As they ate, Blind Kevin stood off to the side in the warmth of a wide ray of sunshine. His cataracts glowed in reflection as he stared into the sun. Dust motes slanted down the sunbeam, enveloping him.
*
Later, when the pizzas have arrived, Jonathan will join Garth on the couch for the next movie, The Parent Trap. He will lie with his head on Garth’s ample stomach, resting his face in a nest of vicuna.
Both will agree more than once that the original with Hayley Mills is better than the remake, despite Lindsay Lohan playing the twins in that version. This is the one that has the song, “Let’s Get Together (Yeah Yeah Yeah).” Both will note the tragedy of Brian Keith’s passing many years after the film is made as a result of suicide, although Jonathan will only be able to refer to him as Uncle Bill, having misplaced the actor’s name.
*
But this is now, this moment, the moment in which a cloud has moved in front of the sun, and the only light in the room is from the television screen, and Blind Kevin, ancient, arthritic, diabetic, and sightless from fifteen years of willful and purposeful hard living, both snores (loudly) and wheezes (softly) on his bed. The sound comforts, if only as it stands as proof that Blind Kevin is still breathing, something that is a near-constant concern for both men.
*
They got the dog—he was simply “Kevin” then—when he was just a pup. The dog had been abandoned and had lived for some weeks surviving on city streets before he was rescued. Jonathan and Garth saw him first at a house in the country where he had been fostered. He was little then, small enough to be lifted by a single finger. Kevin, instantly christened as such by Garth, drove home with them that very day, although they were so ill-prepared for a pet they had to stop at Burger King and feed the dog beef patties Garth tore into tiny bits. The hot meat burned and greased Garth’s fingertips and he laid the bits of meat on his palm and then blew on them to cool them, all to coax the puppy to eat.
Blind Kevin’s eyes were bright back then as he looked around his new world.
*
Garth thinks that Richard Burton looks especially sexy in his blue turban.
Throughout the film, Burton wears a great deal of mascara in the way that actors in Hollywood movies tend to do when they are playing persons of color.
Disturbing as this perhaps racist trend may be, the mascara, like the robin’s egg turban, sets off Richard Burton’s eyes in a very fetching manner.
Garth notices the rain streaking down the windowpane. It is a calm and quiet rain, unlike the rains in Ranchipur.
*
In the kitchen, Jonathan clears the detritus of their meal. He rinses the plates and places them in the dishwasher. He sets the carton of eggs, the butter, and the cream cheese back in the refrigerator. He puts the nonstick skillet in the sink and turns the water up full and hot, scrubbing the pan with the kitchen sponge.
He then crackles the eggshells up together in the paper towel on which they had been resting. He tosses the wad into the garbage bag from a distance of nearly ten feet and congratulates himself on his achievement.
Jonathan hums tunelessly. Then, hearing himself, he turns on the radio to a public station on which a woman is introducing the next blues song she will play. Giving background, she names the artist and adds, “He’s playing his own harp,” in a gravelly voice that itself seems filled with the blues.
Jonathan wonders, as he does whenever she says this, what a “harp” refers to. He wipes the counter. Cleans the sink with Soft Scrub.
He thinks then of the time, years ago, when he first met Garth at the Smith Club book sale in Greenwich, which was, that year, held in the small auditorium in an elementary school. He remembers that, at the time, he felt that the large tables on which the books had been stacked looked out of place with the tiny tables and chairs that had been pushed against the walls to make room.
He met Garth among the architecture books, large volumes with colored plates of finished houses and line drawings of interiors. They were introduced by a mutual friend, an author of YA fiction. And the three, each carrying a small stack of purchases, went off to lunch, during which Garth invited Jonathan over to see his apartment in the turret of an architecturally significant Queen Anne Victorian in Stamford.
He remembers the feel of Garth’s hot breath on his bare stomach as they lay together on the frayed Oriental carpet that was nearly all he had at that time in his apartment. Except for the floor lamp that stood up erect from the carpet. “I’m not looking for a relationship,” he’d said as Garth tugged gently on his zipper.
They laugh about that sometimes nowadays, thinking of how many years have passed.
Back then, Garth answered, “Make sure to let me know when you’re ready.” And he pulled open Jonathan’s khaki pants.
*
Back on the couch, Garth frets about his body. He pinches a huge mound of stomach fat.
“I’m a Peep,” he says out loud. “A goddamned fucking gigantic Easter Peep.”
“What?” calls Jonathan from the kitchen.
“Nothing. Just talking to Blind Kevin,” Garth answers. “He needs to go for a walk.”
The kitchen done, Jonathan fetches his ring from the place by the sink where he always leaves it while cleaning up, puts it back on his finger, and goes into the living room, where he lifts Blind Kevin from his little red bed and carries him outside into the yard. He puts him down in the garden near the statue of Buddha. The ground is wet; the rain has stopped.
Blind Kevin stands as still as Buddha for a long moment, the breeze ruffling his ears, before he sniffs the air and begins to patrol the garden in wide circles that tighten inward and inward as he walks, until the smaller and smaller circles bring him again to a full stop, at which point he pees, sniffs the air, and walks directly into the rhododendron. Jonathan carries him back inside. The relieved Blind Kevin curls back up on his bed when Jonathan gently lowers him down.
He looks over at the TV. “It’s over?”
“Just ended.”
Garth stretches without rising up from the couch. Then he leans back against the pillows once more and sighs. “But The Parent Trap’s on in a bit.” He pats the inside of the couch next to his body.
“I ought to get some work done before Monday.”
“Oh, not today.” Says Garth.
Jonathan joins him on the couch. He places his head up against Garth’s mighty stomach. “You’re all gurgly,” Jonathan says.
“Pizza! I need pizza,” says Garth.
And, digging his head a bit into Garth’s stomach as he pulls his phone out of the pocket of his jeans, Jonathan speed-dials the pizza place that delivers.
“The usual?” he asks.
*
Before the food arrives and the movie starts: “So, did I ever tell you about the time Grand Theft Otto and I drove across Pennsylvania on the night of July Fourth?”
Garth is asking Jonathan, who, after putting his phone away, has flipped over on his back, his right leg up over the couch and kicking slightly in the air, his head now fully resting against Garth’s warm body.
Garth had told him, of course. Jonathan had long before heard every story that Garth had to tell. Garth had informed him of his list of favorite films—Annie Hall, The Apartment, Nashville—and books—he was inordinately fond of Great Expectations—the names of old boyfriends, old addresses; he’d shared the whole timeline of his lifetime, bit by bit over the years, over meals, during car trips, and in bed, late, late at night, interrupting the litany of sighs that was the soundtrack of their sleeplessness, while they stared up at the stars through the skylight that would soon need replacing.
Garth always started in in the same way, “Did I ever tell you about the time…?” He continues his story: “By the Fourth, we’d driven so far already on the way here.
“But back on the first day out, we’d rented a U-Haul and had one of those ball joint things welded to the back of my Mustang. Then they put the trailer on it and, I thought, ch
ained it in place. But five miles out of town and suddenly, in the rearview mirror, I see the U-Haul disappearing in the distance.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere, and it’s lucky we were, because I had to back the car up on the highway to the place where the trailer is just sitting still in the middle of the road, held in place by the big metal tongue that sticks out the front.
“This is before cell phones, so if we wanted help, we’d have had to walk to a town and find a phone and I thought that someone was bound to have driven into the back of the U-Haul by then, so I figured that it was the best bet to just put the thing in place ourselves.
“So I backed up, and Otto and I knew we had to lift the damned thing and get it back on that little metal ball welded on the back of my car.
“And Otto gets this look on his face that suggests that, like Bartleby, he would prefer not to, and he places his right hand on the front of the U-Haul like the big metal arm was a teacup and cucumber sandwiches were sure to soon follow.
“So—”
The doorbell rings.
A deliveryman is holding two pizzas, one Spartan, with just olives, mushrooms, and onion, the other laden with toppings.
Jonathan answers the door, pays the man, stops in the kitchen for plates, napkins and beer, and returns to the living room.
“Blind Kevin…” Garth mouths, pointing.
Jonathan sets everything on the coffee table, turns on his heel, and returns to the kitchen. He returns a couple of minutes later with two bowls, one of food and the other water, which he places in front of the dog, who, smelling the pizza, stirs on his bed.
Jonathan taps the side of the food bowl with his index finger. The dog noodles over the bowl, sniffs it, eats. Jonathan sits on the floor next to the dog, watching as he eats. He picks pieces of chicken off the rug and hand-feeds Blind Kevin. Then he holds the water dish up for the dog to drink.
Blind Kevin slowly centers himself on the bed and lowers himself down in stilted, achy motions. Jonathan lingers with Blind Kevin for a long minute, stroking his head and whispering softly to him as he listens to the story:
“—So, at the time I am not finding any of to be this funny. We’re trapped there with the trailer in the middle of the road, and I’m furious. This is my car, after all, and the roadway can’t stay empty forever. So, like those people who get all adrenalized and lift the car off their baby who happened somehow to get under there, I am just filled with rage and, all in a moment, I lift the damned thing up and drag the U-Haul a few feet to the back of my car and just drop it down on the ball thingy.
“And I see the back of my car sort of bounce and then accept the weight of the trailer, and I grab the chains and hook the front of them on the inside of my back bumper.
“And I’m sweaty, see, and I’m breathing hard, and it’s about a hundred degrees, and I feel like I am going to pass out, and I must have glared hard at Otto, whose eyes get all big and moist like they always did, and he says to me, ‘I was intending to help you…’
“And we get back in the car, and we begin to drive again, and I’m hauling a U-Haul, which I’d never done before, and, suddenly, in the side mirror I see an old blue car thundering down on us. Racing ahead, apparently totally unaware of the fact that we are traveling about five miles an hour.
“So I floor the gas pedal, and both Otto and I are sort of pumping our torsos, as if that would help the car and trailer move faster. But we are only very slowly picking up speed.
“At the very last moment, as the blue car gets bigger and bigger and bigger in the side mirror, the driver, who’s wearing a baseball cap on backward and has one of those wispy beards, and a face full of pimples, which I can see clearly because he is getting so fucking close, notices what’s happening and jumps over to the left lane, leaving a trail of dust and cigarette butts and the echo of ‘My Sharona’ in his wake.
“And I’m shaking, see?” He takes a bite of his pizza and continues talking before swallowing. “I mean, I don’t think I can take any more. I lifted the fucking trailer. I raced with death.
“And Otto says to me, ‘I think maybe this is when I should tell you that I forgot my glasses, so I don’t think I can help you drive…’”
Jonathan laughs, picks up the bowls, and puts them on the coffee table next to the plates and food that Garth has arranged into a buffet of sorts. He has placed the bottles of beer on napkins to protect the coffee table.
“We should have gotten a salad as well.”
They begin to eat and Garth again speaks:
“So, I’m driving,” says Garth. “Five hundred miles. A thousand. God knows. And we’re supposed to be in Connecticut on July fifth at noon. And the days are just flying off the calendar, like they do to simulate time passing in an old movie. And I’m driving.
“And, of course, Otto has to stop for food. He has to use the bathroom. He needs to stretch his legs. And while we’re in the car, he sits and stares out his side window. He doesn’t talk. He won’t even attempt to change the radio station when the old one wears out. And I’m driving and driving, and we can’t go too fast because of the U-Haul, which has become sort of normal to me by this time.
“And it’s the Fourth of July, and I believe we can still hit our deadline, but only if we approach this last day like a death march. We get up early, and I all but shove Otto out of the motel room and into the car.
“And it’s one of those days when the immediate surroundings still are a bit cool and there is a mist of dew on the flowers, but a day in which you can feel the heat gathering even then, even just after sunup. This day is going to crackle.
“And I’m driving and just snarling every time Otto wants to stop. And after a while he’s sort of shell-shocked, sitting with his hands in his lap.
“And the radio station starts to fade and suddenly I’m yelling, ‘Can’t you at least find a new station—can’t you at least do that?’
“And, truth to be told, he tries and he can’t. He turns the dial so slowly with his moist hands. He leaves a damp mark on the dashboard with his right hand. And there doesn’t seem to be another radio station to be found, as if we’d driven through a nuclear holocaust without realizing it and the rest of everyone had been wiped out.
“Suddenly, I suspect he is quietly sobbing. He’s looking out the side window again, so I can’t be sure, but there is a sort of tidal motion to his body. So I asked, ‘Do you want to stretch your legs?’ And, of course, he did.
“So, we get back in the car and begin to drive again. I put a cassette in the player, and we listen to Joni Mitchell, which I hope will make things better. But I’ve driven so far and I am fucking exhausted and he forgot his glasses.”
Garth pours sarcasm into his. Garth is staring at the television. TCM shows clips of upcoming movies.
Jonathan splits his attention for a moment between the TV and Garth. He notices that Brief Encounter is on on Monday and makes a mental note.
Garth continues: “And night begins to fall, the long, slow onset of a hot summer night. And suddenly, off to the right side of the car—Otto’s side—there is a flickering in the sky. Fireworks from some distant town.
“And we’re up in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania on Route 80, headed toward New York, so we can see forever across the valleys to towns all around us. And as we travel, as we make tracks, hauling the U-Haul, we hit town after town, just as the fireworks begin. Like a million jeweled fireflies all around us. It was like when you get lucky and hit a run of green lights that take you through miles of city streets, each on turning green just the instant before you arrive at it.
“Just as we approached a town, it lit up the sky for us. And the colors faded into the pop pop pop of the big finale just as we moved on past. Otto opened his window, letting in the hot night air, and stuck his head out like a dog, just watching the lights in the sky.
“Finally, it was late late late, and we were outside Wilkes Barrie or someplace and I had to stop. I’d planned to cut through New
York City in the late night, when I hoped things would be kind of easy, since I’d never driven there before. But it was late, and I was too tired and too hot to even give a crap. So we stopped at some motel to sleep for a few hours.
“After a Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast special—scrambled eggs with chunks of ham cut up in them, I remember that—and several cups of very hot coffee, we set off. Once you hit the New Jersey line, you can no longer even pretend that New York City is going to be something you can just drive through, especially after days on the road, hauling a U-Haul in your wake.
“As New Jersey became more and more, I don’t know, militarized around me, I tightened my grip harder and harder on the steering wheel, until all the blood had been forced out of my white white hands. And I can hear Otto sort of hyperventilating.
“To get on the bridge just as morning rush began involved starting and stopping, the likes of which I’d never experienced before or since. The U-Haul pushed hard against the bumper with every stop, fishtailed if I wasn’t careful when starting up again. I began to swear, at first under my breath, and then louder and louder. We made the bridge. Then we were in the maze that followed. I kept asking Otto to look at the map and tell me which lane I should get in, when I should prepare to merge onto the next road, but, apparently, nearsighted as he was, having forgotten his glasses, he could neither drive nor read a map.
“Again, he went limp. And, as a huge truck attempted to run me off the road, I began to scream and scream like Lana Turner in The Bad and the Beautiful when she just lets go of the steering wheel and her car spins and spins and spins to a crashing halt.
“How we made it, I will never know. But I just kept merging with anything that seemed to be pointed to New England, and we finally found our way to Stamford.
Men in Love: M/M Romance Page 14
