by Greg Herren
“Hey, Rawley,” said Zach. “Can I get some water or what?”
“Sure.”
In the elevator, he seemed to have come back to his full senses. I’d never seen anyone recover sobriety so quickly, and I began to wonder if the inebriate act had been a performance, though what Zach thought it might achieve was beyond me. Whatever the case, he spoke clearly, told me about a fight he’d had with Lincoln two nights back, explained that Lincoln treated him like a pet, a toy, a bit of ornamentation to be moved about decorously to suit his mood or the atmosphere of a room. It didn’t come as news to me.
“I still don’t understand what you’re doing here.”
“I think I wanted to see you.”
Upstairs, in my apartment, I poured Zach a glass of water, which he guzzled down. Then he returned the glass for more and wiped rivulets from his chin with the back of his hand. After he finished his second glass of water, he tried to call his partner, but Lincoln wasn’t answering the phone, likely employing a petty avoidance tactic. Zach caught his reflection in the living room mirror, sneered at the image waiting there, and asked to use the shower.
“You know where everything is,” I told him.
As my ex made himself at home in my shower, I sat on the sofa and stared at the blank television screen, attempting to puzzle through what was happening. He thought he wanted to see me, but what did that mean? Did he honestly miss me? Had he stumbled in a stupor to my doorstep in the name of reconciliation? As the notion wriggled into my head, no hope or elation accompanied it. The only part of me that wanted him to stay was my cock, and I’d learned what an ignorant bastard it could be. Most likely, Zach was looking for drama, a familiar name he could flaunt in Lincoln’s face to spark a jealous outburst before they forgave one another and fucked out the remnants of their anger.
One of my long-ago exes, a man named Aaron, used to say, “God likes to shake the plate,” meaning that once a guy had his life neatly arranged—his carrots in one quadrant, his rice in another, meat nestled and tidy—something would invariably trip him up, knock his arm, do something to make a mess of the organized dish. At first, I’d thought it was a quaint notion. Then I came to realize God, however defined, had nothing to do with it, and neither did the other people crowding that man’s life, for the most part. More times than not, a man tripped himself, shook his own plate consciously or not. In the past year, I’d managed to get my plate arranged. The carrots didn’t touch the rice; the meat and gravy occupied a solitary region. If anything happened between Zach and me, if the plate shook and the menu blended and became distasteful, I’d have only myself to blame.
Wearing just a towel, Zach dropped into the chair beside the sofa and smiled at me. He’d combed his wet hair back, revealing his high brow, and dried himself haphazardly so that a trickle of water ran from the subtle cleft between his pectorals and down his taut stomach to pool at his navel.
Refusing to accommodate the ignorant bastard below my waist, I shifted my gaze to his face. “All set?” I asked.
“What else are you offering?”
“I don’t remember offering anything.”
The weary smile turned to a smirk and Zach leaned forward, displacing the edges of the towel. I let myself peer into the shadow falling over his thighs and his balls and his cock, but then I regarded Zach earnestly and said, “You should go home.”
“I’m starving,” he said as if I hadn’t spoken. He rubbed his stomach, massaging the drops of moisture into his skin. A soft sleepiness added a layer of sensuality to his expression.
“Plenty of restaurants between here and there,” I told him.
“You really don’t want me here?” he asked. His face melted into a practiced and wholly insincere pout, one of the less effective expressions from his immature collection. It looked ridiculous. Insulting.
“I really don’t,” I said.
Don’t misunderstand—I wanted to fuck him. That was the clearest thought in my head. My skin was hot with it, and my arguments darted like tiny fish, impossible to grasp or keep hold of. But the desire nettled me because I knew I didn’t want him, not really, not in any substantive way. I just wanted his skin and his spit and his eager pleas for more of whatever I chose to do to him. And I reasoned that if I did give in, he’d have what he wanted and he’d leave, take his conquest back to Lincoln, and the two of them could hash it out however they saw fit. Win-win situation. But through all of this I felt certain I was being played—though I didn’t know exactly how—and it infuriated me, and my aggravation grew every moment he was there.
Silence took over the room for a time. I didn’t know what to say, and apparently Zach had used up his allotted charm for the evening.
“I just keep thinking about P’town,” he said. He slumped into the chair and his eyes closed. “Do you remember P’town?”
“Sure,” I said.
I’d taken Zach to Provincetown to celebrate my forty-first birthday, something of a tradition for me. We stayed in a quiet bed-and-breakfast on Bradford Street. It was a wonderful house. I’d known the owners for years. My birthday fell during the off-season, so tourists weren’t overrunning the place and crowding the sidewalks. A spring rain had drizzled over the city the entire trip, but the weather did nothing to intrude on our enjoyment. We spent most of the weekend smoking joints and fucking, occasionally going out for a good meal. Three weeks later, the son of a bitch dumped me.
“I’ve been thinking about that a lot,” Zach said, eyes still closed. “Probably the best weekend of my life. It was amazing. You were amazing.”
His voice had begun fading with the first sentence and was all but inaudible by the time he finished. Clearly, his revitalization had been short-lived. The kid was falling asleep in my chair.
“Hey, Zach. Hey, come on. You can’t stay here.”
“Why not?” he mumbled.
“Because you can’t.”
“Lincoln doesn’t love me, not the way you did.”
If his declaration was meant as a flattering revelation, it fell short. His lament was mercenary, but I couldn’t have expected more from him. Zach was a child, still forming, still searching. He didn’t know the terrain of life or what his place in that landscape would be. He wandered forest paths, many of them circular, heading the same direction time and again, hoping the familiar trail would resolve into a new vista. All the while, he burned what he needed to stay warm—the men who bought him drinks and told him how beautiful he was. I’d spent enough time as kindling, too many years warming others, becoming reduced to char and ash in the process. The look in Zach’s sleepy eyes showed me he already had his lighter sparked, posed, ready to set a fresh blaze.
“Get dressed, Zach.” I stood and walked to the edge of the room. “I’ll take you downstairs and get you a cab. You need to go home and talk to Lincoln. Work this out.”
He mumbled a vague protest, and I marched forward and slapped him across the back of the head. It wasn’t hard, but it was enough to get his attention. Zach lurched out of the chair and gave me a wounded gaze, rubbed the back of his head as if I’d physically injured him. A dozen remarks, varying from cruel to rational to kind to apologetic, lit on the tip of my tongue, crackled like sparks, but I said nothing. I followed Zach down the hall and waited for him to dress, and then showed him to the door.
*
I stopped dating after Zach left me for Lincoln Schon, promising myself a break from the drama and frustration. Friends occupied my evenings and weekends: dining out, catching plays or movies, visiting museums, doing what sounded interesting to me rather than trying to impress a romantic companion. As for sex, it was easy enough to find when I wanted it.
On the Saturday following Zach’s unexpected visit, I was in bed with a closeted married guy named Rick who lived in Hoboken. He’d become something of a regular, but I usually only saw him on weekday evenings, when he managed to convince his wife he had to work late. Somehow he’d slipped away early Saturday afternoon, and since I had
no plans for the day, I let him invite himself over. Conversation with Rick often proved easy enough, as I rarely had to participate. After the sex—always after—we would talk. Lying in bed, Rick would regale me with stories I’m certain he found fascinating. They were invariably about him or his wife or his kids, a dull and predictable family dynamic, surprising and exceptional to him alone. I endured his monologues because he was handsome, well built, hung, and generally speaking, uncomplicated. The sex was good and I could tune out his ramblings during the afterglow.
That afternoon, the day’s dreariness—a storm that painted the world outside my windows gray and black—and the repetitive tapping of the rain had lulled us to sleep. It was a good, deep sleep, which made waking from it all the more startling.
My cell phone buzzed on the nightstand, rattling noisily atop a scattering of coins. Still groggy, I answered and a stone of unease crashed to my stomach when the caller said, “Rawley, this is Lincoln Schon.”
“Lincoln,” I said, knowing the call must certainly be about Zach. “How are you?”
“I’m not interested in niceties, Rawley. Just tell Zach to pick up his things tomorrow or they’re going in the trash.”
“What are you talking about? Zach isn’t here.”
“Oh this,” Lincoln said. He sighed, sounding exasperated as if the conversation had been going on for hours. “If you want to play your melodramatic games, I suggest you play them with Zach. Personally, I have neither the interest nor the time for them.”
“How long has he been gone?”
It had never occurred to me that Zach might have needed help that night. Like Lincoln, I’d assumed he was drawing me into some kind of game, and he may well have been, but the alternate and very real possibility was that he’d genuinely needed shelter or care, and he’d used promises of his body, the only currency he perceived as valuable, to that end. I had declined to negotiate, but others might not. A kid like that could draw a hundred different kinds of crazy; he’d be a target.
“Just give him the message, Rawley. I will not deal with this nonsense.”
“Lincoln, I’m serious. I haven’t seen him in days. He came here and I sent him home.”
“Of course you did. What a charming and useful Boy Scout you are, but as I said I’m too busy to bother with charades just now. Zach wanted to make a statement, an infantile decree of independence. He did so, and now I’ve responded.”
“He’s…not…here! Did it ever occur to you he might be in trouble?”
“Please, Rawley, put away the dramatics. Boys like Zach are trouble, but they’re never in trouble. If he’s not scavenging off you, then he’s found another trough in which to gorge himself. If you do see him, pass along my message.”
The call ended and I dropped back in the bed. Staring at the ceiling, drifting on tides of annoyance and worry, I flinched when Rick’s palm slid over my chest. I’d forgotten all about him.
“That didn’t sound good,” he said.
“It’s not,” I said. “But it’s also not my problem.”
I didn’t want to talk about it, felt no compunction whatsoever to discuss Zach or his boyfriend with a closet case from Jersey. Instead I rolled over and wrapped my arms around him and lay my face against Rick’s chest. When it became clear he wanted to talk, I turned the conversation toward him, and Rick was out of the chute. He told me about his ailing father and the work he and his wife needed to do on their apartment if they were going to sell and move to Morristown (which apparently was their plan) and he attempted to start a second round of sex by stroking my cock, but I had no passion for the act, so I pointed out the time and suggested he clean up and catch the PATH train home. Feeling lousy about my abruptness and the vague expression of hurt it had brought to Rick’s face, I joined him in the shower and soaped him down, kissed him, fingered his ass until he got off.
Closing the door behind Rick, I experienced a sudden burden of loneliness. I didn’t want Rick to stay, but I didn’t want to be alone with so much day ahead and so much night to follow. Mostly, I didn’t want to think about Lincoln or Zach. Already I wondered what might have happened to the kid. Who knew what he’d gotten himself messed up in. What kinds of drugs? What kinds of people? He may have had some experience under his belt, but he was still a kid, and his naïveté burned far brighter than his intellect. Had he even thought to put money aside or had he expected to move from one generous home to the next in a series of uncomplicated transitions? As I’d told Rick, Zach’s whereabouts wasn’t my problem, but concern for the kid haunted me all afternoon.
Fortunately, a pair of friends—a couple from Park Slope—called with an invitation for dinner and a movie. Normally I wouldn’t have trekked to Brooklyn through such inclement weather, but I jumped at the possibility of distraction.
*
Zach called two days later. Monday afternoon, and I was sitting in my office perusing a marketing budget that refused to add up. Grateful for a break from the columns of numbers, I answered quickly. His voice rolled through me like a trickle of ice water. Again, his words were slurred and made little sense, only this time, he sounded deathbed weak, as if calling from a hospice in his final moments.
I pictured him on a soiled mattress in a dingy room. Paint flaked from water-stained walls. A litter of drug paraphernalia covered the floor. I imagined him in an alley, surrounded by refuse, both inanimate and human. The images struck me hard, hard enough to shake the plate. Wholeheartedly, I believed Lincoln had been wrong: Kids like Zach were often in trouble; a belief in their own allure and invulnerability made them ripe for it.
My first question was “Where are you?” And I asked it a dozen times until it cut through his confusion enough for him to say, “Ow-side the lawyer offi’.”
Then he said, “Iss cold.”
“You’re at a lawyer’s office?”
“Ow-side. Iss cold.”
“Zach, tell me the name of the lawyer.”
“I’n thirssy.”
“Zach, is there a name on the door? The outside of the building?” I reached for a pen and snatched a scrap of paper from the edge of my desk.
“Sigh.”
“What?”
“Name on sigh.”
Sign?
“What’s the name?”
He said something that sounded like Bodum, but I couldn’t be certain, so I asked him to carefully spell the name. Three minutes later, after a number of incomprehensible tangents and several utterances of the non-word “Bootifuh,” I extracted the name Andrew Bogen. Keeping Zach on the line, I ran a Google search and discovered the offices of Andrew Bogen were on Ninety-third Street just west of Broadway, only eight blocks from my apartment building. With the address folded and stuffed in my pocket, I raced through the office, passing coworkers who formed a gauntlet of concerned stares and hushed questions.
On the street, I considered the density of traffic, slowed further than usual by the rain, and chose to take the subway, hoping it would get me uptown in half the time. Waiting for the train, I kept Zach on the line, listening to his babble and trying to make sense of phrases like, “Povince, all-ays povince,” and “The how iss fill wi’ bootifuh monsess.” I didn’t care what he said as long as I maintained contact. When the train came, I climbed on and stood clutching the bar.
I should have known I would lose the call before the train rolled out of the station. The double beep signaling our disconnection hit me like a punch to the throat. I called him back again and again, but every attempt failed.
When the train doors opened at the Ninety-sixth Street station, I sprinted across the platform and up the stairs, which exited on Ninety-third. The icy mist locked around me before I reached sidewalk level. At the near corner I turned right, and raced down the block, stopping when I saw a sign, emblazoned with the word Lawyer. Beneath the ornately carved letters, Andrew Bogen’s name had been etched in a more conservative font.
Zach was nowhere to be seen. In his state, he might have strayed an
ywhere, might have been buying a bottle of water from the bodega on the corner or from the CVS drugstore across the street, could have sought out my apartment building to amuse Miklos again. Or he might have returned to the source of his intoxication, disappearing into the building in search of another fix. I felt certain the law offices were nothing but a point of reference for him; no lawyer would take the chance of having a stoned kid meandering through the lobby or loitering on the walk. But the sign dominated the side of the building. To the right was the battered wooden door of a walk-up, and that seemed like a more likely destination, but I found it locked, and with no way of knowing where Zach was taking refuge—what floor, what apartment—I sensed with some tremendous alarm that my attempt to rescue the kid had ended in failure.
In my panic to find Zach, I completely forgot about the phone, and when this obvious and logical tack occurred to me, feelings of idiocy joined the revving anxiety in my chest. I tapped his number to make the call, and after a moment I heard the ring. But it wasn’t the vibrato tone playing through the earpiece that I noticed, or at least, not just that; it was the sharp and clear ring of Zach’s phone, coming from somewhere very nearby. I drew the phone away from my ear and began to search for the source of the sound. It guided me away from the doors of the apartment building and to the top of a concrete staircase that descended to the floor beneath the law offices.
