Later

by Paul Lisicky

  In no time at all I’m in love with Noah. And I don’t receive his love as a demand, or something I don’t deserve. Occasionally he reminds me that he is not a US citizen, and at any moment, in the night or in the morning, he could be pulled out of bed, along with all the other Canadian citizens in Town, as part of some sweep. His story strikes me as abstract, but I’m still scared of the possibility of an ending. It smokes up the atmosphere of every room we’re in, and gives an on-the-spotness to our situation, which can be exciting, but it can also keep the two of us in line. Does he want to keep me in line? By bringing it up, he tells me not to expect too much of us. Maybe the devotion in my face, in the way I kiss and hold him, needs correcting. Just a splash of cold water. I get it.

  He works as a houseboy at the Manchester Inn, a guesthouse with a slutty reputation. I’m not sure it’s sluttier than any other operation in Town, but the place sells sex, a big hot tub in the backyard, a clothing-optional policy, though I’ve never seen anyone walking around naked. Along with the other houseboy (whom I have a small crush on; he could pass for a curly-haired straight boy from Scituate), he sleeps up in the eaves of the house in what amounts to a bunk bed. It is a ship up there, cozy, especially when it is cold and windy out. And yet there’s something unkind about it, something uncomfortably like, what—a storage unit? Raw lumber, bare light bulbs, no pretense that the owner tries to make it livable or aesthetic. But that seems to be an aspect of the pact you sign: nothing matters more than sex and that is what you’re working for. The owner, a man named Paul, has a wry booziness about him, but he’s always friendly to me, and I’ve never seen him be anything but friendly to Noah. He seems to be far less interested in making money than he is in maintaining the inn’s louche appeal. He wants it to be a bit sleazy, wants to make sure that hot guys, as well as once-hot guys who have gone to seed, fill that hot tub. The two houseboys make many jokes about that hot tub, and swear they’d never put a bare foot in it despite all the liquid shock that goes into it on a daily basis. There are enough chemicals in that cauldron to burn the paint off the bottom of a boat. Or to cure AIDS, for that matter. Jokes are made about leading the sick in Town to the hot tub so they can be cured, the lesions closing up on their skin, their T cell counts shooting as high as the roof.

  As much as Noah is compelled and entertained by this raunchy atmosphere, he pretty much knows he doesn’t want to sleep there. Noah will sleep on the beach in Bali, Noah will shit in a pail in India, but he will not sleep in the attic of the Manchester Inn. So Noah and I take to the twin bed in the smallest apartment in the world, one of us smashed up against the windowsill. It’s a relief to sleep so close after I’ve kept a space open for someone beside me, even when I slept by myself.

  Sometimes at night I lie awake wondering what Hollis is thinking. He seems expectedly cheerful when I run into him at the gym, and he knows Noah, professes to like Noah, even when I probably mention his name too much. I’m not being careful enough to keep myself in check. I suppose I am happier than I’ve been in a long time, even if I haven’t been spending very much time with Hollis. I probably don’t do a very good job of spreading my devotion around—I just don’t know how. When I care about someone, it is impossible for that person not to know it. And when my head turns away? Well, I am somewhat like a pit bull, tethered only to the person on the other end of the leash.

  I suspect that’s my mother’s influence. How to be anything to anyone if not another twin?

  Perhaps this is why Hollis is furious with me one day. We’re sitting outside our old haunt, Café Express, and the sun is hard and bright on his face. His outburst is very much out of the blue, no buildup, no signs. He claims that I’ve pulled back from him. And maybe that’s true, but I haven’t abandoned him in my inner life—will I ever? I try my best to listen to him, shifting in the patio chair, looking down at the tuna sandwich and chips on my plate, which have now lost all semblance of taste. I break up a potato chip and don’t eat it. Somebody bikes by repeatedly ringing a bell, though no one is blocking his path. I’m shocked, so angry that this fucker would have the gall to be mad at me. What between us has ever nurtured this rough feeling? He’s never owned me.

  I don’t get angry back at Hollis, which likely only increases his fury. He should be happy—my detachment, my “good-natured self-control,” as Joni Mitchell would sing it, was taught entirely by him. Or at least he drew it out, gave it a shape. Shouldn’t he be proud of me for that? Haven’t I been a successful student of the heart? He shouldn’t be shocked. Any queer man has learned how to keep his feelings in check better than anyone else. From our earliest age, we’ve learned not to look the sexiest guy in the room straight in the eye. We’ve made sure to temper our excitement lest the sexiest guy shake his head in disgust, or rally the others around him to laugh at us. We’ve never unlearned what we knew. We still do it today, in certain places (say public restrooms) and certain parts of the world (say Alabama, say non-urban Florida, say portions of Philadelphia), even though it makes us cringe to admit it to ourselves. Even if we dress like bros or frat boys. Even if we think of ourselves as men above fear: people who couldn’t give a shit about others’ reactions: see our expressive gestures and voices, our eye rolls. Whatever the case, we know what it involves to fit in and thus ghost away the inner life. To kill the spirit out of ourselves. As to what that might do to our psyche and soul? As to how that might punish away our ability to love someone over time?

  Welcome to homophobia.

  Pee

  Noah bikes ahead of me on the way to Herring Cove. I don’t mind that he’s biking so fast, but I wish he’d look over his shoulder to see if I’m still behind him—just once? What if I got caught behind a truck? We lock our bikes to the split rail, walk through the woods, walk out onto open marsh, where we slosh through tidal pools as warm as Miami water. The sun is hot out here, the minnows are active around our feet, and by the time we’re out on the beach, we need to get in the bay to cool off. We step in an inch at a time, arms clenched, faces tense, tightening, grimacing, our balls—probably better just to plunge into any New England ocean. “This isn’t Goa,” Noah cries. But before long, eyes relax, we’re not pulling air into our lungs through our teeth. We walk closer to the shoreline, root ourselves into sand. Noah hugs me from behind, holds me in place. It’s good to have this afternoon together, so good we managed to make our frenetic schedules mesh. I’m leaning back into him when I feel something warm, warm water. The tropics are here. Noah is laughing. He’s peeing on me. “You can’t pee on me in public,” I cry. “Look, there are people out there.” “Oh yes I can,” he says, “I can, I can, I can,” and I try to wrench away and we’re both cracking up.

  Smooth

  Noah’s body is impossibly smooth, no hair anywhere but on his head. In a day or two he’ll feel scratchy: five o’clock shadow but not on the face, and he’ll itch, or feel the prospect of a rash coming on, and he’ll shave all over again, and I’ll do it along with him. We’ll convince ourselves this is sexy, because in a time of barriers, skin-to-skin feels transgressive, feels close and alive. But this isn’t just our idea: shaved bodies are all you see in porn. Body hair equals old, equals death, and who could blame any of us for wanting to turn ourselves into babies again? We hate old people because we’re not going to be old. We deny age, abhor it, including any of the gay men who have made it to fifty, sixty, unscathed, whom we’ve declared are too timid and unadventurous ever to have been bottoms. Oh, not really. God. We just want to be in touch—or not out of it. There’s so little to want that we have control of.

  Signals

  So many acquaintances of ours seem to want Noah when he’s out dancing, up on the go-go box. They put their hands all over his legs and ass, and laugh, and Noah laughs, though a little nervously. I stand with my back to a pillar, watching casually, but trying not to watch too much: I don’t want Noah to think I’m possessive. He’d be completely turned off by that. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to cry: Hands o
ff. Are these guys even thinking about what Noah wants? Are they reading his signals? If a part of him does like the attention, they’re not catching the anxiety, the hint of ambivalence in his eyes. That ambivalence is at odds with his tight, beaming smile. From my end, looking at those guys is as lousy as looking at drunken frat boys—and as boring. Troubling. Noah can take care of himself, but I know these guys wouldn’t be touching him if they didn’t think it gave them power and privilege. They’re not doing it for anybody but some imagined ocean of others, out there in the dark, on the dance floor—or maybe for me. I know they don’t like me.

  Only one hour left until closing.

  Wet

  It takes a long time to get out of a latex shirt. His skin looks like it’s been punished, like broiled flounder with diaper rash, though the rash isn’t on his ass, but up through his lats. The baby powder he used before he put it on doesn’t seem to have kept him dry. I help him squeeze out of the latex, the way I helped him get in. We laugh at the bald absurdity of the task: the unexpected tenderness of being this close, this intimate, this awkward, an act involving the body that has nothing to do with sex. Perhaps our laugh keeps it a little safe, keeps us from asking any questions: Why would you hurt yourself by putting on an impermeable man-made material that doesn’t breathe? Is it even sexy, and for whom? Or is it just a figure for the probability of contamination, infection, taken to an extreme—a larger version of a condom?

  I feel a little bit like a parent, my veterinarian grandfather, or some kind of midwife: I’m bringing Noah forth from the steaming, wet placenta back into the world.

  22

  Happy Birthday, Gay

  I’m not working today, and I cannot even imagine having the focus or discipline to write. I wonder when my mother will call, and after I turn that over for a few minutes—it’s 11 a.m., and where is she?—I decide to dial the number myself. Of course I know that part of that decision involves making her feel a little crappy for not calling me first thing.

  “Honey, happy birthday,” she says and her voice is unguarded and lovely, apologetic for not phoning me earlier—she had to stop at the store for dog food. Now I’m the one who feels crappy, because I’m talking to the mother I’ve almost forgotten, the sweet mother who doesn’t obliterate me with excess wariness and concern. She’s having a good day that sounds like it doesn’t have very much to do with my day; she sounds so close, I can practically sense her across the room. Her smile, her bare arms, her tanned neck, crinkled, lightly sunburned above her coral-colored tank top. It’s almost as if she’s come back from the dead, but without any of that intensity or deep meaning. Is this what it is to feel safe? She’ll be lost again to me, but for this minute I love her and feel it back, and it’s the most supreme present for the day.

  Noah has decided to invite a few friends over to his friend Lark’s house. Lark and I have the same birthday, so Noah decides we’ll spread it out between the two of us by sharing one elongated cake.

  Walking up Tremont, I see bodies up ahead. Loud voices, a throng of young men filling up a tight yard lit by lanterns. And that’s it: Lark’s yard.

  All these people! “Surprise!” I turn clockwise, lose my balance, shove my hands as far down into my pockets as I can. From their handsome, dazzled faces it’s clear that this is the party in Town tonight. “Happy birthday!” the group roars, after Noah points to me. And then the chorus begins, and I startle, because I know not a single one. Everyone pretty much looks alike, from the same social sphere. None of the people I care about are here—and if they’re here (Polly?) they’re hiding, eager to leave, nothing in common with a scene, or with people drawn to socializing in A-list groups.

  No one’s relaxed, though they all pretend to be relaxed. Anxiety lifts and stirs the particles in the air. Two desires are happening at once: the need to hook up, and the work of naming and claiming social status—are you witty enough, sexy enough? And the latter desire always wins, canceling out the first because it’s so much easier to solve.

  In the ’70s, two people would have probably cordoned themselves in the bathroom and blown each other hastily, then joined the big group again.

  Noah comes up to me and hugs me in front of the crowd. I must feel it’s my duty to say a public thing, or I’m called upon to do so. As I’m having a hard time getting my bearings, I probably thank everyone too eagerly, forgetting the fact that it’s Lark’s party too. I step backward, gesture toward Lark, who’s sitting away from the lights, underneath the walnut tree on one of two banged-up Adirondack chairs. His eyes are characteristically wide, spiked with alarm, as it’s his wont to scrutinize every voice, outfit, posture, and pair of shoes—the tool many a gay man has sharpened in order to feel on top of things, in social control. There’s an acerbic look on his Scandinavian face. A blanket covering his knees, though it is a muggy summer night, and everyone around is in a T-shirt or tank top. He is thin to the point of translucence. He doesn’t look like he feels so well, or is terribly interested in the rituals of celebrating another birthday. After the party resumes, I walk over to say hello, but he isn’t interested in holding a conversation beyond hard pleasantries. Of all the people I know, Lark is the least likely to put on a good face, especially if he’s not feeling well. And if I try to cheer him up a little, well—he’ll make sure to say something a bit cutting. He’ll say a word about the cut of my new shirt while pinching a bit of the fabric and rubbing it. He’ll say aloud the name of a short story of mine that others have talked about and roll his eyes in exaggerated condescension, as if anything other than the work of staying alive is gross, pure vanity. I wonder what it would be like to address others by tossing verbal darts at them. Would life be thrilling, daring, subversive in a way I could never know? Would it free me to throw my notion of karma aside, to take up a stance that I believed I wouldn’t count enough to hurt anyone?

  Bitter queen, I think, relegating bitter queens to a time in the past, to the era of self-loathing, even though Lark and I are close to the same age. I’m allergic to bitter queens, even though I admire them, respect them, and know bitter queens are the truest rebels, rejecting all that is wrong about this world by pulling meanness into them and throwing it back out.

  I move among the crowd, trying to find someone it would be easy to talk to, but I have only the social skills to make inside jokes about death and love, and these are the kinds of subjects that sag some people’s faces, especially when they’ve had a lot to drink.

  By midnight everyone is gone from the yard. Various groups lump and veer down the street, some toward the Crown, most to the A-House. “Thank you for the party,” I say to Noah in a voice not much above a whisper. “That was really sweet of you to plan.” Now that everyone’s gone I can say it like I mean it. I didn’t know till I said it aloud that I was afraid of sounding false.

  I had no idea a birthday party would feel like the kind of work you should be paid by the hour for.

  At my feet are tossed cups, beer bottles, tortilla chips moist from the cooling, humid air. “You’re welcome,” he says, but looks preoccupied, resentful. I think he’d been hoping he’d have a better time of it, and maybe I’ve been the obstacle to that better time. And now he’s just exhausted.

  Or maybe he realizes he just hosted a Gay Birthday Party, an event that fits exactly inside its category, and that was never his intention. Somehow his plans took on a life of their own.

  We’re never so far from the conventional, and that lesson grates into us.

  23

  House Music

  Some of the great music of the era makes it to Provincetown, but much of it doesn’t. Nirvana, Jeff Buckley, Liz Phair, Tori Amos, even Kate Bush’s The Sensual World—I don’t hear it lifting from the houses, or out at the gym. Maybe it’s too tortured, but not tortured about the right things. It’s not in sync with the hell going down here. The suffering in it might be too extreme, indulgent, artificial, though it believes it comes straight from the soul. It might not have enough wit and pl
ay in it. It edits out too much—black people, for one. When I ask my friend Pauline what she thinks of Jeff Buckley, and Pauline’s opinion matters, as she runs MAP, my favorite clothing store in Town, she closes her eyes briefly, shakes her head no, without apology. And in her dismissal I know that that music isn’t for us. Maybe that music knows about AIDS, or, later, Abner Louima, but it keeps those matters on the periphery, if it lets them in at all. Its problems aren’t our problems. Its head is somewhere else, which means nonqueer white masculinity problems, and the utter tragedy of difficult women and/or not getting laid.

  And yet the dreamy intensity of Jeff Buckley, the Led Zeppeliny hysteria of it, beautiful hysteria. I play it over and over, but listen with headphones, sneak it the way a young priest might sneak a look at one of the porn magazines underneath my bed.

  The songs of Town are the songs of urban life: house music. It comes from African American, Puerto Rican clubs. Harlem, Flatbush, Washington Heights, Detroit, Chicago. Its roots aren’t in the music of white people. Crystal Waters, Joi and Jorio, Digable Planets, A Tribe Called Quest. The songs are dreamy and smart and move with unexpected chord changes. They’re never the anthems that make people clap at the edge of dance floors (“Rhythm is a Dancer,” for example). These are the songs built for small spaces, DIY spaces, spaces the Giuliani administration will later discipline out of sight. The music doesn’t contort itself to mass taste, maybe because there isn’t much money to be made from such music. It’s a labor of love, inevitable when you’re just trying to keep each other alive. It has nuance, surprises in the bass line, or in the high vocals. It keeps rewarding you again and again, doing strange things to your body. You feel loose when you’re dancing to it, perhaps because it makes you feel sexier than you are. There is rarely a single refrain. You’ll never hear it in a Palo Alto Whole Foods fifteen years later; alas, it will disappear from playlists long before then. It’s music for people who might already be high on certain kinds of drugs, but the drugs are warm and friendly enough. The Epidemic is present in every vocal line, even if devastating loss and chaos aren’t the explicit subjects of the song. You can just feel it; you wouldn’t be able to tame it out of those vocal leaps. It knows what true gravity is. Its purpose is to startle and reorient you through a set of tricks that will work its way into your psyche even if you don’t know the musical terminology. Its work is about more than entertainment, though entertainment is never to be undervalued, diminished. Where else would joy come from? Where else would we find our joy?