Where The Boys Are (12 page)

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Authors: William J. Mann

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Lloyd

“You’re going
back
to Boston?”

I can’t believe what Jeff’s just told me.

He nods. “The snow is getting heavier. I should get on the road before it really gets too bad to drive.”

Eva’s just left to move her car so the plow can get down the street. “It’s
already
too bad,” I argue. “Besides, we still have so much to talk about. We’d been making
progress
. And you promised you’d spend the night.”

His eyes hold mine. “With Eva sleeping on the couch? The quarters are a little too tight for me, Lloyd.”

I try to take his hands, but he won’t let me. “Jeff, please don’t go. I know she comes on a little thick—”

“This is
your
thing, Lloyd. Yours and hers. I don’t belong here.”

“Yes, you do ...”

“No, I
don’t.
The two of you have a lot of planning to do. Lots of decisions to make. You’ve got tile to pick out, checking accounts to open ...”

My heart drops. I feel angry. “So what’s waiting for you in Boston? Nothing but a trick on your couch.”

Jeff narrows his eyes at me. “Better than some crazy straight lady.”

“Jeff,
please.
Give her a chance.”

“I
gave
her a chance. And she wasted no time in letting me know that I have no place here, that it’s about you and her.”

“You’re being stubborn and defensive! She
told
you that she wanted you to feel at home here, Jeff!”

He spins on me. His eyes look crazy. For an instant it’s the old Jeff in front of me, the one who threw fits, the one who didn’t guard his emotions like the Crown jewels in the Tower of London.

“Can’t you
see?”
he says, his voice rising. “That’s just it! Her wanting me to feel at home. That implies
she
has the power to make me feel that way. Or
not
. Power that
you’ve
given her. Don’t be so
dense
, Dr. Griffith! You understand power differentials! You talk about them in lectures. You counsel your clients about them.”

I shake my head. “
You’re
the one who’s feeling powerless, Jeff.”

He seems to calm down. The passion in his eyes dissipates right in front of me. “Maybe I am,” he says. “Maybe I am, and I don’t like the feeling. I felt that way once before, Lloyd. I felt pretty powerless when you walked out on me after six years because you were feeling discontent. That was a pretty awful feeling, and maybe I don’t want to feel it again.”

“Jeff, if you’re still angry at me for that, you need to—”

“I need to make sure I don’t let you do it again.” He seems to suddenly stand taller, and his words are deliberate. “You say you want me to be a part of this, Lloyd. Yet I’m
not.
You never talked about it with me. You never asked
my
feelings. You bring in someone and expect that I’ll love her. That we can recreate what we had with Javitz. Admit it, Lloyd. That’s what you hoped for. That it was going to be you and me and Eva the way it had been with Javitz.”

I just look at him, at a loss for words.

“Well, that’s not fair to me or to her,” Jeff says. “She’s not Javitz.” He draws close to me. “She’s
in love with you
, Lloyd, and if you can’t see that, then I think it’s time for the doctor to heal himself.”

He slips on his jacket and begins putting on his gloves.

“I love you, Lloyd, but I’m not going to risk getting hurt again.”

“Jeff, I don’t want you to leave.” Suddenly, the idea of spending the night alone with Eva seems unbearable without Jeff at my side.

Then the front door suddenly opens and she stumbles back inside, trailing snow and slush across my floor.

“Would you
please
remember to wipe your shoes?” I snap.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” she exclaims, suddenly anxious and remorseful. She removes her boots and begins wiping up the snow with her gloves.

“Eva, leave it,” I say, regretting my outburst and stooping down to assist her back up. “It’s fine.”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” She seems near tears. She looks from me over at Jeff. “Are you leaving?”

He nods. “I want to hit the road before it gets too slippery out there.”

“Well,” she says, and I marvel at how quickly she can transition her emotions. She takes Jeff’s arm, looking up at him warmly and strolling with him toward the front door. “I want you to know you are welcome here
anytime,”
she tells him. “Please know that, okay?”

He looks over at me. “Thanks,” he says, and I can’t miss the sarcasm, even if she apparently does. “How very kind of you to say so.”

She holds his hands tightly and beams. “It has been
wonderful
meeting you, Jeff.”

He turns and leaves. I don’t even get to kiss him good-bye.

That Night, Boston’s South End

Henry

“S
he’s a
total
freak show,” Jeff’s telling me.

I try to balance the cordless phone between my shoulder and my ear as I unknot my tie, slipping it out from under my collar. The phone had been ringing as I walked through the door. “Worse than I imagined,” Jeff’s saying.
“Way
worse. Like
psycho killer
worse.”

“Jeff,” I interrupt, “can you hang on just a second? I’m getting another call.”

I hear Jeff sigh. I know how much he despises being put on hold for call-waiting. But Shane had left a message for me at work saying he was
going
to call tonight about something
important....

“Hey, my sexy man,” Shane breathes.

I laugh. “What’s up?”

“Roundtrip to Philly just ninety-nine dollars.”

“That’s
what you were calling to tell me?”

“The
Blue Ball,
sweetie. You said you couldn’t afford to go.”

I laugh again. “Shane, I’m not sure ...”

“You’re
not
going to wait four more months to show off that physique again, are you? Come on, stud. All those circuit boys dying to see you ...”

“I’ll think about it,” I promise. “I’ve gotta go. I’ve got ... someone on the other line.”

“Who?”

“My mother. See ya.”

I switch back to Jeff. “I’m
sorry.”

“You know I hate that, Henry. I was ready to hang up.”

“Jeff, I’m sorry.” God, he can be so fucking entitled. Shane calls Jeff a diva, and he sure is acting the part now. “So finish telling me,” I say. “I want to hear.”

I unbuckle my pants and let them fall to the floor, pulling on a pair of sweats as Jeff goes on—and
on
—about how he thinks this is finally the end of him and Lloyd, that he must have been
crazy
to think they were getting back together, that this time Lloyd has
really
gone off the deep end with this crazy bitch, yada yada yada blah blah blah.

“Maybe you shouldn’t give up yet,” I counsel. “Maybe there’s a reason for all this.”

“Bullshit.”

I stick my tongue out at him through the phone. He’s really bugging me tonight. I hate how whenever
I
try to offer advice, Jeff says, “Bullshit.” Had it been
him
saying the same thing to me—as he has
numerous
times—he would’ve expected me to thank him profusely for his insight and wisdom.

“The worst part of it is,” Jeff’s saying, “when I got home, Anthony had gone
out!
Can you believe it? Out on his own!”

I’m almost dumbfounded. “And what’s wrong with
that?”

He makes a sound in exasperation. “I don’t know where the fuck he
is!
He just left a note:
‘Hope you had a good time at the Cape. I’ll be back later.’
That’s it. Not where, not when.”

“He needs to tell you
where?”

“He doesn’t know Boston!” Jeff lowers his voice. “And
Henry.
He took his backpack.”

“So?”

“So he has his toothbrush in there and all that shit. I mean, is he coming, back tonight? Tomorrow? Next week? What the fuck does ‘later’ mean?”

I’m reaching the end of my rope. I can’t remember feeling this impatient with Jeff in a long time. Maybe Shane is right. Maybe I
am
too enmeshed with Jeff.

“Look,” I say, trying to keep my voice level, “you told him you were going down to spend the night with Lloyd in Provincetown. Did you really expect him to sit at home hoping you’d change your mind and come back? Honestly, Jeff, sometimes you—”

“I gotta go.” I can hear the petulance in his voice. I’m not being understanding enough. I’m not supporting him.

I sigh. “Now don’t get mad at me.”

“Henry, I’ve got to go.”

“Okay, bye.”

Dial tone.

I’m actually quite pleased with myself. I didn’t buckle under the way I usually do, begging Jeff not to hang up, apologizing for my impatience and letting him ramble. And I don’t feel guilty, either, as I usually do when I’ve said or done something to upset Jeff. I don’t feel the need to call him back and check in and make sure he’s okay and ask if maybe he wants me to come over....

Okay. So maybe I do just a little bit. I put my hand on the phone for a second. Jeff’s my best friend, and he’s hurting—

“No,” I say out loud. This time Jeff can just go through his dramas on his own. I have my own stuff to think about.

I sit down at my computer. Dinner can wait. There’s something I’ve been thinking about all day, something I want to check. I log onto America Online.

“You’ve got mail,” my computer chimes at me. There’s a message from my mother
(“Don’t forget your Uncle Sol’s birthday”)
, two forwards from Jeff about how a Ralph Nader candidacy could give the White House to George W. Bush in November
(“If that happens, it’s like going back twenty years”)
, and a quick note from Shane, obviously sent within the last few minutes: “
Let me just repeat myself. Roundtrip to Philly just $99. Tickets gotta be purchased by midnight tonight.”

I sign off. Sure, that’s easy for Shane to say. I discovered the Windex queen is a fucking
architect,
making
six figures
a year. “Whatever,” I grouse to myself.

Sitting next to my computer are this month’s bills. My parents always warned me about spending beyond my means. Still, I went ahead and bought that black Jeep Wrangler after watching those bootleg copies of
Queer as Folk
. I love my Jeep, especially last summer tooling around off road in the dunes of Ptown. But with payments of three-hundred-plus a month, it’s an expense I probably could’ve lived without. No one
needs
a car in Boston.

Here’s the deal. I make a decent living, but I’m always short on cash. Even after six years at the same job, steadily advancing through the ranks, I’ve yet to really save any money. Of course, I tell my parents I have, even making up some fake mutual funds I claim to have invested in. Otherwise I’d get one of my father’s famous lectures about how when
he
was thirty, he’d already made a killing in the stock market. He also had three kids and a mortgage. At least I don’t have
that
—the kids
or
the mortgage.

I take a deep breath and sign on again, this time under my “slut name.” Everyone I know has at least one slut name. Mine, like most, changes every couple of weeks. Currently my handle is MuslStudBoi4U, and my profile reads:
Hot, good-looking muscle stud, 5’10, 175, brown/brown, swarthy, muscular. If I’m online, it means I’m looking. If u ask for a pic, u send first.
I especially love that “swarthy” part.

I scroll down through the chat rooms. There it is, the one I’m looking for.

EscortsM4M.

It takes several tries but finally I get in. I’ve noticed these chat rooms before; they’re always filled to capacity. No one is talking. I wait a few seconds, not sure what I mean to do by coming in here. I’d just been thinking about it all day. I glance at the screen names of others in the room: TopStud4Hire. StunningScort. XHndsmEscort. I check their profiles. A couple have links to personal Web sites. Hot photos and rates. Shane’s right: Two hundred bucks an hour. Even more for outcalls. One claims to be a porn star and charges
three hundred fifty
. An hour! Even lawyers and psychologists I know don’t get that much.

I sigh and click out of the room, entering into more familiar territory. BostonM4M.

Almost immediately:
Brrrnnnng
. An Instant Message. Some guy with a screen name of LeanMuslNBost.
Sup dude
, LeanMusl writes.

I type back:
Sup with u bro?

I laugh to myself. Nobody talks this way in real life. At least none of us white South End gay boys who gather in this room every night at the same time. But it’s the online lexicon. If someone instant-messaged me with,
Hello, how are you?
I’m not sure I’d respond.

Horny as hell,
the guy writes back.

Me 2, I type in reply.

These chat rooms have replaced happy hours in the gay subculture. Sign on in the comfort of your own home and cruise the guys you would’ve met at the bar. I’ve never actually hooked up this way, of course, but I know plenty of guys who have. Jeff included.

My second phone line rings. I turn the phone over to check the caller-ID. It’s Brent Whitehead. I groan. I haven’t returned Brent’s calls since I got back from New York. I’ve been dreading hearing about what a
fabulous
time he had in Miami. But I can’t avoid him forever. I press the TALK button and say hello, cradling the phone between my ear and my shoulder as I type.

“Ohhhhh,”
Brent says, hearing the unmistakable sound of Instant Messaging, “am I
interrupting
something?”

“No,” I tell him. “Just the same old Wednesday night bullshit.”

Like
anything
could’ve stopped Brent from talking. “So Miami was
fab
-u-lous,” he’s already saying. I roll my eyes. “We were sooo twisted, Henry. You should’ve
been
there. Very high PH factor. Highest I’ve seen in a long time.”

Of
course
it was—and of
course
Brent would tell me so. Knowing PH stands for
potential husband
, I ask, “So didja find one?”

Brent’s answer is exactly what I could’ve recited right along with him. “Well, I did a three-way with a couple of very hot boys from New Jersey, but I wasn’t really in the mood to look for a husband.”

“Uh-huh.”

Brrrrrnnng. What r u into?
It’s LeanMusl, being persistent.

I smirk. I type back:
Safe sane and a little crazy
.
U?

Brent hasn’t stopped talking. “But it was
awesome
, Henry. Best party I’ve been to in a
long
time.” I hear him exhale on his cigarette. “So did you get laid in New York?”

“Yes,” I say. “As a matter of fact, I did.”

“
Kewl.
What did he look like? Where was he from? How big was his dick?”

I think of Shane. Brent would so
totally
not understand. “Oh, I forget,” I tell him.

“Too twisted, huh? I hear you there. You should have seen us in Miami. It was like a fucking alphabet soup. X, K, a little G....” He exhales cigarette smoke again. “So why
did
you and Jeff go to New York, anyway? I mean,
everyone
was in Miami.”

“ ’Cuz of Lloyd, remember? We went to New York because Lloyd was there.”

“Oh,
puh-lease.”
Brent makes a gagging sound. “Why don’t those ” two just get
over
themselves and admit they’re a
couple?
I can’t
stand
it.”

“They just don’t want to be fenced in by definitions.”

“
What
ever. But that still doesn’t explain why
you
went to New York, Henry. It can’t be just because Jeff was going. Oh, wait! It
can
be! You
did
go just because Jeff was going!”

“Fuck you, Brent.”

I hold the phone away from my ear as Brent cackles across the line.

Brrrrrnnng. Trade pics?

I type:
U send first.

“But they
are
still sleeping around, aren’t they?” Brent asks. “Jeff and Lloyd?”

“They’ve never been exclusive,” I admit. “Why? You interested?”

“Well, not in
Jeff.
Been there, done that. Who
hasn’t?”
Brent cackles
again
like a mad queen. No, not
like
—Brent
is
a mad queen. “It’s
Lloyd
whose pants I’d like to get into. I’d do him in a
second.”

“Yeah, you wish.”

Brent snorts. “So what’s this I hear, that Lloyd’s buying some house with a woman?”

I’m stunned. “How’d you find
that
out?”

“Nothing gets past me, Henry. You should know that.”

Brrrrrnnng. Sent. So where r u?

I type back:
SE: u?
I attach my pic to an E-mail and send it off.

“Henry, are you making a
date?”
Brent asks.

“Maybe.”

“What’s his screen name?”

“LeanMuslNBost. Hot profile.”

Brent gags again. “Ewwwww. Done him.
Total
fake. He’s lean, all right. As lean as Mama Cass before the ham sandwich.”