Blink

by Rick R. Reed

  I fall into a restless doze, my last thoughts of the fact that my dream was trying to tell me something about my current solitary state, and if I want to change it, I have to fight for myself.

  IN THE morning, I awaken feeling much better. The sun peeks in around my room-darkening blinds. I rise to a sense of peace that was woefully absent the night before. I try not to think about my dream, because who would that benefit? Instead I attempt to convince myself that it was just that and find reassurance in the fact that I have a good relationship with my son.

  I’ll call him today and see when he can come over for dinner. No one is better company in the kitchen than my Tate, even if he’s just sitting on a stool, talking about his latest date, how much he hates his job, or how he’d like to quit smoking but just can’t seem to.

  I turn my head, and Ezra has moved back to the pillow beside me. He eyes me with a kind of wisdom. If I were to allow my flight of fancy the freedom to soar, I could almost believe he knows about my dream and all the thoughts and feelings that accompanied it.

  I say, “The real truth is you just want your breakfast.”

  He lets out a yip, too short to properly be termed a meow.

  I hoist myself out of bed and head to the kitchen, even though my bladder is exhorting me to visit the bathroom first, and shake some kibble into a bowl for Ezra and set it on the floor. Once he has his fresh water and is poised over his bowl, eating, I allow myself to attend to my own needs.

  When I come out of the bathroom, I think of two things. First, what to have for breakfast. I’m thinking an egg sandwich with some of the arugula and Havarti cheese I have in the fridge will be perfection. And second, checking out my OkCupid profile.

  I do the second thing first. My stomach needs to acclimate to the day before I put anything in it.

  I bring up the website, log in, and discover that I have a new message. I haven’t had a new message in ages. I wonder if updating my profile and picture has pushed me into renewed prominence.

  I click on the message to open it.

  Hey. I like your profile. I like your honesty, and, unlike many of the other boys on this site (of all ages!), I like that you’re a mature guy. I’d love to meet someone who understands the cultural significance of The Partridge Family’s classic song, “I Think I Love You” firsthand.

  LOL.

  If I haven’t scared you away or if my pic hasn’t sent you screaming off into the night, drop me a line back.

  Chet

  Wow. The guy seems to be trying so hard, maybe too hard, but I have to hand it to him—there’s a real sense of warmth that comes through in the few words he’s sent my way.

  Plus I can’t deny the fact that my picture has pulled him makes me feel a little flattered. I peer at his profile pic and like what I see. Chet has a beard and is wearing a baseball cap, a combination, for reasons I could never rationally explain, that is extremely erotic to me and makes me go a little weak in the knees—and more solid farther northward, if you catch my drift.

  Even though his beard is flecked with gray and he has the same “laugh” lines I do around his eyes and mouth, there’s something almost winsome and mischievous about his grin.

  There’s also something sexy that stirs feelings in me I now realize have lain dormant for far too long.

  I type back a quick reply, letting him know I’m interested and that I’m still mourning the passing of Ann B. Davis too much to allow myself to muse on the wit and wisdom of the Partridges. I tell him I like his pic. I say I want to know more about him.

  I don’t allow myself time to second-guess things and hit Send without even proofing my message, a rarity for me.

  I get up and realize I only have about a half hour to get ready for work. Forget the breakfast—I’ll grab coffee and a Boston Kreme Donut at the Dunkin’ Donuts in the concourse of my building downtown. I need to get showered and dressed in my work uniform of dark Levi’s and polo shirt.

  I don’t have much time before the Metra makes its Rogers Park stop.

  I’m heading out the door when the suspense grabs me. I cannot wait until I get to my twenty-first floor cubicle to check to see if Chet has responded.

  What do you know? He has.

  Cute. You’re cute. It comes across in so many other ways than just that picture of you that you taunt me with. You say you want to know more? I’m a face-to-face kind of guy. Wanna meet up for a drink? Potent Potables in Boystown? I know it’s where the kids go, but we’ll be too deep in mourning over Miss Davis to notice the age difference. (When did she pass anyway? Never mind, you can tell me when we get together. Hey, I’m an optimist.) So what do you say? Thursday? Eight-ish? I’ll be at the bar, wearing my baseball cap, bill forward. (I do act my age—sometimes.)

  Chet

  I laugh. Because I’m going to miss my train, I hit reply and type quickly, telling Chet I’ll see him at the bar and giving him my phone number in case anything comes up. That way, he’ll have no excuse for standing me up.

  Nice way to think!

  And I head off to work, feeling more optimistic than I have in a long time. Why, I even catch myself smiling.

  CHAPTER 13: CARLOS

  OUTSIDE THE parish house of St. Christina’s, I debate with myself about going home. The evening is young, and I could do what Father Julio exhorted me to do—go out and get laid. I snicker at the thought. It’s been so long since I’ve had a casual hookup, I don’t even know how I’d respond. I don’t recall how one engages in the flirting and casual banter that might lead to a pickup in a bar. Such scenes seem buried securely in my past.

  Yet there’s a tingling inside, something I vaguely remember as want, maybe even lust. It’s unspecified right now, only hormones, but it’s there. I wonder if it ever really goes away….

  I head down the street toward the ‘L’ station. Home is just a few stops away on the Brown Line, in Ravenswood Manor, a little neighborhood that seems almost pastoral, an oasis hidden away in the heart of the urban near west side. It’s only about a mile away from its busier yet similarly named neighborhood, Ravenswood.

  Home has become, I realize, a sanctuary. And I’m not sure, at this very moment, if that’s such a good thing. One can hide in a sanctuary. It can become too comfortable.

  Harry and I bought our little condo, the top floor of a two-flat overlooking the Chicago River just south of Wilson Avenue, shortly after we got together. It’s a warm place—hardwood floors, high ceilings, built-ins, and the original claw-foot tub in the bathroom—that’s also full of memories. Harry’s clothes still hang in the guest room closet, where he always kept them so I’d have all the room I needed for mine in the master bedroom. His fleece-lined slippers, I know, are still under the bed. Pictures of him and me are on many of the surfaces throughout our place. I know I should clean out his stuff, but I can’t bring myself to do it. There’s a comfort in opening the closet and seeing his wild prints and colors on their hangers. Sometimes I even believe I can lift one of the shirts, press it to my nose, and breathe in his essence, a potent mixture of man scent and the cologne he often wore, Hermes’s Equipage.

  And there are creature comforts. The big-screen plasma TV mounted above the fireplace, bought after Harry died, offers me hours of escape, sunken into the overstuffed pillows of my couch. There’s cable On Demand, Netflix streaming, a cabinet full of DVDs, all offering no end of oblivion and an escape from thinking. Binge watching is my friend.

  There’s no shortage of snack foods in the pantry—chips and salsa, popcorn, sodas, and of course, hard liquor, wine, and beer—just in case the TV doesn’t deliver on its promise of forgetting the world.

  I stop in the street, waiting for the light to change, and realize I could hide in that home night after night, week after week, month after month… until suddenly years have passed. It would be easy, like sinking into a big overstuffed chair. A kind of inertia holds me to the place.

  It would be giving up.

  I can’t do it. No. Make that I won
’t do it.

  Tonight I will do something I haven’t done in years—go out to a gay bar. Maybe I’ll even meet a man! The thought doesn’t fill me with as much excitement as it did when I was younger. Now, I think morosely, it just seems like too much work.

  Stop it. You’re defeating yourself before you even get anywhere. Just go. Be with people. Music. Soft lights.

  Don’t be alone.

  And leave yourself open to one thing—possibility.

  I set off for a small bar some of my coworkers have told me about on Lawrence Avenue called Schooners. I expect it will have a nautical theme, which is kind of reassuring in these days of bars where the principal attraction is the house music, whatever the hell that is.

  The thing that makes me less nervous about walking through the door of Schooners is something my assistant, Joel, said about the place only the other day. He lives nearby, and he described it as “a real neighborhood bar. It’s just fun to go there and hang out, watch TV, maybe play a little pool or darts. It’s not a meat market like so many of the Halsted bars. You can relax.”

  His description does not bode well for me meeting a man, but perhaps my first visit to a gay bar in years should be a little less threatening than full-on cruising. Baby steps. All I need to do is get myself past the always-inquiring stares when I enter. Then simply hop onto a stool, order a drink, and see where the evening goes from there. Simple.

  SCHOONERS IS pretty much as I imagined. So much so I wonder, as I walk in, if I have been here before. I know I haven’t. The place is a cliché. There are fishnets mounted on the wall for decorations. A heavily shellacked marlin hangs over the bar.

  Otherwise the place is pretty typical old-style Chicago tavern—gritty tile floors, dim lighting, beer signs in different hues of neon in the window, barstools of cracked Naugahyde repaired fetchingly in spots with silver duct tape. The ceiling is pressed tin. The bar is dark, heavy wood, so solid it looks as though it grew out of the floor. Behind the bar, liquor bottles line up on three rows of shelves, mirrored glass behind them. In the center of the bar are the taps. Easy. I have the layout.

  The Pet Shop Boys are playing, wailing about some West End girls, and two TVs are mounted behind the bartender’s shaved head. One is playing soft-core porn, which causes a blush to rise to my cheeks. Two shirtless, bearded fellows are tongue kissing. The other TV must be tuned, oddly, to TV Land or some other retro station, because there’s Bea Arthur in all her silver-haired glory as Maude, rolling her eyes at something daughter Adrienne Barbeau has said. The volume’s too low to hear what they’re actually saying. Instead, this seems like some bizarre video made to accompany the Pet Shop Boys.

  I almost want to turn around and walk out. I have the sense I don’t belong here, that I’m in the wrong place. Home calls to me.

  But those appraising eyes I mentioned earlier have already spotted me. Half a dozen or so male heads, all at the bar, swiveled as one when I walked in the door.

  I know the grin plastered to my face is sheepish as I make my way tentatively to a vacant stool at the bar. I feel like it’s my first time in a gay bar, and I suddenly remember that time—going into a place at Clark and Grand Avenue called the New Flight. Only later did I learn it was a hustler bar!

  I’m relieved the bartender, a muscled guy with sleeve tattoos running down both arms, is deep in conversation with one of the patrons, an older man who puts me in mind of movie star Susan Sarandon. On a very bad day, one in which someone shaved her head and sucked all the color out of her skin. The spare moment gives me time to ponder what I should order.

  I’m not much of a drinker, never have been. As I’ve gotten older, my tolerance for alcohol has decreased rather than the other way around, which is probably why I dared kiss Joel under the mistletoe at our last staff holiday party, a choice I will forever regret. And I’d only had two glasses of champagne!

  I’d be happy with a Coke, but ordering one just seems wrong. Not manly.

  No more time to think. The bartender is headed my way, all flirtatious smiles.

  “Hey, handsome,” he says, wiping at the bar with a dishtowel. “What can I get you?”

  Something like a martini would have me on my ass with a few sips, so I ask, “What’s on tap?”

  He raises his eyebrows at me as though I’ve said something suggestive and then recites, “We got Leinies, Old Style, Bud Light, and Blue Moon.”

  Since I only come into a bar once in a blue moon, I opt for the latter. He returns with it in a minute, a slice of orange floating refreshingly on top of the beer’s foam.

  “You want to run a tab?” He sets the glass—an actual schooner—before me.

  I don’t know that I’ll be staying that long. I’ll probably down this quick and run back to my little warren. “That’s okay.”

  He tells me what I owe, and I throw a bill on the bar. “Keep the change.” I wait a moment, then add, “Handsome.”

  He doesn’t respond. Perhaps my tip wasn’t big enough.

  I nurse the beer and decide I like the taste. I stare up at the screen, watching Maude and Walter argue, and remember watching the show in my living room in Miami, lying on the floor with a box of powdered sugar doughnuts and a big glass of milk. Back then I was chubby, and TV offered me refuge from the teasing I used to endure about my weight. TV and food were my go-to comforts—which was ironic, since the latter was the source of the teasing.

  A deep voice yanks me right out of my reverie and nostalgia. “You look like you’re old enough to remember when that show ran in prime time.”

  I look up from my beer, vaguely offended, to see a man who puts me in mind of the singer Seal, with his ebony skin and large expressive eyes. Sexy. He grins to show me he’s only teasing, and the smile is melt-inducing. Besides, it’s okay to say what he did, because I realize immediately we’re about the same age. “I could say the same for you, mister.”

  “Oh yeah, I used to watch that show as a kid. I’ll prove my point.” And he does, belting out the Maude theme song in a rich baritone. I laugh, and a couple of patrons applaud. He turns to them and gives a small bow.

  He turns back to me. “If I wasn’t so black, you’d see me blushing.”

  I snicker and shake my head. I do something I don’t expect, motion to the stool next to me. “Wanna sit?”

  “Why, thank you. Don’t mind if I do. Just let me go grab my drink.” He hurries down to the opposite end of the bar and grabs what looks like a cosmo from his former place and hurries to settle beside me. He extends a hand. “Fremont St. George, at your service.”

  I tell him my name and take the hand. It’s like being pulled into an embrace—encompassing, strong, and warmth-imparting. I already like this guy. There’s something about him that immediately puts me at ease.

  He asks, “So what brings you into Schooners? I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.” He gives me that winning smile again, and my heart speeds up a bit. “I’d have noticed.”

  Oh my God. Is he flirting with me? I feel like a teenager. I also don’t know if I’m ready for such a thing. I answer, “My own two feet. That, and a desire not to go home, where it’s gotten way too comfortable for my own good.”

  He cocks his head. “What’s that mean?”

  I shrug and take another sip of my beer. “It means that I’ve made my little condo over in Ravenswood Manor a kind of hideout, a place I escape from the world.”

  He chuckles. “Seems to me that’s what a home should be.”

  “You’re right. You’re right. It only gets to be a problem when you use it as an excuse to hide yourself away.” I let out a little sigh. “Which is kind of what I’ve been doing, if that’s not TMI.”

  “Not at all. And I get you.” He raises his eyebrow. “Been a while since you’ve been out? Don’t tell me. You’ve recently broken up with someone.”

  “I guess you could say that. But it wasn’t my choice.”

  “He dumped you?”

  “He dumped life.” I look i
nto Fremont’s eyes. “Cancer.”

  He looks a bit taken aback and doesn’t say anything. I figure I’ve ruined our little connection by being Debbie Downer right off the bat. But as I said, I have little memory of how to behave in bars.

  “I’m sorry. It’s been a while. I should be over him.”

  He puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “You don’t get over losing someone you love. It gets more bearable, trust me, but you don’t ever get over it.”

  We say nothing for a while, staring into our drinks and taking the occasional sip. I fully expect him to say something like he needs to get back to his friend or wants to use the men’s room. Anything to get away from me….

  But he smiles again and says, “I was relieved to see you in here.”

  “Really? Why? You don’t even know me.”

  “Because you remember Maude, back from when she was on Tuesday nights. At least I think it was Tuesdays.”

  I snicker. It was. I lean close to Fremont. “Honey, I remember her when she was on All in the Family.”

  He chuckles. “Me too.”

  “So, you were relieved I was here because I’m old.”

  “Sweetheart.” He touches my cheek, and it sends a shock of electricity through me. “You’re not old. To paraphrase the ageless Elaine Stritch, ‘you’re not old, you’re older. And we’re all getting older.’” He swivels his head to cast a gaze down the bar. “Even that little twink down at the end with the blond hair. He’d never even heard of Maude, although he did have some familiarity with The Golden Girls.” He pauses. “From YouTube! Yuck.”

  “That’s a good way to look at it. Older, not old.”

  “Besides, you’re a fine-looking man. I’m sure you were quite the hottie when you were in your twenties, but I’d lay odds you’re even prettier today.”

  “Oh, you are a sweet talker, aren’t you? Are you trying to get into my pants?” I eye the twink at the end of the bar and wonder if Mr. St. George is making the rounds, using his retro TV line as an opener. I have to hand it to him; it’s a unique come-on.