How Long Has This Been Going On (30 page)

Luke's mother went downstairs to rustle up the road food, and Luke's father indulged in what was bound by rules of tribal taboo to be the last embrace in his and Luke's lives. Mr. Van Bruenninger gave light hugs, with his body well apart from yours; a pat on the back and it was over, though the smile he gave you could last for days. Usually, Luke simply endured these hugs, like all teenage boys, but this time he held on to his father for a long time, as if the touch of this strong and unquestioningly loving man could relieve for a bit the regret that Luke felt about Tom.

"You want to tell me about school?" Luke's father asked, as they parted. "You want advice on what to major in? You want to hug me some more?"

"No, I'm okay now," said Luke, moving to the desk. "I'm going to show you the college catalogue and how I picked out my courses."

Luke and his father sat on the pleasantly worn-out couch and pored over the Berkeley catalogue as Luke outlined his strategy.

"First, no classes that start before ten o'clock," he said. "Second, extra-heavy in language and history, because that could come in very handy someday."

"Take plenty of math."

"What?
I hate math! That was my only weak subject all through high school!"

Luke's father shrugged. "I hate it, too. It just struck me as sound advice, somehow. Isn't this the moment when I give you sound advice?"

"It's okay, Dad. Give me time and I'll figure it out for myself in my plodding way."

"Did you make your village good-byes? Exchange secret vows with Tom and Chris?"

"Chris and I had dinner at Pagano's."

"Fancy place."

"We just had lasagna."

"No Tom?"

"Well... it was a college dinner sort of thing. Just this sacred grotty thing we were doing. Because Chris and I have this secret side to our lives, a privacy only for us. I've never told you about it."

Luke talking fast to confuse and evade. Luke on his feet, pacing.

"It was a fare-thee-well sort of thing," he goes on, "and very, very honest. We forced each other to admit things we thought we'd never share with anyone mortal, in our frantic teenage way. And of course we're both very grateful to our parents for making it possible to see the world and get an education. In fact, we had a grateful contest right there at the table, to see who was the more appreciative that we were being permitted to leave this dumb town and forge ahead with our life's work. So I say to you now... and I know Chris backs me up all the way in this; yep, all the way... I say, let it happen. He's leaving home with his lonely hearts club band of one, and he's going and he's not afraid. In fact, he's excited, Dad. He's not going to cry no matter what. You just watch."

"It was Tom who hurt you that night, wasn't it?"

"Yes," and of course Luke
was
crying, and his father pulled him close and held him again, and let him cry and hold on, till his father was rocking him and humming to him as if Luke were three and three quarters and had just gotten stung by a bee.

"Why did Tom hurt you, Luke? Was it because of Chris? A rivals thing?"

Luke paused for no more than a second. "Yes."

Luke's mother came in. "Oh, that's sweet," she said. "The sandwiches are in a brown paper bag in the fridge. There's chicken-salad and cream-cheese-and-jelly, with Almond Joy and a Granny Smith..."

"And a Granny Compton," Luke added, his voice muffled against his father's shoulder.

"Luke, are you
listening
to me?"

"No."

"What about seeing the boy off?" she asked Luke's father.

"Mom, don't be a crank," said Luke, brisk and all pulled together, getting up and taking command of the room. "It's bad enough that I have to get up at dawn. Let's not add to it."

"I can't even watch my own son depart for—"

"Mom, it's a bus to Minneapolis."

"It's a bus and a plane, young man, to be fair about it, and then, Our Lord willing, we won't see you till Christmas."

"If we're lucky," Luke's father joked.

"It's a crazy idea," said Luke. "Picture us all standing there when the bus pulls up. It's so... Why would you even
dream
of doing a thing like that?"

"Because we treasure you," said Luke's father.

"It sounds funny to say that," said Luke, after a long moment.

"Yes, well," said Luke's mother, bustling out.

Luke's father nodded. He got up and handed Luke the catalogue. He was about to leave. "You prefer things felt but not said," he told Luke. "I understand that. I'm like that, too."

"I'm not like that. I want things said. I mean, if they ought to be. I like honesty, I think."

Luke's father extended his hand and they shook.

"Dad, you have ridiculously big hands."

"Your mother likes them."

"They're the hands of a strangler. But I like them, too."

"So long, son."

"Night, Dad."

Luke couldn't sleep. However one looked at it, it was an exciting—a promising—step to take, and despite his misgivings Luke was ready to take it. Lying in bed, thinking about this impossible but potentially wonderful and in any case almost certainly necessary step in his life, Luke finally dropped off at about three-thirty, and two hours later, when the alarm went off, he hit the floor like a fireman.

He thought, It's today and this is really happening.

It was still dark when he left the house to walk the three blocks to the bus stop. Gotburg was too small to maintain a proper bus station, so there were simply two corners, in the east and west ends of town, where the buses stopped if you waved. It was cool and, when the sun rose, clear, the start of what Minnesotans call a "no weather" day, meaning no clouds, no rain, no tornadoes, no floods: just the earth, trees, birdsong, and lone Luke trudging along the road. Passing Tom's house and Chris's house, Luke looked resolutely in front of him, but a few paces on he put down his bag and looked directly across the street at Walt's house.

Fired by an idea, he ran over, slipped inside, and sneaked upstairs to Walt's bedroom, where Walt lay on his back, his head at the foot of the bed, tangled half in and half out of the blanket.

Dexter, perched atop the pillow with Walt's teddy bear, Claude, clamped in his jaws, raised his head and wagged his tail.

Luke made a shh finger at him.

"Walt," Luke whispered.
"Walt."

"Mhnum," Walt breathed out.

"It's Luke. Listen."

"Okay," said Walt, his eyes closed.

Dexter released Claude and watched all this with great interest.

"Walt, I want you to give a message to Tom. Walt?"

"Hmunh."

"Walt."

"Okay."

"Tell him I don't forgive him, but I wish him well all the same. No—tell him I even forgive him."

Walt's eyes were still closed, but he said, "Yes," and Luke, feeling released in some obscure but powerful way, sneaked back outside, holding the door for Dexter, who had followed him through the house.

Dexter proceeded to pee up and down Wild Rice Street as if it were the last day of his life. Between occurrences of lifting his leg, he managed to patter after Luke, because Dexter was friendly and Luke was familiar and the curious business with Walt suggested that there was some exploit in the offing.

Waiting for the bus, Luke and Dexter split the chicken-salad sandwich and the Almond Joy, but in the silence Luke began reviewing everything and he felt halfhearted again in no time.

"Oh, boy," he sighed, as Dexter stared at the lunch bag, wondering what else was in it.

"Dexter," said Luke, "did you ever feel that you've done your best and not only is it not enough, it's totally terrible?"

Dexter pounded his tail against the ground and recommenced staring at the lunch bag.

"My best friend on earth," said Luke. "My whole life of feelings is bound up in the guy. I can't help it."

Dexter barked politely and nodded at the lunch bag in case Luke had forgotten about it. No! He's picking it up...
oh,
and putting it into his valise. Dexter whimpered, and the bus hove into view around the corner.

Luke patted Dexter. "Good-bye, pal. Take care of Walt for me."

Dexter barked, and the bus door opened.

"I just want you to know," Luke told the driver as he paid his fare, "that I'm leaving everything that matters to me behind in this town."

"Smoking in the rear," said the driver. "Have a good trip."

Dexter watched the bus curl away down Chickasaw Street and sat, wondering if the bus would come back and Luke would come out of it and share some more of his lunch bag. After a while of nothing, however, Dexter rose, stretched, peed some more here and there—you never know—and trotted back home, parking himself patiently by the front door till Walt's father banged out on his way to work. Gliding inside, Dexter went up to Walt's room and licked Walt's face.

Walt, startled awake, shot bolt upright and shouted, "What happened?"

F
RANK WAS THE head bartender and assistant manager of Hero's, and he opened it every Friday through Wednesday at 3:45 in the afternoon to set up. It was easy work. Hero's was a no-frills bar for virile-looking guys in their twenties, thirties, and forties. The lighting was low, the pool table always busy, the jukebox locked into heavy metal and blues, the dress plain. So was the drinking: Nine out often customers would take a can of Bud, and the rest vodka or scotch. You didn't have to worry about setting up for Bloody Marys or Screwdrivers, not to mention Rusty Nails and Coronados and the rest of that uptown nonsense. The Hero's gang didn't come to show off some kicky new style or to impress a date; they came to talk things over and think about who they were and sometimes make a connection to go home and fuck.

It's like this, right? The hottest men are here to seek out the other hottest men—heavy-shouldered, long and lean frames pumped up at Sheridan Square or one of the Y's to the proportions of a high-school quarterback. They're the A's.

Then come the next-hottest guys, the B's, with a minor flaw here or there—a just-missed-it face or unambitious definition.

Then come the borderlines. They do all right if they know how to cruise aggressively and they hang around long enough.

Then come the I-don't-knows, because no one ever takes them home, but they're always around.

What's left are the D's, total rejects. Sorry, buddy.

And that is life as Frank sees it.

It's winter, but the heating is perfunctory, for Hero's offers no coat check, and many of the customers stand around in their jackets. Nevertheless, Frank is shirtless, a big gleaming wolf of a guy with a slow smile and a waiting list from here to next Flag Day. Forty years old and he still has it; he's legend, in fact, from the piers at the western end of the Village to the boardwalks of Fire Island Pines. He's Frank the Bartender.

Who made Bodies Unlimited
the
hot gym just by accepting a free three-year contract? Who flashed Bloomingdale's? Who danced as if he were Pan? Who drove This Year's Trendiest Model to tears at a Pines tea dance by saying, "I won't sleep with you because you're a selfish guy"—not to the point of tears, but to the tears themselves, in public and before the world, as eight dish queens ran home to phone the news all over town? Frank's bright, kind eyes, no-apologies attitude, lurid mustache, imposing nipples, and giant cock have made him a walking magic. What he wants, he is given; he doesn't even have to ask for it. He is a force of nature, a fixture of the scene, and a master of the revels. They call his type a "hot daddy": the expert older man, very loving but with a touch of danger about him. He dates around a lot, but hasn't had a lover in some twenty years. Everyone knows about him and nobody knows him.

Unlike most gay bars, Hero's fills early, possibly because it runs on a strong social energy. This isn't strictly a cruise bar, like Keller's, way down below Christopher Street; or a show-off-your-latest-sweater bar, like Harry's Back East, far uptown on Third Avenue. Hero's is an everything bar, perhaps the one of its kind. There is no emphasis on youth—the twenty-twos are less common than the forty-odds—and, truly rare, there is no air of "whites only." Few of the regulars are wealthy, or even well-off. The atmosphere is almost relaxed, where most of the other bars are studied, presentational. Men come here to cruise, sure—but also to identify themselves and commune and feel what it's like to be gay without asking for permission.

The first hours drag by. At nine o'clock or so, the bench along the wall is filling and the names on the pool table's chalkboard are backed up for three or four rounds. Everyone's still, standing or sitting and looking, mainly at Frank. Jim has arrived. He's one of Frank's most devoted customers—a Bud, with an ingratiating tip. Frank likes Jim: not sexy but pleasant-looking and pleasant-acting, too careful to look hungry. Frank likes guys who nurse their pride.

Then there's this old guy, Paul. He bustles, as if Hero's were his clubhouse. He's over here, he's over there, chatting, declaiming, lecturing. He reads from a notebook. Frank used to be pretty fast at putting people into slots, judging and sentencing them. He moves easy now. It takes all kinds, right? It even takes Paul, one of those touchy guys, quick to quarrel. But he means well. He's political, progressive: Gay Liberation. He's not only old but totally out of shape; but Hero's finds a place for everybody—and what's funny is, Paul's from L.A., too.