In Memory of Angel Clare (7 page)

Ben’s hand was slowing down, as if tired. Michael stopped kissing. Ben gestured for him to wait, then twisted around to look at the light from the kitchen.

“Right back,” he whispered. “I better see what happened to Danny.”

He got up from the bed and stepped over to the light corning up from the kitchen. It really was Ben whose mouth and cock Michael had been touching, Ben Slover who spoke at rallies and bickered with his boyfriend, who gave advice and talked about the past like he was your older brother. Standing in the light and frowning at someone in the kitchen, he looked shorter and bulkier than he had felt in bed. A cock looked inappropriate on him. He started down the steps and disappeared through the doorway that stood at a right angle to the bed. Michael couldn’t see the kitchen from where he lay.

He heard Ben whisper, “We were wondering what happened to you.”

Danny’s voice answered, “Nothing. Just go on without me.”

Something inaudible followed, then, “You’ve been talking about this all along.”

“I know. I guess I’m just not in the mood tonight. But you go ahead. All I ask is that he go back to his own bed when you’re through.”

“But I don’t want to do it without you there.”

“You seemed to be doing pretty good a minute ago.”

Michael wondered if it was his fault, if he’d been giving too much attention to Ben. It was just that Ben’s body was the kind he was most familiar with.

“I was doing it just because I thought you wanted me to do it,” Ben whispered.

“Forget it. I’m not blaming you. Just go back and finish, please.”

But all the vague feelings of wrong Michael had been able to push aside in the dark were back now that he was alone on the bed. He slowly sat up, bringing the knots of his knees against his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs. He didn’t think he could continue when Ben returned.

A chair scraped across the floor and was sat on. The whispering grew inaudible, but Ben seemed to be asking Danny why. There was the repeated mention of another “it.”

Danny was suddenly annoyed enough to be heard again. “You think I don’t know
that?
Hearing it from you day after day? It’s not something I’m afraid of. Jeez, you and I are probably already—It just feels creepy. Don’t you feel that? It’s the boyfriend of your best friend. I don’t know. It’s not something rational. It’s like what I felt when I wore my dead grandfather’s coat.”

And Michael finally understood.

There was more whispering, and his mind raced ahead with what they had to be saying against him. He had suspected this was wrong all along, but had been too selfish to follow his suspicions or even stop to understand them: he was betraying Clarence.

Going to bed with someone was bad enough. Going to bed with Clarence’s friends was like boasting Clarence no longer mattered. That Michael had already recovered from his death. That Michael had never really loved him to begin with.

But he
had
loved him! He still loved him. Nevertheless, he horrified himself with the idea of his own heartlessness, sickened himself with how he must look to the others.

His own body sickened him. He quickly hunted around the bed for his things. The undershirt was on the floor. The briefs were wadded up like a rag beneath the kicked-back covers. He pulled everything on and it wasn’t enough.

The stair creaked and Ben reappeared, followed by Danny. Ben looked sheepish, Danny disgusted and unable to look at Michael. Their nakedness was strange and sexless, like the nakedness of cadavers in a classroom. Michael was sitting on the far side of the bed with his feet on the floor, wanting to run into his room and slam the door.

Ben leaned against the footboard and said, “We apologize, Michael. It wasn’t fair of us to get you all worked up and not be able to follow through. It’s something between Danny and me. I’m sorry you were caught in the middle.”

Danny had grabbed his T-shirt off the bed and hurriedly pulled it on. He tugged it down as far as it would go but he still hung beneath it. “This has nothing to do with you, Michael. I still think you’re an attractive guy. I just wasn’t in the mood tonight.”

“Can you forgive us?” said Ben.

They were being polite, being cowards and not telling Michael what they really thought. Their lies didn’t even match. Michael sniffed and said, “There’s nothing to forgive. I should never have gotten into bed with you in the first place.” He said it accusingly, accusing himself.

Ben glanced at Danny and Danny lowered his head.

“Don’t say that,” said Ben. “It could’ve been fun. Under different circumstances. Nothing wrong with friends having fun with each other. It just wasn’t in the cards tonight.”

Michael closed his eyes and nodded. It hurt that they thought so little of him they wouldn’t tell him he was selfish, disloyal, and wrong. They had been doing it too, but Clarence was only their friend while he was Michael’s lover, and they had known well enough to stop.

“So don’t take it personally,” said Ben. “These things happen. Why, I remember Danny brought a dancer home once and I was the one who didn’t feel…”

Danny sat on the bed and looked away while Ben talked, ashamed of Ben’s lying or Michael’s presence or maybe even himself.

“I’d like to do something to make up for our rudeness,” Ben offered. “You’re still welcome to sleep with us. Just sleep, mind you. If that really would make you feel better.”

He couldn’t actually mean it. He could only want to remind Michael he was the one who had started this when he came in whining about not wanting to sleep alone.

“No thank you,” Michael said stiffly. “I should sleep alone.”

“Probably better all around,” said Ben. “Given the circumstances. Again, I’m sorry it didn’t work out. But, no harm done. Right?”

Michael nodded again and stood up. “Good night,” he said, for what felt like the hundredth time that night. “See you tomorrow.”

Ben stepped forward before Michael could get away. He carefully touched Michael’s arm, then gave him a sudden hug. The very feel of skin was obscene. “We’ll laugh about this in the morning,” he claimed.

“You want me to drive you to the train station tomorrow?” said Danny. Kindly? Or eager to be rid of him? Danny was always more honest than Ben.

“Yes,” said Michael. “I do.” He stepped around Ben and into the next room, taking care not to slam the door when he closed it behind him.

He found the empty bed in the dark and buried himself in it. He could not cry. He hated himself too much to feel pity. The empty darkness of this bed and room was where he belonged. Where no one could tell him lies he was tempted to believe. Where there was nothing to break his focus on the absence that was the real center of his life.

T
HEY MET ON THE
train between Philadelphia and New York.

Michael Sousza transferred to Columbia his sophomore year, after a year at Haverford College outside Philadelphia. His grades were good, and Michael had wanted to go to Columbia all along, but his father distrusted New York City and insisted Michael spend his first year away from home in a small, protected place. Mr. Sousza was a self-made man, a second-generation Czech who had worked his way up from carpenter to contractor. He was proud he had enough money to send his youngest, brightest son to a good school. He had hoped his son would stay at Haverford once he was there, but gave in when Michael’s heart remained set on Columbia.

Perhaps he had anticipated it too long, but Michael was miserable his first semester in New York. Surrounded by cliques and circles formed the year before, neither the preppie nor New York Jew that everyone else seemed to be, Michael felt utterly alone. The city intimidated him. He did not have the spending money that would’ve enabled him to go out with the few people he did meet. He spent his evenings in the library or lab and his grades remained good, but he was so unhappy he could not remember why he had burned to live in New York City. He stood outside Earl Hall one damp night in October when there was a gay dance inside, listening to the disco music thumping through the dripping trees, and decided he wasn’t so lonely he had to resort to
that.

He went down to Haverford one weekend in November to visit friends from freshman year, only to find they weren’t as friendly as he remembered them. It was just as well. He couldn’t transfer back there without giving his father the terrible satisfaction of being right again. Michael caught the train back late Sunday night. The train was packed and he walked all the way to the smoking car before he found an empty seat. An older man reluctantly lifted his Walkman and nylon windbreaker from the seat beside him when Michael approached. Not until Michael had put his bag in the overhead rack and settled in did he bother to look at the man. He instantly felt the man was gay. He dressed gay, wearing black jeans and a white T-shirt although he looked like he was at least thirty. (Clarence, in fact, was thirty-five.) His mustache looked gay: neatly trimmed hairs bordering his mouth. Michael knew what they did with their mouths. Michael was very nervous, terrified the man might try something.

But the man didn’t look at Michael, not even at Michael’s knees. The Walkman turned in his lap and his shaggy head was wired with the headset. He closed his eyes like someone in church while he listened to the music in his skull. All Michael heard was a tinny orchestra of ants.

Michael decided to be relieved the man was occupied. He took out his chemistry notebook and tried to forget him, although that was difficult with the man leaking music. The long passenger car shuddered once, then seemed to float in space, the darkness outside turning the windows into long black mirrors.

The Walkman clicked to a stop. Michael glanced over while the man flipped the cassette. He assumed it would be disco, but the yellow label on the cassette read: “Humperdinck, Highlights from
Hansel and Gretel
” The man pressed a button and disappeared into his music again.

Michael listened more closely. That was a children’s story, but this sounded like opera. Michael was ashamed of how little he knew about music, how working-class he really was, like his family. But knowing the man listened to something called
Hansel and Gretel
changed him in Michael’s eyes. It made him seem less gay, less intimidating. Maybe he taught elementary school. He didn’t have the cool, predatory look of the gay men Michael saw on the street, but looked rather mild and benevolent, despite the mustache. He had a big cowlike jaw, thin lips, and long, sensitive eyelids. The T-shirt wasn’t pumped up with muscles, and there was a slight cushion of tummy above his belt. His eyelids quivered and his nostrils dilated, as if he were deeply moved by something.

Then his eyes opened. “Oh!” He looked at Michael and pulled the plugs out of his ears; there was a whistle of music. “Do I have this too loud? I’m terribly sorry.”

“Uh, no. Not really. Not at all.” Michael had looked too much, forgetting the music didn’t make him as invisible as he felt. He didn’t want the man to think he’d been looking at him, so he added, “
Hansel and Gretel,
isn’t it?”

“Huh? Oh. Yes!” said the man, surprised by Michael’s interest. “Wonderful piece of music. Grossly underrated.” He spoke slowly at first, lazily savoring his words yet also shy about them. “Most people think it’s only a children’s opera, but…” He shrugged sheepishly, as if afraid Michael might disagree with him. “Anyway, it’s wonderful music for train trips.”

“You don’t say.”

“Absolutely. Like this part here. In the finale.” The man eagerly fast-forwarded the tape and listened to it. “Just a sec. The chorus of the gingerbread children,” he explained. “Where they ask Gretel to touch their eyes and bring them back to life. Ah. Here it is.” The man took his headset and, before Michael could stop him, slipped the whole thing over Michael’s head, his fingers brushing Michael’s ears. It was much too intimate. The cord remained wrapped once around the man’s neck. “Okay. Now listen to this, and slowly turn your head around while you listen.”

Michael had no choice except to seat the plugs in his ears and nod. The music came on, filling his head with a slow, sweet current. Then there were children singing, softly, dreamily, the orchestra carrying them along in their trance as if they all floated on their backs in a river. Without knowing what he was supposed to listen for, Michael slowly turned his head as the man instructed, until he saw the skyline of a small city float forward outside in the darkness, then the man looking straight at him.

He was smiling at Michael, his eyes wide open and expectant.

Michael smiled back at him.

The Walkman was turned off and the protective shell of music vanished, along with Michael’s smile. The dreary rumble of wheels and the hiss of the ventilators returned.

“Yes?” said the man, taking the headset Michael passed back to him. “It makes even Amtrak interesting. I feel I’m being rude when I use these things, and it’s not good the way they turn everything around you into a movie. But it’s interesting. The way the music brings out rhythms in things you wouldn’t notice otherwise.”

“Very interesting,” said Michael.

“It’s even better with Poulenc, whose music always makes me think of scores for silent movies, only they’re movies that existed only in his head. Do you like Poulenc? Or
Pou-lank,
however it’s pronounced?”

“I’m not familiar with him. I don’t know much classical music,” Michael admitted. “I’m not very strong on culture.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t really think of it as culture,” the man said with a trace of embarrassment. “It’s just stuff I happen to like.” He actually did talk about music as if it were an innocent passion, with no social clout attached to it, no desire to impress Michael with his sophistication. Which was why Michael had been able to confess his ignorance so easily. “What kind of music
do
you like?”

“Music doesn’t really interest me.”

“Ah.” The man fumbled with the jacket gathered in his lap and pulled out a pack of Winstons. “Cigarette?” he offered.

Michael was tempted to take one, just to be friendly, so he rebelled against his desire to be friendly and said, “Don’t you know smoking’s bad for you?”