Nightswimmer

by Joseph Olshan

“You know what I’m talking about.”

  And then it dawned on me, that you were assuming that my despondency over you had driven me out onto the pier and into the water. Maybe you thought I was in the process of killing myself—like Bobby Garzino. And I was about to explain how you’d completely misconstrued my actions—that, if anything, my swimming out there had a lot more to do with Chad—when I realized that you would never understand. What drove me to swim couldn’t enter your comprehension because you never really grasped how much that relationship or his vanishing has affected my life.

  Your face was full of caring and concern when you suddenly turned to me and said, “You must be cold.”

  “I am a little bit.”

  “Do you want my jacket?”

  “No, Sean, I’m fine.”

  “You sure? I don’t want you to get sick or anything. The Hudson is no swimming pool.”

  “I’ll take a hot shower as soon as I go home.”

  We walked a few more paces. “You know, it’ll probably take a while for you to get across town to your apartment. Wouldn’t you rather come by my place … just to take a shower?”

  Just to take a shower.

  You wanted to help but also wanted me to know that any such gesture was purely platonic.

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “There’s no reason to stand on ceremony.”

  “Believe me, I can wait until I get home.”

  You shrugged, somewhat miffed by my refusal.

  “Clearly a friendly offer,” I couldn’t help saying.

  “You don’t have to be so cynical.”

  I stopped walking and faced you. “You know, Sean, it’s true I’ve been pretty depressed these past few weeks. But, believe it or not, the prospect of a friendship is not going to kill me.”

  “Never said it was going to kill you.”

  Well, you certainly act like it, I almost said, but didn’t.

  “In fact,” you went on, “I was perfectly happy the way everything was. I only pushed for a change when I saw you couldn’t handle a relationship.”

  “No, because you were angry about my snooping around, because you were angry about my intrusion.”

  “I got over that pretty quickly.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear it.” I forced a lighthearted tone.

  “Will, the point I’m trying to make is that I’m not relieved to be out of this, the way I think you imagine I am.”

  I didn’t believe you. It seemed that there was still a part of you that expected, perhaps even wanted me to remain fixated, which made it difficult for you to believe my explanation that I had merely been swimming the Hudson River in the middle of November.

  You said, “I just wish you’d stop trying to figure out everything about me. It scares me off. It’s not going to make you feel any better. And it’s certainly not going to get rid of any ghosts.”

  I digested this for a moment and then said, “Giving up, letting go happens naturally, Sean. It’s human to give up the spirit of one love only when we finally commit to another.”

  “No, I don’t agree. We have to give up the ghost first. Be free. Only then be with somebody new. Otherwise one ghost-love gets replaced with another ghost-love. There’s no real content. Just another form, another outline that we fill in with the same exact longing we had before.”

  We continued in silence along Christopher Street and down Bedford until it was necessary for you to veer off toward Grove. You explained that you had an early day tomorrow, said goodbye and kissed me gently on the lips. And that kiss was a lot more than I’d expected, having expected nothing.

  TWENTY-THREE

  “YOU’RE NOT GOING TO dump all over me,” Greg said. “Just because … of what happened with Sean. I’m not your fucking scapegoat! And for the millionth time, I didn’t give Sebastian your telephone number. He could’ve found it out in any number of ways. He could’ve looked me up once and saw the two listings and put two and two together. Either that, or he pressed star 6-9 once when he was over at my apartment right after you called.”

  “Star 6-9?”

  A new phone feature traced the last person who had called and called them back directly. Hadn’t I heard about it?

  I’d heard about it but was unaware that it was now saturating the consumer market. But apparently star 6-9 had been available for the last six months. Greg had signed on for it because his phone already came equipped with a digital readout. And Sebastian, who’d been there several times when I’d called, conceivably could’ve scanned the monitor and jotted down my phone number.

  We were having this contretemps at Greg’s apartment as he was getting ready for his night job. Wearing only his boxer shorts, he was ironing a dress shirt. He was clearly getting nervous about being late for work. “And in fact,” he went on, “for your own self-protection, if somebody gives you their home number off a phone sex line and you call them directly, it means that they could conceivably get your number and call you back after that at all hours of the day or night.”

  A horrifying thought. “Only you would think of such a perverse-case scenario,” I said.

  “Why do you think it’s called star 6-9?” Greg threw me one of his typical “I know you inside and out” looks as he steam-pressed a shirt arm. “Just troubleshooting yet another possible paranoid fantasy.

  When I accused him of being flip and unsympathetic, Greg’s face reddened. He uprighted the iron and slammed it down on its tin tray. “Now, just wait a second here. Who stayed up with you until three in the morning Halloween night? Who missed two parties and the parade because you were feeling so dismal?”

  “Well, you’d have been depressed, too.”

  “No shit. Look, I wanted to take care of you. But I easily could’ve fed you a couple of Xanax, put you to bed and gone out.”

  “Maybe you were being helpful because you were secretly glad.”

  This made Greg seethe. “You know one of the things I hated about being involved with you, Will? That you always saw a black hole in the middle of everything. I couldn’t even tell you you fucked me good without your thinking there was some qualification to the compliment.”

  I managed to smile.

  Greg continued, “Look, you know my opinion of the situation. From what you’ve said, Sean has never been able to handle a relationship. The claustrophobic type that bails out when things get a little uncomfortable. You saw it coming a mile away. And now that it’s happened, you’re going to realize: better now than later.”

  “Here’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

  “Look, I never claimed I was perfect.” Greg peeled the shirt off the ironing board and held it up to the light. He scrutinized it for creases, then his eyes found mine. “I’ve apologized for hurting you a million times. I don’t know what you want.”

  “Well,” I complained, “for starters I’d like it if you’d stop dorking Sebastian.”

  Greg fixed me with a stubborn gaze. “What’s he got to do with anything?”

  “He’s hateful.”

  “Did I ever tell you to stop dorking Sean?”

  “Sean wasn’t involved with anybody else.”

  “What’s the big deal, Will? I mean, Seb is just a fuck buddy.”

  “Oh, he’s Seb now. Your fuck buddy Seb who happens to despise me.”

  “That’s not”—Greg paused—“necessarily true.” He grabbed a bottle of starch that was standing next to his ankle and sprayed a wand over his shirt. “Anyway, he knows my loyalty is to you.”

  I said nothing for a while and watched Greg finishing up his shirt, listening to the gurgling of hot water in the iron, hot water sizzling into steam. “I think I blame myself for making you into such a hard-ass,” I finally said. “You weren’t nearly so tough when we first met.”

  Greg shrugged and headed over to his closet. “Yeah, well, I lived with you for long enough. What do you expect?”

  “Just what I want to hear.”

  Greg had turned away from
me and was trying to select a pair of dress pants. “I’ll admit that I was threatened by your thing with Sean. You made it sound like it was some grand passion or something.”

  It is, I wanted to reply. But I said nothing because Greg had already told me that in his opinion throughout those few months with you I’d been on edge, expectant, hardly my old self.

  “I must admit it really got to me when you went up to Vermont with him … to our old place. And then that night we almost lost Casey, even though I was nearly out of my mind, I noticed his smile. A smile that could crack a safe.” Greg turned to face me again. “So factor all that into my hunch that nobody can get too close to a guy like him. Principally because a guy like him has no real devotion to anyone. And that with Sean Paris you were basically spinning your wheels.”

  At this point, Casey got up from where he’d been lying next to Greg’s refrigerator and sauntered over to a plastic pumpkin chew toy that squeaked. He picked it up, squeaked it a few times, then brought it over and dropped it in my lap. Petting him, I tossed the pumpkin a few feet away and Casey pounced on it and began a wrestling solitaire.

  “Don’t get him riled up right before I have to leave,” Greg warned as he finally selected a pair of dark trousers and stepped into them. He put on the dress shirt and buttoned it up swiftly.

  “I think I’ll take him with me tonight, to my place,” I said. “If you don’t mind.”

  Greg now showed me the most compassionate face I’d seen thus far in our conversation. “Mind? I wish you’d take him to your place more often.”

  “Maybe I’ll start doing that.”

  Once Greg was dressed and ready to go, and after I’d put on Casey’s leash and collected a few of his chase balls, I said, “So exactly how often have you been seeing Sebastian?”

  Greg broke into a grin. “God, you’re really fixated on this thing with Sebastian! Once a week … at the most. But I’ll be honest with you, he does talk about Peter a bit too much.”

  “Don’t you get it? They can’t live without each other.”

  “Well, fucking around with me is surely a strange way of being unable to live without Peter!”

  That was when I pointed out it was the only way to dilute the terror of real intimacy.

  Casey and I escorted Greg to the subway and then we dropped in at the dog run and threw some balls around until Casey got tired. We took a little stroll after that and eventually wound up back at my apartment. Like a vigilant heart, the red answering machine light pulsed with a message. Your recorded voice said, “Hey, Will, it’s Sean here. Just checking in to see how you’re doing. Give me a call, whenever you feel like it.”

  We were still speaking maybe once or twice a week. Nevertheless, the lags between those calls felt endless, like great flat stretches of a monotonous landscape. I kept thinking that during one of those perfunctory phone calls you’d come to your senses, that missing me would eventually get the better of you, but it never happened. And to think that only recently you’d said that it was finally beginning to “work” between us. Though I knew why we’d split up, there was still an injured part of me that kept appealing, “What happened, Sean, what happened?”

  While listening to your message, I watched Casey trundle into the kitchen and sniff around for his food bowl in just the place it used to be when he’d lived here with Greg and me, a bowl that had since been retired to the cupboard. When he didn’t locate it, he fixed me with a baleful look. And I got sad. Because I realized that during those four years with Greg and Casey I’d probably come the closest to living in any sort of normal, domestic bliss.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I FOUND MYSELF AT Splash one night, watching video footage of the Halloween parade, the variations on drag and vampires and androgynes on stilts that I’d deliberately missed. This year there seemed to be a surprising number of eunuchs weaving in and out of the costumed regalia, innocent-looking boys with golden tresses; it made me wonder if there is a movement afoot toward sexlessness. After the parade shots was threaded some footage of a rather drab-by-comparison Veterans Day picnic. Thanksgiving was now only a week away, and for the first time in many years I’d deliberately made no plans. I hardly had much time to feel sorry for myself, however, when I noticed a hot blond giving me the eye. It’s scary how deep depression can suddenly burn off like fog when a number is overtly making his interest known. And there’s always that moment before you get into conversation and hear how he speaks, when you allow yourself to imagine this guy will be the one who will willingly spend the weekends reading with you and seeing films, who’ll prefer spending time in Vermont instead of on Fire Island. But usually the moment he opens his mouth you know at best it will be a one-night stand.

  Nevertheless.

  Eyes finally locked, we were grinning at each other, and as I strolled toward him, suddenly somebody tugged my shirtsleeve.

  Another man, an exotic with golden skin and eyes glossy like Mediterranean olives, dark, wavy hair, diminutive. If I hadn’t already set my sights on the blond I might have been more friendly to this guy.

  “Are you Will?”

  I checked to see if the blond was still enthralled; he looked bewildered by the fact that I’d allowed his gravitational pull to be thwarted.

  “Yeah, I’m Will.” I sounded brusque because I wanted to keep moving forward.

  “I’m José Ayala.”

  I now turned to gape at him. And the hunky blond shriveled into a passing thought. “God! I’ve wanted to get ahold of you!” I exclaimed.

  “I guess I should’ve given you my phone number that time we talked.”

  José glanced at the scowling blond, now retreating back to his original perch. “I don’t want to get in the way of anything.”

  “Don’t worry about it. That was just my loneliness rearing its ugly head.”

  “Well then, you’ve come to the right place.”

  I grinned and asked what he was doing at Splash.

  “Same as you. Deluding myself that I might get laid tonight.” We both laughed.

  “I never expected you to be handsome,” I said boldly.

  “You thought I’d be a troll?”

  I considered this for a moment. “Honestly, I don’t know what I expected.”

  “The one whose love is unrequited has to be ugly, right?” José grinned.

  I agreed that it’s a dismal assumption. And I reflected back on your ideas concerning what exactly constitutes a fatal attraction.

  José was dressed better than most of the people in the bar. He wore a pair of black jeans and a white cashmere crew-neck sweater that showed the bones of his clavicle and the beginning of a taut, slightly built chest. Unconsciously rattling the ice in his cocktail glass, he asked if he could buy me another beer. I explained that I’d soon be leaving.

  “Anyway,” he said, “should I assume because you’re here that you’re … alone again?”

  I nodded. “You must’ve heard.”

  “I did, actually.”

  “Sebastian clue you in on that one?”

  José frowned. “I haven’t spoken to him since … Is he still seeing your ex?”

  “No, thank God. Greg finally blew him off. Sebastian finally starting bad-mouthing me.”

  “That was loyal.”

  “Well, that’s one dividend of gay life. Your former lovers often become your best friends.” As soon as I said this, however, I realized what an insensitive comment it was in light of what had happened to Bobby Garzino.

  “It’s kind of like a wartime mentality,” José conceded as he gulped back what remained of his drink. “Our side has got to stick together … especially these days.”

  I asked him how he’d been able to recognize me. He surprised me by saying that he checked one of my books out of the library (the one, ironically, that I’d thought he’d shredded) and had looked carefully at the author’s photo.

  “I still haven’t figured out who shredded my novel.”

  José appeared concerned. �
��Honestly, it could have been anybody.”

  “Promise it wasn’t you?” I was smiling.

  “I swear to you on my mother that it wasn’t.”

  I looked over where the blond had been standing and found him speaking to a short, barrel-chested boy who had more hair on his head than I, and bigger proportions, and was younger.

  “I’m going to get that drink now,” José said. “Sure you don’t want anything?”

  “You go ahead. I’ll just wait here.”

  José coolly approached the bar and confidently snagged the attention of the shirtless bartender, who served him promptly. There was something of the patrician in this little guy, I decided, a charming sort of assurance, which seemed quite a contrast to the person whom I’d imagined desperately gouging up a wooden door and placing importunate calls from pay phones. Why did he get so stuck on Bobby Garzino? Then again, such obsessive behavior could easily overwhelm most people who found themselves in a similar predicament. When he returned, José asked if you and I had broken up before you quit your job.

  The question threw me into confusion.

  “You didn’t know?” he said.

  “I haven’t heard from Sean in a couple of weeks now.”

  “Well, he left work ‘suddenly.’ So says the receptionist.”

  “Bugging him at work again, huh?” I managed to say, despite a burgeoning anxiety. “Even I never did that. Not even in my most dismal hour.”

  “You never had an ax to grind.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I guess I don’t know, really.”

  There was a brisk silence and I was about to leave when José said, “Look, I want to apologize for telling you things that maybe you didn’t want to know.”

  “They certainly had their desired effect.”

  “My object wasn’t to break the two of you up.”

  “You’re going to have a hard time convincing me of that.”

  “Well, if you really believe that, then why are you talking to me now?

  I pondered this. “I don’t know why, exactly. I guess because I’m intrigued. Intrigued that we’re both connected to the same man in different ways.”