Greg Abraham: Front Man

Ron picked up Thump’s shirt and examined it front and back. A Pendleton, a wistful plaid of white and azure that Ron had bought before the brisk weather had set in. Each wool fiber caught the October sun like a prism, and the tiny explosions of color almost reminded him of… what? Memory balked. Something caught in his throat. Expectation?

Tonight he’d meet one of the Noiesni at Chad’s party. Full of anticipation, Ron let the memory escape, whatever it had been. Maybe the past wasn’t as important when there was hope.

The Noiesni had come without fanfare, conferring first with PR agencies. Publicists had helped mankind meet an ancient and peaceable race, so advanced that they moved space as easily as they moved through it. Tonight Ron would get to know one of the Noiesni, shake his hand, maybe talk about the beautiful weather.

Ron dropped the Pendleton back onto the heap. Changeable weather had melded with Thump’s sweat so that all his clothes had an earthy scent. Thump had a dozen moods, but one scent. Ron settled onto the bed and eased his arms into the shopping bag, slipped out a worsted pullover, green as a cedar forest. Thump’s new gray slacks hung from a hanger hitched over the closet doorknob.

Ron loved Thump, but gifts never closed the distance between them. He looked out the window. For all its brilliance, the afternoon sun hadn’t warmed the house. He’d looked forward to the party ever since Chad had called last week. Chad was the Director of R&D for Zenoquint. The Noiesni had taken an interest in Zeno’s GaAs chips. Hardened for war, Zeno’s production would be useful in an assisted space program. A real space program, not spendthrift shuttles and malfunctioning probes.

The Noiesni would help. With the Noiesni, hope and wonder had reentered the world.

That memory seized Ron again. When he’d been a little boy, the world had sometimes looked as bright as it did today. Sidewalks, trees, and strangers’ houses had all seemed lit from within. But the bright past faded, replaced by worry. Thump had never been to Chad’s house before, and tonight’s party was important.

Thump had come into Ron’s life without social skills. Full of rhythm, Thump asked for nothing, accepted anything… from others, from himself. Maybe that was part of his problem. What did he need under all that acceptance? Ron still didn’t know.

But the need was real: witness the slacks. Twenty-five years old, and Thump didn’t have a pair of good wool slacks. Not until today.

Ron went downstairs and wandered into the kitchen, rested his hands on the tile next to the sink. Over there were Thump’s shit-encrusted boots, the ones he wore to a ranch on Sauvie Island where he played petting zoo with somebody’s cows. Ron watched the aspens shimmer in the backyard. Was it foolish to expect so much from a party? It was like a high school dance all over again, with roles to be played and exciting secrets to be discovered.

A memory… decades old… a little boy getting out of a truck and the flash of light on the window of a store, and there had been so much wonder. How did you measure the most wonderful day of a life? A child’s trip to the store? A cocktail party?

Tonight Ron would meet a Noiesni dignitary. The extraterrestrials were going to save mankind with gentle nudges, demure gestures of technological largesse… without messianic splendor or wrath. They inquisitively toured Sony and Kodak and CERN. And they offered public talks at MIT and the Sorbonne. The embarrassing tours of Johannesburg and Cairo were followed by tasteful salons at the United Nations. Visits to Chile and Israel resulted in terse tête-à-têtes. The Noiesni were true aristocrats. Their easy lives made them pleasantly casual in all circumstances, and prepared them to ease the lives of others. The Noiesni had mastered the fabric of space itself, tailored it to suit their wills.

The front door opened. Devil of rhythm, angel of pulse—Thump—Ron counted the beats before the words…

“Hey, Ron, you home?”

“Kitchen.” No need to say it. Like a hungry kid, Thump always came to the kitchen first. Could the Noiesni bend time the way they bent space? Ron imagined himself eighteen again, with a full head of blond hair, young and almost frightened, but Thump remained just as he was now. In the fantasy a powerful hand held Ron’s neck while the other took his jaw. The rasp of stubble tore a bullish bawl from his throat, a cry that got swallowed by Thump’s lips, sharp from a beer with lunch.

Or just a beer for lunch.

Thump pulled open the refrigerator door and draped from it, his hand a magnet that attracted plastic bags.

The clock in the living room chimed five. “We need to get ready.” Ron heard it in his voice, the way that life could be so automatic, as if he were part of the clock.

“You said the party wasn’t till seven.” Thump slammed into the cutting block so hard that it rolled. He’d wind up springing the little brakes on the wheels. He smooched Ron on the cheek and started to eat cheesecake with his fingers. Maybe that was the only way Thump could kiss, like an embarrassed child. But how did a child really kiss? An odd memory from a lifetime ago… Ron lost it.

Grunting, Thump licked his lips, tongue slurried with cheesecake. He ate the rest of it, furrowed his brow, took the bags back to the fridge, and pulled out a carton of grapefruit juice.

“There’ll be hors d’oeuvres at the party.” Saying it, Ron looked away. Life around Thump had made him sensitive to the way that some words sounded so rich. Or gay. Or rich and gay. Sometimes Thump’s eyes spoke of that terrible barrier between being forty and gay, and being twenty and queer. Maybe the worst part of the barrier was the way that gays hated being outside society and the way that queers angrily loved it. Anger could be such a loving thing.

All Ron could say was, “I left work early and picked up your clothes.”

“Hey!” Thump put the juice away. Trapping each of his Converses under the opposite heel, Thump stepped out of them and trotted upstairs. Black Levi’s, white socks, and Ron couldn’t understand. Was he too old? White socks? He hunched over and picked up the shoes. They reeked of sweat and talc. Aroused by the smell, floral and bitter, Ron climbed the stairs.

Maybe he should turn on the TV in the bedroom. The Noiesni would be on CNN tonight—more often than not they were. And after the news he’d go to a party where one of them—tall and lanky—might wrap a craggy, oaken hand about his shoulders and recite the beautiful truths of the world to come, a millennial Earth without want or injustice, without greed or shame. But as he reached the upstairs hallway, Ron worried some more about Thump.

A gay party should make everything easier. Whenever Noiesni met adults of the opposite gender, a long recitation of kinship structure was mandatory. It was something they couldn’t waive for humanity’s sake. However it worked, it had spared the Noiesni a history of war and crime. Here was a people dispersed serenely among the stars because they took fifteen minutes to introduce themselves whenever they met somebody’s spouse or whatever the Noiesni had. Of course, it smacked of heterosexual supremacy. It was the only reason Ron could have for disliking the Noiesni.

It had sounded so gossipy when Chad had told him that the dignitary didn’t mind a gay party in the least. He’d merely wondered if soldiers would be present. Word had it that the military made the Noiesni uneasy.

No… Thump would probably manage the evening fine.

Ron entered their bedroom—Thump’s was across the hall—and saw Thump standing naked, silk shorts in each hand, plum in the left, teal in the right. Without moving his feet, he danced with his hips and back while he hummed, bmp, th’buh’bmp, and played an air guitar.