Lives of the Circus Animals (11 page)

H
enry led his pretty American down the stairs to the street. They came out between
Beauty and the Beast
and Howard Johnson's. Straight couples sat in the restaurant windows, drinking and eating, betraying no awareness of the Sodom directly over their heads. The Gaiety Theatre had been a wonderful surprise tonight, a sanctuary of live sleaze in this wholesome electronic Eden. And look at what he'd found there. Bud or Toby, whatever the big blond's name, loped worshipfully beside him.

“The city that never sleeps,” Henry declared as they walked through Times Square. “The city that never stops eating. Unlike London. Where one is hard put to get a drink after eleven.”

The sidewalks were less crowded now, their chief occupants giddy packs of high schoolers. Lights still glowed and shimmered at two in the morning, like the pretty aura of a migraine.

“I know a good place where we can go for a natter,” said Henry. “I can get a drink and
you
can get your hot chocolate.”

The twenty-four-hour coffee shop in the Milford Plaza stood halfway between the Gaiety and Henry's bedroom. Maybe the boy was sincere when he said he didn't hustle; Henry was sincere when he said he never paid for it—well, almost never. A long, friendly chat should undo any reservations Toby might have. That the boy would be drinking hot chocolate only added to the challenge.

“Again, I liked your act,” said Henry. “Very smart, very sexy. Good music too.”

“Yeah, that old swing stuff is great,” said Toby. “And I want to remind the men in the audience of their good old days.”

“My boy. We're not so old as that.” He laughed. “No, what you put
us in mind of is our fathers.” It never ceased to amaze Henry how often actors hit upon the right effect for the wrong reasons.

“We studied your
Hamlet
in college,” Toby confessed. “We watched it on tape. Over and over. Wow.”

Yes, the boy
was
an actor. Alas. He had looked so hot onstage, dumb with sex, drowsy with lust, lazily swaying to the music and losing his clothes. He hadn't seemed to give a damn about the audience. Pale and lanky, but with heavy haunches, he had looked utterly naked, not dressed in muscle like the cast-iron ox who preceded him. His cock stuck out like a finger peeking from a hand puppet. He'd been such an antiperformer that Henry hadn't guessed he was an actor, not even when the music stopped and the boy awoke, as if from a dream, and clomped off like an insulted ostrich.

“You were like a punk Hamlet, a pomo Hamlet,” Toby was saying, and all the other slogans about that ancient performance.

No, he was no rough-trade beauty. He was an actor, merely an actor. Which explained the Marcel Marceau touches during his strip. Henry had wanted to go home with Bud but was getting Toby instead. Which
might
be interesting—he couldn't tell yet.

“You're the Hamlet of your generation,” Toby concluded, a phrase that still made Henry cringe. “You brought Shakespeare to life for me. You made me want to be an actor.”

Henry smelled the warm, sweet bullshit of flattery and was not entirely pleased. Up ahead was the ten-story billboard of a beefy fellow in briefs. “But why want to be an actor?” he asked and pointed at the figure. “When we could want
that
.”

Toby gazed up. “You mean, go to bed with him?”

“That'd be nice. Or maybe
be
him. A shameless, brainless beauty. Without a thought in his head.”

Toby looked suspicious, unsure. “Not my type,” he said.

“Oh? And what
is
your type?”

“I don't have a type. Except right now I'm in love. With a playwright. Maybe you know him. Caleb Doyle?”

Henry blinked, then blinked again. “Can't say that I do.”

How curious. And
Toby
? He knew he'd heard the name before. This was
the
Toby?

“Didn't he write
Something Chaos
?”

“Chaos Theory,”
Toby said eagerly. “And other plays too. That one just closed. But it was a good play. I think it's his best.”

Curioser and curioser. Henry already knew Doyle, aurally but intimately. He had wanted to meet him in the flesh but was meeting his fleshy boyfriend instead. New York was a small town, but this felt like an improbable trick of fate. Henry was full of actorly superstitions: the Scottish play, a fear of purple, the need for rain on opening night. He couldn't guess what this linked pair of encounters might mean. Lust became more complicated—and more interesting. He still wanted to bed Toby. After all, he'd already bedded Toby's boyfriend, in a manner of speaking. But he did not feel as impatient as before. He was willing to take his time.

They came to the coffee shop at the Milford Plaza and sat in a red upholstered booth by the window.

“It's called the Celebrity Deli,” said Toby, looking at the menu.

“Alas,” said Henry. “I see no celebrities tonight.”

“Except for you.”

Henry smiled. “You're too kind.”

He could look at Toby head-on now, across the table: clear skin, soft nose, wavy sand-colored hair, a sweet suggestion of bags under his eyes. He looked even sexier in clothes than he had onstage, in the same way that Henry often found the dressed boys on the covers of skin magazines more alluring than the meat pies inside.

The waiter returned. Henry ordered a Manhattan. Toby actually ordered hot chocolate.

“So. Toby. You're an actor.” Henry had learned to avoid certain subjects with Americans, but the boy looked so good that he decided to risk it. “Who have you studied with?”

It opened the inevitable floodgate: college classes, HB Studio—“Herbert Berghof,” Toby explained—the Method, of course, and a book praised by that great butch boor, David Mamet. Henry looked for a place to insert tales of his own training, but the boy never asked. As the saying goes: “It's you they want to meet, but it's them they want to talk about.”

He managed to feign interest until his drink arrived—the boy
was
pretty to look at—while his mind slipped back to the coincidence of fate, the question of Caleb Doyle. He allowed the boy another five minutes and subtly turned the subject there.

“How does your boyfriend feel about your flipping your willy at strange men every night?”

“I don't do it every night.” He frowned. “And I don't have a boyfriend. Not anymore.”

“Oh? What about this playwright?”

“We broke up. I still love him, but he doesn't love me.”

Henry was excitedly blinking, not with his eyes but with his heart. Then he remembered the love cry of
Toby
over the phone. “You're certain about that?”

“Oh yeah. He doesn't know what he wants anymore. Except that he doesn't want me.”

Careful, Henry told himself. There's nothing here for you. It doesn't matter if the boy is attached or free. Nevertheless, it was fun to grope around in the underwear of a young man's private life, especially when the young man didn't have a clue.

“I'm sorry,” said Henry. “That must be very painful for you.”

“A bummer. I never loved anyone the way I love him.”

“And what do you love about this Doyle fellow?”
Bad question
—Henry instantly regretted asking it.

“Well, for the longest time, I loved that he loved
me
.” The boy looked so solemn. “But now he doesn't, and I still love him, so it must be something else.”

“The sex,” said Henry, lightly purring the syllable.

Toby lowered his eyes, color filled his cheeks. Henry had made a stripper blush? “Sure. But I liked the sex because it meant we loved each other, not the other way around. Sex by itself isn't that interesting.”

But interesting enough for some, thought Henry. “That's a surprisingly romantic view for a man who works at the Gaiety.”

“I know. It's weird. But I have a block about sex. I think about it all the time. But I can do it only when I'm in love. Which is one of the reasons why I first started going to the Gaiety. To see how raunchy I could get, doing things I wouldn't dare do back in Wisconsin. And I can get real raunchy there—”

“I found you convincing.”

“But not in bed. Not for real. Then I get all—” He pressed his elbows to his sides and jiggled his hands like flippers. “I guess I'm just a stupid, geeky, old-fashioned romantic.”

Henry thought this pure-heart-in-the-whorehouse nonsense had gone out with Tennessee Williams. It might only be Toby's way of fending off predators, yet he did not seem imaginative enough to have made it up.

“You must think I'm one sick puppy,” said Toby with a proud lift of his head.

“Not at all. It takes all kinds. How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

He sounded and behaved like someone much younger. “Ah. You have years to learn what the world can teach you.”

“And I want to learn. Everything. I need it for my acting.”

“You might find it useful for life as well.”

“But going back to why I'm in love with Caleb?”

“Yes?” said Henry wearily.

“He's smart. He's read everything. And not just plays. He knows theater, not like an actor but a writer. He wrote a couple of speeches for me for a play I'm in. Before we broke up. I'm still finding out how much is there, layers and layers. It gives me loads to work with.”

“You're in a play?” said Henry.

“Yes. Well. A new piece some friends and I are doing.”

“I'd love to see it,” said Henry. “I truly would. But I can't. The worst thing about a long run is one has no time for friends' work. Alas.” He cut off the invitation before it was offered. His prick had led him into more bad theater, fringe and otherwise, than he cared to remember. “And what else do you love about this man?”

“Oh, that he's good-looking.”

“Of course.”

“In my eyes anyway. I don't think anyone else sees how handsome he is. To them he's just short and skinny.”

“As short as I am?” said Henry.

Toby closed one eye and studied him. “No. I think he's shorter.”

“And he's successful,” said Henry. “That's something you must love about him.”

Toby looked confused. “No. I'm happy for his sake he's done well. But it has nothing to do with why I love him.”

“Success can be sexy,” Henry argued, not without self-interest.
“Like having a nice body or good sense of humor. It can't hurt that his success is in a field that you're just entering.”

“No,” said Toby. “I'd love him even if he were a stockbroker. Or a garbageman or a dentist.”

Now he
was
putting Henry on. Either that or the boy had a remarkable gift for lying to himself.

It was late. Henry was tired. He had finished his drink; Toby's cup was empty except for a brown lick of dried foam. Now was a good time to move on to the next phase.

“I'd love to continue this,” said Henry, “but I'm exhausted. You must be tired too. We both put in a very full day's work tonight. We should say good night. Unless you'd like to come back to my place.”

Toby stared. Then his face began to twist into various grimaces of regret and apology. “Sorry. No. I can't. I'm flattered! Like you wouldn't believe. That an actor I admire wants to sleep with—I mean, that is what you want. Or am I—?”

Henry raised his hand to stop his noise. “I expected you to say no. But I had to ask. Just to make sure.”

Toby looked guilty. “Don't hate me. I told you. I'm not like that. And I didn't lead you on.”

“You didn't. And you're right. It's better this way. Wiser. That we not throw away this wonderful first meeting in nasty old sex.”

Henry meant to be sarcastic, yet he couldn't tell exactly where the joke landed. He
had
expected to be turned down, yet was oddly pleased when Toby did say no.

“I've enjoyed our talk,” he continued. “I'd like to get together again sometime.”

“You would?” said Toby. “I would too.”

Henry paused, pretending that he had to think about this. “Have you seen
Tom and Gerry
yet? Pure fluff, but quite engaging. Or so people tell me. You showed me yours tonight. It's only fair that I show you mine.” He laughed. “What night are you free?”

The boy frowned. “I got rehearsal all week for this play. Except Tuesday. Yes! Tuesday we quit early. Half the cast has a catering gig.”

“Tuesday night it is. Very good. There'll be a ticket in your name at the box office. And then I want you to be my guest for dinner afterward.”

“You don't have to do that.”

“Yes I do. I hate to eat alone.”

You transparent old lecher, thought Henry as he paid the check. Surely this boy sees through you.

Outside they bid each other good night. Henry wanted to kiss Toby on the cheek, a professional theater peck, but he restricted himself to a cordial handshake.

“This has been an honor,” said Toby.

“Please,” said Henry. “It should be a pleasure.”

“Right. Sure. It'll be a pleasure Tuesday. See you then.”

Henry watched the boy head down Eighth Avenue, walking with a contented, bouncing ostrich stride, his head held high like a ballerina's. The loose seat of his jeans squashed and unsquashed under his ample bottom, the single fold of denim flipping from cheek to cheek. Henry waited to see if the boy would turn around for one last look back. He never did.

Henry turned and started uptown toward his apartment.

What the hell was he doing? What did he want from a playwright's ex-boyfriend? One could understand why he
was
an ex. His contradictions were intriguing, but also maddening. What Henry should want, of course, was to get Toby in the sack. But this felt more complicated than lust. He'd already seen him naked. There was no mystery there. And Henry did not want romance. He did not want to fall in love with Caleb Doyle's ex.