Edmund White - Our Young Man

Chris seemed happy enough. His fingernails were always dirty and ragged and his palms callused. He said he was busy all winter long repairing things — the canoe shed, the outboard motors, the dock, their house and their parents’, the cabins they rented out in the summer. He had a lean, energetic old Indian fellow to help him, especially with the canoes. Chris liked him because he didn’t talk much and stayed busy all day long and knew outboard motors. Sally kept the books and did all the ordering of the staples and tents they sold or rented out to canoe parties entering the Quetico-Superior country. Their Indian helper would drive the hundred miles into Duluth to load the trunk up and bring it back.

Sally, Chris said, was affectionate and would let him stretch out on the couch, his head on her lap. Once she’d said, “I love the way the firelight plays on your golden hair. It lights it up in front and back here on the crown. I can see where people got the idea of haloes.”

As far as Chris knew she was still a virgin, and on their anniversary each year she wore her white wedding gown, but only for him. Their business was flourishing. Fewer and fewer people actually wanted to paddle these days; more and more relied on outboards. The weather was getting warmer year by year, which was good: It made their rental season longer. More and more first-timers were renting; it was hard to convince them to clean up after themselves after they broke camp, and the Indian traveled once a week in his power boat filling up three or four plastic garbage bags. Some folks from New York had actually shot a loon and tried to eat it; they’d even complained it was all oil and bones. Sally told them killing a loon was illegal.

With Chris out of his life (except for the daily calls), Kevin felt lonely. Yes, he had Guy, but Guy was — what was that French word he’d learned— insaisissable ? Elusory?

Kevin graduated from Columbia and Georgetown at the top of his class. It had always been assumed that Guy would accompany Kevin on his first diplomatic assignment.

One day, a week before Andrés was meant to be released, at eleven fifteen in the morning, he walked through the door to the Greenwich Village apartment. He found Guy asleep in bed beside a beautiful blond guy who had his head on Guy’s chest. Andrés looked at them for a full minute, without making a sound — he’d learned to be stealthy. Tears poured down his impassive face, scorching lines over the tattooed letters on each cheek, the G and the Y on his face, the U on his forehead, Guy’s name. He felt so stupid having expected a joyous surprise and welcome at his homecoming. He’d not been smart enough to realize that a star (an ageing star) like Guy would need some trophy boy in his arms. Sure, he himself had not been that faithful in prison, but coño , he’d had no other pleasures except working out and jerking off over and over till he went limp. And talking for hours to his idiotic cellmate about the guy’s wife and making dumb things in shop.

He’d cheated because he had nothing else to do or have. But he’d always thought that Guy was fiel since, damn! , he owed him something, Guy had his freedom and this big bed, sheets white as foam, the right to walk around the world as he wished, to see movies and eat Italian, Chinese, Cuban, whatever he wanted, and to stand under the hot shower for hours and to use all the products he wanted or might just slightly want. The least Guy could have done was to stay faithful, shit! , this little punk had probably been around for years and years. He wanted to wake them and shoot them both between the eyes or in the balls, there was no decency in the world!

He left the room and wandered down the hall to the guest room where he hoped he’d find his nephew studying but no, the kid was asleep too, asleep at eleven in the morning! Guy had promised he’d look after Vicente, make him work, stabilize him, discipline him — but here he was with two roaches in the ashtray by the bed, a skinny naked body, not a book in sight. He’d heard so much from Guy about the boy’s workout routine, his weight-gaining diet, his sober habits, his regimented day. Fuck!

Andrés dragged the boy out of bed onto the floor, not caring if he broke his back or injured his flopping neck.

“Hey! Ay! ” Vicente yelled, startled into English and Spanish, his red eyes traveling up Andrés’s jeans leg in a bewildered rage — and then he melted into a smile upon recognizing his enraged uncle.

“Don’t fuckin’ smile at me, you little shit!” Andrés shouted. He kicked the boy, who looked confused then terrified and rolled away.

“What the hell you doin’ here? I thought you weren’t being sprung till next week.”

“Guess I surprised you and the little lovebirds next door. Thought you’d pull a fast one on ol’ Andy.” It took a minute for Vicente to realize his uncle was referring to himself.

“Don’t kick him,” Guy said quietly, confidentially; he was suddenly standing in the doorway and reaching out to touch Andrés’s shoulder.

Andrés shook off his hand, tightened his fists and turned to look at Guy. Somewhere in the sun-drenched background was the other guy’s naked body, slightly bent over — in shame? Fear? Modesty?

“Sorry if I woke you guys up at eleven in the morning.”

“How did you get out early? Who drove you into town?” Guy asked.

“Sorry to fake you out before you hid the evidence and had Vicente all washed up and combed and your trick in the closet.”

Guy smiled wearily as if in response to a bad joke or corny pun. His heart was beating with alarm but all he wanted to do was to fold Andrés in his arms. If only Kevin weren’t here or would put on some clothes. Guy looked around. Kevin had disappeared and Guy could hear water running. Maybe that was what he was doing, preparing to leave.

Vicente had pulled on some week-old boxer shorts and a dirty T-shirt, which clung so tightly to his body he looked even skinnier. “Let’s all chill,” Vicente mumbled. He couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. His nails looked badly bitten, which Guy realized he’d never noticed before. Those dirty little nails, bitten down to the cuticle, made him feel guilty.

Had Andrés seen him in bed with Kevin? What a disaster , he told himself, as his mind scurried around searching for alibis.

Andrés folded his arms, widened his stance and rocked back on his heels.

Guy shrugged and almost whispered, “I’ll make some coffee.”

Andrés said, “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to walk around for ten minutes and when I come back I want to see you bums dressed and the trick gone.”

“What’s a trick?” Vicente asked.

“It’s whores’ slang,” Guy said wearily, “for a one-time client.”

“But Kevin isn’t—” And Guy kicked him.

Andrés stormed out. Guy said, “We’re up shit creek,” a saying he was proud of, since it was both American and manly. “Jump in the shower and get dressed.”

“But I’m still tired …”

“Now!” Guy barked, which was so unusual for him that Vicente headed immediately into his bathroom to get ready.

Guy hurried off to his own bathroom, which Kevin had filled with steam. Kevin was as pink as a boiled shrimp. “Did you get rid of him?” Kevin asked over the roar of the water.

Guy turned the shower off, which seemed to vex Kevin since he still had soap all over. “He’s gone out for ten minutes but he’ll be right back.” Even after all these years — and especially in an emergency like this, Guy felt as if he were in a dream when he spoke English and he was mildly astonished that he was making sense. He was almost offended that Kevin could talk about getting rid of “him.”