Message of Love (19 page)

“Thanks. I just…”

He looked at me, waiting for more. I wanted to beg him for an answer; how can I make a life with Everett if we’re so disconnected, if half of the people in our lives are just waiting for him to outgrow me, to move on to whatever they think he should be, and the other half, my half, either refused to acknowledge us, or considered it worth innuendo-laden prying?

Instead, I declared, “That tree is hideous. It’s like a robot tree.”

“You bought it!” Mom chimed in from the kitchen.

Was it my duty to remain, to return, to fulfill their lives? And if so, for how much longer? I loved them for their casual wit, their amused nature toward this whole family concept, which was occasionally foiled by bursts of sincerity and honesty that could make me blush.

My anticipation to be away from all that, and on to Pittsburgh, was all that mattered. The now annual visits for a few days before and after New Year’s had become a new tradition, as did disassembling our new wobbly silver tree.

New Year’s Eve almost turned sour. I almost left him, all because he was honest with me.

We had settled in to the guest bedroom in his father’s apartment, then, the night before the holiday, had dinner in the living room while watching a basketball game on the huge television. I maintained a moderate interest as Everett and his father cheered for the 76ers with enthusiasm.

After their predictable trouncing victory, his father bid us goodnight, and Everett handed over the remote.

“I vote that we just go to bed,” I suggested.

“Seconded.”

“Or the shower.”

“Amended, but we better keep it down.”

The next night, Holly showed up an hour early with a limo and two of her friends, ready for the party at the opera house. Holly had “borrowed” a pair of vintage tuxedos from the opera company’s costume shop.

While we dressed, they got an early start at her father’s bar. Then we poured ourselves into the limo, enjoying ourselves at the party for less than two hours, until Everett impulsively turned Cinderella, insisting that we make a mad dash back to the apartment, courtesy of the limo driver. Once back at his dad’s, some nighttime antics took place timed with the fireworks.

Celebrating with a crowd of people had been fun, but we had managed to celebrate in private; well, semi-private. It felt like an audience, with his room lights off, the night skyline behind us, the curtains pulled wide. I strode across the room naked, and retrieved a bottle.

Everett had pilfered one of his father’s ‘spare’ champagnes. Mr. Forrester and his girlfriend were, according to Ev, “having a ball in the ballroom, and again several flights up at the William Penn.”

With their comparatively romantic setting paired with our own –the champagne, the view, and the connected, almost choreographed situation of it all– I appreciated how his family knew we were together, and gave us our space.

As he finished up in the bathroom, I stood at the large window, surveying the fascinating lights of the night skyline and the bridge lights beyond it. Had it really been two years since that first drive to Pittsburgh, where we had approached the city for the first time together, singing and smiling with anticipation?

“Hey. You’re naked.”

“Hey. You noticed.”

I settled into the bed as he shifted from his chair, tugged his legs up and then under the covers. Despite its blandness, its sparse décor, the room had taken on a familiarity. I felt safe, comfortable with him.

“Where’s the bubbly?”

“Oh.” I got up, walked to the shelf by the door.

“You sure nobody can see us?” I asked as I hovered near the window.

“Only if we–” The light flashed on. I hurriedly turned around, grinning at him, then jumped upon the bed, where we fought over the light switch in and out of darkness.

Once our battle concluded, over another shared bottle swig, I asked him, “So, are you gonna live here?”

“I don’t know. It’s like they’re each auditioning for me.”

Mr. Forrester had repeated his offer of getting Everett a studio apartment in his building.

“I got an offer from Holly, too, in her new apartment, and from my mother,” Everett. I had yet to visit his mother’s home during these visits.

“What are you gonna do, flip a coin?”

Cozying up in bed, the curtains still open to enjoy the view, the champagne slightly slurring my words, I understood what he had said about the distance between his parents. For all its panoramas, the guest room felt cold, unfilled, still lacking any real character of Everett.

I asked him if he had thought of bringing more of his old things, trophies or old toys, to keep at his father’s apartment.

But he shook his head. “This is ‘new dad.’ This is like, you know, homey like a hotel room; dormant. I don’t think I can live with any of them, re-nest, you know?”

“Hmmm.” I found his dilemma puzzling. I took my parents’ welcome back for granted. Whenever, if I’d wanted to work at the nursery fulltime, I assumed they would be fine with it, for a few years, perhaps.

But they knew I had ambitions to leave Greensburg. I’d pretty much established that at my fifth birthday party, a story my mother told more than I remember. Inspired by some illustrated children’s book, I had declared that I would one day ‘live on a big mountain top in a forest by the sea.’

The parks and nature and wildlife and moss, those were all part of my future, even if my studies were mostly limited to books and igneous rocks. The idea of home was still my parents’, but what Everett was already facing, in addition to the family guilt-trip triage, was the unmet goal of true independence.

“Besides,” Everett mused. “Why redo the room for me? He’s probably sizing it up for a nursery if he knocks up the girlfriend.”

He sounded so sad to me. I offered a hug, hoping it would lead to more, despite the late hour, and our being slightly drunk.

“So, New Year’s resolution; I want to tell you something, but I don’t want you to be upset.”

I sat up in bed, wondering what new surprise he had in store.

“Remember Kyle the gymnast?” he asked.

“Puppy dog eyes? Grapefruit-sized shoulders?”

“That would be him.”

“Yes.”

“Well, we’d been working out together. He’s got all these amazing upper body routines, and he’s so hyper.”

“Yeah? Whatever happened to him?”

“This was, March?”

“And?”

“He came over to my dorm, just insisted on visiting.”

“Insisted.”

“Well, we kind of… He kind of privately showed me some of his moves, naked.”

“Naked.”

“He’s very flexible.”

“One would assume,” I nodded, lips pressed together.

“It was just the one time. I promise it’ll never happen again.”

“What won’t happen again?”

“We kind of had sex.”

“Kind of.” And then, an emptiness swept over me where anger or jealousy was supposed to flood in.

“He was showing off, and just curious about me, I guess.” He explained the brevity of the act, and Kyle’s comparative gymnastic upside-down talents.

“It was just a little, you know.” He began mimicking the motion of an upside down blow-job, as if to joke about its inconsequence, while admiring its ingenuity.

“No, I don’t know.”

“It was fun. I don’t feel guilty. But I am being honest.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because it happened, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“Why be sorry? It sounds like you had fun.”

Was I supposed to be angry, leave, shout at him? It all seemed rather inconvenient, it being late at night, and me unable to imagine leaving, what with being drunk and naked.

“You could, you know, have a little dalliance and it would be okay,” he offered.

“A ‘dalliance?’ What the fuck is a dalliance?”

“I told you before. I want you to have a full experience. I don’t want to hold you back.”

“From what? You think sucking some other guy’s dick is just extra credit?”

“It doesn’t mean anything. He’s... You should try it; have an adventure.”

“An adventure. Is that what it is to you?”

“Yeah. It’s like that Amish holiday. Rumspringa.”

“I should go back to Holly’s. I’m not feeling very Amish.”

“No, Reid. Please. It didn’t mean anything. It was just fun.”

“Fun.”

“Yes.”

“All this ‘fun’ must be what’s giving you some memory lapse. I fought for you, to keep you in my life.”

“Thank you for reminding me, again.”

“And it’s also kind of an anniversary, which is like the worst time you could have admitted this.” But what made me feel worse was how his admission cracked open my own door to infidelity.

“Yes. We stuck on New Year’s Eve that first time,” Everett said, then joked, “It was very sticky.”

“You’re impossible.”

“I know. Let’s be together. I promise. No more fooling around.”

“Maybe I want to have a little, what did you call it? A dalliance?”

“What, as revenge?”

“To even the score.”

The fact that he had managed to have an encounter with some elfin jock seemed unimportant, at least to him, and I was supposed to agree, because we were continually negotiating our place together in each other’s lives.

Perhaps this was the moment where someone else might have stormed off and gone home. But where could I go in the middle of the night? And where was home; my parents house, where my old toys lived? The odd little room we rented in Philadelphia? And where was his home, where would I run from? Did he even know?

“Well, we might as well enjoy the view,” I said as I rose from the bed.

“What are you doing?”

“You’ll see.”

And then, with half of the skyline before us, I repeatedly, somewhat drunkenly attempted, and finally succeeded in managing a naked handstand.

Chapter 25

January 1982

Driving back to Philadelphia, we agreed to stop just after Harrisburg, for lunch and a bit of “freaking out the locals,” as Everett called it.

Interstate 76 Turnpike led us through drab industrial towns, but more green hills and mountains of pine and spruce forests. Despite the cold, I almost wanted to stick my head out of the window like a tongue-wagging dog.

“What say we have a little adventure?” Everett teased.

“What kind of adventure? I don’t see any hitchhiking gymnasts.”

“Keep calm; nothing too outrageous. Get out the map.”

I obeyed, but didn’t know what I was looking for.

“How do we get to Lancaster?”

I checked. “Route 283, then we can stay south on 30. You want what, to seduce an Amish boy?”

“Maybe. Look just past Lancaster.”

I scanned the map, then found what I knew was his goal. “Intercourse?”

He grinned. “We have to go once. Do you have the camera Holly gave you?”

“Yep.” Holly had given me one of her older 35-millimeter cameras as a Christmas present. Although she apologized for offering what she called a hand-me-down, I was thrilled. It was better than the cheap Instamatic I’d been using, and Everett and I had been taking more pictures together.

I folded the map to isolate our route, and shook my head. “You planned this.”

“Well? Come on, it’ll be fun. We can take pictures in front of a road sign.”

He was trying to cheer me up, remind me that we were still a couple, that I was more important than anyone else, and still able to have fun.

Due to the season, and the record freezing temperatures, we found few tourist attractions open, but we did stop at a convenience store disguised as an old-fashioned Dutch-style home. One lone black Amish carriage was tied up in a nearby parking spot, but we didn’t see their owners, and knew better than to try to take a picture. Besides, the horse looks absolutely miserable.

We finally approached some other amused tourists bundled in parkas who had the same idea, and grinned like silly kids as we traded places under the faux-antique ‘Welcome to Intercourse’ sign.

A few restaurants were open, if not busy, and after a bit of fuss up the one step of a folksy-themed restaurant, with a flustered hostess who acted as if she’d never seen a wheelchair, we got a table.

“What happened to you, honey?” our stout waitress asked.

Everett whipped off his scarf and gloves. “I got hungry and dragged my boyfriend to this dive.”

“No, I meant… I’m sorry. Would you like something warm to drink?”

“Yes. And we’re ready to order.”

As the waitress excused herself, Everett shook his head as is if to brush off the awkward exchange.

“I don’t know how you deal with that.” I had mostly stood silent as Everett dealt with such people. It was his decision how to react, depending on his mood.

“Well, I can always tell the blimp story!”

“You need a new tall tale.”

He shifted in his chair, yanked off his parka and stuffed it on the booth seat beside him, looked around, out a window. “Hey, what say we get a room at one of those hideously quaint inns?”

“Ev, Philly’s an hour away.”

“But we’re in Intercourse!”

“I’m sure they’re all tired of the jokes.”

“I’m not.”

“You really want to?”

“No, I was just kidding.”

I fiddled with a ketchup bottle, considered squirting him with it.

“Spoilsport.”

“If you want quaint, we could go shopping at Ye Oldee Giftee Shopee.”

“Arth thou craving a trinket, young Mathter Conniff?”

I smirked. “We only got Mrs. Kukka a Christmas card. Maybe she likes candles.”

“Or a pewter olden denture cup.”

Once again, we got stares for laughing a bit too loudly.

Our giggles continued unabated after lunch as we pulled into a gift shop parking lot, even though it was just across the street.

Having to distance myself from him when his muttered ‘olden’ comments kept me withholding snorts of laughter, I settled on a shelf of candles and porcelain figurines. I calmed down, a grin still stuck on my face as the thick scent of perfumed gifts became a bit overwhelming. I was surprised to see Everett near a small model bed, having what seemed to be a serious conversation with a saleswoman.

“That’s a bit lavish for a landlady, don’t you think?”

“Which one do you like?” He reached for one of the quilts the saleslady had produced.

“I don’t know her taste.”

“They’re not for her, silly.” He gestured for me to come closer, and said softly, “It’s for our bed. Us together. None of that other stuff matters,” he waved his hand, as if to brush off the likes of Kyle, he of the puppy dog eyes and grapefruit shoulders. Then his voice regained an open tone. “How about this one?”

I gazed confusedly at a pattern of dainty triangular fabric pieces, unable to think. “Uh, the one with the green patches.”

“We’ll take that one,” Everett declared.

“A lovely choice,” the saleslady smiled. “Anything else?”

“Um, this.” I held out the candle I’d chosen.

“I’ll just ring you up.” As she walked away, I muttered to Everett, “Isn’t that a bit lavish?”

“Sweetie, this is for us. That room is friggin’ cold. Besides, if we’re not going to have intercourse here, we might as well do it under something from Intercourse!”

“You’re a nut.”

He swatted my butt. “That’s why ya love me.”

Shoveling a few inches of snow from the front yard’s sidewalk all the way to the hedge gate, I then had to attack the street sidewalk with the edge of the shovel, like an ice pick, because the bumpy bricks refused any even form of scooping.

Mrs. Kukka had promised to have the bricks repaired months before we had moved in, but it was just one of many things she’d been forgetting to do, like deposit our rent checks.

She did, however, remember to thank me for my work the night she was having some senior faculty over for dinner and “a slideshow from my late husband’s trip to Paraguay,” an event which Everett and I had to decline an invitation. The sporting life awaited.

Basketball, which usually disinterested me, became fascinating when Everett played. Despite needing to study, on some nights I accompanied Everett, with at least one textbook on my lap, and watched him practice at Magee, and at his games at Drexel University, a few blocks west of Penn. They used it a few times through the winter.

With Everett’s basketball team, there became something for me to do; retrieve equipment, even take tickets on a few occasions. I had an additional excuse to be with Everett in his own special environment. Even if I didn’t go with him, I knew he’d be protected.

Drexel was more like Temple, with newer bland cement buildings, a campus square, and, since we were at the gym, jocks, of which there were many. Some of them happened upon the wheelchair basketball practices, offered curious stares, compliments.

One of those jocks became friendly during the few minutes between his volleyball practice and the basketball team’s court time.

By friendly, I learned what was more of a direct cruise, as Everett conjectured when I told him about talking with Chuck, a blond-furred hunk who coached women’s volleyball. We’d both shared appreciative glances mixed with new friendly waves each week in the gym.

What I didn’t tell Everett was that I once encountered Chuck in the showers, as I sidled up to the nearby urinals. My prolonged glance led to him not turning away, but almost presenting himself. Fearing some sort of trap, what with the reports of antigay behavior on several campuses, I’d rushed back out of embarrassment.

I didn’t tell Everett that the next week, as his team warmed up, I returned, timing my entrance. He wanted me to have an adventure on my own, didn’t he?

Chuck seemed to have been lingering. Since he was the only guy from the women’s volleyball practice, he was alone, drying off with a towel.

He waited about a minute, a long heart-thudding minute of me refusing to not look, before he offered a quiet yet full-court press.

“You, uh… work with the wheelchair guys?” he said, a towel his swirling prop that displayed, then hid, his torso, legs, and swaying penis. His chest was enormous, still damp, broad with a sort of pelt of blond hair.

I’d stopped peeing, but held my dick, pretending not to finish.

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

“You play volleyball?”

“I coach the intramural team.”

“That’s cool.”

“It’s not NCAA, but you know, it’s competitive.”

“That’s cool.”

“You play?”

“No. I run.” I had to face him. He wouldn’t move. I zipped up, stepped closer. “My …roommate does wheelchair basketball, obviously.”

“Cool.”

I wasn’t cool enough at the time to reveal anymore. It had become a cautious game. Who seemed like they wouldn’t understand the ‘boyfriend’ word?

Chuck the volleyball coach seemed like he would know. But he wanted something else, and as he teased me with a revealing towel dance, his penis was proving it.

A whistle tweeted out on the gym floor.

“Gotta go.”

The next week, the women’s volleyball team was nowhere to be seen. Out of town game? I wasn’t sure. I helped the guys get set up, then sat a few rows up in the bleachers.

Everett’s team dominated their competition for the first half. The sparse crowd remained enthusiastic, and although he was focused on court, he did glance over to me a few times with a nod when I cheered a few of his bold basket shots.

The whistle tweets, the scattered shouts, the occasional clash of metal on metal, echoed through the gym as the players faced off. Even from a distance, I could see Everett’s ferocity, the clipped shouts of formation reminders, and an occasional almost scornful look as he or another teammate fumbled the ball.

The players took a break at halftime. Everybody had their towels and water, so I snuck off to the locker room, scanned the showers, saw no one, then bent over to tie my boot lace.

I wasn’t alone more than a few minutes when Chuck appeared by my side, hands in his jacket’s pockets, a ski cap covering his golden locks, and a demeanor that made him almost unrecognizable.

“Oh, man, Wow. You what? Wait, did you have practice?”

“Naw. But I knew you did. Or, your team.”

I glanced at the hips that swayed at my eye level, then stood up to meet his gaze. He was very tall.

“You’re friends with that wheelchair guy, right?”

“Yes. I think I mentioned that before.”

“Sorry, I’m just…”

“Curious?”

“No, I’m…”

“You’re…?”

“You’re like roommates?” He seemed genuinely nervous.

“No. We’re a lot more than roommates.”

“Oh, great.” He sort of melted a little. We shook hands. That simple contact seemed to have set off some electrical charge in him.

He led me to a bench, where we sat, and he unleashed a whispered cascade of confessions, frustrations, cloistered fraternity rituals that verged on sex but never followed through, plus a few random encounters in parking lots. Parking lots? Which ones?

“Wow, dude.” I had no idea what to say.

“But you’re, like, boyfriends.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you mess around?”

“No, we’re happy.” I smiled, lying a bit too assuredly.

It was then that his eyes flared with a lurid edge. “Whaddaya do?”

Initially put off by his imposition, his attempt at charm was amateurish compared to Everett. But he was handsome, a lot of handsome. The prior week in the locker room promised even bigger handsome.

Still, I didn’t tell him, or anyone, that between the pull-up bars, our now well-read sex manual, and a growing collection of pillows, we pretty much had a three-ring circus.

“What we ‘do’ is kind of personal.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to–”

“Yes, you did. You’re flirting with me, or us. That’s cool. It’s kinda nice; flattering. You’re…” I hissed out a breath, muttered, “You’re fucking gorgeous.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“Yeah. But we don’t …”

“Well, if you change your mind, I mean, if that’s okay, maybe, just you, at first. I don’t know if I could…”

A few weeks before, Everett and I had gone to one of those art film nights at the Temple student center. The John Waters line Everett repeated often that night afterward had been, “Dismissed! May we suggest Mister Ray’s Wig World?”

I longed to shout it in the locker room’s silence. Nevertheless, I took his number. He seemed put off when I asked for his last name.

“I got propositioned, again,” I said when we’d returned to the house.