The Guncle

by Steven Rowley

  “Ow!” Grant exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “You hit my hand.”

  Patrick realized he’d swatted Grant’s hand away when he tried to take control of the lights. “Sorry, bud. I drifted.”

  Patrick looked out at the yard as he soothed Grant’s hand in his own. The solar lights were now at their brightest and they were surrounded in soft, colorful radiance. Grant chose the pink filter for the hot tub light, completing the effect; they were now floating in a warm, protective womb. The mountains were a faint echo against the last of the evening’s light, another, larger barrier protecting them, keeping the worst of the world out. Patrick exhaled, gesturing with his cocktail at the horizons around them. “Life is a very precious gift,” he repeated and took a deep breath. “You know what we should do?”

  “What,” Maisie asked, genuinely curious.

  “Throw a party. To make ourselves feel better.”

  “What kind of party?”

  “I don’t know. Anyone have a birthday?”

  The kids shook their heads. Maisie’s was in January, and Grant’s, March.

  “The kind with people. And lights and champagne and music and fun.”

  “And kid drinks!” Grant shouted. Patrick had made the mistake the other night of making them Shirley Temples. (Thirley Templeth.)

  “And kid drinks,” Patrick agreed.

  It was time for the hiding to stop.

  TEN

  Patrick sat on his patio in silence, swiveling gently in a chair, lulling himself into some sort of comforting, mindless space. He’d been there a while, lost in his thoughts, before Lorna’s bark pierced the darkness, followed by a gentle splash. It was John, on the other side of the wall, diving into his pool for his nightly swim; it always drove Lorna mad and she howled from the pool deck like a lifeguard yelling at swimmers from shore. Patrick smiled and swirled what was left of his ice around inside his otherwise empty glass before setting it on the table. He stood up, tapping one of the lights from the string of Edison bulbs that he’d woven through the pergola. He grabbed one of the other patio chairs, one that didn’t swivel, and marched it through the yard.

  He secured the chair in the gravel that ran along the back wall of the property, tossed its cushion aside so he wouldn’t get it dirty with his bare feet, and stood to peer over the wall. He waved at John when he completed a lap and came up for air.

  “Evening!”

  John raised his goggles to his forehead and waved back. “Howdy, neighbor.” It was a typical John thing to say (howdy), so Patrick didn’t cringe like he normally might; at this point he was inured. “Sit tight. Let me grab a towel.” He leapt out of the pool with a surprising grace and Patrick was relieved to see he was wearing a Speedo; swimsuits were optional in Palm Springs, never more so than at night. He dried off and wrapped the towel around his waist before joining his friend at the wall.

  “How’s things?”

  “Fine. All I do is put sunscreen on children. Finish with one, start up on the other. Then back to the first to reapply. Ad infinitum. I swear, I should invent some sort of machine. I’d be rich.”

  “I thought you already were.”

  Patrick bobbed his head to one side. In truth, he wasn’t sure where he stood financially. Not exactly. Money had a way of going out the door fast, never more so than when there was none coming in.

  “How are they? The kids.”

  Patrick leaned on the wall so he wasn’t looking down on his neighbor quite so much; he was trying to be more aware of how he positioned himself with others. “Hard to tell. I think they’re sneaking into my room at night to sleep.”

  “They feel safe with you.”

  Patrick smiled. A memory, a sense memory: the total security of falling asleep as a child with adults talking nearby. “It’s weird having them around. Some of my DNA, mixed with Sara’s. They’re like a shadow of an alternate reality, another life, a heterosexual one, unlived.”

  “That must be strange.”

  He pulled at a branch from one of John’s lemon trees that hung over the wall. “I tried to engage them in conversation about their mom.”

  “That’s good of you.”

  “The only way past this is through.” He studied John. “How does your mustache stay that way?”

  “Huh?” John hopped on one leg to clear water out of his ear.

  Patrick mimed curling a mustache at both ends.

  “Oh. I have a wax. Seems to hold up in the pool.”

  “Where is your better two-thirds?”

  “They went to the movies to escape the heat. I opted for a swim instead. Nothing really to see in the summer if you’re not into superheroes and such, people wearing masks.” John took the goggles off his head, his own mask, and played with the elastic strap. “I’m proud of you, Patrick. Talking to the kids. Now, that’s heroic.”

  Patrick agreed, but he wasn’t really up for the compliment. “I’m not sure I’m as equipped to handle this as I thought. And I didn’t think I was all that equipped to begin with. It’s hard to get through to them. I can’t get them to relax. Everything I do seems wrong. Not how their mom used to do it.”

  “They’re in shock.”

  “Still, there was some part of me that assumed they’d be kids. Resilient, you know? They’d grieve, yes. But also fall for my charms and laugh and play in the pool and be . . . free.” Patrick had even hoped that perhaps he might learn from them. That they might know the path out and somehow light the way.

  “You could have them talk to someone. A child psychologist, maybe. Someone like that.”

  Patrick nodded and added a cough. There was a lump in his throat that he wanted desperately to clear. “They want to know about heaven. So, maybe a priest. If only we knew one.” He smiled, the thought almost ridiculous.

  John wiped his forehead. “I was a minister.” The way he tossed it off so casually, solely as information without a hint of boasting, caught Patrick by surprise. He pushed himself back from the wall so hard, he almost fell off his chair. “Don’t look so surprised,” he added.

  “How should I look, then? You’re kidding me.” Patrick thought back to their conversation the other day. “A coke-addicted, Burning Man–attending, polyamorous clergyman.”

  John glanced down at his feet, kicking some of the gravel on his own side of the wall until it came to a rest near a succulent. “I know you think we’re silly people.”

  “Oh, come on,” Patrick protested, but of course it was the truth. They were a throuple with a collective name.

  “It’s okay. A lot of people do.” John craned his neck to look back at his house wistfully. “It’s an unusual arrangement we have. We’re the butt of a lot of jokes. We get it. But that doesn’t mean we’re not serious-minded.”

  They were silent for a moment. Patrick looked up at the sky, hoping for a shooting star. Instead, the sky was frozen—not even the red lights of a passing plane—although they were enveloped in a warm, gentle breeze.

  “What are you doing out here, Patrick?”

  “Thought I could use an adult to talk to.”

  “No,” John said. He unwrapped his towel from his waist and placed it gently over his shoulders like a capelet. “What are you doing in the desert?”

  Patrick rubbed his eyes until he saw shooting stars on the backs of his eyelids. “I needed a break.”

  “It’s been four years.”

  “Has it?”

  “I think you know that it has.”

  Patrick bit the inside of his cheek until he thought he tasted blood. “I had a visitor the other day. A young woman. She asked me the same thing, more or less.”

  “How did you answer?”

  “I didn’t.” Patrick leaned back in on the wall. “I couldn’t.”

  “Because you don’t really know.” If Patrick wasn’t g
oing to answer, then John was going to answer it for him. He had better things to do than stand by a wall in the night listening to the cicadas. Like get back to his swim, for instance.

  “I had this agent. Neal. Had, have. We were at a party once. The last year of the show. One hundred episodes. One hundred fifty. Something like that. Who even remembers? Everyone was wistful, but restless. Ready to move on, I think; at least I certainly was. But it was a good run and there was no reason to pretend that it wasn’t. Anyhow, Neal was there. I suppose I invited him. Or maybe agents just get invited. There was an enormous cake, I remember that. And somewhere near the end of the night, he grabbed me.”

  “What do you mean, grabbed you. Grabbed you where?”

  “By the taco truck.”

  “No, I meant . . .”

  “I know what you meant.” Patrick’s chair slipped in the gravel and he jumped on it twice so the legs would dig in. “He grabbed my crotch.” Patrick exhaled. “We were both drunk. It wasn’t even sexual.”

  “Of course it was sexual!”

  Patrick was surprised by such a traditional definition from someone whose husbands were on a movie date. “He’s straight. Married!”

  “It’s been my experience that doesn’t mean a whole lot. You were assaulted, Patrick.”

  “I suppose. It was also a sign of ownership. He owned me. He got me that show and he had me by the balls. And it just made me think, ‘I’m making so much money for this person. WHY?’ It wasn’t fun anymore. And so I just kind of . . . stopped.”

  John reached down to pat Lorna, who had snuggled up against his side. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  “It’s fine. It didn’t really feel like assault. I mean, it was. But I’m not a victim.”

  John swung his arms around a few times like an Olympic swimmer stretching; he caught his towel just as it slipped off his shoulders. “That’s not why you’re here, though.”

  Patrick pretended to give that some thought. He didn’t like being so clearly seen. “Do you believe in heaven, Reverend?”

  “I do.”

  “And hell?”

  “I suppose. Do you?”

  “Hell on earth,” Patrick said, and he did a few vertical push-ups off the wall. “There was a guy once. I loved him and he died.”

  “AIDS?”

  “Jesus,” Patrick replied, but he supposed that was the difference in their ages. “Drunk driver.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t think I ever healed.” Patrick stopped there, and John didn’t press. They each avoided the other’s eyes.

  “Do you miss it?”

  “Miss what?”

  “Acting.”

  Patrick thought about it. “I miss him.” The insects were loud tonight. The breeze picked up again and swept Patrick’s hair.

  “Yes, but he’s not coming back.”

  Patrick was almost blown backward off the chair by the brutal truth of that statement. It’s the kind of honesty that he would have run from in the past, but in the moment he stood his ground and took it. On the surface, it seemed remarkably selfish; John had two loves, two men in his bed. Patrick had none. But he wasn’t going to let his neighbor get the best of him.

  “I do miss it. Acting. When I was, I don’t know, sixteen, seventeen, I was elected president of my high school drama club. I had put in two years doing supporting roles, but now I was an upperclassman, now was my time to shine. I was to be the lead. And then our director announced we were doing The Diary of Anne Frank. Sonofabitch! Right? I was cast as her father. I went around telling everyone, ‘Yes, she’s the title character, but my character, Otto Frank, is the true lead. He survived. He came back to find Anne’s diary. The whole story is framed through his memories. In fact, they should rename it The Otto Frank Experience.’”

  John smiled. “That sounds like a jazz fusion trio.”

  “You should know from trios.” It was a slight dig, repayment for his comment about Joe, but Patrick was mostly still lost in the memory. “Sixteen-year-old me was a terror.”

  “Sixteen-year-old you?” John was teasing, and this time he smiled. Patrick did, too.

  “That’s when I knew. I had to act. I had to bring that kind of certitude to every role—no matter how supporting. I haven’t thought about that in a while. That monster is still in me. But it’s more than that.”

  “What is?”

  “I have to go see my agent, as much as I loathe him. He does have me by the balls. Or, at least the situation does. I’m going to have to work when this summer is done. Help my brother support his kids.”

  “Didn’t you say he was an attorney?”

  “Yeah. But I have no idea what kind of medical bills he’s facing. The kind of debt they took on during Sara’s illness. I don’t want him to lose the house. And even if he’s okay for now, there’s the future to save for. Two college educations. Another ten years? Who knows what it will cost by then. I have to do my part. I owe it to their mother. And that means going to see my agent.”

  John nodded; he had opened Patrick’s eyes—at least a bit. There was no need to say more. “Want me to talk to the kids?”

  Patrick thought about it. He wasn’t sure John’s harsh truths were the right tactic. “Maybe. Can I let you know?”

  “Sure. Do you want to come for a swim?”

  “I don’t have my suit.”

  John shot him a look. He’d peered over Patrick’s wall enough times to know that that never stopped him from swimming.

  Patrick glanced back at his own pool. The water rippled in the breeze, glimmering on the surface. “It’s all right. I have a pool, too.”

  “Yeah, but sometimes life is more fun with someone else.”

  Patrick looked up at the sky again; this time a satellite floated effortlessly across the night. It was no shooting star, but something, in a pinch, upon which to make a wish.

  ELEVEN

  The halls buzzed and chattered as Patrick marched past cubicle after cubicle, down the agency halls, which seemed dappled with sunlight (but with no obvious windows or skylights, he couldn’t tell from where), in search of his agent. He could hear people on their phones actually whisper his name, their hushed tones dripping with juicy excitement, as he walked by yelling, “Neal? Neal!” and wondering out loud where the hell they had moved his office. He didn’t judge the cubicle dwellers. They were merely a half step removed from the dreaded (but storied) agency mailroom, and probably only made a few bucks more than minimum wage for the privilege of being barked at or otherwise verbally assaulted by walking nightmares in Hugo Boss suits steeped in delusions of grandeur. They might as well be gossipmongers—they probably didn’t even have dental. But had he really been away that long? Were the tabloids right? In four short years he went from network star to Greta Garbo?

  Patrick stuck his head in an empty office to see if he recognized anything of his agent’s and then spun three times in a circle like a dog might before lying down. “Neal? There’s no use hiding from me!”

  A young woman approached from her cubicle, her hands clasped in a fashion that seemed inappropriately formal, like an extra in a community theater production of The Crucible. “Mr. O’Hara,” she said calmly, as if he were a wild animal she had been warned not to startle. “Neal moved offices. He’s now at the end of the hall.”

  “They gave that asshole a corner office?” Patrick should have waited in reception, but he had long been amused by the way Dustin Hoffman’s character in Tootsie would burst into his beleaguered agent’s office unannounced and made it a bucket list item to try. There was no turning back now, so he forged ahead, ducking around the woman, nearly knocking a Rothko off the wall in the process.

  Two days earlier Patrick had an eye-opening discussion with his accountant. He laid out his new responsibilities as he saw them and mapped where he wanted to be financial
ly for each of the next sixteen years, when Grant would graduate from college. They talked taxes and property and tuition and bills and insurance and stocks and portfolios and assets and liabilities until Patrick’s head swam. He literally swam after their conversation. He dove into the deep end of his pool and thought about never resurfacing. It’s not that things were dire; they weren’t. They were just considerably more complicated. Patrick the loner would be fine. Patrick the family man had other obligations. When he finally came up for air it was with a fresh list of things to do.

  Cassie Everest sat in the very last cubicle and Patrick waved as she looked up, stunned. “Look. I put on pants and everything.” He winked at her.

  Before she could coherently respond (or really do anything at all), he entered Neal’s office, closing the door behind him.

  “Patrick.” Compared to everyone else who worked in the agency, Neal seemed relatively unfazed. They were roughly the same age, the two of them, though his Armani uniform and demeanor made him seem, if not older, more mature. In twenty or so years in this business he was, at this point, unflappable; he didn’t so much as stand up to say hello.

  “Neal. Nice office.”

  “Thank you. Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “I almost knocked a Rothko off the wall. And is that a . . . Basquiat? Do you ever think there’s a chance you’re taking too much of our money?”

  “Sometimes.” He scrutinized Patrick. What was this interruption? “Other times I think we don’t take enough.”

  “Charming as ever.”

  “What gets you out of the desert? Did you finally run out of water? Or perhaps just the face cream you like.” Neal adjusted his tie, tightened the knot as if to signify he was only available for business.