The Passionate Attention of an Interesting Man (17 page)

“I don’t respect initials for names,” Trent told C. J. when they shook hands that afternoon in 16-C,  Tower Northeast. “What did your father call you?”

“Colin.”

“Yeah? So what’s wrong with that
? C. J.,
like one of those fuzzy sidekicks in some adventure movie, with stupid jokes when they’re running around in the mummy’s pyramid. All right, Colin, what section are you in?”

“Marketing.”

“What sub? Special Offers?”

“Yes, a matter of fact.”

“‘As a matter of fact,’ huh? You can’t just say yes? Same here, anyway.”

And with that, Trent abruptly turned and went into his room.

The apartment was nice enough, at least. Very nice, even: roomy and windowed broadly enough to revel in sunlight, it boasted implausibly factory-mint fixtures in bath and kitchen. C. J. kept admiring the way the firm’s movers had already deposited his stuff into drawers and closets; he himself never got everything so neatly sorted. It was like

“Don’t touch anything in the bathroom that isn’t yours,” said Trent, looming up in the doorway. He had changed into workout togs and was carrying a little gym bag. “Not anything.
Ever
. You hear? And we’ll divide up the fridge so that my things stay mine and…You belong to those little round cartons? This soon? Yogurts, right?”

“Yes. I find it useful to—”

“What kind of dorky food is that, anyway?” said Trent scornfully, as he turned to go. Opening the door, he added, “Food is hamburgers or shrimp cocktail. Candy. Gravy. And you know what I hate? Do you? A soda-pop thief!”

As Trent started out, C. J. quietly replied, “I’ll bet that’s not all you hate.”

Trent stopped short, turned, and came back, letting the door close behind him.

“
What’d you just say
?” he demanded.

Completely unnerved by Trent’s angry look, C. J. got out an “I’m sorry.” Trent didn’t move, so C. J. added, “Forget it. Please.”

Trent made the point by staring at C. J. three seconds more. Then he turned again and left the flat.

Well, thought C. J., that is without question the best-looking completely horrible person I have ever met.

Luckily, they didn’t see much of each other as the days passed and C. J. got used to the rhythms of life in the firm, because the boss kept everybody busy. Beyond the work day, there were athletic leagues; drama, music, and film groups; a hundred clubs; a thousand meetings. The intramurals confounded genre, as the tennis team stood the stamp club at boat races or the choral society challenged the Chinese-language students to charades.

There was a sound theory behind it: a stimulated employee community gives of the utmost in inspiration. And this, too: the workers knew everybody slightly and almost no one well. It created a kind of riot of isolation. Even spouses at times felt like competitors in the Darwinian struggle. One of those signs read, GET A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP. But another warned, THE BUSY BEE TAKES ALL THE HONEY.

C. J. was eager to take advantage of the social calendar, and he floated from one outfit to another in search of friends of his particular kind. Oddly, they seemed very thin on the ground, as the phrase used to describe it. The few gays he met were all wrong for him in one way or another—and Robin, helpful though she was, knew only
her
kind. Still, C. J. was spending so much of his free time out and about that he and Trent had not had a single “trading views about the world” conversation in their first month together—not that Trent seemed eager to draw C. J. out about anything. They communicated in passing, as when C. J., peering into the fridge, had to ask Trent if he had finished off C. J.’s milk carton, or when Trent, off to the gym again, remarked that at least they both kept their space neat, because he really hated slobs.

In fact, C. J. did not get to see what Trent was like as a social animal till he turned up one Sunday afternoon when C. J. and Robin were passing an hour out by the biggest of the swimming pools. In Speedos and dark glasses, some forty yards off, Trent was joking with and whispering to a very pretty girl in an old-fashioned one-piece.

“That’s quite a specimen,” said Robin, after C. J. pointed him out. “A build and a half. When the Feds get into secret human cloning experiments, he’ll be the first to vanish. Called to the national need.”

“He’s a mean guy, though.”

“Well, he won’t get far with Miss Muffett, anyway. She’s a virgin to the altar. Christian for sure.”

“You know her?” C. J. asked.

“I know the bathing suit. Are you into those big numbers?”

“You mean Trent?” C. J. shrugged. “I didn’t used to be. And I wasn’t when I first got here. But there’s something about all that…that
hondo jazz, isn’t there? It gets to you after a while. I kind of enjoy watching him modeling in the living room.”

“Modeling?”

“Boy, does he love that full-length mirror. Sometimes he’ll stand in front of it staring at his reflection as if…”

“There’s no vain like a handsome man,” Robin put in.

“…as if searching for himself,” C. J. concluded.

He and Robin watched as Trent dove effortlessly into the water, surfaced, then tried to coax the girl in after him. He extended a hand to her as if hoping to pull her in.

“He doesn’t ever talk about things,” C. J. continued. “He just snarls out apartment stuff. ‘I owe you a yogurt.’ First he was mocking the food I eat, and then…well. But you can’t hate a guy with silken skin tone, can you?”

“I could,” said Robin, with a wry look.

Now Trent heaved up out of the water and stood before the girl, dripping and marvelous. I dare you not to touch.

“What do you like, anyway?” C. J. asked Robin. “If I’m not prying.”

“Besides Candice Bergen? Well, the butch-femme kind of haunts me. You know—stomping and grunting around in public, and then in the sheets…” Robin simulated the shuddering of a frail, with trembly fingers playing air harp. She whispered, “You want to…
what
…to me?”

They laughed.

“Who’s your roommate, by the way?” C. J. asked.

“Don’t have. They gave me a suite last year.”

C. J. whistled. “Madame, it’s total!”

“I’ll show it to you sometime soon. You’ll see—they really know how to turn it on around here. When they like you, I mean. Otherwise…”

Looking up suddenly, Robin led C. J.’s gaze to Trent, who was standing over them, dripping wet.

“You didn’t fill me in how connected you are, Colin.” Extending his hand to Robin as he introduced himself, Trent added, “Marketing. Special Offers.” Then: “Sorry about that,” because he had got her hand wet, though he didn’t sound sorry, with his dripping muscles and adorably swirled about hair. He did pull the towel from around his neck to dry Robin’s hand, with a great show of hetero tenderness. Secretly amused, Robin said nothing, not even in reply to Trent’s parting “A pleasure, Ms. Gifford,” though she did give him a smile. Adding a nod and “Colin,” Trent went back to his lady love.

“What does he want, a date?” Robin asked. “That dope wouldn’t know a gal if you gave him a map. He sure is stacked, though. Scope a set of tits on a guy, will ya?” Pausing just long enough, Robin shot a grin at C. J. with “
Colin
?”

The bad sequence began about two weeks after that, when C. J. arrived at his gym locker to change for his workout. Someone had stuck a piece of paper in the draft holes, and when C. J. pulled it out and opened it, he saw a single word, in large computer type in the center of the page:

F
AGOT

Crumpling it up, C. J. threw it out and gave it as little thought as possible. He didn’t tell anyone, not even Robin. But then came a series of ambiguous incidents—strangers banging into him as they passed in office hallways when there had been plenty of room, an ugly stain on his towel at the pool when he came back from a swim, stares from teams of strangers at the oddest times.

Just…stares.

Then, finally, in the cafeteria one lunchtime, C. J. left his food at the table to say something to his lunch partner, a section co-worker, who was still on line at the cashier. When C. J. got back to their table, he found that someone had poured C. J.’s apple juice all over his plate, soaking his food.

What to do then? Look around, to see who’s snickering, nudging companions, guilty? Ignore it, to fight the shame? Leave? C. J. impulsively jumped up, went back to the buffet, grabbed any sandwich, paid for it, and joined his friend back at the table. C. J. didn’t bother to push the tray of ruined food away; it no longer existed. Luckily, C. J.’s lunch partner seemed genuinely oblivious to all this. The pair took their time as they dined, appearing as contented and incurious as oil sheiks at a banquet.

Thinking it over later, C. J. was devastated. He had left his hometown precisely to click RESTART here at the firm, to defeat the unseen enemy of dirty little laughter by leaving it in his dust. But there’s always a pack of new haters, isn’t there?

Try going to your superiors: won’t they hedge and alibi and end in siding with the aggressors? Everyone does; it’s easier. That’s how the aggressor thrives, whether initiating riots, shouting down political opponents, or wrecking a dinner party with balderdash.

What C. J. did, instead, was to make himself less open to attack by limiting his area of operation. He took lunch at his desk, navigated the halls by falling into step with coworkers, and avoided the public leisure spaces. He spent so much time in the apartment that Trent commented on it, with his usual delicacy.

“Why are you always around, huh?” Trent asked C. J. “Like, what? every minute I’m here. Don’t you have, like…”

“What’s it to you, anyway?” C. J. calmly replied, at his computer screen.

“What it is, in fact,” said Trent, coming into C. J.’s room, “is that I got a promotion today. Deputy head of section, since you ask. And I’ll be needing a file from you on your work this last four-week. Progress and suggestions. All to be summarized, by me, with pages from others, and so on, all very nice and business. Now, a word from our sponsor. I thank you.”

“You’re drunk,” said C. J., not taking his eyes off the screen. He tapped at the keyboard, read, tapped some more.

“I don’t never drink,” Trent told him while lazily pacing the room. “Pledge to a dying mother.”

“Then what makes you so animated all of a sudden?” C. J. tapped a bit more, saying, “You’ve uttered more sheer English to me in the last minute than—
Hey
!”

Because Trent had put his hand in front of the screen.

“Let’s us make a deal with you, Colin,” he said, keeping his hand in the way till C. J. sat back in his chair with an air of careless surrender.

Falling heavily into the armchair next to C. J.’s desk, Trent asked him, “You think I’m dumb, right? I’m not, though. Yeah, I look like a
musclehead. Sure. But that gets you way in with the chicks. Makes them believe they have the upper hand with a guy, which chicks always secretly want, you know. They think, Oh, the poor thing. Then, ho! Watch me dazzle them with a rhyme poem which I bet
you
think I couldn’t hardly invent. Chicks love a cute little haiku, and the next thing after that? Love, true love.”

Trent expanded his pronunciation of the last three words as if singing them. Then he grinned. Despite himself, C. J. felt pleasured. It was that singular charm of the big guy who knows he’s top. But all C. J. would say was “Haikus don’t rhyme.”

“Do what?”

“Never…never mind.”

“Anyhowsle, Colin.” A little bow of the head. “Let’s propose a trade with you. Like I say, I’m not dumb. But these reports they want, it’s like I could really use a startoff, and you’re the man to give it to me.”

Trent swung his legs around, resting them over an arm of the chair and stretching out his arms for an elaborate yawn. Then he said, “So how I see it is, I’ll help you so you’ll help me.”

“You’ll help me with what?”

“What do you need?”

“Nothing.”

Trent looked at C. J. for a bit, then slowly shook his head. “Everybody needs something, Colin. And I need help from you in organizing these reports, because I’m, like, not the world’s champ at organizing a writing. Spell check? Got it on, bro. But what about smart check? Coordination check?”

“You don’t have to give me anything,” said C. J. “I’ll help you and we’ll call it even.”

Trent thought it over, with his head cocked. “Okay, chief,” he replied, rising to his feet with a grunt. “I’ll owe you one. First report’s due a week from Monday. Can you get me in shape by then?”

“Easily. One thing, though—if you suddenly blaze forth as a master of English prose, they’ll be suspicious. You need to start out merely competent and then improve till each report is a zinger. They’ll call you in and ask what gives. You produce a
How To Write
handbook with plenty of dog-ears and highlighting. And, for that touch of initiative…marginal notes.”