The Night Listener : A Novel (11 page)

“No. God, no. I hated that.”

“And I want us to be in charge. We’re gonna get your name in the title—not above it but
in
it—so you can raise hell if they try to censor the queer stuff. I know these Hollywood pricks. They’ll cut your guts out when you’re not looking, and expect you to be grateful.

We’re not gonna let that happen.”

The color had risen in Jess’s cheeks. I couldn’t help smiling at his old Shiite zeal. He had always been a control freak with a short fuse—a reality I found nerve-racking in most circumstances (in traffic, for instance, and in crowded airports) but curiously comforting when it came to my career. His tough territorial nature made me feel protected, I suppose. Loved, even.

“Did Passavoy go for that?” I asked.

“What?”

“My name in the title.”

“Damn right. They wanna do this thing.”

“They’re that serious, huh?”

“Get this,” he said, and plunged into a rundown of the agents and producers who had swapped calls and taken meetings in recent days. While he talked, my eyes crept about the room, ransacking the place for clues. The pieces he’d brought from home (where they’d been in the basement) had assumed an odd new vitality in this setting. There was the bedside table Wayne and I had used on Telegraph Hill. And the little mica-shaded lamp I’d bought during my bachelor days. And some paisley pillows that hadn’t been compatible with the sofa Jess’s aunt had given us. They had all been disposable items, since this was to be a disposable room.

Jess had bought a table, I noticed: blond and brand-new, but reassuringly flimsy. He could give that to a friend, I figured, or leave it on the street corner, when this was over. The same was true of his new fiberboard bookshelf, now the home of his vast array of self-help books, most of which had the word
soul
in the title. I saw some Jung there, too, and several scholarly books on masochism with creepy-sounding titles. And down near the floor, a homemade shrine with votive candles and a Tibetan Buddhist deity. Jess had renounced fundamentalism as a boy, but the need for religion had never stopped dogging him. I myself had lost that years earlier; our marriage had become the only deity I required.

“Sounds great,” I told him, when he’d finished his rundown. “Go for it.”

“I’m gonna need my computer.”

“Fine. Whatever. It’s your office.”

“No. I mean…I’m gonna need it here.”

My heart sank. Until that moment, I’d found reassurance in the knowledge that—to Jess, at least—home was where his computer was. The clothes and furniture he’d brought here were of little import, but his computer was his central nervous system, his roaring hearth.

I tried to stay nonchalant. “Won’t that be more trouble than it’s worth? Moving it, I mean?”

He shook his head. “I can manage. When you’re at the gym or something.”

“No…I don’t mind helping. I just meant…”

“It’s no problem, really.”

A silence followed that grew into a gaping void before I found the nerve to fill it. Finally I asked: “Do you have any sense of…how long this is going to take?”

“The deal, you mean?”

“No…your being away.”

“Oh. No.”

“I just wondered if…”

“It’s gonna be a while.”

“And how long is that?”

“I don’t know, babe. I have a lot of sorting out to do. I barely know who I am right now.”

I nodded.

“I told you that before.”

“I know, sweetie. I just thought that…maybe by now…” I couldn’t finish; I was sounding too pathetic to myself.

“I know you think I’m going to an orgy every night. But I’m right here most of the time.”

Okay, I thought, but what about that picture on your refrigerator?

“Would you like to see a movie sometime? Or have dinner out?” He was asking me for a date, I realized, this man who’d shared a bed with me for a decade, who’d cried in my arms over his mother’s coffin. Whether the invitation signified a cautious renewal or a gentle retreat I couldn’t tell. And I was far too afraid to ask.

“That would be nice,” I said.

I saved Pete for last. Jess listened to the story with his mouth slightly open, a double line forming on his forehead. I had reached him, I realized, in a way that I hadn’t for months.

“He thinks of us as role models,” I said.

He blinked at me. “He’s gay, you mean?”

“No. He just…he sees us as two people who love each other.”

“Based on what?”

I knew this wasn’t meant to be ugly, so I chose not to respond that way. “The show I guess. And interviews and things.”

“How many times have you talked to him?”

“Now you’re sounding like my father.”

Jess frowned. “Your
father
knows about this?” I could’ve kicked myself. I’d intended to keep quiet about the old man’s visit, knowing it would only cause additional tension. “I told him a little bit about it, yeah.”

“He called you? He couldn’t have called you.”

“They came through town on their way to Tahiti.” Jess grunted. “She must’ve heard they have a mall there.” I smiled at this, predictable as it was. Jess had been hostile to Darlie since the late eighties, when she’d vetoed an offer for us to spend a night under her roof. The offer, amazingly, had come from my father, when I’d told him Jess and I would be passing through town.

He and Darlie would be in Italy then, the old man said, but the house was empty and we should certainly feel free to use it. I was touched—deeply—but not for long; the invitation was retracted within days.

The official excuse was a previously arranged house-sitter, but my sister, Josie, told me that Darlie had told my father that she was afraid of “catching something off the sheets.” So the old man had to renege. He called my brother, Billy, and ordered
him
to offer us a place to stay, and Billy called us to say that he and Susan had
two
bedrooms (the italics were audible) that Jess and I were welcome to use, even though we hadn’t actually thought to call
them
first. We ended up staying at a hotel to regain our dignity. And Darlie moved to the top of Jess’s shit list.

“She’s gotten better,” I told him. “She asked how you were doing.” Jess just grunted again, so I gave it up. I was tired of being the mediator between the wildly disparate people in my life. I’d learned that instinct from my mother, who seemed to believe that it was the only way she could ever be whole. Maybe she was right, but it took a toll on her.

“Did you bring that letter?” asked Jess.

“Oh.” I pulled my jacket from the back of the sofa, retrieved the letter from Jess’s father and handed it to him. “The moon must be in Patriarchy,” I said with a rueful smile.

Jess didn’t react. He just thanked me soberly and tucked the letter under a book on his coffee table. “So why did I sound like him?”

“Who?”

“Your father. You said I sounded like him.”

“Oh…I just meant…when you asked me how many times I’d talked to Pete. But it wasn’t for the same reason.”

“What did he mean, then?”

I rolled my eyes. “He thought it might look funny if a middle-aged queer spent too much time on the phone with a boy who’d been abused.”

“Jesus.”

“I know.” I acknowledged his indignation with a nod. “I let him have it, believe me.”

“Good.”

“It was more about appearances than anything else. He didn’t actually think…”

“Oh, well, that’s good to know. Your father doesn’t think you’re a child molester.”

I could tell he wanted me to join him in a good venting, but I didn’t feel like it. “The truth is,” I said, “Pete badly needs a man to talk to.

Imagine having so little trust in your own gender.”

“Your own gender, hell. Didn’t you say his mother was in on it, too?”

“In on what?”

“The abuse. The porn ring.”

“Oh…his biological mother. Yeah, she was. But he’s got Donna now.”

“Does she have a boyfriend or anything?”

“Not that I’ve heard of.”

“You think she’s a dyke?”

“I kind of doubt it. She just sounds like…I dunno…a sort of world-weary straight woman. She had a husband once, I know. What does it matter, anyway?”

“I’m just trying to get a handle on it.” I could tell that, and I was more than ready to encourage him.

“Well, whatever she is, she’s one of us. The last time we talked she held forth on Trent Lott, and what a big homophobe he was, and how much she hated him. And
she
was the one who brought it up.

She’s really great, sweetie. I’d like talking to her even if Pete weren’t…you know, part of it.”

“I hope she has him on the cocktail.”

“I asked about that. He says he’s too young for it.”

“That’s bullshit. Who told him that?”

“I dunno, babe. His doctors, I presume.”

“That’s total bullshit. Lots of kids are doing it now. He should be on it as soon as possible.”

“Would you tell him that?”

“Me?”

“Why not? You know how good
I
am at that stuff.” This was an oblique admission of guilt, since I had long before stopped tracking the particulars of his health. Jess wanted to be in charge of that, I told myself; he
insisted
on it, in fact, taking pride in the way he challenged his doctors at every turn. After a while the matter of his survival became just another household duty that had fallen exclusively to one partner, like taking out the garbage or doing the taxes. I learned enough to give capsule updates to friends and reporters, but that was the extent of it. I told myself I was helping in other ways: providing the certainty of home and love, a respite from the grim rigmarole of staying alive.

“You’re the expert,” I said lamely.

“He doesn’t even know me.”

“Wanna bet?”

He gave me a sardonic little smile. “He thinks I’m a coppersmith, right?”

“No.” I returned the same smile, and God it felt good to connect again. “He’s not an idiot. He knows what fiction is. He read about you in the Milwaukee paper. And
Poz
, if I remember correctly.” Jess blinked at me.

“I think you’d like him,” I added.

“What’s not to like? He’s Tiny Tim.”

“You are
not
cynical about this,” I said in reprimand. “Don’t even pretend to be.”

A look of mild amusement crossed his face. “Does he have a number? Or do I just rub a brass lamp or something?” I reached for my jacket again and pulled out the scrap of paper I’d brought, handing it to him. “I’m not making this up,” I said.

I must have stayed there no longer than twenty minutes. It hurt too much to see him on his new turf, to realize how much he was already part of it. I even told him so as I left, prompting him to frown in sympathy, which just made the pain official and sent it deeper into my bones.

I got really stoned that night, knowing it would send me to bed—and oblivion—that much sooner. I was woken at midnight by the sound of my own voice coming from Jess’s office: “This is Gabriel. Please leave a message at the tone.” I rolled over with a groan, consulted the clock, waited for my caller to identify himself on the machine. The moon was fat and fluorescent that night, casting shadows in the bedroom.

“Gabriel…are you there?”

It was Pete.

I reached for the bedside phone. “Kiddo. What are you doing up?”

“I’m sorry, man. I couldn’t sleep.”

“That’s okay. What time is it there? Three o’clock or something?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you all right?”

“Oh, yeah. Just felt like talking.”

“Cool.”

Pete giggled. “You’re totally asleep, aren’t you?”

“No. It’s fine. Is your mom awake?”

“Are you kidding? She sleeps like a log.”

“Are you under the covers with a flashlight?”

“What?”

“That’s what
I
used to do.”

“When?”

“When I was your age. Well, younger, actually. Never mind.”

“Shit, man. I didn’t know they
had
flashlights back then.”

“Okay. I’m going back to sleep.”

Another giggle.

“I feel like hell, anyway. So cut me some slack.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I went to see Jess.”

“Did you tell him about me?” There was a suggestion of hope in Pete’s voice.

“Sure. He’s gonna call you, I think. I gave him your number. He’s got some ideas about your treatment.”

A silence and then: “We don’t have to talk about that, you know.

That shit gets old.”

“Not just that, Pete. He mostly wants to meet you.”

“What’s the matter, then? Did you guys have a fight?”

“No. We were very polite to each other. That’s what hurt so much.” I hesitated a moment, then added: “That and seeing a picture of his boyfriend.”

“Fuck. You didn’t tell me about that.”

“I don’t know
what
he is, really. Jess used to call him his motorcycle buddy. They went on little trips around town together. Then they planned a
big
trip to Big Sur on the weekend of Jess’s birthday. Which totally threw me because Jess had never wanted a fuss made over his birthday. He was always uncomfortable with that kind of attention.”

“He wasn’t with you on his birthday?”

“Well…he came back on the night of, and we had dinner together.

He divvied it up between the two of us.”

“Maybe he and this guy weren’t…”

“No, they were. Jess told me so a month later.”

“What happened?”

“Oh…” I sighed at the memory. “We were at a sidewalk café, and he told me, and I started crying and talking really loud. Which is
not
like me in a public place. He must have thought it would be safer there, with all those people around. I asked what this guy Frank meant to him, and he said they weren’t seeing each other exclusively.

This was just one of the people he was
dating
. I thought we were having a life together, and he was out
dating
.”

“You didn’t see this coming?”

“Well, he’d already asked if we could open up the relationship, but it hurt too much every time I thought about it. I asked him to give me time, which he did for a while. Hell, I
guess
he did. I never asked and he never told; we just turned into strangers. He started playing queer punk rock music really loud, which he knew I hated.