Men Who Love Men (28 page)

I nod, looking from the screen back at him. “Are you happy, Dad?” I ask.

I don’t know where the question comes from. It’s an echo of the question Mom asked me not so long ago, the one that sent me scrambling for an answer. My father looks over at me strangely.

“Happy?” he asks. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t start lecturing me like your sister does,” he tells me, returning his gaze to the TV set. “I’m doing just fine.”

“I wasn’t really asking about you,” I admit. “I guess I was thinking about me. You know, what’s ahead for me.”

My father gives me one eye, but keeps the other on Nessie. “Well, I suppose you’re luckier than I was. You don’t have a job that you’ll need to retire from.”

I lift my eyebrows in surprise. “You used to say that was
un
lucky. That by quitting my job at the insurance firm I was giving up my pension.”

“That’s true.” He’s quiet a moment, apparently engrossed in something the narrator is saying about Nessie. “But on the other hand,” he continues, “whatever you seem to be doing with that guesthouse, you seem to be enjoying it. And doing work that you enjoy, being employed by none but yourself, means you can keep on working right until the day you drop. You might not have any benefits, but you don’t have any boss kicking you out either.”

I nod. “I do enjoy my work,” I say, as much to myself as to him. “But work’s not all there is.”

“What else is there?”

“Well, you had a family by the time you were my age.”

He nods. “Yes, I did.” He turns to face me. “You thinking of adopting a kid, Henry? They had a special on CNN the other night about all these gays adopting kids.”

“No no no,” I say. “I don’t even have a partner.”

“A lot of these gays didn’t either. I don’t think you need two to raise a kid, to be perfectly honest. Your mother did it all on her own.”

“What do you mean? She had you.”

He shakes his head. “I was never around. I was either at the office, or down here watching TV, or at Charlie’s playing poker on a Sunday afternoon. Am I not right?”

I shrug. “Mom was always the disciplinarian.”

“And the cook, and the chauffeur, and the bedtime storyteller.”

“You were the breadwinner.”

“Okay. So I did that. My point is, Henry, if you want a kid and you don’t have a special someone in your life, you should still get the kid.”

“I don’t want a kid.” I pause. “I want a special someone.”

My father looks over at me. With a deep breath he lifts the remote control from the table beside him and snaps off the television set. The sudden quiet startles me, as it always does.

“You ever had a special someone, Henry?” my father asks. “Not sure I’ve ever heard you speak of one.”

“You met Joey briefly last year,” I remind him. “But, looking back, I suppose he doesn’t really qualify as a special someone. I used to think he did, but not anymore.”

Dad sighs. “They’re hard to find.”

“You found Mom.”

“Yes, I did,” he agrees. “And do you have any idea how much I loved your mother when I first met her?”

I shake my head.

“I thought about her day and night,” he tells me. “I couldn’t wait to be in her presence. When she agreed to marry me, I got down on my knees—literally—and thanked God.”

It’s an odd image. My parents have never been affectionate. In my memories, they’re mostly apart. Mom at the stove, Dad down here. In the few family photos that include all of us, Mom and Dad are always at opposite ends of the picture, their kids between them. They’ve never really argued, at least not that I ever saw, but they’ve never really joked either, or shared a kiss or a squeeze. But still.
Forty-one years together
.

“So that’s why it’s lasted,” I say. “You were deeply in love.”

“No.” He shakes his head forcefully. “The key to a successful marriage is to fall
out
of love.”

“What?”

He winks at me. “When I was twenty, I couldn’t leave your mother alone for an instant. Now it’s forty years later, and sometimes we go days without seeing each other. She’ll call down and ask if I want a sandwich and I’ll tell her I can make one down here.” He gestures to a small refrigerator on the far wall. “So long as she keeps that stocked with turkey, cheese, and strawberry ice cream, I’m fine.”

I laugh. “All the creature comforts.”

“Absolutely. So sometimes it’s literally days that we don’t see each other. And that’s okay. She’s got her interests, I’ve got mine. She talks on that phone nonstop with all her old lady friends. She goes into town to get her hair done. She goes out to play canasta. I stay here and watch my shows. So we’re both happy.”

“No offense, Dad,” I tell him, “but I don’t think that’s how I want it to go with my special someone.”

“That’s the way it goes with
all
special someones, Henry. Gay, straight, in-between.”

I fold my arms across my chest. “I don’t want to become that cynical, Dad.”

“It’s not being cynical. It’s being practical. I’ve seen some husbands and wives who are always bitching at each other. She’s telling him to turn off the TV set and he’s yelling at her to stop her nagging. Your mother and I never have a cross word. We live here in perfect harmony.”

Almost as if on cue, my mother is calling down the stairs. “Herbert, send Henry up. I want to show him the pictures of the twins.”

“Yes, dear,” my father calls back, gesturing for me to do as she bids.

I stand. Above us, I can hear the sound of my mother’s footsteps crossing the linoleum kitchen floor. I look down at my father in his chair.

“But tell me one thing, Dad.” I point up at the ceiling with my thumb. “That’s a good sound, isn’t it? Sitting down here, knowing she’s upstairs, knowing you’re not alone.”

He shrugs.

“You’d miss those footsteps if they suddenly stopped,” I tell him.

He sighs. “I suppose I would.”

“Deep down, you love her as much as you did when you were twenty.”

He flicks the television back on. “More,” he says.

I smile. I head up the stairs with my dishes to look at pictures of my sister’s girls.

That night, I lie awake a long time in my childhood bed. On the bureau against the wall stands the trophy I won in third grade for the school science fair. On the wall, a poster of Kurt Cobain, frayed at the edges, still hangs, affixed by red thumbtacks. How many hours did I sit in this room, my headphones clamped over my ears, listening to my music and trying to imagine what my future outside this house would be like? How many dreams did I have in this bed, dreams of a life I could barely imagine but wanted so much to someday make real?

I knew I was gay at a young age. I’d lie here, staring at this very same ceiling, and imagine myself as an adult, living openly as a gay man, walking with my lover, refusing to hide—the way my old friend Jack had done. Jack—who had gone off as a teenager to find a life as a gay man, something I’d have to wait many years to find.

But still, I knew it was out there, waiting for me. I’d read the accounts in
Time
and
Newsweek
about gays “coming out of their closets.” I also read about men who would marry and have children and live a lie. I knew I could never live a lie. I was determined to fall in love, to find my Prince Charming and live happily ever after. I’d scrunch my pillow to my face, the way I’m doing now, visualizing my soulmate beside me. In my mind, he was a handsome man with a cleft chin who looked something like Richard Gere, except that I still always called him “Jack.” I’d fall asleep with Jack breathing in my ear beside me.

Lying here now, the sounds of my childhood both comfort and unsettle me. There’s the familiar sound of the clock on my bureau, the sound of the dehumidifier clicking on every fifteen minutes in the hallway. Outside my window a certain night bird hoots, a sound I’ve never heard anywhere else but in West Springfield.

I don’t belong here anymore, if I ever really did. Right now I miss Lloyd and Jeff and Ann Marie and J. R. something fierce. I miss Provincetown, where the only sounds at night are the faraway calls of the foghorn—except on summer nights, when horny gay boys are always on the street. That’s my home. That’s where I belong. That’s where I should be, not here in my bed of childhood dreams, which only makes me feel as if I’ve come full circle, without having gotten anywhere at all.

But still, I think I needed to come here tonight. I needed to come back to this place. It’s been a reminder that I
do
have a family—and as much as I love Mom and Dad, it’s not them. My family—my real family—are not the people in this house. I might not have a lover, but I do have a family that loves me.

I know Lloyd would never have let himself be seduced by Luke if he’d realized I’d slept with the kid the night before. He’d have gently turned Luke down out of consideration to me. Not that he would have been obligated to do so, but I know Lloyd well enough to know he would never knowingly hurt my feelings. Neither would Jeff, not really, for all his occasional insensitivity.

So maybe it’s time Henry Weiner stopped being quite so sensitive himself.

I think of my father down in the basement. Apparently, my sister worries about him; I’m not so sure I do. Certainly he’s content with his lot, and really, it’s not such a bad life. He’s at the stage when he doesn’t need another person to wrap up his happiness and hand it to him like a birthday present. He’s learned how to make himself happy, with his TV programs and private refrigerator stocked with ice cream. I smile. The more I think about it, the more I realize how much my Dad and I are alike.

Lloyd’s voice is in my head:
You should be complete by yourself.
And then Shane:
You won’t be able to really love anyone until you learn to love yourself.

My smile broadens as I imagine Shane in drag, doing Whitney Houston, warbling about “The Greatest Love of All.”

That’s when I hear a light tap at my door.

“Henry?”

It’s my mother.

“What is it?” I call.

She opens the door a crack. “Just making sure you’re comfortable.”

“I’m fine, Mom.”

“Well, I’m going to bed now, darling,” she says. “You sure you don’t need anything?”

I sigh. “Thanks, Mom. I’m really fine.”

She makes that sound in her throat. Tiptoeing over to the bed, she plants a kiss on my forehead.

“Henry,” she asks, “are you happy?”

For once, I don’t hear the question as an accusation.

“I’m getting there, Mom,” I assure her. “I’m getting there.”

H
ere is what I dream this night in my childhood bed.

I’m sitting in a graveyard watching Luke dig up a grave.

No, I don’t like this. I need to change the channel. I’m good at doing that in dreams. I’m usually conscious enough to change my dreams, to turn them around, to change direction if I don’t like the way they’re heading.

If only I could do that awake, too. But only asleep do I seem to have that power.

Slowly I make Luke, his shovel and the graveyard disappear. But I sense the kid is still following me. I’m hurrying, rushing somewhere. Behind me I hear Luke’s footsteps, and they’re gaining on me.

We’re running across the breakwater, which doesn’t seem to end. Instead of terminating on the sandy shores of Long Point, the rocks continue out across the water, leading into infinity. I’m running faster and faster, jumping from rock to rock, terrified of falling in between, getting stuck—because then Luke would catch up with me. He’d be on me. He’d get me. And I’d be—

I’d be what?

Why am I so frightened of Luke?

He’s just a kid.

I stop running. I turn to look behind me. Luke is some distance away but he’s approaching fast. I stand my ground. I wait for him. But as he nears, I see it’s not Luke at all. It’s someone I don’t know, a haggard looking man, wasted from illness. He runs right past me, not even stopping to look.

“That was Darryl,” comes a voice behind me.

Luke has magically appeared at my side. I don’t question how it happened. It’s a dream after all.

“Why is he running?” I ask.

“Because you don’t think he’s real.”

I look at him closely. “Is he?”

Luke laughs. “Henry, you just
saw
him!”

“No, I only
read
about him.”

“You think I’m a brilliant writer, don’t you?”

“I think you’re a messed-up kid,” I tell him. “But I want to help you.”

“You do? Really? Even after all that’s happened?”

I grip him by the shoulders.

“I think you’re Darryl,” I tell him. “I think Darryl is you.”

All at once Luke’s soft features begin to dissolve. They seem to melt, as if all the flesh behind his skin dries up. Suddenly, instead of a beautiful young boy, there’s a wasted cadaver standing in front of me. I pull back, letting out a sharp cry.

“You don’t want to help me,” says this hideous version of Luke. It runs away from me, down across the rocks of the breakwater.

I sit up in bed in a cold sweat.

Is that it?
Is it
Luke
who has AIDS?

I used a condom when I fucked him
, I reassure myself, trying to get back to sleep. But it’s difficult to find a comfortable position. My sheets are sticky. I suddenly remember his description of himself, stuck to sweaty sheets, his flesh picked from his bones.

I wish I were home. I mean my
real
home. My
real
bed, in my own apartment. Right now I want nothing more to be back in Provincetown, the foghorn calling outside my window, Jeff and Lloyd and Ann Marie and J. R. just across the way.

In the hallway my parents’ dehumidifier clicks on, and finally its low hum lulls me back to sleep.

When I dream again, it is Gale who waits for me. “The thing is, Henry,” he’s saying, standing at the top of the stairs outside his apartment, looking down at me below, “you don’t know who any of us are.”

“That’s right,” I agree, “because you won’t tell me.”

He shakes his head, smirking. “You don’t ask the right questions.”

“Don’t go blaming me!” I shout. “I’m not the one who throws you out every time you get too close.”

I’m suddenly aware Gale is wearing a long black raincoat belted around his waist. He throws his head back and laughs.

“What is it you want from me, Henry?
This?
”

And suddenly he throws open his raincoat, revealing his naked body. His dick must be a foot long with an enormous mushroom head. I gasp out loud.

He runs into his apartment.

“No, not this time,” I shout. “Not this time are you going to get away!”

I hurry up the stairs in pursuit. But when I get inside his place it’s not Gale’s apartment at all. It’s Evan and Curt’s condo, and I spot them in the hot tub. But they’re not alone. They’re submerged up to their shoulders with Jeff and Lloyd—as well as a fifth person I can’t make out right away.

“Do you have Luke in there with you?” I ask.

“No,” replies the fifth person, hidden in shadows. “Luke’s not here.”

I peer in close so I can make him out.

It’s Martin.

“Come on in, Henry,” Martin says. “The water’s fine.”

“No, thanks,” I say. I’m angry that he’s in there with them. It feels wrong somehow. I feel betrayed by him in some crazy sort of way.

“You sure you won’t give it a try, Henry?” Martin asks.

“No. I’ve got to find Luke.”

“Suit yourself,” Martin says.

I head outside into a very bright day. The sunlight nearly blinds me, in fact. I realize that I’m working my way through a crowd. I’m at Tea Dance. Boys everywhere, shirtless and delicious, and a majestic blue sky dropping into the green sea beyond. There’s one thing wrong, however. There’s no music. The soundtrack of my dream has gone silent. Utterly, eerily silent.

I spot Luke leaning against the railing, in the spot where I first met him. He’s drinking a bottle of water. He looks good. Real good. Sexy, dreamy, unattainable. Backlit by the sun, he seems to glow. His eyes flicker over to me when he realizes I’ve seen him.

“Hi,” he says, “I’m Luke.”

We shake hands.

“You’ll protect me, won’t you, Henry?” he asks, holding my gaze and refusing to let go of my hand.

“Of course,” I promise him. “But protect you from whom?”

“My father,” he says. “You know what he did to me.”

“From your writing, I have some clue,” I tell him. “Let me make it all better for you.”

“Yes, Henry, please.”

I take him in my arms.

“We don’t have to live with hurt and fear all our lives,” I tell him. “Let me make you happy, Luke. I know I can make you happy. Make you forget all the pain.”

We kiss. My heart swells with a sense of happiness at last. This is what I have searched for…

But when I pull away from the kiss, Luke is the wasted cadaver he was earlier. He starts to laugh, revealing skeleton teeth.

“You said you’d protect me,” he says between laughter.

“Then tell me the truth!” I demand. “Be real! Tell me who you are!”

He just keeps laughing, his body decaying right here in my arms.

No, I don’t like this.

Time to change the channel.

By sheer force of will, I cause Luke to change back to his beautiful self.

“There,” I say. “That’s better. You’ll tell me now? Who you really are?”

“Yes,” Luke says, contrite. “I will.”

Of course, at that very moment, I wake up.

And he was just about to tell me who he was! He was just about to be honest with me for the first time!

I fall back to sleep, determined that, come morning, I’ll retain that skill to change things if I don’t like them. It will no longer be a power that works only in dreams.