But no. There’s something more going on than just that. Anthony might lack ambition and direction, but he’s far too bright to have spent an entire decade as an adult that way. Anthony’s no slacker, no vagabond. He’s hiding something. Look at that body. It implies a gym membership somewhere, and those things cost money.
Aha! My eyes light up looking across the table at him. Maybe he’d been a kept boy. Sure, that’s it. Wealthy older man pays Anthony’s way all through his twenties. Then, on the cusp of thirty, he gets tossed out, replaced by some new, younger twink. Hadn’t Anthony just said he’d been out six months? Maybe he didn’t mean out as gay, but out as an independent gay man.
No, I think to myself, watching him fiddle with his coffee cup. That’s not it, either. I narrow my eyes as I study the young man across the table. It may be a few years since I’ve done any actual investigative reporting, but my instincts are still as sharp as ever. I’ve always trusted those instincts, and rarely have they failed me. Anthony’s not a liar. There’s absolutely nothing disingenuous about him, nothing cagey. If he says he’s only been out for six months, I should take him at his word.
Still, to go through your entire twenties without a relationship? There was no girlfriend, he said—
“Are you two finished?”
It’s a woman, nosing over us, trying to get a jump on our table.
“Not quite,” I tell her, keeping my eyes on Anthony.
I return to my thoughts. No girlfriend … but might there have been a wife? Anthony’s transfixed again by the glitter on his hands. Denying a girlfriend isn’t the same as lying about a wife. Is that it? Had he left a family behind? Were there kids, too? The image seems very incongruous, I have to admit: Anthony seems far too much like a kid himself to have any of his own.
I can’t deny that my curiosity is piqued. Who is this guy?
Anthony looks up and smiles over at me. Damn, those dimples again.
“I like you, Jeff,” he says.
I smile automatically in return. “You do? How come?”
“Well, you’re awfully handsome, to start.”
I wink. “I need a better answer than that.”
“Okay. You’re funny. And you ask a lot of questions. That means you’re interested in other people, not just stuck on yourself.”
I lean my chin on my hand. “Some would say otherwise, but go on.”
“There are people who talk only about themselves—or worse, about nothing in particular.” Anthony rolls his eyes. I listen carefully, for every statement might be a clue to who he is and where he’s from. “You know what I mean? They’ll talk about the weather or what’s for dinner or the stupid television or who’s got cigarettes. They never ask you anything about you. I like people who really ask you stuff. That’s how I want to be. If I’m going to talk to you, I want to get to know you. There’s so much more to somebody than just what they show outside.”
The waiter comes by to ask if everything is okay. I assure him it is. He places the check down on the table and the woman is immediately back. “Are you finished now?” she asks.
I look at her, annoyed. She’s about my age, pretty, with a chubby boyfriend in tow. “If it’s okay with you,” I tell her, “I’d like to have these last two sips of coffee that are left in my cup.”
She snorts, turning back to her boyfriend. I hear “faggots” under her breath.
“Excuse me; I didn’t hear you,” I say, starting to stand, feeling the sudden pump of adrenalin.
“She didn’t say anything,” the boyfriend says meekly.
“What did she say, Jeff?” Anthony asks.
I settle back down. The anger subsides as quickly as it rose. The host seats the couple far away from us at the other side of the restaurant.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say.
“What did she say, Jeff?”
I’m just shaking my head. “No matter where you go, even here in fucking Chelsea, there’s always someone ready to get down on fags.”
“Did she call us that?”
“Forget it.” Lloyd would be counseling me to send her love. But I can’t help it. I hope she chokes on her bagel. “Let’s just take a walk.”
I open my wallet. Anthony offers to pay his share, but I won’t let him, prompting him to sit back in his chair and beam over at me. I pull out a twenty and a ten from my money clip and wink.
“Let’s go. I need to get some air.”
Ninth Avenue is cold, but it feels good after being closed in with all those bodies. The dance floor is one thing; cramped cafés reeking of bacon grease and populated with snot-nosed homophobes are decidedly another. I take a long, deep breath. The first couple of blocks we walk in silence.
I’m not sure what will happen next. I kind of like this guy, and I have to admit I’m intrigued. I’d love to have more time to figure him out, to slowly extract his story bit by bit. It’s what I loved most as a writer: interviewing people, discovering their experiences, their values, and sometimes, when I was lucky, their secrets.
But fate has deigned to merely cross our paths, nothing more. After all, Anthony’s in New York, poised for some new life, and I’m heading back to Boston. I really can’t afford to get involved with someone right now; the drama with Lloyd is way too complicated. Besides, I know from experience that spending more than a day with a trick can often have disastrous results. I still smart over how much I’d come to care for Eduardo, my summer love of five years ago. No, it’s best just to shake hands with Anthony and walk away. Wish him good luck and a happy New Year, and quickly hop on the subway.
But neither Anthony nor I make any attempt to say good-bye. We walk leisurely, shoulder to shoulder, Anthony every once in a while catching snowflakes on his tongue. It makes me laugh.
Odd how Lloyd’s name hasn’t come up all day. After all, Anthony saw us together last night. What will I tell him if he asks? What are Lloyd and I to each other, anyway? Yesterday I would’ve given one answer; today I’m not sure. The last few months had seemed to suggest we were heading back together, but what about now? Has his news really changed so much for us? There was nothing in his words to suggest that he wanted to end our reconnection. In fact, he’d seemed to want it to continue. He said he wanted me to be a part of this with him. But it’s as if a barrier had just been erected in the road and I can’t go any further. It took me a while to open up and trust and spend time with Lloyd again. I wasn’t keen on being hurt once more.
You see, for all the radical theorizing I’d learned practically at Javitz’s knee, I have to admit there’s always been a part of me that has wanted exactly what I said I didn’t: that joint checking account, that Saturday night safety blanket, that cozy presumption that the person across the breakfast table from me will still be there when I turn seventy. Never had I found that with Lloyd: oh, the trappings of it, maybe, the illusion. But Lloyd had always chafed against too much commitment, too much domestic permanence.
Until Eva, that is. He can buy a house with Eva, but never with me.
Why should I trust that it’s any different now? I try to imagine what it would be like. I’d schlepp myself down to Provincetown and help build their home together, and then Lloyd would turn to me someday and say, “Well, you know, I can’t really commit to you.” I’d walk in and find him with Drake—the guy he’d originally left me for—or somebody else, who he’d eventually leave, too, just as he had left Drake and me. What guarantees do I have that the past won’t merely repeat itself?
“There are no guarantees in life, darling,” Javitz always said. I laugh as I walk down Ninth Avenue, and Anthony looks over at me curiously. I’ve actually parroted the same words to Henry, many times, with the same weary inflection Javitz used to use, whenever Henry has started fretting about finding love and a husband. “No guarantees,” I tell him, “just the eternal hope that what you’re looking for is just around the corner.”
Hope. Despite everything, it’s still there, inside me. I can’t deny that I still
hope somehow, some way, Lloyd and I will be back together, finishing what we started. I just can’t give up on him. I might be fearful, I might be wary, but I can’t give up. Not yet. The memories of our life together have never receded as far as I might pretend. The thought of holding Lloyd in the breathing position, in my arms, in our bed late at night, safe from everything, together—that image is never very far from my consciousness. Sure, I’ve moved on; I have a life of my own now. But I’m drawn back, as ever. Drawn back to what Lloyd and I had, what we shared.
So I’ll go down to Provincetown. I’ll see the house. I’ll meet Eva and give it a chance—
“Jeff?”
I look over at Anthony. I realize I’ve been lost in my own thoughts, and that Anthony has asked me a question.
“I’m sorry. I was …”
“In another world.” Anthony smiles. We’ve stopped at the corner of Ninth and Fourteenth. “I was asking you if you always use a condom.”
I laugh at the starkness of the question. “Well, yes,” I tell him. I’d slipped one on both times I’d fucked him. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, you’re the first guy I’ve been with who has.”
I stare at him. “You mean, you’ve been going bareback for the last six months?”
He nods. “I guess that’s being kind of risky, huh?”
“More than kind of.” I sigh. How much should I say? I’ve just met this guy. We’re about ready to part ways forever. I can’t start pontificating to him. Besides, the issue is too complex.
“Look, Anthony,” I say after a few moments’ thought. “Just be informed, okay? You’ve just come out, you’re learning your way. Do yourself a favor and get some HIV material and read up. Don’t just bareback because some guy says it’s okay.” I hesitate. “And you might want to get tested.”
He looks at me strangely. “That’s the most anyone has ever said to me on the subject. Thanks, Jeff.” He reaches over and kisses me on the cheek.
I blush a little. “Just take care of yourself.”
“I wish you didn’t have to go back to Boston.”
I look at my watch. Okay. So here it is. The place where we say goodbye. “I’m supposed to meet Henry at Grand Central at six o’clock,” I tell him.
Anthony frowns. “That’s too bad, tonight being Saturday and all.”
“Yeah, I know but—well, I promised my nephew I’d take him to the movies tomorrow. He’s in Connecticut. He’s five.”
Anthony’s frown turns into a smile. “You are a good guy,” he says.
The thought of little Jeffy brightens my mood. My sister Ann Marie named her son after me, a tribute that moves me more with each passing year, watching the boy grow. I’m glad that Ann Marie decided not to marry the lout who’d fathered her son, and I’m thrilled to play substitute daddy as often as I can. We live two hours apart, but I get down to Connecticut every couple of weeks, taking Jeffy to the carnival or Mystic Aquarium or the Pokemon movie. This time Henry’s going along. Jeffy’s used to gay men. He’s a good kid.
“So I may be green,” Anthony’s saying, folding his arms across his chest, “but I know enough that I gotta ask. Is Henry your boyfriend?”
Once more I laugh. “No, no, no, he’s just my sister”—though even as the words are out of my mouth, I regret the “just.” I know that sisters often last a lot longer than boyfriends. “But the guy with the goatee last night,” I say. “Do you remember him?”
“Sure. The cute one with the nice green eyes you were slobbering over.”
I blush, just a little. “It was the X. Anyway, we’ve been together, off and on, for many years.”
Anthony nods. “So he’s your boyfriend.”
I stammer a little. “Right now I’m just not sure. We’re …”
Anthony raises his eyebrows, waiting.
“We’re—well, it’s hard to describe—”
“Family,” Anthony interjects. “You’re family, but even more than the way family is usually defined by straights.”
I smile. He remembered my words. It actually sort of touches me. But he’s not done.
“You can’t describe it, because there aren’t words,” he’s saying. “You don’t set limitations on each other, because you’re always surpassing them. You don’t let others tell you how you’re supposed to be. You’re true to yourselves and nobody else. You’re just who you are.”
“Whoa.” I do a double-take. “Where did all that come from?”
Anthony shrugs. “Just something I picked up.”
“You are definitely not green,” I say, breaking into a broad grin. “Forgive me for thinking so.” I feel my dick stir again in my pants. Great abs, and a mind and heart, too. Who is this guy?
This could be dangerous, I tell myself. The old familiar quiver roils my belly.
Oh, yes. Dangerous, indeed.
Meanwhile, Uptown
Henry
Quite frankly, I’m still staggered by the sex. Who knew? The Windex queen got me off not once, not twice, but three times—the last about nine A.M., and only then did we fall asleep.
Even now, more than six hours later, I’m still a little shell-shocked, standing off to the side of the crowded store, watching Shane play with an enormous Slinky. A harried salesclerk finally asks him to put it down. Shane sticks his tongue out at him.
“You’re gonna get us kicked out of here,” I say, laughing.
“Believe me, I’ve been kicked out of a lot better than FAO Schwartz.” Shane makes a face, considering something. “As well as a lot worse.”
I look at my watch. “We still have a couple of hours before we have to meet Jeff.”
Shane holds aloft a bride doll and inspects under her skirts. “Just as I thought. Not anatomically correct.” He shifts his gaze over at me. “Are you sure Jeff’s not going to mind driving me back to Boston? It sure beats buying another Amtrak ticket.”
I take the doll from him and set it down. “Not if you don’t mind seeing Toy Story 2 with his five-year-old nephew.”
Shane makes a queasy face. “I love kids. Especially with Swiss cheese and sauerkraut grilled on rye.”
“You crack me up, Shane.”
He moves in close. “I do more than that to you, baby.”
I blush. Yes, it’s true. Shane’s biceps have no peaks, his gut is slightly squishy, his face so unremarkable that even a police sketch artist would have trouble capturing it—and still the sex had been awesome. Awesome! But as much as I might want to pat myself on the back for finally finding bliss with an average-looking guy instead of the body-beautiful circuit boys I’ve lusted after for years, I can’t deny the real reason the sex with Shane was so good. It fed my own starving narcissism, a fact that both troubled and fascinated me. I mean, who wouldn’t get off on it? There I was—me, Henry Weiner—being asked to stand on a hotel bed naked so that a guy could adore me. Literally. Down on his knees, worshipping me, telling me how sublime I was, how radiant, how muscular, looking up at me as if I were the naked Christ on the Cross—an analogy that would give my Jewish mother an apoplectic fit if she knew I was thinking it. But the truth remains: it was simply the most awesome, most intense, most mind-boggling sex I’ve ever had.
And to top it off, Shane had even been willing to pay me! Even afterward, he’d taken out a crumpled hundred-dollar bill from his jeans pocket and waved it in front of my face, saying, “You sure?”
He was only joking, I insist to myself, watching him now as he tries to open the pants of a GI Joe doll.
“So what do you want to do until we meet Jeff?” Shane’s asking. He’s given up trying to get a peek at the GI genitals. “Ride around in a cab so I can blow you in the backseat?”
I blush again, certain that the handsome father and adolescent son looking at a train set next to us have heard every word. I grab ahold of Shane’s coat and pull him out of the store onto Fifth Avenue.
“What?” Shane asks, mock-innocently. “Something I said?”
Outside, a Salva
tion Army volunteer cheerlessly rings her bell. Who still gives after Christmas is over? The sidewalk is thronged with people returning holiday gifts, their faces muffled in upturned collars and scarves. Suddenly, Shane takes my leather-gloved hand in his. Oh, boy. This is the awkward part. This is the part of tricking that Jeff calls “the hard truth of the light of day,” when you have to tell the guy it was fun but it’s over now. My first reaction is to pull my hand away, but I don’t want to hurt Shane’s feelings. He’s too nice a guy.
He squeezes my hand. Oh, great, I think. What if he’s falling for me? What do I say? The truth? You didn’t make me hard, Shane. Your protestations of devotion did. You can’t base a relationship on narcissism. And that’s all it was, Shane. You feeding mine.
Right. As if I could say that without feeling like a total shit.
I can’t wait to talk about this with Jeff. Jeff would know how to handle things. He always does. No matter the experience, Jeff has already had it. “Stay away from two kinds of guys,” he’s counseled. “The ones who act like they’re in love with you the next morning and the ones who act like they don’t care in the slightest. They’re both exactly the same.” And, “Stay away from two kinds of drugs. Tina and Gina. They’re not at all the same, except that they’ll both destroy your life if you let them.”
Jeff is probably the smartest guy I’ve ever known. I’m not that much younger than him, but sometimes I feel a whole generation removed, as if crammed into Jeff’s head start of seven years is an entire lifetime of achievement and failure. The school of gay hard knocks.
“So are you guys going to the Blue Ball in Philly in three weeks?” Shane is swinging our hands between us, as if to show the entire avenue what he’s caught. “I can’t decide whether to go to that or to the Fireball in Chicago next month. Doing both seems a bit excessive. You know what I mean? I don’t want to be like those tired circuit queens who blow all their vacation time hopping from one party to the next.”
Where the Boys Are Page 7
