by Rick R. Reed
Vito promised himself, for the thousandth time, that he would gather the playthings up and take them somewhere for donation on his very next day off. He drained the coffee in his cup and stood, stretching.
The day yawned, a vast and unfilled space, before him. What to do with Henry? The smart move would be to tell him to just get out. Vito didn’t need any complications, and he certainly didn’t need the temptation the handsome young man offered. It would only lead to more trouble, more heartache. Besides, Henry was not his responsibility. He barely knew him. If his family had thrown him out because he was gay—which was ridiculous—that was, sadly, Henry’s problem. Vito could perhaps offer him some wisdom on the self-acceptance part of the coming-out process, but he wasn’t responsible for seeing that Henry had a place to sleep at night. The kid would need to work that out for himself.
Right?
Right? Vito asked himself again, but he had no answer to give back.
He stepped into the kitchen, and the girls stood behind him, separated by the closed screen door. They whined, and Vito turned to glare at them. Sometimes all it took was a look. Both dogs retreated, curling up on the wooden floor.
Vito turned back to Henry, who had now finished washing the dishes and was wiping down the sink, the faucet, every surface, taking an absurdly long and involved time to do this final step.
“You don’t have to make sure it sparkles, you know. Just having the dishes taken care of is enough. Thank you.”
Henry turned to look at him, and Vito could see the fear in his eyes. There was almost a shrinking away from him, and that made Vito sad.
Was he really that awful?
Henry swallowed and said, “I just wanted to make sure everything was good.” He gave Vito an awkward smile. “I really appreciate what you’re doing for me.”
It was on the tip of Vito’s tongue to say something harsh, something real, like “Don’t get too used to it. I just gave you a place to crash for the night. One night.” Instead he moved tentatively toward Henry until he was standing almost nose to nose with him. He stared into Henry’s eyes, searching. He smiled. Henry smiled back. “Why can’t you keep your nose out of my business?”
“I’m sorry.” The smile vanished from Henry’s face.
And Vito, once more, felt like kicking himself. “No, no. I’m sorry. Sorry I made you feel bad when the things you’ve seen—my son’s toys, his pictures on the bookcase, my husband’s photograph—were all left out for you to see.” Vito shrugged. “I guess I never really thought anyone would come here and see my life on display.” He nodded toward the refrigerator to indicate the watercolor scene held to its surface by a magnet. It was crude but showed some real style. There were two mountains of snow with a little house in between, a dark night sky with flakes falling. “Like that. It reminds me of Sal. He made that for me. How could I ever get rid of it?”
Henry licked his lip and then shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He stared harder into Vito’s eyes.
“Go ahead,” Vito said, placing his hand on Henry’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “Go ahead. Ask. I know you want to.” I just don’t know if I want to tell you. I don’t know if I can bear sharing that with anyone. Not again. Not ever. I don’t even talk about them with Mom much. But you know too much and too little. And maybe it’s time I unburdened myself. Vito slowly drew in a quivering breath. As if this burden could ever go away! As if I would ever want it to….
Vito leaned in close, closer, to Henry and kissed him. They pulled quickly away, as if both of them were surprised by what they’d done. Henry gasped, and then they came together again, just as quickly, passionately now, their bodies mashed together, tongues dueling, their sweat commingling. They clutched at each other like men falling into an abyss, as if one could save the other.
Vito could feel the ache, heat, and hardness of Henry’s desire pressed up against his own through the thin cotton of their boxers.
Vito had to force himself to step back, placing a foot or so between them. He was panting, and from just that fraction-of-a-second connection, that starved kiss, Vito felt the tremors course through him, almost spasms, telling him he was almost there.
“Ask me,” he repeated.
With his finger, he traced a line across Henry’s lower lip, and Henry shuddered.
Henry’s pale skin was red with heat, a crimson smudge spilled across the bridge of his nose and cheeks. For a moment he looked confused, but then Vito could see it all clicking into place and knew Henry was mustering up the courage to ask the question prominent in both of their minds.
“What happened? Where are they?”
Vito took Henry by the hand and led him into the living room. They sat together on the couch, close enough that their shoulders touched. For a long time, all Vito could do was stare straight ahead.
“It’s hot in here.” Vito got up, brought in the box fan from the bedroom, and then plugged it in. He positioned it so the breeze would flow across both their bodies. He disappeared once more to let the girls in. They sniffed for a moment around the bottom of the kitchen counters, foraging, and then splayed out on the relatively cool tile of the floor.
Vito returned to Henry. He sat on the opposite end of the couch, then swung his legs up and positioned himself so he was lying on his back, his feet in Henry’s lap. “Is this okay?”
“Sure.”
“I just don’t want to look at you when I talk.”
“Why?”
“If I look at you, I’ll cry. And I don’t want you to see me cry.”
Henry patted Vito’s calf and said, very softly, “Whatever you need to do. We don’t even need to talk if you don’t wanna.”
“Yeah, I kind of think I need to tell about my lover, my son.”
Vito could feel Henry stiffen against the lower part of his legs.
“Are you sure? You don’t owe me anything.”
“I owe myself,” Vito said. “I’ve never really talked about losing them. Strange, isn’t it? They’ve been gone over a year, and I’ve never talked about it. Ma, she doesn’t push. And the people at the restaurant give me my space, for better or worse.”
They were quiet for a moment, a moment in which the dogs came in from the kitchen. They paced the room and then positioned themselves in front of the fan, lying down.
Vito said, “You may have noticed—their lives pretty much consist of moving from one napping spot to another.”
Henry chuckled. “Were they here when your son was? When your husband was?” Henry paused. “I mean, if he was your husband.”
“Yeah, they were here. And yeah, he was. We were able to make it legal. His name was Kevin. You saw his picture. It’s over there.” Vito pointed to the bookcase across the room with his foot.
“He was cute. Handsome. Were you together long?”
“Long enough to know I loved him with all my heart. Long enough to know he was the only man for me. Long enough to feel like, now, I don’t know how I’ll continue to move through life in this void he left behind.” Vito grew quiet, and he didn’t allow himself to say any more. He would not have Henry witness the sound of his voice breaking. He just lay, his gaze tracing a hairline crack in the ceiling plaster, and waited for Henry to ask him another question. Maybe by that time, the urge to sob would have passed.
“So when did you meet? How long ago was it?”
Vito let out a burst of laughter as the memory rose up. He was actually relieved by the question. “Oh, it’s a tawdry tale. Maybe one that’s too off-color for your young and sensitive ears.”
“I’m not as pure-as-the-driven-snow as you might think,” Henry said.
“Oh, of that, I’m quite certain. Just look at you. Talk about handsome! You must have to beat them off with a stick… or your hand. And you know how to kiss.” Vito shifted. “I wish I had some colorful and romantic backstory about how I met Kevin, something comic and sweet and innocent, but the truth was I met him in a leather bar down in Boystown.” Vito lifted hi
s head for a moment to glance at Henry. “Does that surprise you?”
“A little. Those places scare me.”
“Have you ever been in one?”
“Dude, I’m eighteen.” Henry laughed. “No.”
“I used to like to go, believe it or not,” Vito said. “Once upon a time, I looked pretty hot in chaps and a leather harness.”
Henry sucked in a breath, which made Vito laugh.
“Now that seems like a different person who dressed up in leather and latex. Even then, I could be this other guy, one apart from the single dad who had a little boy he was raising. It was like gearing up for battle or putting on a kind of drag when I went out to the leather bars on the weekends.”
Vito let his mind drift back to those days. The person he saw in memory was much younger, even though only a few years had passed. But sometimes it was more than just time that aged people. In his mind’s eye, Vito saw the neighbor, Walt, who used to live upstairs, an ex-drag queen who was pretty much of a shut-in back then because his AIDS cocktails had caused his face to look hollow and sunken. He could never afford the fillers to combat that look, so he stayed in, watching old movies and listening to disco music that Vito figured brought to life his glory days, when he performed at some of the clubs as Lois Carmen Denominator. He and Vito had been friends, and Walt loved Sal, doted on him.
Vito went on, “But I used to have a gay babysitter who watched Sal—that was my son’s name—an older guy, a big queen if you want to know the truth, and I think he liked to see me dressed up to go out.”
Henry didn’t say anything.
“This story is going all over the place, but you asked how we met. You really want to know? ’Cause, kid, it ain’t pretty. It ain’t exactly flowers and chocolates.”
“I can take it,” Henry said.
“Well, you’ve never been to a leather bar, so you may or may not know that many of them, at least the ones here in town, have back rooms. You know about back rooms?”
“No,” Henry said. “Educate me.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I think you’re better off not being educated. Let’s just say these rooms offer a dark and close place for men to get better acquainted with one another.”
“In public?” Henry asked.
“Oh yes. That just makes it better. Some of us like an audience.” Vito cleared his throat. “Or at least we did, once upon a time.” He paused and then went on. “Long story short, that’s where I met Kevin. In the back room. Before we’d spoken even two words to each other, we knew what the other’s come tasted like.”
Vito stopped again, listening for a gasp, a snort of disgust, anything, but Henry remained silent.
“Are you shocked?”
“Um, yeah.”
“But you’re not judging me, right?” Vito asked, not that he cared, but he was curious how this North Shore boy might react to some of his raunchier escapades.
“I’m not judging. It sounds kind of hot, but I think I’d be too scared to try it. I mean, once I’m even old enough to go to one of those places.”
“Don’t be in a big hurry to be jaded,” Vito said. “What happened that night isn’t so important, anyway. The mechanics of it had pretty much happened to me dozens of times before.
“But Kevin was different. Kevin came home with me. We had wild sex until dawn. But then—” Vito stopped, unsure if he could continue. His lower lip quivered. His breath was shaky. He blinked away the tears gathering in his eyes.
Henry prodded gently, “But then it became something more.”
Vito nodded and then realized Henry wasn’t looking at him. “Yeah, a lot more. See, Kevin wasn’t a one-nighter. He stayed. After that night, Kevin and I were pretty much together for the long haul. Sal loved him. I loved him. It was just right, you know?”
“Not really.”
“Ah, you’re young.”
“Right, old man.”
Vito went quiet again. Then he said, “The important thing was that it was like the corny songs and the romance novels—everything was perfect, right from the start. Love at first sight and all that happy horseshit.”
“I envy you that,” Henry said, and Vito couldn’t help but hear the melancholy that tainted his young voice.
“I envy me that. I didn’t know the long haul was going to be such a short trip. It was all taken away so soon—by a drunk driver on the Eisenhower Expressway.”
Vito swallowed. The bare bones of the accident was a story everyone had heard a million times. Some asshole gets behind the wheel of a car after having one—or six—too many and kills a couple of innocent people. It’s sad news, something to be “tsked” over, until those innocent people belong to you, until the loss of those innocent people wrecks your life and leaves you feeling cast adrift in a world that’s been drained of all color. Then a drunk driver doesn’t seem like a societal ill, a tragic statistic, a reason for tougher laws and vigilance, but personal and a source of nearly unending grief. Sometimes Vito wanted Sal and Kevin back so bad he physically ached.
Vito sat up suddenly. He looked at Henry and smiled. He hopped from the couch and grabbed one of the framed photos atop the bookcase. It was one of Sal. He had Vito’s dark curly hair and cocoa eyes. His lips were like a little Cupid’s bow, red enough to look as though he’d just eaten a cherry Popsicle. His olive complexion was splashed with pink at his cheeks. He looked like a little doll. Yet even though his curls were long and his eyes huge, you knew as soon as you looked at him and his impish grin, he was all boy. Vito put the photo into Henry’s hands.
“That’s my boy. Salvatore Giovanni Carelli. Is that Italian enough for you? He’s named after my two grandpas, my two nonnos, as they say in the old country. Both of them have passed away, and I thought Sally would carry on their legacy.” Vito smiled sadly. “I was already teaching him to cook.”
“He’s a gorgeous little boy, Vito, really.”
“Isn’t he? I can’t take all the credit. He had a mama too.”
“And what was up with that?”
Vito punched Henry’s arm. “What do you mean? When I was your age, I didn’t think I was queer. Maybe I kind of knew, somewhere deep inside, but I didn’t accept it. I thought I just wanted close friendships with the other boys I stared at. That’s how I rationalized my fixation on some of the cuter boys at school. Never mind the dreams that came at night, in the morning. Queers were ballet dancers, hairdressers, and interior decorators. Yeah, I liked to cook, but I also liked football, wrestling—hey, that should have been a clue—and was always a diehard Cubbies fan. When my dad was alive, we hunted, we fished. I did all the manly stuff.” Vito took the photo away from Henry and set it—with reverence—on the coffee table. He stroked the top of it for just a moment, the sense memory of touching the top of Sal’s head coming back. Sal’s dark eyes stared out at them.
“Angela—his mother—and I met when we were only sixteen. We worked at the same grocery store—she stocked shelves and I was a bag boy. We were two horny kids who didn’t know what we were doing. She was beautiful, even my gay eyes could see that, and so I mistook my appreciation for attraction. We fucked like bunnies, three, four times a day. I was relieved, thought all that sex proved I was straight. But the fact was I was just so full of testosterone I could have fucked a watermelon. In fact, one time I did!” Vito laughed.
“The story ends how you might guess. Angela ended up pregnant. And surprisingly enough, after Sal was born, it wasn’t me who left her but the other way around. Ah, she was a kid, and she definitely wasn’t ready to be a mom. So I took over….
“That’s when I got into cooking. I had a little mouth to feed and needed a real job to keep a roof over our heads. It made me grow up fast.” He eyed Henry and said, “Sometimes our circumstances force us to mature sooner than we think we will. You know?” He didn’t wait for an answer from Henry. “I thought just being us—pop and kid—would last for a long, long time. Then Kevin came along, so unexpectedly, so perfectly, and the happiness just mu
ltiplied.” Vito shook his head, knowing his features must be a reflection of the deep sadness within. “It seems I used up all my happiness early on. Who knew there was only a finite amount?”
Vito wanted to say more. He wanted to tell Henry more about that brief happy period in his life when he had made a family of his own. He wanted to share his definition of real success—when he realized there was nothing better than simply being at home with Kevin and Sal. No exotic trips, parties, whatever, could equal the sheer bliss and abiding joy that came from just being with the two of them. A dinner in. Cuddling on the couch while some inane sitcom blared from the TV. Bedtime stories. Spooning with the husband on a lazy Sunday morning, knowing that your little boy was safe and warm in his own bed in the room next door. Or little Sal, petrified by a thunderstorm, crawling into bed with his two dads and the three of them drifting off into contented slumber while rain beat a staccato rhythm against the windows.
That was real happiness.
Vito always thought he was lucky. Until that night….
And he found himself retreating again, slipping away and twisting to break the tenuous, fragile bond he’d formed with Henry that morning. Something inside Vito forced it—self-preservation, maybe? He had told Henry everything, bared his breast. And what had it accomplished? It had only laid his wounds open. Laid them bare, like fresh cuts.
It hadn’t helped.
Vito stood up and went to stare out the window. “So now you know,” he said. He turned back to Henry. “And now I think I need to take a nap. This talk has taken something out of me.” He spoke softly. There wasn’t much breath left to put behind his words.
