Saints+Sinners

by Saints

  “Gavin! What have you done?” he said.

  A tall and narrow bookshelf, festooned with artefacts of their youth, stood like a monolith in the middle of the wall. Hung to one side were thirteen pictures. On the other side, three. The living and the dead, separated by a tower of protest buttons, butt plugs, and glitter-strewn drag gear. A vertical river Styx, rising to silence any question of who was cold and gone, and who still warm.

  Now it was Leo’s turn to wrap his grief in anger: “Gavin, you asshole, you…you’ve atomized us! Where are all the group pictures? The picnics on Hanlons? Where’s the one where we’re marching up Yonge Street together singing ‘Power to the People’? That’s who we were!”

  “We were individuals too,” Gavin protested. “I’m honouring each and every—”

  Leo shouted over him. “It’s a goddamn score board! The ones on that side lost, right? And we’re the winners. Why? Because we’re still alive?”

  “Yes!” Gavin shot back. “The three of us are still here and I feel good about that! I’m sick of fucking survivor guilt, okay? We cared for them, we watched them rot before our eyes. We fucking buried them when their families wouldn’t. Well, I’m still alive! I’m successful and I have a fucking house overlooking the ravine!”

  Leo could see tears in Gavin’s eyes. He didn’t care. Stefan was still in front of the yachting cap, his long fingers touching it with a tender reverence.

  “You broke up with Marco when he got sick, Gavin,” he said, his voice rising. “You couldn’t handle it. Remember? That was six months before he died! You have no right to this hat!” Leo almost screamed as his usually serene friend ripped the relic right off the wall, tearing the hook and a piece of drywall out in the process, and ran away down the hall. Leo took a quick look into Gavin’s wounded, unbelieving eyes and ran after Stefan, the two friends flying down the grand staircase together like fugitives.

  * * *

  The forest had ceased to make sense to Sid. He stumbled along the paths, taking gulps from his second glass of wine and running into the same ancient tree over and over. With its wide, welcoming boughs, it was like a parent who always pulled him back into its embrace, simultaneously comforting and stifling. Then Sid was out on the lawn, waving back at the men hooting and beckoning from the gardens above. But the spotlights in his eyes were too bright, so he hurried back to the dark embrace of the forest. There was fog at the edge of his vision, and a creeping sense of being watched by forces older than he could imagine.

  He’d misplaced his wine somewhere, but the forest in its beneficence brought him back to one of the bar stations. He stuffed a handful of chips into his mouth, their salty perfection another gift of the night, and partook of more wine.

  Sid was ready to go deeper, indeed had no choice. In the arched boughs of a tree, he found a suit jacket hanging from a branch. He passed through the arch into a grove where a fat older guy, pants at his ankles, was fucking one of the nymphs—the one who had worn the Nicki Minaj tee in an earlier incarnation. The man’s sweating face was lit by the pale glow of his phone as he filmed the penetration in close up.

  “Sorry,” Sid murmured and fled.

  He ran on and was relieved to find his friends, the bee with the nose stud and the crop top boy, who might have been a squirrel. They were kissing languidly, dicks out of their briefs, jerking each other off. Sid’s cock swelled in sympathy, and his mouth grew dry. He swallowed the rest of his wine and moved to join them, groping himself.

  But when he was close enough to smell their sweat and body spray, the bee turned to him with a wince.

  “Yeah, sorry, it’s not you, but I’m not into brown guys. Just a preference, okay?”

  Something was happening to the world; its edges were getting smaller and smaller. Sid’s body was suddenly in revolt.

  “But I’m a good person,” he told the bee. “I’m…beautiful.”

  Then he was crashing through the trees, trying to coordinate the movements of a body that no longer seemed his own. Running and running, changing from boy to prince to princess to satyr, he heard the sound of water ahead and steered toward it. He wanted to wash himself clean, drink deep, dissolve.

  * * *

  Leo and Stefan stood in the foyer, not sure what to do next.

  Leo, more out of breath than his fit friend, moaned, “Ow, I buggered my knee.”

  “What did I just do?” Stefan said, clutching the hat to his chest.

  Leo looked around nervously. “We better get out of here before security drags us into a back room and…does things to us.”

  Stefan laughed. “This isn’t a Tom of Finland cartoon, you idiot.” He pulled out his handkerchief and mopped Leo’s sweaty brow.

  Leo began to giggle and soon the two of them had fallen into each other’s arms, howling with laughter. Leo took the hat from Stefan, and a tenderness twisted his heart.

  “Look at the charms Marco hung off the band. Stars and moons and mermaids, like an 11-year-old girl.”

  Stefan touched the peak. “And sweat stains, three decades old.”

  “I’m shocked Gavin didn’t have it dry-cleaned.” The familiar ache squeezed at his heart. “That room, Steffer…God, I remember them all like it was yesterday.”

  “I know. And you slept with most of them.”

  “Ha. Half the time, I just lay there while they cried into my chest hair.”

  “Everybody’s teddy bear.”

  “When I really wanted to be their hungry butt boy.” They laughed again, and Stefan put an arm across Leo’s shoulders and kissed his cheek.

  “Danny and I will have you over for dinner next week,” he said.

  “Okay. I’ll bring wine. But text me a suggestion; I don’t want Danny to think I’m clueless about the finer things.”

  Stefan withdrew his arm and gave Leo a sharp look. “Everything you say is self-criticism. It drives me crazy. Even when you’re calling Gavin names, you think he’s better than you.”

  “Shall we compare my shit stain of an apartment to…this?”

  “Leo, I’m going home. If you’re not having fun, you should too.”

  “And give Gavin the victory? No way, I’m here to enjoy myself!” He plunked Marco’s hat on his head, pecked Stefan on the lips and strode out into the backyard.

  He circled the patio, sampling everything on the buffet tables. He smiled and waved at half-familiar faces, but the music was too loud for him to make out what they were saying. He pirouetted once for someone who pointed admiringly at the stained yachting cap. Grabbing a dewy bottle of Czech beer from an ice bucket on the bar, he wandered down the stone steps into the garden.

  The music was vaguely familiar. Rihanna or something. Did Gavin really keep up with the charts, or was everything here—from the food to the music to the house itself—a trendy decision he paid someone else to make?

  He crossed the lowest lawn and stepped into the forest. The dark unknown of the woods at night had always thrilled him. Camping as a kid, he would give himself delicious frights imagining monsters hanging above him in the trees. You’d only survive the walk to the bathroom by feigning bravery, maybe whistling.

  But the only strange creature the forest produced that night was some bourgeois fool, tucking his sweaty shirt into his pants and zipping up his fly as he breezed past Leo, barking into his phone, “Tell him if he can’t match that price, we’ll find another supplier!” Leo stuck his head under the arching branches and found one of Gavin’s hired nymphs, looking very fucked and counting a stack of bills.

  “Hope you’re on PrEP,” Leo told the kid, who scowled back.

  “Mind your business, old man.”

  “All praise to Bacchus,” Leo responded, saluting the kid with his beer before pushing deeper into the forest. The music was muffled now, and he could hear the splash and trickle of water to his left. Changing course, he saw eyes among the trees. More nymphs? Maybe real ones this time, true spirits of the forest from a time before the Europeans.

  The
ground grew slippery, and Leo almost fell down the steep slope. He had found the creek. Winding through a clearing, a thousand reflections of the moon glittered on its tiny swells. And by the bank lay a satyr, one foot in the water, groaning, a hand grasping at the air.

  “Hey, you okay, guy?” Leo asked, putting down his beer and kneeling beside the young man.

  “I don’t know…everything’s turning. I can hear my blood rushing in my ears.”

  “That’s just the creek. Here, sit up.” He looked the boy over. “You on something?”

  He grabbed Leo by the shoulder and looked deep into his eyes. “I ate a bear.”

  “What? Oh, you mean gummy bear? Okay, probably just THC. Might have been strong, and if you’re not used to it…Did you drink too?”

  “Wine,” the boy said with a sad nod. “Am I going to die? They can’t see me like this.”

  “Who?”

  “The police. My parents.” Lit by the moonlight, his dark eyes filled with tears.

  Leo pulled the boy’s head against him and cradled it. “You’re not going to die. You’re just greening out. Breathe deep and relax. I’ve got you.”

  Sid felt his fear slowly melt away as the older man held him. He was handsome, with a big kind face and warm green eyes. Not too old to be attractive. The top buttons of the man’s shirt were open, and Sid could feel coarse curls of chest hair against his cheek.

  “I’m Leo,” he said. “What’s your name, Mr. Satyr?”

  “Siddharth.”

  “I like your costume, Siddharth. Most of those boys look ridiculous, but you have enough mythic heft to pull it off.”

  “The makeup guy, he thought I looked like a girl.” Sid imitated the high voice. “‘I’m pretty, mama. I’m a pretty girl!’ Why did he say that?”

  Leo laughed. “It’s from ‘Gypsy.’ He’s just an old musicals queen. You don’t look a girl. I mean…you look…you look like this forest. Masculine like the trees, feminine like the stream. Are you from a Hindu family, Siddharth?”

  “My parents. My mom mostly.”

  “Because gender is pretty fluid in Hindu myths. The Ardhanarishvara was a manifestation made of Shiva and Parvati together. And then there was Mohini, who was a female form that Vishnu once took. His girlfriend figured out who he really was by jerking him off.”

  Sid liked Leo’s voice, liked the way it rumbled through his chest. “So, I can be a mostly boy but a bit girl? That would be okay?”

  “It’s 2019, kid. Gender is what you make it.” Leo stroked the boy’s head, dislodging a costume horn that had already lost its twin. Siddharth’s makeup was streaky now, but his eyes were breathtaking.

  “Let’s get you out of here” Leo said and helped him to his feet, watching the beautiful body unfold until he stood several inches taller than Leo.

  Back up on the lawn, nymphs were dancing to the thumping music. Three or four of the guests had stripped naked and were running around the lawn howling, object lessons in the benefits of well-tailored clothing.

  The stage manager was sitting on a lawn chair, drinking a beer and shaking her head at the spectacle.

  “Rough night?” Leo asked as she took in Sid’s unsteady gait and clucked her tongue.

  “I’m quitting the theatre,” she said. “Joining Doctors Without Borders and doing some good in the world.”

  “You are a good person,” Sid told her with great sincerity.

  Leo laughed. “Where are his clothes?”

  “Go through that door up there. Arthur will probably pay him despite his condition. Better hurry; I think Mr. Keenlyside’s new neighbours called the cops.”

  The valet brought Leo his car, and he helped Sid into the passenger seat. In his street clothes, with remnants of makeup still on his face, he looked like a mighty forest spirit escaping into the world of mortals.

  “You can sleep at my place,” he told Sid. “You’ll be fine in the morning, and no one will be the wiser.”

  As they started their journey, Sid grabbed the captain’s hat off Leo’s head and put it on.

  “Can I fuck you?” he asked, and Leo almost lost control of the car.

  “No,” Leo answered. “You need to sleep.”

  “But I want to cuddle.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And then I’ll fuck you,” said the young satyr, and began quietly singing the song that had been playing when they left. Something about waiting on that sunshine boy…

  Leo, wise in the way of myths, knew the dangers whenever gods and mortals mated. Anyway, sex was out of the question—Siddharth was too drunk to consent. And tomorrow, sober, the beautiful young man would have no interest in the decaying ruin of his host’s body.

  Still, Leo was hard as they drove downtown, and his erection was a beacon, a better GPS to follow into the night.

  Shopping for Others

  William Christy Smith

  Marshall Higgins had to get out of the house. Even though he lived alone, he needed somewhere outside in the open, where he could be by himself and digest the news. He’d held it in all afternoon.

  He crossed Elysian Fields and hurried through the cast iron gates into Washington Park. He plopped down on one of the concrete benches, underneath the live oak trees and crepe myrtles, in front of the aspidistra. This was the place to sit down, take a deep breath, and try to figure this out.

  Just five hours earlier, he’d walked out the doors of Godchaux’s Department Store on Canal Street, the ones on the side that employees used, to go to the clinic at Tulane University Hospital. It was his lunch break, a mere thirty minutes, and he was going to get the results of his HIV test. Marshall had decided he should finally get tested, mostly as a formality. He’d only been with three partners in his entire life and no one recently, and he was fairly certain he couldn’t have been infected.

  Marshall had remained silent, sitting at a table in a small office, while a white-haired, bespeckled physician who looked to be in his seventies or maybe eighties entered the room and took the chair across from him. Marshall noticed that he was a plodding man, moving in slow motion, adjusting his glasses as he read Marshall’s chart. He’d probably retired already but was called back into service because no other physicians wanted to deal with AIDS patients. The doctor introduced himself, extending his arm limply to Marshall’s, a liquid handshake. Could the doctor move a little faster and get this thing over with?

  The doctor opened a yellow folder without fanfare. Inside was a piece of paper that he scrutinized before passing it to Marshall. There wasn’t much on it but the message was clear. Marshall stared at the paper in disbelief. There they were—three little letters followed by a plus symbol.

  “Are you okay?” the doctor asked.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” Marshall answered. But he wasn’t. He was melting inside. He was about to protest, to say that the test couldn’t be correct, but knew it was pointless. He didn’t want to be rude to the gentlemanly doctor, but he wanted out of the room as soon as possible.

  He stood to go, and he could tell it alarmed the physician.

  “Are you sure you’re ready to leave?” the doctor said. “I can stay and talk with you if you’d like.”

  “No thanks,” Marshall said. “I’m okay. I’d have been more surprised if I hadn’t tested positive.”

  It was a lie, of course.

  “Do you have a friend you can talk to?”

  Marshall had to think about that one for a moment. “Yes, I have one.”

  Marshall was referring to Will Parsley, a colleague and former head of the ladies shoe department at Godchaux’s. He had been Marshall’s closest friend at the store and outside it. While Marshall was low-key and kept to himself, Will was flamboyant. Sometimes he embarrassed Marshall with his exuberant personality.

  “Is he someone you can talk to about your status?” the doctor asked.

  “Yes,” Marshall said, but he wasn’t sure he could locate Will.

  “I’d be happy to stay with you.”

 
“That’s okay. I have only a half an hour for lunch, and I have to get back to work.”

  As he sat in Washington Park, he wondered if he’d been too abrupt with the doctor and speculated about his attention span with the customers he’d helped in the afternoon. He contemplated what to do next. Get another test to verify the results? That would probably be a waste of time. Change his diet and go on an exercise regimen? Good idea but unlikely. Max out the credit cards with trips to Europe and expensive clothes and jewelry? That didn’t seem right.

  Eventually, he decided the best solution was to sit tight and do nothing. Put some distance between him and the events of lunchtime. It was Friday. He would go out and get plastered, something that happened rarely, and when he recovered from the hangover, he’d go out and do something he had always wanted to do—make some friends. He was going to need them.

  * * *

  Marshall Higgins had worked at Godchaux’s his entire adult life. He’d secured a position at the Canal Street store just a few weeks after he graduated from high school, and he knew it was the place he would be for the rest of his life. He made great money at the classiest department store on Canal Street.

  Marshall liked to joke that he started at the top and worked his way down. He began on the fifth floor in Records and Stereos. Within a year, he was working in Linens and the Bath Shop on the fourth floor. He liked it there because of all the candles. It smelled like vanilla, apple, cinnamon, and cloves.

  After another year, he was in China, Silver, and Glassware on the third floor. His managers were uniformly happy with him, and after just five years with the company, he was asked to take a sales position on the main floor—skipping the second floor completely—serving the notoriously difficult women who shopped in the jewelry, cosmetics, gloves, and handbags departments. He loved it, and didn’t consider it work at all.

  Eventually, he became a personal fashion consultant, serving the Uptown ladies and the secretaries of the men who worked in the Central Business District. He focused mostly on clothes, but had the freedom to advise customers regarding any department in the building. When new merchandise came in, he called his ladies and informed them that new frocks were going out on the floor the next week, but he could get them a preview if they wanted one. He scheduled appointments in the beauty shop. Helped daughters navigate the Junior Shops. Guided sons through sportswear and shoes. He could find anything for anyone. He had created a network of managers in the Godchaux system and buyers outside the store that he could go to for advice. If someone needed something that was hard to find, or that needed to appear quickly, Marshall could track it down.