Men Who Love Men

by William J. Mann

  Jack is driving—fast—in his mother’s car. It’s a Chevy Nova. I’m sitting next to Jack in the front seat. He smells of boys perfume—stinking up the car, but I kind of like it.

  “We’re gonna get carded,” I tell Jack. “I just know it.”

  Jack wiggles his wrist at me. “Stop worrying. We’ll get in.”

  “But what if we get caught? What will my mother say?”

  I know what my mother will say. “A gay bar?? My underage son was found in a—gay bar????”

  The words carry a lot of weight. Jack’s been wanting to go to the bar for months, ever since he admitted to me that he was gay. I was too scared to admit to him that I was, too, so I compromised and said I was “curious.” It was a word used a lot in those days. Saying you were curious was better than admitting right out that you were gay, like Jack did. It also kept Jack from trying to have sex with me, the idea of which was both exhilarating and terrifying.

  I like Jack. I may even be a little bit in love with him. But it’s not so much him I’m in love with. It’s the idea of him. Did I know this then, at fifteen? Or is it knowledge that came later, and only because I am dreaming do I seem to know it as a boy? No matter. Looking over at Jack as he drives the car, I am besotted with the image of him, the scent of him. Jack is everything I want to be but am not. Confident. Cool. Clear in mind and heart. And so I dress like Jack (lots of chains and cutoff flannel and Doc Martens boots). I wear my hair like him (spiky and uneven). I talk like him (learning words like scumbag and bodacious.)

  But most importantly, I listen to the same music that Jack does, becoming fanatically converted to the belief that the only music worth listening to was coming out of Seattle. It’s a grittier, more American version of punk that Jack calls “grunge.” The pictures on the cassette covers of the various bands certainly seem grungy enough: guys with unshaven faces who look as if they haven’t bathed in days. Within no time I’ve bought up all the old albums of The Melvins and The Wipers that I can find, and I developed a dreamy crush on Mark Arm, lead singer of an obscure (to everyone else but Jack and me) band named Green River.

  Tonight, a Springfield bar known for its large gay clientele is showcasing a local band that Jack is certain to make it big. “They sound just like The Melvins,” he tells me.

  Of course, neither of us has ever been to a gay bar. So this is an opportunity we simply can’t miss.

  “Do you think I’ll meet anybody?” Jack asks.

  “If you do,” I tell him, “just don’t leave me alone.”

  “What are you so afraid about Henry?”

  I shoot him a look. “I mean it, Jack. Please don’t leave me alone!”

  I snap down the passenger-side visor and check for nose hairs.

  Jack is smirking. “What’re you gonna do when I move to New York?”

  “You’re not going to move to New York. Your father won’t let you.”

  “Yes, I am. Soon as I save up enough money. What—you think I want to work at Stop N Save all my life?”

  Ever since his mother died during our freshman year of high school, Jack has been possessed with this idea of going to New York and becoming an actor. He figures he can drop out of school and make his way in New York—but he’s still just a kid. I don’t know where he gets off having such big ideas.

  “My mother said I was better looking than any of the guys on her soap operas,” he tells me, for the three-hundredth time. “She said I could make it.” He looks over at me. “Springfield’s got nothing for me. I want to be an actor.”

  “I know you want to be an actor , Jack,” I tell him. “Just keep your eyes on the road.”

  He just snorts. I’m getting angry at a nose hair, trying to stuff it up my nostril with my pinky.

  “My brother knows a guy who works at a theater on a Broadway. He’s going to introduce me to him. He can help me get some parts.”

  “I don’t know why you want to move away,” I say. “Springfield’s not so bad.”

  “Are you kidding? Springfield sucks. I’m moving to New York.”

  “Why do you have to go to New York? There are theaters here. Besides, Springfield’s on the move. I read it in a magazine. The economy is good. Springfield’s going to become a Major City. Capital M. Capital C.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “I dunno,” I tell him. “Somewhere.”

  I squint at the city’s skyline, glowing green against the purple sky as we approach. Even at night, one could make out the noble necks of the cranes, like sleeping giraffes. “They’re building a lot of new skyscrapers, you know.”

  Jack snorts again.

  We don’t say much else until we arrive. The Gay Bar is a lonely block of concrete tucked between two giant warehouses. Cars are parked all the way up and down the street. There’s a beat in the air: almost undetectable at first, no music, just a steady pounding, a bass vibration coming from inside the club.

  “I hope I don’t hate this place,” I say, as we get out of the car and head toward the door. Jack isn’t listening.

  We pay our covers. By the grace of God, the doorman doesn’t ask to see our IDs. Inside, strobe lights flash across the empty stage. Jack doesn’t like it. Grunge is supposed to be straightforward. No laser shows, no frills. “You can tell this place is usually a disco,” he gripes.

  We hate disco. We hate glam rock. We might only be in high school, but we know what’s cool. We know the future.

  “Don’t leave me alone,” I tell Jack again, never far from his shoulder as we move through the crowd.

  The lights on the dance floor pulse on and off, with moments of total darkness alternating between red, gold, and green light. Each time a new color flashes on, Jack’s face looks different. We find a place close to the stage and position ourselves there. We don’t even try to order a drink. No use pushing our luck.

  I look around at the people in the bar. Mostly older men, but a few younger guys are starting to arrive now, drawn certainly by the band. A boy who can’t be too much older than us stands a few feet away, his eyes flickering now and then our way as he checks us out. Thin and blond, he’s dressed like us, in a flannel sleeveless shirt and torn jeans, a wallet chain looped low along his hip.

  “He’s sexy,” Jack whispers to me.

  “Not really,” I say. I’m not sure why I’m denying the obvious. The guy is a bit wispy, but nonetheless very cute. Maybe I don’t like admitting that he’s cute because I think he’s looking more at Jack than he is at me.

  Then the band comes on. They hardly meet Jack’s description of sounding like The Melvins. In fact, they suck—a bunch of pretentious local wannabe grunge artists trying too hard. And when you try too hard in grunge, you’ve automatically lost.

  But Jack seems not to notice, or to care. He’s hopping and jumping and shaking his head. When the lead singer attempts to stage dive into what passes for—in Springfield—as a mosh pit, he pretty much just lands on his knees on the filthy floor. Still, Jack is pogoing away, and before long the wispy boy next to us has eased his way closer. I watch as the two of them start banging heads, pretending they’re in Seattle listening to Green River instead of in Springfield listening to a bunch of guys who probably work at Burger King during the day. Jack actually looks orgasmic—or in the throes of agony.

  I don’t even try to keep up. I slip away to the men’s room, where some old guy with a big walrus moustache seems way too interested in how I’m peeing into the urinal. I quickly zip up and leave.

  I don’t belong here. My first time in a gay bar—and all I’d really rather be doing is sitting in my room with Jack, shoulder to shoulder, our headphones clamped over our ears, listening to our music. That’s all I need. I don’t need to have sex with Jack—or with any other guy for that matter. Just shoulder to shoulder is enough for me.

  I realize that I’m alone. I try to spot Jack in the crowd but he seems to have vanished. So has the wispy little boy.

  “Hey,” a voice says behind me.


  I turn. It’s the older guy from the bathroom.

  “Hey,” I say, not wanting to look at him.

  “You doing okay?”

  I shrug. “Just looking for my friend.”

  “He take off and leave you?”

  “No, I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.”

  “If you can’t find him,” Walrus Moustache says, “I’ll be happy to give you a ride home.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m not trying to be a dirty old man,” the guy says. But that’s exactly what he is to my mind. He must be at least thirty years old.

  I move off, scanning the crowd for Jack. Then I spot him, kissing the wispy boy in the corner. I watch them for a while, growing both aroused and uneasy. Jack doesn’t even seem concerned about where I am. Finally they move off, through the crowd, toward the front door. I follow.

  “Jack!”

  He turns to face me. “I’ll be back inside later,” he says, his arm draped around the other guy’s shoulders. “We’re just going to the car.”

  “You’re not going to leave without me?” I shout.

  He doesn’t answer. Under the harsh glow of the streetlight, the other guy no longer looks quite our age. He’s got to be at least in college. He might be as old as twenty-five. I wonder if he knows Jack is only sixteen.

  I head back into the bar. Walrus Moustache is waiting for me.

  “Your friend making out in the car?” he asks.

  I shrug. “I don’t know what they’re doing out there.”

  The guy smiles. “You feeling lonesome?”

  He’s creeping me out. I just fold my arms across my chest.

  He leans in closer. “You’re not having fun, are you?”

  “No,” I whisper.

  “I meant it,” he says. “I’ll give you a ride home if you want.”

  I look over into his eyes. His breath smells like beer. There’s foam on his moustache.

  And I start to cry.

  Did it really happen? Did I really cry that night in the bar all those years ago?

  I’m certainly crying in my sleep as I wake myself up from the dream.

  How many years has it been since I thought of that night?

  Jack was my first crush, though I can’t say it was ever really sexual. I didn’t want Jack; at least not Jack the boy who drove his mother’s car and talked about running away to New York. I wanted my own version of Jack—a Jack who didn’t want to leave, who wanted to stay with me, who would never have left me alone in a bar while he made out with some guy in a car.

  Jack and I never did have sex. By the time I’d gotten over myself and jettisoned the “curious” label, embracing instead an unequivocal identity of “gay,” Jack was long gone from my life. He’d done exactly what he said he’d do. He dropped out of school, quit the Stop N Save, hightailed it out of Springfield and moved to New York. Whether he became an actor, I don’t know. We didn’t keep in touch. Jack disappeared from my life, if not my dreams.

  At night, in my bed at my parents’ house, I would try to imagine a future for myself, the kind that Jack had found so easy to visualize for himself. It wasn’t New York that I dreamed about. It wasn’t fame and glamour and success. I’d lie there in my bed, imagining myself sleeping beside a man who I loved and who loved me back. My fantasies—which sometimes postponed sleep for several hours—were rarely sexual. Instead, they consisted of simple things—cooking together or watching TV or listening to music. And in these fantasies, the man of my dreams was always named Jack.

  He didn’t have Jack’s face, or his voice, or any of his history—but still my imaginary lover bore the name of my friend who had vanished from my life not long after that night at the bar. That night, my friend Jack had found himself, come to some core truth about who he was in the backseat of his mother’s Chevy Nova. Was it that experience that gave him the strength to do what he did—to get out of town and follow his dream?

  There was nothing for me to do but watch from a distance. Furious with Jack, I finally accepted Walrus Moustache’s offer of a ride home. I remember opening the door of his electric-blue Trans Am, crinkling up my nose at the smell of cigarettes. Looking back, I think I was both fearing and hoping for the same thing that Jack had found—that the guy would suggest we make out in the backseat. I understood then that that was what Jack had come to the bar for—not for the music. I wanted the same reward, even if it had to come from a man as old as this one was.

  Lying here now in my bed, the leftover tears of my dream still rolling down my cheeks, I try to picture the man’s face. Surely I’m older now than he was then. It’s the moustache that stands out most clearly in my mind. I remember little else about him other than his car—and, of course, his words. Words that have often come back to me as the years went on.

  “Where do you live?” he asks, starting the ignition, and I’m back in my dream.

  “West Springfield,” I tell him.

  He nods, and we drive in silence. He makes no move. He’s no gay basher, no dirty old man. He’s giving me a ride home, just as he’d promised.

  When we get to my street, I ask him to let me off a few houses down from my own. My mother would certainly question why I was coming home in a strange car. The guy nods. He understands.

  “That was your first time in a gay bar, wasn’t it?” he asks, turning to look at me.

  I nod.

  He smiles under that heavy moustache. “It’s going to get better,” he tells me. “You’ll have nights much better than this one.”

  “Thanks,” I say to him.

  “Thanks,” I whisper again in the dark, half asleep and half awake.

  I scrunch up my pillows the way I used to do as a boy. In my arms they come alive—the body of the man I love. It’s been a long time since I’ve thought of that man as “Jack.” More recently he’s been Joey, or Daniel, or Lloyd. But tonight the invisible man beside me is once again Jack, the childhood hero of my fantasies, the one, true lover I must never stop believing is out there for me, who will someday take me in his arms and tell me that he loves me—on a night much better than this one.

  COMMERCIAL STREET

  I take one last surreptitious look at my reflection in the café’s window before I head inside.

  I look okay. The evening, thankfully, has turned out to be a little breezy, so I was able to wear an unbuttoned short-sleeve collar shirt over my tee. It hides the love handles. I’ve spiked my hair a little bit with gel, and the tan I got at the beach this afternoon is working. At least I hope it’s working. It’s hard to be sure about anything anymore. Every year it gets harder to keep up. Damn, I hate getting older.

  I take a deep breath and enter.

  Gale isn’t here yet. I hold up two fingers to the waiter and he gestures toward the table by the window. I sit, staring back out onto Commercial Street, watching the street theater.

  It’s the colorful parade of characters up and down this narrow street along the harbor that makes Provincetown so popular as a resort town. Across the way some woman in a long diaphanous dress is playing a giant harp. From my left a tall man in leather chaps comes striding into view, flabby hairy butt hanging out for all to see. A girl walking with her boyfriend hurries behind him to snap a picture. Suddenly from the right comes Varla Jean Merman, riding by on her bike, a big, long-legged, redheaded drag queen in a blue polka-dotted dress, waving and honking her horn as she zooms off stage left. Then a shirtless, tattooed man with a live boa constrictor wrapped around his shoulders appears, sauntering over to the café window to study the menu posted outside. Instinctively I shrink back a little in my seat.

  That’s when I see him. Gale is heading down the street, in a green A & F tank and faded jeans that reveal an impressive bulge. God, he’s sexy. I take a sip of water and notice my hand is shaking.

  “Hey,” Gale says, coming inside and spotting me.

  “Hey,” I say, and he kisses me, quick, on the lips. I’m surprised by it. But also
pleased.

  Gale sits down at the table. “Waiting long?”

  “Just a few minutes. Watching the world go by.”

  “It’s an amazing street,” he says. “When I first visited here two years ago, I thought I was on another planet.”

  “Where are you from?” I ask.

  “Michigan. A small town in the middle of the state.” He raises his left hand to me and points with his right to the middle of his palm. “Right here.”

  I don’t get the gesture at first, then it hits me. “Ah,” I say. “Michigan is shaped like a hand.”

  “Well, like a mitten actually, with a separate thumb.” He’s looking at the menu. “What are you going to have?”