David Gates - The Wonders of the Invisible World

“Until your next beau comes along.”

“You might find a beau, too, you know. The odds are a lot better in a place like Boston.”

“Do I want a beau?”

“Don’t you?”

“I think I’m suffering from beau burnout.”

“Then I guess you’re in the right place.” Cassie starts the engine.

“Gee, sounds like the last lifeboat’s going over the side,” Billy says.

“If you weren’t so smart—”

“With Leonardo DiCaprio waving me a wistful goodbye.”

“—you’d be a lot better off.” She looks back at the now empty schoolyard. “At least in the short run.”

“Is there any other run?” Billy says. “I mean in the long run?”

On Saturday morning they stop at the car wash as a way of making their trip to Boston an occasion; in Billy’s real life, a clean car is just more middle-class crap-o-rama. Going through with Deke reminds him of how exciting he used to find it: the King Lear hurricanoes driving against the windshield, the giant whirling brushes at the front and sides, the mysterious rubber fringe as you enter the region of winds and bright lights, then sadly out into the world again. Billy drops quarters into the vacuum and lets Deke do his own side — and doesn’t criticize when Deke only rubs the mouth back and forth across a single patch of floor.

Then they stop at CVS to pick up the pictures; if there’s a decent one of Deke, he’ll buy a Lucite frame and leave it on Cassie’s night table. But when he opens the envelope, all twenty-four prints show nothing but brownish murk. Last stop is Hojo’s: breakfast here eventually might’ve become a little tradition, and maybe to Deke it already is. But he has to say, the kid’s being a pain in the ass this morning. Complains they never made the pumpkin pie like Billy promised. Wants the pancakes but wants the oatmeal too, and whines that it isn’t fair to have to choose. Over the long haul, living at this level of detail — Hegelian agonies over every fucking choice of food or garment or activity — would wear down Mother Teresa. It almost makes him feel some belated sympathy for the old man.

Heading south to pick up the Mass Pike, Billy explains that when he was a kid, the Pilgrim hats on the Mass Pike signs used to have Indian arrows sticking through them. “Cool,” Deke says. But it’s only good for a second’s interest. The fact is, the arrows aren’t there. They play I Spy, then the game where you have to spot the letters of the alphabet in order on signs and license plates; Billy lets Deke win, averting his eyes from the X on an exit sign lest the kid throw another shit fit. But eventually the big breakfast, Biber’s Mystery Sonatas and warm sunshine in his face put Deke back to sleep, and Billy’s free to think.

But all he can think about is the next time they’ll make this drive, a month from now maybe. One last HoJo’s breakfast, one last Deke-and-Billy expedition. Billy will hang with them in Boston for a while, they’ll all do something together — the Aquarium, a movie, an early dinner — and at some point he’ll ease out of the picture. And after that? A gay man, about to turn thirty-three, alone in a suburb of Albany. In his parents’ house. In his parents’ bed. What you do about that, of course, is you find somebody quick. (Dennis, the little prick, never called back.) There’s a couple of possibles. Older guy, status unknown, who works a couple of cubicles down. Chatty pony-tailed waiter in a restaurant on Lark Street — or he was there, before Deke came along. What you don’t do is get into porn on the Internet. You don’t get a cat. You could possibly get a dog, but not a small dog.

You could move to Boston.

He thinks he’ll try to do what he’s attempted so often: actually listen to a piece of music all the way through, move by move by move, without his attention wandering. He bumps the Biber back to Track 1.

Deke wakes up cranky and thirsty, so they stop at a service area. In the Roy Rogers Billy buys him a carton of milk, which Deke always chooses over soda. Does he drink so much milk because he has a calcium deficiency? (Due to Cassie’s neglect?) Did Billy drink this much milk as a kid? Can’t remember, though he does recall his father’s scolding him for bubbling it. He gets himself a coffee and finds them an empty table. He’s in no hurry to get to Boston, and he’s truly not looking forward to ferreting out and flushing his sister’s drugs. And no matter what she said, he imagines he’ll be doing some scrub-a-dub-dub. On the other hand, he can’t wait to park the nephew in front of a TV. He’s spent the last month making conversation with a seven-year-old.

“You know who Roy Rogers was?” he hears himself say.

Deke shakes his head. Bracing for more ancient history.

“He was the King of the Cowboys.”

“Cool,” Deke says, though the epithet must communicate even less to him than it does to Billy.

“His real name was Leonard Slye,” Billy says.

Deke’s making a snake by twisting up his straw wrapper. He touches a drop of milk from the end of his straw to the paper and it begins to writhe. We don’t do that, Billy should say — except he taught him this trick. He could tell the story of Laocoön and his sons, except all he really knows is the image of the naked man and naked boys, struggling with the serpent. The hydra, whatever. When Billy was little, he found the picture arousing — he spent lots of time looking at Greek and Roman statuary in the encyclopedia — but he hopes Deke might be spared. Basically, it’s a fucked way to live. No pun intended. Though he also hopes the Aphrodite of Cyrene and whatnot won’t do it for Deke either. Imagine a lifetime of lusting after the likes of Pamela Anderson. Wouldn’t everybody of every persuasion be less unhappy if they all simply got fixed, like house pets? Lately, every time he uses his mother’s serrated bread knife, he pictures himself cutting off his own penis.

Back on the highway, Deke’s wide awake and whiny. “How come we have to go to Mommy’s?”

Had Billy been calling it Mommy’s —as opposed to home —or was this Deke’s own formulation? “We’re just going to clean up a little bit,” he says. “Make things nice for her when she gets back.”

“Is she going to be there?”

“Didn’t I just say when she gets back?” He almost adds Hello? Kid either doesn’t listen or doesn’t think.

“Sor- ry. ” Deke’s never been insolent before. Billy looks over and sees he’s staring at his lap.

“ I’ m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to sound impatient. I thought you understood that she’s still in the hospital.” Billy decided when they moved Cassie that it was simpler not to get into the whole thing of what a halfway house was. “But I think you’ll be back home together before Christmas.”

No answer. Billy looks over again. Deke’s still staring down. Then he twists in his seat, wrenches at his door handle and tries to force the door open with his shoulder, but at sixty-five miles an hour, the wind resistance is too strong — and he’s forgotten he has his seat belt on. Billy cries “Hey!” and darts his arm across to grab at Deke’s door handle. A roar and rumble and shaking as the front wheel hits the warning strip of roughened pavement. Billy brakes hard, pulls over onto the shoulder and comes to a stop. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Deke glares at him. “I don’t want to.”

Billy can’t pretend not to understand. “You have to realize,” he says. Only now is his heart racing: the delayed adrenaline reaction that proves wise old Mother Nature’s looking out for us. “When Mommy comes out of the hospital, she’s going to be a lot better. The reason you sometimes had a bad time is because she was having such a bad time herself because she was sick. But she loves you so much.”