All American Boy (31 page)

He'd wanted
to get his rocks off
.

But more than that: he'd wanted his sexuality affirmed. He'd wanted proof that it was real, that it could happen, that he was an attractive person, that he was as gay as much as anyone else, that an adult might actually take him seriously.

Seriously enough to want to have sex with him.

Seriously enough to love him.

For that's what it came down to: Zandy had loved him. Maybe it was wrong what he did. Maybe he didn't always do right by Wally. But Zandy had loved him, in a way no one had ever loved him before.

And no one would, ever again.

Except for Ned. But Ned's love had been different. It was the love of an equal. The love of a peer. They had been boys, wild with possibilities, tumbling over each other in bed and in life. Together they were a whirlwind of energy, of adventure, of exploration. Zandy had been grounded, rooted to the earth.

He met Ned toward the end of his freshman year in college. Ned was born in the city, a plumber in his family's business, a big bruiser with lots of “dezes” and “dozes” in his speech. Who would have thought this would be Wally's great love? They met when Ned had come with his uncle to fix some pipes in Wally's dorm. Enough meaningful glances had been exchanged between the boys for Ned to sneak back into the dorm that night, making love to Wally in his upper bunk as his clueless roommate slept soundly. From then on, Ned and Wally were inseparable.

Ned loved the fact that Wally was an actor. Opening night, no matter where it was—Dubuque or Dayton or Tallahassee—there was Ned, front row and center, leading the applause. “I'd'a been an actor, too,” Ned would say, “if I'd been handsome like Wally.”

But Ned
was
handsome. So what if he had a gut from too much beer and started losing his hair at twenty-three? He had the most amazing eyes, ice blue like a Siberian husky's, and the cutest nose, almost like a girl's, turned up and perky. Wally was a regular at the gym, keeping his body fit and toned: he
had
to, if he wanted to land parts. But Ned got squishy over the course of their decade together, and sometimes he'd forget to trim his nose hairs unless Wally reminded him.

And Wally loved him for it.

“Have you given any thought to what it will be like when he's gone?”

Wally lifts his eyes. He's no longer in bed in Miss Aletha's house. He's in the hospital cafeteria, drinking coffee to stay awake, sitting opposite Cheri. Even here the lights are so bright that they make Wally nauseous. Eight floors up Ned is in his last days of PCP.

“No,” he tells her. “I have not given any thought to that at all.”

She takes his hands in hers. “Sweetie, I worry about you. You're down to skin and bones yourself. The reality is that Ned isn't coming home this time.”

Wally pulls out of her grip and runs his hand through his hair. He watches as little flakes of skin drift down to land in his coffee. “He's rallied before,” he manages to say.

“Wally, he has
AIDS
.” Cheri reaches over to place her hand on top of his again. “He can only rally so many times.”

How can she understand? Cheri's never had a boyfriend who lasted longer than a few months, and he's been with Ned for a
decade
! Ten whole goddamn years! He's been with Ned since he was
eighteen
, a scared, confused little boy still shamed by his family, his teachers, his town for what had happened with Zandy. Ned
saved
him. Ned is his
life
. Ned is as much a part of Wally as his blood vessels, his muscle tissue, his brain.

And she has the nerve to ask him if he'd given any thought to what it would be like when Ned was gone.

He'll never be able to think about that. Never.

He can't sleep. He throws aside his sheets and heads downstairs, where he sits at the kitchen table, eating the last slice of ginger cake with his hands. He hears a sound and looks up. Miss Aletha comes in, a kerchief around her head.

“Did we wake you?” Wally asks, an eyebrow arched.

She pours herself a glass of orange juice and sits down beside him. “I heard a few bedsprings.”

“You wanted it to happen, didn't you?”

She shrugs. “I just wanted fate to take its course.”

“I'm an old man, Missy.” He breaks off another piece of the cake. “An old man who couldn't get it up.”

“Oh.”

“It doesn't matter. He was just in it to get sex. I know how boys that age are. Their dicks rule them. I was the same way.”

“Not really.”

“No, I was. So I made sure he got off. I gave him what he wanted.”

She's just looking at him.

“I don't know why it's bothering me so much. I mean, he's just a kid. It's not like I have …
feelings
for him or anything. He's a kid and I had sex with him. That's all it was.”

“Okay. That's all it was.”

“That's all it was.”

You're great, Wally, you know that? You're great
.

There's more to being gay than just having sex, babe
.

Why does it sting so much? The boy's attitude? The way he left, the way he hadn't spent the night, sleeping beside him, his ear pressed up against Wally's chest, listening to his heart? He can't stop remembering how sweet Dee tasted, how fresh his hair smelled as they sat outside, looking up at the moon, the boy's hand in his pocket.

“I shouldn't have done it,” Wally says.

“Why not?”

“Because … because now I feel like shit. Like I'm out of the game. A joke. An old man who can't get an erection. Meanwhile, he's sleeping like a baby up there, not giving the whole thing a second thought.”

“So it's all about you.” Miss Aletha leans back in her chair, cocking her head as she looks over at him. “All about your own perceptions. That's always the way with you, Wally. Isn't Donald entitled to his own set of emotions? He thinks it didn't mean anything to you so he's acting like it didn't mean anything to him.”

“Maybe it didn't.”

“In case you've forgotten, Wally Day, any time a sixteen-year-old has sex, it
means something
.”

“Oh, Missy, it doesn't matter. I'm all sidetracked here.” He pushes the plate, bare except for crumbs, away from him. “Taking my mother to see goddamn Uncle Axel. Hauling bags of dirt around her yard. And today, I was on my way to see Zandy and I wussed out.”

“You apparently had other things to tend to.”

“I need to do what I came here for and then get the hell back to the city.”

“Then do it. Why are you stalling?”

Wally can't answer.

“Maybe you
don't
want to leave Brown's Mill. Maybe that's it. If you do see Zandy, after all—
finally
see him,
finally
make your peace—then there's nothing left to keep you here. Nothing left to keep you hung up on your past, nothing to bitch about, nothing to feel sorry for yourself about.”

“I'm not feeling sorry for myself,” Wally says, annoyed. “I'm just pissed off at all the bullshit in my life.”

She folds her arms across her chest and looks at him intently. “So would you like me to hand you a deck of cards so
you can deal with it?
”

He sticks his tongue out at her.

“Wally, it's been almost
seven years
since Ned died.”

“He was the love of my life!” Wally bangs his fist against the table, startling himself as much as her by the suddenness of his emotion. “I'm sorry,” he says, calming down a little, “but seven years isn't long enough to make the pain go away.”

“So how long is long enough? Nearly
twenty years
have passed since you left your mother's home, with all those issues unresolved. And it's been longer than that since what happened with Zandy. Is that how you're going to live your life? Never dealing with anything, never putting anything to rest?”

He stares at her, his lips tightening.

Missy sighs. “I thought after the breakdown, after spending time at the institute, you'd come back with a better take on life. I thought you'd try to see things differently. But it's always about
you
, Wally. Always about how
cheated
you've been, having parents who failed you and a lover who died on you. Life's been so unfair to you. But what about everyone else? Do you ever stop to think about the
other
person's experience, what it's like for them?”

“Of course I do.”

“No, you don't. You're too busy wallowing in a puddle of self-pity. You retreat from life. You lose touch with friends. You let your career slide.” She stands suddenly, looking down at him, arms akimbo. “When I've spoken to you, when I've asked if you've met anyone new, the answer has always been the same. For seven years now you've chosen to live as a hermit. You act as if life has dealt you such a blow that you can never get up again. Well, people
die
, Wally! And people
go on living!
”

He's angry now himself. “You can't understand,” he tells her.

“Why not? I had a lover die on me, too. I had parents fail me, too. Jesus
Christ
, Wally! Ned
loved
you. Hell,
Zandy
loved you! You said that yourself! Zandy loved you and I loved you! God
knows
I've loved you! You've had all
sorts
of love to make up for where your parents failed you!”

Wally just sits there, looking up at her.

She sighs again. “Do you know what today is?”

“No,” Wally says.

“It's the day Bertrand disappeared, eight years ago.”

“Why do you always say he disappeared? Bertrand
died
, Missy.”

“He
disappeared
.” She wraps her arms around herself. “He was here one day, gone the next. That's how it went, for a whole generation of queens. They just faded away.”

She reaches up, undoing the knot of her kerchief. She slips it off her head, exposing her baldness. Wally is startled. Miss Aletha rarely allows anyone a glimpse of herself without her wig.

“When the sun comes up tomorrow morning,” she says, “I want
life
in this house. Do you hear me? I want laughter, happiness and the promise of youth. No more despondency, Wally. No more self-pity.”

“Missy,” Wally says, “I'm sorry if I've come at a bad time …”

“Eh? I can't hear you, dear.”

He raises his voice. “I'll go back to the city tomorrow.”

“I can't hear you,” Miss Aletha says, heading out of the kitchen. “I'm a deaf old lady. If you're going to talk to me, you'll have to speak up.”

Wally follows her. She's being obstinate.

“A whole generation,” Miss Aletha is saying, lighting a candle. She places it on a table and stands back to admire the flame. “They just disappeared. Here one day, gone the next. But we haven't forgotten them. They didn't live in vain.”

She opens a drawer, withdraws a photograph of Bertrand. He's wearing a tuxedo and top hat, and on his shoulder is perched a white dove. She sets the photo beside the flame and looks down at it.

Wally comes up beside her. He places an arm around her waist.

“No, we won't forget them,” he tells her.

They're quiet, watching the candlelight flicker on the glass of Bertrand's photograph.

“You're right,” Wally says. “Zandy loved me And I loved him. That's what I need to tell him.”

Miss Aletha makes a soft sound in her throat as way of reply.

“That's why I came back,” Wally whispers. “To tell him that I loved him.”

They stand that way for a long time, just watching the flame.

18

SUSPICIOUS MINDS

“I've come to say good-bye, Mother.”

“Oh, Walter. So soon you're leaving.”

Regina looks up at her son. How tall he is. How good-looking. Such broad shoulders. His blond hair is starting to recede slightly at the edges of his forehead. It's a face, a body, she doesn't know, doesn't remember. He's been saying he's Walter these last few days, but he could be a stranger, anyone really, someone just pretending to be her son. Walter, to her, isn't nearly so tall. He has no unshaven whiskers on his cheeks. He's just a boy, seven, maybe eight, in a baseball cap and Converse sneakers. This is who she sees standing in the doorway in front of her. A boy, not a man. But the expression on the face is the same: distant, fretting, eyes cast downward.

“Please don't make me go,” he's saying. “Don't make me go stay with Aunt Selma and Uncle Axel. Please don't make me.”

“Walter,” Regina says, “I wish you didn't have to go”—but to whom does she speak? This man, here? Or the little boy in her mind?

Walter sighs. “I have a couple things still to do, but I'm getting on the road by this afternoon. Now, Mother, remember to take the pills the doctor gave you. They'll help your mind. You won't be as anxious or forgetful.”

“Yes, Luz made a chart for me—”

Jorge suddenly appears in the doorway to the living room. Walter spots him and steps inside. He glares at the boy, who runs off, suddenly frightened.

“The girl took off but she left her brother here?” Walter asks, outraged.

“Yes. It's fine, Walter. Jorge's a good boy. Just like you were, Wal—”

“Mother, you can't take care of him on your own!”

“Why can't I?”

He leans in close to her. “Mother, he's
retarded
.”

“He's a good boy,” she insists.

Regina feels strangely emphatic about the point. She can feel her chin lift, her shoulders stiffen.

“Mother, you can't—” But Walter's voice trails off. “Fine. Okay, fine. Do what you want. Keep him here. It's your problem. Yours and his sister's. If she wants to waltz off with Kyle and leave you stuck with her retarded brother—”