Flannelwood

by Raymond Luczak

  I fell into chatting online with a local wheelchair guy named Matt. He was a theater director, which surprised me. Maybe I’m not very bright, but I couldn’t honestly imagine a wheelchair user directing a show. How would he get around the theater, and onto the stage? I suspected that many theaters in the city had wheelchair-accessible bathrooms, but it had never occurred to me whether the stage itself was. Matt impressed me with the depth and breadth of his knowledge. He knew so much about theater, and he could rattle off his favorite playwrights like a teenybopper reciting a list of her favorite performers without giving it much thought. I agreed to meet him at Cold & N’ice not too far from my house a few nights later.

  When I walked out of my house, I realized that my place wasn’t wheelchair-accessible. The front of my house had a number of steps, and . . . oh, crap. There was no way I could casually invite him in for a cuppa coffee and have sex with him. This wasn’t going to be a date, I reminded myself; it was just a friendly get-together. The closer I came to the ice cream parlor, the more dread arose in me. I would say some unintentionally wrong thing, and he’d chew me out for not knowing any better. Or I would spot him in a corner and bolt.

  But I thought of you. I was meeting him precisely because of you. I wanted to understand your world better. How else could I learn if you weren’t around to teach me? I pushed the door open, and I glanced around. I felt a wave of panic when I didn’t see Matt anywhere. The place was packed with families and dates licking their cones and chatting away. I thought of leaving right then and there, but I heard the door opening with a grunt. I turned and saw him. He was better-looking than I’d expected. He wore a red t-shirt and a pair of jeans, but I didn’t expect to see such wizened fingers packed into his bicyclist gloves.

  “Hi, Bill. Sorry that my ride was a bit late, but . . .” he extended his hand, which I shook. “Here we are.”

  “Nice to meet you in person finally, Matt.”

  I felt ashamed to be standing so tall like that next to him. I didn’t want to be someone who literally looked down on him. I missed looking up to you and rubbing my face across your massive pecs. There was no chance of me doing that with Matt. I’d have to get down on my knees and pretend that he was taller and bigger than me. I’d be acutely aware of the fact that he was in a wheelchair.

  As Matt wheeled to the counter and gave his order after I took mine, I looked for an empty table. There was one by the window. I went over there and moved one chair to another table. I watched his eyes as he navigated, quite skillfully might I add, around the haphazardly arranged tables. I felt guilty over the fact that it was easy for me to walk around tables without much thought.

  He wheeled himself into place and reached down to lock his brakes.

  As he licked his ice cream, I noted his biceps. “You work out?”

  “Not really, but this”—he pointed to his wheelchair—”is my gym. Can’t avoid working out every day when I go out.”

  “Well, those muscles look good on you.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He glanced at his arms. “I figured you’d go for them. Guys who wanna have sex with wheelies are obsessed with my biceps.” He winked at me.

  I felt a tinge of blush.

  “No big worries. I’m glad we met.”

  “Thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say. How was it possible that I could talk so easily with a stranger online and feel speechless with him in person?

  “To be honest, I rarely meet guys from online. They just focus on my arms or my wheelchair. It’s like there’s nothing else between my arms and down there and my wheelchair. But you . . . you’re different. You’re real smart. I like that. Plus the fact that you don’t care for Andrew Lloyd Webber.”

  “Sondheim is just more interesting. I think he’s a bit overcomplicated at times, but he does put a lot of thought into what he writes.”

  “Right, and I still want to do Into the Woods one day . . .”

  “Yeah, that would be so cool.”

  “. . . with disabled performers playing all the characters. I think that would really make some people nervous.”

  I stopped. “Um.”

  “Are you upset?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just . . .”

  “I’m comfortable with myself. Just like how you’re comfortable with being gay.”

  “But those characters are from classic fairy tales—you can’t— they’d look more like freaks!”

  “Exactly. Fairy tale characters were always freaks, so why not remind them of this fact? What makes you think that able-bodied actors should always play able-bodied characters? See, that’s what we were talking about the other night. Ableist privilege. You assume that because you’re able-bodied, you expect the world to be reflected your way all the time. You’re already upset when I expect to exercise my disability privilege. And you expect me to just take it when you exercise your ableist privilege?”

  I felt like crying. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s no different from how you filter the world through the eyes of a gay man. You see homophobia, and you want to see a world free of ignorance and hate.”

  He took my hand into his, and I’m sorry to report this, but I recoiled from his touch.

  “I can’t. This . . .”

  “Bill, it’s okay. You said you wanted to have your thinking challenged so you could appreciate what it’s like to be disabled.”

  I sighed.

  “Why did you want to be challenged? You’ve never said why.”

  “I don’t know what I was thinking when I said that.”

  “Was there someone you loved? Was he a cripple?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, he’s not me, and I’m not him. Please get that straight in your head. If you’ve got issues with him, resolve them with him, not me. I don’t need another disability devotee in my life.”

  “‘Disability devotee’? What’s that?”

  “What does that sound like? An able-bodied person who gets off on inspiration porn and being with a person just because he’s disabled. Likes to help out and feel useful. Nothing to do with him as a person at all. The disability, the helplessness, is the star attraction here.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. I’d never meant to—”

  “I know you didn’t. That’s why I’d agreed to meet with you.”

  “How do you know I’m not a . . . that? It sounds so twisted.”

  “Well, people can be odd sometimes. I know this deaf guy who wore hearing aids, and he said he’d never felt like a freak at all until one day this hearing guy wanted to wear his hearing aids while having sex with him. He wanted to pretend he was deaf.”

  “Oh, that’s so . . .” For a moment I didn’t feel like eating my raspberry chocolate ice cream.

  “Yeah. But if both people are happy, well—who am I to judge?” He shrugged. “Point is, you’re not like that. I could tell from the kind of questions you were asking. It’s hard to find someone who’s willing to learn what it’s like to be disabled. You never suggested how I could do things better. Not once. That speaks volumes about you as a person.”

  “Well, I’ve never felt comfortable about telling someone to do something. I mean, I’d have assumed that he’s tried all the options.”

  “Exactly. Now may I hold your hand?”

  “Uh, why?”

  “Because I want to feel good about holding a sexy guy’s hand. You’re hot stuff. You do know that, right?”

  I didn’t know what to say or do. I was scared. I was afraid of being seen in public like that. No, no—scratch that. I didn’t feel comfortable with a wheelchair user holding my hand. I knew I wasn’t going to pick up some contagion from him, but I feared that my acceptability factor within the able-bodied community would drop quite a few notches if they saw me holding a disabled man’s hand. You were different. You were tall and beefy as any ex-quarterback would be, and you could stand up to your full height. No one would know about you as long as you wore pants and socks. But Matt? His
height sitting up was nowhere near your magnificent height that spoke of sturdy birch trees. He was just a shrub.

  I know I’m being unfair to Matt. I’d never realized how shallow and mean I could be until that night I met him. The sickening truth is that if Matt wasn’t in a wheelchair, I wouldn’t have minded him holding my hand. Does that make me an asshole? I think it does. Should I have asked to sleep with him that night? I was afraid that he’d say he didn’t want to be a pity fuck.

  But I didn’t bolt. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

  “For someone who talks a lot online, you’re awfully quiet.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just not ready for this.” I withdrew my hand. “I mean, you’re a nice guy and all, but . . .”

  “I came on too strong, did I?”

  “I think so. Yeah.”

  “I thought this was supposed to be a date.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Look, Bill. Look at me.”

  I looked into his deep blue eyes. Funny how I’d never noticed them before. I must’ve been too focused on his wheels.

  “I thought you were smart enough to get me. I’m just like any other guy out there. I’m . . . you know, lonely sometimes and, well . . .”

  “It’s okay. Maybe this was a mistake.”

  “You’re still thinking of him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Him. The first disabled guy in your life. Whoever he is.”

  “How do you know he was my first?”

  “Because you’re not comfortable with me as I am.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “You prefer the fantasy of his disability.”

  “You don’t know anything about my situation.”

  “I don’t have to. Able-bodied guys are the same way. They meet someone special who happens to be disabled, and they break up, and then they want to meet someone else disabled because they’re still in love with him. I’m here to tell you that if you date someone like me because of my wheels, you’re not being fair to me. I’m my own person, and I’m not just my wheels. Got that?”

  I’d never felt so small. I felt so ashamed that I wanted to turn into a cockroach and have him roll over me. I didn’t realize I was crying until I tried to speak. “I’m sorry.” My voice was a hoarse whisper. “I wasn’t thinking . . .”

  I was surprised when he took my hand again.

  “What—what are you doing?”

  “You’re not scaring me away. I’m still interested in you.”

  A long moment of sniffling came and went. I blew my nose into a napkin. “Sorry.”

  “It’s cool.” He resumed licking his ice cream cone. “What films have you watched lately?”

  We talked until the place closed, but I couldn’t go to bed with him. Just couldn’t.

  Yes, I know. I’m very shallow.

  We exchanged phone numbers, but he never called me back. His number’s taped there on that wall above my desk. Sometimes it haunts my dreaming.

  When you and I caught up on our week in the car toward your house on those Friday evenings, you turned on the radio. They were full of country songs about love gone wrong, made so right, and never regained. I never cared for country music until after you hung up. Sure, there were a number of country singers I’d found sexy, but then I discovered Drake Jensen. I couldn’t believe that a man like him could be so open about being gay, and with a good voice blessed with a hint of gravelly growl. That was a revelation. Suddenly his music wasn’t full of songs about loving a woman. I loved in one music video how honest he was about trying to find a special guy online through Bear411, and how expressive he was with his face. It was so easy to read his face because his emotions were an open book. He was so comfortable with himself no matter how he’d performed that it was easy to fall for him. There in his sleeveless flannel shirt and boots on the railroad tracks and cargo shorts on the beach, he reminded me of the you I’d longed to see once you’d stopped dying. He was fully alive, flesh and blood, with his sexy voice and his furry tattooed body, and he wasn’t afraid to display so much of himself on camera. I knew he gained that powerful strength and confidence from the man he so loved. I wanted to be that man to give you the same pride in being different.

  I thought I was strong enough to love you as you were, but you must’ve seen me as too weak for the yoke of your fearful heart. I tell you, no matter how young you might’ve seen me as, I would’ve been strong as an ox. Remember, I’m a farmer’s son. I’d have surprised you with my inner strength. I would’ve plowed the fields of sorrow until your garden was blooming with sunflowers heavy with the sweetest seeds yet to be plucked by crows. I would’ve freed you from the needless prison of that fear of being seen as weak because you needed to be sentimental now and then, just like those sappy films of the 1930s with their predictable happy endings. You wouldn’t feel embarrassed about pulling some daisies from the backyard and giving them to me with a kiss. You wouldn’t be afraid to crack a smile if I made a goofy joke at your expense. And you’d feel strong enough to hold my hand in public no matter where we were, just like Drake was with his husband striding out of a tall building out onto a beach in my favorite video of his. You’d nod your head at me before we kissed against the backdrop of the sunset.

  I’d be your favorite country song.

  My memories are mottled like trees of different heights and shapes. You’d think that being trees, they’re pretty much similar, but the aura of memory is a dense fog lost in the woods. It’s hard to see sometimes when I travel toward an odd sound, a partially erased face, a conversation lined with gaps, and when I trip over a tree’s root tentacle, I find myself waking up to something else I’d not realized had been there all along.

  Like: you once mentioned your father was a schoolteacher at your high school. You never said what your mother did for a living. Probably a housewife. You never said whether you had brothers and sisters.

  Like: your favorite vegetable was rutabaga. You didn’t care all that much for fancy food.

  Like: you’d grown up two hours northwest of my hometown where winters were long as hell; summers, fleetingly short like fireflies.

  Like: you didn’t like having liquor around the house.

  Like: you were a big hockey fan. You wanted to play in high school, but you were too tall and gawky on the ice.

  Like: you mentioned that you played quarterback for your high school. I didn’t tell you this, but I did look through your high school yearbooks once when you were taking a shower. It was surreal to see you look so young and quite thin, but your height was obvious. You had posed with your hand on the ball, and you kept one arm behind your back. Those thighs were already mighty. You looked tough and menacing even though you were clean-shaven. There was no way anyone would fuck with you. I tried to imagine you, a rising star on the football field, torn between seeing your dad at school and wanting to be one of the cool jocks.

  Like: in your living room I saw the framed picture of your daughter, Annie, perched atop the mantelpiece above the fireplace. It looked like it had been taken in the mid eighties. You had more hair, and you sported only a mustache. You still looked hot. She wore a cute striped jumper, and she was probably five years old. Her head was at your waist, and she was looking brightly into the sun of you. Her eyes squinted, but there was no mistaking that winsome smile of hers.

  You caught me looking at the picture.

  A shadow crossed your face.

  The following weekend it was gone from the mantelpiece.

  It had been a crack in your façade.

  I thought about the absence of that picture a great deal long after I’d seen you last.

  I am a wisp.

  I am not one of those spectacular beauties who will win a popularity contest.

  I am a figment of smoke that once curled upward from the end of your cigar.

  I am a moan, a grunt, a cry, a yell, a contented sigh.

  I am a tiny fire constantly shielded from your
eyes.

  The wick of my heart is burning down to an ashen nub.

  With summer wearing down, I find myself starting to forget the particulars of your body. It’s as if each of my memories has been retouched with a slight fuzzy blur. Just how huge were your nipples? How thick, how long was your cock? Were your shoulders truly covered with the thickest fur I’d ever touched? All that has started to fade, but I will never forget the size and bulk of you as you hovered over me and stared into my eyes when we pumped away. You rarely gazed at me so directly, and for so long.

  Time was always put on hold when we forgot about everything but our bodies reaching out to each other. It was so easy to lose track of time when we rollercoastered up and down with the tempos of our lovemaking. We were always shocked by the time on your bedside clock. I wanted more of that with you, not noticing how quickly our years together were passing by.

  All I got from you was a winter of memory and too many seasons of ache.

  When I noticed that Valentine’s Day fell on a Friday, I stopped. Should I get you a card, or would it be too much, too soon? I went to We Are Family, a T-shirt and trinket shop littered with rainbow-flavored flags, underwear, and key rings; probably the last of its kind that’s not overlooking a gay beach. There were racks of naughty valentines, usually revealing a naked man with an impossibly large endowment on the inside. Somehow, as alluring and attractive these men were, none felt right. I decided to try the funny cards. A few did make me laugh, but none struck me as suitable for you.

  When I put another card away in exasperation, I happened to look up. The man with the curly hair—you’d called him a “nut”— was in the other end of the store; he was browsing a pile of deeply discounted erotica titles. With his parka and stone-washed jeans, he looked the same as before. Closer, and without feeling that he could catch me looking at him, I observed that he had some gray in his hair. I’d initially pegged him to be in his forties, but I realized that he had to be closer to your age. The slenderness was what had thrown off my estimation of his age. I couldn’t tell if he knew I was there, or if he had simply lost interest in me.