The Painting of Porcupine City (17 page)

“Tell him Phoebe says he has to!” she shouted, angry for an instant, then smiling again.

He opened the fridge and from the shelf marked MATEO he grabbed a bottle of water.

“Thanks for the food. Now I’m out like the fat kid in dodgeball. That’s a simile.”

Phoebe laughed hysterically.

He took the plate upstairs to the room he rented from Marjorie, set it on his door-desk, and scattered the contents of his pockets across the door: the markers, his keys and wallet and phone, the mail.

He set aside the bill and opened the CD. He chuckled at the name of the album, by a band called Numismata. There was a note, written in English in his mother’s hand:

Mateo— Saw V. with this the other day and I had to buy one for you. “Brazilians On The Moon”! Someday. Maybe it will be you! I hope you are doing well. Please think about a visit soon... it has been too long! Pai sends his hello. —Mamãe

He smiled, folded the note, tucked it under his copy of
Porcupine City
. He popped the CD into his laptop. He liked the sound but it struck him as surprisingly low-key for his cousin, who last Mateo knew was in the throes of a hip-hop phase.

He logged on to chat but Vinicius wasn’t online.

He ate the hotdogs slowly while checking the weather forecast and perusing graffiti message boards to see what people were saying about him today. When he was done he got out of his clothes, did a hundred push-ups and a hundred sit-ups, and went to shower and shave in the floral bathroom. Marjorie had told him a million times he could tear down the wallpaper and paint it however he liked, perhaps as a way to coax him into doing renovations, but the flowers didn’t bother him, and anyway he had more important things to paint than bathrooms. After drying off he put on some shorts and walked barefoot back to his room. It was almost 7:30.

He lay down on the floor and pulled himself head-first under the bed. It was no small procedure to remove his black book, and his night with me had shifted it around, but when he’d fished it out of the panel cut into the box-spring, he sat up and slapped dust off his back. He opened the book on his lap. It was now almost four inches thick and running out of blank pages—he’d have to start a third volume soon. (Or he could finally begin the transition to digital, but old habits die hard.)

This evening, as on most evenings, he succumbed to the desire to look through his old work, and when he reached the first blank page he got up and pulled from his office pants a few Polaroids taken last night, and the one from the night before in Charlestown, with me. None of his Dedinhos stuff appeared in this book—this book was for the special stuff he did on his own—but this one, with my drippy ARROWMAN beside it, made him smile. He glued them in, and with a fine-tipped Sharpie began noting the location of the piece, and the date.

A knock on the door made him streak ink across one of the photos. He flung the black book under the bed, jammed his toes between the mattress and box-spring, flopped backward, put his hands behind his head and said, “Come in.”

Marjorie opened the door. “Didn’t mean to disturb.”

“It’s OK, I was just working out.” He sat up. He felt funny to be shirtless in front of her and folded his arms across his chest.

“Muscle man,” she said, and he blushed. “I just wanted to let you know, Mateo, that—well, I noticed you had a boy over the other night, and—”

Suddenly shirtlessness was the least of his embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I was sure we were quiet.”

“Oh— I heard you come in, is all I meant.” She looked down at her clogs. “Going up the stairs. That’s all I—” She took a breath. “Anyway. What I wanted to say is that you don’t have to sneak him around. You’re welcome to have him over any time. You know that. Or anyone special.”

“Thank you. That’s nice.”

“Have him over for dinner. I could make something. Or to watch TV. Phoebe loves meeting new people.”

“I know.” He stood up and sat on the bed.

“I would make one request, though,” she said. She seemed to be choosing her words carefully, and that made him nervous. “I don’t think Phoebe needs to know exactly
who
he is. Does that make sense? I think it’s enough for her to know he’s your friend. I think it would be confusing for her.”

“Confusing?”

“I don’t think she’d understand very well, that’s all.”

He wanted to say, What’s to understand? He knew I would’ve said that, knew I would’ve made a sarcastic promise not to blow any guys in front of her daughter. But instead he said, “Sure. And he really is only my friend. He’s just a guy from work. We’ve only—” Spent one night together, he almost said. “He’s just an amigo.”

“Well.” She nodded. “Now that I’ve made myself look like a total homophobe— How do you say homophobe in Portuguese?”

“Oh, I don’t know.
Inimigos dos gays
, I guess?”

She repeated it carefully, and sighed, and seemed to regret the whole thing. “Anyway, I’ll let you get back to your exercise.”

He lay in bed, the windows turning dark, and looked up at the ceiling at the horse with the elephant trunk. In the whole weird exchange with Marjorie the thing that bothered him most had been something he himself had said: that I was just a guy from work. It seemed right and yet not. Factual but not true.

He tried to put it out of his mind. He rolled over and smelled the other pillow but the smell of me was gone by then. He needed to get to sleep. His day started at 2:00 a.m.

“When do Jamar and I

get to meet this special boy of yours?” Cara pleaded. “It’s been like a month, mister!” She had her back against the arm of the couch. Her feet were wedged under my thigh. Every once in a while I’d feel her toes wiggle through my shorts. She held out a half-full joint and I took it. “Assuming he exists. Jamar thinks this Mateo person might actually be a composite character you’ve created out of a ginormous number of tricks. Mike, Arthur, Tom, Eddie, and Omar.”

“I’ve never dated an Arthur. And it hasn’t been a month! It’s been like ten days. And jeez, Cara, we’re just knocking boots.”

“No, you and the Warcraft kid just knock boots.”

“...”

“So when, huh?”

“Assuming he’s real?”

“Assuming he’s real.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Soon. I promise.” She reached for the joint and I waved her away and put it between my lips again, inhaling as deep as I could. “He’s a busy guy. He keeps weird hours.”

“I can’t believe you’re dating someone you work with,” she said. “It’s so scandalous. Do your other coworkers know?”

They did not know, and although I called Cara a prude for saying it was a scandal to sleep with a coworker, I was delighted to be someone who was doing it. At work I couldn’t help but snicker every time I realized I knew what the I.T. guy looked like naked. The people who passed my cube did not know about the line of freckles across his left shoulder blade, were not familiar with the spray of hairs at the small of his back. Probably had never seen his tattoos. And certainly had no inkling of a thing far more intimate than any of those others: the knowledge of how the I.T. guy spent his nights.

“It’s really not that scandalous,” I told Cara. “He’s not exactly president of the company. He just installs RAM all day.”

“I bet he prefers to install his RAM in you.”

“Touché.”

“You haven’t said much about this one.”

“I never kiss and tell.”

“Mmhm. You kiss and write whole books.”

“Hah.”

“How is he? Big? Long?” She laughed. “You’ve turned me into such a gay man.”

“He’s just right. He’s perfect.”

“How many times total?”

“A couple. I told you, he’s busy. You’re nosy when you’re stoned, aren’t you?”

“Too busy for sex, and you’re hanging out with him anyway?” She leaned forward, withdrawing her feet and circling her arms around her knees. “I think I was right in the beginning: you’re in looove.” Her face was high and earnest. “And why, because I’m so happy for you, Fletcher. It’s so great that you have someone. Even if part of me has always wished it could be me.” She made a fist and socked me in the shoulder.

“Ow!” I took another drag on the joint and passed it back. I made a sneaky look. “I would’ve moved in on that when Jamar was in Denver. I would’ve made my move. Swoop!”

“Like how again?”

“Like swoop!”

We finished the joint and then lay on the couch through the rest of an episode of
Law & Order
, and when it was over I dragged myself up.

“I’m going to go write for a while,” I told her. “I always seem to get interesting things stoned.”

“Don’t leave me.”

“Gotta, princess.”

Right away I noticed Mateo’s

sneakers on the floor by my bed, and that gave him away. But he was too asleep to notice. He was facing away from the door, moppy hair splayed over my pillow. I closed the door and tip-toed to the bed and lifted the sheet.

“Heavens to Pete. There’s a bare Brazilian boy in my bed—
boing!
”

The bare Brazilian rolled over, grinned, put a hand over his eyes. “I wanted to surprise you. Been waiting in here
forever
.”

“That’s adorable. A-dor-a-ble. Adora-bubble. Did you know your chest hair looks like cotton candy? I want to eat it.
Num num num
.” I leaned down and licked his belly button, pressed my tongue into the fuzzy hole. His whole body went rigid and he grabbed me. “Oh, the bare Brazilian’s ticklish!”

Laughing, he said: “What were you doing out there anyway?”

“Couldn’t you smell?” He laughed. “How’d you get in without me seeing you?”

“Secret.”

“Same way you’ve avoided the Boston PD for years, I guess.”

“Take off your clothes!” He tugged at my shirt.

I sat down on the bed. “You should’ve told me you were coming, I wouldn’t have smoked. I’m totally flaccid stoned.”

“No. Totally?” He sat up. He moved to put his hand on my crotch but hesitated. “Anything I can... do?”

“Many men have tried.”

“Damn.”

“Sorry.”

“Well it’s not your fault.”

“Do you need to...?”

“I was
hoping
to,” he said bashfully.

“I could give you a hand. So to speak.”

“No,” he said with a little smile, but he didn’t try to stop me when I pulled aside the sheet. I rubbed my hands together to warm them.

A couple minutes later his hands clenched into fists and with a yelp he filled the four-layer tarpaulin of Kleenex I had ready. It was sexy enough to make me suspect I could’ve gotten something up after all. But too late now.

“
Woooh!
” He fell back on the pillow and threw a forearm across his eyes, a big smile showing under his Boston skyline.

“You’re welcome.” I sat for a second, holding and beholding the tissue. “What am I supposed to do with this now? It looks like one of those bags for frosting cakes with.”

He rolled his eyes. “Flush it for me? I’m in my nude.” He grinned and yanked the sheet up.

I palmed the tissue and snuck out to the bathroom. Cara was still on the couch. “Gotta brush my teeth,” I told her, closing the bathroom door behind me. I lifted the toilet seat but imagined the tissues clogging the finicky pipes, so I dropped it in the wastebasket instead. It landed with a squishy thump. Then I brushed my teeth.

When I came out Cara was straightening up the living room. She had two cups in her hands and an empty bag of Pirate’s Booty crumpled under one arm.

“Did you brush ‘em up?” she said.

I nodded.

“Let me check.” She walked up close to me with her lips puckered and pressed them against mine. It surprised me but was over too quickly for me to react. “Nice and clean,” she said.

I whispered goodnight and went back into my room.

I’d been asleep maybe

an hour when Mateo’s phone started chirping. I rolled over with a gasp, thought it was the end of the world, glared at the clock radio with eyes that felt as big as planets. 2:01 a.m. I started to lay back down but checked the time again in disbelief. It was an hour I was well acquainted with seeing at the end of a day, but never at the beginning of one. This must be a mistake, then, maybe one of his train alarms he forgot to turn off.

He shifted around under the sheets and reached out and killed the alarm. Beautiful silence resumed. Past midnight I’d laid there beside him, listening to the sounds of his breathing, feeling his movements—but now I just wanted to get back to sleep.

A moment later, though, he was sitting up, the sheets sliding down to his bare waist. He was looking at his phone—it lit his face in an otherworldly glow. He rubbed his hair and yawned. Then he put the phone down and slid against me, circling his arm around my chest.

“Time for me to get up, Arrowman.”

“Up?” I whispered, genuinely a little night-delirious but mostly feigning it to keep from having to deal with him leaving. I reached and clutched the back of his thigh. “No up. Sleep.”

“If I sleep,” he whispered against the back of my head, “how will the walls get painted on?”

“Mm.”

“Somebody’s gotta do it.”

“I know,” I said, thinking:
Why?
But by now I was more alert. Sleep was slipping away like an unaffordable luxury. I wanted to be asked to come along but I didn’t want to bring it up myself. It was hard to know what nights were off-limits for me. Some nights he went off by himself. I suspected that when we were together he only dabbled; something entirely different went on the nights he went out alone. Maybe tonight was for serious.

“Are you really pretty tired?” he said, his hands cool against my chest. “Come out with me, if you want.”

I looked at the clock again. “I’m used to being asleep for another five hours.”

“I know.”

“And we have work in the morning.”

“I know. Bring your office clothes with you. I’ll show you how I change in my car. My car’s on the street.”

I thought for a minute but when he peeled away from me I knew I was going to follow him wherever he went.

The bathroom light nearly blew up my eyeballs. I squinted around for my toothbrush while he peed beside me—an act which seemed to me about the most intimate thing I’d ever experienced, and it sent an unexpected warmth through me. He flushed and stepped out of his underwear and got in the shower, the sound of the water suddenly different when he moved beneath the streams.