, however, was a natural at it. Frederick didn’t like it at first. He turned away. But Jon was patient. That weekend, Frederick learned how to kiss. The world was a hostile place, but Jon was safe and warm, and nothing else mattered except the two of them, together against almost cosmic forces. They found a volume of Whitman’s Civil War poems, some of them vividly homoerotic, lying on the table by the bed and wondered if their hosts knew of their relationship and, inexplicably, wanted to show their approval by leaving it there for them.

  “Is that when you discovered Whitman?” Curt asked.

  “I’d known his work before, but…that’s probably when I changed from just reading it for the intellectual kick to actually living it.”

  Curt looked down into his lap, almost as if, at that moment, it would have been immodest not to do so. He seemed to be taking the idea of living Whitman and going somewhere with it in his mind. But Frederick continued: At the end of training they were assigned different duties. Because of his typing skills, Jon became an Army secretary in Washington, while, because of his design skills, Frederick was made a camoufleur with combat troops in northern France. While apart, they wrote letters in code to evade military censors. They managed to see each other whenever Frederick got leave, and their meetings were brief and unforgettable. One meeting in particular was seared into Frederick’s memory. It was November of 1943. Frederick was home for two weeks but had to ship out the day after Thanksgiving. They’d hoped to spend a full week together in New York, but Jon was detained and couldn’t leave Washington until Thursday night. It snowed that Thanksgiving, and all the trains up and down the east coast were either canceled or delayed. Their week-long vacation had been scaled back to a mere twenty-four hours, but now even that was leaching away as afternoon turned to evening and still no sign of Jon’s train. Frederick spent Thanksgiving night in the station. Finally, the next morning around 7:00 AM, the train pulled in. Frederick looked and looked and didn’t see Jon and thought with a panic, He’s not here, he’s not coming, I’ll never see him again, my life is over, when someone grabbed his shoulders from behind, spun him around, kissed him on the lips, and embraced him. It was Jon, he was home, and they stood beneath the soaring glass roof and steel columns in the middle of the concourse of Penn Station holding each other tight as crowds of people poured through the gate, and for once in his life Frederick didn’t give a damn if anyone saw or what they thought.