Where the Boys Are

by William J. Mann

  He replies something like “Sobby,” without lifting his eyes from the menu.

  “What?” I ask. “What ethnicity is that?”

  His blue eyes peak over his menu. A few specks of glitter sparkle in his dirty-blond hair. “I think it’s some kind of Middle Eastern,” he says.

  “Middle Eastern? You don’t look very Middle Eastern to me. How do you spell it?”

  “S-A-B-E.”

  “I see.” I frown. “So are you adopted?”

  “No. I don’t think so, anyway. Why do you ask?”

  I shrug. “It’s just that … well, never mind.”

  Anthony sets his menu down, folding his hands on top of it. “Blueberry pancakes,” he announces. “That sounds awesome. Do you think they use real blueberries?”

  “Well, I imagine they might be frozen this time of year.”

  “Still.” He beams like a kid at an ice-cream shop. “So what do you do?”

  Now, it might strike you as unusual that it’s taken us this long to finally get around to exchanging such trivia as last names and occupations. But hey, we’ve been busy. Dancing, kissing, then going back to the apartment on Nineteenth Street where Anthony was crashing with a friend. I figured that was the best choice: the way Henry had been dancing with the Windex queen, it was pretty clear where things were going with him, and I did not want Shane walking in during an intimate moment between Anthony and me. So down to Nineteenth Street we’d walked, happily discovering Anthony’s friend fast asleep with his door closed.

  You’re probably expecting me to describe an incredible sex scene here. Okay, I’ll do my best. From the hollow of his throat down the line between his pectorals straight through his abs, I licked his honeysweet skin, following the treasure trail of blond hair that leads from his navel to his dick, which, when I pulled down his underwear, sprung up to point at the ceiling. A good-sized piece of meat, with a thick mushroom head, and no hair on his balls at all—natural, not shaved. I found his ass tight and hard, and Anthony was an eager bottom. For an hour we fucked on a mattress on the living room floor, and when it was over we drifted off to sleep with our cum drying between us.

  How was that? Hot enough?

  Yet all that aside, truth be told, the sex was just okay. Nothing spectacular. Maybe Anthony was just too inexperienced in knowing how and when to move, to give back, to take initiative. And maybe I was just tired and distracted. I found sleep welcome, and I’m pretty sure I dreamed of Lloyd, for I woke up thinking about him.

  “At the moment,” I say, bringing myself back to the present to answer Anthony’s question, “I don’t do anything.” I smirk. “I’m independently wealthy, as they say.”

  “Wow,” Anthony says, wide-eyed.

  I set my menu down. “Have you no sense of irony, absolutely none at all?”

  Anthony shrugs. “Guess not.”

  I smile. “How long have you been out?”

  He seems suddenly defensive. “What do you mean? Out from where?”

  “As gay.” I feel a little impatient. “Out as gay.”

  “Oh.” Anthony does some calculations in his mind. “About six months, I guess.”

  “Well, then. Six months. That explains it.”

  “Explains what?”

  The waiter has come back for our order. More glitter rains upon us. I order poached eggs on rye toast, no butter. Anthony asks for the blueberry pancakes and a side of fried eggs and bacon. How does he manage such abs with such fatty foods?

  “Explains what?” Anthony asks again after the waiter has left.

  “I don’t know. It’s just that you come across a little—oh, I don’t know—green.”

  He smiles. “Maybe that’s because I am. Gay culture fascinates me, but I admit I feel a little out of it.”

  I study him. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-nine.”

  “So you’re no kid. Why’d it take so long for you to come out?”

  “I don’t know. It just did.”

  I frown. “So what were doing with yourself all that time? Did you have a girlfriend?”

  Anthony shakes his head. “I was just—by myself.”

  The waiter sets down two coffees. Both of us drink them black. I let the coffee revive me, feeling it settle down inside. Around me the faces of the people reflect their hangovers: the dull headache behind the eyes, the dry mouth, the lethargy. I’m grateful I did just the one bump and drank only one beer. I remember what it feels like to be sick and still be craving more of the substances that made you sick. How had I ever let myself get in so deep? Why do people do that to themselves?

  I turn back to Anthony, not wanting to remember that time. “So what do you find so fascinating about gay culture?”

  He beams. “Everything. I never imagined there was so much going on. All these parties all across the country. How awesome it is.” He blushes a little. “I never realized how good-looking gay guys were, and how friendly everyone is. I think I thought gay life was just a bunch of drag queens. But it’s really all these awesomely built guys. And everyone is so friendly. So embracing. I met this guy a couple of months ago who took me to the White Party in Miami—”

  “You were there? So was I.”

  Anthony laughs. “Yeah, you and me and a couple thousand other guys. That’s what was so awesome. All these men. And everyone was so friendly.”

  I don’t doubt it. Circuit boys have reputations as being major attitude queens, unless of course you have speed bumps for abs like Anthony here. If you look like Anthony, a circuit event can be the most powerfully positive introduction to gay culture you could ever imagine. If you look like the Windex queen, however, it can send you scrambling back to your closet as fast as you can run. As much as I love the scene, I’m not blind to its realities. Yet Anthony’s truth is as real as Shane’s or anybody else’s; I can’t take that away from him.

  “It’s been incredible meeting people at parties,” Anthony’s continuing. “I’ve made so many friends so quickly. One of them is the guy I’m crashing with here.” He pauses, seeming to consider something. “Though …”

  “Though what?”

  He sighs. “I think he’s started liking me too much. Do you know what I mean?”

  I smile empathically. “Oh, yes. I know exactly what you mean.”

  Anthony frowns. “He wanted me to stay in last night with him. To celebrate the New Year, just him and me. But I wanted to go out. I can’t stand being inside, cooped up for too long. Especially in places as small as that apartment.”

  “A little claustrophobic, eh?”

  “Yeah.” He looks off at nothing in particular. “Actually, a lot claustrophobic.” He looks back at me and continues. “I had to go out dancing; I just had to. So he went to bed early.” He pauses, seeming to have arrived at some conclusion. “I don’t think I should stay with him for much longer.”

  I nod. Ah, how the world turns. I think of that poor guy behind that closed door. He never came out the whole time we were there, but I’d seen his underwear in the bathroom and his toothbrush in the holder. There was a photograph on the refrigerator I assumed to be him: a typical circuit queen, torso shaved and chiseled, a gad of love beads around his neck. How many years ago had that been taken? Did he still look like that? I imagined him lying there in his room, listening to us fuck on the living room floor. Poor guy. Everyone’s in their own little dramas, aren’t they? Even as this faceless, nameless guy probably lay there hating me for “stealing” Anthony from him, there I was, screwing Anthony but never once really thinking about anyone but Lloyd.

  This morning, I considered heading over to see Lloyd. I still had this Eva lady’s address, after all, but by the time I was up and showered, I figured it was too late. I knew Lloyd was anxious to get back to the Cape, especially now that he has a closing to plan for and furniture to buy and a whole new fucking life to build.

  But if I was looking for a distraction, I couldn’t have found a better one. Waking up this morning, I looked ove
r and there Anthony was, stretched out on the mattress wearing nothing but a pair of tight white 2(x)ist briefs, still sleeping like a baby, his perfectly sculpted chest rising and falling in sweet, soft breaths. Just why he’d put his briefs back on after we’d had sex, I wasn’t sure, but it sure did make him look like a model on an underwear box.

  So you can understand the impulse that led me to wake him up and initiate sex again—it was still just okay, not great—and then we showered together and headed out for breakfast. Anthony pulled on the same jeans he’d worn the night before, and the same socks. The stale odor of smoke and sweat still clung to them, but I figured it was all he had. At least he extracted clean underwear and a sweatshirt from a backpack on the floor.

  I lean in toward him now. “Let me tell you something about gay culture, Anthony,” I say. “It can be just as you experienced it. It can be awesome and empowering. It can also be cruel and shallow. You just have to learn how to navigate it.”

  He blinks his eyes a few times as if trying to understand. “Cruel and shallow? How do you mean?”

  I sigh. “Come on. Are you really as innocent as all that?” I take another sip of coffee. “It’s no different from straight culture. Beauty trumps wisdom. Youth triumphs over experience. It should be the other way around, but the human condition doesn’t seem to allow it.”

  “So in other words,” Anthony says, stroking his smooth face, his stubble hardly worth the bother of shaving, “I should enjoy my time at the ball because it ain’t gonna last?”

  Finally. A spark of insight. I laugh. “You got it, pal.”

  “Well, for now I think it’s awesome.” He smiles. “That feeling I got on the dance floor in Miami—it was like I was part of some great, big brotherhood or something. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted that. To feel a part of something. To be … accepted, you know?” He blushes. “Does that sound really dumb?”

  Actually, it sounds absolutely endearing. “I know what you mean,” I say fondly. “That is part of the scene. Despite what everyone says, it’s not just the drugs. There’s definitely more than X bonding people on the dance floor.”

  “So then, what’s the shallow part you’re talking about?”

  I laugh. “Anthony, I’m thirty-six years old. When my dad was this age, he had three kids to support. He got home at six o’clock every night and watched television until nine, then went to bed. On weekends he mowed the grass and fixed the roof. Any extra money was used to pay for our dental expenses or school clothes. And maybe once a year a trip down to Sound View Beach on the Connecticut coast.”

  I lean back in my chair and cross my arms over my chest. “Meanwhile, here’s my life. I just reserved hotel space for Gay Days at Disney World in June. My friends and I are already planning what Speedos to bring so we can splash around with a couple hundred other guys in Typhoon Lagoon.”

  “Sounds like a lot of fun.”

  I shake my head in amusement. “That’s just it. It is. Part of the appeal of the circuit scene—of gay male culture in general—is that it allows men to remain boys. I don’t subscribe to the school of thought that says that’s always such a bad thing. It’s actually really wonderful, but there’s a flip side to the Peter Pan syndrome, which is immaturity and irresponsibility. The fear of growing up, growing old.”

  “You talk like a writer,” Anthony observes.

  I feel my face flush. That speech is, in fact, part of an essay I’ve been writing in my head for over a year, but which I’ve never been able to get down onto paper. “Don’t ever give me a soapbox,” I say, “because I’ll take it every time.”

  “No, really.” Anthony looks at me seriously. “I like talking to you, Jeff. You’ve really thought stuff through. I’ve never met anybody like you.”

  The waiter arrives with our breakfasts. Anthony licks his lips and rubs his hands together, salting his eggs heavily, breaking the yolks and spreading them all over the whites. He pours at least a cup of maple syrup over his pancakes. He eats ravenously. I watch him a minute before carefully starting myself.

  “So tell me about being independently wealthy,” Anthony says between bites, a dribble of syrup on his chin. “Do you come from money?”

  “Oh, God, no.” I practically choke on my rye toast. “Money is definitely not from where I come.” I pause. I hate moments like these, but they always seem to work themselves into conversations whenever I meet someone new. They’ll ask what I do, I’ll say “nothing,” and then they’ll ask how it works. A logical progression of thought. Except that I don’t want to get into the answer too deeply. “A friend died a few years ago,” I explain. “He left me some money.”

  “Was this friend your lover?” Anthony asks softly.

  I sigh. “Once, a long time ago.” I hesitate. “But later … we evolved into something else … something beyond that. It’s hard to describe what we were to each other. We were family, but even more than the way family is usually defined by straights.”

  “So you were close, then.”

  “Yeah.” I smile at him warmly. “You can definitely say we were close.”

  Anthony opens his eyes wide. “Well, it must have been quite a lot of money he left you if you don’t have to work.”

  “It was more than I expected,” I admit.

  Truth was, both Lloyd and I had been stunned by the total amount of Javitz’s estate. For a working-class community-college professor, he’d socked away a good chunk of cash. Plus there was his annuity, not to mention the several life insurance plans of which he’d made us joint beneficiaries. Long had I dreamed of financial security, and Javitz had been privy to many hair-pulling moments when I’d dodged creditors’ calls or torn up credit cards. But the irony of achieving such financial freedom at the cost of losing the greatest friend I’ve ever known is almost too much to bear. What good is financial security when your emotional ground is pulled out from under your feet?

  “Actually,” I admit, letting out a long breath, “the money won’t last much longer. I do need to do something eventually. Some kind of work.”

  “And what kind of work would that be?”

  I smile. I don’t like talking about my writing, but it’s preferable to talking about Javitz. “You’ve already hit on it,” I tell him. “In a past life, I was a writer. A journalist. I worked for a newspaper and then went freelance. Did some writing on my own.” I laugh, looking across the room at some indefinable point. “Once I actually thought I’d write something important. A novel or a screenplay or something grand like that.”

  “Maybe you still will.”

  “Yeah, and maybe Tom Cruise will come out of the closet.” Time to move on to another topic, I decide. “And what do you do?” I ask. I love flipping the conversation around.

  Anthony’s finishing his eggs, wiping up the yolk with the remnants of his pancakes. He doesn’t look up as he answers. “Nothing at the moment,” he says, echoing me. “But I am not independently wealthy. Not anywhere near it.”

  I smile. I’m really beginning to feel some warmth toward this guy. I’ve always liked people without privilege. I’ve never much cared for middle-class guys whose daddies set them up with trust funds and bank accounts and credit cards. My weakness is always for guys like myself, from blue-collar families and working-class backgrounds.

  “Where are you from?” I ask.

  “Near Chicago.” Anthony wipes his mouth with a napkin and tosses it onto his now-empty plate. “But I’ve moved around a lot since.”

  “Like where?”

  Anthony averts his eyes. “Oh, too many places to get into.”

  I frown a little. “So what brought you to New York?”

  He shrugs. “Same thing that brings anybody here, I guess. I thought maybe I could find something to do with myself, some kind of career.”

  “And what kind of career do you want?”

  “Not sure.”

  I look at him. “Well, what did you do before you came here?”

  “Odd jobs. Nothing
for very long.”

  Okay, I think. Is this guy being deliberately vague on details? The old investigative journalist in me is starting to sense some stonewalling. So I ask, “Did you go to school for anything in particular?”

  Anthony smiles. “Yeah. I got a degree. Just a two-year college, but it was a degree.”

  “A degree in what?” This is like pulling teeth.

  “Office management.”

  “Well, that’s something.” I decide to leave the last piece of toast (too many carbs) and motion to the waiter, who quickly snatches up both our plates. “What about your family?” I ask. “Where are they?”

  Anthony looks away from me. “I don’t see my family anymore.”

  I study him. “Was it the gay thing? Coming out?”

  He just shrugs.

  “Well,” I offer, “if it’s any consolation, it took mine a while, too, but they’ve come around.”

  “Mine will never come around,” Anthony says plainly. And decisively—as if it’s as far as he’ll go on the subject.

  “Okay.” I had zoned Javitz off-limits; he can do the same with his family. I take a sip of coffee. “So can you at least tell me where were you living before you came here?”

  “Albany.” Anthony drains the last of his coffee and waves the waiter away when he attempts to refill it.

  “What did you do in Albany?”

  “This and that. Nothing important. I was only there a very short time.”

  I raise my eyebrows and smile with a tinge of exasperation. “You are definitely coming across as a man of mystery, Anthony Sabe.”

  He smiles. “There’s just not a lot to tell.”

  Oh, I imagine there is, that there’s much more to Anthony than he’s willing to admit. No one spends their entire twenties doing nothing of importance, moving from city to city, jumping from job to job …

  Or maybe they did. I pause, considering my own myopia. I’ve always hung around with achievers: people with ambition, direction. Until my recent aimlessness, I myself had been fiercely driven to succeed. I consider that my own current situation might offer a clue in understanding Anthony. Maybe guys like him do exist; I’ve just never met one until now. Maybe our aimless energies attracted us to each other.