A Night at the Ariston Baths

by Michael Murphy

  The only thought that Martin followed to a logical conclusion was about the simple fact that he missed sunlight. He only got to see the sun one day a week and yearned for the sight of the bright blue sky with a hot sun making him feel alive.

  “What in the world have you been so focused on all evening long?” Jasper asked Theodore, which reminded him that he was not alone in the apartment.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Theodore apologized. “It’s been very difficult to make out. It’s a letter from Martin.”

  Theodore wrote to Martin the same evening and sent the letter out immediately the next morning. But he never heard another word from Martin after that. He kept checking his mail hoping for another letter. He feared that the Martin who would leave Sing Sing prison would not be the same man who entered the prison in 1903.

  ON A rainy night in mid-June the following year, Theodore was behind the counter totaling up the cash receipts of the day while Jasper was sweeping the floors of the store now that their workday was concluded.

  Theodore stopped when he heard a sound. Looking at Jasper, clearly he had heard the same sound as well.

  “What’s that?” Jasper asked.

  “I don’t know,” Theodore said.

  The tapping repeated a few seconds later.

  “Is someone knocking on the door?” Theodore asked.

  “I’ll check,” Jasper said. He set his broom aside for the moment and made his way to the door. Once he reached the door, Jasper called out, “We’re closed. We’ll reopen tomorrow at seven.”

  “Please,” a man said. “Theodore? Is that you?”

  Jasper pulled back the blind enough to peek outside.

  “Um, Theodore, there’s an old man out there who thinks I’m you.” Stepping back, Jasper told Theodore, “He looks scruffy—quite a mess. Don’t open the door. He looks scary.”

  Theodore stepped to the door, pulled back the blind, and studied the man for a moment. Beneath the chaotic beard that covered his face, the unruly hair on his head, and behind the ragged clothes that he wore, Theodore thought he saw someone he should know. He studied the man a moment longer, not getting how he knew this rough-looking man. But then he heard the stranger say one word. “Teddy.” And Theodore immediately knew.

  “Martin.”

  Still not believing the man outside his door was really Martin, Theodore stood and simply stared at him.

  “Can I come inside?” Martin asked.

  This question pulled Theodore from his careful study of the man’s face.

  “Oh, yes. I’m sorry. Of course.” He unlocked the door to admit his old friend.

  The man before him looked… old. He looked to have aged at least twenty years during the five years since Theodore had last seen him.

  “Is something wrong?” Martin asked.

  “I… I… I just… I just can’t believe it. Is it really you?”

  “Do I look that different? Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. I haven’t had the courage to look at myself in the mirror for years now. They didn’t have any in prison for fear the prisoners would break them and use them as weapons.”

  “You’ve aged,” Theodore said.

  “So have you, my friend. So have we all. It’s been years.”

  Martin was soaked from walking in the rain, so Theodore finally said, “Come upstairs and get dried off. Take a bath if you…. It looks like you need one. Come.”

  “Won’t Mr. Hoffman object to you bringing a bum into his apartment?”

  Theodore stopped and turned back to Martin. “He passed on a few years ago. The store is mine now. Mine and Jasper’s,” he said, gesturing to his companion.

  “Jasper?” Martin asked, a look of sadness passing over his face.

  “That’s me,” Jasper indicated with a smile but without moving closer to Martin.

  “Where are my parents?” Martin asked suddenly. “I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I went by their house thinking that maybe they could take me in while I get myself cleaned up and reacclimated to freedom. But their house was empty and dark. Why did they move away, and where did they go?”

  Theodore had dreaded this moment. How in the world could he possibly tell Martin that his parents had died while he was locked away in prison for five years?

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you, Martin.”

  “They’re dead, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  “When?”

  “About two years ago,” Theodore said, hoping that this would buy him some time to better assess Martin’s mental state before going into more detail.

  “Did they… know? About me? About where I was?”

  “No. I told them that your work took you out of the country indefinitely on a major assignment, and that it was an offer you could not refuse.”

  “And they believed you? No one else ever told them what really happened?”

  “Not to my knowledge. They never mentioned it or acted as if they disbelieved me. And you sent me letters to take to them periodically in the early years. But you stopped writing to both them and to me. Did you know?”

  “No. It was just a really bad time in prison, and I had to focus more on staying alive than on anything else.” Martin was quiet for a few minutes. “You didn’t write to tell me.”

  “No. I thought it would only make things worse because there wasn’t a single thing you could do.”

  THEY DIRECTED Martin upstairs, got him into a hot bath, and then gave him some food and put him into an unused bedroom. After he had slept for twelve hours two nights in a row, Martin was more rested and ready to talk. The following evening he started to tell some of his stories.

  “I was so angry when I saw men who had committed horrible crimes, serious crimes, even murder, get paroled. But every time I wrote and applied for parole—and I was a model prisoner, never causing a bit of trouble—every time I asked, the answer was always the same—rejected. No parole.

  “And it was the same with the others of us arrested that night at the Ariston Baths. Once we were branded as a sodomite, the label stuck with us, and we could never escape that, just like a cow that had been branded couldn’t change the markings it wore.”

  Theodore and Jasper listened attentively, but neither offered much in the way of words, instead giving him their full attention.

  “I’m so goddamned angry,” Martin practically yelled. “They took something from me that I’ll never get back. They took my youth. They took what would potentially have been the most productive and profitable years of my life, when I could have gotten myself established to work for years to come. But not now. Now I can’t even hope to get a job anything like what I once had. I’ve forgotten too much. And look at me. I’m a broken man now.”

  Martin shook his head in frustration. “Do you know that in prison you can’t ever turn your back on your fellow man? It’s true. You’ve got to be constantly vigilant, constantly alert in case someone tries to sneak up on you and take what little you have. And if you don’t have anything of value, they’ll take your pride, your dignity, and use your body.”

  They were all quiet for a few minutes, and then Martin suddenly switched subjects. “What ever became of all the things I had in my room back in New York? I went back there before I left New York, but the old lady that ran the place is dead and gone, and the place is completely different now. They didn’t know who I was, and I was happy with that. Did all of my stuff get stolen? Thrown away?”

  Finally Theodore had something he could offer. “No, Martin. I saved everything of yours. I paid for your room throughout the time you were in the Tombs and then on trial. But once you were sent to prison, I stopped. I put everything into boxes and moved those boxes into my room.

  “When I moved back here, I brought everything back with me. Everything that was in your room is upstairs in the attic.”

  “My… my stuff?”

  Theodore nodded. “Yes. Your things.”

  “Please?
May I… may I see it?”

  “Of course,” Theodore said. “It’s all yours. I was just saving it for you.”

  He led Martin up a hidden staircase into the attic of the old house and led him to a pile of packing crates. “This pile is your stuff,” Theodore told him.

  “These?” Martin asked with a quivering voice.

  “Yes. These are your things.”

  “May I look?” Martin asked.

  “It’s all yours,” Theodore told him. “It’s yours to do with as you please. Why don’t you just sit down and go through the boxes and see what’s there.”

  “You wouldn’t mind?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Thank you,” Martin told him as if Theodore had just given him a million dollars and not a pile of dusty old boxes.

  Theodore returned to the kitchen to help Jasper clean up.

  “He’s broken, isn’t he?” Jasper asked.

  Theodore nodded, feeling close to tears.

  “He’s not what I expected.”

  “He’s not the man I used to know. They took that man and sent back the husk of a man. He’s just a shell of the man he once was. He was once a fun-loving, happy guy who lived life and loved life. But that man’s gone.”

  FOR SEVERAL days, Martin stayed in his room, not coming out when either Theodore or Jasper were present. A few days later when he did, Theodore and Jasper were seated at the table in the kitchen having a conversation. Without a word of introduction, Martin just started talking over their ongoing conversation.

  “The guards singled out all of the men in prison on charges of sodomy. They made a special point of telling all the other prisoners of what crime we’d been tried and convicted. All the prisoners started turning to us for sexual… outlet, even though it was technically illegal, and was, after all, the activity that got all of us sent to prison in the first place. It was yet another slap in the face. When a prisoner who was especially disgusting came to us, you might try to tell him no, but all that got you was a punch or a more thorough beating. We were all assaulted any number of times, but the guards of course didn’t do anything because we were less than men, after all. It didn’t matter to them what happened to us.”

  As suddenly as he’d started his story, he finished it and walked out of the room without another word. Theodore and Jasper just stared at each other.

  “Is he insane?” Jasper asked, seriously.

  At first Theodore didn’t answer, but the same question was in his mind. “He very well may be.”

  When Theodore and Jasper were invited by Theodore’s parents to join them for dinner at their house, Theodore invited Martin to accompany them.

  “No!” Martin had shouted angrily at him, which made Theodore jump back in surprise. “Don’t tell them I’m here. Don’t tell anyone I’m here. I don’t want to see anyone. I don’t want anyone to see me like I am now. Please.”

  Suspicious, Jasper asked, “Martin, is someone looking for you?”

  Martin sneered at Jasper, “No, and mind your own business, little boy.”

  Jasper was as mild-mannered as Theodore, but Theodore could not miss the way Jasper’s fists clenched in anger after Martin’s words. Placing one hand on Jasper’s arm, Theodore looked him in the eye to assure him that he understood. Jasper gave him a quick nod and left the room.

  “Very well,” Theodore said, “but I know they’d love to see you.”

  “No, they wouldn’t,” Martin told him. “No one would. I’m not me anymore. They wouldn’t even know who I am. I don’t even know who I am anymore. Just let me be. Just let me stay out of sight. I don’t want to see anyone, including him,” Martin spat, looking toward Jasper. “When do you send him home?”

  “Martin!” Theodore scolded. “Jasper and I live together. We are together. I’ve told you that. Do not be so rude. You are not very nice to him. He lives with me. I live with him. We have opened our home to you, and I do not appreciate the way you treat Jasper.”

  Martin said nothing, but turned and left the room.

  Jasper was silent as he and Theodore walked the short distance from their apartment over the store to his parents’ house.

  “Come on in,” Theodore’s father greeted them jovially as he did each time they came for dinner. Once jackets were tended to, the three of them sat in the living room for a few minutes. “Business been good?” he asked.

  “Yes, quite good,” Theodore said. “At times almost more than the two of us can keep up with.”

  “I guess that’s a good thing.”

  “Dinner,” Theodore’s mother called. Seated around the table conversation was light and casual, at least until Theodore’s mother said, “Jasper, what’s wrong?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I mean, what’s wrong? Clearly something has you upset. You haven’t said two words since you arrived. I’m worried about you. Did Theodore do something that upset you? I can have a word with him if need be,” she said menacingly.

  “No, ma’am. Nothing of the sort. Just a bit tired, I guess. A little overwhelmed of late.”

  Theodore watched Jasper closely and carefully, but Jasper revealed nothing about their houseguest.

  On their walk back, Jasper said, “I do so enjoy time with your parents. Your mother doesn’t miss a thing, does she?”

  “No. She sees everything.”

  “Do you think she knows about our houseguest?”

  “No. I don’t think so. If she did, she’d have been over to see him immediately. She hasn’t, so I don’t think she knows.”

  When they got back to their building, Jasper sighed loudly and said, “Here we go again, back into some fresh hell I’m sure.”

  “I know how difficult this is for you. You have been incredible, and I am deeply appreciative of your patience in this difficult situation.”

  “Thank you,” Jasper said.

  MARTIN STAYED out of sight in his room most of the time for weeks. He was melancholy, and as far as Theodore cared, he’d earned the right to feel that way. When Martin wasn’t in his room, Theodore frequently found him upstairs in the attic sitting silently amid the boxes that contained his possessions from New York, often in total darkness with his arms wrapped around his legs as they were drawn up to his chest, rocking himself rhythmically.

  Martin’s behavior toward Jasper mellowed slightly in that he no longer made such condescending comments about Jasper, but more often than not, Martin simply ignored Jasper totally. Jasper found this all terribly difficult, but made every effort, but those were not well received.

  “Martin,” Jasper said one evening. “We could have your things brought down to your room. Those attic stairs are so narrow and awkward, but I thought—”

  “Don’t touch my things,” Martin snapped at him, leaving the room in a huff.

  “He clearly doesn’t like me, and I’ve got to tell you that I’m not all that fond of him either.”

  Theodore sighed. “I don’t understand what his problem is with you. You’re… you’re my man.” And then Theodore had a revelation. “That’s it.”

  “What?” Jasper asked.

  “You’re my man. I have a man. I have someone I love, and someone who loves me. And he doesn’t have that.”

  “And with such a winning personality, he’s not likely to ever trick anyone into even tolerating him.”

  For weeks the atmosphere of the household continued along the same lines, swinging from openly sniping at each other to utterly ignoring one another. Finally one night, Jasper told Theodore, “That’s it. I think it’s time for me to pack up and get the hell out of here.”

  “What?” Theodore asked, stunned.

  “You heard me. I can’t keep living this way. I’m going to go pack my stuff and move into the apartment next door. I’ll still work for you, but I can’t continue to be around him and his hateful attitudes. I can’t feel comfortable in what is supposed to be my own home. You’ve seen it. It’s nothing new. I’m going to go grab a few
things and leave. I’ll see you in the morning for work. Oh, and you’ll be on your own for breakfast.” Theodore never had been much of a cook, but when Jasper moved in, it didn’t matter because Jasper was an incredible cook.

  “Jasper, please, no. I’ll talk with him.”

  “You’ve got to do more than talk with him. You’re not responsible for him. And since you and I are together, we are not responsible for him. He’s a grown man who needs to stand on his own two feet. I can’t take it anymore. Either he lives here with you, or you and I live here, but not both. I will not continue to tolerate such abuse in my own home. He’s a grown man who needs to come out of hiding and get on with his life. He needs to get a job, find someplace to live. He needs to find a new life.”

  “Stay,” Theodore said. He immediately went to Martin’s room, knocked on the door and entered, then closed the door behind him. The time had come for a confrontation.

  “Martin,” Theodore said when Martin wouldn’t even acknowledge his presence. “Martin, I’m speaking to you. The polite thing to do is to stop acting like an ass and speak to me.”

  At least that time Martin looked at him.

  “Thank you. I do not know what you went through. Clearly the last years have not been easy on you. No one here is disputing that. But you need to move past that. It’s over—”

  “And so is a big part of my life,” Martin snapped.

  “Yes, Martin,” Theodore said, clearly catching him off-guard. “What happened to you wasn’t right. But it happened, and there is nothing we can do to change that. You are here, but I have to tell you, if you do not start acting more gentlemanly toward my man, I will have to ask you to leave this house.”