Incidentally
I was a humdrum person leading a life apart
when love flew in through my window wide
and quickened my humdrum heart...
I was so happy then
but after love had stayed a little while
love flew out again
what is this thing called love
this funny thing
called love
just who can solve its mystery
why should it make
a fool of me?
- Cole Porter
They were sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea and eating toast, chatting about the latest incident.
“It was
embarrassing. I felt very lonely, and a bit ridiculous. And I’ve never really
felt loneliness before, not like that. Up until now it has always been
solitude, never loneliness.”
Dennis
concealed his light laughter, and whispered, “It happens to everyone. Don’t
worry about it.” Martin was not at all comforted by his words, and despite his
closest friend’s effort to conceal his mirth he could tell that Dennis found it
all very amusing.
“I can’t stop
thinking about how sad it looked, just lying there on the floor, all soft and
broken. It was humiliating.”
As he spoke
he looked closely at the lines on Dennis’s face, and reached over to touch one
of them, his favorite one - just like the old days when they were young lovers
- the line just above the bridge of his nose, the first one he had noticed over
a decade ago. It was deeper now, and cut across otherwise taut flesh like a
tiny ravine - no longer a thoroughfare running seamlessly from above his
beautiful eyebrows to the tip of his long, perfectly shaped, oddly aquiline
proboscis - having become, metaphorically speaking, over the years, a bridge
without bridge.
Dennis gently
took Martin’s hand from his own brow and kissed it - “my dear, dear friend. You
have so much to live for. Try not to let these little things bother you. Let’s
just get ready for our weekend adventure and put the memory of soft broken
things behind us. They’re incidental, just props filling our lives with
material clutter. Forget them.”
But he
couldn’t. Everything bothered Martin in those days. He would fidget and moan,
all by himself, about the smallest things. Nothing seemed to work out the way
he wanted it to, and when he dropped his breakfast on the floor that morning,
all alone in his one bedroom apartment, it just seemed so sad. The plate had
broken into four perfect pieces, like a pie, and the eggs were soft and runny
on the worn out parquet floor.
“You’ve said
it yourself Dennis. You know you have. Food, people handling and eating food.
There is something very vulnerable and sad in that. We can dress ourselves up
and go out to dinner and eat slowly and carefully and appear to be in complete
control of everything around us - the knives and the forks, the spoons and the
wine goblets, the perfectly laundered white napkins. But underneath it all is
such a humiliating fragility, and when something unexpected and catastrophic
does occur, and the food flies, well, there is nothing sadder than the look on
people’s faces. One minute they are enjoying a meal and the next minute they
are helpless and the menu is all over the bloody place, and more often than not, all over them, and that's the worst of it - on their clothes and their arms and God forbid, all over their face.
And that is how I felt this morning, and I need you to take it seriously. I know there are more important things to consider, but it was my last free range egg and my last garlic poppyseed bagel and my last packet of ketchup stolen from Wendy’s, and I just wanted to enjoy them on my own before I embarked on this annual, ill-conceived weekend at the godforsaken beach with a bunch of close friends I’ve grown to barely tolerate. Couldn’t you have just gently consoled me and left it at that instead of some prosaic little bit of fluff about the memory of soft broken things. You are such a fucking poet sometimes.”
And that is how I felt this morning, and I need you to take it seriously. I know there are more important things to consider, but it was my last free range egg and my last garlic poppyseed bagel and my last packet of ketchup stolen from Wendy’s, and I just wanted to enjoy them on my own before I embarked on this annual, ill-conceived weekend at the godforsaken beach with a bunch of close friends I’ve grown to barely tolerate. Couldn’t you have just gently consoled me and left it at that instead of some prosaic little bit of fluff about the memory of soft broken things. You are such a fucking poet sometimes.”
Dennis
laughed out loud and made no attempt whatsoever to ameliorate his friend’s
anxiety and mild disgust.
“You are such
a diva my dear, such a diva. And you call me the poet! Now cut it out and get
ready or I’ll leave without you.”
About an hour
later Dennis left on his own. Martin was nowhere to be found in the tiny
apartment. He must have stormed out. Funny, Dennis didn’t hear the door close.
He just looked in all the rooms, through the glass on the balcony door, and
then sat in the kitchen, finished his tea, and waited for half an hour, and
when nothing happened he looked around and realized his friend was really gone.
Then he heard some shouting on the street ten floors below and he got up and
left, without him.
*
“You should
have seen the look on his face. It was heartbreaking. But I couldn’t take it
seriously. It was a goddamn egg on a bagel and he made such a fuss about it.
And the plate broke - it was uncanny - broken in four perfect pieces,
like a pie. I’m sure he’ll call soon and one of us can drive back into the city
to get him. He is such a diva sometimes. But I wish he were here right now.
Dinner conversation is never the same without him.”
Dennis had
left Martin’s building by the side door, closer to where he had parked his car,
so he had no idea what the ruckus was all about out front. Probably some
vagrant having a full out fit on the sidewalk. He didn’t approve of the way
Martin always stopped and chatted with them, gave them whatever change he had
in his pockets, sometimes even bills, and he never seemed in the least put out
by their presence and their scavenging ways.
“If people
have not managed their affairs properly then they deserve to suffer.”
When Dennis
had said this to Martin, the week before the egg & bagel incident, it had
served as a liberating missive that Martin would take note of and refuse to
forget for quite some time. Instead of paying Dennis back for the
hundred-dollar loan to get his phone re-connected he freed himself from the
drudgery of a minor debt to someone who didn’t need the money urgently and sent
the cash to a friend who was having a difficult time making ends meet. She had
lost fingers to a crippling form of arthritis and needed extra money in her
hands right away, so she got it and Dennis didn’t.
It seemed to make sense as far as Martin was concerned, and it made him feel like a contemporary Robin Hood.
But Dennis was by no means rich, just a little comfortable, for the time being. Dennis and Martin and all their close friends were in for a challenging future as gay old men without an excess of resources and no savings to speak of. For now all they could do was go on living and enjoying whatever they could. A weekend at the beach in a rented cabin big enough for five, but shared by the seven of them. Of course, there were the two little tents and it would be a mad lovely midsummer treat they could ill afford. But now there were only six, and they spent a good deal of time lamenting Martin’s absence.
It seemed to make sense as far as Martin was concerned, and it made him feel like a contemporary Robin Hood.
But Dennis was by no means rich, just a little comfortable, for the time being. Dennis and Martin and all their close friends were in for a challenging future as gay old men without an excess of resources and no savings to speak of. For now all they could do was go on living and enjoying whatever they could. A weekend at the beach in a rented cabin big enough for five, but shared by the seven of them. Of course, there were the two little tents and it would be a mad lovely midsummer treat they could ill afford. But now there were only six, and they spent a good deal of time lamenting Martin’s absence.
Kevin was the
first to speak up.
“Dennis, you
dickhead! Why the hell did you leave him there in the first place?”
Dennis tried
to defend himself but felt sheepish and guilty. He knew it was all his fault.
“I couldn’t find him. One minute he’s in the kitchen drinking tea and eating
toast with me and the next minute he’s gone. I didn’t hear the door close. He
must have just stormed out, quietly, like he does.”
Kevin knew
they must have been fighting about something. They always did. “Well you
shouldn’t have argued with him. We all came for him, and now he’s not even
here, and it’s your fucking fault. Asshole!”
Dennis wiped
a single tear from his eye and gulped back the rest of his hefty gin and tonic.
“He’ll show up. Trust me. He always does, at the most unexpected moment."
Maev threw
her arms in the air and laughed and laughed and told the two of them to shut
the fuck up.
“Drink up
boys. We’re having a bonfire soon, and you two are cut off. One hot dog each
and a couple of marshmallows and then you’re both driving into the city and
finding him and bringing him here.”
They knew
there was no point in arguing. She always got her way, Maev did. And who had a
name like that anyway? They were all such inbred waspy creatures. A woman
in their midst, with a mind of her own and the body of an Amazonian huntress -
tits the size of perfectly formed flotation devices - was a welcome
distraction from their whiny ways. Kevin often remarked that they all objectified her and took her for granted, and all she had to say was, "Well sport, men always take me for granted, at least when they're gay I can objectify them too and feel really good about it. You're all gorgeous and funny and bitchy and kind and I just love being around you." And then she would kiss Kevin, long and sensuously, and thank God for bisexuality. They all knew that the two of them screwed a few times over the course of their annual summer beach weekend but no one said a word, except for the odd remark over dinner and the obvious misogynist food metaphors, but that was another matter entirely, one that Maev always took complete control of. "You're all a bunch of pussies but at least I've got one. Keep your clams shut while Kevin fills mine!" They were all a little jealous of him even though they had their reservations about what they mistook for his decidedly undecided sexuality. Kevin knew what he wanted, and got it whenever he put his mind to it.
*
Dennis
grabbed the gin bottle and exclaimed - his baby-ish bravado trying to hide the fact that he did feel guilty for leaving Martin behind - “Fine we’ll go get him, while you all lounge around here sucking each other's cocks. But not before
sunset. I’m not missing a single god damn sunset for anyone. And I wouldn't mind a blowjob, one for the road, in place of my second gin and tonic. Anybody handy?” They all just laughed but knew that Kevin would give him one in the driver's seat, on the straight and narrow of an empty highway, before they hit the city streets. Maev knew, everyone knew. The orgiastic nature of their seasonal festivities. It was just one of those things - those funny things, that flew in their windows wide, made them happy, then flew out again. What was this thing. They all knew exactly what it was, among them, thriving even in middle age. It was love.
And the
sunset was just such a breathtaking cliché.
The six of
them sat in the sand at the edge of the front lawn and just stared in silence
until Greg broke the perfect scene with his raffish bark. “Will you look at
that eh. It’s bee-you-tee-full. Our Nana always said it like that,
bee-yoo-tee-full, whether she was talking about a great view or the taste of
apple pie. We would take her to a smorgasbord, she always pronounced it
smogasborg, and she’d try one of every dessert, would put them all on the same
plate, and then sit down at the table in the restaurant and pick away at them
all, one at a time, until they were gone, like she was devouring the finest
delicacies on earth, and it was usually just a bunch of green jello cubes and a
tart and a dried up piece of cake.”
Billy dove
right in to the middle of Greg’s monologue, like he always did. “You’re
exaggerating you crazy old fuck. I was there. Our Nana was the sweetest woman
on earth and those desserts were delicacies to her, and they weren’t dried up.
She enjoyed them. Don’t make fun of her. And by the way, she hated jello.”
“I’m not
making fun. I love that memory. We don’t have the same fuckin memory, okay.
Have yours bitch and I’ll have mine, for Christ’s sake.”
“Oh you two
just be quiet. Brothers in love. Fuck. You squabble like an old married couple.
Enjoy the god damn sunset.”
And before
Maev was finished admonishing two of her favorite men the last blaze of light
dipped below the cloud and resonated in pale mauve highlights along the edge of
the lake’s blurred horizon. It wasn’t a full sunset because of the clouds
hanging low against the edge of the water. But it was just as beautiful, with
the remnants of the sun giving the top edge of the clouds a piecing outline, like
a line of flames sinking into the west. Gary was the quietest of them all and
no one noticed when he took snapshots of those final moments - the laughing
faces, the loving argumentative glances, the bee-yoo-tee-ful incomplete sunset
and the barely defined horizon line. With a cheap digital camera, blighted by
sand caught in the lens, he managed to capture those sentimental, grainy moments just before
the orange became a soft yellow with hazy shafts of light shooting upward and
making him feel silly because sunsets like this made Gary think of heaven, and
he didn’t believe in heaven. But he liked to take pictures that reminded him of
the things he couldn’t quite grasp - or even begin to imagine being possible.
*
No one knew
who started it, the fire, just after midnight, that burned through the middle
of the wooden steps to the empty cabin just beyond the edge of their rented
property. But they were all afraid they would have to pay for it. The bonfire
had been put out. Sparks would never have flown that far from the beach,
everyone was a little drunk, and Dennis and Kevin had already left for the city
to find Martin a full hour before the flames began. Luckily Billy caught it
quickly and had it out with a small fire extinguisher within minutes. But it
caused quite a stir among late night partiers who ran screaming from their own
little patch of beach to the rental office to disclose their fear that
someone’s cabin was burning to the ground. It could have been so much worse.
They all awoke to the shouts of the rental manager’s wife banging on the front
door of their cabin and demanding to be let in.
“I
want you all out of here.”
It might have
been Billy shrieking in his out of tune bass to his favorite lyric, one that he
felt defined this group of people that he loved so much, and was spending the weekend with.
But he did get a couple of bizarre photos of the little porch on fire just
before he doused it. He borrowed Gary’s little digital just after they finished
making out, and grinding against the side of a tree, on their way to bed. They
always flirted but never fucked. Gary headed straight to his room while Billy
lingered outdoors.
“I just want
to take a few shots of the moon. Please.”
He hated
loaning his camera, but he couldn’t say no to Billy.
As he fell
asleep Gary smiled at the memory of those loud, throaty, ghoulish sounds, made even
more bizarre by Billy’s wavering low voice, making a decidedly butch/femme plea
for membership in their bizarre little clan-
“Sing
around the campfire! Join the campfire girls!”
Yes, indeed,
that might have tipped someone off about the little fire and sent them running
to the rental office with false ammunition. It wasn’t their fault. It was a
match that one of the unknown lovers dropped as they left the empty cabin,
lighting a cigarette and carelessly letting it fall under the steps as he
quietly made his exit with his two unlikely bedfellows in tow.
It had just
been a tiny illegal bonfire. They shielded it with their beach umbrellas and
only let it blaze for less than half an hour, long enough for a few marshmallows each and
a couple of campfire ditties. But it was enough to make everyone think it was all
their fault, and send them packing in the middle of the night in search of a
motel during a busy summer weekend.
When Dennis
and Kevin got back to the lake without Martin they were already frantic. The
empty cabin, and the absence of their friends, was just too much for them to
take in. The manager heard them shouting around three a.m. and came running
over to their cabin, still anxious over the fire and his wife’s rage about these
loud, negligent summer guests he always gave a discount for no good reason at
all.
“Your friends
are gone, to the Bluewater Motel, just down the road. Tell them I’m sorry, it
wasn’t their fault. I figured it out. There was a little fire. Don’t ask. Trust
me. I won’t charge you the rental fee. Now get out of here. I’ve had enough
summer fun bullshit for one night.”
Kevin was
crying by this time and the manager felt bad that his wife had unwittingly put
the blame in the wrong place. He looked sheepish, and very recent memories
filled his heart.
“Okay, get
them. Bring them back here. I’ll give you the weekend free, and next summer
too. Okay? Sorry.”
Dennis put
his arm on Kevin’s shoulder, thanked the manager, and tried to comfort his
friend.
“I’ll call
Billy on his cell. We won’t have to go there. They’ll come back, and we can
tell them then. I hope he has it turned on.”
They were
back within twenty minutes. The front room lights to the cabin were all on as
they straggled in, still a little drunk and very tired.
Maev was the
first to speak. “Well, this weekend is really turning out well. Where’s
Martin?”
Kevin was
trying to suppress his grief but Maev’s voice always made him emotional, at the
best of times. He just started sobbing.
Gary rushed
over to comfort Kevin and blurted out, “What the fuck’s going on? Where is he?
What’s happened? Is he okay?”
If there had
been a staircase in the cabin it would have made Martin’s entrance so much more
thrilling -
“I’m fine.
But I seem to be the one who always gets called the diva. You bunch of depraved
queens. What on earth are you going on about? I’m fine, see - me, my robe, and all
my luggage, and my very generous picnic basket that I lugged here on public transportation, it was disgusting - we are all perfectly fine, and we’re thrilled to finally be here among all
you glorious assholes.”
Martin had
come out of the small bedroom in his underwear, dragging a satin robe behind
him, looking very thin, yet elegant, just at that stage where one looks like
they’ve lost a bit of weight, before the gaunt unhealthy period threatens to
set in. But he would bounce back. He always did, so far.
Dennis’s
first impulse was anger.
“We thought
you were dead you prick. Where the fuck were you when I left the co-op?”
“I was on the
balcony shithead.”
“You were
not. I looked there. You were gone.”
“The roof
balcony. I went to cut some basil to bring up here and when I got back I
figured you just threw one of your random fits and left without me. So I took
the fucking bus. And there was bit of a, well, ruckus, downstairs when I got
back and I couldn’t rush out to find you. It was awful. But I am not going to
talk about any of that. Let’s salvage what’s left of this little weekend
fiasco.”
“What
happened?”
“Someone
jumped. Okay, are you happy now? Someone jumped from their fucking balcony in
the middle of a hot summer afternoon and landed in the goddamn flowerbed. It
was just awful. And the poor victim was just so badly dressed. There, are you satisfied? I told you. And it’s made me feel sick and
I’m going to bed.”
“Thank God.
We all thought it was you.”
“What?”
Dennis
pointed accusingly at the rest of them as he lowered his voice and began to
feel relief and sympathy for the whole incredible series of events. “They all
made us, me and Kevin, go back to the city to find you, and when we got there
some people were still up, sitting on the curb at the front of your place,
drinking and chatting and some of them were crying. We overheard them talking.
We thought they meant you. They were talking about a suicide. They didn’t even
know the person. One of them thought it was you but had no idea where the body
had been taken. So we just came back here, to break the news to everyone.”
“Oh for
Christ’s sake. You know I’m not suicidal. I took the depression test and scored very high on the
non-depressive side, and I told all of you all about it at the bar last friday.
I just have very infrequent suicidal thoughts. That’s normal. I’ve lived long enough, longer than I expected to. My life has been thrilling. It’s been just great, but I just would like it to end, while I am still moderately young -
quietly, beautifully, like a movie, like a fucking sunset!. But I’m not going to make it end in some broken bloody heap in a poorly manicured flower bed. The poor dear. Oh God. That’s
tacky, and way too glamourous for assholes like all of you to understand.”
“You were just so sad this morning, about dropping your breakfast on the floor.”
“Yes. I was,
and you were no help, so I just left the apartment to take my mind off of your
very predictable insensitivity and I picked a shit load of fresh basil, in a
cute little basket with a calico napkin to line it. We can have it tomorrow
with tomatoes and bocconcini. I hope someone brought balsamic and olive oil. I
told someone to. I can’t remember who.”
“Dennis
hugged Martin and whispered in his ear, “I brought the oil and vinegar
sweetheart. It’s all good.”
“Well then,
perfect, I’m making omelettes with fresh salmon, Caesar salad, and cubed canteloupe. We’ll have a very late brunch, around five.”
Between bouts
of laughter Maev was yawning, and interjected, as she kissed Martin on the
cheek - “Okay boys, I’m off to bed. This has been a fabulous first evening. A
fire, an unfashionable, faux suicide, and the promise of a delicious late brunch. Nothing
can top this.”
*
Topping the
events that had already taken place would be difficult, but three secret lovers
were trying to do just that. Topping, bottoming, sucking, kissing, the whole
eight-and-a-half yards. They had jumped up into the little landing at the top
of the burned broken steps and scrambled back into the cabin. Naked on the soft
sandy floorboards where their initial meeting had begun, laughing softly, they
all agreed it was time to turn on their signature tune on the little CD player,
very low so no one would hear. Debby Boone sang out loud and clear, like the
naughty zealot she was raised to be by her Hollywood daddy and her tongues
speaking Mama.
Rolling at sea,
Adrift on the
waters.
Could it be finally
I'm turning
for home?
Finally, a chance
too say,
"Hey, I love you,"
Never again
to be all alone.
It can't be wrong,
when it feels
so right.
'Cause you...
You light up my life
Their lips
were full and damp as their arms and legs became a triangular bacchanalian
retreat from everything their lives expected of them. It wasn’t unusual, when
they were together, to find more than one member installed in a single orifice.
The cabin was risky but they couldn’t resist. They would just lock
themselves in the back bedroom and let loose, quietly and passionately. It had
always been the same set of cabins, for ten summers now. They thought of
looking into other rentals but this one was known, predictable, comfortable,
and cheap. Only two of them knew that the rates were much higher for other
renters. Their first summer there had started the tryst and it just never let
up. Even as they grew older their lust never faltered. He would even come into
the city once or twice during the winter to see them at their bar and it would
end in a hotel room nearby. It wasn’t something he expected so late in life,
but it was a thrilling respite from the comfort of a small, tourist town life he loved
but was a little bored with.
Even in their drunken summer reveries it was always safe, more romantic than sexual, more kind than kin. They knew each others bodies well, and fit together like a womb of forbidden comfort. The grooves and fissures that made their erotic affections complete were carefully and tenderly navigated with fingers, mouths, flavored lubricant and durable condoms - lips and tongues so fully integrated into each others bodies it was hard to tell, at certain moments, who was who. Yes indeed, there was always a risk, but they had felt, from the very beginning, that is was well worth the effortless effort.
Even in their drunken summer reveries it was always safe, more romantic than sexual, more kind than kin. They knew each others bodies well, and fit together like a womb of forbidden comfort. The grooves and fissures that made their erotic affections complete were carefully and tenderly navigated with fingers, mouths, flavored lubricant and durable condoms - lips and tongues so fully integrated into each others bodies it was hard to tell, at certain moments, who was who. Yes indeed, there was always a risk, but they had felt, from the very beginning, that is was well worth the effortless effort.
And after
Martin’s safe return - they saw him from their tents as he straggled in - no
one cared who was absent when Dennis & Kevin returned and the whole misunderstanding was cleared up.
They - the secret lovers - always brought their own little tents and slept at the edge of the property - just got out of the car after arriving form the motel and fled to their canvas solitudes. And the stocky, sexy, hairy little rental manager would quietly slip out of bed, like clockwork, his wife of thirty years sound asleep beside him, and join the unlikely campers in the only unrented cabin on site, always set aside for their secret rendezvous. They didn't usually do it twice in a single night. And he only hoped, after all the ruckus about the little fire, that this time he would not light a cigarette and drop the match carelessly under the broken steps once they had finished making love. Hopefully the snapshots from Gary’s cheap little borrowed digital wouldn’t reveal the names embossed in gold on the matchbook from the bar that two of them owned together.
A book of matches - the incidental material trappings of a successful family business. It had its perks - and its drawbacks.
They - the secret lovers - always brought their own little tents and slept at the edge of the property - just got out of the car after arriving form the motel and fled to their canvas solitudes. And the stocky, sexy, hairy little rental manager would quietly slip out of bed, like clockwork, his wife of thirty years sound asleep beside him, and join the unlikely campers in the only unrented cabin on site, always set aside for their secret rendezvous. They didn't usually do it twice in a single night. And he only hoped, after all the ruckus about the little fire, that this time he would not light a cigarette and drop the match carelessly under the broken steps once they had finished making love. Hopefully the snapshots from Gary’s cheap little borrowed digital wouldn’t reveal the names embossed in gold on the matchbook from the bar that two of them owned together.
A book of matches - the incidental material trappings of a successful family business. It had its perks - and its drawbacks.
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