In Memory of Angel Clare (23 page)

“I wonder if Michael’s still upset by—?” Ben shook his head at himself. “No. He’s fine. The boy’s probably just been out tomcatting around.”

“What?” Jack jumped at Ben’s bit of guilty wondering. “Something happened when he was with you and Danny? Something he said or how he behaved?”

“He seemed okay when he was with us. He even seemed to be getting over Clarence. Read some of his letters, but he seemed bored by them. Didn’t even want to talk about them or hear about Clare in college.”

“But something upset him,” said Jack.

“Well, yeah. We should’ve known better. But”—Ben rolled his eyes—“We tried a threeway with him one night and it didn’t work out.” He suddenly looked at Laurie, uncomfortable to have her hear about this. “Which sometimes happens when the involved parties aren’t all in the right mood,” he insisted. “I realize this might sound somewhat sordid to a woman, but it can be perfectly natural and friendly given the right circumstances.”

Laurie glanced worriedly at Jack.

He had told her all about Ben and Danny’s hobby, repeated stories with amusement, disapproval, or envy, depending on his mood. But what he felt today was righteous anger. “Damn, Ben! You and Danny pounced and Michael freaked?”

“No. That’s not what happened,” Ben said defensively. Seeing the door to the main room was half open, he stood up and closed it. He leaned his back against the door. “Michael got into bed with us one night. He said he didn’t want to sleep alone. One thing led to another, and
Danny
was the one who freaked. He didn’t freak, exactly, but he couldn’t go on and he went down to the kitchen. I didn’t want to go on without him, and Michael went back to his own bed. The end.”

“So what does something like that mean emotionally?” Laurie asked both of them.

“Yes,” said Jack. “How was Michael after you got him worked up, then kicked him out of bed? If it was me, I’d have felt like shit.”

“It wasn’t you, Jack. It was Michael. And he seemed fine. He was disappointed and I was apologetic. I think Danny and I felt shittier about it than he did. We hugged him goodbye at the train station the next day and everything was fine.”

“I’ll bet,” said Jack. “We know how attuned you are to people’s feelings.”

Ben looked hard at Jack, then glanced down at the telephone. “I haven’t got time for this. I’m in the middle of something much more important than your fine-tooth combing of moral nits. Danny and I were in the wrong, all right? But Michael’s stronger than you give him credit for. He hasn’t thrown himself under a train somewhere, and he certainly didn’t do it because we kicked him out of bed.”

Laurie groaned. “Jack’s
not
saying it’s your fault. We don’t even know if anything’s happened for
anybody
to be at fault. We want to know Michael’s state of mind, that’s all.”

But Jack could not help feeling it was Ben and Danny’s fault. To be kissed and touched by someone you knew, then pushed away—it would be devastating, leaving you vulnerable to any accusation or rejection that followed. There must have been some hidden signal in the boy’s eyes or vibration in his voice yesterday that alerted Jack to his condition, unconsciously, without Jack recognizing how he knew what he knew.

“And I’m telling you his state of mind was fine,” Ben claimed. “Christ almighty. You people. You in particular, Jack. Here we are in the middle of a war”—he gestured at the telephone—“and all you can do is fret like a mother hen over a boy who’s fine. Who’s too oblivious to be anything but fine. You’ve gone on and on yourself about how oblivious Michael is.”

“Maybe I was wrong,” said Jack. “Maybe it’s all been an act.”

Ben shook his head. “You take Michael much too seriously. The way you’ve babied him? He’s just a kid who got in over his head on something, but it’s over now and he did fine. He was perfectly cool, competent, and mature the six months he had Clarence on his hands. I admire Michael for that. The only thing off about Michael is that he’s got no gay identity.”

“Unlike those who have nothing
but
their gay identity,” Jack told him. It was part of a longstanding debate between them, but Jack used it now in anger.

Ben frowned. “Jack, I wonder how much you’re really worried about Michael. The more you go on about him, the more I think he’s just your newest way of grieving for Clarence.”

“No, you wouldn’t understand my grief, would you?” sneered Jack. “Some of us remember our friends. And not just when it serves our political purposes the way it did in your so-called obituary.”

“Guys!” cried Laurie. “This has nothing to do with—”

“Yes!” Ben barked at Jack. “There was more politics than Clarence in that obituary. So what? We’re not talking about somebody who died in a car wreck, dammit! This wasn’t a private death that’s over and now there’s nothing to do but grieve! It’s time you got over your idiotic notion Clarence’s death was strictly personal, involving just him and you—and Michael. We’re talking about something that’s still going on, that can kill Danny, me, even you, Jack.”

Jack stood up straight and said, “He was my best friend. He deserves to have one person who remembers who he was now that he’s dead. Personally. For his own sake. And not just as a statistic or pawn in some political career.”

“My career, as you call it—” But Ben was too furious to finish that. “You would’ve done better by Clare if you’d done more while he was sick.”

“What’re you saying? I did things.”

“Yeah, you dropped by now and then. You were around. But you weren’t involved the way I was, Jack. Or the way Michael was. You visited now and then. Big deal.”

Jack was stopped; his mind went blank.

“Ben, don’t,” said Laurie.

But Ben was into his next thought. “Which must be why you’re such a fervent mourner, Jack. You use this fancy personal grief to compensate for all you didn’t do while he was alive. But I was there, Jack. I was involved from start to finish. Hospital and groceries and medications and all the arrangements. I was able to work off my obligation to
my
best friend. I can go on and work for the living because, unlike you, Jack, I know I did all I could for the dead.”

“Ben!” Laurie cried. “Shut up! Will you shut the fuck up!”

Ben went silent, and looked amazed.

“Both of you,” Laurie snarled. “You’re being real assholes about this. What does any of this crap have to do with Michael?”

Ben seemed amazed by all he’d said, and ashamed. He suddenly couldn’t look at either Jack or Laurie. He stepped to his desk, pulled out the swivel chair, and sat down. “All I was saying—” He shook his head at himself. “That was stupid. All I really meant to say was I’m sure Michael’s fine. After all he went through with Clarence, and handled very well, he’s not going to flip out over the little things we’ve done.”

Jack lowered his head and said nothing. He was still engaged in the argument in his head, searching for things he had done for Clarence. There were the visits, the few hours spent at the hospital, the article in
Film Comment,
and not much else. Ben was right. Ben had done far more, with the thoughtless busyness with which he threw himself into any activity, yet he had been in the middle of it while Jack drifted in and out, “visiting,” watching Clare’s dying from a distance. Suddenly, Jack’s grief felt thin and dishonest, and his concern for Michael completely misplaced.

“I had no business saying all that,” Ben apologized. “I don’t really believe any of what I said. I said it only to protect myself against things you said, Jack. It was a painful experience for everyone. It’s idiotic for us to argue over who did how much.”

Jack nodded. “I shouldn’t have said what I said, either. I apologize.” But the apology did not make him feel less miserable or stupid the way apologies usually did after he lost his temper.

Laurie tried to smooth things by mocking both of them. “Really. You sounded like two Vietnam vets bickering over who had the worse tour of duty.” It was a favorite analogy of hers, and Jack noticed she left out her line about both vets spending their tours as typists at headquarters.

“I was overreacting,” said Ben. “Real silly. And my mind’s on other things right now.”

But nobody knew what to say next. Both Jack and Ben knew not to believe each other’s denials of what they’d said. Jack had suspected all along that Ben thought his grief was a foolish luxury, but beliefs and differences that could be ignored when held in private seemed impassable now that they’d been said aloud. And Jack feared Ben was right: his grief was only the unfinished business of failing to do more while Clarence was alive.

The telephone began beeping. Ben looked but didn’t reach for it. He guiltily glanced up at Jack. “I really should take care of this,” he said. “But we’ll talk later. When we can laugh over how that goofy kid made us all a little nutty today.” The telephone beeped again. “Laurie, I’ll bet you go home and find Michael grumping in your living room, as usual.” Not until they both nodded at him in agreement did Ben answer the phone. “Slover. Hey, Jim. So what’s the word? They want it rough or do they want it easy?” He winked and waved at them as they went out the door.

Jocasta was gone from her desk, apparently finished for the day, and the volunteer at the first desk said no woman had come in since they arrived. Laurie wondered aloud if Carla had gone straight home after her meeting. She didn’t mention the exchange with Ben until they were going down the stairs.

“Oh Jack-o. You poor guy. First you get it from me and then you get it from Ben. This isn’t your day, is it?”

Jack shrugged, wanting to show he thought he deserved it. He could not protect himself against Ben’s accusations the way he had against Laurie’s. The rebuke hurt too much for him to talk about it yet. “He’s right about Michael though. After all the boy’s been through, it’s crazy of me to think anything we’ve done could push him over the edge. Especially a few words from somebody like me.”

Laurie frowned, but said nothing until they were outside on the sidewalk. “Still want to swing by Uncle Charlie’s?” she asked, doubtfully.

Jack shook his head. “No. I don’t need to play that game anymore.”

“Then would you like to get a cup of coffee somewhere?”

“Thank you, no. I think I’ve stirred up enough bad feeling in myself and my friends for one day. If you don’t mind; I think I’ll just go home.”

Laurie looked up at his face and studied it sadly. “Okay,” she said. She put a hand on his shoulder and held it a moment. “You did what you could, Jack. Ben was familiar with the brass tacks about the thing. And Michael was his lover. There’s nothing more you could’ve done without pushing Michael out of the way.”

“I guess.” But acknowledging Ben knew things Jack didn’t only made Jack aware of his uselessness. Maybe he wasn’t good for anything except grieving and fretting and criticizing. “Well, thanks,” he said and bent down to kiss the top of Laurie’s head, his beard snagging strands of her hair. “I’ll give you a call in a half hour or so. So you can tell me if Michael’s back or not. Let him know how thoughtless he was for not telling us where he was, but don’t let on that some of us got a bit hysterical.”

“I won’t,” Laurie said. They walked to the corner together, touched and patted each other goodbye, faked sardonic smiles over the whole affair, and Laurie headed uptown toward the subway station.

The sun was setting and the shadows of buildings were pressed like paper cutouts against the glowing orange brick of St. Vincent’s Hospital on the other side of Seventh Avenue—the neighborhood was dominated by the hospital the way medieval cities were dominated by their cathedrals. Jack was painfully conscious of the hospital as he walked past, although this one had nothing to do with Clarence.

He was such a buffoon, he told himself, a foolish, self-important buffoon. He often found refuge in that description—you cannot be blamed for your failings when you are by nature just a buffoon—but the tag gave him no relief today. He had thought he was being so selfless and wonderful, panicking over a boy who meant nothing to him. But it had only been an elaborate self-deception, a bit of buried guilt disguised as love, the excess emotion of a spectator at a movie. He felt so worthless and bleak as he walked home, he slapped himself with the thought that it would’ve been better if he had died instead of Clarence. He knew it was a silly piece of romantic masochism and didn’t take it seriously, just as Laurie had known not to take his despondency too seriously. Like so much else in Jack’s life, it too would pass.

This side of the street was in gloomy blue shadow, and Japanese tourists were already snapping each other’s pictures under the awning of the Village Vanguard, the strobes of their cameras flashing like heat lightning. Jack walked one more block to Charles Street and turned west toward his apartment, an oyster returning to his shell. At the far end of his street, pinched between the rows of brownstones and the shaggy roof of trees, the peephole of the river glowed like a fireball, the sun setting today in that impossibly precise spot. A stick figure crossed in the distance and threw a quick shadow up the entire length of the street.

Jack noticed somebody sitting on the front stoop of his building in the next block. After spending the afternoon looking for Michael, he immediately thought it was Michael. He sneered at himself for being able to think that still, and ignored the person until he reached the foot of the steps, and saw it
was
Michael.

The boy was asleep, leaning against the sun-gilded balustrade, his hands clutched between his legs, his upper lip and chin speckled with beard, like black pepper. There was a jagged tear in the black leather of one shoe and a chalky mark on the shoulder of his navy coat. He had a brown paper bag at his feet and looked like a young derelict. Jack stood on the sidewalk and gazed, still not believing it was Michael.

Then the boy stirred, cracked open an eye, and bolted awake, as if frightened by a terrible dream. He stared at Jack as if Jack were that dream.

T
HE DAY HAD BEGUN
with a glimpse of what he thought was the morning star.

Still standing on the overpass but away from the edge, Michael had looked around to see where he was. In the pale sky above the black East River, above four smoke-stacks like the fingers of a buried hand, there was a bright pinhole of light, brighter than any star he had ever seen. He rarely noticed stars in the city.