“We haven’t been over to Memorial in a while,’’ he said. At least he still wanted to have sex with me. I hadn’t been reduced to complete erotic uselessness. Even if I was second-best. My belly was awash with confused feelings.
Moonshot came over and sat with us at breakfast. He slapped T.J. on the back and they both grinned. I became glum and excited at the same time. I felt wet and drained inside. I hated Moonshot. No, I didn’t. I couldn’t hate Moonshot if T.J. loved him. Ronnie looked beautiful this morning, more beautiful than I’d ever noticed before. Even if he was ugly. I felt righteously beaten. Anyone who could make my boyfriend smile like that deserved my respect. I would accept defeat with grace. Hail to Moonshot the First.
Every evening after dinner Ronnie showered in the dormitory. Most nights I had made a special point to catch the after-dinner show. Tonight I planned to do more than look — I was going to make Moonshot and steal him away from T.J. When I heard the water running, I headed down the hallway with my shaving kit.
I was hyperventilating as I entered the bathroom. Moonshot walked from the shower, dripping wet, feet flopping on the tile, and took a long clear piss in the urinal, expelling the pints of water he drank to keep cool out on the athletic fields. I stood behind him, brushing my teeth, needlessly combing my hair. From the rear view I could see the head of his dick hanging halfway to his kneecaps. My heart slowed as I watched. Moonshot’s cock had its own center of gravity; independent of his body, it formed its own gravitational interaction with the earth. I was captivated by its weight, its slow, subtle movements. Ron turned towards the water basin to dry himself. His cock draped itself half-curled over the outer curve of his thigh and got trapped there, too heavy to fall back freely; he had to lift his knee and kick it back over between his legs. (I thought of a sleeping crocodile lying in your path that hesitates, then moodily responds to a kick in its side by moving out of your way, after considering the option of killing and eating you instead.) With each heavy bounce, each lazy, exaggerated dangle, a blast of oxygen shot into my brain.
Ron turned and caught me staring. I lost my nerve. I hurried out of the bathroom and back to my room. A minute later the door opened. Moonshot walked in, nude, carrying his towel balled up in one hand. “Stop fucking around with me, Pete.”
I could feel the outstretched fingers of invisible hands, touching lightly at the back of my head, then pressing forwards, the fingers coming to right angles with the palms, pushing my head forwards and downwards. And a silent command: “Fall on your knees, love him and serve him. Suck like a slave.”
Every now and then, an unexpected experience gives us an empirical understanding of nature; I knew firsthand how the field mouse feels when cornered by the giant rattler, paralyzed by its hiss and its stare.
I didn’t feel any better after making it with Moonshot. If anything, I felt worse. Moonshot was incredible. So much man, you just wanted to crawl into the cracks in the floor. I couldn’t compete with him for T.J. and I knew it.
I felt sick and tight inside. I was awfully depressed. And of course, I saw T.J. and Moonshot together everywhere. Coming from the swimming pool, driving off campus. Playing volleyball with Susie and Meg, laughing, laughing. Hahahahahaha. Goddammit! Why was it so hard to keep my boyfriend to myself?
Finally I couldn’t stand it. I went to see T.J. in his room. “Why do you like Moonshot more than me?” I demanded. I felt like stamping my foot on the floor, but I didn’t.
“Are you menstruating or something? You’re so paranoid about Lewis.”
“Answer my question, T.J.”
“Okay. I’ll tell you. Ron’s got his head more together than you do. He knows who he is, you don’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ronnie has soul. I like soul. You’re an Uncle Tom.”
“I can’t believe you’d say something like that right to my face.”
“I’m not saying I don’t like you, Peter. I like you a lot. You don’t know Ronnie. You never talk to him. Moonshot is really cool. He’s deep. And that dick — it’s like Dracula. ‘Come to me,’ it says.”
“So what about Chris Thayer?” I was trying to get revenge. “What about him?”
Right. What about him? I thought fast and made something up. “He’s nothing like Ronnie. He’s the exact opposite.” T.J. leaned back and crossed his legs. He thought for a moment. “Now I’m starting to figure you out. You thought I was in love with Chris, and if you acted like Chris I’d fall in love with you.”
That made sense, but it wasn’t what I was thinking. “Are you in love with me?” I asked.
T.J. paused. “Sort of.”
“I don’t act like anybody. I act like myself.”
“Then what are you bitching about?”
“I hate Moonshot. I’m gonna kill him. You better get it while you can, ’cause I’m gonna kill his ass.”
“He’ll have you on your knees in two seconds. You don’t fool me.”
“What?”
T.J. laughed. “He told me about you. You’re not jealous because Ron is getting me, you’re jealous because I’m getting Ronnie.”
“I hate you, T.J. I’m gonna kill you and Moonshot.”
“Jesus, Pete. I think it’s time to change your Tampax.”
“Stop making fun of me.”
“I’m sorry. But I’ve never seen you act like this before.”
I stood there, staring at T.J. in thoughtless silence. I felt something pushing at me, rushing me, a hard compulsion, and I blurted it out. “I love you, T.J. I’m crazy about you. I’m completely destroyed with love for you.”
T. J. looked at me for the longest while. I didn’t say a word. “Come here,” he said finally.
I walked over and stood next to his bed.
“Sit down.” I sat and T.J. put his arm around my shoulder.
“I’ve been in love with you forever, Peter. I was in love with you on Bennett’s corridor. But I knew you weren’t in love with me.” He pinched some of my hair between his fingers and tugged through the knotted nap. It hurt and I winced. T.J. smiled and put his hand back in his lap. He went on talking.
“And then when Chris came to school, you acted all crazy over him. So I gave up on you. We were still friends, and we were making it. I figured that’s all you wanted.”
“But you wanted more?”
“You see, I always thought I was going to get married someday. Like my dad and mom. They have a good marriage. That was the biggest thing in my life when I was a kid, a close family. Me and Jeff and Rick, and my parents. But then I realized I was never going to get married. I just didn’t like girls enough. Partly because I was in love with you, I realized I was one hundred percent gay. Then my future became — just this big question mark. What does it really mean to be queer? What about love, all that kind of stuff. Where does that fit in? I think I needed a boyfriend just for the sake of having one. I had to know that was a part of being gay. And if it wasn’t going to be you, then maybe it could be Chris, I thought.”
“Or Moonshot?”
“Right.”
“I was never in love with Chris, T.J. Not really. I was just starstruck because his family was famous. Now I think he’s a jerk.”
“I was kind of mad at you for a while, because I thought you had turned me totally gay.”
“But I didn’t seduce you. You seduced me.”
“I don’t mean sexwise. I mean emotionally.”
This was a complete surprise. You never do know what people are thinking.
T.J. put his arm back around my shoulder. ‘‘Anyway, no matter how I feel about Chris or Ronnie, you’re my boyfriend from now on. You and I have the right fit. The way you and I get along, that’s the way my dad and mom get along.”
‘‘Which one am I? Your mother or your dad?”
T.J. smiled to himself and didn’t answer right away. “I didn’t mean it that literally.”
“I wish you could get me pregnant,” I said.
�
��‘I wish you could get me pregnant.”
‘‘No, I wish you could get me pregnant.”
‘‘Well, we’ll just have to keep trying until one of us gets pregnant.”
“Okay. Me first.”
“No, me first.”
“No, me first.”
“I want a divorce,” said T.J.
That did it. T.J. had hit my funny bone with a ball-head hammer. When I stopped laughing, I snuggled in close to his chest. His body felt like a magic rock, giving off vibrations like a lodestone. I wasn’t sure whether I should speak or not, so I didn’t say anything.
We sat together like that for at least an hour. T.J. was very quiet. I finally calmed down. T.J. got up and went out to Mr. Hays’s apartment and brought back two Budweisers.
“Pete, you want a beer?”
“Sure.” He tossed me a tall boy and sat down on the bed. There was silence for a minute. I glanced at the window. “How’s your air conditioner working?” I asked.
“Fine.” He shrugged and shook his head, dismissing the subject.
“I wish I had one. I got two choices, either open the window and die from mosquitoes or close the window and die from the heat.”
T. J. was in a still, spacious mood now. He seemed unsure of me, unsure of what he had said to me. Something was on his mind, and I still had some questions to ask him. I got up, closed the door, and sat back down on the bed.
“T. J., do you think you’ll ever make up with Chris Thayer?”
“Nope.”
‘‘But you want to, right?”
‘‘Chris likes girls.”
“You sure?”
He paused. “Yeah.”
I thought for a second. “Your parents are really cool.”
“Yeah, I dig my dad. People are scared of him.”
“Does he ever let you drive his Porsche?”
T. J. gulped down a swig of Budweiser. “Hell no, Pete.”
The pace of this conversation was odd. What was T.J. thinking about? I doubled back, prodded further. “Chris is crazy. He’s the real Uncle Tom. A gay Uncle Tom.”
“He changed a lot. I had a bad dream about him.”
“Oh yeah?” I got excited. “Tell me about it. I’ll analyze your dream for you.”
T.J. described a hospital room with a bed and a table with a vase of yellow flowers. Chris Thayer lay in the bed with his back in a cast. His back was broken. T.J. came into the room to visit Chris. The two of them were talking. Suddenly Chris jumped up in the bed and cursed at T.J. (“You little shit! You little shit!”) Then the whole room turned slantways and started shaking. T.J. could see the entire hospital room, with him and Chris in it, inside a giant glass cube, tumbling down a hill. Chris fell out of the bed on top of T.J. T.J. couldn’t get out from under Chris, while the cube turned somersaults down the hill until T.J. woke up.
“I could win the Nobel Prize for psychoanalyzing you, T.J. For figuring out your brain, I definitely would deserve to win something. Now, don’t get alarmed. Basically, that dream means you’re crazy. When you saw the room in a cube rolling down the hill, that’s an image of rolling dice, which means you’re gambling your life away. No, it means you’re shooting craps with your life, and you think your life is crap. Also, you want to kill Chris Thayer. No, you want Chris to break his back so he can’t get it up with girls anymore. That’s what it really means.” I was working T.J.’s nerves.
‘‘Bullshit, Pete. You could win the Nobel Prize for psychosis, not for psychoanalysis.”
T.J. stood up from the bed and looked out the window. We could hear a radio playing Creedence Clearwater Revival (“O Suzie Q, O Suzie Q, honey, I love you”). Two boys and girls were laughing out on the lawn. T.J. stood still watching for a while, then came back and sat down on my bed.
“When I first met Chris he was really cool and funny. Except sometimes he was kind of pathetic. He’d just sit there staring into space for no reason. I felt sorry for him.”
“He’s really cute, I have to admit. He reminds me of Huckleberry Finn. I know what you mean about him staring into space.”
“I liked being his roommate. But he changed. He ended up being kind of an asshole. Even before he squealed on me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Things like throwing his clothes around the room, making me clean it up. Making fun of me sometimes, in front of people.” T.J. paused for a moment, looked down towards the floor. “You think you know Chris, Pete, but you don’t.” Chris had said the same thing to me about T.J. Did I know anybody? Did I have any idea what was going on?
“I know he fucks girls, but I’m sure he likes boys too. In the shower sometimes, he was totally obvious. Playing with his dick with the soap and stuff like that.” T.J.’s eyes brightened.
“Did you hear about that guy that popped a hard-on in the shower? Wow!” Mark Fix had lost control of himself after a baseball game. I didn’t believe Mark was gay, but the story had spread through school.
“Embarrassing,” I said. “That’s why I keep my hand on the cold water faucet.”
“I wonder who made him pop a hard-on. I’ll bet it was Billy Green.” Billy was a hunky, straight-haired brunet and the captain of the lacrosse team. T.J. and I both liked Billy Green, and we always joked about having sex with him.
“Could you imagine if Moonshot popped a hard-on in the shower? He’d knock the whole gymnasium down. All these naked guys would come running out of the gym screaming.”
“Right. Like in the monster movies. Like in The Blob when all those people come running out of the theater.”
“Moonshot Lewis,” I said. “A legend in his own time.”
“That’s for sure,” said T.J., shaking his head slowly.
I loved talking queer talk with T.J. It felt great, being so open and relaxed about it. T.J. stood up and put on his shoes.
“Pete, let’s go over to Memorial.”
It was too dangerous to have sex in our dormitory, so T.J. and I always walked across the main lawn to Memorial Building, the biggest and oldest dormitory on campus. We took a room on the top floor, on the front side of the building so we could hear if anyone came through the front door. The only likely visitors were the security guard, who knew us and wouldn’t bother us (unless he caught us cornholing) or some of the straight kids sneaking in to ball their girlfriends.
Inside the building was dark, except for the red fire switch lights. We didn’t dare turn on a light. In the moonlight coming through the window the edges of T.J.’s skin looked literally white. We lay down on an unsheeted mattress and took our clothes off. First we hugged and french-kissed. (“I love you, Peter.” “I love you, T.J.”) T.J.’s tongue fiddled in my mouth like a goldfish flopping in a quarter inch of water. Then I bent him over and fucked him. The wooden bed frame creaked as if it were going to crack. T.J. let out breathy little hoots with each pump from my hips. I loved those little hoots; I thought I owned them. If he missed one, I got angry and pounded him harder, driving his face into the headboard until I heard the helpless yelping that satisfied me.
I knew Moonshot had been there. I could feel him inside of T.J. I imagined the wall of T.J.’s ass stretched to threads by Ronnie’s dick, T.J.’s eyes pirouetting in delirium. And the sounds. The sounds of dead lungs exploding back to life. The muffled cries of T.J. — little T.J., my brown-eyed baby love — releasing his voice, his only link to sanity, while Ronnie saturated him with shattering pain. And I could see Moonshot fumbling, struggling to be gentle, half regretting his gift of enormity, trying to love T.J. with his dick. But all he could do was hurt him.
It was a stabbing, stinging image, mixed with pain and excitement. I still hated the thought, but I knew it had happened and I knew I would have to live with it.
After we fucked, I brought T.J. off with a blowjob. We lay still for a short while, then sat up and continued our silly boy-lover gabbing.
“Why don’t you ball Susie, T. J.? You know she needs your nuts.”
“Sus
ie is frigid. She’s not giving it up to nobody.”
“Excuses, excuses. You’re just a faggot. You could ball her if you wanted to.”
“Look whose talking. I don’t see you dating any girls.”
“You quee-eeeer T.J. threw his dirty socks in my face.
I moved closer and rested my head in T.J.’s lap. “I overheard your father talking about me. He said I was a weirdo.”
“He did?” T.J. was silent for a moment. “That’s just because you’re so quiet. You were a mystery to him.”
“I freaked out over it.”
T.J. was scraping his fingernails in my hair, pinching little bits of it and tugging. “We’ll go out sometime. I’ll help you break the ice with him.” He paused. “I know you need help breaking the ice.” He stopped playing with my hair. We lay silently for several minutes.
“Do you ever dream about me, Pete?”
“I don’t have to dream about you, T.J. You’re real. I’ll dream about you after we graduate.”
“I’ll come and visit you in college,” he promised. And he did.
It was August, and the summer program was winding down. The days were passing too quickly. T.J. heard that he’d been accepted off the waiting list at St. Christopher’s. I was terribly upset by the news. I’d been expecting to spend our senior year together as roommates and lovers. I slunk around for several days and refused to talk to him.
After a week my anger passed, and I wanted to talk to T.J. again. St. Christopher’s wasn’t the end of the world. We could write and visit on vacations, and then after we graduated we could go to the same college. It excited me to think of my relationship with T.J. spanning not just months, but years.
I stood in T.J.’s doorway and mumbled something inaudible, like “How you doing?”
“Are you still mad at me?”
“No,” I said.
“Come in and sit down.”
The Color of Trees Page 19
