“It’s my fault,”
Josh said, miserably.
I glanced over at
him. “Don’t be ridiculous, Josh.” It came out harder than I’d intended. “If
anyone’s to blame, it’s me.”
“That’s not true.”
“This isn’t getting
us anywhere.”
We drove on in an
unhappy silence. Finally Josh asked, “Why are you mad at me, Henry?”
Without taking my
eyes off the road I said, “I’m not mad at you.”
“Don’t bullshit me,”
he said tensely.
I looked at him. He
was staring straight ahead.
“I’m not mad,” I
repeated, more gently. “It’s just not always easy for me to talk about what I
feel.”
“Is that why you’ve
never said you love me?” he asked, abruptly. His eyes left the road and he looked
at me. His mouth was grim. “You never have, you know.”
“Joshua...”
He cut me off. “Don’t
call me that,” he said irritably. “That’s what my dad calls me when I’m about
to get a lecture.”
The rain had
stopped. In the dying light of late afternoon I could see a smear of rainbow
above billboards advertising motels and restaurants.
“We’re both feeling
bad about Jim,’ I said. ‘‘Let’s not take it out on each other.”
There was a long
silence from his side of the car. Finally, he said, “Okay.”
A few minutes later
I looked over at him again. He was asleep.
“Will you be
patient with me?”
He didn’t say
anything for a long time but finally put his hand on mine.
*****
The day before
Christmas I was leaning against a post at Macy’s in Union Square watching Josh
try on leather jackets. He had already gone through half a rack of them and had
long ago stopped asking my opinion since I thought he looked good in all of
them. This one though — dark brown in buttery leather — nearly inspired me to
unsolicited advice but then I heard my name. I looked around. The man
approaching me was smiling in the faintly supercilious way he used to disguise
his shyness.
“Grant,” I said,
embracing him.
Grant Hancock
pulled me close, crushing his costly overcoat, smelling, as he always did, of
bay rum.
We released each
other. His yellow hair had darkened and there were folds beneath his eyes and
deepening lines on either side of his mouth but, generally, time made him more
elegant rather than simply older. It had been a long time since I had seen him
last.
“This is the last
place on earth I would look for Henry Rios,” he said, “so, of course, I find
you here.”
“And, when did you
start buying off the rack?”
A salesman rushed
by and jostled me. Over the din, I heard the slow movements of Pachelbel’s
Canon in D, a piece of music I had first heard in Grant’s apartment when we had
been law students together.
“We just ducked in
for the ladies’ room, actually,” he said, apparently not hearing the music. I
caught the “we.” Grant had married two years earlier and was, I had heard, the
father of a baby son.
“How is Marcia?” I
asked.
“She’s fine. We’re
parents now,’ he added, with a smile that ended at his eyes.
“Yes, I heard.
Congratulations. What’s your son’s name?”
“William,” he
replied.
“After your father?”
I asked.
“Yes. I’m surprised
you remembered his name.”
“I remember.”
We stood looking
into each other’s eyes. The occasion — former lovers meeting after a long time
— seemed to demand that something significant be said. But there wasn’t
anything to say, really, except that I was glad to see him and hoped he was
happy. So I said it.
Before he could
answer I noticed that Josh was standing before the mirror watching us. He
slipped off the jacket he was wearing, tossed it over the rack, and walked over
to us.
“Hi,” he said, to
me, and then to Grant.
“Josh, this is an
old friend of mine, Grant. Grant, Josh.”
They shook hands,
murmuring pleasantries.
Grant said, “Those
are very nice jackets you were looking at.”
“Yeah,” Josh said, “but
a little out of my price range.” Wordlessly, he shifted his weight so that our
bodies touched and slipped his arm around my waist. “So,” he said with
unmistakable hostility, “how do you know Henry?”
“We went to law
school together,” Grant said, barely able to keep the amusement out of his
voice. “And how do you know Henry?”
Josh said, “He’s my
lover.”
“Well, you’re very
lucky, Josh,” he said smiling. “Excuse me, I’d better go collect my wife. Give
me a call sometime, Henry. Nice meeting you, Josh.”
After he’d gone,
Josh said, “Was I a schmuck?”
“If that word means
what I think it does, the answer’s yes.”
“I’m sorry,’ he
said. “I was jealous.”
I put my arm around
his shoulders. “Come on, I’ll buy you dinner.”
Outside the store I
told Josh that I had to make a phone call and went back in. When I returned ten
minutes later I was jamming a sales receipt into my pocket but Josh, who was
talking to the Goodwill Santa Claus, didn’t notice.
Over coffee, Josh
said, “I guess we should be getting back home.”
The waiter returned
with m> change. I tucked it into my pocket and said, ‘‘We’re not going home.”
“What do you mean?”
“Trust me,” I
replied.
*****
The immense wreath
on the door of the inn on South Van Ness was composed of aromatic pine branches
twisted and laced into a shaggy circle and bound by a red velvet ribbon. From
outside we could see the big Christmas tree that dominated the drawing room. A
bearded man on a ladder was hanging gold ornaments on the topmost branches
while a woman strung ropes of popcorn and cranberries around the bottom of the
tree. Another woman, gray-haired and aproned, opened the door to let us in.
“Merry Christmas,”
she said, smelling of cookies and lavender. “Are you Mr. Rios and Mr. Mandel?”
“Yes,” I said, as
we stepped inside to the companionable heat. “Is the room ready?”
“Just come in and
sign the register,” she replied.
“Come on, Josh,” I
said, taking his hand. We followed her to a little counter where I signed us
in. She handed me a heavy brass key.
“Second floor,” she
said. “Room 209. Come down later for carols and eggnog.”
“Thank you,” I
said.
On the stairs Josh
stopped me and said, “What is this, Henry?”
“A Hanukkah gift,”
I replied.
“This is great,” he
murmured as I led him up the stairs.
Our room had a
fireplace. I knelt down in front of it and started a fire. The only other light
was cast from the Tiffany lamps and the discreet overhead light above the
mammoth four- poster bed. Wings of eucalyptus branches fanned out beneath the
mantle of the fireplace, dispersing their rainy fragrance into the room.
This was one
Victorian whose rooms fulfilled the promise of its beautifully restored facade.
Our walls were papered in deep green with marbled swirls of pink and blue, as
if abstracted from a peacock’s feathers. The period furniture was comfortably
arranged around the oval of the room. High above us in the dusky region of the
ceiling, embossed brass caught the glint of the fire and lamplight. Our window
looked out upon downtown’s brilliant spires and a distant prospect of the
Golden Gate.
From the bathroom Josh
said, “Henry, look at this bathtub.”
I went in. The big
porcelain tub was supported by clawed feet. The faucet, set into the wall, was
a golden lion’s head.
“Let’s try it out,”
I said, putting my hands on his shoulders as he knelt inspecting the lion.
He looked up,
smiling a little lewdly, and nodded.
We lit the bathroom
with candles ordered up from downstairs and stuck them in the sink, on the
toilet, at the edges of the tub. Josh lay with his back against me, dividing
the water with his fingers. I kissed his bare shoulder, lay my hands lightly on
his groin and felt the jerky movements of his penis. From downstairs we heard
singing.
“I guess we missed
the carols,” I said later.
“And the eggnog.”
He pressed more deeply against me. “Thank you, Henry.”
“The water’s
getting cold,” I observed.
“Do we have to get
out?” he asked.
“There’s still the
bed,” I said.
“You’re right,” he
replied, and pulled the plug to let the water drain.
While he was still
in the bathroom, I pulled the package from beneath the bed and put it on the
comforter. He emerged from the bathroom, drying himself, pushed his glasses up
his nose and, with a half-smile, inspected the brightly wrapped box.
“More?” he asked.
“One more,” I
replied, sitting in a wing chair, drawing my robe around me. “Open it.”
He tore into the
package. “That’s why you went back into the store,” he said, holding up the
leather jacket that I had most admired him in. “It’s beautiful, but Henry, it
cost so much.”
“Indulge me.”
He slipped the
jacket on. The deep brown caught the fading firelight and shone against his
skin. But I wasn’t really looking at the coat.
“It looks great on
you.” I said. My voice sounded unfamiliar to me.
He took the jacket
off and carefully laid it across a chair. “I have a present for you, too,” he
said.
“What?”
He got his wallet
out of his pants pocket and extracted a package from it. “Merry Christmas,” he
said.
I took the package
and laughed. It was a pack of condoms decorated with a picture of Santa Claus.
*****
I was awakened by
the phone. I groped for it, picked up the receiver and mumbled a groggy hello.
It was Freeman
Vidor. I listened to him for a few minutes, and then sat up in bed. “Are you
sure?”
“Yeah,” he said, “I’m
sure. You better come down.”
Josh reached out
and stroked my leg. “Henry, who is it?”
“Shh,” I said. “Not
today, Freeman. Give me until tomorrow. Have you told Cresly?”
“I don’t know if he’d
buy it,” Freeman replied.
“We need the cops,”
I said, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. “We’ll need all the help we
can get.”
He spoke for
another couple of minutes and then, wishing me a Merry Christmas, hung up.
Josh was wide
awake. “What’s wrong? Is it Larry?”
“No,” I replied. “It’s
about Jim. We have to get back to L.A.”
Freeman said
something to Cresly that I missed.
Cresly replied, “Yeah,
let’s bust him for using the toilet without buying gas.” He lit a thin brown
cigarette and rolled down the window. “Ain’t this like old times,” he said to
no one in particular.