All Over Him

by Ronald L Donaghe

  I’m now counting down the days before Lance gets here for Christmas holiday. We talk almost every day. He’s still planning to come out. He knows I need him.

  His letter that came a few days after I called him and told him about my waking nightmare put me at ease on at least one score.

  “You should never feel guilty,” he wrote, underlining ‘never’ several times. “People have a way of trying to do bad things to people like you—the good and pure ones. They don’t like angels in their midst.” So I knew Lance could handle the thought that I might have been raped, even if I can’t. Much worse is my fear that I willingly participated in some way.

  Though I never put it into words, that is precisely how I felt about Lance the first time I laid eyes on him. He was a precious, too-beautiful being that someone (his stepfather mainly) had tried to destroy. I’m only glad he didn’t manage. But even if he had been raped that night in the locker room, or even if he had given himself to other men many times before we met, it didn’t change how I felt about him. I just wish I didn’t feel ruined in a way, myself. I know promiscuity is really no big thing for gay guys and that commitment to just one other person is of even less importance. But I had always wanted to be only Lance’s—my virginity and then my monogamy a gift to him. If that doesn’t fit with the way other guys are, I’m sorry for it. I want to be true to Lance, and I want to have only been with him and for that never to change.

  If it has changed, then I feel like I lost something and can’t get it back.

  Part Three

  All Over Him

  Chapter Twelve:

  Hank

  Our apartment is a little crowded now, and no one could be happier about it than I am. Hank and his little boy Hanky-Hank, as we call him, have moved in with me and Uncle Sean. We’re all talking about getting a bigger place, though I don’t really see the necessity. Kind of reminds me of living with my family, again. When Lance comes home to me, everything will be the way it should be. Hank and Uncle Sean share his bedroom, of course; but the den, which was going to be Uncle Sean’s home office one of these days, has suddenly been turned into a little boy’s room full of his toys and a brand new kid’s bed that Hank, Uncle Sean, and I went out and shopped for when Hanky-Hank was with his mother.

  Hank’s ex-wife is being a doll about Hank being gay. It turns out that she wasn’t pleased with their marriage, either, though in a different way from Hank. She had given up on going to graduate school to get married, but as the years passed she had begun to regret it. Now she’s getting ready to move to New York and go to CUNY, where she wants to study languages in preparation for a career with the State Department. It’s all over my head, but I’m relieved that the divorce and Hank’s being gay hasn’t devastated her. He says she knew for quite some time, though I never asked him for details, and if he doesn’t offer an explanation about anything, I don’t push him. I’m just content that he seems to be madly in love with Uncle Sean, and the same for Uncle Sean about Hank.

  Hank acts like a kid on Christmas morning about having a boyfriend. His face is in a constant grin, if that’s possible. His eyes twinkle. He gets home before Uncle Sean does and always meets him at the door with a kiss. And I’ve heard him say how he never can quite believe ‘this’ is happening to him. In fact, when Hanky-Hank is in the living room watching cartoons, Hank and I work together in the kitchen preparing dinner. That’s when we do most of our talking.

  “How could you have known you were gay at such a young age?” Hank asked me one night when I was telling him about falling in love with Uncle Sean myself when I was fourteen and knowing that I wanted us to be boyfriends.

  How could you not know? was my initial response. “He was so pretty, I couldn’t help it,” I told him, instead.

  “He sure is,” Hank said. “Pretty, I mean. You wouldn’t believe how crushed I felt when I thought he was with someone that first night I laid eyes on him. Still, I couldn’t help but go back later hoping just to see him again.”

  I knew what he was talking about and told him how Uncle Sean was angry about his friend’s behavior.

  Hank’s hair is dark brown, and his bad haircut, as I already mentioned, just gives him a cute look. But how do I describe the whole person? In a way even if you didn’t know it, you’d eventually come up with the idea that maybe he is a teacher. Most teachers I’ve seen have that rumpled, lived-in look, I guess from the daily grind of dealing with young kids or teenagers with raging hormones. I’ve seen Hank’s legs from his knees to his ankles, which are almost blinding white, because he’s either always dressed or at the very least wearing a bathrobe. He’s got a few gray hairs on his chest, and he’s a little pudgy around the middle. He doesn’t know how to dress with any real style like Uncle Sean does, but I like the way he looks. You can tell from his hazel eyes and the way they crinkle when he smiles that he’s just plain nice through and through. And it sure seems to suit Uncle Sean just fine that Hank is such a teddy bear.

  “I just can’t see what Sean sees in me,” Hank confided one night.

  I didn’t know how to put it into words to convince him. “Uncle Sean has been deeply hurt,” I said, trying to think of an explanation. “Maybe he’s drawn to you because he feels you and he have something in common beyond just what’s on the outside. Like what you’re both looking for in a husband.” I cringed, because I had come close to saying that it wasn’t Hank’s looks that mattered. But that’s not true at all. He’s really plenty good looking on the outside, but it’s beauty and cuteness that has to be fed from inside him.

  “But honestly, Will. I look at myself in the mirror and I just see ‘good-ole Hank.’ I look at Sean and I see the most beautiful man in the world, my fantasy man come to life.”

  “But is it really just Uncle Sean’s looks that keeps you interested?”

  “No. Not at all. Like you, I’ve seen that he’s kind of hurt, deep down, which just makes me want to protect him.”

  “Then I wouldn’t keep worrying about why you and he are so perfect for each other. I’d just love him. I know he loves you, Hank, and so do I.”

  He looked startled. “Why, thank you!”

  At other times, when Uncle Sean and Hank are taking a walk after dinner, I put off doing my homework and play with Hanky-Hank. He’s a miniature image of his father, with the same pudgy body type, and a little pot belly that adds to his roundness. He’s not a fat kid. He just hasn’t outgrown his baby fat, yet. He’s also a four-year-old squirt with the curiosity of a cat, and his questions are non-stop.

  “Why does daddy and Sean sleeps together? Why does daddy and Sean kisses? Why is mommy going away? How come we lives here?”

  I couldn’t possibly answer any of those questions since they were of a sensitive nature, but the kid keeps me in stitches. So I’m teaching him to write his name and to recite the alphabet. I’m helping him write a letter to his mother, too. Hank has said it’s fine because he needs to know that his mother still loves him and that she will see him, again. In a child’s world, however, two weeks or a month can seem like a year, and so we’re all planning to see Hank’s wife, Elizabeth, off at the airport when she flies out of here for New York. It won’t be for several months, though.

  * * *

  The big test for Hank came when one Sunday we all loaded into his red (usually unwashed) Jeep Cherokee and headed out to Mama’s for a big dinner. Hanky-Hank and I rode in the back seat and Uncle Sean rode with Hank in the front. They were sitting kind of close, and I was smiling about that. If it had been Lance and me, you wouldn’t have been able to get a dime between us. At times, Uncle Sean laid his arm over the back of the seat and let it rest on Hank’s shoulders. Hank would look sideways and I could tell even that gesture thrilled him. Again, I thought of the way that same act used to give me a thrill, too, so I knew how Hank felt. At other times on the trip to Mama’s, I could tell that Uncle Sean and Hank were holding hands. Hanky-Hank had seen it enough times now that he wasn’t surprised and didn’t have
questions about it, but it made me a little nervous to wonder what Mama was going to think of all this.

  So when we arrived, and once the hullabaloo of our arrival was over, I could tell that Mama was privately scrutinizing Hank even when she was putting the last touches on the meal. Trinket immediately took to Hanky-Hank, and they disappeared up to her attic room. No doubt she would keep him fascinated for the half-hour or so it would take for the dinner to be ready. Rita and I went for a walk and she told me she was thrilled about Uncle Sean finding someone.

  “I’m glad you let us know what was what before you came,” she said. We had eventually settled onto the front porch, which was out of the sun, but still a little hot. Mama had the kitchen window open, and the smell of the fried chicken was wafting to us on the rather hot breeze blowing around the house.

  “What does Mama think?”

  Rita smiled at me. It was a special Sunday dinner with Hank kind of the guest, and so she had put on makeup, but it wasn’t nearly as made up as she used to do it back on the farm in New Mexico. In fact, the way she had matured in the last year or so was amazing. She had just graduated high school, and she was quickly maturing into a beautiful woman. Her blonde hair was clipped in a no-nonsense style that framed her face—but especially accentuated her penetrating and smiling green eyes. “She doesn’t like it, Will,” she said, studying my face, in answer to my question about what Mama thought. “But that never stopped her from liking Lance. It won’t stop her from liking Hank, either.”

  I knew what she meant. Mama’s upbringing influenced her reactions to new things, but her heart tempered it with love. I knew she’d never let her deep-seated feelings about the wrongness of homosexuality prevent her from seeing Hank for the good guy he is, nor for the good it would do Uncle Sean to have a mate.

  “She was mainly disturbed, this time,” Rita said, “when she learned that Hank had a kid. She fretted about that.”

  “Yeah, I guess that would worry her a little.” I remembered how Uncle Sean had correctly perceived that Mama and Daddy eventually came to fear his influence on me. “But none of us is going to push anything on Hank’s kid.”

  “He’s at a tender age, though,” Rita said. Her mouth curved down, and I felt a little resentful that even she was capable of worrying that we would somehow turn a kid gay.

  “It doesn’t work that way, Rita.”

  “What?”

  “What you’re thinking. Uncle Sean did not turn me gay. In fact, he ran away from the very thought of having that kind of influence on me.”

  Rita looked annoyed. “Still, Will, it’s there. Even if a parent’s intentions are the exact opposite. Like the children of alcoholics often become alcoholics.”

  I didn’t react. I was annoyed, too, but I had to admit that Rita was right about such influences—sometimes. Though I didn’t think she could compare alcoholism and homosexuality. To me being gay was more innate. Innate was a term I had learned in biology class and had never forgotten. In a way, I was looking for an explanation about how I could have turned out to be gay when I first felt attracted to Uncle Sean in that way. So I knew that the first influence Uncle Sean had on me was to awaken my attractions, but it was never his intention. He was too honorable to even try, which proved to me that my attraction to him came from inside me.

  “What are you smiling about?” Rita asked a moment later, as the silence between us grew.

  I blinked and turned to her. “You needn’t worry about Hanky-Hank,” I said. “Uncle Sean didn’t turn me gay, Rita. And this kid could grow up in a house full of us. He’ll turn out gay or straight depending on which he is.”

  “But you can’t know that,” she said.

  “Yes, I can. The only thing Little Hank might be influenced by, about his father being gay, is that it might not be a bad thing. He’ll probably grow up being less judgmental than a kid who is brought up in a strict religion, where everything is black and white.”

  “And that won’t confuse him?”

  Again, I agreed that Rita had touched on something legitimate in her fears. “Yeah. He might be confused for a while. He already is. But much of it is because his mama and daddy are no longer living together. That would confuse any kid.”

  So I imagined that much of Mama’s thoughts ran in the same vein as Rita’s as we gathered around the table for dinner. Hanky-Hank was latched onto Trinket with obvious love in his eyes for her.

  I smiled at his adoring looks and figured he’d found a friend he would want to spend some time with. I was equally glad that Trinket seemed to like him just fine. She insisted on fixing his plate for him.

  “You like chicken, Hanky Panky?”

  “I does,” he said with authority. “And mashes potatoes.”

  I met Mama’s eyes, and hers crinkled into a smile. She had been adoring little Hanky-Hank, I guess.

  When we were all eating, Mama carried the conversation. This was one of those developments in her new budding. She was dressed well, as she had been doing here in Texas every Sunday that we came for dinner, and I noticed that Trinket and Rita were dressed up for the dinner, too. The four of us guys looked a little shabby in comparison, though Hank had worn a new sports shirt and khakis and so had Uncle Sean. I regretted that I was just wearing a Long-Horn T-shirt and jeans.

  Mama got Hank to tell what instruments he taught, and she was delighted to learn that his own instrument of choice was piano.

  “I’ve always wanted to learn,” she said, which surprised and delighted me. She was indeed continuing to bud into a completely different person than the staid and sometimes drab mother she had been in Daddy’s shadow on the farm back in New Mexico.

  “If I bought one, Hank, do you think you could take the time to teach me to play?”

  I noted the surprised faces all round. Uncle Sean smiled hopefully at Hank. “It means you’d get some real home cooking…right, Arlene?” He turned to her expectantly.

  “I wouldn’t have to be bribed with that,” Hank said, smiling at Uncle Sean and then also turning to Mama. “It’d be my pleasure. You just let me know when.”

  “I wouldn’t want to take you away from your Sundays, if you have other things you’d rather be doing, but Sundays would be best for me. I’ve had my eye on an upright at a little antique store. I could have it delivered and tuned in a couple of weeks.”

  Hank smiled at Mama. “Sundays would be perfect for me. What about it, Hon— uh— Sean?”

  “Fine,” he said.

  “Two weeks, then,” Hank said to Mama. And something passed between them when she smiled back with a determined look in her eyes that I think probably sealed their friendship.

  After dinner, I eased out of the conversation in the kitchen and called Lance.

  We exchanged news and I told him that Hank’s first visit with Mama went well. “Rita said Mama was concerned for his kid, though,” I added.

  “Aww…that’s understandable, Angel. She’s just being Mama.”

  Then we drifted into each other’s lives. “You still having your nightmares?”

  At any time, I could shut my eyes and replay some part of my LSD trip, as if it had etched my mind like acid does glass. “They’re better,” I lied, trying to keep my voice light. “I think what I thought was real was just free-association like you get when you dream.”

  “Doesn’t matter, Angel. When I get there, I’ll wipe out all doubt.”

  Damaged goods still came to my mind, but I wouldn’t say it to Lance, again. He had become upset and lectured me about dwelling on such things. I’d told him about the hickey, feeling my face flush with anger and fear. “That just means that someone couldn’t keep their mouth off your beautiful body. It still belongs to me.” He had continued in this vein until I backed down from my remark about how I’d been ruined.

  “You’re still planning to come home for Christmas, right?”

  “More than ever, Angel,” Lance said, and I drank in his voice, feeling tears spring to my eyes, missing him so badly
it hurt. “I’m going to leave at midnight on the twenty-second, which should put me into New Mexico by the next evening.”

  “Don’t push yourself. You’d be driving for almost twenty four hours if you do that.”

  “My little car will make it easy.”

  “But drive careful.”

  “Not like you did, huh, when you drove all the way from here to Texas in…what was it…two days? And that on top of moving and getting settled in?”

  I couldn’t explain how the road trip back from San Francisco had been for me, hurting and crying, and the drive itself numbing. I had only slept because I had fallen asleep in the parking lot of a truck stop. “You still need to get a motel room, Lance.”

  “I will. In Lordsburg. I’d like to drive out to our farm, which I might do on my way back.”

  I understood his love for the old place and I blinked back a tear. I knew he’d hated to leave that old farm, since it was the only place he’d ever felt loved. I was sure he would soon love Mama’s new place and ours. “You spend the night somewhere in Texas, too, before you get here. You’ll need it, because it’s at least sixteen hours of straight driving from Lordsburg. Break up your day.”

  And so we continued, him wanting to push himself, me wanting him to arrive the instant he left but knowing I had to throw on the brakes for him. I would die if he was hurt in a car accident on the way here. I would die, anyway, when he had to leave to go back to San Francisco, knowing I wouldn’t see him again for another year.

  Our conversation then drifted into private talk. I shifted in the overstuffed chair, because Lance had aroused me, and he knew it. “I’ve got it all saved up for you, Angel.”

  “Me too, here,” I said, “except what spills when we make love on the phone.”