The Understatement of the Year

by Sarina Bowen

  “Huh,” that sounded cool, except for one obvious problem. “What does everyone else in the bar think?”

  “There are always a few people who get up and leave. There are plenty of bars in Burlington, though, so it’s not the end of the world. And bar owners like guerrilla night, because it’s always held on a weeknight. So they’re, like, full to the gills on a Wednesday.”

  Up to this point, I had never had a discussion with anyone about gay bars. “Cool.”

  “We don’t have to go, though. I’m good either way.”

  “You don’t mind hanging out with your ex?”

  Rikker shrugged. “I ducked him once already this week, which was kind of rude. And I’d rather see him at the bar than hang out at their apartment.”

  “So let’s go,” I said.

  He gave me a sideways glance, and then returned his eyes to the road. “Okay.” Clearly he wasn’t expecting me to get behind this idea. But again, he didn’t know about my loopholes. This might be the only chance I’d ever had to go into a gay bar, even a makeshift one.

  Bring it on.

  The ride to Rikker’s place was twenty minutes, and it was dark by the time we pulled up in front of an old farmhouse. He couldn’t know it, but I’d tried a thousand times to picture Rikker in Vermont. “It sure got country fast,” I said, looking around as I got out of the truck. You couldn’t even see the nearest neighbor.

  “You drive fifteen minutes from any place in Vermont, and you get basically this,” he said, climbing the granite stoop. His hand was on the doorknob. “You ready?”

  “For what?”

  He grinned and opened the door. “Grans, we’re home!”

  As I entered the house, I heard the tip-tap of heels on the wooden floors. “Hiiiiii!” A little woman came skittering into the room. She grabbed Rikker around the midsection and squeezed him. “Sorry,” she said, patting his chest afterward. “I have to get those in before you go away again tomorrow.” Then she turned to me, stood up on tiptoe and grabbed my face in both hands. “Hello! You’ve gotten so tall I can hardly reach you! And what a handsome man!” She rubbed my cheeks until she’d probably removed a layer of skin before finally letting me go.

  “Good to see you again, Mrs. Rikker.” I’d only met her once before, some Christmas when she’d visited Rikker’s family in Michigan.

  “Come in, come in! Dinner is ready. Sit down, because Gertie is going to pick me up for poker night in a few minutes.” She flew toward the back of the house, her heels tapping out a rhythm.

  Rikker toed off his boots, smiling as effortlessly as a Labrador retriever. “Hope you’re hungry,” he said. “Seems like she’s on a tear.”

  We walked past some ancient-looking furniture into an old kitchen, where the table was set for three. “Don’t forget to wash your hands,” Rikker’s grandmother said over her shoulder.

  Rikker went over to the sink first, giving me a wink as he went. “We ran into Skippy at the airport,” he told his Gran as he scrubbed up. “He invited us out tonight.”

  “I’m leaving you the truck,” she said, putting a casserole dish on the table. “So go if you wish. Did I tell you that Skippy and his new man turned up to snow-blow my walk when we got that early storm over Thanksgiving?”

  “What a kiss-ass,” Rikker said.

  She turned to slap him on the backside. “Language!” But she was grinning. This was obviously a shtick they had going. “They dug an old lady out of the snow. It’s almost enough to make me forgive him.”

  Rikker grunted, tossing me a dishtowel. I washed my hands, feeling certain that I’d landed in a parallel universe, where a guy could talk about his ex-boyfriend with his Gran.

  We all sat down at the table, which was set with glasses of milk for Rikker and I, the same way it would have been when we were twelve.

  Not for nothing was I raised in the most conservative corner of the heartland. I sat back in my chair and waited for her to say grace. Rikker’s Gran folded her hands and spoke. “Dear Lord, thank you for these blessings we are about to receive, and for the safe delivery of our guest, who is kind enough to visit an old friend and an old lady. And please bless clueless Edna, whose granddaughter landed in jail again last night, the poor misguided girl.”

  I raised my eyes to catch Rikker’s, and he bit back a smile.

  “…And God bless our family and our dear friends. Especially Gertie, and may you help her to learn before she dies that cheating at poker is wrong. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Rikker said, and then he grabbed the serving spoon and heaved a big scoop of the steaming dish onto his plate. It was a casserole made from noodles, chicken and mushrooms. Then he handed me the spoon.

  “This smells great,” I said. And that was the God’s honest truth.

  “Have as much as you wish,” she encouraged me. “I made a second one for poker night.” There was also a plate of vegetables and dip, and from this she took a piece of celery and nibbled at it. “I put sheets on the sewing room bed,” she said.

  “I would have done it,” Rikker said, forking up some pasta.

  “First you would have had to take all the quilting crap off of it,” she said. “I saved you the trouble.”

  “Thanks for having me,” I said.

  She patted my hand. “Anytime, dear. We like visitors.”

  From outside came the sound of a car horn. Mrs. Rikker stood up. “Sorry to dash. Have fun tonight.” She grabbed a coat off the back of her chair and shrugged it on. “And take care in all the usual ways, boys. Say no to drugs, and drinking and driving. Yes to seat belts and condoms.”

  “You too, Gran,” Rikker said.

  From the sideboard she grabbed a casserole dish with two hot pads. “TTFN, boys.”

  Then she was gone, leaving Rikker smiling into his milk glass, and me with my face burning from the condom remark. The door shut behind her, and Rikker continued eating as if that hadn’t just been the weirdest exchange ever. “TTFN?” I asked.

  “Ta-ta for now,” Rikker explained. “She’s a piece of work, right?”

  That was the understatement of the year. “I don’t see any resemblance between her and your father.”

  Rikker chuckled. “Isn’t it great?” He helped himself to more of the food.

  “I don’t get it, though. How did your dad get that stick up his ass, anyway?” And that was the nice way to put it. Rikker’s parents were aggressively evangelical.

  “Well, my mom rules that roost,” he said. “Also, he works for the Christian college. So he’s drinking the Kool-Aid at work and at home.”

  “Do you ever go back there?”

  Rikker shook his head. “Nope. The P’s and I have a Hallmark relationship.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We send each other cards. Theirs come from the devotional section of the store, of course. Sometimes they call me on my birthday.”

  Wow. Even though I had a lot of trouble feeling comfortable around my family, I couldn’t imagine my parents cutting me off like that. “That’s harsh.”

  “I kind of like it this way,” he said. “Gran has a few choice words for them. So it sucks to be the wedge between Gran and one of her sons. But she likes my company.” He got up to rinse his plate and put it in the dishwasher. “You need anything else?”

  “Nope. This was great.” It was entirely trippy to be Rikker’s guest. A few minutes later, I’d dealt with my own dishes and followed him into a den at the back of the house. Unlike the living room I’d passed through when we arrived, this one was comfortable, with big chairs and a generous couch.

  Rikker threw himself onto the couch and looked at his watch. “We don’t need to leave for a while. Skippy is late to everything. You want to play some RealStix?”

  I grinned. “Hell yeah.”

  He set up the game. “I’ll even let you be the Red Wings without a fight.”

  “Let me guess — you’re a Bruins fan now. Convenient of you, becoming a New Englander for the last five years.
But just because they won the cup once doesn’t mean they can do it again.”

  “Smack talker,” Rikker said, tossing me a controller.

  Even though it didn’t help my view of the screen, I dropped myself in one of the chairs. Sitting next to him on the couch was just a little too much like old times.

  Deflector shields engaged.

  He started up the game. And for a couple of hours, the years just fell away.

  “You are a total asshole,” Rikker grumbled whenever I stole the puck.

  “Right back at you, baby.” I skated for his goal, passed to my wing and shot.

  He blocked it. Crap. Then he laughed like a hyena.

  The period ended. “Rematch,” I said.

  But he didn’t start the game up right away. “This is fun,” he said instead.

  “Yeah, it is.” We were quiet for a second, but this time it was the good kind of silence. “I like your corner of Vermont, Rik. Your Gran is great, too.”

  “She is,” he said, dropping his head back against the sofa. “I invited you here on a whim. But it’s good here, you know? Just in case you worried about what happened to me, or whatever.” His voice dropped, as if he thought that sounded vain. “I had it good here. You should know that.”

  “I did worry,” I whispered.

  “Now you don’t have to,” he said. Then he picked up his controller and restarted the game.

  — Rikker

  An hour later, I somehow parallel-parked Gran’s truck into an inadequate space on the street in Burlington. “And they say I’m not a manly man,” I said, snapping the keys from the ignition.

  Graham tipped his head back against the headrest and laughed.

  I hesitated for a second before opening the door. “Are you sure you don’t mind this?”

  Even though it was too dark to see their icy blue color, Graham’s eyes were still beautiful in the dim light. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

  I jerked my thumb toward the entrance. “Because we’re outside the gayest place in Vermont right now. And you can’t even say that word out loud.”

  But his gaze was steady. “Doesn’t mean I don’t wish I could say it.”

  Well, dayum. That was a big revelation from Mr. Uptight. But if he actually wanted to see the inside of a gay bar, then this was the place. It would be thoroughly queer, but not too hardcore or creepy, unlike a couple of the clubs Skippy and I had blundered into in Montreal. “Let’s go, then,” I said.

  There was a reason that Slate had always been our favorite guerrilla destination, and that reason was dancing. Not every bar in Burlington had the space. But when we cracked open the door of the crowded place, there were already bodies gyrating to a song by Fun.

  “You know it’s queer night?” the bouncer asked from his stool just inside the door.

  “We are well aware of that fact,” I said, offering him my driver’s license.

  “Then off you go,” he said, stamping my hand with OVER 21.

  I scanned the room as Graham got his hand stamped. From a high table off to the side, I found Skippy motioning to me. “Over there,” I said to Graham, but the music drowned me out. So I grabbed his hand to pull him through the crowd. And as his fingers closed over mine I almost laughed out loud. If you’d told me a month ago whether I’d be leading Graham by the hand through a gay dance party, I would have called you insane.

  “You’re late,” Skippy shouted as we took seats.

  “Bullshit. You got here five minutes ago.”

  He made a defeated face, leaning in to talk to me. “How did you know?”

  “In the first case, there aren’t any glasses on the table. And also because you’re oversexed, and Ross has been out of town for ten days.”

  Skippy pouted. “He’s at the bar, buying the first round.”

  “I’ll grab a couple of beers,” Graham shouted from the other side of the table. “What do you like?”

  “Anything better than Capri’s piss-water.”

  He grinned and disappeared into the crowd.

  Skippy leaned over to speak into my ear. “Are you with him?”

  I shook my head. “He’s not a member of the tribe.”

  My ex tipped his head for a better look at the bar. “Interesting that you’d say that. Because I think your teammate Mike is as gay as a Judy Garland sing-along. You should see his face right now. He looks like a kid getting his first look at the presents under the Christmas tree.”

  Skippy’s gaydar was rock solid. Always had been. “Go easy on him, okay? He’s kind of a wreck.”

  “Good pick for you, then.”

  Well, ouch. That stung because it was true. Hanging out with both Skippy and Graham in one night was some kind of weird self-torture. Even though I’d agreed to be Just Friends with Graham, I still felt a big tug every time I looked at him. Heartbreak was pretty much inevitable.

  “You’re pissed at me for saying that,” Skippy said, his face propped into one hand. He had long, dark eyelashes. And his dressy black button-down shirt made those big brown eyes as dark as coal. There was something truly magnetic about Skippy, as if he could see right into your soul.

  “Don’t want to talk about it,” I said.

  “Dance with me instead?”

  Now there was a dubious idea. “We’d lose our table.”

  He rolled those luminous eyes. “Okay, Dad.”

  Luckily, Ross and Graham showed up then with the drinks. Hooray for a little ethanol lubrication. I drank half of the Long Trail that Graham brought me in the first thirty seconds. He’d also bought what looked like two shots of Jack. “Shot?” he mouthed over the music. With a shake of my head, I mimed driving. So Graham drank them both.

  “How was Christmas?” I asked Ross, shouting over the song.

  “Not bad,” he said with a grin. “My relatives kept the fag slurs down to a couple dozen, so I can’t complain.”

  “Ross is from Alabama,” I shouted by way of explanation to Graham.

  “And not the nice part,” he added.

  Graham put his second empty glass down on the table. As I watched his eyes sweep the room, I wondered what he saw. It was the typical mixed-up scene. There were a handful of exhibitionists in their over-the-top leather getups. (Whenever I saw a man in leather pants, it always made my own balls sweat in sympathy.) For every outrageously dressed queer there were three other guys in flannel shirts and baseball caps. But it was early yet. Those shirts would come off when it got hotter in here.

  Daft Punk started singing Get Lucky, and Graham’s shoulders found the beat. Skippy poked me in the shoulder, and I leaned in to hear what he had to say.

  “I’m sorry I was a dick.”

  “You mean a minute ago?” I was primed to forget about it already.

  I was granted one more Skippy eye-roll. “Yeah, a minute ago. Was I a dick some other time, too?”

  “No,” I laughed. I drained my beer and put down the empty. “Let’s dance. All of us. That ought to shake up my friend.”

  Skippy’s eyes sparkled with mischief. He tipped the last of his drink into his mouth, then stood up. “Come on,” he said, tugging Graham’s elbow. “We’re going to dance now.”

  Graham’s eyes widened. “I may not be drunk enough for that.”

  “It’s just dancing,” Skippy shouted, grabbing Graham’s hand. “It won’t make you queer!”

  “Too late,” I said directly into Graham’s ear as Skippy tugged him into the crowd. Graham reached back, pinching my ass in retribution. Hard.

  “Ow,” I complained.

  He just grinned over his shoulder.

  Before I started hanging around with Skippy, I wasn’t a fan of dancing. But not even reluctant dancers could resist him. All you had to do was look at Skippy, and you couldn’t help but move. The music just seemed to pulse up his body, past those skinny hips, up his straight spine and then through two fluid arms.

  When he danced, Skippy closed his eyes, as if taking orders from some celestial plane.
And when he was dancing, it was easier for everyone else to enjoy it, too. You could just watch him and imagine that you moved as well as he did. And somehow it became true. Because you were having fun, and that was the big secret to dancing, anyway.

  Tonight Ross was wearing a T-shirt that read: Boys Will Do Boys. He moved around behind Skippy, curving one big arm around his chest. And somehow the two of them didn’t even look ridiculous. Because Skippy was just that good a dancer.

  As one song morphed into the next, I heard a squeal in my ear, even louder than Lady Gaga. “Rikker!” I turned around to find Rachel and Daphne, friends of mine from high school.

  I gave each of them a quick kiss on the cheek. “What’s up!” I shouted over the music. When Daphne jutted a thumb towards Graham, I said, “My friend from school.”

  They both gave him appreciative looks. Good luck with that, girls. But the company of a couple of girls was just what Graham needed, apparently. When Daphne stepped in closer to him, he seemed to loosen up. He smiled, and began to move in a way that was less self-conscious. Daphne sidled up in front of him, and he put a hand on her waist.

  Even though Graham was touching Daphne, his eyes worked the room. The place was heating up in every possible way. The guys around us on the dance floor were losing their shirts one at a time. While torsos writhed with the music, hands slid over skin and fabric. Denim to denim, hips pulsed and ground to the beat. We were a giant undulating mass of bodies, sweating through songs by Macklemore, and for the older crowd, Depeche Mode.

  When the music slowed, Rachel put her arms around me so we could have a catch-up chat. “I saw the articles. What made you go public?” She was one of the friends I was out to in high school.

  “No choice in the matter.”

  She gave me a peck on the cheek. “Somehow I knew you’d say that. A few people at school mentioned it to me. Like Petey, for one.”

  Petey was the co-captain of my high school team, now playing for UVM where Rachel went to school. “Yeah? What did he say?”

  “He said he always had a hunch.”

  I chewed on that for a second. “I guess that doesn’t make him a genius, right?” It was a pretty small school, and I hung out with Skippy all the time, even if we never touched anywhere near school. Then again, Skippy was popular with lots of straight people, too.