I Loved You More (16 page)

When Hank speaks again, Hank ain't locked up faraway and he's the Hank I know again.

“Fuck, Gruney, you're totally right on, man,” Hank says.

Hank's big arm with his big hand on the end of it falls out of the shadows, down to the table, rattles the china. He pushes his open palm out to me.

“Gruney Babe,” Hank says, “I'm sorry.”

FRIENDS. FUCK. FRIENDS
again. Eating and drinking with friends. I'm feeling especially high because things for a while there looked so bleak. Hank apologizes to Olga and Olga says she should have known better and we all get pretty high off each other. I barbecue the steaks and Olga makes the salad dressing and Hank opens more wine. In that big, beautiful, dark old house.

After three hours of us eating and drinking, the table is a mess of meat scraps, corn cobs, wilted tomatoes, and greens. Our wine glasses, our fingerprints on them. Olga's red cherry lipstick. The three bottles of wine finished off, mostly by Olga and me, then there's the snifter of brandy. We'll all work a whole month paying this dinner off.

Olga wants a cigarette. I do too. So what does she do but pull a tin of Nat Shermans out of her purse. I've quit and started smoking so many times in my life. This is one of those nights I start.

The mean neighbor appeased, inside the screened porch, no mosquitoes, under a roof, a warm summer night, the three of us in that big house, no lights on, just the many candles on our table. Filled with good food, fine wine, our big snifters of Hennessy, Olga and me smoking. Still ahead, our desserts and espressos. Still ahead, our novels coming out in March. The night deep dark inside the house too. Only the candlelight. Around the table, each of us a painting by Goya. Out of the darkness, a slow contour of light, and as if miraculous, out floats a face, an arm, a hand.

Friday night. Ahead of us still Saturday, still Saturday night, still Sunday morning. The train ride back to the city still far enough away.

“Let's dance!” Olga says.

Hank lets out a little moan. Straight guys don't dance. I
take a candle into the next room, the living room, to Esther's stereo hi-fi – a huge piece of oak furniture that is a record player. My God, the albums in there. Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Rosemary Clooney, Nat King Cole, Johnny Mercer, and Frank Sinatra before he was a Republican. It takes me a while, but I figure out how the stereo hi-fi works. Pile a bunch of records on and crank up the volume.

The song is “Lullaby of Old Broadway.” I dance the candle across the dark room back onto the porch. The table is an altar with all the candles. When I get to the table, I set down my candle, do a twirl. Hank's rolling his eyes. I take Olga's hand and her cherry red lips are smiling big and we start dancing. Olga's still wearing the cornflower blue sleeveless smock thing. It goes all the way to her ankles. She twirls, the skirt lifting up, flowing. We dance our bodies close at first, a two-step or foxtrot or whatever it is, nice rhythm, fast, and lots of spinning. The sound of gold against gold. Then we break out into a jitterbug. Olga lets out a big laugh, throws her head back, her gold-hooped earrings, flashes of gold light. Her cornflower blue scarf comes undone, falls down around her shoulders. Olga tosses it away, doesn't miss a beat.

Something you got to know about me and dancing. Maybe it's all gay men, I think it is, at least most of us. Nothing can make me happier. Except writing. Dancing is why I think straight guys like sports so much. They get to move. They get to move remarkably. People watch you and you get to show off how you can move.

Bette Podegushka and me dancing at the Mercedes Inn were the best dancing days. Nothing's come close. Except for nights like this one. Olga and me and Hank. Hank's dancing with us too, even though he's sitting. He just doesn't know it. Put on an LP, a big band and Ella Fitzgerald on a stereo hi-fi, and that's all it takes. In all of my life, of all the places I'll go around the world, Paris, Nairobi, Mombasa, Marrakech, London, Rome, Madrid, Barcelona, always the best times, the most exotic, the
most romantic, tender, the most intimate, is after a great dinner in a home of a friend, bottles of wine, maybe a splif, turn on the stereo and dance around the table with your friends.

“I'm Beginning to See the Light.” My body feels good moving. Dead Lorca, dancing is the only way to shake it off. The heavens above and the earth below connect. My body is what connects them. In the connection, transformation. What it is to be alive.

Then the record's over and Olga and I are trying to get breath. Hank's giving us a standing ovation. Olga walks over, grabs his arm, “Fascinating Rhythm”'s on now and Olga tries to pull Hank out to dance but Hank doesn't budge. I'm dying to pee.

The bathroom with just the candle light is too weird. Strange shadows and big porcelain ghosts. I blow out the candle, and in the dark, sit to pee because I know if I stand I'll miss the pot. We got to leave Esther's house the way we found it. The smell of melting beeswax. Quiet, so quiet in the room except for my piss in the bowl.

Something like a ghost passes through me. Or maybe it's gas. A trembling in my chest that feels sick. When I lean my head on my hand, my forehead is sweating. I stand up slow and do what I always do when my body starts acting up – pretend it isn't happening. At the sink, it's cold water on my face, handfuls of it.

In the kitchen, I relight the candle, keep pretending through the kitchen, through the living room. I think maybe if I turn on the lights, the awful feeling will go away. But if I turn on the lights that means I'm sick and I'm not sick.

The cigarette. It must have been the cigarette that fucked me up.

The LP touches down and it's Billie Holiday, “April In Paris.” I'm in the doorway when I stop. On the porch, the table that is an altar. Hank's bare-chested and glowing like a Catholic saint. Olga's gold, little fires all over on her body, everything about her is pointed at Hank.

Some songs can stop you in your tracks. Especially that
song. I go to take another step but can't. Too much red wine, I figure, the Hennessy, or maybe I stood up too fast. In one hand, the candle and the flame. My other hand waves through the darkness, looking for something solid. My shoulder lands against the doorjamb. In my ears, a pulse of heartbeat. Dizzy. I tell myself that if I fall I should fall so Hank and Olga don't see. A long moment when my body isn't mine at all. In fact, my body goes away altogether. I'm like the flames. No substance, only spirit. Long deep breaths. My eyes, whose eyes are they, look down at my chest. My hand, some strange guy's fingers. For a moment I actually think my heart is breaking.

Billie Holiday isn't singing, she's talking to me. Her voice, the way each word is in her mouth. How she licks it, rolls it around, makes the word hers. It's as if she's so present loving how that sound is in her mouth she doesn't ever want to let it go.
This is how it is, let me tell you, how Paris is in April, all this hope. Fucking hope, man
. But the way Billie loves each moment, every word, makes her hold on just a little too long. Why she lives is in this moment. Giving voice, so precious, she doesn't want to let it go. But any moment now she's going to fuck up the rhythm. But she always lets go just in time and she never fucks up.

In my chest, the sick feeling leaves as quick as it came. My heart is pounding strong, I'm back in my body, breathing deep, and so happy to be back home. I'm in my moment the way Billie is, holding onto it for dear life. All those years I spent trying to get out of my body, when all the while I was trying to get in. I slide down the door jam and my butt hits the floor. In my hand, I'm holding up fire on a candlestick. In front of me, just beyond, out there in the world on the screened-in porch, into the candlelight, Hank swirls up Goya.

I can't believe my eyes. In that part of the house between the screened-in porch and the living room is a stage. The candles are the dramatic lighting. Hank is on the stage. Just in his long khaki shorts. Olga's scarf a turban tied around his head. He is dancing.

Hank's not showing off. Well maybe a little. He's a man alone dancing a room, his eyes closed. He's dreaming with Billie in Paris in April. That thing in his shoulders and his chest that always seems to hold him up, isn't holding him up. How smooth his body is in the light. His feet are solid on the shiny, slick oak, his second toes longer than his big toes, thin ankles, his surprisingly hairless calves.

Olga's at the table, her curly black hair hanging down to her shoulders. Her hands are over her mouth, her gold bracelets down around her elbows, eyes bright and wide as if she is witnessing one of the wonders of the world.

She is. Hank Christian is dancing.

Slow, more like a man swimming than a man dancing, how a body moves against the water. That way straight guys won't move their hips, Hank is moving.
My ass is beautiful
, the way his hips are moving. The candlelight on the muscles of his back, his chest, his arms, that full, bright face framed in cornflower. His closed eyes, his nipples, his hairy underarms, the hair in the middle of his chest, light, dark, light dark, light and dark. Hank's gone. He's with Billie in her moment that she lives in that she expresses that she craves. Hank's body, how he licks the music, rolls it around, makes it his.

What have you done to my heart
?

The silence after the song, LP scratches. Crickets. Warm, the night is warm. I'm still sweating. My eyes can't bear to look into Hank's, so I quick look away. The candlelight on the oak floor, the shadows around the table, the candlelight against the screen. Delicate. We are so delicate.

WHEN I WAKE
up, I'm in my bed in my room upstairs. I don't know what the fuck. I'm just in my shorts and on the bed there's a pool of sweat between my shoulderblades. Night sweats. I'll come to know night sweats well. Something is flashing. It's outside, the flashing. Really all I know about the flashing is that it's not in me.

The pain in my chest is gone. I feel fine, a little drunk maybe. Then flash, there's a big, bright light, silver that for an instant makes every object super real and alien at the same time. The shadow from that light slanted, a weird, cold darkness. Moments later, a crunch of thunder.

Out the bay window, the huge dome of Pennsylvania sky is a road map of heaven. Long cracks of heat and light point bright fingers into the deep, dark earth. Silent flashes, repetitions of flashes. Every so often, thunder you can feel in your bones. The earth is a baseball getting hit out of the park.

Another big, bright light, a night sky crack, and the earth is the color of the moon.

On the nightstand, I try the lamp, no electricity. That's when I hear it. A blast of Beethoven or something like him. Music real loud that all at once is all around me. Then just as fast the music winds down, a 45 record going to 33⅓. Then boom the loud music again.

I go to the bathroom off the bedroom I stay in, turn on the lightswitch. No light. Strange how electricity and running water we just expect. I can see myself in the mirror. Mostly my white shorts. I put my fingers on the white tile around the sink. Position my feet firm on the floor. I take a deep breath. This shit's been going on way too long.

When I check in, my heart is fine, my breath is coming in and out. When I move my fingers, my fingers move. My toes wiggle. My shoulders, my arms, my legs. Still got my old pope. My mouth tastes like old cigarette. And my head is sore right in the middle above my eyes where it always gets sore when I drink and smoke.

Reality. Still, something's fucked up, even if it's not me.

It's the world. The
world
is fucked up. Maybe it's the end of the world. Outside, the heavens are flashing hallelujah and there's weird Beethoven music blasting out then slowing down, blasting out, slowing down. The only thing I can figure is that Hank and Olga are downstairs fucking with the stereo hi-fi. The
two of them doing some interpretive dance to the light show outside. I don't even think
there's no
electricity so
how can there be a stereo hi-fi
.

Outside, through the bay window, it's far more interesting than the mirror. If it's the end of the world, I may as well witness it. Who knows how long I stand there. Make myself look close. If these are my last moments I'm a lucky guy. My eyes, these two round things inside my head that see, are delighted at the magic light show the gods are putting on. Then there's a new sound. A tapping that gets louder.

“Ben? Ben, are you in there? Are you awake?”

I open my bedroom door and it's Hank and Olga huddling around the flame of a candle. Olga's hair is down and she's just in her white slip. Hank's white shorts are like mine. Stretched out in the crotch and legs.

“Is that you guys down there,” I said, “making that weird music?”

“No!” Hank and Olga say at the same time. “We thought it was you!”

LOOK AT US
, three children with a taper, so close together you'd think it's one person walking through the dark house. It's funny, so we're laughing, but it's not too funny. That music ain't funny. Shoulder to shoulder to shoulder down the stairs. Bare feet against oak floors. Olga's spicy perfume, what's left of Hank's Polo aftershave. Sweat. At the bottom of the stairs, the foyer in the dark is every kid's nightmare of a haunted house. Right then, there's a big silver flash of light and when the thunder hits, it shakes the chandelier. Olga screams, then I scream, then Hank farts. One of Hank's famous farts. Then we're laughing so hard we fucking can't navigate.