Best Gay Romance 2009

I slip a Xanax on my tongue and stare out the window at the white sky, at the sunlight that bathes the silvery wing, and for a moment I forget about the men with knives, about the crisp white cotton of their short-sleeved shirts, darkened by the hostess’s flowing blood. I don’t want to see the redness in their eyes. Or hear the fury in their speech. I focus instead on the woman in front of me, the fibers rising from her folded shawl, the metallic blondeness of her hair-sprayed curls.

I used that color for painting when I lived in the “glass-house.” We called it that because the windows in the communal room were similar to the “tomato house” Simon kept in Greenwich Village before he moved back to L.A. As long as it was therapeutic, we could paint what we liked. I painted apple trees that represented “growth” and redbrick buildings that reminded me of Boston. I dripped yellow paint over a blue page and called it Fear of Change. They loved me for that.

Simon kept visiting me in the glass-house even after his time there was up. Our friendship was said to be affirming.

III

He is out there in a loose salmon shirt, smelling of soap and smiling broadly. This evening, I think, he will play the piano in the local gay bar. It isn’t advised, not with his history of drinking, but he likes the stale smells and the flushed faces of the men who put their arms around him. Now he stands at the open door, looking up at the palms that spike the pale sky, thinking of just how soon he will see me. He sits down at the kitchen table, looks out through the window at the shrubs in their plots, the borders running wild with grass. In the shade, the oranges are rotting, and over by the wall, the tomato plants are bare. He picks up a magazine and flicks through the thick black pages, runs a fingernail down one smooth page.

There, beneath his gaze, is a nude, male art shot. He turns the page. There, a poem—his name is at the top.

He wants to show it to me—but I’m packing my suitcase in Boston.

The skyscrapers rise to meet us as we edge down over the city. The sky tilts as the plane turns and I hold tight to the armrest. Not because I’m scared. It’s like the difference between blue and green. Blue is safe, absorbing. But add yellow and you get green. Green is sickly, like the plane when it turns, or the skyscrapers’ closeness. It isn’t bad. Yellow can be bad. But not today. Today, I’m prepared for anything. Simon is down there, warm and waiting—I can even feel him if I shut my eyes.

My first night in the glass-house they put me in a room at the end of the hall. An attendant carried my suitcase as I dragged my feet along the parquet floor. I waited till the door was shut then peeled off my clothes and pulled the bedsheets around me. I dreamt that night that the room was full of lilies, a jungle on every flat surface. The sickly sweet pollen fell dustlike on the tables and chairs.

I woke in a sweat.

Someone was knocking on the door. “Breakfast in half an hour!”

I met him on the stairs. His cheeks looked wet.

“Are you okay?” I said.

He managed a smile. “Yes. I had a one to one, that’s all.” “Oh, right.”

The look on my face must have suggested fear, because he gave me an encouraging look. “You’ll get used to it,” he said.

I shuffled off down the hall.

“My name’s Simon, by the way,” he called.

For a while after that, I saw him only in passing.

Then one day he came into my room uninvited, sat down on the edge of my bed, and exclaimed: “You didn’t tell me you majored in English at NYU! I was at NYU!”

I wondered when he’d expected me to volunteer this information. In truth, my parents had sent me to school in New York because they wanted me out of Boston. I can’t say I didn’t miss home, but I definitely didn’t miss them.

The real reason for Simon’s visit was to show me his poems. He’d wanted to share them with someone ever since he’d been put inside the glass-house, and now that he’d discovered another English major, there was no way he was going to miss this opportunity. I couldn’t help groaning inside. My experience on campus had led me to believe that every young, gay, literature student inhabited a Forest of Suicides, always speaking about pain that was best left unspeakable. I thought of the gloomy figures in black polo-necks hugging mountains of books to their chests under Washington Square Arch. But he didn’t seem like that at all. His face was soft, the features fine-boned, and strands of fair hair kept escaping from behind his ears to float wispily in the air. His teeth stuck out over his bottom lip in a horsey way.

His eyes widened, staring straight at me, “So, you’ll read them—my poems?”

I had to look away as the sun filtered through a gap in the curtains.

“You can’t keep eye contact, can you? You know what that means? You’re ashamed. You won’t let your guard down.”

“You’re brainwashed,” I said.

He grinned, then hesitated, “That language is all I know, since…well, you know.”

I did know.

I thought of those dark, empty streets, my feet slapping the tarmac, still warm from the sun and the drum of car wheels. Chemicals coursed through my blood. I ripped at my shirt and the buttons exploded. Car doors slammed. Blue and red lights flashed—and then someone wrapped a blanket around me. I never wanted to go back—

He was watching me intently. I’d been tugging the hairs on my calf.

“Of course I’ll look at your poems.”

He tapped me on the knee, smiled, and got up off the bed. He walked over to the curtains. “Why don’t you let some light in here? It’s so dark.”

“I like it dark.”

“So you can sit and feel sorry for yourself?”

“They’ve got you trained, haven’t they? It must be your job to get the new ones well….”

He turned to face me, one hand on the curtain about to draw it back, the other on his hip. He faded into the shadows at the end of the room. The dark suited him. “I was being friendly. I’ll come back another time.”

The door opened and he was gone.

Simon speaks excitedly. He plays with his foot. Wriggling it. Tugging it.

I listen at the end of the bed.

He always felt wrong, he says. He carried inadequacy everywhere he went. Sometimes it went away for weeks, even months, and he thought, “Oh, life isn’t so bad!” But it always came back stronger.

No one has ever spoken to me like this before. It’s as if all this time only I was real. But other people have feelings, too.

His eyes fix on me, “What about you?”

I jump off the bed and wrap my arms around my chest. “Jesus, it’s cold in here! Don’t you think?”

He looks down at the quilt, his fingers pulling at stray threads. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“I asked you about you.”

“Look, you can see my ribs!” I pull at my shirt.

He grins. “Seriously, I want to know.”

I sigh. My hands fall to my sides. “My story’s no different than any other.”

“Of course it’s different, you dork. It’s yours.”

My “breakdown” is best described using the rather Blake-like metaphor of a garden. I got bored of watering the earth. I let the stalks shrivel and the lawn yellow beneath sooty footprints. The shed was charred by the naked sun and the ivy drooped, offending the neighbors; I had let it grow across the whole façade. One morning I woke and the horizon was red. It was as if I had bled myself to death.

He says I’m being evasive. He doesn’t like my metaphors.

I turn the conversation back to him.

His experience was similar to mine, but he hurt himself more than I did. Scars decorated his pale chest, dotted either side with stitch marks. He’d lift a shred of skin to reveal the pink-white tissue, and one by one he’d peel what resembled tightly packed petals.

I asked him why he did it.

“There’s a trace of something inside me,” he said. “A scar on my spine. Some kind of fossil.”

“But where did it come from—this trace?”

He paused. “My mother put it there.”

“And where is she now?”

“She lives on a yacht in the Greek Islands.”

I remembered the picture postcards pinned to his bedroom wall—all pale sand and sapphire water. A photo of a woman in a sun-hat, sitting cross-legged on the deck of a boat—cocktail glass in hand, a Jackie Collins novel in her lap—and a pack of Marlboro Reds on the floor by her chair. A cliché, but it was true.

Simon didn’t seem to miss her.

But then Simon was sedated.

That was how I found Simon. And this is how I lost him:

The air hostess smiles. Cracks appear in her perfectly made-up face. I walk unsteadily across the cabin floor, take my place by the window and strap myself in. My hand luggage consists of a well-thumbed copy of Hamlet.

Now everything is either inside or outside the plane. I’ve thought about this quite seriously ever since we strayed so close to the city. I’m safe, protected by an aluminum wall—but death is only postponed. The outside might crush me, or burn me, or fling me to the ground, but at least I’d be out of here.

VII

My heart thumps. My hands are clammy. The men are standing at the front of the plane, the air hostess’s body lying at their feet. I can see the blood seeping through her top. The people around me are sobbing, moaning.

I think about Simon in his kitchen in L.A. I think about the poem he’s had published. I know his stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies, but I’m sure he’s never had a poem published before.

He stands up. I wonder if he can feel my thoughts. He glances around. Does he know they’re about him? He whistles softly. Insects buzz around his face. He waves his hand, presses his lips together—afraid a bug will fly in his mouth.

He imagines a scale, one side piled with books and journals in which his words appear, and on the other, a crisp white sheet with a poem printed on it. The amount of words is so small, and yet it outweighs all the material on the other side.

He breathes in the late summer heat. He can’t wait for me to arrive. We’ll drive up to the Griffith Observatory and look out over the Hollywood hills.

VIII

The engine shifts. It grinds. Screams follow a swift descent.

However long I shut my eyes, I cannot feel his lips. Just the seat vibrating—the press of the woman next to me, suddenly in the grip of hysteria. He said he would find me and take care of me if I ever went through hell again. I promised him the same. But I am on the inside and he is out there. He stands at the table, making herbal tea, the teabag full of multicolored flecks. He stirs the spoon. A sweet, raspberry-scented steam rises from the mug. His chest flutters inside—

He remembers the lawn outside the glass-house where we held a kind of miniature Woodstock. Everyone who sang or played guitar took turns under the arbor. It was encouraged by the counselors.

He points his foot through the grass and listens politely to a man singing a song we can all relate to: “Glory, Glory Psychotherapy!” set to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” I watch him watching the singer, his hand flat on the lawn, his body twisting as he angles his shoulders. I’m itchy. I gesture. His eyes twinkle.

We run around the side of the house and hide behind the conifers. Up close, the branches are black. There are spiderwebs between the pines.

I push him back.

“Prickly,” he murmurs.

Our lips touch.

I’m worried about my breath. I haven’t eaten all day. He clenches the back of my neck, arches his back, and pulls me closer. My chest crushes him against the trees. I slip my hands around his sides and grip his firm buttocks. He leans into me. His mouth is hot.

What is the glass-house for, if not this? This is alcohol. Drugs. This is everything—and when it’s over, we can share a bottle of wine. Just me and him. I know he wants it. It would be so good—

Before I know it, he kicks off his sandals, lifts his T-shirt above his head and throws it on the ground. I place my hands on his bony chest. His fingers scrabble at my belt.

Smells surrounded us that day. Strawberry. Cut grass. Wood-shavings. Our sweat—

They are outside concepts now. Here there’s only fear.

What would I say if I called him, as the others are calling theirs? Would I tell him how much I loved him? How special he is? How glad I am we stayed clean and sober?

I imagine it would go like this:

“Simon.” A masterful vibrato, followed by silence.

The rustle of sheets.

“Simon?”

I can hear the saliva moving around his mouth. His lips smack.

“Aren’t you on the plane?” he groans. “It’s six o’ clock…”

“Simon, something’s happening.”

There’s a long pause.

“What do you mean?”

I hear him switch the bedside lamp on. I can imagine him under the comforter. One hand pressed against his forehead. His lips pressed to the mouthpiece.

How strange, I think, my voice can escape these walls…but I cannot.

Before the skin splits, sucking the inside out, I catch a glimpse of shining panes. A thousand skies are reflected in the glass—a thousand suns over New York City.

I press my head against the rest, take a deep breath and wait— Simon wakes from a dream of screaming trees. A jaundiced moon. Snatches of purple sky. The tree bleeds when he scratches the bark.

He rolls out of bed and slips his dressing gown around his shoulders. In the kitchen, he pours a glass of milk. Takes it into the living room and switches on the TV.

A building is on fire in Manhattan. A huge blue cigarette, smoking at one end. He doesn’t look at it properly. He still has sleep in his eyes. He sits on the couch and stretches his legs. The curtains mottle the daylight on the floor. He switches the TV off. Puts the glass to his lips. Wriggles down between the cushions.

The poem starts in his chest. Rises up into his throat and fills his head. Flows down his arms—into his fingers. Nietzsche calls it a musical mood. A vibration or a gnat-swarm is how it feels. It has something to do with the screaming trees. This simply isn’t real.