The Easy Way Out

by Stephen McCauley

  “You did?”

  “Of course I did. You think I was afraid of hurting his feelings? He wouldn’t have noticed if I’d dropped dead over dinner. I was so crazy from listening to him, I swear if I’d had a gun I would have opened fire in the restaurant. The only thing he said about me was that I had nice eyes.”

  Sharon’s eyes were an astonishing shade of green, almost the color of the flesh of a kiwi fruit. She usually deflected compliments about them by saying they were given to her to draw attention away from her large nose.

  “Maybe you should set him up with Roberta.”

  She frowned and rummaged through her huge straw bag. A deck of cards fell onto the table. “They’d last two minutes with each other. No one to listen. And if I forgot my cigarettes, I’ll collapse. Did you notice if I put them in here back at the office?” She took out several more decks of cards, a paperback book on how to manage time, three tubes of lipstick (even though, to my knowledge, she never wore any), a damp bathing suit, and a bottle of sunscreen. Sharon had a pale, flawless complexion that was highly susceptible to sunburn. She once explained to me that she couldn’t stand having a burn because it made her look too vulnerable. At last she came to the Luckies and sighed gratefully. She lit up and inhaled with such voracious relief, my mouth watered.

  “Have you ever thought of switching brands?” I asked tentatively. “In the scheme of things, unfiltered Luckies are pretty high up there in the danger zone.”

  She daintily peeled a flake of tobacco off the tip of her tongue. “Please, Patrick. Next you’ll suggest imitation mayonnaise. I’m not about to waste the good time of my life denying myself pleasure in hopes that I can add on a few years at the end when I’m old, poor, and bedridden. Some things are worth dying for.”

  “The brother who’s so crazy for you, for example.” He was standing on the chair adjusting the radio again, a stained white apron around his waist. His hips looked wonderfully narrow. “He has a nice behind,” I said.

  She sighed longingly. “I suppose he does. But he can keep it. Anyway, I have to get back to the office and make another few dozen people happy. We should get going.” She dropped her cigarette into my soda can and swirled the dregs around until the sizzling stopped. Then she stood up and slipped on her poncho, making a great show of adjusting her hair. “Since you paid for my lunch, Patrick, I’ll give you a piece of advice on your brother’s wedding; try to stall the shower. Once they have the shower, he has to go through with it. But I still think you should keep out of it. If you’d leave Arthur and move in with me, I wouldn’t have to put up with jerks like Roberta, and you could have your own life and wouldn’t have to fly to New York for sex. But that’s just my opinion.”

  As we were leaving, the handsome brother asked how everything was.

  “Heavy on the grease,” Sharon said. “Too much cheese, too many hot peppers, and the bread wasn’t fresh. You guys are never going to make a go unless you serve fresh bread. And wash the windows every once in a while. It might help if people could see into the place. Well, then again, maybe not. Maybe better if they don’t see it.”

  The brother beamed, as if she’d made some outrageously flirtatious comment.

  Seven

  Arthur and I had a Sunday-morning routine that varied little from week to week. No matter what the season, Arthur prepared an elaborate cholesterol-and-calorie-busting breakfast of pan-fried potatoes, a meat carefully chosen for its high fat content, fruit, and pancakes or waffles. In Arthur’s book, it didn’t count as an indulgent meal, because it was figured into his weekly food plan. Bloated from the binge, we’d crawl into the living room and read the Sunday papers as a team. Arthur summarized all the local and international political news, economic indicators, and op-ed pieces. I kept us both up-to-date on environmental disasters, plane crashes, train wrecks, earthquakes, and the latest murders. When we were finished with the papers, Arthur put on a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, and we listened to it straight through, usually following the libretto.

  Initially, I’d recoiled from the ritual, finding it too depressingly predictable. But Arthur had convinced me to keep at it, and now I had to admit it I took a certain degree of comfort from the boredom of the routine. Going along with this one weekly event assuaged a tremendous amount of anxiety I had about minor indiscretions like discussing my home life with Sharon and fooling around with Jeffrey.

  The Sunday after my lunch with Sharon, Arthur and I were in the middle of listening to Ruddigore when Tony called. He called almost daily now, and although I’d tried to take Sharon’s and Arthur’s advice to stay uninvolved, I wasn’t finding it easy. I think there was something in going against their advice that made me feel especially close to my brother, as if he and I were involved in secret negotiations. It reminded me of the time Tony, at age twelve, had a particularly fierce fight with my father and decided to run away from home. He and I stayed up late every night for a week, planning his escape, stockpiling supplies, stealing money from Ryan’s bureau drawers. Tony left one day at noon and returned in time for dinner, explaining to me that he didn’t want to hurt my mother’s feelings by missing the meal.

  “What do you think, Patrick?” he asked that Sunday morning. “Do you think that your parents suspect I might be seeing someone else?”

  “I doubt it,” I told him. “I’m sure your father imagines you spend every free minute in bed with a woman you picked up at the grocery store, but as for a real person, with a name and a face, I doubt either of them suspects a thing.” My father had been obsessed with Tony’s sex life ever since my younger brother reached puberty. The problem, as far as I could tell, was jealousy. “I’m sure you’d know it if they did.”

  “You’re probably right. Want to hear something pathetic?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I actually feel bad for those two.”

  I asked him what he meant, although I understood perfectly. The only person I knew who was more unhappy than my parents was me when I thought about how unhappy my parents were.

  “The store’s about to fold,” he said, “they hate each other, they ruined Ryan’s marriage and now they have to live with that, and every time I turn around, your father’s in the hospital having another organ removed. Look at their lives.”

  “I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.” I could feel my chest beginning to cave in and a peculiarly hollow feeling developing in the pit of my stomach. I conjured up a few bland phrases I remembered from listening to a call-in radio shrink and told him that he wasn’t to blame for our parents’ problems and couldn’t solve them if he tried.

  “That’s true, but I don’t want to make them worse, either. What’s all that racket in the background?”

  “Gilbert and Sullivan,” I told him. “Arthur’s specialty.”

  “Opera, isn’t it? Vivian and I went to the opera the other night.”

  “You did? My little brother at the opera? What’s become of you?”

  “Vivian’s into that kind of thing. At least I stayed awake. Half the men around me were actually snoring. And so loud I couldn’t have nodded off even if I’d wanted to. It wasn’t too bad, considering they could have cut two thirds of the thing and the acting was a joke. A two-hundred-pound lady in bed singing so hard her eyes are popping out of her skull, and you’re supposed to believe she’s dying of consumption. They should have cast someone like Julia Roberts and then dubbed in the voice. It’s the second one she took me to. They’re all pretty much about the same thing—star-crossed lovers like me and her. I even shed a couple of tears at the end.”

  “Tears?” At age seven, Tony fell off the roof of the house and broke his leg. That was the only time I could recall seeing him cry.

  “Who wouldn’t cry, with all that singing and dying?”

  I wouldn’t. I’d leap over the balcony before I’d let myself cry in public. Or in private. “Have you talked with Loreen yet?”

  “Last night.”

  “And?”

  “And
nothing. I told her it was raining, I talked about work, she gave me an update on the honeymoon plans, and we hung up. Listen, Pat, don’t try to make me feel bad. I’m such a wreck, I’ve lost five pounds in the past two weeks. Maybe I should stop calling her for a while.”

  “What does Vivian make of all this?”

  “She’s not putting any pressure on me, like I told you. I almost wish she would. It’s too bad you can’t meet her. She understands everything.”

  I could hear him gearing up for another hymn of praise, something I was not dying to sit through.

  “I don’t know why, but I tell her things I’ve never told anyone else. Things about when I was a kid, your parents, school. Even about you. You’d approve of her attitude on that score, by the way. She doesn’t see anything wrong with the whole gay thing.”

  “Imagine.”

  “Vivian thinks I took such a hard line against you because I was threatened.”

  “Tell her to hang out a shingle. Those shrinks make big bucks.”

  Arthur was sitting on the brown sofa in the living room, with the newspapers stacked up at his feet. The Gilbert and Sullivan had reached its happy ending, and he was motioning for me to finish my conversation, pretending to slit his throat.

  “I’m sorry, Tony,” I said, “but Arthur’s telling me to get off the phone. A real estate agent’s coming over to show us a house.”

  “A house? You two are buying a house?”

  “We’re looking,” I said. I was delighted to hear the surprise in his voice; I took it as confirmation that the whole venture was out of character for me.

  “Finally settling down. Good for you, Pat. Do your parents know about this?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “They’ll be thrilled. They like the idea of us all settling down. As long as we’re not too happy about it. You’re not too happy about it, are you?”

  “Not too. Anyway, I don’t want to hear your parents’ opinion, so let’s leave them out of it.”

  “Fine with me. If I add a couple more subjects to the taboo list, I’ll never have to talk with them again. Maybe I’ll call you later tonight,” he said and slammed down the phone.

  * * *

  Our real estate agent had called earlier that morning and was due to arrive at any minute to show us what he’d described to Arthur as our “dream house.” I couldn’t imagine it would be my dream house, as that mythical dwelling was located somewhere in another hemisphere. I’d already worked up a battery of objections before even looking at the place—the systems this, the gutters that, the roof, the basement, the kitchen, the bath—but I still had to get dressed in something that made me look credible as a potential home owner.

  Arthur followed me into the bedroom and watched as I changed my clothes. “How about a white shirt?” he suggested. “People are always impressed with a white shirt.”

  “You’re wearing a white shirt,” I reminded him. “We don’t want to look like twins.”

  “Not possible, Patrick. I’m too tall and you’re too handsome. When Beatrice and I had lunch the other day, she went on and on about how handsome you are, how lucky I am to have met you.” The opinions of Arthur’s ex-wife counted for a lot in our relationship, mostly because Arthur was still so attached to her. “All of our friends are always telling me that.”

  I looked at him doubtfully and changed the subject. Along with every member of my family, the friends Arthur and I had in common were always reminding me of how wonderful Arthur was. Half of them had named one of their kids after him, and the other half had made him godfather to their firstborn.

  “Tony’s new girlfriend started taking him to the opera,” I said. I wanted Arthur to approve of Vivian, but so far he’d shown only a mild interest in the subject of my brother’s wedding. “She’s turning him into a fan. They went last night.”

  “Traviata, I’ll bet.”

  “Sounds that way. How’d you guess?”

  “It’s about a doomed woman who can’t have the man she loves because of his familial obligations. She dies tragically and the man has about ten minutes of happiness before facing a lifetime of regret. Sound familiar? And speaking of regret, Patrick, Eben was especially positive about this house, so I hope you’re going to keep an open mind when we look at it. I don’t want to regret turning down the perfect place for the next year and a half.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Arthur and I saw time differently. When he planned for our future, he talked about what we’d be doing in the next five or ten years. I tended to see the future in terms of fifteen-minute blocks. “Should I wear a tie?”

  “Better not. We don’t want to make it look as if we’re trying too hard.”

  He stood behind me, reached his long arms around me, and squeezed tight. I had a sudden need to scratch the top of my head where his chin was resting, but I couldn’t move my arms.

  “Try to think of this house the way you think of me, sweetheart. Maybe not perfect, but with enough good to make up for the bad. When you add it all up, I’m worth putting up with, aren’t I?”

  I tried to answer, but he was cutting off my oxygen. Fortunately, he decided he had to floss his teeth, so he let go of me before I passed out and before he had time to start getting amorous.

  The only thing that depressed me more than the ecological breakdown of the planet and my parents’ unhappiness was my sex life with Arthur. There’s no point in going into it in detail. In the end, all unhappy sex lives are alike. I don’t blame Arthur. The problem was as much my fault as his. Whenever I thought about our sex life, I thought about two bald tires, spinning and spinning and spinning on a patch of ice. Once you’ve tried pushing, pulling, putting chains on the wheels and sand on the snow, there’s not much you can do but turn off the engine, take the key out of the ignition, and start walking.

  * * *

  Our real estate agent ushered us into his spotless, mint-condition 1974 silver Volvo that Sunday morning, all smiles and goodwill. “Now this is an incredible morning!” he said, shaking his head in amazement. He could even make an observation about the weather sound like a compliment, and I felt embarrassed, as I usually do when confronted with optimism.

  Arthur claimed our real estate agent’s name was Eben, and I insisted it was Evan. Because E. had treated us like best friends five minutes after we met, and because he was too assiduously casual to give out business cards, it always seemed rude to ask for clarification. We avoided using his name. When it was necessary, we referred to him in a garbled slur that came out sounding like Eh’en.

  E. was the kind of hale and hearty, extremely tall and lean man New England was famous for producing. Glowing good health oozed from his every Congregational pore. He had piercing blue eyes, a full head of prematurely gray hair, which he wore tied back in a stylish ponytail, and the kind of bright-white, perfectly formed teeth that can’t help but make a person look a little shallow. I never felt more like an escapee from some holding tank on Ellis Island than I did in the presence of this captain of the Mayflower.

  He slapped me on the back as I got into the rear seat of the car. “Ready to change your life, Patrick?” he asked, grinning.

  I told him I’d been ready for that for years.

  “Is there really an orchard of fruit trees in the backyard?” Arthur asked.

  “Not exactly an orchard, but you have to see it to believe it, guys.” E. always referred to Arthur and me as “guys” or “men,” possibly to reassure us that he didn’t doubt our masculinity.

  I strapped myself into the back seat, delighted to see that Max, E.’s basset hound, was along for the ride. I reached out to pat his head, and as usual, he looked over at me with his bored, bloodshot eyes and bared his teeth. What he really wanted was for Arthur, the one true love of his life, to turn around and smile at him. This was enough to set his tail wagging for hours.

  Arthur loved dogs. Dogs loved him. Strays were always coming up to him on the street and nuzzling against him lovingly. I’ve ne
ver had much rapport with animals, even as a child. My parents once announced to my brothers and me that they were going to buy us a dog, but we had to decide on a breed. Ryan wanted “some friendly old mutt” rescued from the gas chambers of an animal shelter, Tony wanted “the biggest, meanest, ugliest German shepherd” we could find, and I wanted a turtle. We compromised on an aloof, elderly cat Tony named Rover. Rover ran away one week after we got her, and the subject of pets was never mentioned again.

  As E. pulled away from the curb, he said, “You know what, guys? This place is so perfect, I don’t think even you’ll be able to find anything objectionable in it, Pat.”

  “Are you a gambling man?” I asked.

  “He’s joking,” Arthur said. “I can’t believe it has so much space. Anyway, I trust your taste. Patrick does, too.”

  “He does,” I said. “Don’t I, Max? Max is looking particularly bright-eyed this morning, Eh’en. He isn’t pregnant, is he?”

  “To tell you the truth,” E. said, “Mona and I were even thinking about trying to get our hands on this place ourselves.” Mona was E.’s wife, a pediatrician. E. mentioned her name once every ten minutes, an unnecessary reminder of his heterosexuality. “We decided it wasn’t big enough for the family. But she agreed you guys would love it.”

  In addition to E., Mona, and Max, “the family” comprised a three-year-old son named either Nathan or Ethan and an in-utero daughter named Regina, due in four months. Arthur and I had once been invited to dinner to meet “the family.”

  “Let’s hope she’s right,” Arthur said. “We can have you all over for a celebration as soon as we move in.”

  I rolled my eyes at Max. While our dinner with “the family” hadn’t been the most riotously good time I’d ever had, it had been pleasant enough. Still, I wasn’t thrilled at the thought of adding yet another crazy-in-love couple to our list of friends. Almost all of the people Arthur socialized with were married couples who at least appeared to be content, secure, and monogamous. On the whole, they set a bad example for Arthur. My friends were a group of singles, disappointed in love, in despair at being alone, petrified at the thought that they actually might meet someone and have to make a commitment. Arthur hadn’t taken to many of them.