Where The Boys Are (3 page)

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Authors: William J. Mann

BOOK: Where The Boys Are
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Lloyd
I can see all the thoughts going through Jeff’s head. I can see him getting guarded and defensive, which only makes me all the more anxious to tell him what I need to say. As we head off the dance floor, I know he’s thinking about Javitz—or, more accurately, trying
not
to think about Javitz. I also know he’s not going to tell you more than that. So I guess it falls to me.
You see, Jeff dealt with his grief over Javitz’s death by diving headfirst into hedonism. I think a lot of guys on the circuit have done that. It will probably come as no surprise to you that I dislike the circuit. I attended enough parties in my twenties to know what I’m talking about. Looking around me as we leave the dance floor, I see so many wounded souls. We’re the despised gay tribe, after all, and our wounds run very deep. It’s why gay men seek so many sexual partners, I believe, and why they take drugs, and why they bulk up—becoming as big as the bullies on the playground, so big and strong (they subconsciously believe) that no basher or virus can ever touch them.
I don’t mean to use the word
they
as if I’m separate from the rest of the gay population. I don’t want to come across that way, though I admit that at times I do feel outside gay culture. The only reason I’m here in this cesspool tonight is because of Jeff. I want out as soon as possible, away from this collective denial of what makes us whole. It’s just not part of the way I live. Where Jeff and so many others have dealt with their pain and grief by indulging in sex, drugs, and disco, I took the other route: I became celibate. After Javitz’s death, my celibacy became a fast of my soul, a cleansing of my spirit, an honoring of what we had all been through together. I found refuge in Provincetown, a place Javitz had loved, sitting in quiet contemplation on the breakwater, listening to the wind and looking at the stars.
Some background here on me. I’ve always believed our souls have paths. Maybe not the soul nor the path that my father, a Lutheran minister back in Iowa, taught his congregation about. But in some ways it’s the same thing: we come from somewhere, we make certain choices in this life, and then we go somewhere else. I was raised on a farm, where I slopped pigs and slaughtered chickens and watched the cows give birth to calves, and I discerned early a pattern to life. It’s about finding your fate, your purpose, your place in the cycle. Each life that we live in succession is founded on what we did (or did not do) in the last. I grew up with a fear of getting stuck, of missing my turn, of being trapped on the farm, a chicken with my neck never far from the block. I’ve always questioned my place, chafed at limitations. The last of twelve kids, I was the only one to go to college, to leap into unknown territory. My siblings never ventured more than a few blocks from Mom and Dad, and all are now happily settled with kids and chickens and pigs of their own. And as much as they try, my parents can never quite figure out just what their son the “doctor of philosophy”
does
for a living.
Sometimes I had a hard time with it, too.
You see, about a year before Javitz died, I quit my high-paying, high-stress job as coordinator of a crisis program for a major Boston hospital. It came on the heels of all sorts of shake-ups, not least my decision to live apart from Jeff. I moved to Provincetown with the hope and the prayer that I could find something else to do with my life, to get back on the path I was certain I’d lost. But my disconnection to my life only got worse after Javitz died. There had to be
more,
I told myself; there had to be life beyond the walls of grief. Passion had long been my holy grail: where could I find it so that it wouldn’t again slip away, where it might settle into the integral fabric of my life?
That’s when this dream first took hold—the dream I want to share with Jeff now. That’s why I wish so fervently that Javitz were here—
physically
here—here and now, in this stinky, sweaty club, so I could
feel
him, touch his greatness, partake of his profound wisdom.
Am I doing the right thing?
I want to ask.
Is all this crazy?
“I’ve made a decision,” I tell Jeff when we finally find a space away from the madness of the dance floor. “I wanted to wait to tell you until tonight because I thought the new year would be perfect to talk about it. It’s a new start for me. A new beginning.”
Jeff raises his eyebrow but he says nothing.
“I’m going to buy a house,” I say quickly. “A guest house. A bed-and-breakfast. In Provincetown. With Eva.”
There. All the pertinent info is out. And Jeff’s face shows no change in expression. I wait for the reaction, but there is none.
Had he even heard me?
Jeff
I heard him. I just can’t remember who the fuck Eva is.
“We decided for sure tonight,” Lloyd’s continuing. “We looked at the place last week. It needs a little work, but it’s really in great shape. In some ways this is a tribute to Javitz. You know, it’s the money he left me, and he loved Provincetown so—”
“You’re buying a bed-and-breakfast?” I ask slowly.
“That’s
what you wanted to talk with me about?”
Lloyd tries to smile. “Yeah.”
I blink once, twice. “And you’re buying it with...
Eva?”
“Yeah.”
I shake my head, trying to comprehend. “This is the woman you met at the seminar? The lady with the house on the Upper West Side who was having the past-life regression party tonight? The party you wanted Henry and me to come to?”
Lloyd nods.
I’m flabbergasted. “Since
when
have you wanted to run a bed-and-breakfast?”
Lloyd looks a little embarrassed. “Well, actually, I hadn’t really thought of it before, until Eva started talking about it. But it just seemed perfect. You know how aimless I’ve been since Javitz died. You know how I’ve wanted to do something new, take some new chances. This feels like it could be it.
“So you’d be—
staying
—in Provincetown.”
The weight of what he’s saying finally settles down on me, like a heavy, wet blanket.
“Yes, Jeff,” he says. “Eva and I would live at the guest house as well as run it.”
I struggle for words. “And you’ve known her, what? A
month?”
“Three
months, Jeff.” Lloyd is acting defensive, and I can tell he doesn’t enjoy it. I know how much Lloyd hates being put on the defensive.
But I don’t feel particularly sensitive to his issues at the moment. “Lloyd,” I say, “running a bed-and-breakfast isn’t easy.”
His cheeks flush. “Do you think I think it is?”
“I don’t know
what
you think. I certainly didn’t know you wanted to run a guest house.”
Lloyd glares over at me. “I’m sharing good
news
here with you, Jeff. This is
good news.”
I shrug. “If you see it that way.”
I see the anger boil up behind his eyes. My calmness is infuriating him. I think he’d have preferred that I threw something. Or stalked off in a snit the way I used to.
“I know what you’re thinking, Jeff,” Lloyd snaps. “You think I’m just going off on another flight of fancy. Like you thought when I moved to Provincetown. I
know
you, Jeff. I know you think I’m
blundering
into something, with someone I don’t know, that I haven’t thought it through. You think I’m still floundering, not knowing what to do with my life. I know how you think, Jeff. Do you give me no credit at all?”
I’m watching him calmly. “Lloyd, I think you’re maybe putting some words into my mouth.”
“Isn’t that what you think?”
“I don’t know what I think. Okay, yes, I do. I think you are blundering into something, but if you want to blunder, go right ahead. I want to dance.”
“Is dancing really more important than talking to me?”
I sneer. “I paid good money to dance. We can talk anytime.”
“You know what, Jeff?” he sputters. “If you can’t be supportive, then just don’t say anything, okay?”
He storms off. I just stand there, shaking my head.
What the fuck just happened?
Funny how your whole perspective can suddenly shift, become something entirely different, in just a matter of seconds. In my mind I’d already been rearranging my closet to accommodate Lloyd’s clothes. But Lloyd isn’t moving back to Boston. How stupid of me to think he would. Like he’s ever been able to make a commitment to me. Ten minutes ago I was pretending to be ambivalent about the whole idea. Now I feel nothing but a shattering disappointment.
All I want to do is get back out there on the dance floor and forget the whole thing. At the moment I don’t care where Lloyd has gone. I just need to dance.
Henry
I turn around and there’s Jeff.
“I need to talk to you,” he says. He glances over at Shane, who hasn’t left my side. Not for a moment. “You’ll excuse us for a moment, I trust?”
Shane turns his hands up toward the ceiling. “Certainly. One of those mysterious huddles the beautiful boys are always having. What was it this time? A little snort of Miss Tina?”
Jeff ignores him and pulls me by the arm off to the other side of the dance floor. He looks me straight in the eyes.
“Lloyd is buying a guest house,” he tells me. “A bed-and-breakfast.”
“Jeff, I’m a little too twisted to play non sequiturs with you.”
“Listen
to me, Henry. He’s buying it with that woman. Since when has he ever wanted to buy a
guest house?”
“What woman?” I ask.
“The one he wanted us to go see tonight and get sent back to the Dark Ages with.”
I laugh. “Well, a bed-and-breakfast might be a fun thing to do.”
Jeff scoffs. “Get a
grip,
Henry. It’s a shit-load of work. You ask any of the guest-house owners in Provincetown. What’s Lloyd want
that
for?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you should ask
him.”
“I couldn’t. He stormed off in a huff when I didn’t jump up and down and shout ‘Yippee!’ ”
I fold my arms across my chest. “And the reason you didn’t, Jeff, is because you were hoping he’d move back in with you in Boston. Admit it.”
Jeff scoffs again. “He can do what he likes.” God, I hate when Jeff’s disingenuous. He thinks he’s fooling people, but he’s just so obvious. He sniffs, “I just think he’s in over his head. He doesn’t realize all the work it’s going to be.”
“Look, Jeff.” I get up close to him so that our eyes are no more than a few inches apart. “You read my lips for a change. You want things to be the way they used to be with Lloyd. Admit it. Make it easier on everybody.”
Jeff sighs. His eyes can’t lie, not so close to mine. I step back, suddenly uncomfortable with our proximity.
“Well, it’s a moot point now,” he says.
“Go find him before he leaves,” I tell him. “You will be miserable to be around if the two of you have a fight.”
He sighs.
I give him a shove.
“Go.
Work it out. And if you’re going to leave with him, at least come back and say good-bye.”
Suddenly, Shane is hovering over us. “Are you through plotting to take over the world and exile all of us uglies to Antarctica?”
“Excuse me,” I snap, annoyed, “but we’re talking here.”
Shane winks and withdraws a few feet.
Jeff can’t resist a smile. “I think the Windex queen is hot for you, Henry.”
I roll my eyes. “Jeff, he offered to
pay
me.”
“Pay you?”
“Shhhhh.
Yes. Pay me.”
Jeff looks stunned.
“You?
He wants to pay
you?”
I make a face at him. “You don’t have to act like it’s so incomprehensible.”
Jeff laughs. “So you gonna
let
him?”
I suddenly can’t answer. I just keep looking back and forth between Jeff and Shane, surprised by how much the idea fascinates me. After all, Jeff and Lloyd are in the midst of one of their
things
—I sure can’t count on
them
being around the rest of the night. And I don’t particularly relish the idea of being alone on the first night of the new millennium, either.
Jeff’s acting distracted again. “You’re right, buddy,” he says, looking back into the crowd. “I
should
go find Lloyd.”
“Then go.”
He turns to leave, then spins back. He pulls me to him, embracing me tightly. “Just be careful, buddy, okay?” he looks at me intently. “I love you, you know.”
I feel my throat tighten.
See why he’s my best friend?
I watch as he heads shoulder-first into the throng. I take a long breath, keeping my eyes on him until he’s disappeared. I’m not even aware of Shane stealthily moving back beside me.
“So how about it?” he whispers in my ear.
I look up at him. He’s not
that
bad-looking. Ordinary. The way I used to be, before Jeff.
“Let’s dance,” I say, taking Shane’s hand and leading him back onto the dance floor.

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