“Was right after this, I traded in my model cars, swapped every single comic for one magazine. It showed two sailors and twin sisters in a hotel, doing stuff. During the five last pictures, a dark bellboy joined in. Was then that my collection really started… . The End, I guess. The rest is just being an adult.”
Barker sat quiet. I finally asked what’d happened to his grandfather. How about Bobby and the den mother?
“In jail. My grandad died. ‘Of a broken heart,’ Mom said. Bobby moved. He never was one to stay anyplace too long. One day he didn’t show up at Sunoco and that was it. Mrs… . the lady, she’s still right here in Falls, still a real leader. Not two days back, I ran into her at the mall, collecting canned goods to end World Hunger. We had a nice chat. Her son’s a lawyer in Marietta, Georgia, now. She looks about the same, really—I love the way she looks, always have. Now when we talk, I can tell she’s partly being nice to me because I never left town or went to college—and she secretly thinks I’m not too swift. But since I kept her secret, I feel like we’re even. I just smile back. I figure, whatever makes people kind to you is fine. She can see there’s something extra going on but she can’t name it. It just makes her grin and want to give me little things. It’s one of the ten trillion ways you can love somebody. We do, love each other. I’m sure. Nobody ever knew about Bobby. She got away with it. More power to her.
“She still leads the Youth Choir. Last year they won the Southeast Chorus prize—young people’s division. They give concerts all over. Her husband loves her. She said winning the prize was the most fulfilling moment of her life. I wondered. I guess everybody does some one wild thing now and then. They should. It’s what you’ll have to coast on when you’re old. You know?” I nodded. He sat here, still.
“Probably not much of a story,” Barker shrugged. “But, back then it was sure something, to see all that right off the bat, your first time out. I remember being so shocked to know that—men want to. And women. I’d figured that only one person at a time would need it—and they’d have to knock down the other person and force them to, every time. But when I saw that, no, everybody wants to do it, and how there are no rules in it—I couldn’t look straight at a grownup for days. I’d see that my Mom’s slacks had zippers in them, I’d nearabout die. I walked around town, hands stuffed deep in my pockets. My head was hanging and I acted like I was in mourning for something. But, hey, I was really just waking up… . What got me onto all that? You about ready for movie-time, Dave? Boy, I haven’t talked so much in months. It’s what you get for asking, I guess.” He laughed.
I thanked Barker for his story. I told him it made sense to me.
“Well, thanks for saying so anyhow.”
He started fidgeting with the projector. I watched. I knew him better now. I felt so much for him. I wanted to save him. I couldn’t breathe correctly.
“Here goes,” he toasted his newest film then snapped on the large and somehow sinister antique machine.
The movie showed a girl at home reading this illustrated manual, hand in dress, getting herself animated. She made a phone call; you saw the actor answering and, even in a silent film, even given this flimsy premise, you had to find his acting absolutely awful. Barker informed me it was a Swedish movie; they usually started with the girl phoning. “Sometimes it’s one guy she calls, sometimes about six. But always the telephones. I don’t know why. It’s like they just got phones over there and are still proud of them, or something.” I laughed. What a nice funny thing to say. By now, even the gin and iced tea (with lemon and sugar) tasted like a great idea.
He sat upright beside me. The projector made its placid motorboat racket. Our couch seemed a kind of quilted raft. Movie light was mostly pink; ivy-filtered sun to a thin green. Across Barker’s neutral white shirt, these tints carried on a silent contest. One room away, the Crockpot leaked a bit, hissing. Hallways smelled of stew meat, the need for maid service—back-issues, laundry in arrears—one young man’s agreeable sweetish curried musk. From a comer of my vision, I felt somewhat observed. Cats’ eyes. To heck with caution. Let them look!
Barker kept elbows propped on knees, tensed, staring up at the screen, jaw gone slack. In profile against windows’ leaf-spotted light, he appeared honest, boyish, wide-open. He unbuttoned his top collar button.
I heard cars pass, my fellow Rotarians, algebra teachers from my school system. Nobody would understand us being here, beginning to maybe do a thing like this. Even if I went public, dedicated a whole Board of Education meeting to the topic— after three hours of intelligent confession, with charts and flannel boards and movie projections—I knew that when lights snapped back on, I’d look around from face to face, I’d see they all still sat wondering your most basic question:
Why, Dave, why?
I no longer noticed what was happening on-screen. Barker’s face, lit by rosy movie light, kept changing. It moved me so. One minute: drowsy courtesy, next a sharp manly smile. I set my glass down on a Florida-shaped coaster. Now, slow, I reached toward the back of his neck—extra-nervous, sure—but that’s part of it, you know? My arm wobbled, fear of being really belted, blackmailed, worse. I chose to touch his dark hair, cool as metal.
“Come on” he huffed forward, clear of my hand. He kept gazing at the film, not me. Barker grumbled, “The guy she phoned, he hasn’t even got to her house yet, man.”
I saw he had a system. I figured I could wait to understand it.
I felt he was my decent kid brother. Our folks had died; I would help him even more now. We’d rent industrial-strength vacuum cleaners. We’d purge this mansion of dinge; yank down tattered maroon draperies; let daylight in. I pictured us, stripped to the waists, painting every upstairs room off-white, our shoulders flecked with droplets, the hair on our chests flecked with droplets.
I’d drive Barker and his Wedgwood to a place where I’m known, “Old Mall Antiques.” I bet we’d get fifteen to nineteen hundred bucks, easily. Barker would act amazed. In front of the dealer, he’d say, “For that junk?” and, laughing, I’d have to shush him. With my encouragement, he’d spend some of the bonus on clothes. We’d donate three generations of National Geographics to a nearby orphanage—if there are any orphanages anymore and nearby. I’d scour Barker’s kitchen, defrost the fridge. Slowly, he would find new shape and meaning in his days. He’d start reading again—non-porn, recent worthy hardbacks. We’d discuss these.
He’d turn up at Little League games, sitting off to one side. Sensing my gratitude at having him high in the bleachers, understand we couldn’t speak. But whenever one of my sons did something at bat or out in Centerfield, (a pop-up, a bodyblock of a line drive) I could feel Barker nodding approval as he perched there alone; I’d turn just long enough to see a young bachelor mumbling to himself, shaking his head Yes, glad for my boys.
After office hours, once a week, I’d drive over, knock, then walk right in, calling, “Barker? Me.”
No answer. Maybe he’s napping in a big simple upstairs room, one startling with fresh paint. Six cats stand guard around his bed, two old Persians and their offspring, less Persian, thinner, spottier. Four of them pad over and rub against my pant cuffs; by now they know me.
I settle on the edge of a single bed, I look down at him. Barker’s dark hair has fallen against the pillow like an open wing. Bare chested, the texture of his poreless skin looks finer than the sheets. Under a blue blanket, he sleeps, exhausted from all the cleaning, from renewing his library card, from the fatigue of clothes-shopping. I look hard at him; I hear rush-hour traffic crest then pass its peak. Light in here gets ruddier. A vein in his neck beats like a clock, only liquid.
I’m balanced at the pillow-end of someone’s bed. I’m watching somebody, decent sleep. If the law considers this so wicked, then why does it feel like my only innocent activity? Barker wakes. The sun is setting. His face does five things at once: sees somebody here, gets scared, recognizes me, grins a good blurry grin, says just, “You.”
(They
don’t want a person to be tender. They could lock me up for everything I love about myself, for everything I love.)
Here on the couch, Barker shifted, “Look now, Dave. Uh-oh, she hears him knocking. See her hop right up? Okay, walking to the door. It’s him, all right. He’s dressed for winter. That’s because they’re in Sweden, right, Dave?”
I agreed, with feeling. Then I noted Barker taking the pen caddy from his pocket, he placed it on the table before him. Next, with an ancient kind of patience, Barker’s torso twisted inches toward me; he lifted my hand, pulled my whole arm up and around and held it—by the wrist—hovering in air before his front side as if waiting for some cue. Then Barker, clutching the tender back part of my hand, sighed, “Um-kay. Now they’re really starting to.” And he lowered my whole willing palm—down, down onto it.
I touched something fully familiar to me, yet wholly new.
He bucked with that first famous jolt of human contact after too long, too long alone without. His spine slackened but the head that’d shivered to one side, righted itself, eager to keep the film in sight. I heard six cats go racing down long hallways, then come thumping back, relaxed enough to play, with me—a stranger—in their house. Praise.
Barker’s voice, all gulpy, “I think … this movie’s going to be a real good one, Dave. Right up on my Ten Favorites’ list. And, you know? …” He almost ceased looking at the screen, he nearly turned his eyes my way instead. (The compliment stirred me.) “You know? You’re a regular fellow, Dave. I feel like I can trust you. You seem like … one real nice guy.”
Through my breathing, I could hear him, breathing, losing breath, breathing, losing breath.
“Thank you, Barker. Coming from you, that means a lot.” .
Every true pleasure is a secret.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
GEORGE STAMBOLIAN is the author of Marcel Proust and the Creative Encounter and Male Fantasies/Gay Realities: Interviews with Ten Men, and the editor of Twentieth Century French Fiction, Homosexualities and French Literature (with Elaine Marks), and Men On Men: Best New Gay Fiction. His interviews, essays, and fiction have appeared in Christopher Street, The New York Native, and The Advocate. He is Professor of French and Interdisciplinary Studies at Wellesley College and lives in Boston, New York City, and Amagansett, Long Island.
ALLEN BARNETT studied writing at Columbia University and is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. His fiction, reviews, and essays have appeared in Christopher Street, The New York Native, Poets and Writers Magazine, and The Advocate. Born in Michigan, he lives in New York City, where he is working on a collection of fiction.
TIM BARRUS has published two novels, My Brother, My Lover and Anywhere, Anywhere, a volume of poetry, Streets of Vision, and a collection of stories, Hot Acts. His fiction and essays have appeared in a variety of magazines and newspapers, including Drummer, Mandate, Christopher Street, The Sentinel, The Dallas Voice, and The Miami Herald. He recently completed two new novels, Genocide, The Anthology and Sonic Darkness, which will be published within the coming year, and is working on another novel, To Indigo Dust, which will develop his story, “Life Sucks.” He has received a Ford Foundation Grant and lives in San Francisco and Pentwater, Michigan.
CHRISTOPHER COE is the author of a novel, I Look Divine, and his fiction and reviews have been published in Story Quarterly, Harper’s, and The San Francisco Chronicle. He is currently completing a second novel and a collection of stories, Rich People Having Fun. He lives in Paris and New York City.
CHRISTOPHER DAVIS lives and works in Manhattan, and is the author of two novels, Joseph and the Old Man and Valley of the Shadow.
MELVIN DIXON teaches literature and creative writing at Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. He is the author of a volume of poetry, Change of Territory, and a work of criticism, Ride Out the Wilderness: Geography and Identity in Afro-American Literature. His poetry and fiction have appeared in The Southern Review and in In the Life: A Black Gay Anthology. Recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, he divides his time between Provincetown, Massachusetts, and New York City, where he is working on a novel and a second volume of poetry.
DAVID B. FEINBERG’s first novel, Eighty-sixed, will be published in early 1989. His fiction has appeared in Mandate, Torso, and The James White Review. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and New York University, he lives in New York City and is completing a collection of short stories.
ANDERSON FERRELL comes from North Carolina and was a dancer before turning to writing. He is the author of a novel, Where She Was, and his fiction has appeared in such periodicals as The Mississippi Review and The Quarterly. He has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and now lives in New York City, where he is working on a second novel.
GARY GLICKMAN was born in Morristown, New Jersey, and lives in New York City and East Hampton, Long Island. He is the author of a novel, Years from Now, and the recipient of a New York State Council for the Arts Grant. His fiction has appeared in Vanity Fair, The Mississippi Review, and The East Hampton Star. He is currently at work on a novel about East Hampton.
DAVID GROFF is an editor at Crown Publishers and a graduate of the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop in poetry. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, The Mississippi Review, The North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and Poetry Northwest. He was a finalist in The Walt Whitman Poetry Competition and The National Poetry Series. A resident of New York City, he is completing a volume of poems, “Personal Land,” and working on a series of short stories.
ALLAN GURGANUS teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and is a graduate of the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop. He is the author of a novella, Good Help, a recently completed story collection, White People, which will include his story, “Adult Art,” and a novel, Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, which will be published in 1989. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, The Paris Review, New American Review, Blueboy, and Antaeus. He has received two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, grants from the Ingram-Merrill Foundation and Wallace Stegner, and has been awarded two PEN Syndicated Fiction Prizes. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and New York City.
DAVID BRENDAN HOPES holds a Ph.D. from Syracuse University and lives in Asheville, North Carolina. He has published a volume of poetry, The Glacier’s Daughters, a play, Timothy Liberty, and a work of nonfiction, A Sense of the Morning. His poetry and fiction have appeared in The New Yorker, The James White Review, The Arts Journal, The Literary Review, The Nashville Review, The Carolina Quarterly, and The Kansas Review. He has received the Juniper Prize, the Saxifrage Prize, and the Southern Playwrights Prize. He has just completed a novel, An Age of Silver, and is working on a nonfiction book, Men’s Lives.
ALBERT INNAURATO’s plays include “Passione,” “Ulysses in Traction,” “Earthworms,” “Wisdom Amok,” “Gemini,” “The Transfiguration of Benno Blimpie,” and “Coming of Age in Soho.” The last three were recently published in Best Plays of Albert Innaurato and six others have been collected in Bizarre Behavior. He has been awarded grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and has received a Dramaturgue Award. He has directed several plays and has written on opera and the theater for The New York Times. He lives in New York City, where he is completing a novel, Fatty’s Revenge.
DAVID LEAVITT is the author of a collection of stories, Family Dancing, and a novel, The Lost Language of Cranes. His fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Book Review, Christopher Street, The Village Voice, The Boston Review, and The Washington Post. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Faulkner Prize. He has just completed a novel to be published in t
he winter of 1988–89, and is working on a second collection of stories. He lives in East Hampton, Long Island, and New York City.
RICHARD MCCANN lives in Washington, D.C., and teaches creative writing at American University. He is the author of a volume of poetry, Dream of the Traveler, and the editor of Landscape and Distance: Contemporary Poets from Virginia (with Margaret Gibson). His fiction and poetry have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Shenandoah, and The Virginia Quarterly Review. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Corporation of Yaddo, and was a Fulbright Fellow at Göteborg University, Sweden. “My Mother’s Clothes” is part of his first novel, which will be published soon.
JAMES MCCOURT has published two works of fiction, Mawdrew Czgowchwz and Kay Wayfaring in Avenged. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Grand Street, The Paris Review, and Christopher Street. He is the recipient of an Ingram-Merrill Award and is completing a sequel to Mawdrew Czgowchwz entitled Time Out of Mind. He lives in New York City and Dublin.
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