Michael Tolliver Lives (20 page)

“Okay. Fine. Whatever.” I was surprised by the anguish in his voice. “Can you tell me what this is about?”

“No…not on the phone.”

“Will Lenore be with you?”

“No.”

“Well…call me when you get in.”

“I will, bro.” His tone was softer now. “Thanks for this, you hear?”

Thanks for
what
was the burning question.

I have a gardener friend up in Sebastopol who likes to tell people that he has a mind like a steel trap—sometimes he has to gnaw his leg off to get away from it.

That’s me to a T. Once I start fretting about something, there’s no escaping its viselike grip. It pops up on the treadmill at the gym. Or during sex. Or in the middle of a pleasant dinner at home when you should be concentrating on the food.

“They’re actually pretty good,” said Ben.

I drew a blank. “Uh…sorry…what?”

“The brussels sprouts.”

“Oh…yeah…it works, doesn’t it?”

Ben set his fork down and regarded me with a gentle, knowing smile. “I wouldn’t worry about it, babe. Maybe he just wants some time with you.”

“He’s never wanted time with me.”

“What about when you were molesting alligators?”

“That was the last time, believe me. He just needed an accomplice.”

Ben took a sip of his wine. “Maybe he wants to come out of the closet.”

I rolled my eyes at this deliberate mischief. “How did I know you would say that?”

A wicked chuckle.

“Trust me,” I told him. “That ain’t it. And if it were, he wouldn’t be doing it during a Promise Keepers convention.”

“I know.”

I smirked at him. “You and your Suit Daddies.”

“You think he had a fight with Lenore?”

I shrugged. “It’s possible.”

“Maybe he just got sick of the puppets.”

I smiled.

“
Or
he wants your advice about the gay grandson.”

“Right. Like
that
would happen.”

“So…it has to be about the power of attorney.”

“But why wouldn’t he say that on the phone?”

Ben shrugged. “Beats me.”

“He obviously wants privacy. He’s traveling without Lenore and he didn’t even want
you
there.”

“Maybe he’s having an affair.”

I considered that for a moment. “And wants to tell his gay brother?”

“Why not? People usually wanna tell
somebody…
and he knows you won’t haul out the hellfire and brimstone.”

“I might.”

“No you won’t. You’re kind. That’s why I’m with you, baby…and that’s why he wants to talk to you, whatever it is.”

I wasn’t so sure about that.

After dinner we headed for the hot tub. We did our usual thing: taking turns carrying each other, allowing the other to be weightless, like Superman in flight with Lois Lane. (You can do that in a redwood tub, unlike those shallow fiberglass spas that won’t let you float.) It was my turn to be Superman, so Ben’s head was tucked under my chin as I padded around the tub, setting our course in the darkness. A gauzy fog had stalled on the hillside, making the amber porch lights of the valley as dim and fuzzy as fireflies.

“I wish you’d known Mona,” I said.

“I know. I do, too.”

I was quiet for a while. “Do I talk about my past too much?”

“No, honey…not for me.”

“It’s just that there’s so
much
of it.”

He chuckled, then climbed out of my arms and sat on the underwater bench, pulling me next to him. As silly-old-fool as it sounds, I never stop being astounded by the sheer accessibility of that body, that heart, that “mortal, guilty, but—to me—the entirely beautiful” comrade that W. H. Auden—the ultimate silly old fool—taught gay men to dream about. “What made you think of Mona?” he asked.

“Just joy, I guess. You take me back to my best times. I feel connected to them again.” (This was true enough, but not the whole truth. I was also dwelling on the pain of impermanence, the way love is always on loan, never the nest egg we want it to be.)

Ben put his hand on my thigh and squeezed.

“Anything specific?”

I grinned. “The Jockey Shorts contest at the Endup.”

“When?”

“Late seventies, I guess.”

“You went to it?”

“I entered it.”

“No way.”

“Doesn’t sound like me, does it? I wasn’t nearly as self-conscious back then. I’d take off my clothes at the drop of a hat. I went to orgies like they were brunches.”

Ben chuckled.

“Some of them
were
brunches…come to think of it. Anyway…I won the fucking thing…the dance contest, I mean. They must’ve given points for boyish panic.”

“What does this have to do with Mona?”

“She was
there
. She was cheering me on.”

“Ah.”

“She just
knew
me, you know? There was no bullshitting that woman. When she gave you hell about something, it felt like the deepest kind of love.”

Ben laid his head on my shoulder, saying nothing.

“She used to say she didn’t need a lover at all—just five good friends.”

“You must’ve been one of them.”

“I suppose.” I surprised both of us with a long, histrionic sigh. “I really should have gone to England more often.”

I wasn’t feeling guilty. What I felt was the depletion of my memory bank, a hunger for more memories to hoard. I like remembering Mona at Easley House, the “simple English country dyke” she claimed she’d always wanted to be, but those images are few and far between and have largely been overpowered by the older ones: Mona at the Endup, Mona on the nude beach at Devil’s Slide, Mona stashing her Quaaludes in a ceramic figurine of Scarlett O’Hara. The Mona who stays with me is the late-seventies model: loose-limbed and free as a sailor, with coils of lava-red hair radiating from her head. I can even remember the telltale sound of her footsteps (both the manic and depressive varieties) on the boardwalk at Barbary Lane. Mona had a full seven years on me back then, so I’d felt like her little brother. Now that I’ve passed the age she was when she died it’s deeply unnerving to realize that she’s becoming my little sister.

The same is true of Jon, my first partner—only more so, of course, since he’s now been gone for—Jesus!—almost a quarter of a century. How impossibly young we were then. Jon was a gynecologist (I know, I know) and a lovely guy inside and out, if a little buttoned-down around the edges. Had he not died but simply moved to a distant city, I wonder if we’d recognize each other today were our paths to cross at a B&B in P-town, say, or an RSVP cruise to someplace warm and homophobic. Would there still be something he could love—that
I
could love, for that matter—or would we just swap email addresses and walk away, preferring to remember the old version of ourselves?

The young version, that is.

The only version I have left of him.

And this version of Ben, this gentle otter-sleek creature holding on to me in the amniotic warmth of the hot tub, will one day prove just as ephemeral. If the virus doesn’t claim me, then old age will start playing dirty soon enough. And once I’ve slipped from Ben’s Greek ideal of a loving daddy into irreversible granddaddyhood, he will surely require another lover. Not just an occasional sex partner but a lover, someone warm and strong to confide in about the hardships of coping with…me. Could I give him my blessing? Could I love him enough to be that big? How much was this going to hurt?

“You could take me there,” he said softly.

I was lost in the undergrowth of my dread. “What, sweetie?”

“To England. I’d love to see that house.”

I told him that would certainly be possible, that Mona’s son, Wilfred, still lived there and would probably welcome a chance to see us.

“Let’s do it, then,” he said. “I want to go everywhere you’ve been.”

This was all I needed for my heart to swell: a plan for the future, the promise of new memories, one more shot at the pipe dream of forever.

I sealed the deal with a peck on the side of his head.

“Okay,” I said, “and then we’ll go somewhere that’ll just be ours.”

20

Here and Now

T
he new version of the de Young Museum is where the old one used to be: adjacent to the Japanese tea garden and just across the road from the music concourse. It’s a sprawling, low-slung building sheathed in copper panels with perforations that are meant to suggest the dappling effect of sunlight through leaves. That’s a bit of a stretch, but I do love the building. Its contorted rectilinear tower—
Road Warrior
by way of the Mayans—rises above the park like a mystery begging to be solved. The whole thing will become even more magical when the copper corrodes and recedes into the greenery.

I parked the Prius in a new underground lot—an odd concept for old-time park-goers like Anna and me—and we made our way across the concourse through a regiment of recently barbered trees. As we approached the museum, I stopped in front of a favorite landmark, a bronze Beaux Arts statue of a loin-clothed hunk straining at a cider press.

“Shall we take a breather?” I asked, conscious of Anna’s limited energy.

She gave me a sly-dog look, casting her eyes heavenward at the near-perfect naked haunches flexing above us. “Is
that
what you call it?”

“C’mon,” I said. “Lemme get my jollies.”

Anna pulled a tissue from her velvet bag and dabbed at her watery eyes. “I should think you’d get enough of those at home.”

I smiled at this odd-familiar blend of maternal scolding and man-to-man ribbing. In some ways, I felt more linked to Anna’s generation than I did to Ben’s, though the gap was considerably wider. Not only had Anna been where I was going, she had seen where I had been. We fit together naturally, like the two Edie Beales, if those old dames had been nice to each other. These days, I realized, Anna and I even shared the watery-eye thing, since the slightest nip in the air can make me leak like a colander. I find myself telling sympathetic strangers that I’m perfectly fine, thank you, and having a lovely day.

“Is there one in there for me?” I asked, nodding toward her bag.

She tugged at the drawstring, her hand fluttering slightly.

“I’d carry them myself,” I added, “but I’d be blotting all the time. I’d look like Madame Butterfly.”

She smiled, handing me a fresh tissue. “Nothing wrong with that.”

I gave my eyes a serious blotting. “Easy for you to say, Kimono Girl. I still wanna look like
him.
” I jerked my head toward the sinewy statue.

“Oh dear,” said Anna, widening her eyes.

“I know…never mind.”

“Where is Shawna meeting us?”

“In the café. At three.”

“Good. Very clever of you.”

“Yeah, at least we’ll be sitting if she’s not on time.”

One of the trademarks of Shawna’s young womanhood is her chronic tardiness. For the mastermind of a budding blog empire she’s appallingly disorganized. By my count she’s lost three cell phones in the last two years. It must be the artistic thing.

“Meanwhile,” said Anna, “you and I will climb the tower.”

I took her arm again. “As Jimmy Stewart said to Kim Novak.”

It was a nervous response more than anything. Anna had mentioned the tower twice already that day, and it seemed to carry a certain weight for her.

Unless I was imagining things.

Inside, the museum had a casual meandering quality that defied the dramatically blank exterior. It was tempting to wander, to get a little lost amid the textiles and oceanic art, but I wasn’t sure how taxing the climb to the tower would be.

As it happened, there was an elevator. We rode it to a glass-walled observation deck that turned the park into a dark-green comforter flung over the city. We were higher than anything around, yet still low enough to see birds threading through the trees. It was like a fire tower in a well-groomed forest, bordered on every side by bay or sea or city.

“Well,” said Anna softly, seeing the view, “this is a new one.”

I murmured my agreement. There was a long mutual silence—the silence of churchgoers—as we gazed at the mystic model-train village laid out before us.

“It’s good to be a tourist,” Anna said at last. “We joke about them, but it’s quite a worthwhile thing. To…appreciate…deliberately.”

The way she broke up the words told me we’d moved into another realm.

“I’ve
tried
to do that,” she went on. “To name the things that have brought me joy.” She didn’t look at me as she took my hand in hers. It was as large as mine but fragile. Cool silk over bones. “You’ve been good company, Michael. You’ve been a good son. I want you to know that. Here and now.” She was briskly efficient about this, like someone tidying up before a trip. I couldn’t handle it; I sabotaged the moment.

“You’re not planning to jump, are you?”

She squeezed my hand reprovingly. “I want you to hear this, dear.”

“I’m hearing it…I hear you.”

“Good.” She squeezed my hand again, as if to seal the deal.

I should have reciprocated and told her everything she’d meant to me, but I couldn’t. It would have felt too official somehow, too final. I told myself there would be other times, better opportunities, that it didn’t really have to be here and now.

The café overlooked the sculpture garden. It was a little too big for a café, and a little too austere, despite the gumdrop globes dangling whimsically from the ceiling. We ordered sandwiches made with chunky slabs of bread. Mine was roast beef, Brie, and horseradish mayonnaise. Anna, somewhat to my amusement, chose the peanut butter and strawberry jam. Most of the ingredients were “artisanal,” according to our server.

“Such a peculiar word,” Anna observed. “Like they hammered it out on an anvil. Or wove it on a loom. Why can’t they just say homemade?”

Right on—as we used to say. Sometimes Northern California just wears me the fuck down, and I get fed up with our precious
patois,
our fetishizing of almost everything. Then I remember the places (some of them not that far away) where no one seems to mind if milkshakes taste like chemicals and tomatoes taste like nothing at all.