The Paper Mirror (2 page)

“Hardesty Investigations,” I said, waiting for the second ring before picking it up.

“Dick, hi. It’s Glen. Donna tells me you called.”

“Yeah, I did. I hate to bother you at the office about personal things, but Jonathan made me promise I’d check with you to see about the dress code for the Burrows opening. He seems to think it’s a black tie and tails event.”

O’Banyon laughed. “I’m sure there’ll be a couple tux queens there, but I sure won’t be one of them,” he said. “Tell Jonathan anything other than bib overalls will fit right in.”

I was relieved to hear it. “Thanks, Glen. Again, sorry to bother you about something so trivial, but…”

“Not at all. As a matter of fact, how would you like to join me for a beer at Hughie’s at about 3:30? I’ve been working my tail off on this upcoming trial, and I could use a break. And for some reason, I’m in a Hughie’s mood.”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll see you there.” I heard the click of the receiver hanging up.

*

Hughie’s. Well, that brought back memories…lots of memories. Hughie’s is a hustler bar about two blocks from my office, and it’s where I met Phil (back when he was hustling under the name “Tex”), and it’s where I met Jonathan. I used to go there pretty frequently after work in my single days, not for the hustlers but because Hughie’s is one of the few places that serves dark beer on draft, in old-fashioned frosted mugs. Nothing better on a hot day.

I’d met Glen O’Banyon there a couple of times, too, always related to business, and seeing one of the best, most successful, and richest lawyers in the city dressed in torn Levi’s, baseball cap, and a football-logo sweatshirt never ceased to amaze me. He’d told me he didn’t get out much, and when he did, he wanted to go someplace people wouldn’t be buttonholing him for legal advice. Hughie’s was the place.

I ordered a BLT and potato salad from the diner, refilled the office coffee pot, and went downstairs to pick up my order.

*

I’m not sure how many times I’ve said it before, but there’s really only one way to say it: Hughie’s was, and is…well, Hughie’s—a big, dimly lit space off the hallway of time, totally unaffected by the passing years. It never changed. Dark, mildly clammy from the air cooler, always smelling of spilled booze and cigarette smoke, same 3:30 hustlers (well, different guys, but interchangeable) waiting for the offices to close and the johns to come in for a little pre-heading-off-to-the-suburbs action.

And Bud, of course, behind the bar. I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’d been in Hughie’s and Bud had not been there. And though I couldn’t honestly remember the last time I was there, the minute Bud saw me walk in the door he reached into the cooler for a mug and poured me a dark draft, having it ready for me when I reached the bar.

“How’s it goin’, Dick?” he asked with the same detached tone he’d used from the first day I entered the place. Hearing it, I was sure I’d been in the day before.

“Pretty good, Bud. You?” The usual expressionless shrug in response as I opened my billfold and handed him a bill.

No Glen. A really hot hustler in a tight short rolled-sleeve shirt that made him look—not coincidentally, I’m sure—like James Dean in
Rebel Without a Cause
, gave me a sexy smile, which I returned with a nod.

Ooops! Wrong move, Hardesty,
one of my mind-voices cautioned as the guy picked up his beer and headed in my direction.

Butt out!
my crotch responded sharply, and I was once again aware why I didn’t come into Hughie’s much since I’d gotten together with Jonathan.
“Here there be tygers,”
another mind-voice cautioned, piously.

Luckily or unluckily, depending on whether you were my conscience or my crotch, Glen O’Banyon appeared at my elbow, and the approaching guy stopped short and took a seat at the bar about ten feet away.

“Interrupting something?” Glen asked with a smile.

“Fortunately, yes,” I said, turning to shake his hand, noting he was in his baseball-cap-sweatshirt-jeans uniform. In the artificial dim light of the bar, it looked as though his hair was becoming greyer than last time I’d seen him.

“Glad you called,” he said. “I needed an excuse to get out of the house for a while.”

I smiled as he motioned to Bud for a beer. “I do what I can,” I said.

“So Jonathan’s looking forward to the opening?” he said more than asked.

“Like a racehorse at the starting gate. It was really nice of you to invite us.”

He shook his head. “No problem. How’s it going with a kid in the family?” he asked, handing Bud a bill and taking a swig of his beer.

“I assume you mean Joshua,” I said with a grin. “Surprisingly well, actually. He’s a great kid.”

“So, you got any pictures?”

I shrugged, feeling a little sheepish. “Well, we’re not
that
far into the ‘perfect family’ mode yet. But Jonathan did mention having some taken. He would.”

We idle-chatted for several minutes, and then the talk got around to the Burrows and the generous donation to the community.

“Pocket change,” Glen said. “Though to hear Zach Clanton tell it, it’s taking food out of his kids’ mouths.”

“Zach Clanton?” I asked. “Who’s he?”

“Zach…Zachary Clanton is the oldest of Chester Burrows’ two nephews.”

“Ah,” I said. “I thought Burrows only had one.”

“One gay,” Glen amended. “One straight. Zach’s the straight one, and if it were up to him, there wouldn’t be a new library.”

“I thought the bequest was in Chester Burrows’ will,” I said.

Glen nodded, then took several long swallows of his beer, nearly emptying it. I motioned to Bud for two more.

“It is,” Glen said. “And Zach is none too happy about it, you can be sure. Luckily, he had no say in the matter. As the two heirs to Burrows’ fortune, he and Marv Westeen, Zach’s cousin and Chester’s other nephew, are on the Foundation’s board of directors, as am I, and it hasn’t been easy. The will actually states the bequest to the Foundation is to be
‘up to’
$1,000,000—rather odd wording, but that was Chester Burrows for you—and Zach sees that as meaning that every dollar not spent by the Foundation is fifty cents in his pocket. He couldn’t see spending good money for establishing a separate library when any number of established institutions would be happy to take the entire collection. I suspect Marv is the one who talked Chester into making the bequest in the first place. Marv convinced the old man it would mean a lot to the gay community, and it will. I’m sure there’s an incredible amount of historical material buried in there, things no one is even fully aware of yet. If the entire collection had gone to a larger institution, chances are it would have been given a lot less attention than it will have now.”

“I gather you knew the Burrows family before all this came about?” I asked, taking a bill out of my wallet and laying it on the bar. O’Banyon nodded.

“Not all that well, really, but I’ve handled some things for them from time to time. I actually met Chester Burrows only once. Most of my dealings with him were by phone. He was
really
a recluse. Zach and Marv’s mothers were his sisters, and when they died I got to know ‘the boys’ in the course of handling their mothers’ estates. Marv I like; Zach, as I may have indicated, is a real pain in the ass.”

“He sounds like a real winner,” I said. “How does he deal with his cousin and uncle being gay?”

O’Banyon grinned, exchanging his empty bottle for the full one Bud handed him. “Well, he doesn’t—or at least didn’t while Chester was alive—have much choice in the matter if he wanted a share of Chester’s fortune. Chester’s money had supported both Marv’s and Zach’s families, and Zach’s not stupid. He’s a closet homophobe, but always tried to cover it up while Chester was alive. He obviously hates faggots, but certainly wasn’t above sucking up to Chester every chance he got—he went so far as to name his first kid after him.

“He and Marv aren’t exactly close, as you might imagine, but there apparently wasn’t any open hostility between them while Chester was alive. Marv’s pretty quiet, like Chester, and while Zach did his best to butter up the old man whenever he got the chance, Chester seemed more partial to Marv, though it was a little hard to tell with somebody as tightly wrapped as Chester. Marv and Zach shared equally in the will, though.”

“How about this Evan Knight?” I asked, reaching for a fresh napkin to wipe off the bottom of my beer mug, from which the thin outer layer of ice was rapidly melting. “Where does he fit into the picture?”

“Kind of a strange duck,” O’Banyon replied, brushing the back of an index finger across the corner of his mouth. “But I guess all writers are, in one way or another. From what I understand, he was just about the only human being Chester Burrows might have considered as being a friend. There’s about a 45-year age difference between them, so I tend to dismiss the rumors about them being romantically involved…but who knows? I have no idea how they met, but I do know Knight acted as something of a curator for the collection for many years before he published his first book.”

“Well, he’s Jonathan’s favorite writer, I know,” I said, “and he’s really hoping to meet him.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” O’Banyon said, raising his bottle to his lips.

We talked for another ten minutes or so, then I looked at my watch. “Uh, oh,” I said. “I’d better get going.”

O’Banyon finished his beer. “Yeah, me too. Glad we had a chance to get together.”

“So am I,” I said. We left the bar together, stopped outside long enough to shake hands, and went our separate ways. “See you next Saturday,” I called over my shoulder in afterthought. I turned, and he waved without looking back.

*

The intervening week flew by, as intervening weeks tend to do, though with a definite difference between pre-Joshua and post-Joshua weekends. Saturday, in addition to our routine laundry/grocery shopping/housecleaning chores, we had to add a search for some new clothes and shoes for Joshua who, I projected from his current rate of growth, would be somewhere around eleven feet tall by the time he was eighteen. Raising a kid certainly wasn’t going to be cheap. We ended up getting him two pair of shoes—one for “good” and one for school and play—plus two new shirts, and two pairs of pants.

And Sundays had changed, too. While pre-Joshua Sundays involved sleeping in, a quiet morning reading the paper, then brunch either by ourselves or with friends at a gay restaurant/bar, we now were more likely than not awakened shortly after dawn by a hungry Joshua, his ever-present favorite toy, Bunny, under one arm. A great deal more time was devoted to reading the comics aloud and examining all the photographs in the paper than used to be. Then Jonathan would get himself and Joshua showered and dressed and go off to the M.C.C.—Metropolitan Community Church—so Joshua could attend Sunday School as he’d always done with his parents. While they were gone, I’d finish reading the paper and take my time getting showered and dressed.

We still went out to brunch nearly every Sunday, sometimes with friends, but very seldom to our pre-Joshua places.

As I say, I was well aware of just how drastically my life had changed since Jonathan—and now Joshua—had come into it. I wouldn’t give it up for the world, but there were times I missed my little revolving door of tricks, partying, and generally harmless debauchery.

*

So, before I knew it, Saturday had rolled around again and it was the day of the opening. When Joshua heard Jonathan mention the word “library,” he wanted us to be sure we would bring him back some books. (“With big words!” he insisted. He recently had become fascinated with adding multisyllable words to his vocabulary, and the bigger the better. “Constantinople” was a favorite, though it was rather hard to fit into a conversation.) Rather than explain that while this library had lots of books with big words, not many of them would be of interest to little boys, we made a conciliatory swing through The Central during our regular Saturday chore routine to buy him a couple new books for his growing collection. His parents had given Joshua a love for books, and we definitely wanted to encourage it.

And Joshua was, of course, even more hyper than usual over the prospect of spending the night with his buddy, Craig—who, we promised him, would read him one of his new books at bedtime.

The party started at eight, so I drove over to the Richmans’ to pick up Craig at around five thirty. Jonathan called in a pizza order shortly after I’d left so that we’d be able to eat as soon as I returned with Craig.

I mentioned that Craig was sixteen, and gay. His parents were amazingly supportive—especially, again, considering his dad was a high-ranking police officer—and I was flattered that they tacitly passed on to me, and trusted me with, the role of surrogate dad when it came to questions involving coping with being gay in an all-too-straight world. So when I’d pick him up for babysitting, we’d spend the ride to the apartment talking about how his life was going, gay-related issues he might be coping with at school, etc. He eventually reached the point where he felt comfortable enough (though I’ll admit I was a little edgy about it) to ask some pretty sexually based questions: verification of things he’d heard, what certain expressions meant, what was safe and what wasn’t. He wasn’t all that sexually active yet, but he was a sixteen-year-old boy with the usual raging hormones, and he was meeting other kids at school who were more than willing to experiment, even though they might not turn out to actually be gay in the long run. (When you’re sixteen, sex is sex.) He didn’t see the necessity for using condoms, but I kept hammering away at it every time I could, and I think he finally started coming around.