Lives of the Circus Animals

by Christopher Bram

  “Put your hand here. No. Here,” Toby commanded.

  Henry had lost his own erection days ago. All he wanted now was to hear Toby groan and see him spurt. Orgasm had become a point of honor.

  He was not entirely surprised. He had been caught off guard when they first arrived at the apartment and Toby started dropping hints, as light as crowbars, that he expected Henry to make a pass. It was a bit unnerving, like seeing a chess piece move itself, yet promising. But then they kissed and Henry could not find Toby’s tongue. He had to chase around his mouth before he caught it. When he opened his eyes, wondering what was wrong, he found Toby’s eyes already wide open in front of him, like the eyes of a terrified horse. Toby quickly shut them, suggesting a child feigning sleep, and Henry wondered, Am I like kissing Hitler?

  But Toby did not flee. He let Henry take him to bed. He let Henry undress him. But he had looked sexier in clothes.

  His trousers, for example, were not as loose as the ones he wore the night they met; the fold in the middle of his bum was smaller, though it too flicked back and forth when he walked, but more quickly, like the tail of a puppy dog. Inside the trousers were underpants, white with some kind of mathematical formula on the waistband—as if his playwright used him as a notepad. Henry had been overjoyed to kneel down, rub his face in white, then slide the underpants down and release a cock as excited as his own. It had been downhill ever since.

  If I were his age, thought Henry, and my prick were in Olivier’s mouth, or even Gielgud’s, the history alone would be enough to make me pop. What was the name of the boy who’d sat naked in his lap and asked to be jerked off while they watched a video of Henry’s Hamlet? Now that was kinky, that was fun.

  The phone rang.

  “Want me to get it?” said Toby. He was closer to the nightstand. “Hello? Oh. It’s our food. Shall I tell them to send it up?”

  Henry had forgotten about dinner. It seemed like hours ago that he had ordered food. He nodded. His mouth was empty now, but numb. His tongue forgot how to shape words.

  “Sure. Send him up,” said Toby, who was hardly winded.

  Henry sat up, curling and rolling his lips back to life. He looked down at his bedmate. The boy stopped being a problem in hydraulics and became a person again, albeit a person with an erection—it lay bright red on his stomach like the club from a Punch and Judy show. Toby gazed up at Henry, trying out different expressions: an amused smile, a sad frown, an apologetic smirk.

  The door buzzed. “Right back,” Henry said hoarsely and threw a towel around his waist.

  He opened the door on a Chinese gentleman in a yellow slicker, a middle-aged fellow who instantly averted his eyes.

  “Oh, sorry,” said Henry. “I’d given up on you. I was just about to step in the shower.”

  The fellow nodded. “Sure, sure. No problem. Twenty-five ten.”

  Henry was counting out the money when he noticed the man peeking from under his eyebrows into the apartment. Henry sniffed the air, wondering if the man could smell Toby on him.

  “Thank you,” said the man when he took the money. “Enjoy. Enjoy all things. Much good. Our age. Good night.”

  Henry carried the shopping bags of food back to the kitchen. Our age, indeed, he thought.

  Toby appeared in the doorway. He was still naked.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Don’t hate me.”

  “Nothing to hate. It happens.” Henry was confused by how sad he felt to see him here, the boy from the Gaiety, standing nude in his kitchen. Be careful what you wish for.

  “I guess I’m just feeling so awed to be with an actor that I admire so much.”

  “Oh please. I’m not your type. Simple as that. You like me enough to get hard, but not enough to get off.” He hesitated. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but I am old enough to be your father.”

  “I like you. Really. But I guess I’m still in love with Caleb.”

  “Yes. There is that.” Henry was actually glad to remember this other reason.

  “Did you want me to go?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We haven’t had dinner yet.”

  “I’d like that.” He looked relieved. “Should I get dressed?”

  “Or stay as you are. Whatever makes you comfortable.” Henry smiled, daring Toby to remain naked, even though he felt judged by the boy’s body. “I think I’ll be a nudist myself tonight,” he declared, undid his towel, and tossed it. He slapped his solid, youthful stomach.

  Toby frowned and looked away.

  “But you get dressed,” said Henry. “It’ll be like the night we met—with the roles reversed.”

  That cinched it for Toby. “No, I’ll stay like this,” he said. “I should probably wash my hands.”

  “Good thinking.”

  Henry knew he should be feeling angry and defeated right now, but he felt fine. Somewhat sad, but not terribly so. He had reached the point in life where even bad sex was good sex.

  A few minutes later they were sitting at the kitchen table. Henry briefly considered eating in the dining room, but it would’ve been too peculiar seeing their genitals through the glass tabletop.

  He served up the food. “A nice paradox, don’t you think? There’s something absurd about a naked actor. Two naked actors is even more preposterous.”

  “Could you pass the salt?”

  They began to eat. The crunch of broccoli in the silent kitchen suggested two dinosaurs devouring a forest.

  “‘We’re actors. We’re the opposite of people,’” Henry suddenly announced. “Who said that? It’s not original.”

  “I’m not a real actor,” said Toby. “Not yet anyway.”

  “But you are,” Henry insisted. “The child is father to the man. Wishes are horses. All that stuff. But actors aren’t so different from other people. Not at all. Whoever said that was talking nonsense. Once upon a time, maybe, when everyone else was God-fearing and selfless. We were freaks of vanity, monsters of egotism. Unlike the rest of humanity. Now, of course, everyone’s a narcissist. Every nobody and somebody needs to strike a pose in the public mirror. Amateurs.”

  Henry was talking only to hear himself talk, happily filling the silence. But during their first meeting, Toby had done most of the talking. The boy must be feeling very low if he could say so little.

  “You are a real actor,” he assured Toby. “I recognize the need in you. The hunger. And your interest in craft. It’s craft that separates a professional narcissist from an amateur.”

  Toby took a deep breath. “I saw Caleb today. My ex?”

  “Oh?” Henry speared a dumpling and plopped it in soy.

  “I left some stuff at his place and had to pick it up.”

  Henry shoved the dumpling in his mouth. “And he was wonderful,” he muttered around the dumpling. “And now you’re in love again?”

  “No. He was awful. So cool and casual. Like I was nobody. But I said some things I shouldn’t have said.”

  “Such as?”

  “He had a boyfriend who died of AIDS. Six years ago. He’s still in love with him. You can’t compete with a dead person. They’re too perfect.”

  “Quite true.” Henry had forgotten about Doyle’s dead lover, but he doubted that the widower was still in love, not at his age.

  “I said he loved him dead only because he didn’t love him enough when he was alive and sick.”

  “Oooo. That is bad.”

  “Real shitty. He told me to get out. He must hate me now.”

  “You poor guy.”

  And Henry did feel sympathy, but for Doyle, not Toby. He was suddenly impatient and exasperated with the boy, and hurt.

  “And that’s why you were so eager to go to bed with me tonight? To get even with him.”

  Toby stared. “No. I just—I saw you in a show and you were great, and I thought it’d be fun, and make me feel better if—I like you, Henry. I wanted to make you feel good.”

  “Of course you did,” he said sharply. The boy hadn’t done a
damn thing for him. “Could you have orgasms with your playwright?”

  Toby winced. “That’s awfully personal.”

  Henry shrugged. “Under these circumstances? I would think we could say absolutely anything to each other.”

  Toby shifted around on his chair, acting naked.

  “Did you fuck?” said Henry.

  Toby looked down, his mouth pinched tight at the corners.

  Henry leaned closer and softened his voice. “Or did you prefer frottage? Blow jobs or mutual wanks? What do you like?” If they couldn’t fuck in the flesh, they could at least fuck in words.

  “Crap!” Toby cried. “Crap, crap, crap!”

  Henry leaned back in alarm.

  “I can’t do anything right! I can’t be a good actor. I can’t keep a boyfriend.” Tears garbled his speech. “I’m not even good sex!”

  He was crying. There were actual tears on his cheeks. Henry scolded himself for being so cruel. He had never guessed his stripper could be so softhearted.

  “Why am I a loser? Why does the world hate me?”

  “There, there,” said Henry. He scooted his chair next to Toby’s and lay an arm over his shoulder. “There, there.”

  “Why am I such bad sex?”

  “Nobody said you were bad sex. Every man has problems down there. You’re not in the mood tonight. You’re in love with someone else. Besides, an orgasm is only external behavior.”

  The boy continued to sob and shudder. “Damn him,” he snarled. “Damn him, damn him, damn him.”

  Henry held Toby against his chest. “This is why I never fall in love. You think about Him all the time. Not a real Him, an imaginary Him. The most hurtful Him. A Him who makes you feel like an absolute shit.”

  Toby twisted his face around. His eyes were red, his upper lip slick with mucus.

  “You never fall in love?”

  “Almost never.” He passed Toby a paper napkin. “I fell in love constantly as a boy. But then I understood that it was useless to be unhappy. Life is short. I refuse to take myself—or anyone else—so seriously that they will cause me pain. Oh, I allow some suffering, for the sake of my work. But nothing too awful and human. It worked for Noël Coward. It worked for Oscar Wilde—well, up to a point. It’s worked pretty well so far for Henry Bailey Lewse. Knock on wood.” Which he did.

  “You must get real lonely.”

  Henry was startled that Toby took his speech literally. Did he not hear the irony and wishful thinking folded into his philosophy?

  “Not at all. I have my friends and mates and colleagues.” He laughed, kissed Toby on the temple, and released him. “I’m not nearly as lonely as you, my boy. I’m more self-sufficient. Besides, I get to break my heart playing at love for audiences. An actor does not need to feel a lot, you know, he needs only to feel accurately.”

  “Maybe that’s why I’m not a better actor. I feel too much.”

  “It’s possible.” Henry studied Toby, wondering how much of his drama was real, how much was put on, and if the boy could distinguish one from the other yet.

  Toby resumed eating, so Henry resumed too. He was surprised the food was still hot. Their little scene had not lasted so long that anything got cold.

  “I’d like to spend the night,” said Toby.

  “Oh?”

  “I don’t want to sleep alone tonight. But I won’t have sex with you. I’d like to, but I can’t. I hope you understand.”

  “I understand,” said Henry. “Well, I don’t. Not really. But I’ll accept your terms. Tonight.”

  He glanced at Toby and looked him up and down. The boy’s nudity had grown as natural and meaningless as the nudity of a Labrador retriever. But he was pretty. Henry enjoyed looking at him.

  “Toby?” he said. “Do you use chemicals?”

  “You mean drugs?”

  “Nothing unnatural. I was thinking of grass.”

  “No way. Not me. I’ve never done anything like that. I don’t see the point. That’s not why I am the way I am tonight.”

  “I’m not accusing you. I was just—Oh never mind.”

  He should’ve guessed that Toby was so square he wouldn’t understand that Henry partook, much less want to join him. It was just as well. There was no telling what kind of demons would slip into Henry’s head under the warm muzzy fog of a high while he shared his bed with this big blond Labrador of an American boy.

  34

  ME: Who do you see there?

  YOU: Why do you want to know?

  ME: I’m curious.

  YOU: You’re not jealous?

  ME: No. I was never jealous. I don’t have a jealous bone in my body. Have you met anyone famous?

  YOU: A few, but not many. The unknown dead outnumber the famous a trillion to one.

  ME: Who then? Tell me.

  YOU: Janis Joplin.

  ME: Why? You were never a Joplin fan.

  YOU: I didn’t want to meet her. I simply met her. Death is like life. You cannot anticipate what happens.

  ME: So what’s she like?

  YOU: Short. Much shorter than I ever imagined. And confused. She spends her time looking for her mom, whom she adores. But Ma Joplin is tired of Janis and hides from her.

  ME: What about people we knew? Do you see our friends?

  YOU: Oh yes.

  ME: Who?

  YOU: All of them. And more. Guys whose names I never knew.

  ME: Allen?

  YOU: Yes.

  ME: Stan?

  YOU: Of course.

  ME: Cook? Ethan? Danny?

  YOU: They’re all here.

  ME: Phil Zwickler? Vito? Bob Chesley? Bob What’s-his-name, the actor with the two-toned ponytail? Charles Ludlam? Tim—not Craig’s Tim, but the other Tim, the Tim whose boyfriend died soon after he did and whose name I can never—

  YOU: Tim Scott?

  ME: No, he was a painter. This Tim was an actor. He produced the terrible plays his boyfriend wrote before they both died.

  YOU: Whatever their names, they’re all here. Every last one.

  ME: And you hang out with them?

  YOU: Not anymore. The first two or three years I saw some of them regularly. Especially Stan and Danny. We were what we knew. We wanted to finish telling our stories. We needed to compare notes.

  ME: Notes on what?

  YOU: At first we talked about hospitals. It was like those awful parties where businessmen talk about their least favorite airports. But what we mostly discussed was what it was like to “pass over.” The fear, the pain, the exhilaration, the relief. We all needed to tell that tale, even though we were afraid we were full of clichés. It’s the dead person’s answer to the coming-out story.

  ME: And how people treated you? Do you talk about that? Who loved you, who didn’t? Who was kind, who was cold?

  YOU: There you go again. “What do the dead think of us?” The living are so biocentric.

  ME: We think about you. We want to believe that you think about us. Even if you think about us badly.

  YOU: The rules are like this: You have to think about us, but we don’t have to think about you.

  ME: Hardly seems fair.

  YOU: Death, like life, is not fair.

  ME: But you don’t see our friends anymore?

  YOU: No. I used to see everyone, then only Stan and Danny, then we grew tired of each other. Eternity is a long time. So I started meeting people I didn’t know in life but had wanted to meet. Like Anthony Reisbach.

  ME: Who?

  YOU: A beautiful kid at school. I didn’t teach him—he wasn’t smart enough for advanced math—but I noticed him. Sweet, apple-cheeked jock, soft-spoken and graceful. He drowned in a swimming pool the summer after he graduated.

  ME: You were never a chicken hawk.

  YOU: No, but one’s tastes get more diverse in eternity.

  ME: Are you in love with him?

  YOU: The dead don’t fall in love. Not in the way that you mean, lust and obsession. I enjoy his company.

 
; ME: But you told the truth when you were alive and said you never fell in love with any of your students?

  YOU: I told the truth. They were such babies. You would have heard about a crush if I had one, Cal. I always told you about each and every man I ever lusted after or tricked with.

  ME: I’ll say.

  YOU: Don’t pout. I never rubbed your nose in it.

  ME: But you weren’t shy about it either.

  YOU: I wanted you to know that it was only lust, only sex. Our love stopped being about sex long before I got sick.

  ME: I know. I’m sorry.

  YOU: Don’t apologize. I liked sex more than you did. It’s as simple as that. And there was too much other life between us. It crowded out the sex. You gave me enough love in other ways.

  ME: I have to ask. Is there sex in death?

  YOU: That’s funny. I’d made a bet with myself that your first question would be: Are there books in death? Libraries? Can the dead read?

  ME: I’ll get to that. But is there sex in death?

  Caleb looked up from his notebook. The rain beat against the casement window. The traffic slurred in the street far below. The lamp cast a halo on his desk. He tapped the eraser end of his pencil against his mouth. Should there be sex after death?

  He didn’t know what he was writing here, if these night thoughts were therapy or a verbal exercise or useless nonsense. They definitely weren’t art and would never become public, although his sense of craft could not stop him from revising and improving sentences. Last night, when he wrote the first pages, had been eerie and exciting, not eerie like ghosts but like what he had felt when he was sixteen and wrote his first paragraphs of pornography, creating bodies out of air and words. He returned to the spiral notebook tonight feeling slightly guilty, like a kid who was about to jerk off. Writing and sex and necromancy were hopelessly tangled together.

  But should the dead have sex? He didn’t know. He decided to skip it. In his head he heard Ben toss out the next question.

  YOU: When you remember me, do you think about the sex?

  ME: Very rarely. Or no. Never.

  YOU: How then? What do you remember?