Edmund White - Our Young Man

Exactly at the moment Kevin started losing patience with Guy, Chris was tiring of his girlfriend, and both accepted the coincidence as natural. Were they both following the same trajectory, or did the ambivalent feelings of one permit the other to voice his own doubts? Or were they being drawn irresistibly back to each other? Were they fated to end up together? These parallel developments, no matter how mysteriously related, had never surprised them, just as when one of them had a sore throat he automatically handed a lozenge to the other.

“Guy is so predictable,” Kevin complained.

“Dumb, just go ahead and say it. Most people are dumber than we are but — treats you nice — gives you money.”

“That kid — Vince — annoying.”

“Back off,” Chris said. “Not your responsibility.”

“Guy — whatta flake.”

Soon their out-loud shorthand comments were exhausted and the dialogue went underground as they each arrived at subterranean insights together. They were sitting next to each other on a stoop and their silent conversation erupted in half smiles, a shared widening of the eyes, a shoulder bump, a gasp of understanding.

“Really?” one of them said after five minutes of apparent silence. The other nodded.

Their father’s brother, a dapper man they scarcely knew because he lived in far-off Minneapolis, where he was a florist, came to New York for the first time in his life. He stayed in a drab, expensive hotel for businessmen across from Penn Station. He was traveling alone (he’d never married, for some reason), but he had a long list of Broadway shows he intended to see. He seemed disappointed that his attractive nephews knew nothing about the stars, the directors, or even the names of all these musicals, some of which had already been playing for two or three years. Back in Minnesota, he’d pictured them as taking in a show nightly and then dining at Sardi’s or sipping a cocktail at the Rainbow Room, but they drew a blank at the mention of these eateries, just as they’d never heard of Mama Leone’s or the Carnegie Deli. Chris explained he got a nosebleed if he went north of Fourteenth Street, and Kevin, who seemed marginally more sophisticated, said he thought most Broadway shows were tacky and overmiked, or so he’d heard.

Uncle Phil had obviously come to town with thousands of dollars and wanted to live it up every night — steakhouses but also charming, out-of-the-way Greenwich Village bistros that only insiders knew about. The twins only dimly remembered him from family reunions and a cousin’s wedding, where Uncle Phil had done the flowers, all glads, baby’s breath, and birds-of-paradise, with lots of eucalyptus leaves, which made their mother sneeze. He wore an unusual amount of cologne for a Midwestern man of his generation and his breath was always sweetened with Sen-Sen. He was talkative and upbeat, which the boys found preferable to their parents’ dourness, though tiring.

One night Kevin had gone with Phil to see Cats , which was impressive for its special effects if not for its imperceptible plot and generic music; afterward, Phil, exhilarated by the show, wanted to go to what he’d read was a trendy show-business restaurant, Joe Allen’s, where the walls were lined with posters of shows that had flopped.

“I really, really like your friend Guy. So handsome!” Uncle Phil said. “I saw him years ago in a Pepsi commercial. It was a yard party, looked so typically American, I had no idea he was French. He looked like just one more cute college kid — gee, that must have been twenty years ago. I’d just moved to the Twin Cities — yeah, twenty years ago.”

“It’s remarkable how young he still looks, isn’t it?” Kevin said. He found talk about Guy’s eternal youth as boring as talk about how closely he resembled Chris; those were the two great “tropes” of their lives, as he’d learned to say at Columbia.

“Yeah, but your parents don’t like the idea that you’re living with a rich, older man and he’s paying all the bills. That’s not my view. I’m a little more sophisticated, but they’re worried about exploitation.”

“Who’s exploiting whom? Am I because I’m the gold digger, or is he because I’m half his age and he’s made me his sex slave?”

“Why, he is, of course. Your parents wish you’d find a nice guy your own age, white, possibly, a college student, someone who pays his own way, an American, I mean. Guy is a perfectly nice guy, if a bit irritable—”

“That’s the cocaine talking,“ Kevin said, tucking into his pecan pie. Around Guy he didn’t order dessert; it was as though he were gobbling in front of Muslims during Ramadan.

“Cocaine? Oh, dear — it’s worse than I thought.”

“Cocaine’s not dangerous!” Kevin said too loud, eliciting smiles of agreement from neighboring tables. He added in a softer but more pedantic voice, “All the studies show it’s not addictive. It just sharpens your mind and makes you want to work more — that’s why it’s called the yuppie’s drug of choice. It’s not really a drug, it’s related to Novocain. It numbs you.” He thought he’d add a shocking gay note for his uncle’s benefit: “That’s why guys who have trouble getting fucked sprinkle it on their assholes. It numbs the pain.”

Uncle Phil looked both amused and troubled by this confidence and said with a little smile, “That may well be. I guess I’m just being too Lutheran about it.”

“My parents would be even happier if I moved back to Ely and married a girl.”

“As a matter of fact, your mom says you used to be sweet on a girl in your class back home — Sally Gunn. The school beauty. Blue eyes, the straight nose of a Greek goddess, big tits, skinny hips like a boy. As you know, her dad is the other big outfitter in Ely—”

“And if we got married it would be a dynastic consolidation,” Kevin added grimly.

“Well …”

“There’s only one little problem. I’m gay. I like men.”

“You know, your mother has kept up with Sally and they get together for drinks at the Log Cabin.”

“That smelly old bar? Smells like kerosene and old beer. I didn’t think women went in there.”

“Anyway, it turns out they’ve discussed your being gay.”

“Wait — my mother and my old girlfriend have discussed my sexuality?”

“I didn’t know it was a secret.”

Kevin sipped his decaf. “Well, it’s not,” he mumbled. “But still!”

“So Sally said she’d always known you were gay and that didn’t bother her, in fact she preferred it because she hates sex and she always thought you were a perfect gentleman because you didn’t want to feel up her tits all the time like the other guys and you were a good dancer, as good as her, and you let her drive you both around in her little MG.”

“So we’re to have an arranged, sexless marriage, consolidating our family businesses? Nifty.”

Phil smiled brightly. “Do you really think so?”

“No, I don’t think so. I’m in love with Guy.”

“No wonder,” Phil was quick to chime in. “He’s a historic beauty.”

“What’s your type?” Kevin asked bluntly, tired of pretending Phil was safely in the closet and not liking the sound of “historic.”

Uncle Phil blushed their famous Norwegian blush and said, “All kinds.”

“Very ecumenical, “ Kevin said, dubious. “Younger?”

“Yes.”

“Much younger?”

“Yes, strangely enough.”

“It’s not that strange. Blond?”

“Yes.”

“Butch? Aggressive?”

Phil whispered, “Yes.”

Kevin thought he should stop his interrogation before Phil made an awkward declaration of love.

After a moment’s silence, Phil said, “So what should I tell your parents?”