These Things Happen (6 page)

   "Of course not," I tell the door. "It's a school night. Or a school middle of the night, in this case."

   "And you didn't go get him? Is it even safe?"

   He's back, and seems to be looking at me; anyone observing us, invisibly, would think,
He's there.
But I know he's not, that he's steeling himself to make today's Gay Statement. I should let him be, so he can do his good, but I can't, not yet. Because I'm worried for Wesley, last night's Sandman; I worry for boys on roofs. "He wants to talk to us," I say.

   "I'm here."

   
No, you're not
, I want to say. But I don't. "He's never asked for that before. Not specifically, anyway."

   "I'm
here
," he says again. "Last night I couldn't be."

   "I know that."

   "I tried to be."

   "I know that, too," I say. "I always know everything."

   "Is he in trouble?"

   "I don't know. Of course!"

   "Why?"

   "Because all kids are, right?" I say. "Because they're kids."

   He laughs. "That's for sure."

   I do a few inhuman Fosse moves to allow him to get to the dresser. "It's the Innocence Project thing, for school. He defends people, who were executed, who there were questions about. In mute court."

   "Moot."

   I Fosse back, to let him pass to the closet, to our tangle of well-kept shoes. "I beg your pardon?"

   "I believe you mean
moot.
Not
mute.
But why would you know?"

   "Well, because I
did
," I say. "That's why." I didn't; why doesn't that matter? I count on Kenny to know the difference between moot and
mute
, and can't ever let him know that. And he does, anyway, I'm sure, because people always do. Which is their secret; so it never ends. "Anyway? He pretends he's a lawyer, he told me all about it."

   "He didn't tell me."

   "You
are
one!"

   "I know what I am," he says. "So is there anything specifically? I have an insane day, as you can imagine."

   "Specifically," I say, "there's the Rosenbergs."

   "Milton and Shyla? From the Roundabout?

   Milton and Shyla Rosenberg have had the subscription seats next to us for the last five years. Milton never speaks; Shyla is always the one to let us know, as the play ends, how disappointed they are; disappointment, as Lenny says, is its own form of New York power. "The other ones," I say. "From the electric chair."

   "But what is there to talk about? They were guilty."

   "We don't know that."

   "Well, they were guilty of something," he says. "Everyone is. All lawyers know that."

   " Would you have defended them?"

   "Maybe," says Kenny. "If they were bi-curious. I know my niche."

   I see something now. He's funnier, or more than he was, which was not at all. I thought that was hot, when we met, that he wasn't. Everyone I know is funny; I have been drowning in it since theater camp, long ago. And if Kenny's going to be the funny one, who will I be?

   "Anyway," I say, "he and Theo are a defense team. So there's that."

   "Theo," he says. "Does he have any other friends besides Theo?"

   "Of course he does. People like him."

   "It's just Theo's the only one he seems to mention, that's all."

   "Theo's a good kid," I say, as Kenny slips away again. I join him, in the bathroom, where he's just finished shaving. "Turn to me." He does. "You missed a spot." I point, to his absurdly chiseled hero's chin. Wesley has it, too, which I'd never really noticed until he came here; I wonder if Kenny has, if you see yourself like that, in your own kid. Kenny strokes, searches, but his own missed spot hides from him, as it usually does on your own face. So I find it for him, settle my finger there. Then his meets mine, and for a moment I think we both might forget our waiting days and stay home, in the silk dressing gowns we don't have, to kiss occasionally while watching whole fat seasons of F
riday Night Lights
, to order in sesame noodles in boxes big as cars.

   "Dad?"

   We both jump, gasp, cartoon cats with tails in sockets.

   "Well," Kenny says, in a whisper, "this time I heard him."

   "We're right here, Wes," I say.

   "I know," I hear him say. "I just wanted you guys to know I was in the kitchen if you were looking for me. Not that there are that many options. Ha."

   "Ha?" Kenny says, to me.

"It's this thing they do," I say. "It's the new laughing."

"We're coming," I call to Wesley.

"Awesome!" he calls back.

   "Why does he have to say that?" says Kenny. "What's become of hyperbole?"

   "
Ah, liaisons
. . ." I sing, suddenly Madame Armfeldt. Which is gay of me, I know, but as long as I still know what's gay of me (and I do) I don't really give a shit. I was Henrik, three times, in
A Little
Night
Music.
Kenny, of course, doesn't get my reference, which is hot.

   I'm on my way out when he touches me. "Hold it," he says.

   "He's waiting."

   "This'll be quick. I promise." He beams, like a boy holding a present behind his back, something he's made for his mom. "You know how I never know the song I'm thinking of and always have to ask you?"

   "Well— yes."

   "Well, guess what? This time I do!"

   "What song is that?" I say. "And about what?"

   "The London song." He sings, in the voice of an actor whose rather good singing has been a secret. "
A foggy day, in London
town . . . Y
ou know that song?"

   "Everyone does."

   "It's not about the song, though," he says. "It's about a trip."

   "To London town?"

   "Just a quickie. More of a long weekend, really. We've never been there together and we've always wanted to go, right? So we pop over for Boxing Day, or Whitsuntide. Anything. What matters is
going.
So how does that sound?"

   Can he be serious? Only Maggie Smith can answer this question properly and, since she lives inside me, I have no trouble summoning her up. "Oh, K
enny
," I say, all pursed lips and buttressed elbows, "Whitsuntide's in
May."

   He laughs. "Well, if anyone would know that, it'd be you."

   "I'm sorry. But I do." So another small talent I'm embarrassed by, meat thrown to the Shame Buzzards; I know holidays from around the world and the festive foods that go with them, most of which involve almonds.

   "So call it Christmas," he says, "because that's when it would be. And no big deal, either. We'd just pop over."

   "So popping is free now?"

   "It may not be free," he says. "But that's not a problem."

   "But it is," I say. "A big one. Especially since my business is fucked, pretty much, and may never get better. Because I'm a step from dipping candles and selling them at farmers markets, in a kooky hat. It's the wrong year—"

   "No, the year's right. Y
ou're
wrong. The only thing we have to do is get there!"

   "Don't tell me!" I say. "Do I sense the hand of Charles and Margaret?" Charles was Kenny's Yale roommate, Harvard law school roommate, and the first person he came out to (Charles was w
onder
ful
, of course), while Margaret, whose great-grandfather invented cement, or some such useful thing, heads a pilot program to keep arts in the schools, whether they want them there or not. They breed Affenpinschers, just for friends, devote their Saturdays to delivering nutritious meals to AIDS patients and the elderly, and have every known recording of
Die Frau ohne Schatten
, including the hard-tofind
Louis and Ella Swingin' with Strauss
. I hate them.

   "Yes!" Kenny says, as if this were the best part of it. "You've read my mind." He beams, again; he almost never beams. "They've rented a flat in Covent Garden, on Floral Street. Two bedrooms, antiques, actual water pressure—"

   " Really?"

   "Around the corner from the Opera House."

   "Oh, fuck me."

   "But I promise you won't have to go."

   "Well, if it's a Friday, I can always have
shabbos
with William and Kate."

   "Seriously," he says. "We'd have our own cooker, which is what they call stoves there. And one of those plug-in teapots. So we wouldn't have to spend much on food. George?" I turn away; there's a boy in the kitchen, waiting for us, who last night I heard pacing, troubled, above us. "George? So?"

   "When would this be, exactly?"

   "We'd leave the twenty-third. We've got the miles, or I do, to cover us both. And we'd be home by New Year's Eve." He lets this settle. " Which would be just us. You and me."

   "I know what us means."

   "Remember last year? How it snowed? And we watched that movie. You know the one. Come on. What's the name of it?" It's Lubitsch, T
he Shop Around the Corner
; we've watched it nine years in a row; I don't want to help him. "You know," Kenny says. "The two people, in the store. Who love each other but don't know it. And you made that delicious spaghetti. Remember?"

   "Kenny, he's waiting. He's got school; you and I are already fucked for the day, basically. Can we talk about this later?"

   "I promised Charles I'd let him know this morning."

   "It wouldn't work," I say.

"Why not?"

   What no one ever says about clichés is that there's comfort to be found in them; if you know to which cliché group you belong, you almost always know what to do. "Well, for one thing, it was
bucca
tini.
Not spaghetti. I'm sorry, but it's my life, more or less, the distinctions between pastas. Or among them. Or whatever." And I think:
is
that my life? But I don't say that, because what if it is?

   "Dad?" Wesley calls from the kitchen.

   "On our way!" I call back.

   "George—"

   "Don't say my name," I say. "Say his. Because we have him. So that's why, or why not, or whatever."

   He knows this, but he's ever the good lawyer, a step ahead. "He can go to Ben and Lola's," Kenny says. "He does live there, after all. And I'm talking about a week."

   "They're going to be in Israel on the twenty-third. Three days in Haifa, two in Tel Aviv, four in Jerusalem." I know the schedules of others, often better than my own; who'll be in Belize when, who's having the stitches out Friday, who's taking their theater-mad nephew Jeremy to W
icked W
ednesday night. "Ben's giving a lecture."

   "So that's it, then?"

   "We can't just leave him," I say. "He's a kid."

   "I know what he is." He sighs. "And we could if you wanted to. I'll tell Charles and Margaret. They'll be disappointed."

   "Well, I am, too," I say, and as I do I see why I've loved him, or one reason, anyway; he never thinks of his own disappointment, only the disappointment he's convinced he causes in others. "I'm sure they'll understand, right? I mean, they have kids."

   I hear garbage trucks grinding, taxi horns, what sounds like a series of gunshots.

   "The bathroom needs painting," says Kenny, as he always does when we run out of other things to say.

   "I'll call the guy again," I say, as I always do.

   He goes into the bathroom, closes the door. I go to the kitchen, where I find Wesley setting muffins on the
Cats
platter I got, years ago, at a Secret Santa party.

   "Hey."

   "Where's Dad?"

   "He missed a spot. Shaving."

   "You mean here?" He touches his chin.

   "Exactly."

   "I always miss that, too," he says. "When I actually do shave, that is, which isn't that often, which makes me wonder if my future will be, you know, like hirsute. But Dad and me are like the same in that general chin-like area."

   Kenny comes in. "Not really," he says.

   "I disagree," I say. " Maybe you just don't see it because it's your face."

   Kenny ignores this. "Everything okay?" he asks Wesley, and I think: Poor kid, getting asked that every minute, by parents, cabbies, guys selling sunglasses on Seventh Avenue.

   "Totally," Wesley says. "I'm thriving, one might say."

   "One might say," Kenny echoes, looking a bit puzzled. I'm not, though, as I've gotten used to how Wesley and Theo talk together, sounding one moment like they've just had lunch with Jay-Z, the next as if they were at the Security Council, pondering sanctions. "Well, that's good to hear!" He looks to me. "Right?"

   "Definitely."

   Kenny's phone rings. Wesley gets it for him, from the counter,

reads out who's calling. "Fuck, Dad!" he says. "I mean, sorry, it's the
New York Times
." He whispers this; he's his parents' son. They want Kenny, I'm sure, for his usual eloquence. I've asked him many times to say, "One day, the rights of all, gay, straight, and nonprofessional, will be honored and respected. Until then, come on down to Ecco Ristorante, this week saluting the cuisine of Emilia-Romagna, first ten gnocchi free!" Would it kill him to do that?

   Kenny takes the phone from Wesley. "Hello?" he says, turning away and heading for the bedroom.

   "It's a rough day for him," I say.

   "Oh, I know."

   I call out, so the world can hear us, "I can make waffles! They're farm-to-table!" No answer; I just hear stately mutterings from the other end of the hall. I turn to Wesley. "Waffles it is, then. You want to make them?"