The Price Of Dick (29 page)

The day of Pride
, we were like happy little horses chomping at our bits to get there and find our parade float. The weather was warm, slightly windy, but cloudless and brilliant. A wonderful day for a parade. All the side streets were cordoned off and filling with people dressed in their rainbow colors. They had banners and posters bravely displaying their pride at being counted among the visible homosexual population. It was a festive atmosphere.

Alex
had dressed both of us colorfully, matching us like odd twins. Certainly more color than I’d ever worn. His long hair whipped wildly in the breeze. It matched his buoyant mood.

We found our float parked in the middle of a street
lined with waiting floats. We were helped up onto it and shown our positions. We’d be sharing it with a number of prominent gay citizens of our city. It had a banner wrapped around its base proclaiming us as ‘Proud Gay Celebrities.’ I didn’t even know what to think about sharing that distinguished title with so many people I recognized. I still felt like little ole J.J. Johnstone, photographer and sometimes writer.

It would be an experience to which I could compare no other. To be high on that float moving down the crowded streets on the winding
twelve mile course, waving publicly to a crowd of smiling, cheering, mostly gay faces. To be myself and be proud and happy standing next to someone who was instrumental in the biggest changes I'd ever made in my life. The young man who pointed me away from hatred and destruction toward happiness and creation. Without him, there would never have been a book. I wouldn't have seen this particular day. I was overwhelmed with happiness.

I heard strangers cheering me by name as if they knew me, giving me
a thumbs up. Others holding my book high in the air and waving it as I passed. Things like this don’t happen to people like me, and I wanted to bawl like a baby.

Glancing to my side, I saw
Alex waving, shouting and whistling to people in the crowd. He beamed a bright light of pure happiness. Among all the racing thoughts in my head, I took time to pause and enjoy his sublime beauty. And as hard as I fought the thought and feelings, well aware of the difference in our ages, I knew I was falling so hard in love with him—I felt crushed by the weight of it. It had finally happened. After all these years, my first attack of love. I felt like a stuttering fool at that silent admission. I didn’t want to jeopardize our valuable friendship by being a slobbering moron in love with a young Adonis. Nothing could be more pathetic.

I was still waving, but staring at him when he turned and caught me in the act. His one arm came down
from waving to the crowd and then both found me, wrapping me tight, tugging me in close to him. His head angled slightly to the side so he could just miss bumping noses as he kissed me. It was long, unrelenting, warm and filled me inside and out with a glow. The world fell away into background noise. I heard the crowd roar like an orchestra playing in the distant background.

There were four breaths in my ear, each attached with a word.
“I love you, too,” as if he’d read my mind.

Cameras flashed
in the periphery like fireworks celebrating the extraordinary moment.

*  *  *

The reporter and her camera crew were awaiting us at the end of the parade route. They honed in on Alex and me as we dismounted the float, aiming the microphone and video camera at us. Apparently our kiss had hit social media like a firestorm. It was playing all across the country, being tweeted across continents and being used as lead-ins for the evening news. I was in such a state of bliss from the kiss that everything whirled around me in a dazzling blur. I didn’t remember answering her questions. Alex said I did, that I was surprisingly glib for someone who was only present in the physical sense. I was dimly conscious of the cheers that surrounded us, of people taking our picture with their phones as Dionne segued our live interview into the one we’d taped earlier in the month. I was very proud at Pride. And very much everywhere via the electronic airwaves...

*  *  *

With my brain so fogged, I was like a dog on a leash. Alex had to guide me by gently tugging me from here to there to get where we needed to be. Before I knew it, we were at the bar that had been designated as the meeting place for all his friends. I had no idea how we had gotten there.

There were so many faces and names coming at me
, I knew they’d be forgotten, but I did recognize one of the gay celebrities from our float. He was an attorney, Cain Martin. He was an attractive man in his mid-thirties dressed from head-to-toe in designer duds. He was also one of Alex’s clients, another accidental vegetarian. He drank nothing stronger than a ginger ale. Alex sidled us in next to him and ordered our seltzers with bitters and limes. The sissy drink that looks like a grown-up cocktail.

“
Seems like you two stole everyone’s thunder today with that kiss,” the attorney said as his greeting. He held up his glass in a toast. “Salute!” He then flipped his phone, turning the display toward us to show the current newsfeed. There was the picture, clear as day, of me and Alex kissing on the parade float. We looked like a Picasso the way we were tangled up with each other.

I
experienced a full-body blush. It was embarrassing to know that an impulse had become a trending item now viewable on everyone’s social media.

“
They’ll call it a May/December romance you know...because of the age difference,” he said, and then winked to dull the harsh reality of a truth I already knew.

Alex
chimed in on that. “That’s what equality is all about. No barriers, no boundaries to love. Right? Not even age.” And he pecked my cheek again. I would never get tired of the touch of his lips.

I blushed again.
Forty going on fourteen.

The attorney was still studying the display on his phone when with a
smile, he turned it around and shook his head. “It must be your lucky day, Mr. Johnstone.” He was showing us the national book bestseller list. "Seems your not so little kiss just rocketed your book to number one.” He said that last part loud enough for the rest of the patrons in the bar to overhear while waving his phone overhead. The entire establishment erupted into a raucous cheer and a chant of ‘Number One!’ took over the place.

Alex
giggled at my side, hugging me tightly. I was Will Robinson. Lost in Space. It was definitely a J.J. Johnstone day to remember.

A
s all of these spectacular, once-in-a-lifetime things were happening to me, I was unaware that the fuse I’d lit on that bomb over a month ago had burnt to its end. The explosion that came, that I didn’t witness, was calamitous.

Alex and I
remained at the bar with a select few of his friends until well after ten o’clock to re-watch ourselves on the news. Our kiss and then my interview afterward. They hailed my book this time as the number one bestselling Gay Romance for the whole world to hear. Alex held my hand the entire time like he thought I might fall away. I liked the feeling of his hand in mine. It felt right.

He drove us back to the condo. It was a long drive from downtown to our ass-end of the suburbs, and
Alex didn’t trust me behind the wheel. My adrenaline had burned my concentration down to fumes. He put on an Enya CD and I lay back in my seat and drifted off into dreamland in a matter of seconds. My REM sleep fed me all the fairytale props that gay youngsters have: the wedding, the house, the yard and Dali; our dog. For the first time in my life, my dreams were filled with
‘we’
instead of
‘me.’
I know I smiled while I dreamed.

I awakened when we pulled into the lot in front of the condo. His door chime had roused me for a long stretch and an endless yawn. Dick
’s car was parked in the carport, but we couldn’t see any lights on in the windows of the unit. That didn’t mean anything. Most of the interior lights couldn’t be seen from those windows. He could still be up and about. We debated whether Alex should drive home to his folks or stay the night. The day had been too special for us to sleep apart, so the decision was made. It was only a few steps from the front door, through the corridor to my room. We’d risk it.

We smelled the smoke before we opened the front door. It had an odd, acrid,
metallic odor to it. Once inside, we could see its residue rolling like a slow fog across the ceiling of the foyer and adjoining hallway. There was no sound of a smoke alarm, which was unusual. Warily, we moved inside. I found the smoke alarm laying in pieces in the hallway nearest my room. It had been ripped from the ceiling. Bits of the drywall surrounded it on the carpet. It had been yanked out hard. Wires dangled from where the alarm had previously hung.

We ventured in further to the
great room. The sight that greeted us there was beyond comprehension. Pure destruction everywhere: the large television screen had been pulled from its wall mount. Its shattered frame and components lay scattered on the floor, still sizzling under a coating of brown-stained fire extinguisher foam. Its cord had been pulled from the wall along with a good portion of the plasterboard itself. The outlet was bare, screws bent where its cover had been. Wood end tables lay splintered across overturned furniture. A poker had demolished the glass fireplace doors. It remained stuck halfway through the jagged glass. Dining room furniture had been thrown into the kitchen. That room looked hardest hit, catching all the flying debris.

We both knew
immediately that it wasn’t the work of an intruder or thief. This had deliberate anger scored across every fragment of annihilation. Dick had done this. The television had been the focal point of the explosion. He’d seen the news. In an instant the magnitude of what I’d done hit me. I had expanded my own truth beyond the small handful of people who knew about my book to anyone and everyone who had access to the news or social media. I had just broadcast to everyone who knew us that the relationship Dick had engineered as our
friendship
had been an unmitigated falsehood. I had ripped his world apart, lie-by-lie.

A commotion came from upstairs in Dick
’s room. It startled us both. It sounded like more things were being kicked over. A suitcase came sliding down the stairs toward us, followed by the looming, sharp-edged shadow of Dick himself carrying another suitcase. He stopped mid-step when he saw us and sat the suitcase down at his side. His jaw flexed angrily as his eyes landed on Alex standing at my side. I saw the face so many artists had depicted as the Devil's looking down at us in that moment.

“
Silly faggot. All your tricks are kids,” he snarled at me. I’m sure he thought it was as clever as it was snide. His slurred delivery gave away his condition. He tried to look intimidating standing there above us, but his swagger had too much sway. Alex touched my shirtsleeve, an unspoken signal to stay calm in the presence of the storm. The destruction had been too much for me, though.

“
What the hell have you done?” I asked in a tone that made me sound more parent-like than I cared for. “Do you realize how much shit you’ve ruined? How much this is going to cost?” I might as well have told him go to his room, that he was a bad boy.

That prompted a head
bobbing eye roll from him. He was seething. It leaked from every pour like hot steam. “What
I’ve
done?” He leaned against the wall and folded his arms indignantly. “I got a voicemail this afternoon from an old girlfriend who should have been gone from my life ten years ago. She said she forgave me for my
act
back then. For me pretending to be something I wasn’t. She said you’d talked to her and told her the whole story.” He kicked a suitcase down the remaining few stairs into the foyer. “I got news for you, you fucking meddling old faggot. This here,” he opened his arms wide including me. “This was the act. All of this. You. The girlfriends were for real. You're my pretend act. You’re the one that got played. You’re the idiot. You were the easiest one to fool and I did it for years.”

I don
’t know who he was trying to convince. I certainly bought none of it. I had the pictures and the memories to prove it. There wasn’t a word he said that I’d forgotten. I wasn’t the one he pulled out of the magician’s hat every few years to convince mommy and his friends that he was someone else. His denial came off like someone with multiple personality disorder. He didn’t know which one of personalities to believe.

He
came down; moving threateningly toward us, fists bunched into white-knuckled balls at his sides. We instinctively retreated a step backward together. It was the victory he’d hoped for. An edge.

“
You have no right to destroy the house like this,” I ineffectually castigated him. Daddy J.J. again. I don’t know how words kept coming out of my mouth sounding like that.

“
My mom called me to tell me to turn on the news so I could see what she and everyone else who knows me could see. My buddy kissing another guy on television on National Queer Day. You know what my mom told me to do?” he asked. “She told me to run. To run as far and as fast away from your fairy ass as I could before you completely ruined my life and reputation.”

The irony of that wasn
’t lost on me.

“
I have my life to live too, Dick. I’ve been forced not to live it for too long because of you. You’re the one living in a make-believe world. You dragged me into it. I wouldn’t have been pretending if it hadn’t been for you.”

He harrumphed loudly as if my words meant nothing.
“So you needed to go out and get a shirt that says “I Suck Dick” and parade around in it for everyone to see? Get on television to kiss a kid who’s ten years younger than me? You’re one sick fuck!”

I
knew he didn't realize how funny and bizarrely appropriate his comment was. “You’re drunk,” I said. Once more, Dad Brady came out of my mouth.

He picked up his suitcase.
“No. I’m gone. I’m going out to the ranch where the real people are. You and your queer little Bruce Lee can carry on with all the dick-sucking you want now. You two disgust me.” He looked from Alex to me. The grimace returned. “The only thing I regret is that I had the chance, when I had a girlfriend who knew about crime who coulda helped me cover the evidence. I coulda emptied a clip in your cock sucking mouth. You don’t know how many times I imagined blowing your skull into a million pieces, and splattering your brains all over the wall like graffiti. I coulda been rid of you once and for all, and there isn’t a soul in the world who would have cared.”

“
I would have cared,” Alex said, looking at him calmly.

The space between them hung like
an airless vacuum as they stared each other down. Dick’s hands squirmed on the handles of the two suitcases. That he wanted to punch Alex was palpable. Instead, he turned toward the door. He opened it.

“I want to know one thing, Dick,” I said, momentarily stopping his self-triumphant march out of the condo. “When did I become less to you than a stranger on the street?”

He shook his head, glaring at me like I was a brainless dolt. “Dude, you were never anything more. And for your information, while you were out being a faggot celebrity on television, you just cost me the promotion I worked toward for a year. Thanks for nothing, buddy.” The last word snapped out of his mouth lathered in rabid sarcasm as the door slammed behind him.

As quickly as he was gone,
Alex dashed to the door and locked it. “Check the rest of the house for damage,” he said, pointing directly to my office and studio doors. “Your computer, cameras, lights. All your work stuff.”

I hadn
’t thought about that, and the disaster that could await me seared through my mind as I nearly leaped into the corridor toward the doors. Thankfully, everything pertaining to my photography had been spared his wrath. The studio and office were untouched. I sat down in the chair, breathing a sigh of relief as Alex joined me.

“
You need to call the police and report this,” his face was serious as he looked out into the rest of the house. “It’s got to be reported if you want the insurance to cover it and replace everything.”

It had been a long, exhausting day. I didn
’t want to deal with anything more, but I also knew I didn’t want to ruin what had been one of the most magical days of my life by calling in the police to air hard-to-explain dirty laundry.

“
This was the best day of my life, Alex. The world knows the good in me and my work today. I’m not going to let Dick ruin that as well. This was our day, and it’s going to stay that way. We can take care of this ourselves.”

His look was understanding,
but tired. “You know it can’t keep going on like this now? He’s dangerous. And I’m being very serious about this. Don’t think because you’ve known him for so long that he wouldn’t harm you. What he said about...” He let the sentence expire. I remembered Dick’s words about bloody, brain-filled graffiti.

I
could only hope it was Dick’s anger speaking. But the truth is, I no longer knew. His behavior reminded me of the line Regan’s mom spoke in
The Exorcist
about seeing Regan’s double, but knowing in her gut that what was in front of her now, the possessed Regan, wasn’t her daughter. After this last year, I had no clue who had been living in the house with me.

“
Hand me your cell phone,” he held out his hand. I dropped my phone in his palm and asked him what he was doing. “I’m putting 9-1-1 on speed dial. All you have to do in an emergency is hit this button,” he showed me the button, “and it connects you right to them.”

It was hard to believe it had come to this; that Dick
’s closet had turned him into the monster we all feared as children. I was going to have to figure out what to do. Buy him out of the business and the condo? I didn’t even know where to begin to look for a resolution. How do you divorce someone you’re not married to and get an equitable settlement?