The Night Listener : A Novel (19 page)

That night, as I lay on the sofa hoping that Pete would call, I remembered the time Jess first came down from Oregon to visit me.

I had a tiny cottage on Noe Hill then, and it was riddled with mice, since I didn’t have the heart (or the stomach) to set traps. As we cuddled in bed that first night Jess was aghast at the chorus of squeaks that greeted us as soon as the lights went out. The next morning he went down to Cliff’s Hardware and bought several dozen mousetraps, all of which did their job within a matter of nights. I would lie in Jess’s arms, wincing and laughing at the horror, as the traps snapped away in the darkness, sometimes two at a time.

How had I let it get so bad? And who was this sweet, volatile man who had come out of nowhere to slay my dragons? He’d taken care of me all right, and I’d loved every minute of it.

FOURTEEN

STRANGER AND STRANGER

ASHE FINDLAY, POOR SOUL, could never have guessed how bad his timing would be when he called the next morning to update me on the progress of
The Blacking Factory
. I think he must have wanted some reassurance that my doubts had subsided, so he could proceed with Pete’s book without further anxiety. What he got, thanks to the state of my heart, was a cranky antagonist, desperate for a resolution of any kind.

I guess I was provoked by his blithe description of the book’s cover design. They were featuring a photo of Pete, he said—”an utterly charming shot”—but they were altering his face, naturally, to protect the boy’s privacy.

“Is he wearing a sweatshirt?” I asked, wondering if this was the same shot Donna had sent me.

“Yes. I believe so.”

That seemed evasive, as if I couldn’t be trusted with such ticklish information. My response was glacial. “You
believe
so?”

“Well, it’s back with the art department now. I only had a quick glance at it.”

“Were his eyes green? An unusual shade?”

“Not that I remember, but of course they’d altered it by then.”

“But you must’ve seen the original?”

“Yes. I did. I think they
were
green, yes. Now that you mention it.

Very striking.” His well-bred voice was positively writhing in discomfort.

“I must tell you,” I said. “This whole thing is sounding stranger and stranger. And a little unprofessional on your part.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the editor replied soberly. “You seemed fine about it last time. Would you like to reconsider your blurb?”

“This isn’t about my blurb, Ashe. I need some answers here. You got me into this, and you’re gonna have to get me out. I’m tired of being jerked around.” This sounded a lot like a threat, I realized, and a not-so-veiled one at that. I started to soften it but changed my mind. A threat might be what it would take to get some action.

“Has something else happened?” the editor asked.

Has it ever, I thought. My life, I realized, had been reduced to a loose confederation of uncertainties, and I was sick to death of it. I wasn’t inclined to unload on this constipated Yankee, so I offered him only the hard facts: my invitation to visit Pete and its unceremonious withdrawal.

“I believe I warned you,” Findlay said. “She’s extremely wary of him meeting people.”

“So why didn’t she just say that to begin with? Why would she give me all that crap about her chili and let me make plans for several days, if she never intended for it to happen?”

“I couldn’t tell you that.”

“Well, I can. She did it because she wanted me to think it was possible. She wanted me to believe there was actually someone there I could visit.”

“Gabriel, my friend, you’ll only make yourself crazy if you continue to dwell—”

“Please don’t call me crazy, Ashe. I don’t think I’m the one who’s being crazy here. I think I’m being very sane, in fact. And very reasonable, under the circumstances.”

Another silence, even longer. “What would you like me to do?” he said at last.

“I don’t know. Poke around, at least. Be a little more aggressive about authenticating it. You’re in a position to do that. I’m not.”

“Do you want me to say that you’re having—”

“No! God, no! Leave me out of this. This is between you and one of your writers. If there’s anything left to salvage between me and Pete, I’d like to be able to do it.”

“I understand.”

“And get back to me, please. As soon as you can.” I spent the rest of the day in bed, inert and powerless. My only visual was Jess’s apartment building, suspended in the bedroom window. Its edges were blurred by swirling fog, and there were times when it disappeared completely, then magically rematerialized, as the moon can do. Unlike me, Jess dreaded the fog. It depressed him when it lasted too long, closing him in with his demons. He was up there right now, I imagined, staring out at this infinite grayness, feeling the sad fallout of our fight. I wanted so badly to call him, but I knew there was nothing more to be said, nothing that would fix us.

I drifted into troubled sleep, only to be roused by Pete’s voice on the machine. And this time I was sure it was him.

“…just had this funny feeling. So if you don’t feel like talking, I’ll try you again when—”

“Pete?”

“Oh, good, Dad. You’re there.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been getting these signals all day. Something’s been bothering you big time.”

Even in that groggy state I was completely unnerved, so I tried to jest my way out. “What is this? The Psychic Friends Network?”

“I’m serious. What’s going on?”

“Nothing…well…I’m disappointed, of course, that I won’t be seeing you.”

“Me, too. But Mom says we can do it in a month, if you still want to. They’ve put me on a new protocol.”

“Well, that’s good,” I said vaguely.

“But that’s not it, is it?”

“Not what?”

“What’s bothering you. Have you had a fight with Jess?” Astonished, I wondered for a moment if Jess had told Pete as much, but that didn’t seem likely given his skepticism about the boy. “I did, actually,” I said at last. “Yesterday.”

“I knew it.”

How could everyone around me be so rife with intuition when I felt like a blind man stumbling through a minefield?

“We had a talk,” I admitted. “And we said some things we’ve never said before.”

Pete took that in for a moment. “Well, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it’s bad to leave too much unsaid.” Tell me about it, I thought, wondering if this was the wisdom of a therapist or just of a kid who’d been seeing a therapist. And did it matter, really, when I still had so much to get off my chest?

“So what did you fight about?” asked Pete.

“Oh, lots of stuff. He says I never confront things. That I don’t communicate what I’m really thinking.”

“Is that true?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m a big scaredy-cat.”

“What were you afraid of with him?”

“The usual. That he wouldn’t love me anymore if he knew what was really on my mind.” I could have been talking about Pete, I realized, and maybe I was, on some unconscious level—getting as close to the truth as I could get without tipping my hand. “You learn to camouflage when you’re a baby homo. You learn to tiptoe around things. At least I did. And it’s a hard habit to break, even when you’re grownup and out of the closet.”

“What about yesterday? Did you tell him everything that was on your mind?”

“Some of it. I said how hard it was to love someone who might be dying. To feel closer and closer to them but know you can’t count on them being there in your old age.”

“Well, that was the truth, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, but just part of it. Actually, I think it was easier for me to commit to Jess because I knew it wouldn’t have to last forever. And I could even feel a little noble in the process. I gave him hell yesterday for throwing away what we had, but you know what? When things got too depressing, I used to tell myself I’d have another shot at loving someone. I’d see myself back at the baths again, chasing my dick around one more time before it got too late to do it. And I would imagine this guy I’d meet someday, who wouldn’t carry the virus and wouldn’t be as angry as Jess, and we would get it right finally. I was disloyal, Pete. I accused
him
of that, but I did the same thing, really. I thought about a future he would never be part of. I dreaded his death, but I knew it would give me an out. I knew it would give me another shot at things.”

“C’mon, Dad, that’s just a protective thing. It’s natural to—”

“So why can’t I do it now? Why can’t I take this golden opportunity to spread my wings and meet new people?”

“You will.”

I didn’t want to hear that. I wanted him to tell me that Jess would be coming back.

Him
, not her. Wanted
him
to tell me that.

At dusk I walked Hugo up to the edge of the forest in an effort to clear my head. And something troubling occurred to me: that my relationship with Pete bore a distinct resemblance to the one I’d had with Jess. In both instances I had split myself into two personalities, one of whom was capable of fearless, unconditional love, while the other, braced against the prospect of imminent loss, warned me not to surrender completely.

So who was the multiple now?

FIFTEEN

ROOM TONE

THE NEXT FIVE OR SIX DAYS—the ones that mattered, ironically enough—have dropped from memory. Nothing so grand as amnesia, just a run-of-the mill blank spot in the life of a writer unable to write.

I’ve checked my appointment book for clues as to my state of mind but found only the usual evidence of an ordered but uneventful journey to sleep:

Gym.

Eileen—2 P.M.—teeth cleaning.

Laundry ready.

Screening at Castro?

I’m pretty sure I never made it to that screening, whatever the movie was, since Jess and I still weren’t talking, and I would have dreaded the thought of sitting alone in that theater, of all those in-quisitive queens whispering behind their hands about the solitary state of Gabriel Noone.

I’m pretty sure, too, that Pete didn’t call, though I must’ve wondered why he didn’t. Maybe I thought I’d finally overloaded him with my shitty life. That’s entirely possible. And maybe that’s why I didn’t call
him:
to give him a break from all that rampant self-indulgence.

It’s strange to think that I might have altered the course of everything had we spoken even briefly during that time.

It was Donna who answered when I did call. Her voice was so col-orless that I knew in my gut something terrible had happened.

“It’s Gabriel, Donna.”

“Oh…hi.”

“Are you okay?”

“Not really. No.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Those bastards at Argus have cancelled Pete’s book.”

“
What?
” My response was only partially phony. I was shocked to hear the news all right, but in no way confused about what had precipitated it. Every nerve end in my body was already screaming with guilt.

“They’ve cancelled his goddamn book,” she repeated. “He worked on it for two years and they’ve just changed their minds.”

“Was this Findlay?”

“Who else?”

“Do you know why?”

“Sort of. It doesn’t make any sense, but…oh dammit, Gabriel, they are
such
slimy bastards. I should have known not to trust…”

“Tell me what happened, okay?”

She paused to catch her breath. “Sorry. I’m really wired right now.

Things are pretty awful around here. Pete is barely talking to me.”

“Oh, Jesus…”

“Poor little dude. If there were any way in hell…”

“What did Findlay say? Did he give you an explanation?” Oh, please, God, no, I thought. Don’t make me answerable for this.

“He wanted to send some PR guy out here.”

“For what?”

“Background material! Is that a crock or what? He gave them a four-hundred-page manuscript that’s nothing but background material. What more could they possibly need?” I tried my best to sound annoyed but, at the same time, reasonable about the requirements of publishing. “Oh, hell. You know what that is, Donna? That’s just their tired old way of doing things. Publishers are nothing but factories these days, and they don’t turn off the machinery even when they’ve got a special case like Pete. It’s just a matter of routine, really. I’m sure if you—”

“Fuck their routine. I’m not jeopardizing Pete’s health for their routine. Not to mention dredging up all that hurtful shit again. Pete’s put his pain down on paper and he’s not gonna do it again. He’s not gonna be their trained monkey, no matter what they say. It’s taken too long to get him as far as he is. I can’t do that to him. I just can’t!” I had never heard her so impassioned—or so out of control. “Did you tell Findlay that?”

“Damn right. He said he’d have to get back to me. Then he called back yesterday and said the whole thing was off. Just like that.

Without a word of discussion. Can you fucking believe it?” I murmured my outrage, my heart racing faster by the second.

“Of course I’ve got it figured out,” she added darkly.

Now my heart seemed to stop altogether as I held my breath.

“Somebody upstairs has just realized that they won’t get to send this one off to Maury Povich or Jenny Jones or whoever the fuck they were planning on selling him to. They can’t milk him for publicity, so he just isn’t worth their precious time and money. It’s as simple as that, and it’s so callous it makes me want to…Jesus, I still can’t believe it.” I thought for a minute she was going to cry, but all I heard was the sound of her breathing. I chose my words with care, knowing there was still a chance for compromise if I could just angle her into the right frame of mind. “So…you didn’t plan for Pete to do…any publicity whatsoever?”

“God, Gabe, name me a reason why we should! The last time he was in front of cameras it was because a lot of sick grownups wanted to get off. Do you think I’d put him through that again? Make him sing for his supper? Turn him into some poor little pederast poster boy, just so they can—”

“But if you let that guy come out…”

“What guy?”