Lone Stars

by Justin Deabler

  “So,” Julian said, “where’s home?”

  “New York.”

  “The city? I’ve always wanted to live there. It’s where I’m going when I graduate.”

  “Nice. Have you spent a lot of time there?” Philip asked.

  “Not a lot. I haven’t been yet, but—where did you work? This summer?”

  “I was interning at Goldman.”

  “Cool.” Julian had heard of this mysterious Goldman the past few weeks. “And your dad? What does he do there?”

  “Um. He’s a banker?”

  “He knows the hostess? Up front?”

  “Oh,” Philip said. “My dad went to the business school. He does recruiting events here.”

  “And your mom? What does she do?”

  “She teaches.”

  “Really?” Julian said. “Mine, too.”

  “Yeah? Well, she’s a therapist. Still in private practice, but now she’s mostly running the postdoc program in psychoanalysis at NYU. Where’s your mom?”

  “Chemistry. She teaches chemistry, just, at the high school where I went.”

  “Interesting.” Philip smiled. “While you were there, she was teaching?”

  “Yeah. Siblings?”

  “Oh. I do. A sister. How about—”

  “Older?” Julian fired. “Younger?”

  “She’s two years older.”

  “In school?”

  “Oberlin. And you,” Philip leaned forward, “are a regular Barbara Walters.”

  “Two elderflower cocktails,” the hostess said, appearing in their circle.

  “Cheers.” Philip clinked his glass to Julian’s. “Do you answer questions too?”

  “Do I—yeah. I’m from Houston, where I’m never going back. The plan is to graduate early and then it’s law school, here or Yale, and long-term working at the ACLU…” On this went for some time, Julian informing Philip about his future, the clubs he joined, classes in his schedule and their place in the grand scheme. He talked for one drink, and another. By the end of their refill, Julian had planted his flag at the table. Philip was smiling. But something was off. There was nothing between them. Or had Julian’s mouth run it out of the room?

  “Should we order?” Philip asked, opening a menu. “Dinner?”

  “No,” Julian snapped. Two things had happened when Philip leaned over to order their second round: Julian traced the outline of Philip’s glutes through his slacks, wondering for the first time if he was an ass man, and he ran his eyes over the menu and knew he couldn’t afford a thing on it. His mom had given him some spending money for the semester, but Julian was budgeted to within an inch of his life. He smiled coyly. “Could we, like, hit up a dive?”

  “Not impressed with this place?” Philip said.

  “Very. But now we’re testing your versatility. Take me to the diviest place you know in Cambridge. And if there’s a real chance I might get sick, there we’ll break bread.”

  “Hmm.” He tapped his fingertips together. “You want to get down with the people?”

  He looked Philip over. The gray-blue eyes and pale cheeks, flushed with champagne, his face as sweet as a kitten. “I am the people,” Julian replied. And prayed, totally agnostically, that he hadn’t fucked it up.

  * * *

  “I give you—Hong Kong Restaurant and Lounge!” Philip threw up his arms at the red Chinesey neon sign. It cast a pink glow on the street where Mass Ave. elbowed around the Yard.

  “A real dump,” Julian growled approvingly as they entered. “Be right back.”

  “I’ll grab a table,” Philip said. He parked himself on a vinyl banquette and ordered a drink. Julian was a talker. He got this look in his eye as he talked, like he could eat or destroy anything in his path, the kind of guy who might look up, mid–blow job, and start discoursing on systemic racism in the criminal justice system. This frightened Philip, and turned him on. His most revelatory sex to date happened last year, sneaking into an adult video store in Back Bay and buying a movie from the BelAmi rack. Back at his dorm he watched eggplant-size Czech cocks pounding mouths or baby-smooth assholes, an oddly wholesome version of the things he wanted to do. He was by himself then. Now he sat waiting for Julian in a faint mist of MSG—horny, tipsy, with a joint and a Trojan Magnum he yearned proudly to inaugurate. But at some point during drinks, he started to wonder what Julian wanted. And to ask himself if all the smack talk at the bank last summer, about sex—was it really about fear? Of this feeling, or whatever was happening tonight? And why couldn’t he ever keep things simple?

  The sight of two guys from his lacrosse team knocked Philip from his musings. He spotted them through the window as they were passing the restaurant, walking down Mass Ave., and he ducked under the table. He pretended to tie his shoe for an eternity, only rising when the waitress came with their drink. Cautiously Philip lifted his head and scanned the street, their dining area, and the next area over for anyone who might see him with his pretty new friend.

  “My goodness,” Julian said, approaching the table. “What is that?” He pointed at the coconut-shaped bowl with two extra-long straws.

  “The Scorpion Bowl, a toxic blend of liquor and juice. Was the bathroom vile enough?”

  Julian grinned. “I used to rate them when I was a kid and we’d go out to eat. A ten. Seven. Two. It was sort of my party trick. People started asking for it.”

  “What to do with that fact?” Philip laughed.

  Julian sipped from the bowl, grimaced, and gave Philip a childlike impatient look. “Tell me about you. I promise I won’t ask more questions.”

  “Questions are good,” Philip said. “I like questions. And listening.”

  “I’m good at that. You wouldn’t guess by tonight. So, you had a great summer working for your dad at Goldman?”

  “Great?” Philip considered. “I don’t know if I’d use that word.” They sipped. When Philip looked up Julian was watching him, but it didn’t feel bulldozing anymore. It was warm, inviting him somewhere solid. “I had a weird summer,” he said, and with gathering speed and sips, he unraveled the whole neurotic mess beneath the Rosenblum facade.

  He didn’t even like finance, he told Julian, and the summer was one more bad decision in a string of attempts to be like other people, going back to high school lacrosse, dating girls, the tap lessons he never asked for because it seemed gay. None of which was his parents’ fault, in a shocking Freudian twist, because despite their success they were both so disgustingly supportive of everything in his life. But what killed him, he explained with an emphatic suck, was the talking. Everything at home got analyzed. Eggs at breakfast, books on the nightstand, pre-analyzed, re-analyzed, until life was strangled and his sister—the righteous terror of Oberlin Hillel—fled to the Midwest, convinced her parents had ruined her life, and the lives of Mom’s clients, and the American economy by way of Dad’s insatiable greed. And Philip wished for once the four of them could just sit down to dinner and shut up and enjoy the food.

  “Have you tried bringing them here?” Julian asked as the waitress arrived with their order. He swirled an egg roll contemplatively in mustard. “But seriously, that sounds pretty crazy. Family can get you so angry. And it’s all you know. Till you talk to somebody else.”

  Philip took in this statement and thought the world of it. “Yes,” he said. From there Julian talked about his family. The mom who was nothing short of a hero—a tenured thorn in the side of the school, always pushing for more ESL classes, giving the principal friendly reminders about the law. A teacher you remembered. In passing he mentioned the dad he hadn’t seen in years, whom he couldn’t bring himself to hate because he felt nothing for him. They ordered another Scorpion Bowl. In a flash of awareness Philip knew he wasn’t stuck in his head, overthinking. He was living and being, a state he dreamed of but never talked to his mom about, for fear it would trigger blame and some door-slamming enactment. And it occurred to him, as Julian chatted away, that maybe this was a man who would let him coex
ist, be a safe home for him even if he was still figuring things out.

  “So,” Julian said out of nowhere, vacuuming up the remnants of the second bowl. “Like, what’s your greatest fear? If we’re being honest.”

  “Y2K.”

  Julian laughed. Then his brow furrowed. “Do you think, on New Year’s, something—”

  “Oh, pandemonium! I’ll be out of banks, into gold, and tucked in my bomb shelter.”

  “Is it getting shot in public?” Julian asked. “Like some Mafia hit? You’ve been looking around the restaurant every five minutes since we got here.”

  “N-no,” Philip stammered. He felt his face flush from the drinks, or the stab of Julian’s words, or his flat, deadly affect. “No, uh, greatest fear would probably be … I guess maybe never finding the thing I’m passionate about? Who I’m supposed to be.”

  The waitress brought the check. Philip grabbed it.

  “Hey,” Julian protested. “I can’t let you do that.”

  “Too slow. Fortune cookie?” He handed one to Julian and opened the other.

  “Throw it out. The fortune, don’t look at it.” Julian watched him. His eyes were uncertain, with longing or sudden disgust, Philip couldn’t tell. “Let’s write our own tonight,” Julian said. “If you could have anything you want, right now. First thought.”

  “I don’t know. For people to get along,” Philip said quietly. “It’s juvenile.”

  “No it’s not. I’m just skeptical…” Julian sighed. “Is it possible?”

  “How are we doing?”

  Julian smiled mysteriously.

  “And your fortune?” Philip asked. “Where are you headed, Man with the Plans?”

  “Maybe”—Julian fumbled with his napkin—“mine is not to have any. Past the next hour.”

  Outside the restaurant, the fresh air revived them and made their drunkenness plain.

  “It’s your lucky night,” Philip said. “I got Sour Diesel and a single in Kirkland with—”

  “I’m not going back to your dorm,” Julian blurted. “We’re not fucking.”

  “Oh. OK. I didn’t…”

  Julian stood in the neon glow of the sign and watched Philip, his eyes forlorn in his slender face. “I should go,” he said and turned away.

  “Sorry!” Philip cried out. “I didn’t mean to objectify you or—I was nervous in there, but if I can make it up to you with a nightcap or coffee—I’m not a jerk, I’m just…”

  Julian turned around. “What’s the most romantic spot in Cambridge?” He waited. “Can you take me there? Are you ready to be there with me, in full view of everyone?”

  “I…” Philip began, and froze.

  “Thanks,” Julian said. “For dinner and drinks. Nice meeting you, Philip Rosenblum.” Then the boy revolutionary trudged over the cobblestones, until his willowy frame slipped through the gates to the Yard, and he was gone.

  * * *

  Julian was feeling guilty, late the next night, as he packed up his books and plodded out of the library. For the first time since he got to school, he skipped his call with his mom that evening—shifted his routine an hour earlier, grabbed his dinner from the snack bar, and headed to the stacks. By six o’clock he was deep in Plato’s Republic, jotting notes in the margin and not thinking of a phone ringing in an empty dorm room. Or trying not to. He didn’t skip because of Philip or their date, or whatever failed hookup it turned out to be. It was bigger than that. His mom always asked what he’d been up to, and he didn’t like to leave stuff out. And he wasn’t sure how that would work. How there could be room for three of them—his mom and him and a boyfriend, not some boy he kissed in the war zone of high school but a real boyfriend. How she would feel or sound on the phone when he told her, or what she’d eat after they hung up. So he went to Widener and studied until the sky was dark and his brain was fried.

  “Julian?” He was halfway down the library steps when he heard his name. Philip leaped off a ledge by the entrance and hurried to him. “How are you?”

  “OK,” he replied. “Were you—”

  “No studying. No books.” He held up his empty hands. “Just waiting. Two hours, to be exact. Not to guilt trip! That came out wrong. I had to see you and—” Philip sighed. “Say I’m sorry. About last night. I’ve never done this. I do know the most romantic spot in Cambridge. The one I always imagined I’d … if you still want to go.”

  “Are you asking me out on a—”

  “Date? Yes, well, the continuation of a previously unspecified hangout that I screwed up.” Tremulously Philip offered his hand. With a shiver, Julian watched his own slide into it. Philip led them down Bow Street—their backs straight, heads forward, hands pressed together in an awkward grip—to a red house. They descended into a basement with checkerboard floors and pale yellow walls.

  “Café Pamplona,” he said, pulling out a chair for Julian. “Site of anguished journaling, full ashtrays, and romantic nightcaps.” He ordered cappuccinos. “So,” Philip began when the waiter left. “After we parted ways, I paced and thought and concluded that honesty is the only foundation for a—” He sighed. “I don’t do that. Get stoned.”

  “OK.”

  “Much. I’m not like a serious—I have a delivery service back home. But I didn’t want you to think I came to the meeting last night just to hook up. I heard these guys at lunch, talking about this thing they—”

  “Let’s Get Baked Tonight?” Julian said.

  “Oh. You heard about that too.”

  “I’m a good listener.” Julian flashed Philip an inscrutable look, to hide how much hinged on the next moment. And to buy a little time, assess how much of himself he could truly reveal before Philip would turn and run. “So you weren’t trying to hook up last night?”

  “No. Maybe?” Philip shrugged entreatingly. “If it happens, it happens?”

  “This is the most romantic spot in Cambridge. Has that ever happened to you?”

  “What? Like a one-and-done thing?”

  “Like sex with a guy,” Julian said.

  “Uhhh.” Their coffees arrived. “Not yet.” He looked up sheepishly. “Have you?”

  “Once. In high school.” Julian blew on his mug. “We did up to oral, but then…”

  “Then?”

  “He wanted to go further than I—It wasn’t assault. Guys can sexually assault other guys,” Julian announced imperiously. “He stopped, but. Then he got sodomized by a toilet plunger in gym class, and I never saw him again.”

  Philip smiled tensely at him and wrinkled his nose. “Wait. You’re serious?”

  Julian nodded. “The one openly gay guy at our school of four thousand. He had to be taught a lesson. No one got punished. The principal couldn’t figure out how a plunger got up him. His parents were Mormon, ashamed. He never came back to school.”

  “What was his name?” Philip asked.

  “Ben.” They sat together, in quiet. “It’s how I came out to my mom,” Julian resumed. “The day it happened. She was at school when the ambulance came. She couldn’t find me and went nuts. She figured out that Ben and I had been … She was amazing. Is. She’s trying to start a Gay-Straight Alliance at the high school this year.”

  “Fantastic.”

  “Yeah. After Ben, and—” Julian looked up with tears in his eyes.

  “It’s OK,” Philip said gently, handing him a napkin. “After Ben and?”

  “Matthew Shepard, last year. She had enough. She said, ‘Jules, I’m sorry you can’t live where you were born, but once you’re safe and far away, somebody has to protect the outsiders.’ I told her not to hold her breath. But she’s determined.” Pensively Julian stirred his cappuccino. “And you?” he asked. “Are you out to your family at least?”

  “No.” Philip ran his hands through his curls. “It’s not a secret. Not not in the realm of possibilities. They’ll be fine. My sister will finally have something controversial to love about me. But. Just imagining my mom talking about it? Asking questions? It f
eels like so little is mine. And it’s not about a relationship, or justifying who you are, but—I’ve never met a guy I’d want to take home. Make it real. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah.” Julian did know. And he wondered, with a pain in his chest, if Philip included tonight in that statement. Instantly he felt stupid, for building up drinks and Chinese and coffee with a closeted stranger into a future with what? A husband and kids, a white picket fence? But guys were getting married in Hawaii now, or they had been for a minute. And after the years of longing, wouldn’t Julian know the feeling when it came? Didn’t he deserve it? The arrival of the friend he always wanted as a boy, another boy he could hold close, to be big and small with, the superhero and sometimes the scared mortal too. Philip came back for him, didn’t he? “Yeah,” Julian said, “I know what you mean. How’d your parents meet?”

  “In undergrad, in the city. But their first official date wasn’t until they got here for grad school. Coffee in Harvard Square. My dad was at the B-school, and Mom was getting her PhD.”

  “How funny,” Julian said. “My parents too.”

  “Yeah?”

  “In college. They were both at UT, in Austin.”

  “Twenty-nine years together,” Philip said, shaking his head at the vast riddle of it. He shot Julian a look of alarm. “I didn’t mean to give the wrong impression about them, before.”

  “You didn’t.”

  Philip smiled ingenuously. “Did you ever think about our parents as kids? Or, like, someday we’ll be parents? And, no,” he said, catching himself, “I’m not stoned at the moment.”

  The check came. The café was closing. Julian took Philip’s hand as they climbed the steps. Their fingers laced together, the space between their words no longer filled with tension but a kind of peace. When they got to the Yard, Julian threw back his head and gazed at the sky full of stars, until Philip looked too.

  “Can you get on the roof of your dorm?” Julian asked.

  Philip’s face lit up. “Yeah.”

  “I’ll smoke your pot.” Julian’s eyes fell from the stars to his companion, searching his face urgently. “But we have to declare ourselves. Who we are and what we want. Come out or die trying. Every time the world says to us, That’s your defect, we say, No, that’s my strength. My X-ray goggles. And now I see.”