The college freshman, being high, was also a little paranoid. Therefore, as he boarded the Amtrak Colonial he had the impression that people could tell. Why was everyone staring? Some smiling, some raising eyebrows, a few shaking their heads. Do I reek? Eugene thought. I used Binaca.
Then he remembered what he was wearing. The white fur coat. The pink sunglasses. The striped collegiate scarf knotted at his neck. Sort of a new look for him, part glam, part New Wave.
Eugene’s little secret? He wanted to be beautiful. If that didn’t work, noticeable would do.
He unzipped his coat and fanned himself, hot from running down the platform.
It was a late-November afternoon, in the confusing year of 1978, and Eugene was headed back to school after a wild weekend exploring the demimonde. Eugene knew that was a French word associated with women of dubious morals, but in his mind it included the teen runaways at that chicken-hawk bar Stigwood had taken him to, Saturday night; plus Stigwood himself, who was rich and debauched. The main thing about the demimonde was that nobody back at the dorm had a clue about it. Only Eugene.
As he started down the aisle, he watched passengers’ reactions through his sunglasses. One lady poked her husband, as if to say, Only in New York! An old guy with a mean red face and a Teamster’s haircut scowled and said something that sounded like “Fruitcake.” That was fine. Scandalizing the sensibilities of the masses was part of the vocation. Better get used to it, Eugene told himself.
He was so caught up in the act of scandalizing sensibilities that it took him a while to notice something. The train was packed. Should have got here earlier.
Raphael had made him late. They were up in Stigwood’s bedroom, Eugene packing his duffel, when Raphael said, “Want to play a game with me? Please. It’s fun.”
Raphael was Stigwood’s boyfriend from Venezuela. He was lying across the bed, dressed in tight salmon flares, a Qiana shirt, and platform shoes, his black hair cut in a wedge, like Dorothy Hamill’s. Raphael was about Eugene’s age, but he didn’t go to college; he worked at a hair salon, sweeping up hair. The rest of the time he lounged around the town house.
Eugene felt sorry for Raphael. He hadn’t known there were male concubines. Also, Raphael had just lit a joint. So Eugene said, “OK, I’ll play for a minute.”
Raphael passed the doobie and picked up a deck of cards. “Everybody has a word map,” he explained. “Your word map is how you feel, inside, as a person. Here. I show you.”
Raphael laid three cards on the bedspread. Each bore a word.
Sensitivity. Ardor. Celebration.
“Pick a card,” Raphael said. “How you feel, inside.”
Eugene took a hit and thought about it. His mom always called him sensitive. But not in a way he liked. You had to be sensitive to be a poet, of course, but Eugene’s mom meant more like that time at swimming lessons, when he’d refused to get into the pool.
You do something once and your family never stops talking about it.
So: no to Sensitivity.
Ardor was like armpit plus odor.
Celebration, on the other hand, had appeal. First of all, it was Latinate, and Eugene had been taking Latin since seventh grade. Celebration was also a Broadway musical by the creators of The Fantasticks, the longest-running musical in the history of Off-Broadway theater. Eugene’s high school had staged Celebration his sophomore year, and Mr. Baxter, the drama teacher, had cast Eugene as Orphan, one of the leads.
Plus, Eugene did like to party.
“Celebration,” he told Raphael. “Definitely.”
Raphael was dealing more cards when Stigwood burst in. Stigwood was a friend of Mr. Baxter’s, from his New York acting days. Having been alerted by Eugene that he was coming East for college, Stigwood had invited him to stay if he were ever in New York, so that was what Eugene had been doing. This was his third visit. Stigwood had a girlfriend, too. Her name was Sally. Eugene wasn’t sure if she knew about Raphael. Probably not. “Gay, straight,” Stigwood said, “it’s all a bunch of bullshit.” Right now, Stigwood had his Caligula face on, eyes dead, tongue lolling. That didn’t usually happen until later at night. Ignoring Eugene’s presence, he crossed the bedroom and tackled Raphael from behind. Then mounted him and sucked on his face. Raphael didn’t resist at first. But when Stigwood stuck his hand down Raphael’s pants he shoved him onto the floor. “You know what, Jerry? You treat me like a slut,” he shouted. “Well, let me tell you something. I am not your slut!”
While this was going on, Eugene had retreated to the corner of the room. Seemed only polite. Plus, if he remained inconspicuous he could watch what happened next. But then he remembered his train. “See you guys! Thanks for everything, Mr. Stigwood!” he said, and booked. Got to Penn Station with two minutes to spare.
Which was why, now, no seats.
He kept going down the aisle, searching. This train was in better condition than the subways, at least. They were totally trashed. All weekend, Eugene had had “Shattered” stuck in his head, Mick singing, Don’t you know the crime rate is going up, up, up, up, up / To live in this town you must be tough, tough, tough, tough, tough!
Hold on. Did he just sing that out loud? Now people were really staring.
Stigwood always had the strongest dope!
New York was dying. But that was OK. It was in dying empires that the greatest poets appeared. Virgil in Rome. Dante in Florence. Baudelaire in Paris. Decadence. Eugene liked that word. It was like “decay” and “hence.” Things falling apart over time. A sweet smell like that of rotten bananas, or of bodies ripe from iniquitous exertion, could pervade an entire age, at which point someone came along to give voice to how messed up things were and, in so doing, made them beautiful again.
That was what Eugene wanted to do. First, though, he had to learn prosody.
Up ahead, he spotted an empty seat. Headed for it only to find an overnight bag there, its owner hiding behind a newspaper. Two rows later, same thing, only this time the seat-hogger was pretending to nap. People were such fakers.
Take the ballerina, for instance. Hadn’t she promised to meet Eugene at the movies last week? And when he’d suggested bringing granola bars, so they wouldn’t have to pay for candy, hadn’t she said, “Good idea! Can you bring some for me?” But then he’d waited under the marquee, with a whole box of Oats ’n Honey, and she never showed up, and later he heard she’d been in the common room, drinking Asti with Rob, the RA with the beard.
Now he reached the end of the train car. On the door a blue button said PRESS. “See this button?” Eugene said to himself. “This is Rob’s face,” and he punched it, hard. To his surprise, the doors opened with a whoosh, like an airlock on a spaceship. Wow. Cool. Now he was between cars. Daredevil-like. He looked down, expecting to see tracks below—the train had started moving—but the area was an enclosed, accordion-like sleeve that bent gracefully as the train pulled out of the station.
Peering into the next car, Eugene saw more faces. It was like that poem from his imagism seminar. “In a Station of the Metro,” by Ezra Pound. Since no one could hear him in this little space, Eugene recited the poem. It wasn’t long, just this:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet black bough.
Eugene’s friend Mike always made fun of him when he read out loud. He said Eugene had a “poetry voice.” But what could he do? He didn’t like his regular voice. Too nasal.
Anyway, the reciting helped. He felt better already. To enter the next car, Eugene just pressed the button gently.
Same story, though. Totally packed. He wasn’t going to have to stand the whole way to Providence, was he? He had homework to do!
He went into the next car. And the next. Each one stuffier and more crowded. As he was entering yet another car, he caught sight of his reflection and turned back to study it after the door closed. The curly Lou Reed hair, the Warhol sunglasses. Those were new. He’d seen the frames in an optometrist’s window and gone straight in and bought them. Then decided to tint the lenses, and had picked dark rose, which maybe had been a bit much.
Something told Eugene not to wear the sunglasses around campus. Why not try them out in New York? So many storefront windows in which to look at yourself and decide.
While he examined his reflection, deciding, Eugene heard a mellow-toned voice.
“This seat’s free,” the voice said.
Eugene turned. Didn’t see anyone. Then lifted his sunglasses.
Five rows deep, a man beckoned. He had a yellow cable-knit sweater tied around his shoulders. Blond hair that looked straightened, or dyed, or both.
Not again, Eugene thought. Man. Everywhere I go!
On the other hand, there was no place else to sit.
Fifteen minutes earlier, as he limped onto the train, Kent Jeffries had been in no mood for company. He was too wrecked. God, what a weekend! Outrageous! What was the joke Mickey had made? At that bathhouse? Oh, yeah: Can I borrow an orifice you’re not using?
The last thing Kent needed now was some turkey talking his ear off. Accordingly, he’d taken a seat by the window, setting his bag beside him. Then he’d spread his Pierre Cardin blazer—the rust, not the kelly green—on top. That should do it. While people boarded, he leafed through Variety. As seats grew scarce, he started to worry, and laid his head back, pretending to sleep.
No sooner had his eyes closed than images of the past two days flickered in his mind.
Friday night: That after-hours place in the Village. Cable spools for tables. Rough trade in the back room. More Mickey’s thing than his.
Saturday: They climbed into a refrigerator truck in the meatpacking district. Pitch-black inside. Smelled like a stable. Three dozen men creating a vortex, a flesh whirlpool, that sucked you in and around and out again.
Climbing down afterward, Kent said, “I felt a little overdressed. How about you?”
Next thing he knew he was taking a leak at someplace called the Dungeon. The urinal was open at the bottom. As Kent stared down into the bowels of the earth, a face appeared. A dignified, older gentleman, trembling with anticipation. Definitely Mickey’s thing.
Finally, they went to that disco everyone was raving about, the Ice Palace. They were on the dance floor, doing poppers, when from out of the neon-lit, fog-machine fog a small Puerto Rican queen strutted past, wearing nothing but Christmas lights.
“Where do you keep the batteries?” Mickey called.
“In the shape of a dildo up my ass!”
Sassy! But still not Kent’s thing.
Then it was Sunday and he woke up in Mickey’s basement apartment on Cornelia Street. People’s ankles going past the dirty windows. Already noon.
Mickey entered with a tube of Preparation H. “Dab in each nostril,” he said. “Home remedy.”
“I’m never drinking again,” Kent groaned.
But at brunch, when Mickey ordered a Bloody, Kent said, “Oh, all right.”
One led to three, by which point they’d developed a rationale. They were fortifying themselves. Had a difficult day ahead of them. At two, they were going to clean out Jasper’s digs, now that Jas was sick and had moved back to Texas. Revisiting the scene of all their revels wasn’t going to be easy. Not for any of them, and least of all for Kent, whose name used to be on the lease.
It also meant seeing Ron, who’d lived in the apartment recently. Ron was a purely stopgap measure, in Kent’s opinion. Skinny. Bucktoothed. Taller than Tommy Tune.
“I suppose he’s handy when you need something from the top shelf,” Kent had said to Jasper once, on the phone.
“Don’t be bitchy,” Jasper said.
Ron still had keys. By the time Kent and Mickey arrived, he’d aired the place out and prepared a pitcher of mimosas. Louie and Ed were already going through Jasper’s stuff.
The apartment looked unchanged. Still the familiar mélange, the Chinese trunk next to the Victorian love seat next to the bust of Jasper done by that sculptor in Key West. Jas’s record collection—the ragtime, the Lotte Lehmann. His Roman trinkets, his colored-glass bottles. But, despite Jasper’s flair for decorating, the spirit had gone out of the place. It looked rundown. Mouse droppings. Old-cigarette smell.
They drank mimosas while they dickered.
Ed wanted Jasper’s secretary with the broken leg.
Louie had dibs on the framed poster for the Living Theatre, signed by Julian Beck.
Jasper’s books, his annotated scripts, his correspondence with theater bigwigs (Brustein, Foreman, Grotowski) were to be boxed up and sent to Rice University.
What did Kent want? The leather pig footstool from England? The very tiny Miró?
Nothing was in the right drawers anymore. He couldn’t find any scissors to cut the packing tape.
Finally, he went into the bedroom, stood on the brass bed, and reached up under the lighting fixture—and there it was. His old stash, from 1971.
Jasper didn’t approve of grass. Kent had always had to sneak out to the fire escape.
When he exited the bedroom, Ron was on the phone with Jasper at the hospital. He held the phone toward the stereo and said, “Jas, we’re playing Bobby Short in your honor.”
Everyone who got on the phone with Jas screamed with laughter at something he told them. Jas’s old chestnuts.
In bed by twelve, home by three.
He’s very butch. He gets it from his mother.
Look, he was dead. How can you be jealous?
Then it was Kent’s turn.
He tried to sound upbeat. Festive.
Good thing he was an actor.
“Last chance to change your mind and come back, Jas,” he said. “We’ll just unpack everything.”
“What the fuck’s the matter with Ron?” Jasper said. “Siccing all these well-wishers on me. I’m in no condition.”
Jasper sounded mad. That made Kent happy. Ron was getting on his nerves, too, presiding over everything, auditioning for the role of widow.
“What do you expect from an understudy?” Kent said.
Jas laughed. Started coughing. Fought down the cough enough to say, “That’s exactly what he is! Only good enough for the matinée!” As he paused to catch his breath, the receiver filled with noise. Phone calls to Jasper were party lines now, three people on at once: Kent, Jasper, and Jasper’s emphysema, wheezing in the background.
Kent’s voice was softer as he said, “How are you doing down there, Jas? Really.”
“Oh, well. Back in the bosom of my family. You know how I’ve always felt about bosoms.”
And now Kent managed it: the scream of hilarity.
“I’m tired,” Jas said. “Hanging up.”
It was Ron who ended up bawling. He crumpled onto the floor, crying out, “It’s so fucking unfair! God!” Louie and Ed knelt down, patting and stroking him.
Kent went to the window and lit a cigarette. At drama school, they’d done an exercise where you had to pretend to be on an iceberg. The other students had shivered and hugged themselves, hopping around. Kent had had a different idea. He’d gone to the edge of the stage, alone, and let the coldness seep into his skin. Squinted his eyes. Tightened his sphincter. Retracted his scrotum. Just became ice. Frozen. Feeling nothing. That was how you played cold. It worked for a shivering peasant in Chekhov or a naked Fool on the heath.
Now Kent did it at other times as well.
Disconnected his phone, turned off the lights. People rang his bell, shouted at his window, “Answer the door, Kent! We know you’re there!”
Sitting in the dark, frozen, the person Kent was at those times didn’t answer to the name on his Equity card. He was still Peter J. Belknap, Liz and Roger’s boy, from Buffalo. Good-looking kid. Class president. Girls all crazy about him.
Liz was gone now. That was another reason Kent shut himself in for days at a time. To think about her. Liz coming down the stairs, fixing a diamond earring, on her way out to dinner with Roger. Kent/Peter, ten years old, in charge of making cocktails. The way Liz smiled when he brought her drink, and said to Roger, “Darling, where did you find this new bartender? He’s terribly good.”
Behind closed eyelids, shamming sleep on the train, Kent Jeffries thought about Liz, his dear sweet mother. His eyes were welling. He shifted in the seat, turning his head toward the window, and slipped off his Gucci loafers. He’d bought a new pair at Bergdorf’s, stupidly wore them out of the store, and now had blisters on both feet. That was why he was limping.
Finally, the train pulled out of the station. Kent figured it was safe to open his eyes.
That was when he saw the boy. In the Eskimo coat. And the Elton John sunglasses. Staring into the door window behind him like Narcissus into his pool.
Kent knew who the kid reminded him of. Himself, twenty years ago. Grow up queer in the sticks and it’s like hearing a broadcast in the distance. You can make out the frequency all right, but the words get garbled along the way. So, when you finally run away to New York, you end up dressing like this kid, in some wild approximation of flamboyant.
Kent had taken a bus from Buffalo to Port Authority and then the subway to Christopher Street. Found a wall to lean against.
White tank top. Cutoffs so short the pockets showed.
Jasper, on his way from teaching at HB Studios, picked him up. Took Kent straight home, but only to feed him and let him use the shower. Made him sleep on the couch. The next day, he took him to a dermatologist to clear up his acne.
Kent was seventeen. Jasper thirty-eight. About the age Kent was now.
It was sympathy that made him call out to the boy. He knew how hard it could be.
When the kid lifted his sunglasses, his eyes looked just as pink. Stoned out of his mind.
If that was an advantage, Kent tried not to acknowledge it.
He didn’t speak to the boy until they were out of the tunnel.
“I hope no polar bears died for that,” Kent said.
“What?” the boy said, coming out of his stupor. “Oh. This coat? No. It’s fake.”
With a wiggle of its hips, the train shifted to a new track.
They still had a four-hour ride ahead of them.
Kent reached across the seat and touched the fur.
“Could have fooled me,” he said.
He was getting used to this by now. Attention from men. Certain kind of men.
Last night, for instance, Stigwood took Eugene and Raphael out to eat. They were drinking Kir Royales when a friend of Stigwood’s came up and, without even asking, started playing with Eugene’s curls. As if Eugene were there for that purpose alone.
Which, Eugene realized, he was.
He let himself be fondled. It felt nice, to be honest, and it wasn’t like any girls were offering. Also, it meant he could flag a waiter for another Kir Royale.
Celebration!
Most of the time it wasn’t so overt. Eugene would be hitchhiking and some married guy would pick him up, then touch his leg one too many times. Or at a party, instead of passing a joint, some stranger would hold it to his lips and watch him inhale.
On the street men stared, their eyes aggressive, desperate, and frightened all at once. In some neighborhoods they came from all directions, like Space Invaders.
It was like being a pretty girl. The pluses and minuses of that.
Did Eugene give off some kind of signal? Was it his earring?
He’d forgotten about that. He’d pierced his ear himself, in his dorm room, using a needle and an ice cube. As soon as it healed he was going to wear a hoop, but for now he had a gold stud from the ladies’ section.
But here was the thing about the men who pestered Eugene. They talked about interesting subjects. Existentialism. The New York School. Bertolt Brecht. Eugene loved the way girls looked and smelled, and how their voices sounded, but they didn’t know much more about the world than he did. Often less. Sometimes a lot less.
You had to keep it under control, though. Otherwise, things could get hairy.
As soon as he sat down on the train, Eugene made clear he didn’t have time for conversation. He lowered his tray table, hauled out his Loeb edition of Horace’s Odes and Epodes, and opened to Ode XXX.
He’d never translated Latin stoned before. Maybe it would be excellent.
Didn’t seem like it.
Just seemed harder.
Peeking at the English translation on the opposite page was cheating.
The train had come out of the tunnel. They were on an elevated track, passing close to slummy-looking apartment buildings. Bedsheets for curtains. Naked light bulbs on cords.
Eugene stared at the Latin. Chewed his fountain pen. Regarded the ode from a different angle. Gazed out the window again. And, in his notebook, wrote this instead:
Each window I see into
contains a slice of life
sliced by the train I’m in
two kids watching TV on the floor
an old man reading the paper
and just a couch, all alone
like me
The man tapped his leg.
Uh-oh.
But he just needed to get out. Eugene raised the tray and swiveled his knees. Then went back to translating.
At first, Eugene had taken Latin because it was required. But in ninth grade, when you could switch to a living language, he didn’t. He liked that Latin was dead. He liked that only smart kids took it. He liked his idiosyncratic Latin teachers, Dr. Fletcher, who played “Shoo-Fly Pie” on his guitar to teach them dactylic hexameter, and Miss McNally, who described their grammar book as “gruel-colored.”
Gruel was like “gray” and “cruel.”
Which was like Latin grammar! Most kids couldn’t take it. They flailed. Not Eugene. When he opened his Latin grammar book, he felt close to invincible.
Exegi monumentum aere perennius.
“I have made . . . a monument . . . in the air.”
No, not “air,” dummy. Aere, from aereus, meaning “bronze.”
“I have made a monument more lasting than bronze.”
Horace meant his odes. This whole book.
Jeez. Talk about conceited.
The thing was, though? Horace had written this ode two thousand years ago, and here was Eugene, on Amtrak, translating it.
He looked up to see his seatmate returning down the aisle, carrying something. Eugene looked away. He was wondering a couple of things. First, if it was even possible, at this point in history, to imagine people reading your stuff two millennia from now. Second, what could you do to increase your chances?
The man stepped over Eugene’s legs and reclaimed his seat.
“I got you a libation,” he said.
A what? Oh. Beers. In a cardboard tray. Looked pretty good. Eugene had the worst cotton mouth.
They drank the first six-pack in silence, the kid writing in his notebook. The train crossed into Connecticut as the sky darkened. Almost 5 p.m. At New Haven, they got hitched to a different engine, and then were on their way again. Past New London. Mystic.
An hour outside Providence, the boy got up, presumably to go to the bathroom. Kent Jeffries pulled out a twenty and said, “How about another round?”
The boy hesitated. “Will you watch my stuff?” he said. As if someone might steal the Latin book. Or the Liberace coat.
“It’s safe with me,” Kent Jeffries said.
By the time they started on the second six-pack, the atmosphere was different. The boy had finished his homework and become chatty. He was less stoned, more drunk. They talked about acting—the boy was excited to meet a professional actor. He’d done theater himself, in high school. Now he wanted to be a poet and was studying English literature and classics. He held up his Latin translation.
“Read it to me,” Kent said.
“Really? OK. But only if you critique my delivery. I’m going to have to give readings someday. My friend says I use this fake voice when I read out loud.”
“I’ll be the judge,” Kent said.
Holding the notebook like a hymnal, the boy intoned:
I have made a monument more lasting than bronze
And higher than the royal site of the pyramids
which neither harsh rains nor the wild North wind can erode
Nor the countless succession of years, and the flight of the seasons.
I will not entirely die! And a large part of me will avoid the grave.
Kent paid half attention. His mind was elsewhere, full of light. Moving at the same speed as the train, which was whistling along now, moonlit coves flashing by, the ocean out there somewhere, gravid in its depths. The boy wore a secondhand shirt, its celluloid collar missing, and black suspenders. So pale and thin inside these coverings, like a flower stalk. A reed.
Look who’s getting poetic now?
The kid’s reading voice was affected. He sounded like an amateur doing Shakespeare. Had no idea who he was yet, but it was touching to see how fervently he dreamed of being something.
That’s what Jas never understands. How I actually feel about them. He always wants to reduce it to—
The boy had stopped. He was looking at Kent expectantly.
“Read it again,” Kent said. “This time pretend you’re talking to somebody you care about.”
“Like who?”
Onstage, Kent always imagined Liz. Liz, out in the house, her head to one side, playing with her bracelet, and listening.
“Is there anybody you’d like to impress? This poem’s sort of show-offy.”
The boy said, “There’s this girl. At school. I don’t know her very well. But I could use her.”
“Try it. Again.”
The boy complied.
A girl. Hmm. Didn’t mean anything, necessarily.
Kent waited until the boy had finished.
“Better,” he said.
“Really? It sounded worse to me.”
“You have to use the instrument you have,” Kent said. “Any good voice coach will tell you that. You can work on your instrument. But you can’t replace it.”
“I’m going to remember that,” the boy said. “Thanks!” He seemed genuinely grateful. “It would be easier reading my own stuff. But with Horace—”
“Heavy lifting, I know.”
After that, they were silent. The train rumbled into Rhode Island. The sky was black. Twenty minutes later, the conductor called out Providence.
As they pulled into the station, they said nothing. As if embarrassed by their previous intimacy. The boy gathered his things and, without a goodbye, strode unsteadily down the aisle and onto the dark train platform.
That was for the best. It really was.
Kent put on his blazer and limped out of the train.
Colder out. No moon anymore.
Even darker in the parking lot. He was in his car, pulling onto Waterman Street, when a shape lurched into his path.
Kent rolled down his window. “Need a ride?”
The boy said nothing. Just swayed, gazing in the direction of College Hill.
Then they were both in the car, the heater blowing cold air, the radio on. Kent too bombed to drive but doing so.
The boy fiddled with the radio.
“I think a nightcap is in order,” Kent said.
“I’m totally wasted already,” said the boy.
Kent made a left, away from campus. “Is that a yes?” he said.
It was one of those historic houses on Benefit Street. No front yard. Plaque that said EBENEZER SWAMPSCOTT, WHALER, 1764.
Where Eugene was from, nothing was that old. In fifth grade he’d gone on a field trip to Fort Dearborn, but he’d had to blur his vision to erase the skyscrapers and car factories so that he could imagine the days when Indian canoes, laden with pelts, plied the river.
Plied was like “plunge,” “fly,” and “try,” all at once.
The man had a hard time with the key, even though it was his house. To compensate, when he got the door open he went all English butler, bowing and scraping. “After you, My Lord.” The low-ceilinged room they entered was full of old-fashioned furniture and oil paintings. The only modern thing was the stereo, which the man headed straight for.
It felt different, being alone with him. More tense.
Maybe Eugene should leave.
“Have you ever heard Mabel Mercer?” the man said, putting on a record.
“Who?”
“If you’re going to be a poet, you have to know Mabel Mercer.” He lowered the needle, scratching issued through the speakers, and then a piano tinkled and this voice came out. Low. Deep. Not singing, exactly. More like talking with extreme precision. Hard to tell if it was a man or a woman.
The man stood straight now, index finger raised. “Listen to her phrasing,” he said.
Eugene listened. He was glad to have an assignment. Meanwhile, the man disappeared. He returned one song later to hand Eugene a drink. Something fizzy. Tasted like Sprite.
Didn’t mix with beer so well.
All of a sudden, Eugene’s mouth filled with saliva. He swallowed, but it refilled. Since opening his mouth didn’t seem like a good idea, he put down his glass and hurried out of the room. He found the guest bathroom and spit into the sink.
Was he going to hurl? He couldn’t tell. Mouth filling again.
Eugene closed the door. The lock was a hook-and-eye thingy—wouldn’t keep anybody out. He hooked it, nonetheless.
The kid wasn’t getting sick in there, was he? That would crimp things.
Kent Jeffries had come into the hall to listen.
Silence from the bathroom. No sound of retching.
Vodka tonic had probably been a bad idea.
Speaking of which, his glass was empty.
He returned to the kitchen. As he got a lime from the refrigerator, his eyes fell on the postcard from Jasper. A few years old now. A sepia-tone image of Jas in a fringed vest, his Wild Bill Hickok goatee graying, and the message “I’m back in NYC, and, for the nonce, this is what I’m doing.”
That had been Jas’s last stand. His Alamo. Had to lug that oxygen tank everywhere. Called it Trigger.
It pained Kent not to be able to take care of Jasper in his time of need. When Kent had hepatitis, he was in the hospital for a month, his eyes the color of blood oranges. Shivered all the time. Couldn’t get warm. So Jasper had crawled into his hospital bed and held him. All night long. Nurses didn’t like that. They kept saying, “Sir? Visitors aren’t allowed in the beds.”
Jasper hissed back, “Haven’t you ever been in love?”
1969. Stonewall still months away. Took guts.
I could have died. Didn’t realize it. Too young to realize. Jas knew how serious it was. He found Liz’s number in my address book and called to prepare her. Didn’t tell me until later.
So Liz had known. Jasper had said he was a “friend.” But that voice of his. She knew.
Never said a word about it. Nor Roger.
What was that line? In the poem the kid had read?
I will not entirely die!
No, not entirely. Just piece by piece.
Kent took his drink back to the living room. Tried to light a cigarette but fumbled it onto his lap. Picked it up. Stuck it in his mouth. Tried the lighter.
Once. Twice.
Why won’t this fucker—?
Oh, wrong end.
He lit the cigarette and took a long drag. Exhaled. Just as the record ended, he heard the bathroom door open.
It was clear from the beginning where the night would lead. So why hadn’t Eugene seen it? The thing was, he had seen, yet somehow remained blind. Which was like so many things in his life. Like why he wore the white fur coat. And the pink sunglasses. And had an earring. All these things had adhered to him, as though he’d played no part in acquiring them, but who else had acquired them if not him? He’d gone off to college to read the great works of literature and philosophy and to understand himself better, but in the few months he’d been there it was as though some other self had taken residence inside Eugene and was making decisions for him.
He was still bent over the sink. You were supposed to puke in the toilet, but sinks were easier. Just rinse afterward. If stuff got stuck around the drain, take out the plug.
Eugene had experience with situations like this. One time, up at Mr. Baxter’s cabin, he’d drunk white wine from a half-empty bottle in the fridge. Tasted sour. He got a killer headache and collapsed on the couch, his gorge rising. R.J. and Mr. Baxter outside somewhere, snowshoeing.
Should he use the toilet? The angle would be better. Before he could decide, though, his body spasmed.
Dry heaves. Hurt like a bitch.
Mr. Baxter’s cottage wasn’t winterized. They could heat only one bedroom, using a space heater. For that reason, the three of them slept in the same bed, R.J. and Mr. Baxter on each side and Eugene, who was the youngest, in the middle.
Another dry heave convulsed him. Then nothing. Was that it? Huh. Surprisingly, he felt somewhat better now. Turned on the tap and splashed water on his face.
And there it was in the mirror: that inscrutable factor. As much time as Eugene spent staring in mirrors, you’d think he’d know what he looked like. But he didn’t. It depended. From certain angles he was actually good-looking. But if he adjusted the panels of his parents’ three-way mirror to see his profile it was as if this other, commedia dell’arte face leaped out. Scaramouche, the clown.
Was that what he looked like?
It would explain a lot.
For instance, why the ballerina had stood him up. How could a creature like her, so small and perfect, go out with someone partially deformed like Eugene? If Disney made an animated film about them, the animators would render the ballerina as a pretty, long-lashed sea otter, sleekly twirling in the waves, whereas Eugene would be—he didn’t know—a South American tapir. How could two such divergent animals ever consort? (The otter lived in the sea, so even if the tapir pursued her he would only drown.) No, the tapir would just be there for comic relief. A sidekick. A subplot. He’d get one song, tops.
The first time Eugene had noticed the ballerina was at freshman orientation. She was standing apart from everyone else, pressing her back against the wall, wearing maroon Danskins and pink leg warmers. At the center of the room, Rob, the RA, was dispensing info on birth-control availability. While he spoke, the ballerina kept stretching and limbering up, as though preparing to go onstage.
Other girls thought she put on airs. Well, maybe she did. But so did Eugene. That was a nice way to think about the stuff he did.
He’d attended a dance recital where the ballerina performed. The other dancers were larger and thicker than she was. Better for modern. The ballerina had looked so tiny in comparison—she was like a ballerina on top of a music box.
It was amazing that leotards were legal. The ballerina’s nipples were distinctly visible. This was OK, because she was engaged in Art. In the audience, paying close attention, Eugene noticed that the ballerina, for all her delicacy, was perspiring. Probably even smelling a little. She had superdefined muscles in her shoulders and thighs.
Three days later, he saw her crossing the green and got up the courage to tell her how great she’d been. “Thanks!” she said, smiling.
That was when he’d asked her to the movies.
He’d waited outside the theater until the coming attractions started.
But you know what? The ballerina’s not showing had done something to Eugene that he must have liked. It didn’t feel good, exactly, but it was familiar. It felt as if there were a drain inside him, as in a bathtub, and being stood up by the ballerina had pulled the rubber stopper out, so that Eugene’s blood drained away. It drained out from a spot right under his armpit and above his ribs—the place of ardor.
Maybe that was his word all along.
Ardor sort of hurt.
The next day, Eugene had put on his fur coat and his new sunglasses and taken the train to New York to spend the weekend at Stigwood’s. While there, he’d managed to get trashed enough to put the ballerina out of his mind. But now that he was back in Providence he was thinking about her again. Hoping he wouldn’t run into her on campus. Hoping he would.
He stared into the bathroom mirror. His earring glinted; the skin around it looked inflamed.
When he squeezed his lobe, pus ran out.
That was attractive.
He clamped a hand towel to his ear. Now that his nausea had subsided, he was just drunk.
He tossed the towel. Didn’t even bother to hang it up. Unhooked the hook and lurched out of the bathroom. Back in the living room, he saw his drink. The man sitting in the shadows, smoking, waiting.
Eugene picked up his drink and downed it. Four gulps. Throat-heat immediate. Dizziness.
He lay down on the floor. Right where he was.
There was no use.
No hope.
Something was impelling him. He didn’t understand what.
So he lay. And waited.
Kent was about to change the record when the boy came in. Didn’t say a word. Just snatched up his drink and dispatched it, before lying on the floor and closing his eyes.
As if following orders.
A voice in Kent’s head said, “Put a blanket over him. Let him sleep.” Whose voice? Not his. He was in a region beyond words by now. The place he set out to find whenever he was drinking. A land where he could be his true, appetitive self and everything was permitted. He rose unsteadily out of his chair. Crossed to the boy and knelt. With quick fingers, suddenly sure of himself, he undid the boy’s belt buckle.
Next his fly. The kid was wearing boxer shorts. Easy off.
And would you look at that! Kid was ready for him. Had wanted this all along.
Carpe diem, Horace, honey.
Kent swooped down. No thinking involved. No person, even. No actor. Only a headlong descent, as if on prey. But that wasn’t right, either. He felt too much tenderness for that. Was it tenderness? Well, he wanted it to be good. Wanted the boy to enjoy it and come back for more.
Kent Jeffries was surprised, therefore, when in the middle of his efforts the boy stood up. Got to his feet, coldly, and readjusted his clothes. Didn’t so much as look at Kent. Just grabbed his coat and his bag, and strode, with determination, out the front door.
The pain of ardor was duller as he walked uphill. It was cold out. He was sobering up fast. Everything made sense suddenly. He’d been lying on the floor, with his eyes shut, feeling what the man was doing to him while also not feeling it. Not feeling it because (1) he wasn’t in his body anymore, and (2) he was in his fourteen-year-old body, while Mr. Baxter was doing the same thing to him. They were alone at the cabin, just the two of them. R.J. had been demoted. Mr. Baxter had demoted him. And Eugene was so happy about that.
It was cold that night, too. Space heater going. Eugene had gone to sleep but, in the middle of the night, felt Mr. Baxter’s hand on him, which meant that he must have been awake. Next, Mr. Baxter’s head disappeared under the covers. Eugene had expected the usual thing, with his hand, but then he felt the wetness of a mouth. Since Mr. Baxter couldn’t see him, Eugene opened his eyes. He made the face he and his friends made whenever something really wild happened. The face he would have made if a girl were doing what Mr. Baxter was doing and he wanted to say, “You guys won’t believe what is happening to me right now!”
The memory of that moment filled Eugene’s mind, as the man toiled over him. This wasn’t at all what Eugene wanted. If he had arrived at the Ebenezer Swampscott house unsure of that, he was unsure no longer. The part of himself that Eugene didn’t control had led him here, but now it was as though he could say to that part of himself, “Get out of here! Who put you in charge!” He didn’t like his fur coat all that much. He didn’t want to mislead people with his earring. He still wanted to write poetry, but that was about it.
Down Benefit Street to Waterman, then up Waterman and through the parking lot, back to his dorm. He was so tired. He wanted to go to bed.
But when he reached his room a surprise greeted him. On his whiteboard was a note from the ballerina. It said, “I’m still up if you want to come by.”
When had she written that? What time was it now? Was she still awake?
Difficult to know what had happened. The boy had got scared, or felt guilty. Was it something I? Oh, well. Maybe he had a quiz in the morning.
Nothing to be done but freshen his drink. He banged into the kitchen to effectuate that, then brought his drink back to the living room, where he lit a cigarette, put the phone in his lap, and dialed the number to Jasper’s hospital room.
“Hello?”
“Jas!”
“It’s almost midnight. I told you not to call after nine.”
“I wanted to tell you about a change in my life. A resolution.”
“You’re drunk,” Jasper said.
“I’m not that drunk,” Kent said. “And, anyway, pot calling the kettle.”
“I’m completely sober,” Jasper said.
If Jasper had been thirty-eight when they met, that made him fifty-nine now. “Age isn’t kind to our kind,” he always said. But he didn’t mean this. Not death.
“Don’t you want to hear my resolution?”
“I’d like to get some sleep. It’s impossible in these places.”
“I met a boy on the train tonight. Coming back from the city. Brought him back here. He left a few minutes ago.”
“You can do whatever you like,” Jasper said wearily. “I’ve got other things to deal with now.”
“I didn’t touch him, Jas. It was purely platonic. I wanted to tell you that.”
“At midnight. You needed to tell me that at midnight.”
“Not only that. Also that I was thinking of flying down to see you. When this show’s over.”
“I’m not ready for my closeup,” Jasper said.
“I miss you, Jas.” What was this? Tears? He was crying. Oh, God.
Jasper wheezed on the other end. When he spoke, his voice was gentle. “Let’s do. Let’s think about your coming down. When I’m feeling better. I’ll have to get a lighting designer in here, so you won’t reel back in horror.”
“Jas?”
“No more. It’s late. Good night, darling.”
Kent hung up. Switched off the light. Sat unmoving. What was that sound? Something scratching to be let in. Oh, the record. He needed to lift the needle.
When he got up, he didn’t go to the stereo, however. He went back to the kitchen. There was the vodka bottle. There was Jas’s postcard. For the nonce.
That was all there was. The nonce. And then, Curtain.
Play ice, Kent Jeffries told himself, pouring. Become ice.
The ballerina opened the door.
“My roommate’s away,” she said.
She didn’t mean it like that. She was just explaining why she was up so late playing music.
Erik Satie. Eugene recognized it.
About 1 a.m. at this point.
He stood outside her door, listing to the right. He still had his earring in but had left his coat in his room.
“I’ve been drinking copious amounts,” Eugene said.
“I know. I can smell it.”
She invited him in.
A poster for The Turning Point hung above her bed. Photos of the ballerina dancing were taped to the wall, along with a framed one on her dresser where she stood beside an old, twisted-up woman in a wheelchair. Her grandmother, maybe.
“Erik Satie,” Eugene said. “I love this.”
“You know it? Me, too! It’s so beautiful!”
Should he sit on her bed? Or was that too suggestive? He didn’t want to screw things up. Maybe better just to lean against her roommate’s desk.
He was waiting for the ballerina’s excuse for not meeting him at the movies. But she seemed to have forgotten. She asked if he wanted tea.
Why had she told him to come by?
Oh, good. He was still drunk enough to ask.
“Why?” the ballerina said. “I felt like talking to you. I can’t figure you out. You’re strange, but in a good way.”
“I’ve decided to be more normal,” Eugene said. “From now on.”
“I don’t know if you should,” the ballerina said.
On second glimpse, the woman in the wheelchair wasn’t that old.
The ballerina saw him looking, and said, “That’s my mom.”
He didn’t ask what was wrong. One of those muscle diseases.
No wonder Erik Satie. So beautiful, so sad.
He looked at the other photos. The ballerina at various ages, leaping, pirouetting.
She held up two tea boxes, asking his preference. He chose the box without flowers.
She went out to fill the teakettle. While she was gone, Eugene went over to the photos to scope out her body in detail. He was back in place by the time she returned and plugged the teakettle in.
Say you were a little girl and you took ballet. Maybe your mother forced you. Maybe you thought it was part of being pretty. Or because ballet was a realm that girls dominated. A sport that was also an art, so way better than tennis, or gymnastics. Didn’t ballerinas get deformed feet? Wasn’t the discipline cruel and unusual? If so, the ballerina was just as brave-hearted as Eugene sensed she was.
“This is weird, but can I see your feet?” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“I want to see if they’re all messed up. From dancing.”
“They are!” the ballerina said. She seemed excited to show him. She lay down on her bed. Eugene came over to look.
“Pretty ugly,” he said. (Not true.)
Then, brave himself, he sat on the bed and started massaging her feet.
“That feels good,” the ballerina said. She closed her eyes.
For the next minute they were silent. Eugene started on her other foot.
“Can I ask you something?” the ballerina said. “Are you gay?”
“No,” Eugene said.
“Because I was wondering.”
“No!” he repeated.
“I wouldn’t care,” she said.
“I asked you out on a date!” Eugene said.
“That was a date? At the movies?”
“Not a very good one.”
“I’m so sorry!” she said. “I thought it was like a bunch of people were meeting.”
It didn’t matter anymore. He wasn’t thinking about that.
He was thinking that dancing wasn’t like making a monument in bronze. With dance you did it once, perfectly or not, and then it was gone forever.
Whereas he was too clumsy for that, and so had to sweat and gnaw his mental cuticles.
When she got up to pour the tea, he tried his best. He didn’t have a pen handy, so he had to sound it out in his head:
At nine, her mother watches from her wheelchair
As she dips and leaps and pirouettes.
This girl, once curled inside a body
now curling in on itself
has been commissioned, on a patch of floor
in Scarsdale
to move for both of them.
Or something like that. Eugene could see it now. The scene, if not the words. But he could feel them up there, queuing inside his head. He just had to wait and let them out. Then fuss with them until they hardened. Until they weren’t going anywhere, anymore.