“You don’t want to help me,” says this hideous version of Luke. It runs away from me, down across the rocks of the breakwater.
I sit up in bed in a cold sweat.
Is that it? Is it Luke who has AIDS?
I used a condom when I fucked him, I reassure myself, trying to get back to sleep. But it’s difficult to find a comfortable position. My sheets are sticky. I suddenly remember his description of himself, stuck to sweaty sheets, his flesh picked from his bones.
I wish I were home. I mean my real home. My real bed, in my own apartment. Right now I want nothing more to be back in Provincetown, the foghorn calling outside my window, Jeff and Lloyd and Ann Marie and J. R. just across the way.
In the hallway my parents’ dehumidifier clicks on, and finally its low hum lulls me back to sleep.
When I dream again, it is Gale who waits for me. “The thing is, Henry,” he’s saying, standing at the top of the stairs outside his apartment, looking down at me below, “you don’t know who any of us are.”
“That’s right,” I agree, “because you won’t tell me.”
He shakes his head, smirking. “You don’t ask the right questions.”
“Don’t go blaming me!” I shout. “I’m not the one who throws you out every time you get too close.”
I’m suddenly aware Gale is wearing a long black raincoat belted around his waist. He throws his head back and laughs.
“What is it you want from me, Henry? This?”
And suddenly he throws open his raincoat, revealing his naked body. His dick must be a foot long with an enormous mushroom head. I gasp out loud.
He runs into his apartment.
“No, not this time,” I shout. “Not this time are you going to get away!”
I hurry up the stairs in pursuit. But when I get inside his place it’s not Gale’s apartment at all. It’s Evan and Curt’s condo, and I spot them in the hot tub. But they’re not alone. They’re submerged up to their shoulders with Jeff and Lloyd—as well as a fifth person I can’t make out right away.
“Do you have Luke in there with you?” I ask.
“No,” replies the fifth person, hidden in shadows. “Luke’s not here.”
I peer in close so I can make him out.
It’s Martin.
“Come on in, Henry,” Martin says. “The water’s fine.”
“No, thanks,” I say. I’m angry that he’s in there with them. It feels wrong somehow. I feel betrayed by him in some crazy sort of way.
“You sure you won’t give it a try, Henry?” Martin asks.
“No. I’ve got to find Luke.”
“Suit yourself,” Martin says.
I head outside into a very bright day. The sunlight nearly blinds me, in fact. I realize that I’m working my way through a crowd. I’m at Tea Dance. Boys everywhere, shirtless and delicious, and a majestic blue sky dropping into the green sea beyond. There’s one thing wrong, however. There’s no music. The soundtrack of my dream has gone silent. Utterly, eerily silent.
I spot Luke leaning against the railing, in the spot where I first met him. He’s drinking a bottle of water. He looks good. Real good. Sexy, dreamy, unattainable. Backlit by the sun, he seems to glow. His eyes flicker over to me when he realizes I’ve seen him.
“Hi,” he says, “I’m Luke.”
We shake hands.
“You’ll protect me, won’t you, Henry?” he asks, holding my gaze and refusing to let go of my hand.
“Of course,” I promise him. “But protect you from whom?”
“My father,” he says. “You know what he did to me.”
“From your writing, I have some clue,” I tell him. “Let me make it all better for you.”
“Yes, Henry, please.”
I take him in my arms.
“We don’t have to live with hurt and fear all our lives,” I tell him. “Let me make you happy, Luke. I know I can make you happy. Make you forget all the pain.”
We kiss. My heart swells with a sense of happiness at last. This is what I have searched for…
But when I pull away from the kiss, Luke is the wasted cadaver he was earlier. He starts to laugh, revealing skeleton teeth.
“You said you’d protect me,” he says between laughter.
“Then tell me the truth!” I demand. “Be real! Tell me who you are!”
He just keeps laughing, his body decaying right here in my arms.
No, I don’t like this.
Time to change the channel.
By sheer force of will, I cause Luke to change back to his beautiful self.
“There,” I say. “That’s better. You’ll tell me now? Who you really are?”
“Yes,” Luke says, contrite. “I will.”
Of course, at that very moment, I wake up.
And he was just about to tell me who he was! He was just about to be honest with me for the first time!
I fall back to sleep, determined that, come morning, I’ll retain that skill to change things if I don’t like them. It will no longer be a power that works only in dreams.
19
BACK BAY, BOSTON
It feels good being back in Boston, with all its hustle and bustle. I’ve stopped here on my way back to Provincetown, figuring an infusion of city life is just what I need.
“And maybe a new look, too,” I say to myself as I walk along Newbury Street, my gaze bouncing from boy to boy, each and every one them stylin’, as they say. Good hair, hip clothes, accessorized with BlackBerries and iPods. I determine that some new clothes and accessories are the order of the day.
I pop in to see the stylist who used to cut my hair when I lived in the city. “Sweetie,” Pierre says, taking a good look at me up and down. “You still look like you did when you left Boston. How many years ago was that now?”
“Never mind counting. Just work your magic.”
Pierre gives me one of those new faux-hawks, kind of like a Mohawk without the buzzcut. He cuts my hair closer on the sides while gelling and pushing the top into a raised line across the center of my scalp.
“Whaddya think?” he asks, turning the chair so I can face the mirror.
I’m not quite sure, but lots of the guys on Newbury Street were sporting this do. I give Pierre the thumbs up.
After that, I hit a couple of shops, buying myself some new clothes. I stop in at all my favorites at the Copley Place Mall. It’s just what every lonely hearted girl needs as a pick-me-up: a fresh wardrobe for fall. I buy whatever I see on the mannequins. At Abercrombie, I snatch up a bunch of T-shirts with numbers on the chest (I’ve heard “9” subliminally draws attention). At Banana Republic, I choose a couple of those new striped, collared, short-sleeved shirts that I’ve seen guys wearing, half-tucked into their jeans and collar up. I pick out a lime green and a powder blue.
“Great choices,” says the clerk as he rings me up. He’s a very young, pimply faced boy wearing a similar shirt, except his is pink.
“Thanks,” I say, quite certain that he’s flirting with me. I practically dance out of the shop.
I ignore the obvious: that everyone else looking at the same shirts is a good ten years younger than I am.
Stuffing my bundles into the back of my Jeep, I look around at the city. Once, this was my life. This was home. This is where I came when I was young and naïve. This is where I came of age, where I finally found the life I’d dreamed about in my childhood bed.
But Boston is no longer home. I start the ignition. It’s time to head back to Provincetown.
I’ve been gone three days. Both Jeff and Lloyd have left a couple of messages on my cell, telling me whenever I want to come home, they’ll be ready to talk. I feel like a selfish brat running out like this, especially with their wedding coming up in less than two weeks. They shouldn’t be worrying about me; they should be gearing up for their big day.
When I pull into the driveway of the guesthouse, there’s a Land Rover parked in my usual spot. I glance up at the porch and spot a couple o
f guys heading back down the steps.
I’m quite surprised to see that it’s Evan and Curt.
“Hey,” I call out the window.
“Hey,” they each call back.
I park the Jeep on the side of the Land Rover and hop out. “What’s up?” I ask.
Evan smiles. “We were dropping off our number in New York.”
Curt’s eyes twinkle. “In case you ever want to come to visit us.”
I’m actually touched. “Thanks,” I say. “You heading back to the city?”
They nod. “I wish we didn’t have to,” Evan says. “You are very lucky to live here full-time, Henry, you know that?”
“I suppose I am.” I smile. “Thanks for reminding me.”
“Hey,” Evan says, his eyes finding mine. “You have time for a quick walk? We were thinking of taking a stroll on the beach before we get on the road.”
“Sure,” I say, feeling far more generous toward him than I did a few days before. “But it’s not raining,” I add, a small smile on my face.
Evan smiles back at me. “We’ll have to do that another time.”
We cross the street and trudge through some straggly sea grass to reach the east end beach. Except for a flock of gulls, we’re the only ones out here.
“It never fails to amaze me how fast the town empties out after Labor Day,” I say.
“There are many rhythms of life in Provincetown,” Evan observes, “and it is the collective dance that makes this place what it is.”
I laugh. “That’s rather poetic.”
“Evan’s a poet,” Curt says, “and doesn’t know it.”
We all laugh. “My first six years in Provincetown were spent as the classic summer gay resident,” Evan says. “Friends and I would rent a house from Memorial Day to Labor Day. We managed to spend most weekends here, and usually a couple of solid weeks in August. They were heady, boisterous days. I was in my early twenties and full of spunk.”
I look off at the water. “Well, I was a kind of Johnny-come-lately to the party, but I had a few years of spunk myself.”
“I bet you did,” Curt says, winking.
Evan seems lost in a world of his own. “Back in those days, we didn’t give much thought as to what the winter must be like here. After all, didn’t Tea Dance shut down in September?”
We all laugh again, then I look rather seriously at Evan. “And now you’d like to experience life here year-round.”
He nods. “I’d like to quit my job like you did, Henry, and find a way to make a living here.”
“A romantic dream,” Curt says. “But if we could do it, we would.”
“Maybe I’m just caught up in the memory of those glorious summer days when I was just a young kid full of dreams,” Evan says. “I look back on that time with a great deal of warmth and nostalgia. I know it seems frivolous, but those days were very special.”
“Of course they were,” I tell him.
Evan seems buoyed by my affirmation. “You know, I had a show at my gallery not long ago featuring the work of some of the great artists of Provincetown. We did a whole history of the vibrant arts scene here from the 1940s through the 1960s. But you know what I realized?”
“Tell me.”
“That my experience was every bit as genuine and valuable as the heyday of the Abstract Expressionists or the counter-culture days of Andy Warhol. I really believe this. It was the early 90s, and gay culture was just starting to step out loudly and proudly, and I was part of that fresh new energy.”
“Yeah,” I say, “Jeff writes about that period in The Boys of Summer…”
Evan shakes his head. “Yeah, but unlike your friend Jeff, I wasn’t interested in anything beyond just having a good time. I wasn’t part of any literary or intellectual crowd back then. My friends were just a bunch of partiers. I remember once feeling a bit hedonistic and superficial, and I expressed some embarrassment when I ran into an older guy I admired a great deal. He’d just spent his evening among painters and poets having lots of fascinating cultural conversation. Meanwhile, I was still slightly buzzed from a Foam Party at the Crown and Anchor with a bunch of house boys and rowdy tourists.”
“Hey,” I tell him. “That was who you were then.”
“Exactly! And this is what my older friend told me. He said, ‘Dawling’—he was from the Bronx and always pronounced ‘darling’ as ‘dawling’—‘what you experienced tonight was every bit as much of a Provincetown experience as mine was. Be glad you’re a part of it.’”
“It’s true,” I say. “I remember those Foam Parties myself, and sleeping in until noon, stirring to life gradually as the sun pushed through my shades, and the heat in the room became unbearable.”
Curt is smiling. “There was a certain lazy, glorious rhythm to those days, wasn’t there? Dragging our sleepy heads to the beach, where we’d bake until it was time for Tea. Then came After Tea, remember that?”
I’m grinning ear to ear. “Yeah, I loved After Tea. It just kept the party going.”
“Then, of course,” Evan adds, “that was followed by dinner and a nap before sprucing up for the bar. Summer Camp at the Crown—remember that? And the Love Shack!”
“And finally, pizza among the throngs on the steps of Spiritus,” I say.
“Some things, thankfully, never change,” Curt says.
“But we do.” Evan has stopped walking. He looks from me to Curt, then back to me again. “We’re older now, and other things matter more now. Tricking, dancing, sleeping late—there’s more to Provincetown than all that, as wonderful as it was.”
“I agree,” I tell him.
“Now it’s about relationships. It’s about finding a sense of home and family.” He looks out over the water. “It’s about being who you are in a place that allows you unlimited possibilities.”
I smile. “Sometimes I’ve worried that Provincetown limits my possibilities. Thanks for reminding me how wrong that is.”
Evan smiles. “Will you see us again, Henry?”
I look from him to Curt, not sure what to say.
Evan fills in the silence. “I’ve felt badly ever since our phone conversation,” he tells me. “I don’t want you to think I was just playing you.”
“It means a lot to hear you say that,” I reply. “I’ve been losing faith with people lately. Maybe I’ve been a little premature in my judgments.”
“Give us a chance,” Evan says, drawing close.
He kisses me. Deep, full. Our lips part and I taste his tongue. Curt is beside me now, and I kiss him, too.
“When can you come to New York?” Evan asks.
“I…I don’t know.”
“We’d like you to visit us,” Curt offers.
“I…I like you guys. I just don’t know what I want our friendship to be.”
Evan nods. “That’s okay. We can just see what happens.”
“At the very least,” I say, “I’d like to get to know you both better.’
“Well,” Evan says, “we’ll be back at Halloween. It’s so much fun here on Halloween. We’d love to see you again then.”
I nod. “I’m open to the possibility.”
Evan smiles. “That’s all we can ask.”
We head back up to the guesthouse. We kiss again, all three of us. Then they get into their car and drive out of town.
For a moment I miss them terribly.
I take a deep breath, collecting my things out of my Jeep. Did I really mean what I just said? That I was “open to the possibility”? What the hell does that mean? The possibility of exactly what? Having sex with them again? Moving into a three-way dating situation with them? Could I do that? Would I want it?
Inside the guesthouse, Lloyd is at the front desk. He says nothing when I enter. He just walks over to me and gives me a tight bear hug. I hug him back. Over his shoulder I notice a young guy with a mop of black curls hauling a basket of laundry down into the basement.
“Who’s he?” I ask.
Lloyd sm
iles wryly. “Our new houseboy.”
“Lloyd, you didn’t need to fire Luke over me.”
He shakes his head. “I didn’t fire him. He quit.”
I sigh. “It’s probably for the best.”
Lloyd nods. “Henry, I want you to know, if I’d been aware of what happened, I would never have done anything with—”
William J. Mann Page 31
