by Melody Clark
“Yeah, I know. I guess so.” He slapped a button that triggered the gate to rise. He muttered as he had clearly been trained like a good little monkey to do, “Enjoy your stay.”
He sat in his car for nearly half an hour, trying to summon the courage to go inside.
The house peered out at him from behind the tilted hedges. Laced with rippling fairy lights, the hedges appeared to undulate with life as if a corpuscular part of the people all around them. The people were all clothed in the coolly Spartan swank of the working rich -- most of them young and animated and fitting in perfectly with the street-long lines of lively sports cars and upscale hybrids. No matter the make of the car, the patio light reflected in their every gleaming surface. Not a thing seemed out of place.
Except for him, of course. Jack laughed and shook his head at the percolating youth all around him.
He finally made himself get out of the car and walk up the unlit border of T.J.'s driveway, where it swung wide to pass beyond the hedges and venture through a narrow locked gate.
On the other side of the parallel hedges, the front portico had been sprinkled with some bistro tables and chairs around which people were clustered. On the patch of lawn between the portico and its hedged walkway to the rear, two men stared raptly at each other as they intertwined their fingers. The big art-glass double side doors were standing open for people to enter. A rumbling tumult of jazz piano pulsed down the hallway with T.J.’s favorite Ray Bryant tunes. T.J. seemed everywhere … and nowhere.
Jack walked up to the bistro tables, and the people there looked around at him as if he was a large black bear that had just strolled casually into a midtown cafe.
“Senator Jefferson?” he asked of the staring people.
Two of them gestured silently toward the rear of the house.
He walked out onto the lower terrace of T.J.'s familiar backyard and watched as every head out there pivoted in his direction. He didn't know a way to smile at thirty people at once so he just ignored them all. He kept looking at the mauve orchids and lit candles floating on the still, dark pool. The smooth evening water might have been liquid black amethyst, especially with the residual oily substance that had surfaced with sheen. Probably washed away sunscreen, he decided. Filtrates of a probable earlier pool party to which Jack had not been invited. He was certain there were plenty of those.
The pool adjoined a fenced in area from which streamed a warbling water sound. Jack recognized the sound as coming from T.J.'s hot tub. The only light source in the hot tub patio was an overhead lamp to ward off collisions in the dark. There were also the glow from above and the distant lights dreaming on the edges of the not-too-distant town. Within it all, it took a couple of minutes for Jack's eyes to adjust to dark.
It wasn't until Jack saw one young man getting his tonsils tongue-bathed by another young man, that he completely got what sort of party he was attending. Then he scanned over various male/male couples wrapping around each other like herds of mud wrestling snakes. This reinforced his conclusion.
He tried to crawl behind his hand to hide but his gaze just wouldn't fit.
“You’re Senator Paulson?” a bright voice asked from over his shoulder.
Jack looked up and around. “Yeah.”
He was handed a big frothy green drink in a glass. “Senator Jefferson sends this to you with his compliments.”
Jack accepted the glass, considered it, swishing the contents around. He sniffed at it. The scent didn’t kill him so he sipped a little. “Thanks,” he said. “Where is he?”
“Not sure. He said you should relax and he’ll find you,” the young man replied before he vanished into the crowded night.
Jack stared long into the glass. He actually sipped a little more. It still didn’t make his tongue swell so he drank again.
The bright assault of T.J.’s laugh lit the night air, sailing over the din surrounding them.
Jack set down the glass and followed the laughter.
The tiled terrace made a wide circle around the patio's declivity. He could feel the sweaty male mist of the hot tub on his skin. A rock Tuscan wall surrounded the glowing, churning hot tub. It bathed everyone around it in a mild, psychedelic light.
At last, the sound of his laugh led Jack to T.J.
He wore black shorts and his favorite black shirt unbuttoned. He was smiling all over some hunky fellow who seemed equally entranced by him. T.J. had one foot laced around the other guy's leg, one hand poised on his knee, and was paying no one else even the slightest attention. As Jack watched, T.J. leaned over and brushed his lips over the other man's receptive mouth.
Jack reached out and grabbed hold of a piece of Tuscany to balance himself.
He sank coldly into an adjacent chair. The touch of the hard metal surface felt even colder.
He tried to wrestle back the moments into some semblance of reason, but they simply wouldn't align.
So what, you're jealous or something? he asked himself. How distinctly adolescent of you.
Okay, T.J. is a slut. Always has been, always will be. That was nothing new in that revelation. But then T.J. had said only yesterday that he cherished their relationship.
Jack laughed darkly at the full memory. It bugged him badly. What bothered him most, of course, was that it bothered him at all.
What do we do now? Go back and confront him? That would be cute. Big bunch of drama. Sizeable young audience. Tele-novella on the Hilla. Yeah, that would be just the thing to yank their fairly low-visibility old relationship into a whole new high-intensity spotlight. Page Six is on line two, Jack.
What were the alternatives? Staying? Sitting around like a bug-eyed garden frog, waiting for T.J.’s attention? Maybe that had always been the idea -- to hurl this scene in his face.
Finally, he grabbed hold of the edges of his dignity. Fuck T.J., Paulson told himself, just get the hell out of here.
At that moment, somebody dressed like a waiter sidled up to him for a drink request.
"Nothing, thank you," he said to himself, returning the cold glass he held to the waiter’s platter.
Jack moved away without being seen, wove his way quickly through the crowd to the door and the sidewalk then the street. At last, he found himself rounding the curb toward his car.
"Jack!" a familiar voice called out to him.
Jack paused in unlocking his door to see T.J.'s secretary Lee just a few feet away. He wore a sari and he carried a margarita. It created an image that would have been weird if the ensemble had been worn by anyone else.
"I was paged. Some ... emergency or other," Jack called back while climbing into his car. He forced up a smile. "Tell T.J. I'll call him tomorrow."
"But you shouldn’t --” Lee started to say, but the door that Jack slammed between them muffled the rest of his sentence.
Jack managed to chug his car to life and peel away from the curb without once looking back.
“Was that Jack?” T.J. asked, puffing out gulped air as he jogged up behind Lee. “I saw him dart out of the patio.”
“Yes and we have to go after him!” Lee said.
“Yes, yes, I know,” T.J. said, turning around as if trying to sort out what had to be done first. “I’ll go ask my assistant to close up the house and – “
“No, we have to go now,” Lee said, covering his mouth with a worried hand. “Somebody at the party dosed his margarita.”
“What? Why on earth would they do that?”
“It was a stupid joke. They told me about it afterwards. Some people don’t like him. Well, a lot of people don’t like him – ”
“None of those people know him,” he said. “What did they give him?”
“Some party drug. They call it triggers.”
“Triggers? That’s a mild hallucinogen, isn’t it?”
Lee shrugged helplessly. “I think.”
“Wonderful. Jack thinks everyone hates him anyway and now you guys do this.”
“I didn’t do it. Don’t shoot the messe
nger.”
“I know, I know,” T.J. said, as if his head was spinning. “Listen, give me your keys. I need your car. Mine is blocked by guests.”
“Well, how do we get home?” Lee asked, handing over his car keys.
“In a taxi,” T.J. said, calling over his shoulder as he moved toward Lee’s car. “I’ll pick you up in the morning.”
Jack only relaxed when his car reached the end of the housing tract and he drove back through the security gate. He only breathed out at the first length of open road.
He shook his head hard, trying to persuade himself the mists in his eyes came less from tears than from his eye strain at still driving in that hour of the evening.
"You just shouldn't have gone. That's all. You just shouldn't have gone. So go back home and pretend that you never left."
So he just drove the fuck home.
As he made the turn toward Georgetown Boulevard, he noticed a new gold statue standing at the side of the road. A new nude gold statue – it kind of looked like Thor. That was different. He was almost sure he hadn’t seen it while leaving.
“Damned housing association. They wouldn’t okay Izzy painting our house yellow, but a naked gold Thor in the neighborhood is fine,” Jack muttered, as he turned a corner into his block.
His brownstone always got the worst of the rain where the old structure huddled on the corner. Exposure to countless winters had left the burnt red brick a perpetual November brown. It made for a warm and homey appearance at all times but especially when he needed a place to crawl away. A shower, a drink and then eight full hours, in that order, he decided. That would sufficiently wipe away all he had just experienced. At least for a while.
So he shoved everything else to the back of his mind and slipped in through the rear-door entrance to his house. It felt like slipping on a warm jacket on a straight-to-the-bone chilly night.
He treaded up the back stairway to the master bath. He dragged off his clothes, slam dunked them into the hamper and then groped his way through a hot shower. He dried himself quickly and slipped into his favorite sweatpants. And for his last act, he would suck dry the bottle of high-end brandy he had abandoned earlier on his bureau. He would then bury his head for the night.
But then he noticed that someone stood in the doorway to his room.
T.J. was still clad in the black silk shorts and shirt Jack had last seen him wearing. T.J. gazed at him worriedly while still defiantly crossing his arms.
"Well, that answers the question of whether or not you still have your key," Jack said.
“Are you feeling all right?” T.J. asked, approaching him carefully.
“Yeah, fine. I just left because it wasn’t a party. It was a gay meet-and-greet and I didn't know anyone there. It was a mistake for me to come at all so I left."
"I was there!" T.J. snapped. "You knew me."
"You were busy with some guy," Jack replied with an edge to the words. He grabbed up a heavy amber bottle from the bureau and sloshed something into the glass he'd abandoned earlier beside the brandy. "It seemed you were cherishing our relationship."
Sudden recognition washed away T.J.'s puzzled expression with a slowly growing smile. "Oh, that guy? I was trying to prick tease some information out of him. About that stupid list everyone's talking about."
"Looked like more than teasing to me."
"Well, it wasn't. I honestly didn't think you'd be there at all or I'd have been more careful."
"Oh, that makes me feel much more confident."
T.J. shook his head, clearly fighting to understand. "You know, Jack, just yesterday, you said we didn't have a relationship, remember?"
"Yeah, I know," Jack said, turning away to drink from his glass. He muttered grimly, "Listen, my mistake. Forget I said anything. Never mind."
T.J. grabbed the glass out of Jack's hand and slammed it into the bedroom trash bin. "Goddamn it, stop that!"
"Hey, that's Napoleon cognac -- "
"I don't care if it's liquid fucking gold. Reach for some again and I'll throw your whole fucking bar off the balcony. Want to try me?" He slammed his hand against the wall, as if forcing back his temper only to swallow it whole. “Anyway, I have something more important to tell you. Somebody at my party dosed your margarita.”
“They did what?” Jack gasped, his voice snapping in two.
“Some friend of Lee’s did it. I’m very sorry.”
“The green margarita, I should have known never to trust a gift horse,” Jack said, shaking his head. “So what should I do? Go to the emergency room or something?”
“Not necessary. Have you heard of Triggers?”
“You mean Roy Rogers’ horse?”
“That was Trigger, singular. This is Triggers, plural, and it’s a party hallucinogen. Guys drop the crap at my parties all the time. No one ever has anything worse than some mild hallucinations.”
“Oh, hell, that’s a great comfort. Don’t worry, Jack, you’ll just mildly hallucinate.” He remembered the drive up to his house. “Well, at least that explains the naked gold Thor.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
Jack stood there in shock, trying to determine what was happening from within his own distracted state. "I suppose I can’t drink anything, right?”
“Nothing that you want to drink, no. And anyway you’ve had your fill. I'm sick of you hiding in bottles or telling me to forget it or wanting to talk about something else," T.J. said sharply. “Admit to me you were jealous.”
“About what?”
“About the guy at my party, of course.”
Jack reached forward to grab at T.J.’s shoulder. “I’m feeling dizzy. I better lie down.”
T.J. blocked his way. “I’ll hold you up. First, the admission. Then you lie down.”
“All right, I was jealous, okay? Happy? Now can I relax before I rip my clothes off and go screaming through the streets like an ape-man?”
T.J. smirked and stepped out of his way. “Yes. But I must say, I think I’d pay good money to see that other thing happen.”
“You’re a sadist,” Jack said, as he crawled across the bed to prop himself up with pillows. At that point, a piece of his bedroom wall slid away and Izzy walked into the room.
Even if it seemed to be Izzy, Jack seriously considered screaming. He glanced back at T.J. “You don’t see her, right?”
T.J. looked in the direction Jack was staring. “See who?”
“That answers that question.” Jack pointed toward the wall. “I’m hallucinating Izzy standing right over there.”
T.J.’s eyes widened. “Is she saying anything?” he asked, looking around the room.
“Give him my love,” she said, smiling.
“Not till you just said something,” Jack snapped. “That’s the thing with suggestion. You suggest something, it happens, see?”
“What did she say?” T.J. asked, his eyebrows crowding together.
Jack winced like he’d been clobbered by pain, as it hurt too badly to look at her. “What do you care? She’s a hiccup in my neurotransmitters. A very sad and wonderful hiccup but a hiccup.” Jack made himself look back toward T.J. He shook his head in exasperation. “Okay, she sends her love.”
“I send mine back,” T.J. said to the wall.
“Oh, my god,” Jack said, staring up at the ceiling, as if asking for patience from uncountable gods far beyond it.
“You need to tell each other the truth,” Izzy said.
“We need to tell each other whose truth?” Jack shot back.
“The truth,” she said.
“There is no ultimate truth, Iz, there’s … good grief, listen to me. I’ve lost my fucking mind.”
“At last, he understands,” T.J. replied with a gentle smile. He crawled over Jack to lay beside him. He reached over and grabbed one of the hands that Jack had balled into his usual fists. "I love you, Jack. Don’t worry, I don't expect for a moment that you will say it back. I know you feel it, but if the words e
ver flew out of your mouth, I'd die from the shock. Just promise me something?"
"If I can."
"Don't go anywhere again. Ever. When I thought what I thought after you said what you said – "
“What?”
“You know what I mean. At the restaurant. When you tried to convince me I was nothing more than a game for you. I felt like dying. No exaggeration, Jack. I really did.”
“Christ, T.J., I’m sorry.”
T.J. pulled his phone out of his shorts pocket. He plucked at a button and put the phone to his ear. After a moment, he said, “Be an ace and lock up for me, will you? I need to babysit Jackie tonight. See you in the morning.” He clicked the phone off and placed it on the table on his side of Jack’s bed.
