Look Away Silence

by Edward C. Patterson

  “No,” Matt said. “That’s not it. It’s that he reminds me of . . . someone.”

  News at eleven. There was someone else — someone gone or left behind.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “You don’t need to tell me.”

  I really didn’t want to know, but it looked like the time was ripe, or at least the Coronas primed to the appropriate level.

  “You should know,” Matt said.

  He stood, helping me to my feet. He seemed better, but marginally so. It was cold and my hands were like ice blocks. I blew on them, but Matt took them into his, warming them, and then guided them into his pocket. That was sweet and provocative, but he wasn’t flirting or easing towards foreplay. He was just keeping my hands warm so he could unburden his heart.

  “His name was Luis.”

  Was. Past tense.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “He was a drag queen.”

  “The most beautiful drag queen you could ever set eyes on. He performed at la Chiquita Club in the Melrose, and the boys loved him. But he was mine.”

  He sniffed again, and then clenched my hands closer.

  “He was soft like . . . like you sorta and had a considerable following. He sang like an angel.”

  Like me, sorta. I had a sinking feeling.

  “Is that what you’re after,” I said. I collected my hands and did my own warming. “I’m no one’s stand in, you know.”

  “No, no,” he said. “That’s not it. I know that people are different and when something is over, it’s over. But Luis was never over in the sense that we broke up.”

  “Then he’s waiting for you in the Lone Star State.”

  Matt choked.

  “I wish he was. Not that I can’t be with anyone else, but Luis is . . . well, he’s . . .”

  He couldn’t say it, and he didn’t need to, because I wouldn’t let him.

  “Killed him, they did. Bastards.”

  “No, no, Matt. It’s okay. You don’t need to go through it. You don’t.”

  He bawled, his head buried in my shoulder, his warm tears freezing on my shirt.

  “He was such a little performer, he was. He didn’t mean any harm, but he sometimes got into trouble with some of the rougher trade. They’d call him names and he’d toss it right back at them. But that night, they waited for him. They waited and . . .”

  “No,” I said. “You’ll not do this to yourself. You’re here with me and on Christmas. I’m the ghost of Christmas Present, and the ghost of Christmas Past needs to stay in the past or you’ll never be free of it.”

  “It’s not that easy,” he said. “But . . .”

  “Try.”

  He sighed. His eyes were cast down onto the court. The thumpa-thumpa-boom-boom of the dance floor rumbled in the night. The laughter from the shack was in a different world. Suddenly, Matt gazed up at me. I think it was in that moment — you know the moment. Rare as it is, sometimes the fates conspire to snare the soul and the heart into a universal song, one without ending . . . never ending — never ended. Never. It was then that I knew that this Christmas gift was more precious than a vacuum broom. I scratched my head with my frozen mitts.

  “I’m cold,” he said.

  “I’m warmer.” The stars above were beckoning me home. “But we’d be warmer in bed, don’t you think?”

  “Do you have one of those down comforters?”

  “Genuine Eider,” I said. “An Icelandic beauty.”

  “Thank you for your generous offer.”

  “It stands only if you can leave Luis . . . outside.”

  He shuffled.

  “That’ll be hard. Very hard. But, you know, the best part of Luis is inside me. He’d make a great acquaintance, if you let him. He sang like an angel — just like you.”

  I grasped his hand. Cold hands in the dark.

  “Well, it’s Christmas,” I said. “I guess we can let an angel watch over us.”

  Suddenly, an angel appeared at the door. I shuddered, and then laughed. It was a smoking angel in a jock strap — one of The Cavern’s crew — the waiter — Bobby.

  Chapter Six

  First Impressions

  1

  There’s nothing like a staggering stroll in winter with precipitation in the air and a drunk on your arm. I think if we had let each other go, we both would have landed in the garbage bins. Still Matt — my luscious and melancholy cowboy, needed to get his kit from the Cherokee. I didn’t mind. It meant I landed a hygienic one. I guided him to the visitor’s parking, and then held onto the fence while he staggered to his vehicle and finally (hallelujah), after gathering his stuff, locked up. There had been a rash of car thefts this month — Christmas shopping, I guess, but I now had peace of mind that this John (well, he was a Matt, but until they last beyond a week, Russ would call them a John) would find his truck in the morning.

  “Woohoo,” Matt shouted at the invisible ocean as we rounded the corner to the apartment’s rear.

  I had a front entrance, but rarely used it. My courtyard and hidden nook was as snug as anything from Beatrix Potter. It was littered with the trashcans and was barren in winter, but there was always the kiss of summer around its edges as long as the sea songs trumped the gulls.

  “Nice place,” Matt muttered.

  He surveyed the wreckage of patio furniture that I meant to replace this year. I had limited storage and left it out to winter over. It was the previous tenant’s and serviceable when I first schlepped in, but now it was among the priority replacements on my wish list.

  “Don’t mind this shit,” I said, searching for my keys. “It’s going to the bins on April Fool’s day.”

  Matt just staggered and began to hum Dixie. It was sweet and in tune. My, my, my. Of course, I didn’t need to apologize for my neat little apartment. Small, true, but well kept and lavendered, now topped by pine aromas from my little Christmas tree. It was a miniature, but real. I flipped the lights on, and the tree was lit also. Matt smiled.

  “Quaint.”

  “Quaint? I bet you have the Taj Mahal on your Axum salary. So I warn you, if there’s anything I’m touchy about, it’s my apartment. You can call me anything you want, but don’t you dare . . .”

  “No. I wouldn’t think of it. I wouldn’t . . .”

  I shut him up before he ruined everything. I pulled him to me and planted a sentence-breaking kiss smack on his gob. I was a brazen hussy, I know, but it seemed like the thing to do. If my cowboy decided it was too high handed — well, he could turn and flee over the shitty patio furniture and stagger back to his truck. But no, he reciprocated. And how. Jackets, hats, gloves, and his kit went to the floor. Hell, I’d pick them up later. He pushed me toward the couch, but I tagged him like a calf and dragged him past the Tannenbaum and over the bedroom threshold. It was chilly in there, because I had hadn’t closed the window, which overlooked the patio. It’s stupid, but I don’t like closed places. Always needed an open window.

  I flipped the light switch on, but Matt flipped it off again. Shirts peeled. Trousers dropped. I clutched him, a flop and a crawl back onto the bed. No time to dislodge shoes and socks before the first earnest probing began.

  2

  Excuse my pause. I need it, but there was no such thought on the first day, when the world was green and Adam had yet not seen Eve, content with the pleasure of his own body. Indeed, when kissing is intense and touching reciprocal, the world comes apart, reassembling on this side of memory. But this was Adam and Steve, wasn’t it? Isn’t that what the Anita Bryants of this world shouted at us over the citrus groves of Christian dogma? Adam and Steve, Abomination. But let me say this about that (sorry to be so presidential). When I first tasted Matthew Kieler on that nativity night in the chilly room, where the curtains blew free over the headboard, I found my home, a home that Viv had denied me and all the fleet of empty souls that trampled through my life had stolen. Passion was life. Holding and hugging was home. Touching and feeling, wisdom. All that lovers seek and rarely find sh
owed up like unexpected rain or unrelenting snow, to melt in the hearth of our creation. Breathing was music. His gentle caress was a landfall for my long voyage through the silent years.

  “Soft, sweet music,” I said, interlacing my fingers in his. “Maybe a Christmas carol. Do you know any Christmas carols?” I sat up. “Come, serenade me.”

  “No,” Matt said. “My voice is like a razor blade.”

  “Well, if you’re going to romance me, you better be able to carry a tune. Maybe you can even be a Jersey Sparrow.”

  He sat up now, his hair shimmering in the muddled moonlight that filtered through the curtains.

  “A Jersey Sparrow? I’m a Texas Bullfrog.”

  “I heard you humming in tune. I heard you.” It was a bit like a bullfrog, but it was in tune.

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Yes, I did. And I can name that tune in three notes. It was Dixie.”

  “Shoot. I was just buzzing around. It wasn’t anything musical.”

  I shook him. He laughed, and then stood over me, his nakedness swept by the breeze.

  “Sing it, cowboy,” I shouted, with little care about my neighbors . . . then.

  “Well, you asked for it.” He cleared his throat and closed his eyes as if he needed darkness to recall the words.

  “I wish I were in the lan’ o’ cotton,

  Ol’ times there are soon forgotten,

  Look away,

  Look away,

  Look away . . .”

  Silence.

  Suddenly, his eyes opened. I thought maybe he had a bad memory — a vibration of Luis, but he was suddenly animated.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “I almost forgot,” he said. “I got you a Christmas present.”

  “A Christmas present?” I grasped at his legs. He had already given me a Christmas present and I could have used a second helping. He jumped off the bed. “How the fuck could you get me a present?”

  He disappeared into the living room, returning immediately with an A&S bag. He fished around inside, popping out the tie box.

  “Sorry, I didn’t get it wrapped. The guy who sold it to me said I could get it gift wrapped.”

  I roared. The joke was on me. However, I decided to play it through. The man had planned this while stalking me over-the-counter from the jacket rack. I owed him that much.

  “You fucker,” I said. I opened the box. There it was — that the ugly, purple tie. That awful shackle of my life wrapped in tissue paper by my own hand. Joke or noose, not sure which . . . now. But there it was.

  “But you picked it out,” he said, laughing.

  “You said it was for a special friend.”

  He kissed me on the forehead, the sweetest kiss I ever had — the kiss of friendship and benediction.

  “And it is,” he said.

  “But I was jealous of that special friend,” I said, chattering. “I figured this shit tie would be what he deserved.”

  “And so he does.”

  I stood and let Matt come behind me, knotting that shackle cloth around my neck. It was done with great tenderness. I can still feel his touch on my shoulder and the tip of his fingers as he slipped the knot up to my throat, the silk tickling my bare chest. I turned and kissed him, and not on the forehead. Suddenly, he was animated — a real jitterbug.

  “Holy shit,” he said.

  “What?”

  “It’s snowing! Snowing!”

  It had been snowing while we whiled away the time in each other’s arms. I had felt an occasional flake pout though the window and pucker on my forehead. Evidently, Matt hadn’t noticed until now. He shot to the window, his head pushing out into the frigid air. His eyes seemed twice as blue, his smile wider than Kansas.

  “Oh, my,” he sighed.

  There was at least three inches in the courtyard already, enough to make the crap patio furniture glisten with fairy magic.

  “It’s wonderful,” he said, and then turning to me, he beamed. “How did you know this is what I wanted for Christmas?”

  “Snow?” I said. “It’s just the weather. No one has control of . . .”

  “I’ve never seen it before.”

  “Never?” I pulled him back into the room, because he was nearly through the window, bare ass to the world. “Who’s never seen snow before?”

  “Me. That’s who.”

  He darted for his socks and shoes, which he had managed to shuck after the passion. Mine were lost somewhere under the sheets.

  “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s frolic. I want to feel it.” He pulled me to his side. “I want to feel it in my hair and on my lips.”

  “You’re going out? Now?”

  “Why not?”

  He stood erect, footwear only, still pulling me toward the living room door. I remember having mixed feelings about this. I was drunk enough to roll about in the snow naked, but sober enough to know I’d regret it in the morning, with frost bitten balls and a need to survive the scandalous looks from the neighbors. I was sure that Mrs. Sanmartini (second floor front) kept vigil over the courtyard at all hours of the day and night.

  “No way,” I said. “I’ve seen the stuff since I was a babe. I’m not getting a cold making fucking snow angels in the middle of the night with a crazy . . . Texan.”

  “I’m nuts,” he said, laughing. “It’s new to me. I’ve seen it in pictures, sure; and we once had an ice storm, which was none so pretty. C’mon.”

  I was adamant. I swooped up his jacket.

  “At least put this on. I have neighbors.”

  Matt snapped it up, wrapping it around his shoulders. Scarcely an improvement as it only came to his waist. He did a little dance — a sort of inebriated hoedown, and then unlatched the door. He was gone. Not far — just over the threshold, his snappy laugh betrayed with cold.

  “Close the door,” I yelled. “It’s cold.” However, he was beyond hearing, doing his hoedown through the accumulation. It was the weirdest shaker ball I had ever seen — this cowboy, without his hat, but with the brightest of blue eyes, humming his song and dancing through the drifts as naked as a chicken, only a half-wrapped chicken in danger of falling on its ass. I watched as the lights in Mrs. Sanmartini’s apartment flipped on. I knew I would see her scrawny face poking out her window. She might even call the cops. Then I realized that I was on the threshold and wore less than my cowboy wore. He began to warble a la bullfrog.

  “I wish I were in the lan’ o’ cotton,

  Ol’ times there are soon forgotten,

  Look away,

  Look away,

  Look away . . .”

  “Matt,” I called, in a semi whisper. “Matt, better get in now. We’ll do something tomorrow. Build a snowman, or something.”

  He ignored me, so I moved onto the patio. Brrrr. The snow covered my toes. Was anyone worth this? Suddenly, a snowball whizzed passed me, hitting the door lintel.

  “Damn,” I squealed.

  A barrage of snowballs whooshed, one hitting me in the belly. It didn’t hurt. I was that drunk, but I knew it would leave a mark. I slipped, nearly falling. That was it. I marched inside, hovering on the threshold. I hoped that Sanmartini hadn’t called the cops. That’s all I needed. Another snowball whizzed by, this time landing near the Christmas tree. I closed my eyes. The images, however, persisted. The man — the beautiful man, with the precious, tender heart — a fragile heart, dancing like a child in a new element, defying the cold and the world of prying eyes.

  O, my God. The man’s mad.

  I glanced out again, knowing that Matthew Kieler would be embracing the snow, because the missiles had stopped. He was on his knees, catching the new flakes in his mouth, licking the melt from his chin. His eyebrows were crusted white, his hair matted. Mrs. Sanmartini extinguished her lamp. I closed my eyes again.

  God, let this one be a keeper. Please, oh God. Please.

  I raised the ugly, purple tie to my nose, inhaling Matt’s gift, as much as he drank down mine.
>
  Please, please, let this one be a keeper!

  “I wish I were in the lan’ o’ cotton,

  Ol’ times there are soon forgotten,

  Look away,

  Look away,

  Look away . . .”

  Silence.

  Chapter Seven

  Gifts

  1

  I’m not one for sleeping in late, even on the weekends and even when hung over. However, that Christmas morning, with my cowboy wrapped in my arms and the wintry light pouring through the window across the snowy sill was too rich to waste with stirring. I wondered if I could stay here all day — no visitations or afternoon holiday cheers at The Cavern. Suddenly, Matt stirred. He swung out of bed, quite destroying the mood.

  “Must we get up?”

  “Got to pee,” he said, standing and then stretching. He was as delicious in sunlight as he was in moonlight.

  “Do you know where it is?”

  His hands went to his crotch.

  “I should hope so.”

  “I mean the bathroom, you twit.”

  “I think I know one when I see one.”

  He chuckled, moseying over the threshold, hanging a right. I guess he did know, because a left would get him to the closet and kitchen. I settled back deciding that if I stayed in bed, Matt would return here — an arrow to my gracious and not too subtle target. Unfortunately, while my computer programmer was taking his morning aim, I heard a key rattling my front door. Now that door never rattled except when I went to get the mail and . . . well, I knew why it rattled now.

  “Shit.” I sat up. “Viv.”

  The locks snapped. Knob turned, and then the clunk of boots and the rustling of paper — shopping bags. You don’t work in retail and not know the sound of shopping bags.

  “Hey, shithead,” she bellowed. “Merry Christmas!”

  I reached for my robe and nearly fell out of bed. In fact, I did a little twisty dance trying to keep my balance, but it was too late. Viv had settled in.