Michael Tolliver Lives (6 page)

“You guys wanna vaporize?” he said, holding up a wooden box from which a plastic hose dangled like an umbilical cord. Vaporizers, for the uninitiated, are designed to heat cannabis just enough to release its psychoactive ingredients but not enough to create harmful respiratory toxins—i.e., smoke. They’re all the rage now among the health conscious and the elderly. The ordinary kind is sold for a hundred bucks or so at shops in the Haight, but this wacky contraption was Jake’s own creation. He was proud as he could be of it. He had built it out of barn timber from Sonoma and adorned it with eucalyptus pods.

“Your timing is perfect,” said Anna. “Come sit down, dear.”

So Jake joined the family circle and plugged the vaporizer into an outlet in the terrace. Soon we were passing the tube around, sucking up the smokeless, pot-flavored air like Alice’s caterpillar. Ben, as usual, abstained. By his own account, he did too much speed and ecstasy in his youth (way back in the mid-nineties), so he limits himself to wine and the occasional mojito. He would never be so sanctimonious as to say that he’s high on life, but he is, the little bastard; he’s his own source of intoxication.

“What is that smell?” he asked, when the rest of us were pleasantly buzzed.

“Can you smell it?” asked Jake. “Your nose must be really sensitive.”

“No. That floral smell. It’s so intense.”

“That’s the datura,” said Anna. She lifted her wobbly blue-veined hand and pointed to the tree at the end of the garden. “It releases its scent at night.”

Ben turned and looked at this preposterous plant with its dozens of pendulous trumpet-shaped blossoms. “It has psychotropic qualities,” I explained. “Shamans have used it for centuries to see spirits and induce trances.”

“It’s also a poison,” Jake added. “It can drive you insane.”

Anna was already lost in recollection. “We had a lovely one at Barbary Lane. A golden one. In the corner next to the garbage cans. Mona was always threatening to make tea out of it.” She turned and looked at me sweetly. “Do you remember it, Michael?”

I wasn’t sure I did, but said so, anyway.

“The more I trimmed it back,” she said, “the more blossoms it grew. All year long. I thought it would never stop entertaining us.”

There was a distinctly bittersweet ring to these words, so Ben, bless his heart, leaped gallantly into the silence that followed. “Michael’s told me about Barbary Lane. It must’ve been wonderful. Your own little secret world up there.”

“It was nice,” said Anna, keeping it short and sweet. She seemed on the verge of tears. “You should see for yourself, dear. It’s an actual city street. They can’t keep you out. Just walk up the stairs and act like you belong there.”

Later that night, when we were done with the vaporizing, I told Anna and Jake that Ben and I would be visiting my family in Florida the following week.

“Well…that’ll be nice,” said Anna. “For how long?”

There was a trace of anxiety in this question, so I tried to minimize it. “Just three or four days. No more than that. My mother’s not doing very well.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Anna. “Would you give her my best?”

Anna met my mother no more than twice, and well over twenty years ago, but she never stopped sending her best to Florida. My mother had little use for it. She rarely ever remembered who Anna
was,
unless I broke down and referred to her as “my colorful landlady.” That always nailed it for Mama, and I’m pretty sure Anna’s “color” was what made her suspect in Mama’s eyes. I don’t think she had a clue about Anna’s sex change, but the instinct that “something ain’t right” was deeply embedded in her DNA. “When it comes to folks,” Mama always said, “you can’t be too careful.”

“When were you last home?” asked Jake.

“You mean in Florida?” I said. “Two years, I guess.”

“Have they met Ben yet?”

“No, but they’ve torn up his picture.”

Ben flashed his sexy jack-o’-lantern smile. “You don’t know that.”

“Well, they aren’t showing it around, that’s for sure. Unless they’re praying over it at an Ex-gay meeting.”

“Don’t be naughty,” said Anna. “You’re frightening Ben.” She turned to the object of her concern. “I’m sure they’re lovely people, dear. I’ve met his mother and she’s the salt of the earth.”

“Salt of the wound is more like it.”

“Michael!”
This was Anna and Ben, scolding me in unison. Jake, I noticed, was leaning back in his chair, legs crossed, arms folded, chuckling manfully under his breath. He knew what I was talking about. He has a mother like mine in Oklahoma.

The evening didn’t last much longer. Anna was getting tired, and Jake had to get up early to help me thin a clump of bamboo at a house in Parnassus Heights. Ben and I kissed Anna goodbye, and Jake, as usual, escorted us down the passageway to the street. It was a tight squeeze between the houses, but it was strung with colored lights year-round—a nod to the full-scale fantasia Anna once orchestrated at 28 Barbary Lane. This little studio in the flats with its lone datura and its two potted azaleas was a touching distillation of everything Anna had left behind. It seemed to make her happy, though; it seemed to be all she needed.

“She looks good,” I told Jake, once we were out of earshot. “She’s over that flu, I guess?”

“Pretty much,” he replied. “Notice her new nail polish?”

“Nice,” I said. “Very Sally Bowles. I should’ve said something to her. Are you responsible for that?”

“Yeah, right,” Jake snorted, reminding me that he was strictly the heavy-hauling dude in the building; the seriously girly shit was left to his flatmates.

“Who’s Sally Bowles?” asked Ben.

I turned and looked at my younger, less theatrical half. “She used to be married to Ansel Adams.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Yes, I am,” I said.

Jake clapped Ben on the shoulder, brother to brother. “Don’t let him fuck with you. I don’t know who the hell she is, either.”

“What is happening to queers?” I said.

Jake chortled and opened the gate for us. “I’ll see you in the morning, boss. You guys take care.” He turned to Ben. “You’re the one doing the driving, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Ben.

“Good.”

They exchanged a knowing look that, more than anything, made me feel loved.

6

A Guy Without Trying

T
he night I met Jake at the Lone Star the place was almost empty. He was sitting alone at the bar, this sturdy little Shetland-pony-of-a-guy with a Corona in his fist. Every time he took a swig from the bottle, he’d set it down and regard it intently, as if about to say something terribly important to the lime wedge at the bottom. It was quite a brave show of independence, so I was fairly certain he was looking for company.

I pulled out the stool next him. “You mind?” I would not have asked that in a crowded bar, but it seemed polite under the circumstances.

“Nah, buddy, it’s cool.”

So I sat down and ordered a beer. Jake’s little swig-and-stare ritual seemed to intensify, but he didn’t gaze in my direction.

“Kinda slow tonight, isn’t it?” I said.

“Yeah, I guess. I’m new to here.”

“The bar or the town?”

“The bar,” he replied. “And the town, too, more or less. I moved here from Tulsa a year ago.”

I asked him if San Francisco agreed with him.

“It’s okay.” He shrugged.

“But?”

“I dunno. The guys are either totally married or ordering each other like pizzas off the Internet. Or both. I’d like more of the stuff in between.”

“Like?”

“You know, just hangin’ and talkin’ and…takin’ it from there. I’m into buddy sex, I guess. It doesn’t have to be romantic or anything, just…you know.”

“Intimate,” I said, providing the dreaded word.

Those gray eyes were fixed on me now, almost lupine in the darkness. “Yeah.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” I said. “But you can say all that online, you know. That’s the great thing about the Web. You can ask for exactly what you need.”

“I know that,” he said, “but I’d rather not ask the whole world if I can help it.”

I turned and smiled at him. “I know what you mean.”

At the time, I thought I did.

Ten minutes later Jake suggested we head out for something to eat. I was ready to take him home by then, having already imagined the feral heat of that furry little body, but I thought it better to let him set the pace. He seemed like a certainty, and buddy sex was sounding pretty good to me, so why the hell
not
take our time about it?

I went to pee before we left, and while I was standing at the trough, a guy in tribal tats and a grimy canvas Utilikilt was peeing like a fire hose at the other end. I’d noticed him earlier, watching me from across the room, so I wasn’t surprised when he spoke.

“Listen,” he said, gazing straight ahead. “It’s none of my business, but…” He shook his dick a few times, then returned it to its Bat Cave under the Utilikilt. “If you’re looking to get fucked tonight, you’re looking in the wrong place.”

“Excuse me?” I stiffened on the spot—and not in a friendly way, either.
The nerve of this asshole,
I thought. I had barely even glanced at him.

“That guy you’re talking to,” he said, “is a transman.”

I must have taken a little too long to answer.

“He used to be a girl,” he explained.

“I know what it means,” I said quietly.

“No offense, dude. Just thought you should know if you didn’t. I met him once at the Sundance Saloon. There’s nothing down there.”

He clapped his hand on my shoulder as he left.

“Just doin’ you a favor,” he said.

Leaving the toilet, I had a creepy sense of déjà vu. I remembered another guy, another total stranger, who once “did me a favor” by tipping me off that a potential playmate was HIV positive. I should have told him I was positive myself and had no use for his health warning. I should have said I found him ridiculously old-fashioned, since anyone in his right mind these days—especially around here—presumes
everyone
to be positive, and takes responsibility for his own fucking health, because there is no free ride anymore, you sorry-ass gossipy old leather nancy. I should have said all of that, but I didn’t. I just stood there gaping while he dropped his little stink bomb and sashayed off like a spiteful teenage girl. All he’d wanted, anyway, was to see the look on my face.

Not unlike the queen in the kilt.

Jake hopped off the stool as soon as he saw me returning from the rest room. He was about five-six or thereabouts, somewhere in the Tom Cruise range.

“What’ll it be, buddy? Burritos or burgers?”

“Either’s fine,” I said.

As we left the Lone Star together, the kilt queen turned and watched us in undisguised horror.

I gave him a thumbs-up, just for the hell of it.

I won’t pretend I wasn’t walloped by the news. Jake’s masculinity was the very thing that had drawn me to him in the first place. It wasn’t some phony butch overlay; it came from deep inside, and it was totally devoid of irony. He didn’t even seem queer to me; he was more like some easygoing straight guy, a guy without trying.

Except.

I stole quick glimpses of him as we sauntered toward the taqueria. Under the streetlight his jaw looked just as strong and square as it had in the dark. I tried like hell to see a woman there, but couldn’t. His gait was a little studied, I guess, like a boy rehearsing his swagger on the first day of camp, and I towered over him considerably, but all of that just added to the charm.

I wondered if his chest was bound or if he’d had surgery. I wondered if his nipples were funny-looking. I wondered if he’d had a penis made out of whatever the fuck they make penises out of. I wondered how often he picked up gay men and if he’d always preferred them to women and if he was scared shitless right now, wondering if I’d already guessed, wondering what I’d do when the other shoe dropped.

At the taqueria we talked about gardening and the war in Iraq and the nifty new copper-clad museum rising in the park. He tried to talk about the Forty-niners, poor thing, but gave up the effort when it became clear that sports banter was not in my manly repertoire. When our talk turned to where we lived, I knew where we were heading.

“I’m in the Dubose Triangle,” he said, “but I have roommates.”

“Ah,” I said, realizing exactly what that “but” meant.

“How ’bout you?” he asked.

“I’m up on Noe Hill.”

“No partner or anything?”

“Nope.” I smiled at him. “Not for a few years now. I’m just out for fun these days.”

He nodded solemnly for a moment. “I’m really into giving head,” he said.

“Is that so?” I gave him a crooked smile.

“I’m pretty good at it, too. You could just kick back.”

There was no easy response to this, nothing glib that could rescue me. I liked Jake well enough, and he was still a hot little bear cub in my mind’s eye, but what would happen once we got down to business? Would the illusion still hold? Would I embarrass myself completely, or, worse, hurt his feelings? I bought time by asking a question I’d rarely asked before in my fifty-five years of existence: “Aren’t I a little old for you?”

Jake just shrugged. “Age is no biggie, if I like the guy.”

“And there’s something else,” I said, reminding myself of Jack Lemmon in the last scene of
Some Like It Hot,
when he’s up against the wall and desperately searching for all the reasons he can’t marry Joe E. Brown. “I’m HIV positive.”

That just made him shrug again. “Then I won’t floss,” he said.

When I laughed at that, Jake laughed, too, almost in relief, realizing that he’d won that round out of sheer audacity. It was a moment of brotherly bonding, so the pressure was off for a full five seconds before he turned serious again.

“There’s something I have to tell
you
,” he said.

I’d been ready for this, so I looked him squarely in the eye. “No, you don’t,” I said. “You really don’t.”