Where the Boys Are, page 4
Simon
In Grand Central I buy coffee, and two Danishes, because I’m just that hungry and just that rich, and go down a broad marble staircase built for me in the age of the Rockefellers and the Morgans, and my train is waiting, the first train out of the station that morning, and it’s totally empty.
When we chug out from underground it’s still dark out, and we pass through Spanish Harlem and then Harlem Proper and then we cross the river and we’re in the Bronx, and lights are glimmering in buildings and the highways are already starting to clog with early-morning commuters. I sip my expensive coffee, which has a funny aftertaste, vaguely interested in all the poverty the darkness is hiding.
Soon we’re out of the city limits and it’s starting to get brighter out. The river rolls by like a movie being shown for me alone, like this whole beautiful countryside just coming awake was built for my amusement. Trains pass mine, heading south, full of men in business suits, and those men used to scare me, but not anymore. After last night I see I’ll end up with them, with the same power and responsibilities, the same excessive cologne, the same demons, the same conviction that absolutely anything I want will be mine, only I’ll be out, and I’ll have more sex than any man can handle, and life will be wonderful.
We pull into Poughkeepsie and it’s only seven AM. The air is damp and hot and the cold metal of the stairway railing shocks me when I put my hand to it: I lean my face against it and shiver. I parked three blocks from the station, and there’s a definite tune emanating from my lips as I stroll through the warm summer air. When I get back to my car, I notice that my hands smell like blood from the iron railing.
Solomon
It’s one of those days where I’ve been walking a couple hundred blocks and the rhythm of it takes over, and I’m not even thinking anymore. After my shower last night, after sex last night, my thighs aren’t chafed and achy and my feet aren’t soaked and sore. It’s like the stage past frostbite, when you stop feeling the cold, just before you die.
Dark-gray snow is piled up over my head in spots, in huge banks along the curb. Not to be too melodramatic about things, but I’m just starting to feel like one of those Antarctic explorers who died trying to find a totally meaningless tiny patch of barren frozen tundra indistinguishable from thousands of miles of identical barren frozen tundra. The bottom of the world. A new Gap is going up on One Hundred Twenty-fifth, and in the windows giant posters totally inappropriate for the season say COMING SOON! and show healthy suburban white boys playing soccer in rugby shirts and jeans. I’m very happy to find that this particular type, which used to turn me on because it stimulated my jealousy, no longer interests me.
On One Hundred Twenty-third Street, a block west of Marcus Garvey Park, there’s a stoop crowded with men. I make eye contact with one when I pass: a handsome, older man, but down in the dumps, with a snotty nose and dirty clothes. Crackhead eyes. It’s not until I’ve turned the corner that the little smile he gave me hits home: it was Earl’s smile. Earl, first guy I slept with after leaving home. I want to turn back but don’t dare, wouldn’t know what to say. Sorry to hear you lost your place and are back on the streets? Trying to think of how long it’s been since the last time I saw him makes me realize how long I’ve been out myself.
ONE OF THE GUYS
Jameson Currier
“Cool,” Jonathan answered when Tavo had laid out the plans for their evening after work: drinks, dinner, clubbing. He nodded and added another “Cool” and felt his nervousness and youthfulness showing, though Tavo was already on the way back to his cubicle and had not witnessed Jonathan’s deterioration into discomfort. Jonathan was twenty-five and had been working at the accounting firm for less than a year, though he was still treated like a young college intern fresh from Long Island. Everyone in the company had a little too much information and advice for him, mixed in with a fake friendliness and a phony interest in his personal life, believing that he was on course for a management position because of his class ranking and an accelerated master’s degree in finance. But Tavo was also the first person to suggest that Jonathan was a bit too serious and naïve in the workplace, which is why Jonathan wanted to be more like Tavo: casual, sexy, and sought after.
Tavo (short for Gustavo) was six years older than Jonathan and wore his physique like a tight, flashy uniform. A corporate casual-attire dress code had been adopted by the firm shortly before Jonathan began working in the office, and Tavo had a preference for snug khaki pants that displayed his generous buns and crotch, and short-sleeved polo shirts that showed off his extravagant biceps and wisps of black underarm hair, and, if you were lucky and looking (which most everyone was), a peek of the chain link tattoo that circled his upper arm when he stretched to reach for a pencil or a disc. Nina, the fiftysomething departmental secretary, had a dozen nicknames she taunted and teased Tavo with every time he passed by her desk (even though she knew it was corporately unethical for her to do so), from “Big Boy” to “Hot Buns” to “Sexy Thang” and “Mr. Man.”
Tavo worked with the IT department, short for Internet Technologies or I’ve got IT (and you don’t), though it was uncertain exactly what he did when he would show up and fumble on the computer keyboard at a workstation and ask for user passwords. He had an arrogant attitude, never explaining what he was searching for or what he had discovered, which no one seemed to mind because his visit was treated as special as a personal appearance by a porn star; even the managers found him a breath of fresh air, or, for that matter, a breath of what the real world could be like outside their offices and with a body like that and with an assortment of sexual partners waiting in a long line to be picked out and taken home. In the mornings before his shift started Tavo could be seen hanging around outside the building on the sidewalk in front of the lobby entrance talking with his buddies who smoked, other slim, narrow-waisted spiky-haired young guys who also worked in IT and made it look like they were part of a private clique. At lunchtime they all sat together at the center table in the cafeteria so that it was impossible to overlook them. It was rumored that Tavo and his buddies would probably fuck anything that walked into the room at the right time, though Jonathan knew that Tavo was a bit more discriminating than his reputation belied. He had a weakness for short, tightly built Latino guys just like himself. Jonathan had learned about Tavo’s preferences after a casual remark in the men’s room one morning when Tavo, unshaved and groggy (but still sexy, magnificently so) and standing in front of the sinks and the mirror, confessed his hangover and described the trick from the night before who had kept him up and happy and intoxicated. There followed other private remarks from Tavo about his so-called not-really-gay but very-gay life—such as a list of titles of his favorite DJ remixes or a detailed description of the interior of a house in the Pines or a deliberation of the best after-parties on Pride weekend—all of which often left Jonathan uncertain as to whether they were intended to be repeated to the rest of the office staff.
Ironically, Jonathan was not as closeted and secretive about his sexual preference as Tavo and his buddies were. He was openly gay, though he was uncertain what that meant exactly at the moment, since he was not an activist or a volunteer (or, he sometimes joked, a recruiter for the “gay agenda”) and he seldom went to the bars and clubs and had not had a boyfriend since his junior year in college, the year he came out. Still, Jonathan kept up with “the culture,” picking up the local gay bar rags and newspapers at his video store, visiting the library at the gay and lesbian community center in the Village, and chatting up Nina or one of the other secretaries about their favorite movies, actors, music videos, and singers.
Jonathan lived in a basement apartment of his parents’ house in Melville, commuting on the Long Island Rail Road every morning into Manhattan and walking the fifteen-plus blocks to the firm’s midtown address. His dream was to meet a guy, the right guy, and move in together, sharing a life of Broadway musicals, dance clubs, and gallery openings. For now, he kept his personal life simple and adaptable, available to hang out with a potential boyfriend or one or two of his friends from school who still lived in the neighborhood, or, when necessary, spend face time with his family.
Lian was standing beside Tavo when Jonathan found him in the lobby after work. Jonathan hadn’t known that Lian would be joining them and was slightly disappointed because he had wanted Tavo to himself for the night (with the hope that Tavo might want to turn their outing into something more intimate and sexual). But Jonathan was also relieved when Tavo told him that they were stopping by Lian’s apartment first; Lian’s presence would keep Tavo’s focus away from Jonathan’s inexperience and apprehension.
Lian was a head taller than Tavo and Jonathan, dark haired, blue eyed, with an unmemorable face until you’d had a chance to study it. Then he was suddenly the most handsome man in the room—square jawed with a slender nose, high cheekbones, a deep chesty voice with a hint of a British accent, and an Adam’s apple that seemed to maintain its own erection. Unlike Tavo, with his stocky, flashy power, Lian was a quiet loner—the kind of guy out for a jog in Central Park or along the West Side Highway on a rainy Saturday morning instead of working out with a group of friends at the gym. Lian’s work as a programmer seldom took him far from his desk, which was why he was infrequently noticed or remembered. But it was clear to Jonathan that if everyone’s attention revolved around Tavo, Tavo’s attention orbited Lian.
Jonathan followed behind the pair like a puppy dog, sidestepping the pedestrians left in their wake as they walked to the subway. On the downtown platform waiting for the train, Tavo bounced on the heels of his feet as if he were listening to a dance tune; Lian stood beside him aloof but amused. Jonathan tried to look like he belonged but felt more like a voyeur, or an interloper, or worse, like he had felt in high school, like an outcast around the more popular guys.
Lian lived in a building on West Nineteenth Street, not far from the bar where Tavo had suggested they go for drinks before dinner. While they waited for the building elevator to arrive, Jonathan glanced at the notices of missing dogs and undelivered packages, and the business cards of photographers, editors, computer geeks and masseurs posted on a bulletin board in the lobby, wishing he were part of this everyday urban life. Lian’s apartment was on the fifth floor, a one bedroom converted into two, with a big navy blue sofa opposite the wall where the sink and stove were located in the area designed to serve as the kitchen. The décor was rather nonexistent, except for a framed poster of a leaping dolphin that looked like it belonged in a dorm room instead of on the wall of a gay man’s apartment in Chelsea. Inside, Tavo asked Lian when his roommate Philip would be home and Lian answered with a choppy, “Soon. But I got something till then.”
Jonathan sat on the couch, took in a deep, nervous breath and told himself he could do whatever Tavo could do; and asked what music Tavo was looking for in a shelf of CDs. “Black Party mix,” Tavo answered. “Dude burned it special.”
Tavo found the CD and slipped it into Lian’s stereo system. A heavy bass soon vibrated the walls and floor and Jonathan’s shoes. Jonathan sat and watched Tavo dance with himself until Lian returned to the room with a joint. Jonathan relaxed. Just pot. Something he had done before without any problem. He took a toke when Tavo passed it to him and followed them into Lian’s bedroom to check out something Lian was downloading onto his computer. It was a video clip of a man’s cock, reported to be part of a longer sex tape made of a certain rising male celebrity. Jonathan had already seen it—he’d downloaded it himself two nights before after he had read about it in a magazine he had found at the grocery store—and he said, “Sorta unfair, isn’t it? A guy that good-looking with such a big cock.”
Lian nodded and laughed and said, “As long as he shares it.”
Tavo chuckled and it made Jonathan feel like he belonged, like he was one of the guys. Jonathan sat on the edge of Lian’s bed beside Tavo, and they passed the joint between them until it was done.
Lian flipped on the television in the bedroom, the dance music still on the stereo in the other room, and they sat and watched an entertainment news program recap highlights of celebrity blunders. Tavo disappeared and returned with a bag of taco chips and Lian said, “We can order Chinese. Philip likes Moo Shu.”
Jonathan was only slightly depressed. He had wanted to go to one of the trendy Eighth Avenue restaurants—Tavo had even suggested a few of his favorites—to be part of a flashy gay crowd, but he was also glad there was a cheaper alternative—his paycheck did not seem to be stretching the way he thought it should. The pot had made him hungry and he greedily took a handful of taco chips from the bag Tavo was holding, and said, “I love plum sauce.”
Tavo and Lian both gave him a confused look. “The plum sauce that goes on the pancake when you order Moo Shu Pork,” he added.
They seemed to understand and nodded. They watched some more television and during a commercial break Lian found a menu for a Chinese restaurant. Tavo disappeared and reappeared with beers and Jonathan drank more than half the bottle at once, unaware till then of how thirsty he had become. He felt a happy, light-headed bliss now and he found it difficult to hold back his smiling. He thought Tavo and Lian were the greatest friends he could ever find. Jonathan held the menu in his lap and Tavo and Lian huddled close around him, and he could smell their warm salty breath and syrupy antiperspirant. Tavo said he wanted something with rice noodles, “the really sticky white kind,” which made Lian laugh and say he didn’t have a take-out menu for Thai food, but they could probably find something white and sticky if they tried.
Jonathan let the innuendo waft over him, as if he were as naïve as his new friends believed he was, and he asked them if they liked “pot stickers.” Again, they didn’t seem to understand what he said, so he pointed to the menu and said, “Dumplings. Fried dumplings.”
They both smiled and nodded and when their attention seemed to drift away from the menu and back to the television, Jonathan said that he would be glad to order the Chinese food. His gesture went unanswered, which Jonathan took as a passive-aggressive manner of confirmation, and going into the kitchen area, he turned off the stereo and found the phone beside the sofa and ordered dumplings, Singapore Mei Fun (with rice noodles for Tavo), General Tso’s Chicken (for Lian), and Moo Shu Pork and Chicken (for himself and Lian’s roommate since he was unable to remember if Lian had said that Philip liked pork or chicken best).
When he had hung up, he realized he was feeling dehydrated and he searched through the kitchen cabinets for a glass, but found none. He turned on the faucet at the sink and slipped his mouth into the flow of water and swallowed till he felt full. The water was cold against the back of his throat and he wiped his mouth and chin with the sleeve of his dress shirt. He wished he had known beforehand that Tavo had wanted to do something this evening; he would have dressed more casual, or, rather, not have worn his best work shirt and dress pants to party in.
Back in the bedroom Tavo and Lian were lying on the bed still watching television. Jonathan stood and watched the program—now one of those nature shows about kangaroos in Australia (one of them must have changed the channel)—and thought how envious everyone at work would be of him, being in a bedroom with Tavo even though nothing was happening (or looking like it would happen). When the buzzer rang a few minutes later, Jonathan went into the kitchen area and located the buzzer on the wall and let the delivery boy inside the building.
While he waited, Jonathan checked the money in his wallet—he had enough to cover the delivery and he could collect payment from the guys at work the next day if they didn’t ante up when the food arrived. He stood by the door for a few minutes and waited, then grew restless and sat on the sofa and flipped through a magazine and read the escort ads in the back. He’d lost track of time—a good ten minutes—when there was a knock at the door. Jonathan paid and tipped the delivery boy—the boy muttered something to Jonathan, which he took to be about the sluggishness of the elevator—and then Jonathan emptied the bags on the small counter in the kitchen. He walked into the bedroom and said, “Food’s here.” Tavo and Lian both gave him blank looks, as if they had forgotten Jonathan was even in the apartment. The bag of taco chips between them was empty.
Then suddenly, as if someone had flipped a switch, they sprung up from the bed and were in the kitchen, going through the cartons of food. Tavo sat cross-legged on the floor and ate with chopsticks, as if it were the most natural thing to do. Lian perched on the side arm of the couch and used a fork, eating directly from the container. Jonathan stood at the counter and used a paper plate to spread out the plum sauce onto his pancake and roll up his Moo Shu into something that resembled a burrito. Someone had turned the stereo back on (or Jonathan thought that perhaps he had only turned down the volume when he had used the phone; it seemed like such a long time ago and he couldn’t even remember walking into the apartment). The music thumped and vibrated and kept each of them occupied and silent. While they were eating the front door unlocked and Lian’s roommate Philip walked in, smartly dressed in a gray business suit, white shirt, and yellow-patterned tie.
“Party time!” Philip said above the heavy bass beat, when he saw Lian and Tavo eating. He nodded at Jonathan and said, “Hey,” and Jonathan responded likewise. Philip was Tavo’s height, but had Lian’s slender, gentleman’s build, though the similarity ended there. Philip had a swarthy five o’clock shadow, tiny black eyes, a wide lower jaw and thick red lips that opened to a bright smile of oversized teeth that appeared almost cartoonish. It was immediately apparent (to Jonathan, at least) that the alpha male figure of the group had arrived and whatever fun Tavo had been planning for them was now ready to begin.
“Looks like I got to catch up with you guys,” Philip said, smirking so widely that it seemed almost unnatural. He disappeared into the room behind the navy sofa—a living room that had been walled over to create a second bedroom in the apartment. He emerged a few minutes later dressed in jeans and an olive green T-shirt. On the kitchen counter he tapped out the contents of a vial onto a paper plate and used a rolled-up dollar bill to snort a fine white powder up his nostrils. He turned to the guys and said, “Want a hit?”
