David Gates - The Wonders of the Invisible World

“It didn’t take much euchring.” James Chase pushed up the sleeve of his T-shirt and scratched a shoulder. “It was this or muggy Manhattan. Carolyn told me I should be sure and look you up.”

“Ah,” said Finn. “Here, why don’t we go in?” Was he overreacting, or was this a bit gauche of Carolyn, to have steered this obviously gay boy in his direction? The first move, if any, ought to have been Finn’s. On the other hand, he couldn’t afford to think ill of Carolyn Sykes: except for poor Byron Solomon, and of course now the Whitleys, Peter and Carolyn were as close as Finn had to friends in this community. As Carolyn undoubtedly knew. Which was why she had taken such a liberty. Although she had surely meant well. (There: he was coming around already.) And as to the boy’s being obviously gay, would that have been so obvious to a less knowing eye? Did Carolyn herself know it? One’s family had a gift for not knowing these things, or so it had been in Finn’s family. This brother of Carolyn’s was certainly presentable — whatever that meant — and obviously conversable.

When the lights came up at intermission, Finn turned to him and said, “I’m going to give Rebecca a miss, I think. I remember this as being the better of the two, and it’s starting to show its age. All this malarkey about how magical the two of them are together. Didn’t seem so bloody magical to me. Ingrid Bergman reconciles me to living in the age of Julia Roberts.”

“It really wasn’t all that hot, was it?” said James Chase. “God, I feel like a heretic.”

“Bracing, isn’t it? I’ll tell you what, since you’re new in town. There happens to be quite a wonderful diner here. A lot of the old features pretty much intacta. They make a mean rice pudding, and there’s a jukebox thing in every booth, with all sorts of marvelous old songs. It still has ‘Ring of Fire.’ Do you know ‘Ring of Fire’? Johnny Cash?”

“I must’ve heard it,” James Chase said. “But, you know. I’m into Garth. Mr. Va Va Voom.”

“Well, then,” said Finn, “we must educate you. Are you game?”

“Always,” he said.

From the diner they went back to Finn’s house to hear “White Circle” by Kitty Wells, which Finn insisted was a minor masterpiece. He opened a bottle of Montalcino, and soon he heard himself calling Willie Nelson a “filthy toad,” and was aware for the millionth time that he tended to sound like an old queen when he’d been drinking. And so to bed — a surprise to them both. Finn had stopped doing this kind of thing years ago, and James had promised himself that he hadn’t come up here to cruise. And he’d sworn off older men.

Later that same night — actually, it was beginning to turn gray outside the windows — when they got around to comparing stories, Finn’s misgivings came back more sharply. James had been vague about his involvements in New York, but from what Finn could gather it was clear that he might really have been taking his life in his hands with this boy. But truly, wasn’t AIDS simply the extreme, the mortal, instance of what had always been the case: that your new love’s irrevocable past determined your future? But this James was his first adventure — was it possible? — since he’d moved here. Finn didn’t even have a condom in the house. James, thank God, had come equipped, despite what he’d promised himself; he carried them in his wallet, like the flamboyantly heterosexual boys of Finn’s high school days.

Finn found James’s coming-out story unsettling, too. His own announcement to his parents (he’d been forty; they’d been too old to hear it) had been like something out of a made-for-TV film: the father’s anger, the mother’s self-castigation. James had been in his last year of high school; he’d stuck a video called Top Sergeant (randy Marines in the barracks) in a Sound of Music box, wrapped it and put it under the Christmas tree. As James told the story, his parents waited to watch it until his Aunt Addie showed up for Christmas dinner, and she’d been so shocked that her dentures fell out. Finn suspected that at least part of this was invented: Aunt Addie was clearly a stock character, a Margaret Dumont or an Edna May Oliver. And it might or might not have been true that his father’s slapping him across the mouth had been the pretext for James’s quitting school and moving to New York. But true or not, the story made Finn feel both excited and intimidated, much as he’d felt when Ricky Morrison had seduced him into playing with matches. From the can Finn’s father had kept in the toolshed, Ricky had poured a circle of gasoline onto the McCarthys’ lawn and tossed match after match until it roared up. Finn rubbed in vain with the soles of his sneakers at the telltale ring of charred grass; he’d caught holy hell, named his accomplice, and that was the end of his friendship with Ricky Morrison.

That first night, with Kitty Wells keening, it had been James who committed himself first: he took a deep breath, put a warm hand on the back of Finn’s neck and pulled him close. Yet it had also been James who’d said, “I want to put this on you, can I?” So neither of them, Finn reminded himself, had all the power. That is, if you believed it was all about who fucked whom.

James’s Walkman gave a snap. Finn looked up from Timon of Athens and saw him take off the earphones, stretch his arms up over his head and stand up. “The willies,” he said. “So what time are people supposed to be arriving?”

Finn stuck a finger in the book and rolled his wrist to check his watch. Ten after four, which of course had no bearing on the question. “I told ’em all six o’clock,” he said. “I hate this nonsense where you have one coming at six o’clock and one at six-fifteen and so on.” Endearing that anyone could still get the willies from Edgar Allan Poe.

“Six o’clock,” said James. “Listen, if you don’t mind, I think I’m going to nap for a little. Could you come wake me up?”

“What time?” Finn said, hoping he didn’t sound disapproving. He’d gotten up at three in the morning to take a piss; when he came downstairs he’d found James in the study watching Star 80. The room had stunk of pot.

“I’ll leave that,” James said, “to your discretion.”

Oh.

“Actually, I might come up and join you,” said Finn. “I’m pretty much at a stopping place. Just let me baste Junior again.”

“Don’t feel obliged,” said James.

“Now, what’s all this ?”

James shook his head. “Nothing. I must be on the rag.”

Oh, fine, Finn thought. So now it was up to him whether to allow James to get in a jab for free or whether to turn this into another battle royal. Since there were guests due in a couple of hours he should just drop it. But. But but but.

“Am I being unreasonable?” said Finn. Like a damn fool. “To want to know what I’m being told?”

“You’re never unreasonable.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said. You’re never unreasonable. I’m unreasonable. As we all know so well.”

Finn closed his eyes for a count of three and blew out his breath for James to hear.

“Now I’ve done it,” James said. “Enter the Bickersons.”

“ Why are you doing it?”

“What a reasonable question,” said James. “Why doesn’t James just go take his nap and wake up cheerful and refreshed? If there’s anything the world doesn’t need it’s another scene with the bitchy faggots trying to keep it together in front of company.”

“That’s not what I’m concerned about,” Finn said.

“Oh, right.” James started up the stairs, then stopped and looked back. “Hey, Finn? You would be welcome to tuck me in.”