Object of Desire

by William J. Mann

  I hadn’t always shared Frank’s love of the desert. On my first trips out here, for casual weekends of sex and drugs, I’d thought the mountains looked dead. They weren’t like the hills of New England, where I’d grown up, lush and rolling and green. Palm Springs might be fun for lazy lounging around swimming pools, or drinking martinis at Lucite bars, or for dancing shirtless at the White Party, allowing yourself to be passed among a hundred different boys in the course of an hour. But beyond that, I’d seen little of value, just Canadian snowbirds in wide-brimmed hats and Bermuda shorts and ticky-tacky T-shirt shops along the palm tree–lined main drive.

  All that changed the morning Frank first took me hiking, insisting we get up early and pack a breakfast of trail mix and chocolate chip cookies and oversize canteens of water. Up into Tahquitz Canyon we trudged, deep into the folds of the mountains, where I saw not death but teeming life. The purple lupine and the yellow brittlebush, the beavertail cactus with pink buds, the apricot mallow, the bright orange mariposa lily. And everywhere blue lizards skittering and white-headed woodpeckers clattering. In the sky sharp-shinned hawks soared in great, swooping arcs. Our goal, however, was always to spot that most elusive of all creatures, venerated by the Indians: the bighorn sheep, with its massive curved horns and fleecy white rump. Yet not once in all our time hiking in the mountains—which from that day forward became considerable—did we spot one of the bighorns. Still, I trusted that they were there, pausing to sip from the same stream we waded through as the waterfall crashed behind us.

  Ten years had passed since Frank had moved to Palm Springs full time. At first, I came out only on weekends, not wanting to leave L.A., not willing to abandon my dream of making it as an actor. But a decade of walk-on parts and missed opportunities—not to mention a decade of working as a waiter, as a cabbie, and as a housepainter—was wearing thin. The biggest jobs I ever landed were a commercial for Gravy Train dog food and a non-speaking recurring role as a clerk on Matlock. And so, on a whim, I started to take photographs. Faces of friends, the Hollywood sign, palm trees in a windstorm. Then, equally on a whim, I began scanning the photos into my computer. With Photoshop, I altered them, outlined them, fragmented them, turned them into mosaics. No rhyme or reason existed to what I was doing. I was just playing around. When I printed a few of these manipulated photographs, I showed them to a friend who ran a gift shop in Beverly Hills, and she asked me if she could put them on greeting cards. I laughed, but I agreed—and the cards actually sold. I actually made some money. Not a lot, but enough to make me think maybe I could make more if I got serious. And so, four years ago, I moved out here full time, so I could take pictures and play with them on my computer. So I could, finally, become someone. An artist, they say.

  What did it mean to be an artist? Did it mean the tortured screams of Jackson Pollock, splattering his paint everywhere? Did it mean Vincent van Gogh cutting off his ear? Did it mean agonizing over your work, pulling out your hair as you tried desperately to express yourself? These were the questions I wondered about as I signed up for a summer photography class at CalArts. There I encountered a woman who considered herself a very serious artist. Her name was Thelma, and she had been an abused child and a battered wife and had spent a few years in a mental hospital. All her work, she told us, was channeled from those experiences. Her photographs of open mouths and dead birds contrasted strikingly to my sunflowers and Marilyn Monroe impersonators. “A searing indictment of the male hegemony of modern life,” our teacher called one of Thelma’s photos. About mine, she said, “Nice matte finish.”

  I accepted my limitations. “I’m no artist,” I told the teacher. “I just want to make things that look nice.”

  Only Frank seemed to get it. “Danny,” he said, looking at one of my sunflower shots, stripped of its yellows and pumped up with green, “that is probably the craziest-looking flower I’ve ever seen, but I sure as hell can’t stop looking at it.” It had hung ever since over our mantel. Frank had dubbed it his “green daisy.”

  But an artist? No, I wasn’t an artist, even though Frank insisted I was. He’d always been very sure of that point. I made art; ergo, I was an artist. I just laughed. Now Becky—she might have become an artist. She’d had the passion. She’d had the talent. I remembered the easel that had stood in our backyard—

  “Danny.”

  My thoughts shattered, like glass through which a rock had been thrown. My eyes darted away from the mountains and onto Frank’s face.

  “You seemed far, far away,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.” I rubbed my forehead. It was damp with sweat from the sun. “I was…thinking.”

  Frank nodded. Twenty years we’d been together. He knew how often I got lost in thought. And he knew where those thoughts usually led. No matter what I began thinking about, they often seemed to come back to one thing. He smiled gently.

  I was fortunate to have him. Many men would gladly have traded places with me, sitting there in studied contentment, sipping my coffee with my partner of many years, watching the sunlight dance against the mountains. Frank knew me better than anyone alive, and more than anyone, he had been there for me. For two decades, Frank had believed in me, encouraged me, supported me—even when I was at my nadir, convinced I was a failure. Frank had never bought that line, and consequently, he’d kept me from buying it completely, either. So what if I knew, deep down, that Frank’s heart had never been fully mine? What did that matter? He had never left me wanting. Many men indeed would have made the trade.

  But not, I suspected, those boys across the way, the ones giggling and wrestling each other in the grass. They wouldn’t want to switch places with me. After this, they’d probably go back to their guest resort and fuck in the pool. And then maybe they’d do a line of coke or a hit of E. Tonight they’d dance their asses off at Hunters, and tomorrow they’d head back to West Hollywood, sated and satisfied and happy. No, those boys wouldn’t make the trade. The question was, would I?

  I looked from them back over to Frank, and then to Randall, who had pulled off his shirt and stretched out on the grass. His face was turned up at the sun. Frank and Randall. The two people who knew me best in the entire world, who understood what my birthday made me think of every year. I looked down at Randall in the grass, the hair on his fleshy torso glistening with perspiration. I knew he shouldn’t get too much sun, that it could affect his meds. But not once in more than a decade of living with HIV had Randall developed any opportunistic infection. His T cells remained high, and his daily regimen of pills and potions had rendered the virus undetectable in his body.

  Still, I asked, “Do you have sunblock on?”

  “It’s just for a few minutes,” Randall said to me, eyes closed.

  We stayed that way for a while more, three silent men occasionally distracted by the laughter drifting across the grass from the boys under the tree. I slurped up the last of my iced cappuccino, making a noise, the way a kid would do.

  “Don’t you think we ought to get moving?” I whispered, leaning in toward Frank. “I don’t want it to get too hot in Joshua Tree to go hiking.”

  Frank’s eyelids flickered. “Danny, you know, it might be too hot at that. Maybe we should plan to do it another day.”

  “If we leave now,” I argued, “it won’t be too hot. It’s not as hot up in the high desert as it is down here.”

  “Yes, but you know, I’m kind of tired today.” Frank’s eyes were making an appeal to me. “I’m afraid I’d be a drag on you….”

  “Frank,” I said, the annoyance tightening my throat. “You said last night we would go hiking for my birthday. Just you and me. Maybe we’d even finally see a bighorn sheep. Those were your words.”

  “I’m sorry, baby. If you really want to go, we’ll go.”

  I turned away from him. “No. Forget it if you’re too tired.”

  We sat in silence for a moment.

  “I’d go with you, Danny,” Randall said, sitting up and pulling his shirt back on, �
��but I should be heading back to L.A.”

  I said nothing. I didn’t want to go hiking with Randall. I wanted to go with Frank. I stared at Randall and wondered if—as so often happened—he was reading my mind. If he, too, was remembering what he’d said to me two decades ago, standing in the bar on Santa Monica Boulevard. Frank had just asked me to move in with him.

  “I just want you to think long and hard about this, Danny,” Randall had said then. “When you’re thirty, he’ll be forty-four. When you’re forty, he’ll be fifty-four. When you’re fifty…”

  It hadn’t mattered at thirty. But now, at forty-one…

  It was at that very moment that I looked up, and coming through the courtyard toward us was Jake Jones. His blond hair seemed to glow in the sun, and the flip-flops he wore, barely visible under his long, loose jeans, slapped the pavement in a regular beat as he walked. He seemed in that moment the personification of youth. The lightness to his step. The indifference of his shoulders. He noticed us.

  Or rather, he noticed me.

  “Hey, Ishmael,” he said, approaching. I couldn’t tell if he was being ironic or if he really thought that was my name. “Why’d you disappear so fast last night?”

  He came to a stop barely a foot from where I was sitting. My eyes were level with his crotch. A black belt with silver studs was half visible from under his semi-tucked white T-shirt, and green checkered boxer shorts bunched up over the waist of his jeans. From the corner of my eye, I could see both Frank and Randall watching our encounter, Frank with curiosity, Randall with envy. Jake had walked right past the two of them and straight up to me. I lifted my eyes to meet the youngster’s and smiled.

  “Because,” I said, “my boyfriend, Frank, was waiting for me at home.” I gestured with my head toward Frank.

  Jake’s eyes turned to look. “Hi,” he said, unflappable. “I’m Jake.”

  “Good to meet you, Jake,” Frank said.

  He spoke the way fathers do when meeting their sons’ friends. The two of them shook hands.

  From behind us came a small voice. “Hi, Jake,” Randall offered.

  The boy finally turned, lifting an eyebrow in my poor, forgotten friend’s direction. “Oh, hey,” he said. “Did you and Thad and Jimmy go out to dinner last night after I left the bar?”

  “We…um…we ate something back at their house,” Randall replied.

  I smiled despite myself. They ate something, all right. Frank caught my smile, and our eyes met. He chuckled. It broke the tension between us.

  “Well,” Jake was saying, returning his attention to me, “it was good seeing you again, Ishmael.” And then in front of my boyfriend, he took my phone off the table, where I had placed it, and entered his number. “Just in case you ever have a party and want to invite me,” he said, handing the phone back to me. “Good meeting you,” he said to Frank. To Randall, he said nothing more, just disappeared inside the café.

  “What’s up with the Ishmael?” Frank asked.

  “A silly joke,” I said.

  “He’s cute,” Frank noted.

  Randall was standing now, brushing off his shorts. “Thad and Jimmy told me to watch out for him. They have done so much for him. They’ve let him live with them for a while, and they’ve helped him get a couple of jobs….”

  “And what’s their problem with him?” I asked. “Is it that he accepts their help but refuses to put out?”

  Randall didn’t reply. I had my answer.

  “Well,” Frank said, “I think it’s obvious he’d put out for Danny, since he gave him his number.”

  “Danny isn’t interested,” I said.

  Randall snorted. “Thad says he’s a scared little twenty-one-year-old who pretends he’s seen it all and done it all. He’s got a chip on his shoulder the size of Nevada. He might be cute, but Thad assured me I was better off staying far, far away from him.” He gave me a pair of very big eyes. “And I’d suggest the same thing to you, Danny.”

  I saluted him.

  It was time to go. The sun was becoming unbearable. My armpits were wet, and I could feel the bridge of my nose starting to burn. It was time for us humans to retreat into our air-conditioned hiding places and not emerge again until after sunset, when we might wade into our pools or sit under the misters on our decks, gazing up into the purple sky.

  “You know,” Frank said as we walked to the car, his joints stiff from sitting so long, “maybe I ought to start jogging. I’ll get up early in the morning, before it gets too hot.”

  I gave him a look. “Jogging?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I’m out of shape. I’ll firm up a bit, and then we can go hiking again.”

  “It’s okay, Frank.”

  He stopped walking and looked at me. Randall was ahead of us, rolling down the windows of the car and running the air conditioner full blast so the interior could cool off. I held Frank’s eyes. In many ways they barely resembled the eyes I had known for so long. The lashes had gone gray, and the whites of his eyes were perpetually bloodshot. But the color of his eyes had never changed. They were still as green as they’d been that night on Santa Monica Boulevard when I’d run out of the bar, chasing after him, worried I’d never see this beautiful, mysterious stranger again.

  “Danny,” Frank said, and he was holding my gaze as tenderly as he ever had. “You know that when I look at the mountains, I see Becky, too.”

  I managed a smile but said nothing. As always, Frank understood.

  Yes, Becky was always there—not just in the mountains, but in everything I saw, everything I heard, everything I felt—and Frank, dear Frank, knew this. That was the way it always was this time of year, when August turned into September, when the late summer sun was at its peak, and lesson plans were being made, and schools were opening their doors, and parents worried about sending their children off into the world, and young boys did their best to pretend that they were brave.

  EAST HARTFORD

  The rattle of the garage door startled me. I was on my bed, engrossed in the latest issue of Action Comics—Superman and Green Arrow—when I heard the unmistakable sound of my father’s return from work. I slid off the bed and headed into the hallway, pausing at the top of the stairs, my hand resting on the banister.

  “Becky isn’t with you?” I heard my mother asking from the kitchen.

  “No,” my father said. “Should she be?”

  I began to descend the stairs slowly.

  The first thing I noticed was that Mom had gone ahead and hung the HAPPY BIRTHDAY sign, anyway. I sighed. The cake was now frosted, placed in the center of the table, my name spelled out in M&M’s. Six places were set around the table, adorned with blue plastic plates, American flag napkins, and the wrapped Hershey’s Kisses. By now the curlers were out of Mom’s hair, which had flipped up like Mary Tyler Moore’s on the old Dick Van Dyke Show. She had changed into a pink plaid pantsuit and pink high heels.

  “Well,” Mom was huffing, “it’s almost four! Becky was supposed to be back here by now with the balloons!”

  “Maybe the balloons weren’t ready,” Dad was saying as he set his briefcase down on the counter.

  “For crying out loud, the balloons were already paid for! I went down and paid for them myself yesterday! She drove me down there, for God’s sake! They were all ready and set to be picked up.”

  “I don’t know, Peggy, she—”

  Nana had come into the kitchen, beaming at Dad. “Sebby,” she said.

  “Mommy, that’s Tony,” Aunt Patsy corrected, behind her as ever.

  “Hello, Ma,” Dad said, leaning in to give his mother a kiss.

  Anthony Sebastian Fortunato, better known as Tony, except when his mother got him confused with her dead husband and called him Sebby. Dad was a real estate salesman, living on commissions, which were sometimes very good for long stretches of time and sometimes very bad for even longer. His brown tie was loosened and his shirt collar open, his jacket apparently left in the car. Armpit stains showed through his thi
n yellow poplin short-sleeved shirt.

  “Hey, Danny,” Dad said. “How’s it feel to be fourteen?”

  “Same as it did to be thirteen,” I lied, and I think my father knew. Dad could read stuff like that, where Mom was simply clueless. He just gave me a smile that seemed to say it all.

  “She’s got to be with Chipper,” Mom was saying. “She’s been spending entirely too much time with him.”

  “I just saw Chipper come home,” I said. It felt good to be able to offer some real information. “Becky wasn’t with him.”

  “Then where the hell is she?” The vein on my mother’s forehead was pulsing, the way it always did when she got really anxious.

  “Peggy, calm down.” Dad was unknotting his tie and sliding it out from under his collar. “She’s probably with Karen or Pam. She’ll be here. Becky’s good for her word.”

  “Well, this place needs balloons,” Mom said, the vein still throbbing. “What kind of a birthday party doesn’t have balloons?”

  “I’m too old for balloons,” I said.

  “You’re not too old! I’m too old! You’re having balloons, Danny, and that’s it!”

  “Okay, okay.”

  The doorbell rang. It was the first of the guests. I hoped it would be Katie, but it was Desmond Drysdale, red haired and freckled, the only boy I’d invited, the only boy I was really friends with, in fact, if anyone could really be friends with Desmond. Desmond was a comic book fanatic, which was where we connected. But while I liked my comics, I just couldn’t grasp the depth of Desmond’s passion. Over his bed he’d mounted—safely preserved in acetate and held within a plastic container—a rare mint edition of Silver Surfer Number 1. Previously, that place of honor had been occupied by a crucifix.