Comfort and Joy (11 page)
Ford parked near the theater and turned, but Dan had already swung open the door. "I'll call you," Ford said, and Dan paused to let himknow he had beenheard. Danfaced himfor aninstant. Something desolate in his expression. He started to speak and thenshook his head. Ina moment he had vanished altogether.
Ford started the car and pulled away. For a long time he drove without thinking much about where he went; streets and houses streamed past in a blur. The world beyond the window paled, compared to the world he was still seeing inside his head: he might as wellhave beeninthe restaurant still, withDaninfront he might as wellhave beeninthe restaurant still, withDaninfront of him, his face washing white as ice, his knuckles brittle as the stemofthe wineglass.
When he stopped driving and shook himself back to awareness, he had parked in front of the entrance to Stone Mountain. The park had already closed, but in the moonlight the shadow ofthe mountainloomed overhead, a dome ofrock like a turtle's back, or like a gigantic river-smoothed pebble. He opened the windows and sat in the darkness by the gate. After a longtime, thinkingnothingarticulate, he drove home again.
Near sundown the next day, he headed down North Highland Avenue, looking for the street sign labeled Blue Ridge, his stomach in knots. Parking the car in front of the apartment building, he stared straight ahead, unable to release the steering wheel until he remembered the moment at the table in the restaurant, the hoarse voice, I'm
sorry, Ford.
Silence beyond the doorway made him expect Dan had alreadyheaded for his rehearsal, or that he refused to answer the door just as he refused to answer the telephone. But Ford knocked again, firmly, and whispered, "Come on. You're here. I know you're here."
Acat sidled along the wall behind Dan and tried to lunge past his feet. He scooped the cat from the floor, draping it over his shoulder, saying, "I have to get to rehearsalsoon."
In the neat apartment Ford waited for Dan to close the door. He turned fromtrimbookshelves to tall windows, walls adorned withoilpaintings, simple furniture, a stereo and televisionofbasic proportion, other rooms opening off either end. Steam heat rattling pipes. "Sit anywhere." Dan deposited the cat on a chair, where it stretched and watched himadjust the stereo. "I've been trying to get these songs right," Dan said. "One of them is giving me the devil of a time." Then he sat with his arms folded across me the devil of a time." Then he sat with his arms folded across his chest and looked at Ford.
The moment grew long. Now Ford must explain why he had come. He spoke simply, as if he dropped by Dan's apartment every afternoon about this time. "I called your office today. They sound a little crazy without you." Leaning back, as the cat perched beside himon the adjacent cushion, "I don't usually just drop in on people. But tomorrow I go on duty for a couple of days and I was afraid if I waited to talk to you it would be too late."
Dannodded, expressionblank.
"I've beenthinkinga lot about last night. Obviously." "Youwere verykind."
Something about the tone or the words made Ford angry, and
he said, "I wasn't being kind." He ran a hand through his hair. "I'm a doctor. I know I can't die from being near you. I can't catch this virus from lying in bed next to you, or touching you, and I probably won't even catch it if I do more than just touch you." A phone began to ring but they both sat still. The phone soon stopped. "I don't know what's happening here. I really don't. But I don't want to give up yet."
Dan had frozen in the chair, gazing blankly at a pattern in the hardwood floor. The cat lay peacefully in his folded hands. "I'd be so much better off if I could be mean enough to make you go away," he said. "And you would too. But I don't know if I can do that."
"I don't think I'd be better off. And I don't think you would either."
"Whenwillyouknow ifyouwant to give up?"
In answer, Ford knelt in front of Dan, laying his arms across Dan's lap and leaninghis head into the center ofDan's chest. The contact shocked them both. "I could ask you the same thing. Whenwillyouknow?"
Ford rushed into his house on the afternoon of New Year's Eve. He had officially gotten off duty at 6:00
A.M
. but had been held over at the hospital for clinic, a favor to Dr. Milliken, who found himself shorthanded. He had talked to Dan twice since then, once in person in a hallway outside the public cafeteria and once more on the telephone. Running from one clinic to the auditorium, trying to reach a lecture on head injuries in children under five, he happened on Dan in the corridor near the entrance to the Pediatric Appointment Clinic. They talked in the middle of the hall, lingering in the midst of moving bodies; then Dan stirred to depart. At that moment Ed Harknight appeared downthe hall, raising a hand in greeting to Ford. Dan rearranged the papers he was carrying and looked on disinterestedly as Ed said, "Ford, fellow, it's nice to see I'm not the only one who's late to the lecture."Grinning, he looked fromFord to Dan.
His expression flickered uncertainly, as if he sensed their intimacy. He turned to Ford almost for explanation, and at the same time Dan said, "WellI'd better get back to pushing papers, Dr. McKinney."
"I'll talk to you later, Mr. Crell," Ford said, and Harknight nodded pleasantlyto Dan, who nodded pleasantlyinreturn.
As Dan vanished into the corridor's maze of moving bodies, Harknight turned to Ford with obvious curiosity. Ford flushed slightly. Knowing that Harknight would have thought nothing of Ford's talking to a pretty dietitian or to one of the female nurses. Ford prepared simply to ignore the moment and to proceed to the lecture, but Harknight said, "You better watch out for him, bigguy. I hear he's gay."
"Oh, yeah?"Ford asked, calmly. "Fromwho?"
"From what I hear, he's pretty public about it. He's an administrator, right? He works inthe NursingOffice?"
"I don't think it's Nursing,"Ford said.
Harknight shrugged. "Wherever. Come on, let's see what old Federsonhas to sayabout kiddies witha bump onthe noggin."
He slapped Ford on the back with presumed familiarity. Ford let himselfbe led to the auditorium, staring resentfully at the back ofHarknight's head.
As ifto prove to himselfthat this public warning had no effect, he called Dan from the cafeteria the next morning, to ask whether Dan could join him for breakfast. Dan thanked him for asking but said it was not a good morning; even so, Ford felt pleased withhimselfafter he hungup the phone.
He was dressed and ready with time to spare. He made a sandwich and ate it. Thinking how odd it was, on this night of all nights, to be alone untilanhour before the NewYear began. For a moment, in the dark, he had a feeling this was his mother's house, that through one of these doorways, if he opened the door properly, he would find the Savannah rooms waiting for him. He peered gingerlyinto some ofthe doorways, thenlaughed at himself. He could almost hear his mother's voice. He slipped ona jacket, found his car keys, and drove.
Awinter evening in the Druid Hills neighborhood, the lights of Christmas trees shimmering through Palladian windows. Tasteful wreaths on tasteful doors. On Blue Ridge Avenue he parked behind the old public library and locked his car. He had come early, and waited on the ledge beside the steps to the apartment building, legs dangling. Impatient. One moment wishing he had defied Dan's wishes and attended the show opening, and the next glad ofthe peace.
The wait ended more quickly than he had expected. A slim figure appeared amongnets ofleaves and branches, haltingat the brick retaining wall. "You look good, sitting there. You look natural. I like it."
natural. I like it."
"Thank God you didn't. We'd have been there all night. There's a party. There's always a party. And everybody stands around and talks about their next project."
In the light from the apartment door, Dan's face revealed its flush. Uncomfortably, fingertips brushing eyebrows, allowing Ford to see. "I haven't takenoffallmymakeup yet,"Dansaid.
Ford simply smiled. His fear dissolved into another feeling at the sight of the face, transformed by rouge and shadow, lips daubed with red, lashes showing traces of mascara. As if Ford had caught Dan in the act of transformation. Suddenly he knew what his fear had been, earlier: that, at this moment, he would find himself without desire. Now at the presence of this face, he found himself consumed, and his hands rose to that neck, palm over Dan's pulse. Desire ate him. "Do youneed to go inside?"
"I want to wash my face." The hand along Dan's neck held himpinioned, and a charge passed through him; Ford could feel the power shifting between them. As surely as he had understood Dan's power before, he felt his own increasing. In the apartment, Dan's pale body shimmered as he slipped the clean shirt over his torso, nipples lovely and roseate, tendertipped. A different kind ofmanfrom
Ford, his lean hardness, different from the men with whom Ford had kept companyinthe past.
When Dan was ready, they exited, descended stairs, and hurried to Ford's car, where Dan sat erect and carefully controlled, staring straight ahead. Without warning, Dan lay a hand along Ford's, atop the gearshift. Ford felt as if the hand were reaching much deeper inside him; their two skins, colliding, shimmered. So many doors were opening, and until now he had seenonlythe obvious ones. Dansaid, "HappyNew Year."
Through quiet residential neighborhoods Ford drove, avoiding thoroughfares, avenues, selecting tree-lined streets overlooking murky ravines, where the large houses peered down at them from the crests of hills, the occasional yard lined with cars, describingthe New Year's parties within.
"I'mglad I'mnot in any ofthese places,"Dan said. "They look so smug." Soon enough, they turned onto the dark twists of the street where Ford lived, Clifton Heights, and Ford braked the car to a halt at the beginningofthe driveway, near the large brick mailbox stenciled with the clear, silvered "McKinney." The headlights washed the broad porch at the front of the house. "Does this look smug?"Ford asked.
Dan studied the facade and answered, so quickly Ford was taken aback, "No. Just satisfied. But I like that." He gazed straight up at the sky, obscured by interlaced pecan and oak; he took Ford's elbow, the lightest touch, and guided himaway from the house into the yard.
In silence they rambled through the cold winter night, first beneath the broad limbs of the pecan that dominated the nearer part of the yard, then under the more distant oak. They stopped at a swing in which Ford himself had never sat, except briefly when the real estate agent showed him the house. Dan sat and beckoned. Ford joined him and, so naturally it seemed as if he had done so a hundred times, opened an arm around this stranger who had become suddenlyso familiar.
Close to midnight, they went inside. Dan hung their coats in the closet while Ford listened to the muted chime of coat hangers, the rustle of fabric and leather, Dan's soft humming. Ford felt something unnameable was changing in the house. Not simply when Dan entered tonight, but when the thought of him had begun. The emptiness had receded. Ford no longer heard clocks ticking, water dripping, silence. A man moved, and his motionmade sounds.
"It's five minutes to midnight. Do you want to turn on a TV or anything?"
"I'm fine," Dan said. "This is good. I like your house. Your
"I'm fine," Dan said. "This is good. I like your house. Your furniture has stories, doesn't it?"
"What makes youthink that?"
"Either you've been collecting this stufffor years or you've had some help."
"My mother picked out most of it. Part of it is from my grandmother, and part from an aunt's house, and some of it Mother bought."
"It's lovely."Danspoke witha hint ofcoldness.
They wandered to the room his mother called the library. He knelt in front of the fireplace and set to work. But they had lingered too long in the yard; his watch finally gave off its alarm before he had the fire lit. "I'mtoo slow," he said, lifting his glass. "It's midnight. HappyNew Year."
Dan knelt close to him and kissed his eyelids gently. "For luck,"Danwhispered, and kissed his lips.
After a moment, trembling, Ford kissed him back for the first time.
The sensation spread fear through his whole body, the touch of that male mouth, full and ripe, against his own, Dan tasting of champagne. They remained side by side near the hearth, Ford finding reasons to brush his arms against Dan's shoulders, and Dan leaning into the touch. The small room filled with firelight, dancing on the inner surfaces of windows. Embers cracked and spit, flames coursing round the wood. Dan's head eased against Ford's shoulder. Ford leaned against dark curls. He had pictured the gesture as simple, but as the weight and texture of Dan became real, his body responded. Dan lay a hesitant hand on Ford's chest, and the touch penetrated deep into the bone. Ford moved toward Dan, reachingto draw the face ofthe mannearer, closinghis eyes.
From outside, distant, the sound of fireworks penetrated the walls. Dan leaned up, and heat played over Ford's back as he lay the tip ofhis tongue on the pink ofDan's chest, the eye ofthe nipple. Fear washed away. Theypressed and pulled and laughed softlyinto eachother's mouths.
On the floor in front of the fire, flickering shadow dancing against their different flesh, Dan slid Ford's socks off his feet, the jeans down his thighs, shyly caressing the fine hair. Ford drank the sight of Dan's fresh nakedness as deeply as he drank Dan's admiration for his own, tracing the line ofneck and shoulder with his mouth. The two overcame the awkward flatness of their bodies, the clumsy joining of erections, the tedious friction; forgingpassionand joy.
Finally Dan rose over Ford, drawing Ford to a hardness, painfuland sweet, that seemed to last forever. TillFord came.
Dan spent himself against Ford nearly at the same moment, helplessly pressing as if trying to find some point of entrance into his flesh. At the last moment, he tried to pull away from Ford, but Ford sensed the withdrawal and held him close. Wet lips in Dan's wet hair. Naked, moist, collapsed, they lay quiet in the libraryamid the wreckage oftheir clothing.
"I should have worna condom,"Dansaid.
"Hush,"Ford said. "Let me worryabout that. Okay?"
"I can't help it."
"Yes, you can. We haven't done anything to worry about yet." Pulling the man close, he laughed softly. "We'll get to that part in the bedroom. Where there's some cushion."
Dan laughed too, relaxing. Ford closed his eyes and allowed elationto fillhim. Insuchsafetyhe could evenadmit the little fear kenneled in his brain, the minute dread of the sticky wetness on his thigh. Dan's gift of danger.
I can beat you,
he thought.
You can't stop this. You can't.
