A. Rich - The Hand That Feeds You

“I know about Louise’s death.”

“Did he tell you? He never talks about it.”

“I found it online.”

Steven’s plate already had room for seconds. Mine was untouched.

I could have asked more questions about my brother’s former classmate. But what was I trying to find out? Why he had asked out Billie instead of me? Steven would not have the answer.

Instead of getting up to serve himself again, Steven switched his empty plate with my full one. He was kind enough to refrain from remarking on my lack of appetite. I poured myself another Stoli to keep him company for a half hour more.

• • •

My third Stoli was poured by the bartender at Isle of Skye. I had thought of calling Amabile, who lived nearby. I was not ready to go home. But I knew he’d be with his huge Dominican family, and it was just as well; familiarity was not what I wanted. I hadn’t been to this bar before; usually I went to Barcade and played the vintage arcade games, such as Tapper. Made me feel like a kid again. Isle of Skye had a different vibe: Scottish, black leather, a pub filled with Scots not celebrating Thanksgiving. Behind the bar was a framed photo of the queen in front of a line of seated Scotsmen in kilts; the man seated to her right wore a kilt that had ridden up to reveal his naked genitals.

I looked over the crowd — more men than women, more hipster than Highlander, then took out my cell phone and checked the Tinder account I’d opened before I met Bennett. A photo of a shirtless guy in board shorts came up on my screen with a user name of Swampthing. Want to meet him? the pop-up asked. Yes? No? Maybe? I tapped Maybe. Do you want to see how close Swampthing is? I tapped Yes. He was two blocks away. The moment I tapped Yes , he was able to see my profile and picture. His profile said he was an actor who taught mixed martial arts. He said he liked Bollywood films, Russian vodka, and American women. I tapped I’m two for three.

I had nearly finished my drink when I got a message from Swampthing asking where I was. I tapped in the name of the bar. A couple of minutes later, a rangy, loose-limbed guy walked in, and even from yards away and in the dim light of the bar, I could see that he had blue eyes. With his dark hair falling in those eyes, he was a dazzler.

“You don’t look like your picture,” he said in an uninflected voice. Did he mean it didn’t do me justice, or that I had perpetrated a fraud?

“You look exactly like yours,” I said, trying to match his ambiguous tone.

“I’m glad you were looking tonight. Holidays can be slow.”

A wise friend had once told me that just because a man is good-looking doesn’t necessarily mean he is a bastard. I realized I was making excuses for him and he hadn’t done anything except respond to my query.

“Can I get you another drink?” he asked, and signaled for the bartender before I answered.

“Sure,” I said after the fact.

I started asking him about himself. Not because I wanted information, per se, but so that I could listen to his voice. I had always been swayed by men’s voices. His was deep, and he sounded as though he were confiding in me. The trace of a Southern accent came from time to time; Louisiana? Oh, God, let him be from New Orleans.

Close enough: he said he was from Lafayette, and that his daddy’s side was Cajun. And what had he acted in? This was a dicey question, potentially embarrassing. He said he’d had a small speaking part in a Gus Van Sant film, and he was up for a part in an HBO series.

I had never wanted to be on screen or stage, but it didn’t stop me from the kind of interest many people felt for those who did. How were actors able to lose themselves in front of strangers? What if you were still trying to find yourself? “Do you want to keep”—here he made air quotes—“ ‘getting to know each other,’ or do you want to go have some fun?” He had managed to both mock and entice me. He had issued a dare. I had a moment of magical thinking that persuaded me that nothing bad could happen on Thanksgiving.

We went to his place in Dumbo. The way in was complicated; we had to go around to the back of a renovated warehouse, where he jimmied the lock after inserting the key. Were it not for lights on in some of the building’s windows, I would not have considered going in.

Inside his apartment, in front of a window facing the Brooklyn Bridge, hung a punching bag. Leather, the color of cognac, it looked as if it might have been a movie prop. “Is this where you train?”

“No.” He did not offer more.

I moved to the window to look at the view, but he cut my sightseeing short. He took off my coat and threw it over an armchair. Then he took my hair and wrapped it around his fist. He stood behind me like that. I held on to his wrist. He let go first. When I turned to face him, he picked me up the way a groom picks up his bride, and he carried me into the back of the apartment, to his bed.

Within minutes, he turned on a bright bedside lamp. “I want to see you.”

I saw the bank of windows in his bedroom had no curtains or shades, and that the room faced a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows in the modern building next door. In the same moment in which I felt exposed, and on exhibit, I also felt safe. I could be seen. He took off the rest of my clothes. He said he was surprised he found me so attractive, that I wasn’t his type.

Would McKenzie have said such a thing, have had such a thought? I answered my own question: Trust me, he’s not giving you a thought.

The flicker passed, and I was back in the moment. “Does your type do this?” I asked, touching myself. I didn’t take my eyes off his face. “Does your type do this?” I put my finger inside myself. What had put me off moments before — the brightly lit room open to the eyes of neighbors — was encouraging me in an unexpected way. I thought of Billie. She startled me. I felt myself in competition with her in front of this man, and at the same time I wanted to be her.

I performed.

While still watching me, he started to undress. I told him, “No.” So he left his clothes on and crouched at the foot of the mattress where he could see my body at that level — if I moved from posing on my knees to lying down. I could sense the pressure in him, the pressure of holding back. Of waiting. I went on. I took my time. I made myself come in front of him in the brightly lit room.

He stayed where he was at the foot of the bed while I got dressed. Neither of us said a thing. I noticed a light go on in the building across the way.

He made no plea for reciprocity. Was it astonishment that let him let me go?

• • •

The semester break was a week away, and I was at Rikers for a last session with a patient, a transsexual I had met with for the past year. She was being released the following week. Shalonda was able to convince anyone she was female. She had delicate features, a warm and lilting voice, and breasts she had saved up for since high school. She had taken the rap for her lover in a check-fraud scam, yet hoped they could resume their domestic life in Ozone Park.

“I know JJ is a fuckup, but I also know he loves me,” Shalonda said.

“How does he show it?” I really wanted to know.

“He tells his friends, and it gets back to me.”

“He never tells you?”

“He bought me a dress for when I get out. He wants me to have the final surgery.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to make JJ happy. You think that’s not a good reason.”

I felt then that we had made no progress whatsoever. She still could not acknowledge her own wants and needs.

“I learned a long time ago,” Shalonda said, “that you can be happy, or you can be right. I’m happy when JJ thinks he’s right.”