Above The Thunder Part 3

Jane had met Leila as a result of Katrina, who had begun to leave thinly veiled threats on Jane's answering machine and notes on her car. Leila was the one who intervened andhelped Jane get a restraining order.

One of Jane's most curious traits was that though she had a hard time leaving relations.h.i.+ps, she didn't get involved quickly or fall in love very readily. She had pitch-perfect intuition when it came to people, including her own lovers, until she fell in love and her clear-eyed judgment turned fuzzy and myopic.

Jack and Stuart had high hopes for Leila, trusting Jane's a.s.sessment of her. They were expecting an Audrey Hepburn look-alike with the soul of an Earhart and the heart of Mother Teresa. What they saw was a woman-a girl, really-dark-haired and dour, whose face was so tight and immobile that it seemed to absorb all the light in the room without reflecting anything back. She was low-key to the point of no-key, answered their questions with shrugs and monosyllables. She was bossy and moody. There was nothing about her that gave a clue as to why Jane was so crazy about her. Even when Jane came over without Leila, she never really relaxed; she had become a clock-watcher, worried about getting home in time so as not to upset Leila, who would begin calling all their friends two minutes after Jane was due in. It surely wouldn't last, Stuart thought-Jane was probably finis.h.i.+ng something leftover from Katrina. From his experience, you expressed in a new relations.h.i.+p the part of yourself that was repressed in the last. Although Jane seemed just as submissive as she had with Katrina, Stuart suspected this time it was out of choice and not fear.

"So, what?" Jack was saying now. "What exactly do you want to explore with us? Though I'd be willing to bet it's anatomical."

Jane laughed. Leila looked stricken. "Just as I suspected," Leila said. "Gay men, straight men, it makes no difference in the end. They all a.s.sume we're interested in their p.e.n.i.ses."

"Have you ever been interested in that? It seems to me you wouldn't recognize a p.e.n.i.s if it jumped up in your soup," Jack said.

"Hey," Stuart said, warning, "hey."

Jane draped her arm across the back of Leila's chair.

"Anyway, prove me wrong," Jack said, and raised his eyebrows.

Jane looked at Leila, took a deep breath. "Well, as you know, Leila and I are sure we'll have a lifelong partners.h.i.+p." She paused, took a sip of wine, then drained her gla.s.s. Stuart refilled it. They all looked at Jane nervously, even Leila, who was watching her partner as curiously as Jack and Stuart were.

"We desperately want a child. I can think of nothing finer than raising a child with Leila."

Jack smirked at Stuart. Stuart looked away.

"I'm getting toward the outer edge of my child-bearing years," Jane said. "It's now or never."

"You'd be the one to get knocked up?" Jack said. "Or, excuse me, impregnated?"

"Yes."

"Wouldn't it make more sense for Leila to be the biological mother?" Stuart asked.

Leila looked at him suspiciously. "Of course we considered that," she said.

"My genetic profile is stronger," Jane said. "Leila's maternal line is marred by breast cancer and alcoholism. I come from Polish peasant stock. We live forever."

"This is a serious thing," Jack said. "It wouldn't be a simple donation. We'd want shared custody. It would be our child, too." Stuart looked at Jack, confused, then shocked. He seemed to be genuinely entertaining the idea. "After all, Stuart and I are just as committed a couple as the two of you, not to mention the fact that we've been together ten times as long.... Bringing a baby into this messy mix would mean that the four of us are bound together for the rest of our lives. That's what you need to think about. Not a sc.r.a.p of DNA will leave my pants until there's a custody arrangement on paper, probated, in advance."

They all stared at Jack. Clearly, the women hadn't expected this kind of response. Stuart was baffled, though thrilled with Jack's ironclad a.s.sertion of their coupledom.

No one spoke for several minutes.

"Who's ready for some dessert and a dram of Grand Marnier?" Stuart went into the kitchen and fixed the desserts and drinks on a tray.

When he returned to the dining room, only Leila was sitting there. Jack and Jane were on the balcony outside, sharing a cigarette.

"They'll be back in a minute," she said. "So, what do you think of the idea, Stuart?"

He shrugged. "Jack and I need to talk about it."

"But, separate from Jack, how do you feel about the idea of children?"

"Well, quite frankly, I can't imagine not having them eventually. But I'm not convinced this is the right route. I can certainly see myself adopting a child someday."

Leila fell silent. They watched Jane and Jack pa.s.sing the cigarette back and forth between them like a couple of high school delinquents. Stuart felt a pang of something-not jealousy or regret, but something about seeing Jack with a woman evoked the life he always a.s.sumed he would have. As a boy, his secret shame had been how much he desired the conventional life, how envious he was of the way girls could be so forthright about their longings for motherhood and marriage. More than anything, he wanted to be in a life-long partners.h.i.+p and to be a father. His was a rare family: his parents had been happily married, and his three siblings were all married now with children of their own. When Stuart left Roberta and moved in with Jack, his mother knew what that meant. Anyway, she told him, she'd always suspected. "I don't have a problem with it. I think love of any kind makes the world just a little bit better, don't you?" she said.

Instead of being relieved and grateful he was a little depressed, as though everybody but him had known all along. He occasionally wondered if he made the right decision leaving Roberta: he didn't love her the way men typically loved women, but would his love for the children he would have had with her been as strong as his love for Jack?

This was silly. He was just indulging in self-pity. He was lucky. Not many people felt for someone what he felt for Jack.

"We were just debating the turkey baster method versus the time-honored way," Jack said, stepping in with Jane. She looked weary all of a sudden.

"Dessert is served," Stuart said, pa.s.sing around the plates.

Jack took a big mouthful of creme brulee. "Delicious, darling. What I think is, we have a game of naked Twister first, Steppenwolf or Golden Earring on the stereo. Everybody with me so far? Then, Stuart and I go do our thing in the bedroom, mixing it together. Then both of you baste yourselves. That way we're leaving something to G.o.d." Jack winked at Stuart.

Leila sighed, held up her hands and turned to Jane. "What did I tell you? I knew they wouldn't take this seriously."

"We'll talk about it later," Jane said.

"Well, anyway, it's something we all have to think about," Stuart said.

Leila pushed her dessert away, untouched. "Are you about ready, Jane?"

They took their brandies to the balcony after the women left. The breeze was cool, smelled like rain. Stuart felt himself relax listening to the steady hum of traffic on the street below. "I have to ask, Jack. Were you serious? Is this something you want us to think about?"

Jack lit a cigar, tipped his head back to exhale the smoke. "No. I mean, I knew those d.y.k.es were coming here to ask that and I didn't take it seriously. But then I thought, here we are. I make good money. I know how much you love children. We're stable. Certainly ten times more stable than those two. I give Leila six months before she truly goes psycho. But I know one thing: I don't want a child with Leila and Jane. I love Jane, but I can't stand the women she dates."

Stuart reached for the cigar, took a puff. "We could adopt."

He poured another half-gla.s.s of brandy. "It's not politically correct to say this, I suppose, but it's our child or no child. In my Eden, anyway. I mean, my urges to parent are not so desperate that I'll be daddy to a legless r.e.t.a.r.ded Chinese orphan."

"Jack, for G.o.d's sake."

"I'm a pig, I'm sorry."

"Anyway, we don't have to talk about it now. Unlike Jane, we have nothing but time."

Jack looked over at him, then quickly away, his expression impenetrable.

"Feel okay?" Stuart asked.

"Yeah." He reached over and squeezed Stuart's hand. "I forgot to feed the bird."

"Okay. I'll do it before we go to bed. I'm about ready to turn in, how about you?"

"Pretty soon. I want to finish my cigar."

Stuart kissed him goodnight. "I'll set the alarm for seven." He went in and fed Loki, ran water in the sink to soak the saucepans and skillets, then slipped into bed after swallowing a melatonin tablet. Between the brandy and the cigar, his stomach was queasy. He grabbed a book and sat up, heard Jack puttering around the living room and the melancholy strains of Chet Baker on the stereo.

Stuart smelled cigar smoke, which meant Jack must be having another and would be up for a while. He'd thought they would make love tonight-the renewed sense of togetherness in the presence of Jane and Leila, the warm pressure of Jack's hand in his. It had been almost a month. Not that he was counting. Well, he was counting, but he was trying not to let it bother him. Jack had insomnia. He was working too hard. Trying to build a good client base and subsequently taking too much on. Stuart shouldn't take it personally, Jack told him, but how could he not? Tomorrow he would start running again for sure. No excuses. Make himself so gorgeous Jack wouldn't be able to take his eyes away, insomnia, work pressure, or not.

He tried to concentrate on his book-an anthropological study of African Bushmen called The Harmless People. The cigar smoke seemed to be getting stronger, aggravating his nausea, the kind that signaled a migraine. "I smell smoke," he called in.

"What, darling?" Jack yelled back.

Stuart sighed. They still hadn't gotten used to living in a townhouse this size; in San Francisco their apartment was so small they could hold conversations in normal voices while in different rooms. "You're smoking in the house!"

"It's too chilly to smoke outside."

"You're going to kill the bird."

"I'm about through."

"Please put it out, Jack, or take it outside. The smell is making me sick. Are you coming in?"

"What, dear?' He called back.

Stuart closed the bedroom door, didn't bother to answer. He made sure the alarm was set, flicked off the light and fell asleep almost immediately.

At two o'clock, Jack was still awake. He was so far from sleep that he didn't even bother going in to lie down. He had another brandy, read through the current issue of Details and Stuart's Vanity Fair, sliced and fried two more plantains, which he then had no appet.i.te for. He flicked on the TV, found nothing in the sixty-four channels that interested him, turned it off, turned the stereo back on-Coltrane, this time-and when even that didn't work, he went to the last measure, the foolproof guarantee to settle and relax him, a Robert Mitchum video. Night of the Hunter was his favorite, and hadn't yet failed to mesmerize him even after dozens of times through it. He nuked a bag of microwave popcorn, brewed some tea, and put the movie in.

But he couldn't concentrate, even after fast-forwarding to his favorite scenes. The popcorn tasted rancid. Everything lately, come to think of it, tasted off.

Jack tiptoed to the bedroom door, heard Stuart breathing deeply, then walked back into the living room. Even the bird was asleep.

He picked up his car keys. Gillian Welch had recently come out with a new CD and Jack had been meaning to get it for a while. Now might be a good time to find a late-night music store, to have something fresh to listen to.

Jack was sweating and dizzy by the time he got to the street. He walked past his car and knew as he did that he had no intention of shopping for CDs; for three hours he'd been talking himself out of what he was now about to do. The magazines, the videos, were like trying to stop a spillway with paper plates. It was like a craving for a drug, this restlessness in him. Years ago, when he used c.o.ke, this was exactly the feeling he remembered, this hollowness nothing but the drug could fill and which refused to budge even when he distracted himself in any way possible. Everything that wasn't the drug knocked against the steel need of it.

He was just walking, just taking a walk in the direction of the Korean grocery. He was equally divided in his desire for the boy to be there and not be there.

There were times lately when he felt nothing but extreme self-hatred-like he could kill himself without a second thought-or pure nothingness, as though his brain translated the rich textures of the world into a blank. He was empty at the center, his life without edges or direction.

He slowed as he neared the grocery, then stopped. He stared in the window at the jars of tiger balm and green tea. He glanced to the left and right, saw that the streets were empty. Relieved, Jack turned to go just as the boy stepped from around the side of the building. His mouth was turned up in a sneer and he flicked his cigarette into the street in a way that was both laughable and touching, a boyish imitation of something from a movie.

"How you doing," the boy said. He stepped closer to Jack, so close that Jack could smell his skin-musky and fresh in the way only a young man can smell, a combination Jack always thought of as fresh hay and nervous sweat. "Wasn't sure you were coming," the boy said.

Jack winced. This made it sound so planned. What Jack said earlier when he met the boy in front of the grocery was, "maybe I'll see you around sometime." He certainly didn't arrange a date. Jack looked back in the shop window, not sure now about the signals: earlier the boy had been loitering at this corner, caught Jack's eye and smiled as Jack walked into the store. The boy was beautiful in his white tank s.h.i.+rt and gym shorts, his skin light brown, but gold, too, so smooth Jack's mouth watered with a craving so achingly intense he had to lean against Mrs. Kim's meat cases and pretend to be studying the bizarre animal parts-pig's feet, hooves, and what looked to be half of a cow's head shrink-wrapped on a Styrofoam tray, its gla.s.sy eye as dark as a child's bedtime.

The boy was Hispanic-or part Hispanic. He had the fine-boned features of northern Spain, sculpted cheekbones and a broad, high forehead. His hair was black and curly, cut just above his ears. Jack was halfway in love because of those ears-delicate and pearly as sh.e.l.ls-and those blindingly white and even teeth. The boy's body was nearly hairless, as far as Jack could tell, except for the fine down on his legs and arms.

Back outside, he stopped Jack and asked for a light. Jack found some matches, and lit the boy's cigarette, then b.u.mmed one of the Winstons for himself. The boy's hands were perfectly manicured, his fingers long and brown. They talked about the weather, the heat, and Jack made a joke of the Dahmer-type meat case inside.

But now Jack wasn't sure. Was the kid a professional? Surely Mrs. Kim would never allow this, would have spotted him at a hundred yards and called the cops if the boy had been there longer than five minutes.

Jack turned to the boy who was watching him intently. "What's your name?"

"Hector." He put out his hand. Jack shook it.

"Would you like to walk with me?"

"Where?" Hector said.

"The park?"

"Do you have a car? A car's better."

"I do. Except that I'm walking." It was no trouble to go and get his car, of course, except that he didn't want Hector anywhere near it. The idea of Hector seeing his forty-thousand-dollar BMW embarra.s.sed him.

Jack smiled, took Hector's hand, squeezed it, then led him to the back of the store where the dumpsters were. The air felt hot and linty back here, vented exhaust from air conditioners and clothes dryers. Jack pulled him under the small awning. He backed Hector against the building, leaned his body against the length of the boy's and kissed him. Hector's lips were soft, his mouth as cool as wet gra.s.s. Jack ran his tongue over Hector's smooth white teeth, caressed the satiny fingernails. He tilted his hips, rocked a little, encircled Hector's narrow waist and hard belly, then down, inside his pants where the hair felt like corn silk. Jack sank to his knees, took the boy in his mouth and tasted the musky salt of him, the warm pearl of fluid. Jack imagined Hector in some tropical setting, Honduras, Guatemala, some dusty side street with vendors selling melons and bright fabric. He closed his eyes, ignored the stench of cabbage and rotting fruit coming from the dumpsters, and saw Hector in a wrought-iron bed, white sheets and a red velvet coverlet. Black and gold embroidery of stylized birds on white satin pillows. Urgent Spanish from the street below. A ceiling fan with bright streamers and the scent of roses perfuming the air. The brown gold of Hector's legs wrapping around him, a carved exquisite figure against stark white sheets.

Hector pulled Jack to his feet and kissed him, a clumsy, childish kiss that told Jack at once this boy was a professional. This was a kiss learned with women, quick and careless, half-attentive.

He guided Jack toward him, stroked him harder. "Do you have a rubber?" Jack said.

Hector shook his head. "I'm clean. I've been tested."

"Still...," Jack said. He and Stuart got tested every six months at first, but since moving to Boston they'd been lax. Stuart would never cheat on him-except that one time he told Jack about-and Jack hadn't cheated on Stuart. He did backslide once, but that was just before leaving San Francisco, a two-week binge with half a dozen or so anonymous pickups. But he used protection every time. Well, with two exceptions, but those had been with men as safe as gravy, bi-curious men at bars-not bathhouses-who hailed from suburbia and Sunday services.

Nearly a year ago, just a month or so after they moved here, he'd had a scare: flu-like symptoms, night sweats, a nagging cough and a high fever. He obsessed about it for a week, knew that these could be early signs of sero-conversion. Just to be safe, he called an AIDS hotline and asked about his condition. The young woman on the other end said there was no way to be sure without being tested, but that if he was positive, was indeed sero-converting, the night sweats wouldn't abate and it was likely that he'd end up with a secondary infection-a respiratory illness, a cough that persisted. Jack had decided it was the flu, since his symptoms disappeared in four days and in the mornings the sheets were sweat-free.

Jack smoothed Hector's hair back, looked into his eyes as he pushed himself into Hector's body, tight and narrow and snug all around. He moved slowly. Hector closed his eyes; his mouth drawn thin and hands splayed against the brick wall to steady himself. "Oh," Jack said. "You are so gorgeous."

He'd felt strangely calm when he thought he might be infected. There was a little part of him that was curious, that wanted to experience the disease without actually having it. When his sister got pregnant she tried to describe to him how it was. "It's like this creature inside me is part me and part not," Susan said. "What I think about most, though, is how rooted I feel, how closely linked I feel to Mom and Grandmother, and all the way back. It's like this continuation."

That's exactly what Jack had felt when he imagined he might be infected, the lineage of all those he'd ever loved and his lovers' loved ones, through this virus, a kind of terrible, merciless child who gestated over and over.

"You are so beautiful." He kissed Hector's neck, licked the sweat at his collarbone and thought of how he could get through the next day, and the one after that, without seeing him. He rested his head on Hector's shoulder, inhaled the scent of clean laundry. Jack imagined Hector's mother was.h.i.+ng this s.h.i.+rt for her son even as Hector sweated through her good intentions. It made Jack sad for a moment, thinking of this boy's innocent mother looking after her son in this way. Or perhaps Hector had a girlfriend. Jack shuddered. He kissed the cool bone of Hector's nose, traced the elegant arches of his silky eyebrows.

Hector straightened his clothes. He pulled out two cigarettes and handed one to Jack. "Maybe you could give me some cab fare," Hector said. "Maybe a little extra, too, since I got fired last week."

Jack nodded, pulled out fifty dollars from his wallet and folded it into Hector's hand. So, that was it. Jack knew this kind: not a prost.i.tute, not a cruiser, but an opportunist, one who was no doubt propositioned at some point by a queer like him and learned to take advantage of it. "Let me ask you, Hector, did you like that?"

Hector shrugged. "Sure, I like. Whatever. I like you." He smiled.

Jack stopped himself from asking when he could see him again, if he lived at home with his mother, or with a woman.

"I gotta go, man," Hector said. "You be good."

"Right back at you." Jack flashed him his best Robert Mitchum grin, the one that had charmed men on both coasts.

Jack finished the cigarette and started home but thought better of it. It would be best to have a window of time before returning to Stuart.

He pa.s.sed dark storefronts and a few college bars with unbearably loud music and shrill female laughter. A single malt Scotch would be nice, but he wasn't about to go in one of these places replete with fat, cheesy-thighed college women and their breeder boyfriends.

Normally, he wasn't this misanthropic. The baby discussion with Jane and Leila had put him in a strange mood. He was surprised, then shocked, at his own paternal longings. It was specific to Stuart, he understood now. It made sense. Stuart as a parent to his child made sense.