The Price Of Dick (15 page)

It should have ended that year. It should have ended just a few weeks after the farm shoot. I should have done as Willie
advised me. I didn’t.

I began a new project. One that I
’d wanted to do for quite a while, but the time finally seemed appropriate. That was to write my own gay romance novel. I would call it
The
Cover Model
. I had enough erotic stories to fill the pages and I could diversify my career when the photography season was slow. I could draw on some real experiences and create fiction from ideas for shoots I planned to do. I was thrilled with the possibilities. So with notebook and pen for the longhand, and laptop for the print, I applied myself to the task. The two jobs kept my days busy. Photography by day, writing by night. Dick took care of the day-to-day chores. Dishes in the washer, floors vacuumed; laundry done, folded and put away. He took care of the taxes and wrote out the checks for me to sign for the bills we split. He was making it easy for me to give one hundred percent dedication to my work and
‘the project
.’ He reinforced my belief in myself; was a constant source of encouragement. I was happily oblivious to the outside world.

One evening Dick came home carrying groceries.
A lot of groceries. Three trips to the car's worth. More than I thought we could possibly need or store with so little cabinet space and the limited storage of the apartment. I looked up from the laptop when he’d made the third trip in.

“
What’s going on? Are we having a party?” I asked. I could see four frozen pizzas sticking out of the top of the plastic sack.

He laughed and shuffled
into the kitchen. “No party. I’ve got an out-of-town conference next week and I’ll be gone from Friday until Friday, so I thought I’d save you some time running around and get it done for you ahead of time. Now all I have to do is find someplace to put it everything.”

I heard him moving things around in the cabinets to make room.
“That was nice of you,” I said, and thanked him.

“
Not really. I just didn’t want to come back and find the dried bones of a starved corpse in the place because someone forgot to buy food. The only thing worse than the smell of dead people is Pine-Sol.”

The truth is I
’m a procrastinator when it comes to shopping. I probably would have put off going to the store and ended up running out every night for fast food. I appreciated his thoughtfulness.

He packed quietly so he didn
’t disturb my concentration. I’d frequently work late into the night and fall asleep in the office chair. When I awoke that Friday morning of his departure for the conference, I found him already gone. He’d crept out stealthily. I hadn’t heard a thing.

As I plodded to the kitchen I found a note from him on the bulletin board. He
’d left wine in the cabinet under the sink. There was no room in the refrigerator. Coffee was set to go. Just press the button. He’d thought of everything. I remember the feeling of contentment I had as I listened to the coffee maker, and smelled bread toasting. I was a lucky man.

I
’d just sat down with my first cup of coffee when there was a knock on the door. I looked at the clock. It was just before eight a.m. I had no clue who it could be. Throwing my robe over my shoulders, I answered the door finding a young woman in business clothes standing in the hallway, holding an envelope. I didn’t know her.

“
Yes?”

“
Dick Fitch lives here, right?” she asked trying to look past me into the living room. I moved to block the view even though there was nothing to see. It seemed the thing to do with someone who appeared so nosey.

Those prickly cactus needles of suspicion
started attacking the back of my neck. It made me realize that no matter how long you live with a closet case who dates women to cover his tracks, you’re stuck protecting their secret. I was, as always, on guard.

“
He’s not here at the moment,” I said, cautiously.

She looked
disappointed. “Oh Christ! I missed him, didn’t I?” she glanced at her watch, slapped it with two fingers. “He’s already at the airport. I’m Debbie. I’m the secretary at his work.” She held up the envelope. “He forgot to pick up his restaurant vouchers for the trip. It was part of his prize. I tried his phone but he’d turned it off. I guess if I was off to a sunny beach in Mexico, I’d have set out early myself. My mistake. I apologize for bothering you.”

I went cold and numb.
“Prize? Beach?” I heard a disembodied voice come from me.

“
Oh yes. He came in first in a contest at work a couple months ago. He won the trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. All expenses paid, all-inclusive resort. It’s a dream trip. I’m very jealous. These restaurant vouchers are for some very fine places off the grounds of the resort. The company did this one up right. There were three winners, but Dick topped them all. The other two don’t get these vouchers.”

My feet seemed to be in quicksand pulling me downward. I sensed the sinking momentum inside myself. I was unsteady and gripped the doorframe. There was a buzzing g
rowing in my head.

I heard the words. I knew what the words meant.
But my brain just wouldn’t absorb them. She was still speaking. Something about emailing or faxing the vouchers to his hotel so he could use them with his lucky vacation partner.

Somehow she vanished. My door was closed. I was
still standing there motionless, but everything inside me was shifting on its axis. Bits and pieces of erratic thoughts snapped like electrical fire in my head. I was trying to put together everything I’d just heard because it didn’t fit into the serene and contented morning that I was having before I’d opened the door.

I looked
back at the sofa, the cup of coffee on the table where the morning had started. It was astonishing how the mood could change in so short a distance. From that table to the door. Somehow my feet took me back there like life was holding that nice place for me with a bookmark. Only the nice day wasn’t there anymore. Just me and the sound of myself hyperventilating.

Suddenly, I wasn
’t in my living room anymore. My mind took me inside the plane, seated next to Dick as he looked out the window. I could see his smile as the city whisked away beneath him, carrying him to the land of blue skies and clear ocean and sandy beaches. Our trip. The one I had looked forward to. The one that he had used to encourage me to send my friends to him so he could win the contest. The beach I had rigorously worked out for. I had dreamed about lying on a towel in the blazing sun, sipping Margaritas. The beach he was headed to at that very moment. Without me.

I stared at the walls. Something told me I could tear down those walls like Samson. I
’d be seeing these walls from Friday to Friday as he tanned in warm sunshine.

I thought
: this is how people end up in prison. These are the thoughts that turn the meek into monsters; mild-mannered men into murderers. And it can happen to the sanest of souls within a few sentences, a matter of seconds. Happiness can turn to hatred in a few clicks of a second hand on a clock.

I found myself in the bedroom. The room I
’d given up in my own home to him, ever the hospitable, unselfish host. I stared at the bed. I wondered how he’d laid in it for two months knowing he’d won the vacation. How he decided I wouldn’t be going? Apparently for those sixty or so days he had no stab of conscience about lying to me, betraying me; robbing me of the one small hope that had given me something to look forward to. He never expected me to find out.

How could I feel so much hatred, depression
, and disbelief at once; like it was a rotation between them on a wheel turning inside me? From inside this demented fog I realized my hands were hurting and I looked down to my balled fists to see that my nails had drawn blood from my palms.

I won
’t pretend to tell you I handled this in a dignified manner. I did all the things you can imagine. Said all the curse words, cried. Drank. Three bottles of wine that night alone. It was the grandest, most uninhibited pity party I’d ever held in my life.

I felt unstable. Hell, I felt
driven insane by the things I was thinking in the depth of my anger. I knew I needed help. When I woke up the next morning I knew where to go; whose ear to bend. Someone who could help me because he knew me inside out.

*  *  *

It had been four years since I’d seen Pat. Since I left our relationship. I found him in his studio. I’d knocked, No answer. I let myself in. I still had the key on my ring. He hadn’t changed the lock. He was tinkering with the lights, of course. The way I now did. I’d learned it from him. He was working on some type of food advertisement. A tablescape had been placed against a backdrop, the plate beautifully arranged on the surface. He hated taking these types of pictures, but he liked to joke, “It puts food on the table.” When my shadow crossed him and he saw me, he smiled. He didn’t seem surprised.

He was balder. In fact, his head looked shiny in the lights. T
here was a new addition. A trimmed moustache. It was completely white. He’d gained a few more pounds. His belly rolled over his belt in his white button down shirt. But he looked healthy and happy.

“
Hey there, J.J.!” he said, addressing me like I’d never been away. Even his voice had a smile for me.

It was strange being back in the famil
iar surroundings that had been my home... our home for so many years, and feeling out of place.

“
You look good,“ I said, rubbing my finger over my top lip indicating the new facial accessory.

“
Always wanted to do one. Can’t grow it on my head anymore, so I thought I might as well grow it on my face.” He stood and opened his arms. “Give an old man a hug,” he invited me in. He felt big and warm and smelled of his usual spice aftershave. I’d missed him, I realized.

He made us lunch.
One of his favorites. Grilled American cheese sandwiches with thin, long sliced dill pickles and canned tomato soup with oyster crackers. It tasted like memories.

He listened to me
pour out all my anger, my depression, my disappointment. An hour or so later he must have figured I’d be there a while and made us coffee. I talked endlessly about everything in my life like the rambling would organize some of the confusion in my head. Once again I was the teenager running away from home. Someone looking for advice and help. In all these years, we’d never changed roles, just aged within them.

His patience was extraordinary considering that I was his former lover who left him
—and because I was all over the place. He didn’t have to give me the time of day. What my tale lacked in order and sense, it made up for in its raw emotional delivery. I don’t know if I wanted sympathy. I think I was just attempting to drain the whirlpool of feelings in me.

Finally, I fell silent. As if my words just ran out. My throat was raw
; my eyes gritty from the tears of two days. I asked the question I wanted someone else to answer because I couldn’t. “Why would someone do something like that?”

He rose, walked to the refrigerator, opened the freezer and took out two ice cream sandwiches. He always kept the freezer stocked with them. They were his favorite treats. He handed one to me,
then sat down to unwrap his own.

“
We’ve been lucky, J.J., living lives out in the open, able to be ourselves. I think sometimes we take that freedom for granted. Do you remember Dr. Con?”

Dr. Con had been a lifelong friend of Pat
’s. He was a fixture at every party we ever gave or went to. He was a man in his fifties with dyed dark brown hair, always in the most exquisite suits, and one of the top pediatricians in the city.

“
He lived his whole life as a closeted gay because of his job being a doctor to children. His secretary was his pretend date for any functions connected with his profession. People always assumed they were an item because she went everywhere with him. She knew his secret and she helped preserve it. She thought of it as part of her job. There wasn’t a day that went by that Dr. Con wasn’t afraid of being discovered. It would ruin him; destroy his livelihood. And so he lived in the fanatical world of paranoia. An entirely sane man living an insane existence.”

I remembered how he always parked his car blocks away when we went to gay bars or nightclubs, and would walk the
rest of the distance. Sometimes he’d get so drunk he’d forget where he parked and we’d have to drive him home. He’d take a cab back the next day to find his car and drive it home.

“
You, yourself came from a completely crazy religious family. You did something that most people can’t do. Disconnect. Cut yourself off from the one thing that’s supposed to remain forever important to us. Family. You could do that because there wasn’t even a pretense of love there. There was abuse. Most families, even dysfunctional ones like Dick's, have very strong, loving bonds. This sense of love helps them create this little bubble surrounding the perfectly happy American family. Everything inside this bubble is a snapshot of how we’ve been brainwashed to believe the happy American family should be.