The Peter & Charlie Trilogy

by Gordon Merrick

  He listened to Charlie’s words as his mind replayed them. Love? The way Charlie said it evoked security and solicitude and devotion. He had gone beyond all such concepts. He was in headlong collision with his destiny. He no longer feared even a meeting with his father.

  He found Joe’s courtyard door open. Like all the residents, he didn’t regard this as an invitation to enter. Doors often wouldn’t close. He knocked and waited. When there was no reply, he entered hesitantly and set his bag down inside the door. He heard voices. He was shy of seeing his father with others. He advanced into the seedy courtyard and called “Hello.”

  A girl he didn’t know appeared in a window above him. She smiled down at him. “A beautiful boy,” she said in accented English. “Come in, beautiful boy.”

  “Is my father here?” he asked. “I mean, is George Leighton here?”

  The girl looked down at him and laughed maddeningly. He was spared further communication with her by the appearance of his father at the door. He had to stoop to pass through it. For a moment, his face held an expression of blank astonishment and then brightened with welcome. He approached Jeff, seeming to tower over him as he always had although there was no great difference in height between them now.

  “You’re back. What a wonderful surprise. Somebody gave me the impression that you’d left for good.”

  “I had.” Jeff saw instantly that his father was drunk, not stumbling drunk, but cheerful drunk. His clothes looked as if he had been sleeping in them for days, but he was more or less freshly shaved and looked clear-eyed and quite capable of dealing with business. “I have something important to talk to you about.”

  George put a hand on Jeff’s shoulder and gave him a friendly little shake. “You don’t look any the worse for wear. Did your mother send you?”

  “No. Why? When did you go home last?”

  “Well, now. Let’s see. You left yesterday? Yes, I was going into Athens this morning, but it turned out there was no need to. Sid pulled my money out of a hat. He won’t tell me where he got it.”

  “That’s what I have to talk to you about. Can’t we go somewhere private?”

  “Come over here. They won’t bother us.” George took the boy’s arm and led him to a corner of the courtyard where there was a derelict table with the paint peeling from it and a kitchen chair and an upended box. George sat on the box and waved to the chair. Jeff noted it as typical of his unfailing courtesy. It always put him at a disadvantage.

  “There,” Jeff said, sitting and putting the envelope containing his statement on the table.

  George looked at it. “There what?”

  “Read it. No. Don’t bother. It doesn’t tell the whole story. I took your money. I gave it to Dimitri.” He filled out the details less emotionally than he had to Peter, not attempting to exculpate himself any more than he felt the facts justified.

  When he had finished, George propped his elbow on the table and rested his forehead in his hand and gave the envelope a little spin with his forefinger. “You’re in love with Dimitri?” he asked.

  “I thought I might be.”

  George toyed with the envelope for a silent moment. “So now we’re going to have the truth. That’s good. I want to understand. We’re apt to lose our heads when we’re in love. Oh, I don’t mean thinking you could borrow the money for a day. I can see how you were thinking. But not to come to me when you knew an innocent man was in trouble—that’s rotten, Jeff.”

  “I know. All I can say is that it got out of control. Dimitri and the police. Mike and the chance to go away with him. I told Sid so he would go on working on Dimitri after I left. At least he succeeded. I’m not pleased with myself.” He pushed the envelope closer to his father. “Peter told me to write it that way. He didn’t see any point involving Dimitri since it was all my idea. So long as Costa is let out, he didn’t think it mattered if I arranged it a bit. He thought I was going away.”

  George lifted his head and drew the sheet of paper from the envelope and glanced at it and dropped it. “You have good friends. Forget it. I’ve already told the police I found it in the house. They have let Costa go. I’ve managed to do that much. Why are you back? Aren’t you going away with Mike?”

  “I thought I was. He left without me this morning.”

  “I see. I mean, I don’t see at all. What did the son of a bitch do? Did he lead you on and ditch you? Did he offer you the trip so he could get you into bed with him? I don’t know. I’m just talking. I hope you can tell me.”

  “It wasn’t like that.” Jeff averted his face. George could see his Adam’s apple working. “I—he was—he was—in his way, he fell in love with me. I was—I’m in love with him.”

  George hunched his shoulders to absorb the blow. He shook his head to clear it. “You’re not making sense. In love with Dimitri? In love with Mike? Don’t you mean you wanted to go to bed with them? You can look me in the eye when you say it.”

  “That’s not why——” Jeff flung himself forward and banged the table with clenched fists. “Don’t you understand? It’s tearing me apart. I’ve heard you call guys screaming queens. Well, that’s what I am. It would’ve been all right with Mike. There was something between us that was good for both of us. It’s gone. All right. Now I just want to go to bed with men.”

  George reached out and gripped his arm. “Easy. I’m sorry. I was being stupid.” He wished he hadn’t had anything to drink. Although Jeff’s grief was evident, he couldn’t identify with it. He hadn’t experienced anything like it in his youth. There had been the casual affairs and then there had been Sarah and as much happiness as a man could reasonably expect—until recently. Because the very idea of Mike encouraging the boy in any way repelled and outraged him, there was a stoppage of his sympathies. He waited while his son got himself under control.

  “I’m being stupid,” Jeff said at last. “I know. It’s over. He obviously couldn’t accept what he felt for me. He prides himself on not caring about anybody. I wish that when things are over you could stop feeling them.”

  “Yes, that would be convenient. But then I suppose we’d never learn anything.” Something about his attitude toward Sarah shifted profoundly as he spoke. For two days, he had been trying to convince himself that it was over with her. He had even had Lena as an enthusiastic bed partner on several occasions in the last twenty-four hours. Nothing had changed; it was time for him to face it. “You know, you won’t go down in history as the only boy who ever wanted to go to bed with a man. That’s all I meant about looking me in the eye. I was being dim. I thought you were embarrassed. There’s no need to be, of course. I don’t condemn homosexuality. I just don’t understand it. I wish we could find a new word for it. It’s too loaded with opprobrium. There certainly aren’t many people I admire more than Peter and Charlie. If that’s going to be your life, do it as well as they have. The hell with Martha and the children. Those two are complete in each other. I should think it would be awfully difficult, but apparently it can happen.”

  Jeff’s cheeks were burning as the colossal phallus rose in his mind’s eye, the network of living veins, the deep backward sweep of the dark flanged head, the thick base from which the great column sprang, of equal monolithic thickness all its length, lifting with such force that it seemed to be in motion, propelling itself toward conquest. Complete in each other. They were, of course. Yet he had held the secret sacred flesh. It had entered deep within him and made him its slave. He had drunk its mysterious leaping fluid. To that extent, for an hour or two, he had partaken of their completeness. Charlie’s arms around him. Peter’s. Peter’s mouth sweet and instructive, Charlie’s passionately healing. He had glimpsed their secret and there was nowhere in him for it to take hold and nourish him.

  “I doubt if it can happen to me,” he said with a touch of self-mockery. “I’d have to go back to Plato and renounce the lusts of the flesh. It’s always struck me that Socrates must’ve had an awful lot of boys before he came around to that point of v
iew.”

  George was shocked by the jocular note, although he knew he should have been prepared for it. The boy was a mass of contradictions. Somehow, he preferred torment to flippancy. More stupidity on his part. “Well, since we seem to be having some straight talk, maybe you won’t mind telling me more. Have you been leading an active sex life for long?”

  A ghost of a smile played across Jeff’s lips. “Since night before last. Yesterday morning, actually.”

  “You mean, never before? Not with Dimitri?”

  “Never before.”

  “And you’re convinced on the basis of twenty-four hours’ experience that that’s the way you’re going to be? You’ve never been faintly attracted to a girl?”

  “Never. I’ve always known. Don’t ask my why. Even Charlie and Peter can’t tell me that.”

  “You’ve talked to them? I’m glad.”

  Their eyes met and neither flinched. George found himself looking into Sarah’s eyes and love overcame his regret and bewilderment. The child in Jeff was dead; they could talk to each other as equals. “I’m sorry you’ve had such a rough start, but love is where most of the suffering comes from, as well as the joy. I couldn’t want you to be spared it. Just remember that this is only the beginning.”

  “That’s a pretty horrible thought. No, you’re being very—well, I appreciate it. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I do, naturally. But I will a lot less if you’ll talk to me. You’ll have to take the initiative. It’s not for me to put ideas into your head. I respect you for coming clean about the money, even if you should’ve done it sooner.”

  “Peter made me.”

  “Nobody could make you if you hadn’t known you should. You’re not perfect, but you don’t have to make yourself out worse than you are. It might be a good idea for you to tell the police you hid the money. It makes my story more convincing. Anything to get Costa completely off the hook.”

  “That’s what Peter wants. He’s working on it in Athens.”

  “He’s in Athens? Yes, I guess Sid told me. Christ, I’m not a very inspiring example. Everybody doing something while I sit here getting drunk.” He ran his fingers through his hair and felt the muscles of his face stiffening as he phrased his next question. “Listen Jeff, yesterday there would’ve been lots of things I couldn’t talk to you about. That’s changed. You’ve had a look at the adult world. It isn’t always pretty. There’s something I’ve got to know. You were telling the truth the other day, weren’t you? About seeing your mother?”

  Jeff drew back and dropped his eyes. “I don’t know what made me say it, but I’m not a liar. Dimitri’s house is up near there.” He paused and lifted his eyes again. They were full of fierce ardent reproach. “Does it matter? If you love someone, you love them, no matter what they do.”

  George sighed and propped his head on his hand again, thinking of the impossible confrontation with Sarah that lay ahead. Nothing could come of it, but his will would remain paralyzed until he had forced himself through it. “Yes, well, I wonder how long you’ll be able to hang onto that thought. It takes an awful lot of generosity to live by it. I’m glad you said it, though. It sounds simple, but there may be something in it.”

  “What’s fidelity and jealousy and all the rest of it? It’s just being selfish with somebody else’s body. I’d never expect anybody to be faithful to me.”

  George marshaled his thoughts; if he couldn’t make Jeff understand, what could he say to Sarah? “That may be an insight into your particular tastes,” he said, “but you’ll have to take my word for it that it doesn’t work that way for ordinary couples. Because of the way we’re built, maybe a man feels more possessive toward a woman than he would toward another man. He doesn’t want used goods. Could it be as dismal as that? It doesn’t have to be a question of morals. Any valid morality is primarily based on self-interest anyway, so let’s say it’s self-interest. It’s to the interest of the man and the woman, if they love each other, to keep themselves whole for each other in order to create a relationship that’s always alive and growing and always moving toward completion. You can’t do this if you’re giving something so essential as physical passion to others. Being forgiving and unselfish doesn’t replace the loss. This is pretty old stuff, but it’s not something that changes from year to year.”

  “Why do you talk old stuff?” Jeff burst out. He made a quick swipe at the hair on his forehead and his eyes grew brooding and faltered and he bowed his head over the table. “Maybe it’s all wrong. Maybe it’s impossible to make the kind of relationship you’re talking about. What about the people who give something to everybody who comes along? Like Dimitri, even. I don’t know. You’re a great man. You can tell people what life is all about. You should hear the way Mike talks about you. You’re worth a thousand of him—all he knows about is destruction and hate—why do you do things that make him look right? Why are you here unless you know that we can find something better than anywhere else? Mike says it’s because you can’t face reality. Reality to him is hitting somebody when he’s down. You, Charlie, and Peter—you see beauty and meaning in life. Are you kidding yourselves? Can’t you spell it out so the rest of us can understand? I want to see beauty, but all I see is the beauty of a male body. Is that enough?” His breath caught on a shudder that shook him. “Life is impossible,” he ended with deep pained melancholy.

  “It’s a bit soon for you to be coming to that conclusion.” George reached out and ran a hand down his arm and gripped his elbow. “You’ve asked some important questions and made me feel fairly ashamed of myself, but that’s nothing new. Life is impossible without a lot of strength and patience and discipline. I’ve let it become impossible recently but that must be my fault, although I haven’t quite figured out what it is. I’m still trying. Does your mother know you’re back?”

  “No. Just Charlie. He came with me. I’d never have made it without him.”

  “They’re being very good to you. You’ve given us a lot to talk about, but there’s nothing I can say yet except that if I can’t answer your questions by tomorrow I might as well throw in the sponge. Let’s clear the decks. For whatever it’s worth, I’ll take your statement to the police. I’d appreciate it if you’d go home and tell your mother I’ll be along in a little while.”

  “Am I supposed to tell her about—well, about me and Mike and so forth?”

  “I’d soft-pedal the sex angle until I’ve had a talk with her. There’s no point her getting worked up for nothing. She’s inclined to take the natural woman’s view that it’s a great loss not to have a wife and children and all that goes with it. I think so too, of course, but I can see there might be compensations. If it’s not too much to ask, it might be a good idea for you to go out for a couple of hours. Have something to eat on the port. Needless to say, your mother and I aren’t on the best of terms at the moment. If I’m going to try to hammer out some hope for the future, I’ll want privacy.”

  “Of course. I want to see Dimitri anyway. Don’t be surprised if I stay out all night.”

  “With Dimitri? Sorry. Don’t answer if you don’t want to.”

  “That’s all right. Not Dimitri. I’d rather not say more. I’m not feeling very cheerful. If I’m going to make sense, I’ll need all the help I can get. I won’t hang around the bar, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

  George had almost forgotten having forbidden the bar. It seemed like weeks ago and no longer had any relevance to the young man he was talking to now. “Don’t bother about that. I doubt if anybody will be fooling around with dope for a while. That’s all I was worried about. You’re turning into a very handsome guy, Jeff. Lots of people will be after you. Discriminate, for God’s sake. At your age, sex just for the hell of it never did anybody any harm. If you find beauty in a male body, make the most of it. That is, respect your emotions as well as your desires. You feel things deeply, but it’s not condescending to say that you’re bound to be immature still in some ways. Don’t pour yourse
lf out for anybody who isn’t worthy of you. That’s all. I don’t expect you to pay attention to anything I say. It’s the sort of thing a father feels he has to say to his son. Shall we go?”

  “Don’t you have to say good-bye?”

  “They won’t even notice I’m gone. I’ll thank Joe for his hospitality when I see him.” He pocketed the envelope and rose. Jeff followed suit and they walked together to the gate where Jeff stopped to pick up his bag. “I suppose the police might want you to come in and tell your story in person, but I’ll try to stall them off. The sooner we forget this the better.”

  “I’ll go if they want me. I want to do whatever’s necessary.”

  “Good. You’re going to be all right.” They left the courtyard. George gave him a little slap on the back and a push in the direction of home.

  Jeff took a step and turned back. “I believe in you.” His Adam’s apple worked and his great eyes brooded at George. “This may sound sort of fresh for a son to say to his father, but I know you’re going to be all right. That matters a lot more than my silly little problems. I have sense enough to know that.” He swung away and set off with a new grace in his step.

  George stood speechless, staring after him. He became aware of a lump in his throat and swallowed. Was this the turning of the tide? Was he recovering his touch? Had he handled himself that well with Jeff? He was beginning to feel quite sober as he turned down toward town.

  What was a man supposed to do when his son announced he was queer? Beat him up? Shoot himself? Mike stuck in the craw, but Mike was gone, thank God, before the atavistic repugnance Mike touched off in him threw him completely off the track. He could think of his son in the arms of some other male lover without horror and even with approval if the guy were decent. He devoutly hoped that Jeff would soon find somebody to love him. His unbalanced intensity was frightening at moments. He needed somebody desperately who could hold him steady. He would offer him all the support he could, but no parent was ever enough.