by P. J. Vernon
“Park,” a nurse beckoned. “Oliver Park.” I followed her into the next room over and blew into a Breathalyzer.
“Perfect,” she’d say each time the screen read zero. Like it was praise for an aced exam or something. Don’t fuck up, behave like a minimally functioning member of society, and you get an A. That’s where the state set my bar. Then she’d herd me into the shrink’s office like a German shepherd.
“So, Oliver. What happened?” Dr. Purvis asked during our first session. Dr. Regina Purvis looked and dressed like a Barbie doll, but empathy in her voice crowded out any expected disdain. Part of the Barbie facade, I guessed. A charade to disarm the trash in and out of her office all day.
“I got into pain pills.”
“How?”
I shrugged. “My relationship, I guess.”
“She started first, then? Got you into them?”
“He did,” I corrected, then braced myself. Other than Blaire, I could count on one hand the people I’d come out to. I’d even driven thirty miles to an interstate triple-X warehouse for a DVD called Satyrs of Summer. After the profound mistake of leaving it in the same player Dad recorded Notre Dame games in, I kept Hector secret.
“Where are you staying now?” Dr. Purvis skirted right past my gayness, and that was the moment she became my ally. When she couldn’t care less about the fucking pronoun that sent Dad scrambling for the belt with the biggest buckle he could find. I told Dr. Purvis everything.
“Halfway house.”
“No family around?”
Her question was the perfect setup for the Story of Oliver Park. Mom’s unqualified love for me. Only cancer could stop her from cleaning shit-spackled toilets at Walmart to keep our lights on. Dad’s unqualified love for grain alcohol. Sometimes I could wait him out from under the kitchen table and sometimes I couldn’t. How one winter, Mom stood on our porch—in front of the magpie-covered flower boxes she’d painted herself—and watched him pass out drunk in the drainage ditch by the driveway. How my welts kept her from going into the yard and pulling him to safety. Instead, she waited. Patient as death.
“Oliver, I need you to call an ambulance,” she’d said that next morning on her way to gather the porch paper. “Something bad happened to Daddy.” By the time she wandered into the cold—pretending for both of us that it was the first time she saw him—exposure had taken him out of our lives.
Hector too. The moment he hit me. Tried to rape me. The moment I ran. And telling Dr. Purvis felt good. So damn good. Like what a baptism must be like. A submersion in cool water followed by a cleansing retrieval. A chance to fix shit and go nowhere but up.
In fact, I’d still been high—naturally high—from Dr. Purvis’s degree-decorated confessional when I first perceived that gaze. Being watched by someone who would change my life.
Every detox visit earned you a single meal ticket. The hospital’s cafeteria was my next stop. Sitting down at a table by myself, two slices of cheese pizza and a diet pop, unseen eyes frosted my neck.
I turned in my seat and saw him.
Sandy brown hair, aquiline nose, and the square shoulders of a man who only ever made the right decisions. Somewhere deep in my gut, a butterfly took flight. Scrubs, stethoscope, and a wrinkled white coat. A surgical resident named Nathan Klein drank me in like the pop in my hand from a table away. Nothing but vacant chairs and unbridled possibility between us.
I grew embarrassed, but a smile—knowing and soft—crossed his face. An expression that seemed to whisper, I know what you are, followed closely with, and I am too.
His presence in the cafeteria was constant after that first, teasing moment. When he finally approached me, I lied about why I was there. But when he asked for my number, he forced my hand.
“I don’t have a phone.” His perfect face didn’t betray how he felt about this. “I’m at a halfway house right now. Someone there stole it.”
“Outpatient detox?” Nathan asked, gesturing to my pizza.
“Yeah.” I broke eye contact, instead fixating on the patterned cafeteria napkins. “One week clean.”
The moment I expected, when he’d stand up uncomfortably and walk away, never came. He didn’t wish me luck or say I’m not quite what he’s looking for. Nothing about one week clean suggests I’ve got my shit together, much less that I’m in a place for nurturing romantic possibility. Though I was uncertain this was about romance for Nathan at first either. My admission—despite the initial dishonesty—felt like an understanding. A fire of curiosity ignited. A conflagration that had me wondering what being with a real man—a right man—is like. Even if only for a fleeting instant.
“I’m actually wrapping up an overnight shift. You drive here?”
Perhaps I was looking for a fix from an altogether different drug. Perhaps we were both looking for a taste of something strange.
“I walked.”
Something that feels just wrong enough—
He put his hand on the table and the tips of our fingers touched. “Would you like a ride home?”
—to remind us what living feels like.
“Yes.”
* * *
• •
His Jag coupe was spanking new and flawlessly polished. When he opened the passenger door, I slipped into an envelope of hand-stitched leather and sandalwood. I’d stepped through a looking glass and the far side couldn’t be more different, more intoxicating. This man sliding into the driver’s seat couldn’t be any less like Hector.
“What do you say we get you a phone?”
“What?”
“So I can call you.”
I had no response to that.
He winked and the car cranked like slick cash. It was immediately clear that something had gotten into me. Something equal parts inexplicable and irreconcilable with the Oliver of just days ago.
Nathan shifted gears, merged onto the highway. The engine vibrated beneath me, and I worried this might be it. This man was so different from the last stranger who offered me a lift; the feel of this leather on my skin, so different. Maybe Nathan spots me for a prepaid phone or maybe he doesn’t, but I didn’t want this to ever end. It could’ve been everything and at the same time nothing at all. Either way, staying in Nathan’s company beyond this moment was suddenly the most important thing.
I reached across the console with my left hand and massaged his crotch.
He said nothing, eyes on the road, knuckles white on the gearshift.
Months, fucking years of bad men and bad things and bad nights and a life so wasted I could kill myself dissolved, gave way to this moment. This nice man hardened under his slacks.
When he parked in the back lot of an AT&T, his scrubs were a full-blown tent, and I felt freer than I had any business being. Any angst or reserve or internalized self-hating bullshit gave way to something far greater: my heart was throbbing. Dopamine once more rafted through my bloodstream. I was sober as fuck and somehow still felt good.
“We’re here,” Nathan said.
I unbuckled and turned toward him.
“Oh my god,” he whispered as I reached into his scrubs. He shifted in his seat, gave me unfettered access to himself. I took him in my mouth and tasted the salt of something new. A sudden heat grew under me, a bizarre warmth spreading from my rear to the backs of my thighs. It can’t be this good, can it? I can’t be—
He’d turned on my seat heater. A smooth move; an experienced one.
“Holy shit,” he moaned, head back. “I’ve never done anything like this. I could lose my fucking license.”
Hands. Mouth. I trembled and flushed with fever. Nothing is free, Oliver, and soon he can’t hold back.
“F-uck,” he stuttered, and came bleach down my throat.
My skull fell to the headrest. Whatever I’ve jus
t done, I’m glad I chose to do it.
Quietness swallowed the car as I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. He leaned in close. “Kiss me.”
His tongue traveled my mouth. He didn’t mind where it’d just been and seemed to enjoy the idea. I pulled away, exhaled. More silence. A brief flash of release. Like a cigarette, I’d grown stimulated and relaxed. I wanted, needed this to be the start of something larger and not the finale of something small.
He was putting himself back together—tucking his shirt, tying his scrubs, running his hand through thick hair—when I reached into my pocket and slipped a Marlboro from a fresh pack. “Does this car have one of those electric lighter things?”
He was silent for a beat while my question sank in.
“Of course not. New cars don’t because smoking kills you.” He said this like a joke, but my cheeks reddened. I decided I’d make a show of trashing them outside the store. A sideways smile crossed his face. “Ready to get that phone?”
“Yeah.” A weight lifted as I considered the possibility that we might hold possibility. “If you’re still sure you want to?”
“I’m sure.” Nathan winked again. Then he reached into his pocket and produced a stack of napkins. Cafeteria napkins from the hospital—the pattern was plainly familiar. Did he swipe a handful of napkins on the way out?
“Sorry.” He wiped a tiny drop of himself off the leather armrest. “I’m kind of a clean freak.”
I laughed, but something about that bothered me. A tiny, niggling little thought soon lost in the wake of all that was Dr. Nathan Klein: If he’d never done anything like this before, couldn’t possibly have expected it to happen—like he’d said moments ago—why bring napkins?
Why come prepared?
WASHINGTON, DC
“Back soon, love,” Nathan says as he leaves for the night.
I nod from the drawing room and wait for the lock to click. When it does, I stiffen my spine and listen for a cranking engine. From a sliver of parted blind, Nathan’s Range Rover slips from its spot to meet Tom for dinner. And his boyfriend or whatever Tom calls his new meals.
A dark part of me wished I’d gone. I can’t monitor Tom’s conversation in Nathan’s presence from home. But a far darker part has ample reason to stay.
I make for the kitchen and the tiny screwdriver that waits in the junk drawer.
Tunnel vision draws the world dark. I move fast, propelled by a furious id—the addict that lives inside me. He deftly outpaces second thoughts with incredible ease. My ego is unsure it really will be just this one time. My superego screams FUCK.
When the bottle is in my hands, I roll over, back against the wall, and bring my knees tight to my chest. White pills call from behind translucent orange plastic. My grip is so tight, it pulses with neon heat from being slammed into elevator steel.
The inside of the bottle is painted in an appetizing powder. Terrifyingly so and saliva pools under my tongue. If the lid comes off, if I uncap it, I’m done. Game over. I’ll take a handful at best, then finish them off over the course of the evening. Each dose cultivating courage for the next until there’s only cosmic oblivion. A sweet nihilism and Nathan will find me passed out. Will I even wake up? It’s been so long, my tolerance…
When focus returns, the lid’s rolled across the floor. I’ve opened it. The bottle’s open in my hands. A simple, swift motion is all that’s required to feel better. Not good but better. Warm and okay enough to phone Detective Henning. To tell her what happened and tell Nathan too. Fuck if I think confessing anything sober is a possibility. Maybe the former. Certainly not the latter. The addict inside me is prosecuting an airtight case for self-harm. A talent he’s—I’m—too good at.
My hand trembles. I’ve yet to swallow a single one but already taste their bitterness.
Flashes of Hector, of Haus, of Kristian burst like mortar rounds. I’m escalating. Flaring fireworks of Tilly, of Nathan, of Detective Henning. I’m escalating. Sparks of Barbara a few streets down. Flames from the Jefferson hotel lobby, the elevator. I’m escalating!
Dr. Regina Purvis: So, Oliver. What happened?
I’m escalating, Dr. Purvis!
Mom. In her hospice bed.
She can’t lift her eyelids, much less any other part of a body that’s at the end of its run. A life lived hard because that’s simply the one this body was born into, and it’s tired now. Gaunt and sunken and yellowed and sour. She looks dead already.
She seems asleep, but there’s no way to be sure. And it doesn’t matter; waiting bottles line the same dresser she’s had since she was six. Bottles and bottles and bottles of painkillers. Can she see me walk into her room? Does she know why I’ve come and what I’m stealing?
I snatch a single one, tuck it into my pocket. Greedily, callously, cruelly, I take a second. Then a third. That’s all, I think. Enough. I turn but can’t look at her because if she does see me, that knowledge will plague the rest of my shit-smear of an existence.
Instead, it’s the uncertainty—did she see?—that will stalk me. Haunt me till I’m dead.
I’m escalating.
“Goddammit!” I open my eyes. Tilly yaps from the dining room. The hallway, the floor, the bottle in my hands, tablets unconsumed.
I bolt to my feet and stumble into the powder room. The lid strikes the tank like a gunshot. Before I can stop, I turn the bottle upside down, and one by one each pill plunges into toilet water.
Thud. Thump. Thud.
Before I can reach in and scoop them out, I flush. In a swirling, gurgling rush certain death is sucked into the DC sewers, and I sob.
Yes, I’m escalating.
But I don’t have to anymore.
40
NATHAN
I pull into an assigned parking spot at a Motel 6 every bit as run-down as expected.
Dinner with Tom and Jeff is now behind me. The new boyfriend’s so far out of Tom’s league in the abs and hair and ass and smile and, shockingly, charm departments that he must have an angle. A concealed flaw that keeps him from the Dardanelles-crossing yachts of smarter, richer men but works just fine for Tom’s brand of Fire Island A-gay.
If Jeff’s an addict like Oliver, it sure as hell isn’t alcohol. I calibrate my own drinking to match company, and he was lazy with his wine. Still, nobody like that is with somebody like Tom for free.
Jeff is bought and paid for.
Shifting the gear into park, I crank up the AC and breathe deeply, consistently, measured. I center myself and clear my mind because the game is about to change. A snap of my fingers, and the stage will tilt in a new direction. Listing like the deck of a foundering ship, and I will not drown.
Tom didn’t know much, but he knew enough to put things together, didn’t he? Just not quite enough to solve the whole, sprawling puzzle that is Oliver Park. Our relationship. No, Mother, our marriage!
But I do.
I pull a silver flask from the glove compartment. Half-emptied in the past half hour, and I finish it off in three burning, blissful gulps. Wiping my mouth, I unlock my phone and type.
Looking. Call ASAP $$$
So much weight in so few words. A text sent to a number found in the pages of a city paper, and one I’d known better than to save. My phone, clutched in my right hand like a lifeline, buzzes. A bolt of adrenaline, and a tingling works its way down my limbs. I flip it over.
Can call you now?
I chew my bottom lip, and for a cruel instant, wonder just what the hell I’m doing.
Yes. Y-E-S. One word. Three letters. Immeasurably final. I send the reply, close my eyes, let the back of my skull fall to the headrest.
And wait.
When the phone goes off again, it’s the long tremors of an incoming call and my stomach plunges. I run a hand through my hair and swallow. Unknown.
One ring, then a second, then a third. I picture sand sinking through my fingers. If I don’t close a fist around whatever’s left, it’s gone forever. A fourth ring. I press answer. Again I wait.
From my lap, a voice, muted but deep: “Hey.”
I say nothing.
“Can you hear me?”
Yes, I think.
“Hello…”
Pause.
“…you there?”
Something sparks in my brain, and I bring the phone to my ear. “Yeah. I can hear you.”
Silence on his end, then a question: “You looking?”
“For tonight. Available?” I grind my molars. On my passenger seat—next to an unopened bottle of Maker’s Mark—eyes leer from the ad in Vibe’s classifieds. Metro Men: Gay Escorts.
“Could be.” His accent tastes like cake icing. Powdered sugar and sex. “Cash?”
“Enough to need four ATM transactions. That clear your calendar?”
“You wanting something weird, then?” My heart drums against my chest. How did Oliver answer this on MeetLockr? Or to Tom?
“Only discretion,” I say, but would my husband have answered differently? Oliver who can’t be bothered to talk to me, to say what he wants and when he wants it. But again, Oliver only ever seems to know what he doesn’t want. Me.
Heavy breaths whistle as static and he says, “I’m free.”
“Eleven thirty?” I try to cover my cracking voice. It catches at the confluence of impending pain and pleasure. A scalpel just before it sinks into skin.
“Where?”
“Takoma Park.”
“Specifically?”
“Motel Six.” Through my windshield, neon lettering blurs as a blue door comes into focus. Room 12 lit by headlights. “I’ll text you the address and room.”
“No monkey business, right?”
“What?”
“Need to be careful. You understand.”
“Yeah.” I cough into my fist. “No monkey business.”