Buddies (16 page)

“How could you choose,” I wondered, “from your many thousands such?”

He sat up, ready to strike. “Or you could tell us once again how you and your brothers committed incest night after glorious night right through your childhood and how it’s just a typical American sport and
no one
would think you a gang of debauched cretins for a little thing like that.”

“He committed what?” asked Little Kiwi, waking up.

“We didn’t commit incest,” I said. “We slept together, in total innocence. Haven’t you seen puppies lying in a pet-store window? That’s all we did. Doesn’t everyone?”

“I never did,” said Dennis Savage.

“I don’t have a brother,” said Carlo.

“I always locked my door,” said Little Kiwi, “to keep out the scary clown monster.”

Ron just blinked.

“What’s more,” said Dennis Savage, “I have never heard of any brothers sleeping in the same bed except yours. How does such a thing occur? What, do you wink at a brother and say, ‘Who wants a backrub?’”

“I don’t remember how it got started,” I say. “I suppose someone was afraid of the dark, or had a nightmare, or was cold. We had a whole floor to ourselves, and one of us would just…” I trailed off. They were looking at me as if I’d told them we used to waylay strangers on the turnpike and chop them into sausage. “All I can say is it felt very normal to us. My older brothers used to carry me into their beds, and I did it with my younger brothers, or they’d pile in by themselves. Sometimes all five of us … I guess we just wanted company.”

The rain beat even more heavily.

“They would carry you where?” said Little Kiwi.

“Nothing happened, I tell you.”

“Winesburg, Ohio,”
said Dennis Savage.

“
Nothing
happened?” asked Ron. “Sexually? Are you sure?”

“We’d just snuggle up like bunnies.”

“You know,” said Dennis Savage, and I braced myself. “First it was dear little puppies; and now you say bunnies, suggesting visions of velveteen and cartoons and chocolate shapes with nougat eyes. But in real life bunnies are notorious fuckers. And I find it strenuously curious that you ladle out these tales of unapproachable
pornofamilia
and act as though you were merely playing hooky from Bible class. Are you telling us that five males—some of whom were heavily pubescent and others of whom were toothsome and easily overpowered—spent some ten years in bed and never touched each other?”

“He committed
what?
” said Little Kiwi, just grasping what we were discussing.

“A five-some!” said Carlo, impressed.

“All we did was sleep!”

“I know of … a couple of brothers,” said Ron. “I mean, I know about two brothers who did have sex.” He gulped, glancing at me. “I believe all five of you could have been together in bed and not … done anything. But it does happen.”

We waited, listening to the rain.

“I wonder if Bauhaus is gay,” said Little Kiwi. “Sometimes he walks funny.”

“What brothers?” Carlo asked.

“In my town. Southern Indiana. You know, a little industry and a lot of farming. Three banks. One post office, two schools. See, the reason I know about this is it happened to my best friend. Tom Coley. I guess he had to tell someone, so he told me.”

Ron is of that thin, pale-blond, long-necked type that doesn’t get noticed at first. At second, you think, “Who
is
this boy?”

“I’m not saying this is common. I always think a lot that happens depends entirely on chance. Not on birth or education, you know. Money. Things. But just who’s near who at the right time. Anyway, Tom had a brother named Elton, two years older. They could have been twins, except Elton was bigger and broader because … well, you know how much difference two years can make in your teens. I’m not telling you that Tom or Elton were big wheels, now. In school, I mean. Football captains or debating chairmen. But Elton was a slick guy and Tom was … a good fellow. Did I say that he was my best friend?”

Everyone was still, listening.

“Well, this happened when Tom was in ninth grade, Elton in eleventh. See, their father was dead and their mother had this snappy job as a legal secretary. In a lawyer’s office? And she always worked late. So they had the house to themselves after school. She taught them how to heat up canned spaghetti and TV dinners because she didn’t have the time to cook for them. She really worked hard. Everyone in town thought she was the mother of the decade.

“Anyway, as Tom told it, one afternoon after school he was toweling off from a shower and his brother came in from
his
shower and they got to speaking about this and that.” He grinned. “In our casual midwestern way, you know. And somehow or other Tom ended up on Elton’s lap, just talking about … I don’t know. School. Their father. Maybe going to college. Except they’re both completely bareass and Elton has his arm around Tom’s shoulder. And you know how close brothers can be sometimes. And while they’re talking, Elton is kissing Tom. Just little pecks, like … like conversational punctuation. You know, a sort of brother thing. To cheer him up. You kissed your brothers, didn’t you, Bud?”

“Never,” I replied. “I scarcely shake their hands. I run when I see them. They’re worse than the scary clown monster.”

“Oh. Well, maybe these two brothers were different because they had no father and their mother was away so much. They had to be kind of each other’s parents sometimes, I guess.”

“Pecks?” asked Dennis Savage. “On the cheek?”

“Well … actually … no, on the mouth. Kisses. Little demonstrative kisses between two brothers.”

“Little between
what?
” said Little Kiwi.

“The thing is,” said Ron, “that although neither of them would mention it, they both had hard-ons. And the kissing got … hotter. They were still talking, but in between they were virtually making out. They had their arms around each other and Elton was playing with Tom’s genitals, and smoothing his skin, and stroking his hair. And I guess somewhere along the way they had stopped talking and were openly working on each other. And Elton got up and steered Tom over to the bed, and stretched him out on his stomach, and went into the bathroom for stuff, and when he came back he got right on top of Tom and screwed him. But you should understand that when Tom told me about this he underlined how careful his brother was with him, how gentle. Slow. And you know what was funny was they never seemed close in school or anywhere else like that. I mean, they
were
close, but they didn’t make a big thing of it. It was like no one … knew about them. And then, after that first time, they started to take it up regular. Every day, same thing. They’d start talking and kissing in the chair, then move to the bed. And after each screwing, they’d talk again, waiting to get hot some more. And finally they’d roll over and collapse, and when their mother got home she’d find them lying in each other’s arms.”

“She knew about it, then?” said Carlo.

“Oh, no. She thought they were taking naps together. Two brothers who were so close they would talk themselves to sleep after school. She was worried about their not having a father figure, so it was nice that Elton was looking after Tom. Maybe it sounds more like the south than the midwest. They’re very physical down south. Demonstrative. The midwest is almost as squeamish about personal contact as the northeast.”

“Just a minute,” said Dennis Savage, from upstate New York: snowman country.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “Would you call New York a relaxed, friendly, demonstrative city?”

“Not while you’re in it.”

“Gentlemen,” said Carlo, raised in South Dakota. “The northeast
is
tense. I think that’s why Bud’s talk of sleeping with his brothers sounds weird. If you were from like Georgia, it would seem natural. And that’s why Ron’s tale is so interesting. It brings sort of a decadence to a place where we all thought men are men.”

“And little brothers are nervous,” said Dennis Savage.

“No, that’s just it,” said Ron. “Tom became very dependent on his afternoons with Elton. As far as I can gather, they never referred to it even in strictest privacy. They just did it. Every weekday, without fail. Over and over, the same methods every time. Elton sitting in the chair, and tilting his head at Tom, who would walk across the room to him. And if he got home first he took off his clothes and lay down to wait for Elton. There was nothing else in his life. He went through ninth and tenth grade in a daze because nothing was real to him except their … their…”

“Dates,” said Carlo.

“Trysts,” said Dennis Savage.

“Tango practice,” I offered.

“Their love,” said Ron.

“Of course, they already loved each other as brothers. They had a natural closeness. You know. But when they made it physical, it didn’t just deepen. It became … I don’t know how to explain it. It was not as if Tom had made a lover out of a brother. It was as if he’d made a
lover
into a
brother,
made him … I don’t know, permanent, absolute. Close in a way no best friend can hope to be. And Tom made up this dream that he and Elton would stay like this for the rest of their lives. Keep on spending afternoons talking together and going to bed and falling asleep, and nothing else would matter. It’s a strange story, isn’t it? A strange dream to have for your whole life. I mean, the point of growing up is that you cut yourself off from the closeness of your family. You’ve already got everything they can give you in forming your personality. Your feelings, your emotions. They’re all done with giving your character its shape. So you move on. You get married and start your own family and the whole thing repeats itself. Okay, you stay in touch with them and solidify the bond at special times. Christmas. A fiftieth birthday. But you don’t stay a brother for the rest of your life, do you?”

“Not a younger one,” I said.

“Imagine,” he went on. “Imagine two men living somewhere, on a farm or something. And all they’re doing is loving each other, and they’re brothers! Can you imagine that? It’s like being in the Boy Scouts for fifty years. It’s … what is it?”

“It’s a very sweet fantasy,” said Dennis Savage, “in the wrong historical age.”

“Anyway. Tom knew it couldn’t last much longer. Because once Elton got out of high school and got a job … and some adult self-assurance … and learned how to talk to women, well … it was Elton’s moving-on time. It was a terrible period for Tom, because they weren’t breaking up over some curable incompatibility, or going through that crazy period some lovers hit after two years. They were breaking up because … well, because once upon a time Elton was horny as heck and women weren’t available and Tom was. See, the bizarre part of this romance was that only one of the two men was gay. Think about that—and both of them knew it, too, I’m sure of it. It’s like the birds and the bees without the birds. And then one day Elton was out of high school, and the next day he got a job, and some time after he got a little apartment over the record store. Drove him crazy Saturday nights when it was open late. And so of course Tom…” Thinking of it all, Ron paused, distracted.

“… came out of his daze,” Dennis Savage suggested.

Ron nodded.

Silence.

“I don’t know,” said Carlo. “Is this a sad story or a happy one?”

“It’s a true story,” said Ron. “That’s what matters.”

“Yes, but did they ever finalize it?” I asked. “Did they … well, did they ever say something to each other? About how they felt? What they had—”

“The midwest,” said Ron, “doesn’t work in that style.”

“It’s not what you say,” Carlo suggested.

“You mean,” I went on, “that never once in that two years those boys spent in bed did they say ‘I love you’ somewhere in there? Not once?”

“It’s not what you say,” Carlo insisted. “It’s how you are made to feel.”

“You have to remember that we aren’t direct about our emotions. Not like New Yorkers, anyway. We’re a country of poker players. Bluffers, you know?”

“Did they ever get into bed again?”

“How could they?” Ron replied. “Once Elton had his own place and was hitting the singles bars and smartening up his smile at the waitresses and such, what would he need Tom for, I wonder? You have to be fair.”

The rain pounded on. Bauhaus shifted position. Carlo coughed.

“Anyway, it was as plain as it gets. There was that day they went out walking on a Saturday. Just walking. You’re aware that two men might take a stroll with a lot on their minds and not say anything about it? This was like that. They weren’t seeing each other much by then, just when Elton came home for dinner. And Tom didn’t want to visit Elton in his apartment because … well, I’m not sure if he ever did know why. If you ask me, he was afraid to be alone with Elton and not go back to bed with him—afraid of having to face a formal parting of the ways. Because so far, no one had said anything about it. Yes, it looked as if it was over. But technically it was still an open question.”

“Some affairs truly never do end,” said Carlo. “It may turn out that you’ll never fuck again, but you don’t know that till years later.”

“Tom knew then and there,” said Ron. “Because they took this walk. And you can imagine how Tom felt—I mean, this was one of the very few chances he had to be alone with … his lover. And they were just ambling around, seeing what was doing, and they ran into a girl from Elton’s class in high school. So it was like, ‘What are you doing now?’ back and forth, which is what you tend to do in the midwest for the rest of your life—unless you come to New York. And Tom was just waiting till they could politely go off on their own again, but it was dragging on and finally Elton invited her to join them for coffee and she said yes. And there they all were, Tom just so miserable and saying practically nothing and Elton and the girl flirting above and below the table. And of course finally they went off together, and Tom went home alone, knowing that was how it was going to be from now on. Tom was one thing and Elton was another, and he had to face up to it. As we say in the midwest, ‘That’s how the river gonna flow.’ And this is where the story ends.”