by Lazaro Lima
To boot, sex seems to have become an ongoing issue between Sil and Gerry, just as the ebbs and flows of sex—ebbs, in particular—become an issue in just about any relationship. While Gerry was upstairs watching porn one night, Sil related an anecdote to me. In the anecdote, Sil had been stricken by mono. After giving Sil his diagnosis, his doctor play-fully asked him who he’d been kissing. Sil answered, “I don’t kiss. I don’t get kissed, not even at home.” Gerry, for his part, burned more and more porn from the web and sometimes flirted with me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m attention-starved enough not to mind. This trip, however, it crossed a line for me. I think we were talking about an actor one afternoon—Daniel Craig, I think—about how Gerry and I had the hots for him. I told Gerry I’d seen a photograph of Craig meeting the Queen of England. “Even the Queen looked like she wanted to wrap her legs around him,” I said. “Hell,” Gerry came back, “I’d wrap my legs around him, and usually I prefer to have men wrap their legs around me.” Then, getting up from the couch, he looked back and down at me. “If things were different, you know you and I would be doing something like that right now, don’t you?” It wasn’t that I was morally shocked. I’d fooled around with John, one of Sil’s exes, during a period in which Sil and John were particularly busy making each other particularly miserable. What made me uncomfortable about Gerry’s raising the image of me with my legs wrapped around him probably has more to do with sexual snobbery. Gerry remains as muscular as ever, but he shuns cardio and any kind of yoga, refusing to stretch or jump up and down because he thinks it’s too girly. So his midsection has long been going soft. And, as I’ve said, this trip I’d been finding him childish and annoying. That childishness manifested itself, not just in his booming voice, now louder than ever, but in his full, wide mouth, the bottom lip of which had taken to hanging open. In the past, those lips didn’t detract too much from his Cuban handsomeness or his square ex-boxer’s shoulders, his salt-and-pepper hair, or the tattoos beneath all that hair on his arms. Now, however, with the lower lip hanging loose and ever looser, he seems like a stupid schoolboy daydreaming in class. He drinks a lot of coffee, too, and not through a straw (as I do). So, to add to the loose-lip effect, his teeth long ago began to yellow.
If I didn’t want to have sex with Gerry, though, it seemed there was someone else who did. That someone was Brendan. Brendan and his “boyfriend” Clayton were new friends of Sil and Gerry’s. Sil and Gerry had been mentioning the couple since the night I’d arrived. I think they were excited to finally have friends to introduce me to. Sil even brought them up on the phone and in a few e-mails as we were planning my trip. So by the time Gerry picked them up at the airport on the day after Christmas, after they’d arrived from visiting Clayton’s family somewhere in nowhere U.S.A., I already had a pretty good idea of the role they played in Sil and Gerry’s life. Brendan, it seemed, was not only younger than any of us but also attractive, at least to Sil and Gerry. Any tip Brendan provided on fashion or grooming was therefore received by Sil and Gerry as the kind of attention that’s hard to come by from a callow youth. That advice was heeded too. When I got off the plane, I complimented Sil on his haircut. Sil responded, “Yeah, Brendan told me I should keep it long ’cause it looks good, and I figure when you get a compliment from a cute, bitchy gay boy, you’re doing something right.”
The other role Brendan and Clayton played in Sil and Gerry’s life had more to do with what was lacking in the latter couple’s relationship. That is, whatever problems Sil and Gerry had in their own relationship, it seemed, at least to Sil and Gerry, that Brendan and Clayton had more. Clayton, it seemed, had told Brendan that Brendan wasn’t really “his type,” which is why they never had sex. Brendan related this tidbit to Sil and Gerry, who, of course, related it to me. I say “of course” because I sensed it gave Sil and Gerry pleasure to gossip about their friends’ dirty laundry. Gossiping about Brendan and Clayton’s problems made it possible for Sil and Gerry not to have to discuss their own. Given all that, the impression that Brendan and Clayton made on me, once they arrived from the airport and stripped themselves of winter gear to meet me, was blasé. Brendan was tired and sat on a stool at the kitchen table not saying much. Clayton, a pudgy man with round wire-frame glasses who seemed to be in his late forties, but was actually younger, was politeness itself. They complained about the members of Clayton’s family who they’d been visiting. They complained about the weather and travel conditions, but I didn’t sense any of the tension between them that Sil and Gerry had made infamous. In fact, that was one of the things Gerry and Sil liked to harp on: that for all their problems, Brendan and Clayton could be pleasant company. They sometimes went as far as fawning on each other.
Brendan did come out of his stupor for a moment that night. He leaned over and said to me, “We know you’re a whore.” I laughed and bumper-carred his shoulder with my own. I was glad to have someone reflecting the image I create for myself back to me—even if it was some-one as seemingly dull-witted as Brendan. I had to repress my campy side when I was alone with Sil and Gerry. Brendan, for the moment, came as a breath of fresh air. So I didn’t even try explaining to him that my whore-dom was mostly an empty boast, an easy way to be funny, to get a laugh, that I never had nearly as much sex as I’d like to. And I definitely didn’t tell I’m largely, unwillingly celibate. Brendan didn’t seem interested in hearing it. Instead I thanked Sil and Gerry for enhancing my reputation, and, sitting around the large kitchen table with the storage shelves beneath it, we all laughed.
I should admit, at this point in the story, that the next morning Gerry conveyed to me what Brendan thought of me. “Brendan thinks you’re cute,” Gerry said, punching away at his computer keyboard, then adding, as he took his hand off the keyboard and met my eyes, “Don’t you think that’s nice? I think that’s nice.” I did, of course, think it was nice. But both Brendan and Clayton were scheduled to come over for dinner and a movie that night, and the last thing I wanted to do was to stop having a relaxing time away from New York. Though I thought it might be fun to watch, I didn’t want to complicate all the marital tensions between Sil and Gerry and, to boot, Brendan and Clayton. Besides, too many years in New York City ogling too many men far too good looking for their own or anyone else’s good has left me awfully picky, jaded, and not a little bitter. Brendan, by those eastern seaboard standards, was slim pickings. Yes, he had nicely set hazel eyes, arms that were smooth and substantial, but beyond that everything else fell away when compared to the health and ultra-fashion-conscious men of New York City. Gerry’s reputed impetuousness didn’t help matters any. So I must have said something noncommittal, something like “I guess it’s nice. Yes, I guess it’s nice he thinks I’m attractive.”
What finding out that Brendan thought I was attractive did do for me, however, was set up false expectations of a pleasant evening. I’d been looking forward to the elaborate meal Sil had been preparing for since my arrival. Now Brendan seemed to have a reason, in me, to want to be among us, not to get bored or whiny. And soft pudgy Clayton—well, Clayton seemed to be the type who would be docile and easygoing, no matter the circumstances. Sil and Gerry said he would be happy to work on the model Christmas house he had been building out of Graham crackers, marshmallows, and other edible items while the rest of us watched a movie after dinner. Sil and Gerry, together with Brendan and Clayton, had begun the little arts and crafts project before I arrived. Sil and Gerry and Brendan’s model homes were proudly displayed around the house. But Clayton, a disciplined, ex-military man, was intent on making his extra neat and extra sound, completely presentable and patriotically ready for inspection.
Clayton in fact went right to work that second night, arranging, gluing, wiping, and rearranging as he stood up straight and leaned over, squinting all the while, to examine his handiwork. Sil was bending over the stove as he cooked, stirring pots, chopping and spicing, and waving away anyone who tried to help. If the dogs weren’t begging to be let out, or to be let back i
n, they had to be shooed off the couch where there wasn’t enough room for them, for Gerry, Brendan, and myself. Gerry was channel surfing but eventually put down the remote and left The Yule Log on. The Yule Log is a program I had never seen before. It’s a film loop of a Yule log burning in a fireplace, with Christmas carols and music playing in the background.
The Yule Log, as it turned out, gave the only warmth any of us could enjoy that evening, even if it was only the warmth of the TV screen. The company certainly provided no warmth at all, unless you count the heat between Gerry and Brendan. Watching The Yule Log, Brendan and Gerry and I were still on the couch. Brendan was leaning his head on Gerry’s shoulder, and Gerry had his hand on Brendan’s leg. I sat on the other end of the sofa, trying to convince myself their little display of affection was simply part of the holiday spirit we were all doing our best to feign, but quickly developing circumstances didn’t allow me to convince myself of that for very long. Brendan began complaining that his shoulder ached. He asked Gerry to rub it. Then he took to whispering to Gerry.
When Gerry was through massaging Brendan, Brendan asked, in a somewhat forced matter-of-fact tone, if Gerry wouldn’t mind giving him a spinal adjustment. Gerry promptly said that no, he wouldn’t mind at all and they both went upstairs.
Bruiser immediately took advantage of the couch space. The dog was by this time used to my disciplining him and ordering him about, so I did my best to get him off the couch, but instead he mounted me, his outstretched one hundred and eighty pounds of dog to my one hundred and forty pounds of outstretched, small man. He began to lick me, ounces of his accumulated slobber pouring its way onto my face. Sil entered the room to grab a cookbook off a shelf. He didn’t ask where Gerry and Brendan were but he did ask if I was French-kissing the dog as he walked back to the kitchen with his long, slightly hunched torso its usual one step or two behind his long legs. Despite my canine dilemma on the couch, I noted Sil always had an awkward gait. No matter how much dignity he carried himself with, no matter how much he worked out, he’d always be awkward. But who was I to be thinking of dignity and grace? The sight of my struggling beneath Bruiser, breathlessly exclaiming, “Bruiser—oh, Bruiser,” must have looked and sounded like that awkward thing called passion.
Other than my being mounted by a dog, the evening proceeded so mundanely, so repetitiously, I can’t even say exactly what happened next. I managed to free myself, probably only because Bruiser wanted to be let out. I alternated between channel surfing and dragging my slippered feet into the kitchen to check on Sil and Clayton’s progress, and checking my e-mail in the computer room. At some point, Sil sat down at the kitchen table to let the dishes he was preparing cook and then cool, and he began playing with the various buttons and dials of the digital camera Gerry had given him for Christmas; Clayton continued to construct his gingerbread house. Lost in their individual enterprises, they barely spoke a word to each other or me. Bruiser, when he wanted to be let back in, could be heard letting out his customary single bark from the backyard.
Things took a turn for the worse when Gerry and Brendan re-appeared and asked if we all wanted to go bowling after dinner. “No,” Sil said, closing the refrigerator door shut. Gerry and Brendan persisted, proposing that Gerry and Brendan could go by Clayton and Brendan’s place and pick up Brendan’s ball. “No,” Sil said, snapping open the lid on a can of Coke. Gerry and Brendan turned to Clayton, and to me, for support. I looked noncommittally back and forth between the two couples.
Conferences followed—one couple upstairs, the other off in a room downstairs. “It’s my way or the highway,” I heard Sil say. “Damn it, Sil,” I heard Gerry reply. I heard an upstairs door abruptly slammed shut. Sitting at the kitchen table, I felt foolish and in the way. I took a hit off the pipe and shooed Bruiser away. His thick, weighty tail was slapping my leg. I watched the fish in the tank and smoked another hit. Then Gerry was in the room with me, standing just inside the kitchen doorway. “Listen,” he said, “I really want to know. Do you want to go bowling?” A cloud of smoke filled the room as I exhaled. I simply stared at Gerry, neither nodding nor shaking my head, but moving it in a combination of nodding and shaking. “Gerry,” Sil shouted, “leave him out of this and get back over here.”
Gerry lingered a moment. At a loss of what to say, and not knowing what else to do, I stretched out my arm, offering him the pipe and a small, purple lighter. He took a hit, staring at Clayton’s gingerbread house. “I can’t believe,” he exhaled, “how nice Clayton’s house looks.”
“Gerry!” Sil called, his footsteps approaching the kitchen.
“God, I sound so stupid,” Gerry said and left the room, swinging his arms and moving fast.
“All right, all right, Bruiser,” I rolled my eyes. “I’ll take you out again.” His tail was slapping at my leg, harder this time.
In the backyard, I let Bruiser in the wire-fenced area where the dogs were kept in good weather, and he trotted to the far end of the enclosure, disappearing beneath the shadow of a stand of trees where he planned, I supposed, to relieve himself. When he reappeared, he trotted back to my side of the playground and hopped up, resting his forelegs on the top of the fence. We stared at each other, keeping time to the sound of his breathing. I told him he better not kiss me again. He tried to lick my face, missing only because I pulled away. I decided that even if Sil and Gerry and Brandon and Clayton hadn’t settled things, it was time to go back in. It was cold. I only had on a T-shirt, pajama-bottoms, and boots.
The only problem was I hadn’t unlocked the door from the inside and I had shut it completely closed behind me. I was locked out. I knocked and called to Sil and Gerry. No response. I trudged through a stretch of snow to a window where I could see in. I didn’t see anyone, not Sil or Gerry or Brendan or Clayton, so I trudged back and knocked some more. Then I started knocking harder, banging at the door. “Damn it, guys,” I shouted. “I’m locked out. It’s cold!” No response.
I went down the three wooden steps to the door again and back to the window. With still no success in spotting anyone inside, I was heading back to the door when I saw the fence gate swinging open in the wind. I panicked. I thought I’d only added to the bad situation indoors by losing Bruiser outdoors. Then I heard it, the heavy breathing behind me.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I cried, face down and slapping the ice with my open palm. Bruiser came around from behind me and immediately, apologetically, happily licked my face.
At dinner I ate while simultaneously rubbing and examining my wounds. Sil and Gerry and Clayton made occasional attempts at conversation. Should we play a game after dinner or watch a movie? If so, what game? What movie? Brendan sat, punctuating his silence with requests to pass a bowl or a serving plate. The fish in the aquarium swam from plant to open waters, open waters to oxygen-rich plant just as I, out of my element, had moved from one part of the house to another earlier in the evening, bored and checking my e-mail, bored and smoking more pot.
As it turned out, after dinner, things centered around the TV. Before we watched a movie, Sil stood before Brendan and Clayton and Gerry and I, who were splayed out across the couch, and he videotaped our conversation. At one point, I related an anecdote that apparently went on too long for Gerry because sure enough, when Sil played the footage back, Gerry said, “Oh, God, here comes that long story again. Please, Sil, fast-forward through it.” On screen, in the footage, he was sighing, and looking at Brendan throughout my little story. I took it in stride. “Now, Gerry,” I joked before I told any other anecdote that evening, “I hope this story doesn’t bore you.”
When Sil turned off the playback and joined us all on the couch, I realized, at some point, that I had become the third wheel among not just one but, now, two couples, the only single person on the couch. I felt inferior for a moment, then let go of the feeling of inferiority with a barely whispered, “Thank God.”
The next evening, my fourth day in St. Paul, Brendan and Clayton came back to the house after we a
ll met and ate at a trendy Chinese restaurant that catered to gay men. Since I had been left out of the gift-giving between the two couples the evening before, Brendan and Clayton gave me a large, brightly wrapped box. It was a gingerbread house kit. Back at Sil and Gerry’s, in return, I gave Brendan a knit hat that Sil and Gerry and I had decided didn’t look good on me. I gave Clayton one of the gifts I’d picked up at the Frida Kahlo exhibition. It was the most ill-suited gift for Clayton, but what else could I do? After Brendan and Clayton left, Sil and Gerry and I stayed up late, watching one of their favorite shows. It was one of those sadistic, home-movie shows that highlight people’s worst moments. In this case, the subject matter was skateboarders who stupidly tried to glide down a public-stairway banister, only to crash into a pile of broken bones as they bounced out of the camera’s view, wannabe Evil Knievels who leap across five of their friends’ huddled backs and who end up hurting not only themselves but their friends. Perhaps because of all the underlying tensions of the past two evenings, I laughed along with Sil and Gerry. They sat curled up together at one end of the couch. I had the dogs at the other end, watching the screen through my barely open fingers with my hands held to my face. We were stoned and I didn’t feel left out. We were all laughing again.
Despite my relief that the second evening with Brendan and Clayton had been a cinch compared to the injurious first, Sil and Gerry spent a good deal of the next few days diminishing their friends. “You didn’t have to give them anything,” Gerry said to me, referring to the hat and museum gift I’d given Brendan and Clayton. “God, Brendan is so incapable of saying he’s sorry,” Sil said. “Instead of apologizing for the bowling thing the night before, he goes out and buys a gingerbread house kit and gives it to you as gift from him and Clayton. It doesn’t make up for those bruises on your side, does it?”
