Now and Yesterday (20 page)

“Did it sound too mean?”

“It certainly did.”

“Oh, good.”

They laughed. The joint was gone and they'd finished their vodkas. The night suddenly felt colder.

“Thank you, fresh air,” said Peter.

“Brrrr,” said Will.

“Go in?”

“Sure.”

Inside, before Peter even had a chance to ask whether Will would have another drink, Will, at the freezer, was asking if he should pour them both another vodka. His comfort in his kitchen thrilled Peter. Drinks in hand, they installed themselves in the oversized armchairs, which faced each other.

“You know, I was sitting here just the other night, thinking about you,” said Peter.

“You were?” said Will. “Thinking good things?”

“I would say so, yeah.”

“Like what?”

“Well, I'm not sure I grasp the immensity of you,” said Peter. “And that's not usually a place I find myself in, with people.”

“You mean—you grasp other people's immensity more easily than you do mine?” said Will.

Peter mimed dry amusement with half a grin.

“Other people are not so immense,” he said with deliberate slyness. “Dope.”

“Funny, I don't feel immense. In fact, working at the magazine makes me feel really, really small. Everybody there has such a big idea about themselves.”

“How's it going?”

“I've done two interviews. I think people like my ideas. Sometimes it's hell. You know.”

“But the egos?”

“Exactly—the egos.”

“Don't worry,” said Peter. “Print will be over shortly and then you can do something better.”

Will appeared to take the remark as a witticism, but Peter instantly saw how foolish it was.

“I'm sorry,” said Peter. “That was a stupid thing to say and not true. It's a good magazine.”

“Don't worry,” said Will, getting out of the chair and heading toward the bathroom. As he passed Peter, he gave the older man's hair an affectionate tousle.

Holy shit,
thought Peter.
Is this really going where I think it may be going?
Now that intimacy might be a real possibility, it seemed scarier than before.

When Will returned, they began speaking of Jonathan. And as they sat, and Will crossed his legs man-style, ankle to knee, Peter noticed what he hadn't been able to see all night, while Will was standing or out in the garden: that he was wearing low-cut white athletic socks with his sneakers, which revealed a few inches of muscular ankle and lower leg, between the top of the sock and the hem of his jeans. Talk about hidden in full view! He looked sturdy, thick, but what of the rest of him? As hairless as the leg? As they spoke, part of Peter's brain began executing some kind of 3-D modeling or mental cloning program, to determine the form of Will's other body parts—feet, ass, lower back, armpits, chest—from the parts Peter could actually observe.

“So he's doing OK?” said Will.

“Sorry, what?” said Peter.

“He's responding to the treatment?”

“Yes, yes. I mean, it's hard on his body. He's pretty weak, lost a little weight. But he's working. That's the main thing.”

“Good.”

“He's working on a new film.”

“About Connor Frankel . . .”

“Yes—oh, right, he was there that night. Anyway, he and I keep talking about traveling somewhere exotic together, a big getaway, but he's so focused on getting this film done. As he should be.”

Peter was about to launch into a thought about work being the ultimate therapy, and the way Jonathan was approaching this film—basically, talking on camera until he died—then he thought better of it.

“He's an intellectual, hard-core,” said Will. “I respect that.”

“Exactly,” said Peter. “God knows we need more of them.”

“I was amazed by that collection of books.”

“Amazing, right? You saw the Eliot manuscript? He collects twentieth-century poetry manuscripts. He's got Millay, Pound, Frost, Sandberg. But the Eliot is his prize. Do you know
Four Quartets
?”

“Not that well. What's it about? Time or something.”

“The illusion of time, the eternalness of the present. ‘At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless.' That's how he describes human existence. Though I think the opposite is rather the case.”

“How so?”

“I can't believe we're talking about this.”

“Should we light another joint?”

“No way. Jesus, you brought another one?”

“The magazine is hookup central.”

“No, I'm fine with this,” said Peter, lifting his glass. “But you feel free.”

“I'm fine,” said Will. “So—still point. You think the opposite.”

“It seems to me, the person is always in motion, or should be, and the world is what's static. Does that make any sense?”

“It sounds like Buddhism.”

“Yes! ‘In motion' means being awake.” Will grinned. “No one ever talks about this stuff anymore. You know, even as late as the fifties, when I was a kid, we had poets and philosophers as national figures, and they asked big questions. Now what do we have—
Avatar
?”

“Lost. Battlestar Galactica. Caprica.”

“Very good, Will,” said Peter. “Those are actually much more to the point.”

“I like your place,” said Will, taking a moment to glance around him. “It's comfortable, but elegant.”

“Thank you. You are most welcome here.”

“Even your pots are nice. Do you collect cookware?”

“No! That's a funny thought. Well, actually, I guess I do. When I know you better, I'll tell you how excited I was to get that grill pan for Christmas. Do you collect anything?”

Will nodded.

“Beach art,” he said.

“Pictures of the beach?” said Peter.

“Paintings, drawings that people do at the beach.”

“Wow.”

“You'd be surprised at how many of them you can find in secondhand shops, and how many of them are kinda good.”

“Lovely.”

“You collect books, too, I see.”

“Yeah, but nothing like Jonathan. I just don't throw things away after reading them. Actually, I do have a few etiquette books—vintage. The first one I borrowed from my uncle Malcolm, who was very fancy. Then he died and I kept the book, and that got me going. Guess you have to be a good, middle-class boy to fetishize all that.”

“I know,” said Will. “I got thrown into my mom's school with some folks who were way above me, socially.”

“God, does that concept still exist?”

“It does there. It brought out the bad boy in me.”

“Good for you. Smoking behind chapel and St. Patrick's Day pranks?”

“Basically.”

Was the conversation going anywhere? Peter realized he wasn't in control of it and suddenly wondered if he should be. He couldn't exactly direct the conversation toward the bedroom, yet didn't know how to pounce or whether he was being invited to do so. Pouncing wasn't even his style, nor did he necessarily want pounding-banging sex on a first date anymore. He preferred softer, friendlier play, like kissing and touching while lying on the bed, with cocks that went up and down without necessarily being expected to cum—none of which pouncing exactly set the stage for. Nor had Peter any idea of how to get to that spot by way of etiquette-book talk, even if Will were open to it. Yet again, if Will were more like Peter used to be, willing to have sex just for the fun of it, in a kind of just-jerk-me-off or just-fuck-me manner, then Peter would be willing to wing it and comply.

“Your uncle was gay?” said Will.

“Uncle Malcolm? Yeah, we
think
so. He died in the early seventies. Lung cancer.”

“He smoked.”

Peter nodded.

“Aunt Ida died of the same thing, a few years before,” he said. “They smoked like mad people. They were both very fancy. They had cocktail sets and used them, tiki torches for summer entertaining on the patio. They had the first refrigerator I ever saw with French doors.”

“But he wasn't out.”

“Not to us. But you know what? This kid showed up at his funeral—a young guy none of us had seen before, dressed in super-stylish, big-city attire, like platform boots and a Carnaby Street jacket. This was, oh, 1972. . . .”

“Carnaby Street?”

“London, the swinging sixties, groovy mod styles.”

“Got it.”

“The kid shows up looking like a Beatle—big hair—and he weeps and weeps. Later he comes up to my father, Uncle Malcolm's brother, and says he knew my uncle from New York. Uncle Malcolm often went there on business, to buy supplies for the beauty parlor he and Aunt Ida owned, especially after Aunt Ida died. . . .”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Right? And the kid has these records with him—like four LPs, vinyl, in a leather satchel—that he says Uncle Malcolm lent him. He wanted to return them.”

“Wow.”

“So my father says he should keep the records, to remember my uncle by. And that's the last we saw of the guy.”

“Was he cute?”

“Yes! And it kind of makes me happy to think that maybe Uncle Malcolm was getting some, even though he never came out, quote-unquote.”

“What were the records?”

“Good question. I only saw one of them: the Bee Gees.”

“Perfect.”

“I know! And I have always kicked myself for not seeing what the other ones were.”

“Your uncle blew into town and hung out with the cutest boys.”

“And was into the Bee Gees! I wasn't even into the Bee Gees, at that point. They were too pop for me.”

“Really?”

“I was strictly classical, back then.”

“I'm giving us another vodka,” said Will, popping out of his chair.

“Um, OK,” said Peter, continuing with his story without compunction, while Will poured, served, and reinstalled himself in his chair. Peter realized not only that he was slightly drunk, but that Will was clearly comfortable with both of them being so; he even seemed intent on it. A good sign? Also, as he went on, Peter realized that the face-to-face arrangement of the chairs, squared off for some kind of interrogation, badly suited a seduction, if that was what was going on. And he hoped that was what was going on, even if Will was driving it and not him. The memory of Will's fingers in his hair and the possibilities of more were proving more intoxicating than the vodka.

“Hey, speaking of cute boys, are you still seeing that guy—Enrico?” he heard himself asking.

“We're just friends,” said Will. “We hang out now and then.”

“Very cool.”

I'm in,
thought Peter.
Woo-hoo!

The rest of the conversation was a blur. The following day, when Peter went over the evening in his head, moment by moment, he groaned as he remembered looking at Grindr with Will, squeezing together briefly to view Peter's iPhone, commenting on favorites and men nearby, then settling back in their respective seats and babbling about friendship and dating, boyfriends and sex, and—ugh!—fuckbuddies. He remembered blurting, ever so casually, that his past exploits included getting simultaneously blown and rimmed one night on the dance floor of the Roxy, surrounded by cheering crowds of shirtless gymbots, but that his sexual practice had evolved into something much tamer—which
of course,
he realized as he said it, would be more palatable for a young prospective bed partner than the risky extremes of gay history's most libertine era. He hastened to mention that most of all, nowadays, he was aroused by a bright, handsome face whose truthful expressions he wanted to watch season after season.... He'd wanted to add, “Like yours,” but didn't.

And Peter remembered the graciousness with which Will declined to stay the night. It was after three and he had to be up at seven; he said the daybed—toward which Peter had gestured halfheartedly—wouldn't be as comfortable as his own bed. The departure wasn't like an escape and Peter was grateful for that. The two hugged and shared a modest kiss, and Will did give Peter's head an affectionate sort of pat.

 

“So no consummation?” said Jonathan.

“No,” said Peter. “But he did let me steer the conversation.”

“And God knows, that's close enough to sex for you.”

“I was trying very hard not to be pervy, Jonathan.”

They were standing in one of far west Chelsea's most prestigious art galleries, in an airplane hangar–like space with hundreds of other people who'd paid $1,500 a head or more to attend an art-performance event that was also a benefit for an environmental group. The performance took the form of twenty-four models, twelve women and twelve men, dressed in nothing but high heels embellished with rhinestones, processing through the crowd in slow motion, as if in a trance, singly and in groups, stopping occasionally to pose, according to a predetermined choreographic sequence. The result was an amalgam of Vegas show, Japanese butoh dance, and high-end retail display.

Jonathan had been too tired to attend Peter's party, a few nights before, but had agreed to “look in” on the gallery event because he had friends on the committee and the gallery was only a few short blocks from his house. Peter had been shocked, earlier in the evening, when he arrived at Jonathan's door and saw that his friend had lost more weight. Jonathan was noticeably gaunt and joked about it, saying that he had finally lost the seven pounds he'd been trying to dump for years—and Peter did his best to take his friend's cue about the tone of the evening.

“Tyler says it's not about age,” said Peter, reaching for a glass of white wine from the tray of a passing waiter. “But how could it not be?”

“Give it time,” said Jonathan, who was drinking water.