by Greg Johnson
Before she could speak, Philip said, “Wait here, won’t you?” His voice held a pleasing sort of urgency. “I’ll refill this.” She felt the empty cool glass slipping from her fingers.
“But I—”
“I’ll be back,” Philip said. “You’ve heard about my life. Now I want to hear about yours.”
As he descended the steps, Abby noticed the short balding man had craned his neck to watch Philip, gazing after him with a lingering, appreciative look. Then, coming back to himself, he glanced at Abby with a nervous grin. She smiled vaguely at the man. Then she heard the blonde in the red dress say to him, “Brock, pay attention. You have to listen to my joke!”
Abby turned away, focusing on the music in the effort not to hear. The jazz piece had given way to a folksy, long-familiar voice singing plaintively, “It’s all oh-ver now…” and she tried not to hear that, either. She drifted to one of the windows and stood there gazing out at the cascading torrents of snow. Now that she’d drunk the champagne the snowfall seemed reckless and exhilarating, an image of her sudden bold elation. The snow, she thought lightly, was a storm of confetti thrown by numberless revelers…or a blaze of demented white butterflies overtaking the night…or heaven’s cold manna flung to earth in ceaseless handfuls by a drunken God. She smiled at these silly ideas, and why not? How long since she’d felt even mildly intoxicated? A decade, at least. Perhaps not since college. When she and Graham had dated, she’d always ordered white wine but had sipped at the glass so slowly through their long, formal meals that she’d felt nothing. She’d wanted to feel nothing. More than once they’d left a restaurant or a theater to be greeted by an unexpected fall of snow not unlike this one, but up north Abby had considered the snow a mere annoyance.
Though Abby kept her back to the group of joke-tellers across the room, their snide, boisterous laughter pestered the edges of her awareness, dissipating the vague foggy cloud of her euphoria. Annoyed, she glanced at her watch. Difficult to know, in this mood, how much time had passed since Philip went downstairs. Surely no more than five minutes. Ten at the outside. Probably he’d found a long line at the bar. Again she remembered Thom and felt a twinge of guilt. But just as quickly she had a distinct, selfish thought, released by the alcohol but no less pleasurable for that: her brother could wait. How many years had she waited for him, after all?
Outside, the snow had lightened. The flakes were smaller, the wind less intense. All at once the sight seemed ordinary and depressed her, so she turned away. The little group across the room had begun disbanding, and Abby’s gaze settled on the smaller, emaciated woman who stood detached from the others, glancing around. Abby saw how unhealthy she looked: her skin parchment-pale, her frizzed hair thin and patchy. She’d been taking small but determined sips from her highball glass, as if dosing herself; the drink was the color of iced tea but Abby supposed it was straight bourbon. As though drawn by Abby’s stare, the woman gave her a brief, wan smile. She said in a throaty but surprisingly loud voice, “You coming downstairs? I think it’s time for the sermon.”
Her words were slurred and from her colorless, unfocused eyes Abby could tell she was drunk. She took another sip of the bourbon. The blonde and her friend Brock had looked over, too.
“Yeah,” the blonde said. “Time to pay the piper.” She laughed brightly as though she had said something witty. The man called Brock was smiling at Abby politely, his forearm still clutched in the blonde’s plump, red-nailed hand.
Abby said, “Thanks, but I’m waiting for someone. We’ll be down in a minute.”
Alone, Abby spent another minute looking out at the snow, which had almost stopped, and then she wandered through the room, running her hand absently along the seat of the exercise bike. She turned idly and faced the mirrored wall spanning one length of the room. She felt so lightly, whimsically happy that her reflection in the mirror came as a shock, like a sudden punch in the stomach. Alone in this vast well-lit room Abby looked pale, lost, frightened. She had thought she must be smiling, but her lips were vaguely parted in an expression she now saw as foolish, distended as though she had glanced into a fun-house mirror. But of course it was an ordinary mirror and could not be blamed. More than anything, she looked stranded. Her arms hung awkwardly, and her hair seemed mussed on one side. How had that happened? Had Philip touched her hair? She couldn’t remember. As her mind cleared, Abby had mercy on herself and turned away from the mirror. At the same moment she forced herself to swallow the bleak nugget of awareness that Philip DeMunn was not coming back.
He had left her here deliberately, or he’d been waylaid, or he’d forgotten her—what did it matter? She should know better than to feel humiliated since she was not a high school girl, after all, but nonetheless humiliation hugged her like a damp cloak as she made the long walk back across the room and down the stairs and into the living area where everyone else had gathered, listening to the tall, perspiring man giving a speech. Fortunately, the crowd was looking away from the staircase, and no one noticed Abby as she slipped into the room. She took a deep breath, then another. After a moment she felt the familiar, fond slide of an arm around her waist.
Startled, she drew back, her body tensing, but of course it wasn’t Philip DeMunn but Thom, grinning down at her. He whispered, “I’ve been looking all over, where have you been?” A mischievous pause. “Or should I ask?”
Her flip response came from nowhere, “Up in the orgy room, where else?” and Thom laughed aloud, clamping one hand over his mouth as several people near them glanced around. He gave an affectionate tug to Abby’s waist and turned his attention back to the speaker, evidently not noticing that his sister’s body had stayed tense, ungiving, and that her throat and cheeks had turned a feverish red, flushed uncomfortably with some emotion she could not have named.
“Yes, we’ve done a great deal, but there’s so much more to be done,” the man was saying.
Abby tried to listen; she half-listened; but her eye kept straying from the speaker—he had a toothy tic-like smile, a perspiring round face, and a gleaming bald pate that made Abby think of a lobster, a talking lobster—and out to the crowd of still sipping but muted guests jammed into Pace’s living room. Some had been pushed back into the foyer and stood alongside the double front doors as though poised for escape; some sat on the stairs and watched through the railings; others had stayed upstairs and gazed down from the loft. Near the front of this gathering was Connie, one hand on the rail and the other holding a half-empty glass of wine; he caught her glance and, grinning, rolled his eyes as if the man’s speech were a torment he could scarcely endure much longer. Abby smiled and looked away, surveying the crowd with a methodical, grim slowness. Clearly, Philip DeMunn was no longer here; wanting to avoid the speech he’d slipped out the front door in his dark clothes into the dark night. She could hardly blame him. She thought with longing of the frigid wind outside; in here the air was over-warm and stale, heavy with the mingled scents of spicy food and liquor and cologne.
“In the coming year,” the man was saying, flashing his overbright smile to the crowd, “we’ve planned a number of interactive events with the community. Male violence is pervasive, and we have to band together. In January we’re taking part in the MLK Week symposium on domestic violence; in March we’re doing a walkathon with the Buckhead Optimist Club—they’re going to close a section of Peachtree for us, isn’t that great?—and of course we’re going to have a float in the Gay Pride march in June and an informational booth in Piedmont Park. Then in September we’re sponsoring a nonviolent gamesmanship event at the Arts Festival, and we’re very excited about that because the U.S. badminton champion will be giving a talk on sports and nonviolent behavior not being mutually exclusive.” At this point the man grinned, dropped his eyes, and waited, but instead of the big laugh he clearly expected, there were a few courteous titters. “And we’re already talking about Christmas,” he went on, faltering, “I mean next Christmas, believe it or not, with the Atlanta Gay Men’s Cho
rus, since we couldn’t get them this year. We’re planning a candlelight memorial vigil in memory of women and gay men killed by batterers, and of course the Chorus will perform and do carols, and we’ll have a sing-along. We haven’t got a location confirmed yet, but…”
Beside her, Abby noticed that Thom had put one hand over his mouth, this time to hide a yawn; he looked at her sideways and smiled. Despite Thorn’s promises, the speaker had been talking for twenty minutes and still seemed to be warming up. Yet the crowd listened quietly. Politely. Only now did Abby glimpse a tall, scowling young man who’d been leaning by himself against one wall, uneasily shifting his weight from side to side. He looked Scandinavian, blond and smooth-skinned, no older than twenty-five, yet he was powerfully built and had a somewhat raffish look amid this polished, well-dressed crowd. His hair was cut brutally short—a “buzz cut,” Abby thought they called it—and he wore tight, faded blue jeans and a bright-orange T-shirt, the sleeves pushed up to the shoulders to emphasize his opulent biceps. His face was bony and angular, handsome in a cruel way; or so it seemed at the moment to Abby, as he kept scowling at the speaker, his mouth curled in a derisive sneer, the sculpted arms folded bluntly across his chest.
The leader of Gay People Stopping Violence kept talking, his toothy smile no less evident as he discussed a recent incident in Cobb County, where a gay math teacher had come out to his tenth-grade class at eleven in the morning and had been beaten savagely by a group of high school boys at four that afternoon—arm and collarbone broken; ribs kicked into splinters; stomach repeatedly kicked, causing massive internal bleeding; groin “stomped” to the degree that major reconstructive surgery would be required. The following day, as the man lay comatose in Kennestone Hospital, he was fired by the school superintendent on grounds of moral turpitude.
“But we shouldn’t assume,” the perspiring man said, as the crowd shifted uncomfortably, and Abby felt a hollowed-out sensation in her stomach as if she too had been kicked, “that being gay means being virtuous and nonviolent. In Midtown two men were recently killed by their lovers, one shot and one stabbed. And you remember the case of the lesbian, a couple of years back, who stalked and killed her former lover. Violence cuts across both genders and all sexual orientations…”
Again Thom bent to Abby’s ear: “This is cheery, isn’t it?” He gave a rueful smile, but his face looked pale and strained. She didn’t answer.
“Nor should we think of violence as something ‘other people’ do. No, we’ve got to ‘own’—if I may indulge in a bit of psychobabble—the contributions we make to a cultural mindset that permits violent behavior, even though we don’t intend it. How many times have you gay men referred in a derogatory way to gay women—we know all the words, I don’t need to repeat them here—or to each other, for that matter? If we call each other ‘fag,’ even in jest, then we’re promoting gay bashing, whether we want to admit it or not. And how many of us…”
Abby’s attention had strayed back to the muscular young man against the far wall, who alone among the crowd did not keep still: he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, he glanced around with his contemptuous sneer. Abby alone seemed to have noticed him, and somehow she wasn’t surprised when he unfolded his arms and jabbed one hand bluntly in the air.
The speaker failed to notice, or chose to ignore him. He was clearly near the climactic point of his spiel, discussing specific ways in which GPSV intended to combat violence against women, gay people, and people of color. Though instinctively, Abby had not liked the man—there was something a bit shrill and self-righteous in his manner—she had to admit that he was an effective speaker. She imagined the crowd would open their checkbooks and give generously; she’d already seen several guests reaching into their pockets and handbags. Near the speaker, a small dour-looking woman who also faced the crowd and seemed to be an assistant of some kind was counting out envelopes onto a small wooden table. The muscular young man in the back of the room now cleared his throat loudly, jerking his upraised arm back and forth. The speaker clearly had seen him—Abby thought she detected a glimmer of panic in the man’s eyes—but now kept his gaze fixed in another direction and continued talking, his face a damp brick-red and his smile even brighter and more desperate than before.
Around the scowling young man, several of the guests began edging away, discomfited, exchanging whispers and worried glances. The longer he was ignored, the angrier he became. Yet when he finally spoke, his sharp voice cutting easily through the speaker’s, he sounded calm and reasonable, even friendly.
“Mitch?” he called out. “Could I ask a question?”
Startled, the speaker’s head jerked aside as though pulled by a string. “Excuse me? Oh, Ricky, hello. Didn’t see you there. You had a question?”
The younger man had paused, rhetorically, aware that everyone in the room had turned in his direction; the small space that had formed around him as people moved away had given him an aura, as though a stage light had been trained on him.
“Yes, Mitch,” Ricky said with a brief, mocking smile. “I do have a question.”
Mitch said, awkwardly, “I was going to do a Q & A later, but if it’s something urgent—”
“Just a point of clarification,” Ricky said, mocking the speaker’s pompous tone. He scratched one side of his nose, then shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Since you mentioned gay people, and women. And people of color.”
“That’s right,” Mitch said, nodding. Out of habit he glanced around the room with his toothy smile. “The primary victims of violence, certainly.”
Ricky nodded, his expression turning solemn—or mock-solemn, Abby thought—as if they were parsing some subtle philosophical point. Then he said, “But what about children, Mitch? What about kids?”
Mitch nodded violently. “Oh, of course—children, too. They’re the most helpless victims of all, and certainly we must—”
“And what about pedophiles, Mitch? Gay men who abuse young kids, for their own sexual gratification? What about child pornography, and the gay men who perpetuate the victimization by buying it?”
Mitch continued his vigorous nodding; he couldn’t agree more. “Oh, of course. Certainly. Now, it must be pointed out that statistically, heterosexual men are more likely to abuse children than gay men—”
“But what about this organization called NAMBLA, Mitch? North American Man-Boy Love Association, I believe it is. Do you think anyone in this room belongs to that group, Mitch? Do you think anyone in this room buys child pornography, Mitch? What do you think?”
Ricky’s voice had sharpened with contempt. He glared around the room, as if daring anyone to contradict him. “Yes, yes, clearly it’s a problem,” Mitch said quickly. His face had paled, and he’d reached a hand toward his assistant. Abby saw that the hand was shaking badly. “Well, I guess I’ve done enough speechifying for one night,” he said, laughing weakly, “so Angela, why don’t you pass out the envelopes? Of course, contributions are strictly voluntary….”
Ricky had turned and stalked off toward the door; people edged aside to make way for him. As he went, he called over his shoulder, “I guess a nonviolent child abuser would be a conflict in terms, wouldn’t it?” he asked. “What’s that fancy word? Oh yeah, an oxymoron.”
Mitch ignored him. He’d stepped away from the area where he’d given his speech as if retreating, willing himself to disappear; he was visibly trembling, his eyes looked panicked and desperate. “Yes, it’s not necessary to…You can mail them in…”
Another man rushed forward: it was Pace. He, too, looked uncomfortable; after all, the young man called Ricky, who had just slammed the front door behind him, had ruined his party.
“Please stay as long as you like. Feel free,” Pace said. He gestured to the opposite wall, where the bartender had resumed his station. “Drinks are once again being served. Don’t let good liquor go to waste!”
Several people laughed, including Thom. Groggily, as if shaking off a collec
tive bad dream, the crowd began fidgeting, dispersing. Scattered whispers rose in volume until people were conversing again, normally; someone had turned on the stereo, which now played a muted classical piano piece. Chopin, Abby thought. Soothing lovely Chopin. She took a deep breath and turned toward Thom.
“Should we leave?” she murmured. “Are you ready…?”
Thom looked uncertain. Other guests had begun heading toward the door. He whispered, “Let’s stay a few minutes, OK? If there’s a mass exodus now, it’s going to be even more embarrassing for Pace. And I’d like to speak with him. Do you mind?”
“No, of course not,” Abby said.
“Come on, let’s have one more drink.” Thom took her arm and they crossed to the bar, had their drinks refilled; it was clear that no one else was staying. The room was half empty and had taken on that dismal look of a concluded party, crumpled napkins and half-empty glasses littering the tables, a stale odor of food and perspiration hanging in the air.
A few others had gathered around Thom and Abby. One by one, Thom introduced them to his sister. All smiled and spoke politely, but she could see the strain at the edges of their smiling eyes and lips as they made small talk and glanced nervously around at the swiftly departing guests. Abby had noticed that Mitch and his assistant, Angela, had been among the first to leave. For several minutes Pace stood at the door, receiving the thanks of each hurrying guest; he had taken over Angela’s job and was quietly putting envelopes into his friends’ hands as they left.
In their determined little cluster near the bar, no one had referred to the incident, as if none wanted to be first to acknowledge what had happened, but now Abby heard a familiar voice.
“Well, did you girls ever,” Connie exclaimed, hurrying up to join them. He turned to wave off some of his friends, then eased himself in between Thom and Abby. “That Ricky Devine—he really got his shorts in a wad, didn’t he? Do you suppose it’s PMS, or have those steroids finally done something to his brain?”
