The set was endless — one of those
Black Box
numbers designed to burn calories at the gym. The disco ball
glittered and the lasers flashed, and all the while, the
Zippilin
barked or meowed or cawed. Finally, the dance
slowed. I got to try my sultry steps out on my cowboy. He wasn’t
sultry at all — in fact, he shuffled about like a klutz. But his
eyes were glued to me, and that’s all that mattered. So I wiggled
my tush and flashed my eyes. We were all smiles, until my friend
John cut in.
John was a sweetheart — a petite drag queen, who did
shows at
The Cavern
and other venues. He was a weekend
queen, never dressing up for work or at home. He was barely
nineteen. So, with his baby face, in drag he was a butter pat on an
English muffin — all nooks and crannies. Bring the Strawberry jam
in, please. When John slipped between us, Matt shuddered. I had a
feeling that the drag queen phobia might erupt, and I wasn’t far
from wrong. I mean, Matt didn’t throw up or anything, but his
shuffle became a syncopated walk. His hands went crabby and he
glanced at the bar as if the Coronas were calling him to shore.
Finally, John began to brush against me and then
Matt. I should have known better and discouraged it, but I’m a
natural flirt. I increased my swish and soon John and I were in
full swagger — girls on the patio sort of thing. Matt stopped
still, his face drawn — deep disappointment. Then he fled, but not
as I supposed to the bar, but to the back room.
“What’s with him?” John asked. “Jealousy bone?”
“I don’t know, hon. I don’t think so.”
John grabbed me about the waist, and then
grinded.
“He should lighten up.”
“I think he has a problem with hot mamas, like
you.”
John released me and stopped his routine.
“He’s from out of town,” I explained.
“From Mars, maybe.”
“Now, Johnny, be good. He’s my try-out Christmas
model.”
John raised his hands high as if to serve the cheese
or the Baptist’s head.
“You’d do better with anyone else here, sweet
Martin.”
I looked about the dance floor. These were my
sisters, not my lovers. True I had been frisky with many of them,
but then they were stuffed back in the pack and drawn out only for
color and snappy conversation. I spied that boor, Todd Moorehouse,
and shuddered. Now this would be the only new frontier, and I’d
rather slit my wrists than be intimate with any of the Roy Otterson
crowd. No, my sisters were my friends, not my lovers.
“I suppose I should see where he’s off to,” I said,
shrugging.
“If you must,” John said. “But if he’s fallen down a
sewer drain, I’ll be here waiting.”
“You never wait long, Sis,” I said, and then darted
toward the back bar.
The
boom-boom-boom
of the dance floor fell
into the background as I explored the back bar. I knew everyone
there, so it was difficult to maneuver through the holiday
greetings, as slurred as they were. The jock strapped angels were
flirting about, serving their drinks, and I believe a bit more,
especially that Bobby, who managed to balance his tray despite the
many crotch grabs he was enjoying.
Working for tips could be
rewarding
, I thought. The other cutie was also doing well,
managing the camera for the Leather Santa crowd. I guess his name
was Branch, because there were plenty of
Branch, get this
shot,
and
Branch, bend over and shoot this one between your
legs.
Still, I didn’t see a cowboy hat in the crowd.
“Russ.” He was easy to find, given the bookmark
Customer Chris, whose head scraped the stalagmites. “Have you seen
. . .”
“The Midnight Cowboy?”
He cocked his head toward the volleyball court. I
sighed. It was friggin’ cold outside, but I didn’t want to get my
coat. Still, I was obliged to look.
The volleyball court was strange that night — empty
and a baffle for the music. The jollity from the shack echoed
across the hollow of this solitary spot. Crouched on the sidelines
was my cowboy, his head between his legs, eyes racked on folded
arms. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure this man out. No amount
of phobia could produce such a reaction, unless he
was
on
something and I hadn’t detected the dosage.
I sauntered over, towering above him. He didn’t
move, so I hunkered down, and whispered in his ears.
“Noise too much for you?”
He shook his head, never raising it. This was going
to be fun.
Merry Christmas, Martin.
“Well, too much beer in your tummy then, I
supposed.”
He sniffed, raising his head. Those sea-blue eyes
were cushioned in vermilion.
“I’m sorry,” he said with his soft drawl. “I guess
I’m not ready for fun and games.”
“Not ready?”
He grasped my shoulders, and then hugged me.
“Hold me, will ya.”
Since he was holding me, I guess I had no choice.
Still, I felt his heart beating on my chest.
“What wrong?” I muttered. “What’s upset you? Was it
John?”
“Yes, actually.”
“He didn’t mean anything, you know. He’s always
flirting with me. We’re just sisters.”
“No,” Matt said. “That’s not it. It’s that he
reminds me of . . . someone.”
News at eleven. There was someone else — someone
gone or left behind.
“That’s okay,” I said. “You don’t need to tell
me.”
I really didn’t want to know, but it looked like the
time was ripe, or at least the Coronas primed to the appropriate
level.
“You
should
know,” Matt said.
He stood, helping me to my feet. He seemed better,
but marginally so. It was cold and my hands were like ice blocks. I
blew on them, but Matt took them into his, warming them, and then
guided them into his pocket. That was sweet and provocative, but he
wasn’t flirting or easing towards foreplay. He was just keeping my
hands warm so he could unburden his heart.
“His name was Luis.”
Was. Past tense.
“Let me guess,” I said. “He was a drag queen.”
“The most beautiful drag queen you could ever set
eyes on. He performed at
la Chiquita Club
in the Melrose,
and the boys loved him. But he was mine.”
He sniffed again, and then clenched my hands
closer.
“He was soft like . . . like you sorta and had a
considerable following. He sang like an angel.”
Like me, sorta.
I had a sinking feeling.
“Is that what you’re after,” I said. I collected my
hands and did my own warming. “I’m no one’s stand in, you
know.”
“No, no,” he said. “That’s not it. I know that
people are different and when something is over, it’s over. But
Luis was never over in the sense that we broke up.”
“Then he’s waiting for you in the Lone Star
State.”
Matt choked.
“I wish he was. Not that I can’t be with anyone
else, but Luis is . . . well, he’s . . .”
He couldn’t say it, and he didn’t need to, because I
wouldn’t let him.
“Killed him, they did. Bastards.”
“No, no, Matt. It’s okay. You don’t need to go
through it. You don’t.”
He bawled, his head buried in my shoulder, his warm
tears freezing on my shirt.
“He was such a little performer, he was. He didn’t
mean any harm, but he sometimes got into trouble with some of the
rougher trade. They’d call him names and he’d toss it right back at
them. But that night, they waited for him. They waited and . .
.”
“No,” I said. “You’ll not do this to yourself.
You’re here with me and on Christmas. I’m the ghost of Christmas
Present, and the ghost of Christmas Past needs to stay in the past
or you’ll never be free of it.”
“It’s not that easy,” he said. “But . . .”
“Try.”
He sighed. His eyes were cast down onto the court.
The
thumpa-thumpa-boom-boom
of the dance floor rumbled in
the night. The laughter from the shack was in a different world.
Suddenly, Matt gazed up at me. I think it was in that moment — you
know the moment. Rare as it is, sometimes the fates conspire to
snare the soul and the heart into a universal song, one without
ending . . . never ending — never ended.
Never
. It was then
that I knew that this Christmas gift was more precious than a
vacuum broom. I scratched my head with my frozen mitts.
“I’m cold,” he said.
“I’m warmer.” The stars above were beckoning me
home. “But we’d be warmer in bed, don’t you think?”
“Do you have one of those down comforters?”
“Genuine Eider,” I said. “An Icelandic beauty.”
“Thank you for your generous offer.”
“It stands only if you can leave Luis . . .
outside.”
He shuffled.
“That’ll be hard. Very hard. But, you know, the best
part of Luis is inside me. He’d make a great acquaintance, if you
let him. He sang like an angel — just like you.”
I grasped his hand.
Cold hands in the
dark
.
“Well, it’s Christmas,” I said. “I guess we can let
an angel watch over us.”
Suddenly, an angel appeared at the door. I
shuddered, and then laughed. It was a smoking angel in a jock strap
— one of
The Cavern’s
crew — the waiter — Bobby.
There’s nothing like a staggering stroll in winter
with precipitation in the air and a drunk on your arm. I think if
we had let each other go, we both would have landed in the garbage
bins. Still Matt — my luscious and melancholy cowboy, needed to get
his kit from the Cherokee. I didn’t mind. It meant I landed a
hygienic one. I guided him to the visitor’s parking, and then held
onto the fence while he staggered to his vehicle and finally
(hallelujah), after gathering his stuff, locked up. There had been
a rash of car thefts this month — Christmas shopping, I guess, but
I now had peace of mind that this John (well, he was a Matt, but
until they last beyond a week, Russ would call them a
John
)
would find his truck in the morning.
“Woohoo,” Matt shouted at the invisible ocean as we
rounded the corner to the apartment’s rear.
I had a front entrance, but rarely used it. My
courtyard and hidden nook was as snug as anything from Beatrix
Potter. It was littered with the trashcans and was barren in
winter, but there was always the kiss of summer around its edges as
long as the sea songs trumped the gulls.
“Nice place,” Matt muttered.
He surveyed the wreckage of patio furniture that I
meant to replace this year. I had limited storage and left it out
to winter over. It was the previous tenant’s and serviceable when I
first schlepped in, but now it was among the priority replacements
on my wish list.
“Don’t mind this shit,” I said, searching for my
keys. “It’s going to the bins on April Fool’s day.”
Matt just staggered and began to hum
Dixie.
It was sweet and in tune.
My, my, my
. Of course, I didn’t
need to apologize for my neat little apartment. Small, true, but
well kept and lavendered, now topped by pine aromas from my little
Christmas tree. It was a miniature, but real. I flipped the lights
on, and the tree was lit also. Matt smiled.
“Quaint.”
“Quaint? I bet you have the Taj Mahal on your Axum
salary. So I warn you, if there’s anything I’m touchy about, it’s
my apartment. You can call me anything you want, but don’t you dare
. . .”
“No. I wouldn’t think of it. I wouldn’t . . .”
I shut him up before he ruined everything. I pulled
him to me and planted a sentence-breaking kiss smack on his gob. I
was a brazen hussy, I know, but it seemed like the thing to do. If
my cowboy decided it was too high handed — well, he could turn and
flee over the shitty patio furniture and stagger back to his truck.
But no, he reciprocated. And how. Jackets, hats, gloves, and his
kit went to the floor. Hell, I’d pick them up later. He pushed me
toward the couch, but I tagged him like a calf and dragged him past
the Tannenbaum and over the bedroom threshold. It was chilly in
there, because I had hadn’t closed the window, which overlooked the
patio. It’s stupid, but I don’t like closed places. Always needed
an open window.
I flipped the light switch on, but Matt flipped it
off again. Shirts peeled. Trousers dropped. I clutched him, a flop
and a crawl back onto the bed. No time to dislodge shoes and socks
before the first earnest probing began.
Excuse my pause. I need it, but there was no such
thought on the first day, when the world was green and Adam had yet
not seen Eve, content with the pleasure of his own body. Indeed,
when kissing is intense and touching reciprocal, the world comes
apart, reassembling on this side of memory. But this was Adam and
Steve, wasn’t it? Isn’t that what the Anita Bryants of this world
shouted at us over the citrus groves of Christian dogma?
Adam
and Steve, Abomination.
But let me say this about that (sorry
to be so presidential). When I first tasted Matthew Kieler on that
nativity night in the chilly room, where the curtains blew free
over the headboard, I found my home, a home that Viv had denied me
and all the fleet of empty souls that trampled through my life had
stolen. Passion was life. Holding and hugging was home. Touching
and feeling, wisdom. All that lovers seek and rarely find showed up
like unexpected rain or unrelenting snow, to melt in the hearth of
our creation. Breathing was music. His gentle caress was a landfall
for my long voyage through the silent years.
“Soft, sweet music,” I said, interlacing my fingers
in his. “Maybe a Christmas carol. Do you know any Christmas
carols?” I sat up. “Come, serenade me.”
“No,” Matt said. “My voice is like a razor
blade.”
“Well, if you’re going to romance me, you better be
able to carry a tune. Maybe you can even be a Jersey Sparrow.”