Arkansas (8 page)

“My dad's place,” I said swiftly. “He and his wife are in Singapore.”

Without a word, Ben switched on the ignition and drove me back to my car. “Follow me,” I said, and he did, down Santa Monica to Cahuenga and Barham, then onto the 134, the flat, trafficked maze of the Inland Empire.

Around one-thirty we pulled into my father's garage. “Come on in,” I said, switching off the burglar alarm. “Make yourself at home. You want to take a swim in the pool first?”

“I didn't bring a suit.”

“You don't need one. No one will see you but me.”

“Actually,” Ben said, “I'd rather just—you know—get down to business, if that's all right with you.”

“Fine,” I said. “It's this way.” And we headed together down the long corridor into my bedroom.

“This is nice.”

“Thanks. It's not really mine. Just the guest room. But I try to put in some personal touches when I'm here. That little painting, for instance. My friend Arnold Mesches did it.”

“What is it, a turkey?”

“A portrait of a turkey.”

“That's funny.”

I took off my shoes. “By the way, would you rather I leave the lights on or off?”

“Off.”

“All cats are gray in the dark, right? All right, then, why don't you just ... take your clothes off and lie down on the bed. And I'll be back in a minute.”

“Okay.”

Like a discreet masseur, I stepped into the bathroom, where I brushed my teeth and got out some condoms. Then I walked back in. Ben was sitting naked on the edge of the bed, shivering a little.

“Are you cold?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Wow,” I said, sitting down next to him. “Lucky I've got extra-large condoms.”

He wrapped his arms around his chest. “Mr. Leavitt, you embarrass me when you say things like that.”

“Look, Ben,” I said, trying to sound paternal, “I've been thinking about it, and if you don't want to—”

“No, it's okay.”

“But it's also okay if you don't want to. I mean, you can still have the paper. Don't tell Tony, though.” I winked.

“What's his like?” Ben's voice was surprisingly urgent.

“Tony's? Oh. Fine. Smaller than yours, of course.”

“Straight or curved?”

“Straight.”

“The other night he was telling me that in his fraternity, they take the pledges and shave their balls.”

“Yeah?”

“If they pass out from too much drinking.”

Something occurred to me. “You're not in a fraternity, are you, Ben?”

“No.”

I brushed my fingers against his scrotum.

“Your balls are pretty hairy. I could shave them for you, if you wanted.” I hesitated. “You know, we could pretend you were the pledge.”

Ben started shaking.

“Or that I was Tony—”

“Shut up.”

And pulling my face toward his, he thrust his tongue down my throat.

 

Don't think he wanted me. He didn't. Yes, he stayed that night, allowed me to initiate him into even the most specialized modes of intimacy—and initiated me into one or two as well. Yet as we sat down across from each other at breakfast the next morning, I could tell from his eyes that it wasn't me he was thinking about. Maybe Jessica, or God. Probably Tony. Not me.

He left shortly thereafter, having first extracted from me a promise never to tell anyone what had happened between us—a promise I naturally kept. And as I watched his car disappear onto California Boulevard, I couldn't guess whether he'd ever do it again, or do it only once again, or change his life and do it a thousand times. I knew only that during our night together, the marrow
of
identity had been touched. Whether it had been altered, however, I couldn't say.

A lull ensued. Spring break took most UCLA boys to a beach. With my father and Jean still in the Orient, I resorted to old habits: an hour each morning at the library, followed by Book Soup and lunch at the Mandarette Café. Then Andy was back in town for a few days between shoots; and my friend Matt Wolf from London. I got busy.

Something like my old life claimed me.

Naturally I was curious to find out, when spring break ended, what grade Ben had gotten on his paper; also, whether he'd bother to call and tell me what grade he'd gotten on his paper.

When finally I heard news of the matter, however (this was early April), it wasn't from Ben but from Eric.

Eric and I hadn't been in touch much lately. My suspicion was that he had a new girlfriend, the sort of thing he would never have discussed with me. So I was surprised and happy when he called me up one Sunday morning at seven and ordered me to meet him for breakfast at Ships on La Cienega.

He was waiting in a corner booth when I got there. A placid, sleepy smile on his face, he held the menu with fingers marked by little burns. “Juggling fire?” I asked.

“I got fifty bucks on Venice Beach last Sunday,” Eric said.

“Congratulations.” And I sat down. His skin was porphyry-colored from the sun.

“I must say, I never expected to hear from you at seven in the morning,” I said. “You're not usually such an early riser.”

“Depends on the season. Anyway, I had some news to tell you.”

“Tell me.”

“I just thought you should know, apparently some guy you wrote for—Ben something—got caught last week.”

“Caught?”

“Tony Younger called me. Banana waffles for two,” he added to the waitress, “and another cup of coffee. Anyway, yes. Apparently what happened was that when this guy Ben got back from spring break he found a message waiting from his history professor, the gist of which was to get over to her office hours pronto. So he went, and she basically told him that after reading his paper, and comparing it with his other papers, she'd come to the conclusion that it wasn't his own work Too sophisticated or something. Then she gave him a choice. Either he could admit he hadn't written the paper, in which case he'd get a C and the incident would be dropped, or he could protest, in which case he'd get an F and the whole thing brought before the honor board.”

“Damn. What did he choose?”

“That's the clincher. Apparently this Ben, this idiot, not only confessed he hadn't written the paper, he practically got down on his knees and started begging the professor's forgiveness. Tony's roommate was outside the office, he heard the whole thing.” Eric shook his head in disgust. “After that he went straight to his room, packed up his things, and left. And since then—this was three days ago—no one, not even Tony, who's one of his best friends, has heard a word from him.”

“Eric,” I said, “I have to ask. Did he mention me?”

“Always thinking about others, aren't you, Dave? But no, he didn't.”

“As if it matters. As if it makes it any less my fault.”

“Hey, take it easy.” The waffles arrived. “You're too quick to blame yourself,” Eric went on, pouring syrup. “I mean, it's not as if this Ben guy didn't know the risks. He came to
you.
Don't forget that. And he could have fought it. Me, I would have said”—his voice went high—‘“Miss Yearwood, Miss Yearwood, how can you think I'd
do
something like that!' And cried or something. Whereas he just gave in. You can't break down like that! The way I see it, they're testing you twenty-four hours a day. They want to see if you can sweat it out. If Ben couldn't take the pressure, it's not your problem. Still, I'd say it's probably better if you kept a low profile around campus for a while.” He patted my hand. “Me, I'm lucky. I've finished my humanities requirements. And if I win a prize for that paper, it'll go a long way toward Stanford Biz School, provided I get a high enough score on my GMATs. Did I tell you I have GMATs coming up?”

He hadn't—a lapse he now corrected in lavish detail—after which we said goodbye in the parking lot, Eric cheerful as he drove off into his happy future, me wretched as I contemplated the ruin of Ben's academic career, a ruin for which, no matter what Eric might say to assuage my guilt, I understood myself to be at least in part responsible. For suddenly it didn't matter that I hadn't gotten caught; it didn't matter that no one knew what I had done except the boys themselves, none of whom would ever squeal on me. Because I had written my paper, and not Ben's, he had suffered. Blame could not be averted. The best I could do was try to bear it with valor.

I got into my father's car. For some reason I was remembering a moment years before, in elementary school, when a girl called Michele Fox had put before me an ethical dilemma familiar to most American schoolchildren at that time: if a museum were burning down, she'd said, and you could save either the old lady or the priceless art treasure, which would you choose? Well, I'd answered, it depends. Who is the old lady? What is the art treasure? To which she responded—wisely, I'm sure—“You're missing the point, David Leavitt.” No doubt I was missing the point—her point—since Michele had few doubts in life. (She grew up to be a 911 operator.) As for me, I tortured that little conundrum for years, substituting for the generic old lady first my aunt Ida, then Eudora Welty, for the priceless treasure first the Mona Lisa, then Picasso's
Guernica.
Each time my answer was different. Sometimes I opted for life, sometimes for art. And how surprising! From this capriciousness a philosophy formed itself in me, according to which only particularities—not generalities—counted. For principles are rarely human things, and when museums burn—when any buildings burn—the truth is, most people save themselves.

What I'm trying to say here is, I made no effort to get in touch with, or help, Ben. Instead, that afternoon, I booked a flight to New York, where by the end of the week I was once again installed in that real life from which the episode of the term papers now turns out to have been merely a long and peculiar divagation.

I
RAN INTO
B
EN ABOUT A YEAR LATER
. This was in the Uffizi Gallery, in Florence, where I'd gone to research (I am actually now writing it) my Bailey bridge novel. I was looking at Bronzino's portrait of Eleonora di Toledo, and Ben was looking at Bronzino's portrait of the baby Giovanni, fatcheeked and clutching his little sparrow, and then, quite suddenly, we were looking at each other.

“Ben?” I said, not sure at first that it was he.

“Mr. Leavitt!” To my relief, he smiled.

We walked upstairs, where in the little coffee bar on the roof, I bought him a cappuccino. Ben looked better than he had when we'd first known each other. For one thing, his hair was both longer and messier, which suited him; also, he'd foregone his old Mormon uniform in favor of denim, down, hiking boots: ordinary clothes, boy clothes, in which his body, somehow ampler-seeming, rested with visible ease. Nor did he appear in the least surprised to be sitting with me there. “Actually,” he said, “since I've been in Florence I've bumped into six people I knew from school. It might as well be Westwood Village.” He took a sip from his cappuccino. “I never knew coffee could be so good before I came to Italy.”

“How long have you been here?”

“In Florence, three days. In Italy, two weeks. I'm with my friend. No—I guess I should say my lover.” He leaned closer. “Keith and I talk about this all the time. Lover's stupid, and friend's too euphemistic, and partner sounds like a business arrangement. So Keith says, ‘Just say you're with Keith.' But then people say, ‘Who's Keith?' And I'm back to square one.”

“Well, you don't have to worry with me,” I said, smiling. “Anyway, how did you meet Keith?”

“It was after I quit school, while I was living with my parents in Fremont. The thing was, I just kept having this yen to go into San Francisco. The usual story. So one night I was driving up and down Castro Street, and finally I worked up the courage to stop in at a bar. The next thing I knew someone was buying me a beer.”

“And that was Keith?”

“Oh no. Keith came later.” Ben's cheeks reddened. “He likes to tell people we met at a party, but the truth is we met on the street. He cruised me, we went back to his apartment and fucked. The rest is history.” Ben drained his coffee cup. “And what about you, Mr. Leavitt? What have you been up to this year? Still living with your father?”

“No, I'm back in New York.”

"Oh, great. And who are you writing term papers for there? NYU boys? Columbia boys?”

“Actually, I'm working on a novel.”

“Better, I guess.” His tone was somehow reproachful and affectionate all at once.

We were quiet for a moment. Then I said, “Ben, about that paper—”

“So you heard what happened.”

“Yes. And I'm sorry. Probably you were right, probably it was pretentious. Or at least, not the right thing for you. I always tried to make my papers sound like they came from the people they were supposed to be coming from. I guess in your case, though, I got carried away. Infatuated, almost. The thing was, I fell in love with an idea.”

“You're a writer. Writers are supposed to fall in love with ideas.”

“Exactly. And that's why I should have been more careful. After all, if I'd done the paper the way you'd asked me to—”

“If you'd done the paper the way I asked you to, I'd be graduating from UCLA and on my way to law school and engaged to Jessica. Or graduating from UCLA and on my way to law school and a queer with a whatever you want to call him. Instead of which I'm drinking coffee with you on the roof of the Uffizi.” He leaned back. “I'm not saying you didn't screw things up for me. I'm just saying the jury's still out on whether it was all for the best or not. And of course I'd be a hypocrite if I pretended it was only for the paper. It was never only for the paper.”