Men Who Love Men

by William J. Mann

  I felt the blood quicken in my veins. “Yes,” I said, hoping.

  I cleaned my apartment, just in case. I told myself it was entirely possible that Joey might want to come back here. Maybe for one last quickie. Maybe after we fell into each other’s arms over coffee and decided how foolish we’d been to ever break up.

  We met at a coffee joint in the West End. Joey was wearing clothes I didn’t remember. A yellow polo shirt, a pair of khakis I’d never seen, and red tennis shoes that clashed with his shirt. In two months, I wondered, had he bought a whole new wardrobe? Had he discarded everything that I had known, chucked every last bit of our life together?

  We ordered our coffees. Standing at the counter, we made small talk. “How’s the guesthouse?” he asked. I told him fine. I asked about his mother. “She’s fine,” he told me. “How are Jeff and Lloyd?” They were fine, too, I told him.

  I wanted to scream. For God’s sake, Joey, how can we be standing here talking like mere acquaintances on the street when I’ve licked lint out of your navel?

  But we kept our faces composed and our voices level. I asked him why he decided on New York.

  “I’m seeing someone there,” he told me.

  It was then that our coffees arrived. The girl behind the counter attempted to fit a lid onto mine, but as she did so, she spilled a little, burning her hand. She put it quickly to her mouth, and Joey asked her if she was all right. “I’ll live,” she said.

  That’s when it hit me. I’m seeing someone.

  “I didn’t know,” I told him as we walked out to the benches, my legs threatening to turn to jelly. “Did you meet him here?”

  “Yes,” Joey said, “at Tea Dance.”

  Where we had met, too. Where most boyfriends are met in Provincetown. I searched Joey’s eyes for something, for anything. Had he forgotten?

  What is the process in which emotions become memories? At what point does the feeling recede, the passion dissolve, and the details become merely data stored by the brain? For me, it has yet to occur, but Joey seemed to be moving along just fine.

  Still, unlike the night we broke up, I remained composed. “I wish you all the luck,” I told him. “What I want is for you to be happy.”

  “Thank you, Henry.”

  I felt absurd for having taken so long fixing my hair before I came over here. I was an idiot for trying on four shirts before deciding on the one I was wearing. Suddenly I wished I hadn’t shaved, and that the apartment I was planning to return to wasn’t quite so spic and span.

  “I didn’t go looking for a new relationship,” Joey said suddenly, defending himself even without any accusation from me. “It just happened. And it feels right.”

  I smiled at him, sipping my coffee, burning my tongue. I don’t remember what else we said. Nonsense stuff, really. About the real-estate market, about mutual funds and mutual friends. When we’d run out of even those topics, Joey stood, extending his hand and saying good-bye. But I wasn’t quite ready to separate from him forever. I stood as well, and told him I was going his way, so we might as well walk together. His presence was comforting to me after so long apart, if slightly unreal—and unsettling, too, because Joey was different, with his new clothes and his new lover. But it was preferable to being apart from him, for this time I sensed it would be forever. We walked a few blocks, and again Joey put out his hand to me to say good-bye. “I’ll walk a little further,” I said. So we walked on in silence, the only sound the squeak of his new sneakers. Still, it was something.

  “Why don’t we part here?” Joey said finally, firmly, as we approached the center of town. I knew I could go no further with him, so I nodded. We hugged, at his initiation. No last cry of yearning bubbled up to escape from my lips, just a simple, “Thanks.” I felt, fleetingly, the warmth of his body once again, a body I knew every inch of, even parts Joey himself had never seen.

  He continued down Commercial Street, while I hurried up to Bradford so I could peer down from the next block and catch a glimpse of him crossing the street, a flash of yellow and red in a crowd of people. That’s the last time I saw him. For all our time together, that’s the image that stays in my mind.

  I didn’t go looking for a new relationship. It just happened. And it feels right.

  So why hasn’t it just happened for me? I have been looking. Over and over again. Lloyd thinks that’s why I haven’t found a lover since Joey. I’ve been looking too hard. It’s when you’re not looking, he says, that you find it.

  And I wasn’t looking when I met Gale. He approached me.

  Maybe this is it. Finally.

  But so had Luke approached me, and I hadn’t been looking then, either. And look how that turned out.

  I try not to project anything about Gale. I try to beat back the urge to fantasize, to hope. That’s what always does me in. I start hoping, wishing, praying—and then it falls apart.

  I wonder, for just the briefest of moments, what happened between Jeff and Luke. I skipped the dinner with Eliot and Oscar, even though they’re friends from way back and I haven’t seen them in a year. I just wasn’t in the mood to be chatty tonight—or to see Jeff’s rosy post-coitus glow. Instead, I slipped into my apartment and kept the lights turned off so no one could see that I was home. With the blinds closed I watched All in the Family, the episode where Archie gets locked in the basement. Buoyed by my meeting with Gale, I was able to laugh—and my laughter almost allowed me to resist the urge for a dish of ice cream. Resistance, of course, proved futile, so while the end credits ran, I snuck downstairs to the guesthouse kitchen and absconded with an unopened pint of Cherry Garcia. I ate two thirds of it straight from the carton watching reruns of The Match Game. Gotta love that Charles Nelson Reilly.

  So I remain in the dark about what actually transpired between Jeff and Luke. But I can surmise this much: Jeff’s not the sort to let tricks hang around too long after sex, so I imagine the kid was sent on his way about thirty minutes after both had shot their loads, with maybe a couple of movie posters rolled up in his backpack as consolation prizes. If Luke had been hoping to weasel his way into Jeff’s life in order to jumpstart his own writing career, no doubt he was keenly disappointed. I know Jeff all too well.

  Jeff. Jeffrey Michael O’Brien. I lie here wide awake shaking my head as I think about him. Even as he plans his goddamn wedding, he’s rolling around in bed with boys he picks up off the street.

  Well, at least I had Luke first.

  “Damn,” I say, sitting up in bed.

  I can’t sleep. I punch my pillow, resettle myself on my side. But the silence of the room overwhelms me. The rain has stopped. Gone is the steady, reassuring beat against the glass of the skylights. I find myself thinking, as I do quite often lately when I can’t fall asleep, about Joey’s new boyfriend. Except that he’s not so new, at least not anymore. Surely by now they’ve settled into a routine, with their own set of little code words and habits, like Joey and I used to have. Does Joey still call hair in the shower drain “goopers”? And has the boyfriend figured out the best way to make sure Joey starts his day in a good mood is to get up before him and make sure there are no goopers in the drain?

  The new boyfriend is blond. And a goy. I know, because Jeff saw the two of them in New York at Gay Pride. Until then, I’d been insistent that I didn’t want to know what the boyfriend looked like. But of course, on another level, I was desperate to know. So after feigning disinterest for about a minute and a half, I begged Jeff to tell me.

  “Tall, blond, pretty hunky,” he reported.

  “God damn it,” I muttered.

  “Body’s definitely better than the face,” Jeff assessed. “Kind of a heavy brow, a little Herman Munsterish.”

  “Oh, that’s much better.”

  “But awesome pecs and bis though.”

  I was no longer listening. All that mattered was that Joey’s new boyfriend had a monster face. I now refer to him as Herman. I have no idea what his real name is, and I don’t care to know.
Herman suits him just fine.

  My arm is going stiff lying on my side.

  “Fuck.”

  I sit up again, letting out a long sigh. I know now it’s impossible to fall asleep without chemical assistance. I throw off the sheet and place my feet against the hardwood floor. Even before I make it to the bathroom I remember that I’ve used up all my sleeping pills. Insomnia has been a rather frequent visitor to my room these past several months.

  “Damn,” I say, flicking on the light and looking at myself in the mirror.

  What I notice first are the bags around my eyes. When did they become so prominent? When did I start looking so old? Then my gaze drops down to the tiretube of flesh jiggling above the waistband of my Calvin Klein boxer briefs. What the hell was Gale thinking when he asked me out? If he’d seen me like this—the real me—he’d never have gotten such an absurd idea. Like I’m going to want to take my shirt off in front of Mr. Four-Percent-Body-Fat!

  I decide to try some of that Sleepytime tea Lloyd keeps downstairs for guests. No caffeine but plenty of chamomile. It’s not Ambien, but it’s something.

  I creak open the door and start down the stairs to Nirvana’s common room. I don’t want to wake any guests; the last thing I want right now is to make small talk with a couple of horny middle-aged guys from Pittsburgh or a large baby dyke from Ottawa. We’ve got a full house tonight, and each and every one of them was wide eyed and eager to start exploring Provincetown when I checked them in this afternoon. They all got my very best Chamber-of-Commerce spiel, recommending restaurants and explaining shuttle schedules. But now, at half past twelve in the morning, I’m not in the mood to play tour guide.

  I’m in luck. The common room is empty. I hurry over to the bar, where in just six hours I’ll be putting out blueberry muffins and croissants (reheated from yesterday’s batch, no way I’m getting up an hour early now to whip up some new ones). I fumble around in the darkness, not wanting to switch on a light, searching for the little baskets where we keep tea bags and sugar packets.

  “And what are you lurking about for at this time of night, Mr. Weiner?”

  I jump, even though I know the voice.

  “Lloyd,” I say, not bothering to look up. “I can’t sleep. I need some of that tea. Or better yet, if you have some Ambien lying around…”

  “No need for all those toxic chemicals,” Lloyd tells me. He easily finds the basket with the tea and motions me to follow him into the small kitchen area. It’s thankfully separated off from the common room by a solid oak door. Once inside, Lloyd flicks on the overhead light. I blink, my eyes adjusting, while he drops a tea bag into a mug filled with water and pops it into the microwave. “So, tell me, Henry,” Lloyd says, while the tea spins slowly inside, brewing, “what’s keeping you awake and prowling the halls?”

  “Oh, nothing much,” I say. “Except my entire life.”

  Lloyd smiles. The microwave beeps. He carefully removes the mug of tea and sets it down in front of me. “Honey?” he asks. I shake my head no—too many calories. He tells me to wait a couple of minutes before drinking. “It’s hot.”

  I look over at him. Nothing in the world feels better than being taken care of by Lloyd Griffith. He always knows just what to say, what to offer, how to be. Once, I really believed we were right for each other. Maybe I still believe that. Jeff doesn’t appreciate Lloyd the way I do. Jeff’s always too busy, always rushing off somewhere, to just sit and be, the way Lloyd prefers. Jeff never pauses long enough to listen to Lloyd’s soothing, wise words and truly take them in. He’s never admitted as much, but I think Lloyd agrees with me about the whole monogamy thing—that if Jeff didn’t insist on remaining a tramp, he’d reel him in, and they’d have a lovely, one-on-one, monogamous relationship.

  He could have had it with me—but the one blind spot in Lloyd’s wisdom is his love for Jeff. What he puts up with from that man! Today, while Lloyd was probably here at the guesthouse, Jeff was back in their bed fucking Luke’s hot little butt. As much as Jeff is my friend, I really don’t see what keeps Lloyd so attached to him. They’re day and night, black and white. And now they’re getting married.

  “Your entire life,” Lloyd says, sitting down at the table opposite me. “That’s a lot of territory.”

  “Not really,” I tell him, holding my hands against the sides of the hot cup. “My life is pretty small, in fact. There’s the guesthouse, you, Jeff, Ann Marie, J. R., visits to my parents a few times a year…that about sums up my life.”

  “Oh, we’re reducing Henry Weiner to exteriors again, are we?”

  I manage a small smile. “I just mean…”

  “You mean, you’re lonely.”

  How is it that Lloyd knows so much? How is it that in just one phrase he can sum it all up for me? Yes, I’m lonely. And I’m tired of it. Way past tired of it.

  “I got asked out today,” I tell him. “And I just started thinking about things.”

  “About Joey.”

  I smile, more easily this time. “Yeah, he was one of those things.”

  “Who asked you out?”

  “This guy I’ve seen at the gym. Do you know him? A real cute, humpy little guy named Gale?”

  “Oh, yes,” Lloyd says, nodding. “Very cute. I’ve met him, but don’t really know him.”

  “Well, anyway, I saw him at Mojo’s and—” I decide against telling him the exact situation that prompted our meeting. I’m not sure if Lloyd knows that Jeff tricked with Luke. “And he asked me out to dinner tomorrow night.” I make a face and finally take a sip of my tea. “Actually, tonight.”

  “Good for you,” Lloyd says.

  I find his soft green eyes. Is there any jealousy there? Any hint of a pang? Any suggestion that somewhere, deep down, Lloyd might wish things had turned out differently, that he was marrying me instead of Jeff?

  No. I see nothing there. I can’t even pretend I do.

  “Henry,” Lloyd says, “I’ve said it before and it bears saying again. The universe has a plan for you. You’ve just got to trust.”

  “Oh, I trust the universe just fine,” I tell him. “I just happen to think its plan for me is to be alone, and I think it sucks.”

  Lloyd laughs. “I don’t think that’s the plan for you.”

  “How do you know? Come on, Lloyd. I’m thirty-fucking-three.”

  “Good God,” he says. “Decrepit.”

  “And I’ve never had a boyfriend last past the one-year mark. Meanwhile, I’ve been hung up on Joey for longer than we were even together!”

  “That’s because your ego was wounded, Henry. He left you. It fits into your core belief that you aren’t worthy of being loved.”

  It’s Lloyd’s psychology background coming out. There’s truth to his analysis, I’m sure, but it still sucks. It’s not like I can rationalize my way out of feeling bad about being dumped.

  “If you truly believe you aren’t good enough to be loved,” Lloyd’s telling me, “then you’ll always fail at relationships. If you can change that deeply held belief—”

  “I know, I know. I should get back into therapy.”

  Lloyd shrugs. “Couldn’t hurt.”

  “Or maybe I should just drive out to West Springfield next weekend and tell Mom and Dad ‘fuck you’ for screwing up my sense of self-worth.”

  “I’d try therapy first,” Lloyd says, smirking.

  “Do you know my parents were married at twenty? Both of them the same age. I can’t say it’s been a happy marriage, but it’s lasted. Forty-one years, in fact.” I take another sip of tea. If this stuff is supposed to be making me sleepy, it’s doing a very poor job of it. “But it’s easier for straight people. You get married, you have kids, you accept what comes. Gay people are always on the lookout for the next best thing.”

  “That won’t be so easy to do now that we can get married, too,” Lloyd reminds me.

  I scoff. “What would it matter to you guys? You’re nonmonogamous. You can have your wedding cake and still eat all
the boys you want to.”

  Lloyd says nothing, just drops his eyes to the table. He begins fidgeting with the tea bags in the basket. “The point is, Henry,” he says, not looking up at me, “you need to get over your victim energy. Joey didn’t dump you. Neither did Daniel or Shane.” He moves his eyes back up to meet mine. “And neither did I reject you. What we all did was simply get out of your way so you could live the life you were supposed to.”

  I sigh. “So I could meet Gale, maybe.”

  Lloyd nods. “Maybe. Or someone else.”

  “I’m just so tired of waiting.”

  He reaches over and places his hand on top of mine. “I know.”

  We sit in silence a couple of moments.

  “That tea working?” Lloyd asks.