It was much later. Gusto trained a fish-eyed glare on me. “So what’s your story, Peter Givens? Where do you come from?”
“New York City.”
“Where you from, Mr. T.J.?” He poked T.J. in the ribs and T.J. pushed his hand away.
“Old Greenwich,” he said, giggling.
“And you two are best buddies? What a trip.”
“What makes you think we’re best buddies? There’s four of us here,” I asked. T.J. looked straight at me as I spoke.
“Oh, I can tell,” said Gusto. “You and him are the tightest in this whole group. I have a special insight. Or maybe … just maybe it’s T.J. and Moonshot that’ll stick together in the long run.”
I looked down at the floor and frowned. “Chris said you can’t see colors.”
“Metaphorically speaking, that’s true. I see everything in black and white. No in-betweens. Like you, for instance, are you black or are you white?”
I was stunned and I didn’t answer.
“You don’t know, do you? Do you know who that is you’re running around with, over there on that couch? That’s the heir to the Thayer Foundation. Do you know who his grandfather was?”
“I know he was in the State Department.”
“Deputy Secretary of State during the Korean War. We’re talking serious, old, old money. That’s some buddy for a black kid from New York.”
“I can handle it,” I said. I was starting to get angry.
“Sure you can, up in the snow-capped candy mountains at Brriaarrrwoo-ood. But someday you’re gonna be asked to make a choice. I can’t see you, brother.”
“I’m not worried about the future. I know I can deal with it.”
“I can’t see you. I can see you now, but in the future, no. ’Cause you’re not black and you’re not white. To me, you’re invisible.”
I stood up to go into the kitchen. “You want anything, T.J.?”
“No thanks, Pete.”
“Don’t stress it out, dude. I was just being poetical.”
“No problem, Gusto.” I went into the kitchen to get a beer.
When I came back Gusto was gone.
“Where’s Gusto?” I asked.
“He went upstairs to make a call.”
I sat down next to T.J.
“I think Chris was in on one of Gusto’s orgies.”
“Sounds probable.”
“You think Gusto is queer?”
“I don’t know. Maybe,” said T.J., smiling to himself.
“Do you think Chris might be queer?” I asked in a hushed voice.
“You keep asking me that. No, I don’t think so.”
“Gusto was starting to touch me off.”
“It’s all right to get touched off. Maybe he’s right.”
I glared at T.J and then rolled over on my stomach. “He’s not right. He doesn’t know anything.”
Gusto came running down the stairs. “All right, my little chickadees. Here’s the good news. The 5:10 out of Boston gets into Pomfret at 6:30, arriving in Hartford at 7:45. It just so happens I’m heading north tomorrow morning, so I’ll be happy to drop you off at the bus depot. Here’s an alarm.” Gusto put a wind-up alarm clock on the night table. “And if you guys oversleep, you’re walking.” He turned and headed back upstairs.
“Good night, Gusto,” said T.J.
“Good night, Gus,” I called.
“Come on upstairs if you want. Just don’t forget to set the alarm for Blackwood over there.”
“Stay with me, T.J.,” I said after Gusto had gone upstairs.
“I think I’m going to hang out with Gusto.”
“Please, T.J. Really, please.”
“I’ll come back down here to sleep.”
“You going to let him fuck you?” I said brattily.
“If he wants to,” he said, lifting himself up off the floor, and revealing a swelling in his pants. I wanted that swelling in my mouth so badly, I could have killed Gusto.
It really bothered me when T.J. went upstairs. I fretted and pouted until I fell asleep. I put two sofa pillows over my ears because I didn’t want to hear if T.J. started squealing or crying out. This was the night it all began to change. Maybe it was the cold spring air and the warmth from the space heater Gusto had plugged in, or the aroma of hashish, or the drone of the King Crimson record that had played over and over since midnight. Maybe it was just the late hour. Watching T.J. on that living room rug, goofing and playing and laughing with Gusto, he changed from being just hot and funny and sexy, to beautiful, truly beautiful, and lovable. I thought of the pixieish hellion who had mellowed and saddened since our Third Form year, the hell-pack of charm who had made friends with my mother in seconds. I closed my eyes and dreamed of him. And it was a wonderful dream. Yes, I’m sure of it. This was the night that I fell in love with T.J.
We left Gusto’s house early the next morning. My three friends slept most of the way home on the bus, but I was too turned on to sleep. I was sitting next to Ronnie, with my eyes on the erection in his pants. His dick kept heaving and shifting around on his thigh. It looked as though a gopher had burrowed into his pants and was searching for a way out.
Chris and T.J. were leaning against each other, asleep in the seats across from me and Moonshot. They were snoring lightly. Chris was curled with his face buried in T.J.’s shoulder. I noticed the back of Chris’s hand was resting on the inseam of T.J.’s thigh.
We got into Hartford and caught a cab into Green River. We had breakfast at the Farm Shop and then walked the mile back to campus. There’d been a light rain overnight, and the road was wet and grainy.
“Shuffle your feet in the gravel,” said T.J. “It makes your feet vibrate.”
I tried it and liked the sensation. T.J. and I lagged behind, dragging our feet in the road.
“What a couple of touchholes,” said Chris.
“Where was Gusto headed?” T.J. called after Chris.
“Bah-ston.” Chris turned around and waited for us to catch up. Moonshot kept walking ahead. “You guys glad you went?”
“Yeah, pretty glad,” we answered in unison.
Of course we were glad. We’d run off into the night like bandits, travelled across the state, partied with cool, drug-dealing hippies. We’d plumbed philosophical depths with the lunatic Gusto. As we walked towards school on that damp, gray Sunday morning, I felt closer than ever to my three new friends. If I had been alone, I might have cried.
After our trip to Pomfret, I spent almost all my free time in Milburger. I stopped in to see Keith from time to time, but Keith was very cool to me now.
Like any pair of roommates, Chris and T.J. had their disagreements. Sometimes I thought it was amazing they got along at all. Chris’s side of the room was always cluttered with dirty towels, baseball equipment, and sweat socks. T.J.’s bed was neatly made, his clothes and books all tucked away. His record albums too, unless Chris had left them on the turntable collecting dust. It seemed whenever I stopped by their room, Chris was reading sports magazines. T. J. was usually studying to keep himself on Honors. I never saw Chris studying.
Then there was the matter of money. Chris’s family had more than T.J.’s. The Thayers were enormously wealthy, even by Briarwood standards. There weren’t any outward signs, of course. T.J. was the one with the new stereo, the skis propped up in the corner of their room, the multi-featured diving watch. But consumer goods were hardly sound indicators of the Thayer level of wealth. Chris was unassuming about money, but he gave himself away through innocent remarks. When T.J. talked about his trip to the Whistler Mountain Ski Resort, Chris interjected, “Oh, yes, we have a house there,” his tone casual as if to say, “Oh, yes, I saw that movie.”
“Oh, I forgot, your family is so rich,” T.J. retorted snidely. To me the difference between Chris’s and T.J.’s family fortunes was meaningless, like the distances from earth of a nearer and farther star.
In their room, T.J. seemed cast in the housewife’s role. Chris domina
ted T.J. in ways no one else could — teased him, commanded him, kept him up late. “Calm down!” Chris would order when T.J. became hyperactive. Chris didn’t like his serenity disturbed, so he put a cap on T.J.’s bubbling energy. “I’m the boss of this room,” Chris said bluntly one day; T.J. didn’t argue, though he did pause and stare.
It began to bother me that Chris could dominate T.J. Before, I’d been intrigued, but now — I wondered if T.J. liked Chris more than me. If you loved someone, did you show it by being submissive? Wasn’t I man enough to make T.J. feel like a girl? I could be submissive to T.J. because I still felt I owed him for my sex life and my social life. I might have waited years on my own before trying gay sex. Only T.J. had the right touch to get me over my shyness, I still believed.
Anyway, I didn’t like the idea of my husband letting someone else push him around. Even if Chris was gay, he didn’t love T.J. like I did. That was for sure.
One day when T.J. was out, Chris complained to me about his roommate.
“T. J.’s a moody asshole, Peter. He complains ’cause I keep him up late. And then he has these hysterical fits and starts running around like a two-year-old. Plus he’s jealous, because I have a girlfriend and he doesn’t.”
“The guy has a gland problem, Chris. How many times have I told you?”
“He’s becoming a real pain. And he does some really strange things sometimes. You think you know T.J., Peter, but you don’t.”
“But you guys are taking that house together in Nantucket this summer. How come you’re doing that if you hate him so much?”
“I didn’t say I hate him.”
“But you’re bitching about him so much, lately.”
“Well, sometimes things happen. I don’t know how that happened. He just asked me and I said yes.” A haze fell over Chris’s eyes, that sleepy, distant look that so enamored and intrigued me. “I guess the guy is okay.”
Whatever Chris felt about T.J., T.J. was hotter for Chris than ever. When Chris pushed him around, T.J. glowed like a pregnant woman. When Chris insulted him, he was tickled into hysteria. His whole body seemed to swell and tingle when Chris was around. He became antsier than ever, tossing and turning on his bed, rubbing against his mattress, spreading his legs. It was as though T. J.’s whole body had turned into one big, fully erect sex organ.
Living with Chris was driving T.J. crazy. I just knew something had to go wrong.
12
Chris wanted me to meet him in the dining room. There was something important he had to tell me. We both were free first period, so we could take a late breakfast and have some privacy.
I knew something was wrong. When I’d seen T.J. at dinner the night before, he was pale and fidgety.
“Did Chris talk to you?” he’d asked.
“No. What’s wrong?”
“Oh, uh, nothing. Nothing,” he’d said and walked away in a hurry.
Chris had come up to me several minutes later. “Meet me for breakfast tomorrow. I have to talk to you.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow. Meet me first period, okay?”
When I got to the dining room, Chris was sitting in the far corner with his back to the window that looked out on the infirmary. I came over with my breakfast tray and sat across from him. Behind him I could see the school nurse through white see-through curtains, up and about her early duties. Billy Green was there, I knew, healing from a waterskiing accident.
“T.J. is a faggot!” exclaimed Chris.
“Quiet down, Chris.”
“He wants to have sex with me. He’s a goddamn queer.” Chris’s face was screwed into a frown. He was pouting and exaggerating the thrust of his words. I could tell he was angry, but I couldn’t tell just how angry.
“He came on to you?”
“We were getting ready for bed last Friday night. T.J. pulled off all his clothes. Nothing strange. I thought he was changing his underwear. But he sat on the bed like that for about five minutes. I know he’s a little weird, I’m not worried about it. So I pull off my pants, ’cause I want to take a shower. When I get my towel wrapped around my waist, T.J. gets up, comes over behind me, and puts his hand on my shoulder. I’m in shock, right? I don’t know what his problem is. So I just stand still and don’t say anything. I half expect him to start crying, tell me his mother died or something. Then he leans his head against my back, and … he gooses me. He goosed me naked. I tripped over my bed getting away from him. See?” Chris pointed down at his foot. “Look where I scraped my ankle. And he’s just standing there with a boner on and this crazy look on his face.” Chris was the one with the crazy look now.
I looked over my shoulder around the dining hall. One of the kitchen workers was frowning at us as he wiped off tables across the room. I couldn’t tell whether he’d overheard Chris or whether he just wanted us to finish and leave. Chris went on talking, stage-whispering now in a quicker voice.
“Then he went to his bureau and took out a clean pair of underpants and put them on. He could hardly get them on over his boner.”
I looked down at my Raisin Bran. It was starting to turn soggy. Why was Chris telling this to me? Didn’t he know I was queer too? I began to feel nauseated. “What did you say?” I asked.
“What do you think I said? ‘No fuckin’ way, T.J. I’m sorry but no fucking way.’”
“Didn’t he say anything?”
“He said he was sorry. He just got under his blanket and said he was sorry.”
“Wow.”
“You didn’t have any suspicions? You’ve known him a long time. He told me you’ve been to his house.”
I almost choked on a piece of toast. “No. I didn’t.”
“I’d heard a rumor about him in Martha’s Vineyard. From somebody that knew he went here. But I figured, you know, innocent until proven guilty. Well, he proved himself guilty, all right.”
I felt as if strong hands were squeezing my stomach like Play-Doh. Chris was talking almost breezily now. Expatiating on queers. After all his teasing. He’s completely crazy, I thought.
“At first I was shocked, so I didn’t mention it. Then I got really pissed off. I was sort of grossed out. It really bothers me—” His voice rose and quickened again.
“Chris, you shouldn’t be telling me this.”
He looked baffled. “Why not?”
“It’s not going to do T. J. any good for everybody to know.” He sat quietly for several seconds, mulling the thought. “I guess not.”
“Plus, people might say—” I paused, “—you led him on. Like they say in rape cases.”
Chris rolled his eyes. “What a thought.”
“Who else did you tell about it?”
“Nobody.” I looked at him hard. “Just Mark Fix.”
“Not your brother?”
“Hell no.”
“Don’t tell anybody else.”
Chris seemed disappointed at my suggestion. “I guess you’re right. If the guy has a problem, I shouldn’t make it worse.”
We sat quietly for a few minutes. I looked straight at him, but Chris wouldn’t meet my eyes now. He just sat there, scooping and stirring his tea.
‘You don’t hate T. J. now, do you?” I asked. ‘I don’t know. I got pretty pissed off, Pete.”
T. J. had fifth period off, so I walked over to his room. He was lying down with his shoes off and his arms folded across his chest. I walked over and sat on the edge of his bed.
“Did you talk to Chris?” he asked.
“He told me you made a pass at him.”
“Yeah.” He turned around on his side facing away from me, looking out the window. I waited for him to say something.
“Chris is a cockteaser,” he said finally.
“I’ll say.”
“He makes it so obvious, and then he wants to pretend he didn’t do anything. The guy lives in a total dreamworld.”
“Chris said he told Mark Fix,” I said.
“He told a lot of
people. Everybody knows, Pete.”
T. J. sat up on his bed and sighed. Then he smiled at me softly.
“How did it happen?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve been kind of dropping hints lately. Obvious hints. He went along. We were always kidding about each other’s butts and things like that. He said he was so horny even I was starting to look good. He even told me he’d fuck me if I put on a pair of falsies.”
“Jesus.”
“I was getting ready to go to bed. And I noticed him staring at me. So I — I just froze. I felt really nervous. I thought he was going to make me. But he just keeps on looking right at me. Then he starts to undress. He takes off everything, and he’s standing there for about five minutes with nothing on. Christ, Pete, he looks so good. I thought I was going to faint. I wouldn’t even stand up, ’cause I thought I would just fall down. Then he turns around and shows me his butt, then he wraps his towel around his waist, but he’s still looking at me in the mirror. So I went over to him.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“I could just as easily accuse him. He wouldn’t dare act like that in front of anybody else. He knows I like him, and he just … I don’t know, he fucks around with me.”
“If somebody makes it that obvious…”
“Then on Saturday night, he came in really late with that girl Jenny from town. They woke me up when they came in, laughing and acting stupid. Then they started kissing and fooling around. She wanted to stop, but he kept, like, making her.” T. J.’s face turned red. “He fucked her right in front of me!”
“Jesus!”
“God, Pete. I feel so bad. I don’t know what I’m going to do.” He laid his head down on his pillow.
“You want to go to lunch, T. J.?”
“Yeah, let’s walk over.”
T. J. and I took the grassy path behind Greylock House to Chase Hall.
“Chris is avoiding the room,” he said. “He leaves in the morning and comes back for lights-out.”
“He’ll snap out of it, T.J.”
The Color of Trees Page 15
