The Night Listener : A Novel (6 page)

In the beginning my excuse was safe sex. Jess cared deeply that he not infect me, so I took the easy way out. Long before we met I had accepted my disinterest in fucking, though I had always felt something less than a true fag for my failure to achieve either top-or bottomhood. Suddenly there was a reason to keep things oral and manual, a solid
political
reason to formalize my limited repertoire.

And Jess played along. Whenever we discussed our sex life in interviews, we invariably sounded like poster boys for Responsible Behavior. The human mind, we would say, was the greatest sex organ of them all. People who required penetration at any cost were merely lacking in imagination. Visuals were the key, after all, and the act of withholding could be extremely erotic.

And so on.

It wasn’t that Jess didn’t mean it. He did; we both did. Our sex life
was
extraordinary, and all the more so because Jess usually chose the most highly charged moment to tell me he loved me. But there must have been times when he longed for the unedited roughhousing of his early youth, the very acts of raw abandon that had given him the virus in the first place. I could have provided that certainly, one way or another, with little danger to either of us, but I chose to wallow in my own contentment.

When the transformation came it was almost a Jekyll-and-Hyde thing. Jess had been taking testosterone for energy, and the hormones had begun to forge his softly sensual body into an exoskeleton of muscle. Then he shaved off all his thinning baby-chick hair and grew a beard. And got a tattoo. And began to assemble a formidable leather wardrobe. And while such makeovers are common around here, this one filled me with dread, because I knew that Jess wasn’t reinventing himself for me; in fact, my opinion in the matter was never solicited. When I stumbled across a thin gold ring at the base of his scrotum and wondered out loud why he hadn’t mentioned it, he shrugged it off as unworthy of comment, as if he’d merely had his sideburns trimmed. I, in turn, felt old and disconnected. And slightly ashamed for having implied, however unintentionally, that his body was under my jurisdiction.

Meanwhile Jess had assembled a whole new circle of friends. Guys he had met at ACT-UP and his HIV support group. Guys with daunting four-gauge earrings like his, who joined him for coffee at the Pasqua in the Castro to discuss Jung and Joseph Campbell. They were nice guys, Jess told me, but I rarely met them, since Jess never brought them to the house. Until now our friends had been largely mutual; we had cultivated them together as couples often do. This new arrangement unsettled me, but I struggled against my doubts.

Jess, after all, had been my satellite for ten years without complaint.

I knew that he needed a crowd in which he could be judged on his own, beyond the distracting glare of my celebrity. And he certainly needed the company of others who had defied a death sentence. I could never give him that, I knew, no matter how much I loved him.

Then one day, when we were driving home from lunch in Berkeley, Jess turned to me with a sickly little smile I had never seen him use. “What would you say,” he asked, “if we started having sex with other people?” My reaction alarmed even me: a flood of tears that wouldn’t stop. Jess’s expression, I saw to my horror, became one of pained compassion. How difficult this moment must have been for him, I thought, and how terribly important. And I knew with a certainty there was no taking it back; the desire once voiced was as good as the deed. Our fortress had been stormed, right there on that gray stretch of freeway, and the damage was irreversible.

Worst of all, I didn’t know myself anymore. Who was this fool weeping over sex? I had been a regular tart until I met Jess. A night of dick worship at the glory holes had meant less to me than a handshake. Only straight people, I believed, confused lasting love with a good time. Gay folks—or most of the men, at least—knew better, and were therefore capable of owning the whole package: adventure
and
commitment. Jess and I had even flirted with the idea of three-ways early in our relationship, snickering drunkenly over prospective candidates at a restaurant in Key West one balmy night.

We had certainly never committed to monogamy in any formal way; it was just something we fell into with deceptive ease. All we’d ever promised, really, was honesty. So when an overly earnest reporter used the M-word to describe our relationship in the “Couples” section of
People
, Jess flew into a righteous rage: “Where the fuck does she get off?”

“But we
are
monogamous,” I said, laughing.

“She doesn’t know that. We never told her. And she has no fucking right to
presume
.”

“You’re right,” I said. “It’s vicious libel. Call the lawyers.” It was funny at the time: two homos in a huff over the disgrace of monogamy. But I remember feeling uncomfortable, too. For, beyond all that sex-positive posturing, Jess seemed unduly concerned that someone might hold him to a contract he had never agreed to sign.

Which was what I was doing, I guess.

Oh, I tried like hell not to. Before that ghastly car ride was over I had promised to give the matter serious thought. I needed time to adjust, I told him. I knew it
should
be possible, if two people really trusted each other. And if rougher sex was required, then maybe Jess could have an occasional night out at a club. I forced myself to imagine such a scenario; it was almost manageable as long as I kept the place heavily populated and overly stylized: whips and dildos and masters barking orders like robots.

But what if there was more to it? What if there was cuddling afterward? Or a dinner date the following night?

Or
kissing
, for God’s sake?

“You know what?” said Pete. “None of this means shit.” I was back in the conversation again, but I wasn’t sure where.

“None of what?”

“This sex stuff. Forget about it.”

“I wish I could.”

“He’s coming home, Gabriel.”

“I can’t say that for sure.”

“Maybe
you
can’t. But I can.”

“Pete…”

“He’s your buddy, man. He’s family. I know you guys. And I know when somebody loves somebody.”

This was the simple truth, without frills, offered up in a tone of mild annoyance. I began to cry again, in spite of myself.

“Jesus,” he said. “Will you stop?”

“I’m just agreeing with you.”

“Well, argue a little, then.”

“You know,” I said, “you and Jess are a lot alike.”

“Pissed off, you mean?”

I laughed. “Not just that.”

“I feel like I know him.”

“In a way,” I said, “you do.”

Pete snorted. “I thought he wasn’t the guy in your books. Okay, okay, in a minute.”

This response confused me until I realized he wasn’t addressing me.

“The boss lady is on my case,” he explained.

I glanced across the room and tried, unsuccessfully, to read the digits on the VCR clock. “Oh, God, it’s late, isn’t it? I forgot. I’m sorry. How much later is it there? Three hours?”

“Two,” he answered. “And I stay up late all the time. I listen to your show, remember?”

“Tell your mother it’s my fault.”

“She doesn’t care. She’s cool about everything.” I heard Donna utter a comic growl.

“Go to bed,” I said. “We’ll talk later.”

“Promise?”

“Scout’s honor.”

Pete giggled and hung up.

The next morning, when I was cleaning out the coffee machine, Donna called back.

“Hey,” she said pleasantly. “Sorry I cut it short last night.” I told her she had no reason to apologize.

“He’d had an awfully long day of it. We were up at five with the lungs again. They just don’t want to stay clear.”

“God, Donna…I’m so sorry.”

“Well, what can you do? He had a bad case of syphilis when he was ten, so his lungs are like Swiss cheese. If it weren’t for that, we’d have a much easier time with the pneumonia. He’s pretty hardy otherwise.” She paused for a moment. “He’s not being a pain, is he?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know…calling you.”

I told her I was the one who had called him.

“Well…just tell him to cool it if it gets too much for you. He can be pretty overbearing sometimes.”

I wondered how much she’d heard of our conversation, or how much Pete had told her afterward, but I really didn’t care; I felt as comfortable with her as I did with Pete. “It’s no problem,” I said.

“He’s good company.”

“Funny little dude, isn’t he? So brash and grownup, but just a kid underneath. One minute he’s reading Kübler-Ross, the next he’s throwing mashed potatoes at the dog.”

Kübler-Ross. The expert on dying.

“This must be so hard,” I said, feeling a surge of sympathy for her situation.

“Oh, there’s a lot of payback,” she said. “Pete gives as much as any kid I’ve ever known. There are days when I can’t believe my luck.”

“But isn’t it hard doing it on your own?”

“Without a husband, you mean?”

I was suddenly red-faced. “Well, no…not specifically a
husband
…I just meant…”

She laughed huskily. “I know most of the staff at the hospital by their first names. And my friend Marsha across the street helps out.

Husbands, in my experience, are more trouble than they’re worth.” As I recalled from Pete’s book, Donna had divorced her only husband after three years. He had been a psychologist as well—in couples counseling, no less. How agonizing would that be, I wondered, to have two professional minds analyzing the same breakup? I didn’t ask, though, for fear that Donna would ask about
my
husband. I felt much too raw-nerved to discuss it that morning.

“I guess you spend a lot of time at the hospital,” I said.

“Some,” she said, “but I’ve arranged for home care, too. It’s such a long haul into Milwaukee.”

“I thought you lived in Milwaukee.”

“Not anymore. I wasn’t comfortable with it.”

“How so?”

“Too many chances for Pete to run into…them.” It took me a moment to absorb this. “Jesus, you mean his parents are still…”

“No. God, no. They’re history. They’re locked up. But most of their clients are still out there getting their jollies. And some of them are pretty pissed off that he broke up their party.”

“But, couldn’t the police…”

“Oh, get real, Gabriel!”

I laughed, since her tone had been friendly, and she laughed right back. That lovely golden rumble.

“The world’s not as tidy as your stories,” she said.

“Guess not.”

“I wish it
were
…for what it’s worth.” There was silence while this thought ascended.

“So here we are in lovely Wysong, Wisconsin—home of Neilson’s Antique Auto Barn.”

I laughed. “Culture shock, huh?”

“It’s not terrible,” she said. “There’s a lake just down from the house, and a nice anonymous mall that has everything we need.”

“Are you worried that…” I didn’t know how to finish this.

“That they might find him and…do something?”

“Yeah.”

“Sometimes. Not often, really. But I have to remember it’s possible.

They’re a club, you know. With their own chat rooms and everything.

And they don’t like it when people snitch.”

“Do you know who they are?”

“No. Pete could identify
some
of them, I’m sure, but he shouldn’t have to. Not now, not anymore. He did his job when he turned his parents in. That was enough hell for a lifetime. Now I just want him to feel safe.”

“But when the book is published…”

“Well, that’s why he never mentions Wysong. Or his birth name, for that matter. We’ve worked all this out with Ashe Findlay. I think we’ve covered all the bases.”

Another silence, and then: “Anyway, the point of moving here was
not
to be paranoid. To get the scary stuff behind us.”

“I understand.”

“I’m glad you’re in his life, Gabriel. You’re a good man. I want him to know that grownups can be trusted.” Two days later, a manila envelope arrived from Wysong. I studied it like some sacred artifact, turning it over slowly in my hands, savoring the jangly Midwestern consonants of their address: 511

Henzke Street.

When I opened the envelope, out tumbled a kitschy postcard of Neilson’s Antique Auto Barn, apparently photographed in the seventies, judging from the pantsuits on the tourists. On the back Donna had scrawled: “Okay, so it ain’t the Guggenheim.” The other item was a photograph of Pete. He was standing in front of a garage door in jeans and a gray sweatshirt, a small-boned boy wearing a crooked smile beneath a tangle of black hair.

His eyes were his most arresting feature: a pale, glowing green that stopped you cold with their sheer unlikelihood. Like those pretty stones you find on the beach sometimes that prove, upon closer examination, to be fragments of a pop bottle, roughed up by the ocean.

FIVE

SEMAPHORE

FOR MY FATHER and stepmother’s visit I chose a fancy new pan-Asian place on the Embarcadero. I chose it for its big pink blowfish chandelier and the fact that the maître d’ would almost certainly make a fuss over me. I was showing off, God help me, to a man I had battled royally for half a century and a woman I barely recalled from a high school trig class. They were
family
, for what it was worth, Pap and Darlie; I wanted them to see who I’d finally become, all these years later, since I was no longer sure myself.

But the maître d’ had called in sick that evening, so we were greeted instead by one of those haughty, terrified tartlets who guard the door at places like Planet Hollywood. “Newman?” she asked with a frown, scanning her reservations list.

“Noone,” I said as genially as possible. “Gabriel.”

“Oh. Gabriel is the last name?”

“No. Noone is the last name.” Get me a homosexual, I thought.

Find me a cocksucker immediately.

“Oh,” she said at last. “I think there’s a note here.” There
was
a note there, and she read every bit of it, too, as evidenced by the faint movement of her lips. Finally, she smiled and told us to follow her, her heels clicking smartly on the tile floor as she explained about the maître d’s illness. I saw to my relief that we were headed for the far end of the restaurant, where two ban-quettes—the best in the house—commanded a stunning view of the Bay Bridge.