These Things Happen (19 page)

   The bathroom light goes out. George emerges, still in his coat and scarf; he is ready to take off at any minute. The room is dark, except for light from the street. I wish I had a question to ask him, about where something is, or the name of a song I'm thinking of; he never doesn't know. I wish I could ask him what he thinks of me. "But there are still good things about me," I say. "You know there are."

   I look to my palm, to my phone that's smart
and
worthy; it's all there. "Tomorrow, for example . . ." I tap the day, turn the phone to George so he can see there are no tricks, no secret compartments. I read. "Reminder . . . W
alt Whitman . . .
dinner, statue, overdue, shameful . . . Something has to go up
somewhere
, we're invisible in public spaces." I need my glasses now. "Also tomorrow, I give a speech at the Gay Legal Students Caucus—"

   "You don't have to do this," George says.

   But I do! "Saturday . . . right, the
New Yorker
festival. Me, Cynthia Nixon, Larry Kramer, Armistead Maupin, chatting with David Remnick himself. It's been sold out for months, can't miss that. Sunday morning, gay prisoners. Sunday brunch, gay
Afghanis.
Sunday night, transsexual potluck, and I'm not kidding. Sunday night . . . T
rue Blood. With G. T
hat's you. And it's got the gay subtext, so it's all right. " I get a text. It's not Wesley or Lola. A group wants to honor me; am I available in April? "See?" I say to George, holding up my phone. "I'm a good man, in some ways."

   "You're right," George says. "You are."

   "But I'm not a good dad. Not for him. Don't tell me no, because I've seen that, every day he's been here with us. He came so he could get to know me better, right?"

   "Yes. That was the idea."

   "But no one asked
me
," I say. "Oh, maybe they did, as a formality. And what could I say but yes? Please, send him down, let him really get to know his gay dad. It'll be great! When what I should have said—" I stop. "I'm sorry."

   "What were you going to say?"

   "I don't want to tell you."

   But I know that I have to, this thing that will "say" something terrible about me.

"Kenny," he says.

   "I don't want to be known better," I say. " Which I should have said."

   I see, on the bed, a few of his framed actor shots. There are the Toms, of course, Lancelot, Linus, Charlie in
Brigadoon
; every now and then he'll squeeze a pillow into bagpipes and sing "Come to Me, Bend to Me." The last time he did that we took it as a cue to turn off our phones, sleep our laptops, and spend a weekend in bed, three days still dirty enough, after ten years, to amaze us both. We watched the third season of
Battlestar Galactica
, all of it, assigning each other code names, like the characters in the show. I don't remember what they were. But George would.

   "So are you surprised? At what I told you?"

   "I don't think I am. No."

   "Should we go away, possibly? Soon. For just a few days, nothing serious, when all this settles."

   " 'Settles'?"

   " Wrong word, maybe. But the idea would be just easy, no airports. New England, say. See the leaves! And they're always good there on gay issues. Flinty individualism. Any state. Well, except Maine."

   
"Wow,"
George says, as if he'd just learned something surprising.

   "What? Bad idea? There's other places."

   "Oh, no," he says. "Leaves are fine. It's not that."

   I wait. Let him take the time he needs. Because I need to hear from him what "it" is, because I don't know. "Then what is it, George?" He looks away from me when I ask this, shaking his head, his brow furrowed.

   "I think it might just be this," he says at last, and as he does I think I know why I feel like this, unnerved. I don't think I've ever seen George struggle for something to say. "We don't know each other, Kenny. It's that."

   "I thought we did."

   He shakes his head.

   "Are we in trouble?"

   He doesn't say. But now, for the first time since all of this happened, I feel as if I know what to do.

   "May I say something?"

   "Of course."

   "We haven't talked about what happened down there, this afternoon. About Lola, and her questions."

   "Did I try to fuck Wesley, you mean."

   "I suppose."

   "What's to suppose? And I never got to answer!"

   "You should never have been asked."

   "Well, maybe you're right. You're the maven on this stuff."

   "It just goes on, George. No matter how many gay weddings they go to, how many marvelous gay friends they have. Nothing changes!
People
don't! They just learn how to hide whatever it is they feel that makes them look bad for feeling it. This is what I
really
fight, every day. You have
no idea."

   "But I do," he says. "You're amazing."

   "And I didn't stop her. I didn't stand up for you. I could have, I thoroughly see that. I don't know what happened. I don't know if you can ever forgive me."

   "You seem to think I need that, to be stood up for. Defended. But I don't. And besides, she was— sort of right."

   I laugh. Anyone would.

   "Did I say something funny?"

   "Well, you didn't say
that
."

"No?"

"You'd have to think she was right, and you don't. You can't."

"But I do."

"It's almost not worth talking about."

"Like Alice, you mean?"

"That's not fair," I say.

   "It's not fair to be told what I think or don't think. Or
can't
think, even."

   I'm so angry, or upset, or whatever this is, that I feel light-headed. I push aside some of the shoes on the bed so I can sit. I need to be free from this for a moment, from the punches coming at
me
, Lola's little stings at me in the restaurant, George's coolly telling me things that could never be true as if they could be, as if they are.

   And he has more. "Let me try to explain. I probably can't, I know that, it's not what I'm good at. But if you'll bear with me—" He makes a space for himself on the bed, next to me. For a few moments he says nothing. He smells like rosemary. A few moments more. I don't want to look at him, but I hear him whispering, sense his head nodding, as if in conversation, even hear what sounds like a short, private laugh. "Okay," he says then. "Whatever, but . . . she doesn't know me. Do you know what I mean?"

   "No. Sorry. You're wrong! She
loves
you. Which makes it worse. Unless she's been pretending, which is entirely possible with people like Lola—"

   He puts his hand on my arm, lightly, not to stop me but as if he is charging himself from me. I stop, anyway; I have an instant, inconvenient hard-on, like an eighth grade boy in math class as the end-of-period bell sounds. A few moments pass. Then he nods, giving himself some signal to move ahead.

   "It's more like this, really. She knows me
partly.
How to say this . . .
downstairs.
Does that make any sense?" he says. Which Wesley says. He doesn't wait for me to tell him if it does or not. "I'm so visible, down there. I'm in my show." There's a burst of laughter coming from the street, from the well-fed and satisfied, leaving Ecco. "But up here, it's like she said. 'How do I know what goes on?' "

   "She doesn't have to know anything," I say.

   "Shut up." He takes his hand from my arm.

   "I'm sorry."

   "She knows me, down there. But up here, it's not the same. She hasn't got much imagination about it, but none of them do. They all know what they know already. Which is all they
have
to know because— I don't know—
because they all know it.
They know
I'm not
safe. T
hat I'm two people. They may not be aw
are
that they know it, but so what? They do! And I do. One me is the guy who remembers the names of your kids and your favorite pasta shape, who can rate and compare Elphabas. And the other one's the guy up here. The aging old chorus-boy queen—"

   "Come on, George—"

   "—alone with a teenaged boy, and we all know what that means. Which
she
knew, of course, but let herself not know. But now she has to know. And now all she's doing is her job. To keep him safe. Which he's not. No one is. But she still has to do it. We
all
have to do our jobs. So it would have been pointless for you to stand up for me. Sorry. Now, she's just doing her job. I don't hate her for that. I don't hate anyone who does their job." He gets up, looks down at me. "So there ya go, I guess."

   I stay on the bed, watching as he goes out. Then I get up, follow, find him throwing away the flowers in the kitchen. "I was going to do that," I say.

   "No worries."

" Where are those cigarettes?"

"What do you mean? We don't have any."

"What about that pack?"

   He laughs, or that's what it sounds like. "Why do some people always think there's
that
pack? And that someone knows about it but won't tell. Do you know what I mean?"

   What does
this
mean, I wonder, right now? That we're okay? "Well?"

   "They're in here. To my left, behind T
he Best of Gourmet,
1997
. I'll get them." He reaches for the book but stops just before he takes it down. "No," he says.

   "But you said—"

   He wipes crisp browned petals from the counter into his palm. "What do you want, Kenny?"

   "A cigarette, like I just said."

   "No." He shakes his head, so I try again.

   "I want to call Lola. Maybe I'll get through this time. What if they know something?"

   "That's not what I mean. What do you w
ant.
Not just in this minute, Kenny. We have to talk about this."

   "You know what I want, George. I want us to be us, again."

   " Which means?"

   "You sound like Wesley," I say. " Which means, which means, which means."

   "You
want us to be us again
. That's a little Marilyn and Alan Bergman– ish, isn't it? It sounds like something deep, but isn't, really?"

   "I want to be how we were. Better? How about— how it was before he came."

   "What else?"

   "That's it. I do want that. I love you. You've got to know that. I'm sure you do." But he just looks down, shaking his head again, not even with me at the moment, I can tell, but with the ongoing conference inside him. "Is that not what I should want? Help me. It's ten years. Good things have happened, for both of us. We both know that. So what can I do?"

   "I don't know."

   "Then you want to leave, probably."

   "I just said—"

   But I say, "Wait." Because I hear him, for sure. He's above us, on the roof, where George hears him at night, and I don't. I look up. "That's him! Right?"

   
"Go, Kenny."
He whispers, which we do now, with Wesley a wall away.
"Go up there."

   "Oh, come on!" I laugh as I think he's right; we
don't
know each other, at all, if he thinks I could do that.

   "Why do you think he's here?"

   "Not for me."

   
"Go."

   "Well, I'm not going to, George." He says nothing. He's always saying
something
, except now, when I need it. I explain myself, as I see it clearly. "There's nothing I can do up there, you see. He knows that; he's not stupid. He's been here; he's
seen
me. He knows who I am." I want that to end it. And I want George to say something, to agree to that with me. As anyone would. But all he does is look at me. Why? "The one who should go is
you.
He'll be fine with you. I trust you with him." He doesn't go, though. I don't know what to do as I hear Wesley again, above us, moving around. And now as I look at George I see what might be tears. I've seen him cry many times, over television shows, a
cookie
, a fall day. But this is different; I think he's crying for
me.
And he doesn't need to. I want him to know that, that I'll be all right. "I'm afraid, sweetie," I say. "That's all." He nods, and puts his hands on my arms. "I'm scared I'll disappoint him, and hurt him. He needs someone better than me. Someone like
you
, George. Okay?"

   I don't feel right, suddenly. Nothing is where I remember it being a moment ago, as if walls have shifted, perspectives changed, things that a moment ago I could touch seem very far away. I won't say anything about it; he'll go up, and I'll go the living room and sit down until this passes. I move to do that, but he doesn't let me go. He tightens his grip on my arms, and as he does I lose my balance; the weight of each of us takes the other down. We're on the floor, tangled, holding each other tightly. I don't know what will happen if I stand up.

   But then I'm all right. We both get up, both brush ourselves off, as if we'd just played together in piles of leaves. He doesn't hold me anymore. And we nod to each other.

   "What should I do about tomorrow, do you think?" I ask.

   "What's tomorrow?"

   He knows. We talked about it. "Tennessee. The old man they kicked out of the nursing home when they found he was HIV-positive. He could keep his stuff there—"

   "Right," he says. "His stuff, but not his 'person.' What was the term?"

   He's asking
me
a question. This is new. Does it mean something good? "His
corporeal self
is the legal term," I say. "So, what do you think I should do?"