If you thought about it too much, you had to think about the lives of the men you were with, the lives they were living and lives they weren’t living. You had to think about who they weren’t being and at what expense to themselves and the people around them. Then you had to think about who they were pretending to be, the people to whom they were lying. You thought about the wife, the girlfriend, the parents who may have wondered, or maybe never wondered, not even for a second.
33
NOTHING MADE SENSE AFTER THE COP ENDED THINGS with me. My friends were calling and I wasn’t answering the phone. I was lying on the floor crying or reading crazy stories online about how women claimed to have gotten their boyfriends back through a wide range of manipulations including witchcraft. Even though I lived alone and had for years, I was still clearing my browser history every time I looked up anything even vaguely homosexual in nature.
I called the cop over and over again feeling certain that we hadn’t yet reached an irreversible stage. I pictured him walking into his house after a conversation with me and confronting the kid, who I always imagined sitting on the couch playing video games.
“It’s over between us,” he’d say.
“What do you mean?” the kid would say.
“Just what I said. I’m in love with someone else.”
The kid, dropping his gamepad, would stare up at the cop bewildered. “You don’t love me?” he’d sob.
“I love someone else. You know who.”
“I begged you not to talk to him anymore.”
“Yeah. Well, look on the bright side,” the cop would say, “at least we haven’t unpacked all your boxes yet. We’d better hurry. The bus to Odessa leaves in two hours, and I’m meeting him for supper.”
I was more than a decade younger than the cop, and I couldn’t even imagine spending the night with a nineteen-year-old. Young people were so dumb and inexperienced. I didn’t even want to be nineteen when I was nineteen. As a kid I’d wanted to dye my hair gray when the kids in my class were dying theirs green and plum and fire engine red.
When he did feel like taking my calls, the cop expressed a seemingly bottomless astonishment at the sudden intensity of my feelings. He had always thought he was the one with the stronger attachment. So had I. Sometimes I wondered if he only took my calls to hear me in this weakened state, to hear anyone so heartbroken over him.
“If things ended with the kid, would you still give me a chance?” I asked him more than once. “I mean, I haven’t blown it completely, have I?”
“You haven’t done anything unforgivable,” he said, really seeming to think about his answer as he always did. “You haven’t done anything at all, really. It’s just that I started to believe you when you told me who you are, and I kind of got off at the next exit.”
“See? That’s where you went wrong,” I said. “You never should have believed me.”
“Well, that’s just too complicated for me. I want to be with someone who says what he means. I want to be able to tell someone that I love him and for him to say ‘I love you too.’”
“Oh, I didn’t mean it in a complicated way. I love you. See? I can say it.”
“Sounds pretty complicated from here.”
I knew what he meant. From their emails, I could see all the things about the kid that he loved, all the unreserved passion and excitement, the way the kid could let himself be taken care of without seeming needy. It wasn’t something I knew how to compete with.
“Okay,” the cop said, “I need to hang up now. I’m almost to the house. We’re going out to dinner.”
“He’s waiting for you?”
“He’s there at the house, yeah.”
“You don’t tell him when we talk, do you?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t do that!” I said.
“We’re a couple. You have to get that through your head. I tell him everything.”
“How could it be that you were just you alone a few months ago, and now you have to tell someone else every little thing you do?”
“I don’t have to do anything. Look, I don’t expect you to understand. It’s just the way it is now.”
“Okay,” I said. “That’s okay. Have a really great night, okay? I’m not trying to stress you out. I just want you to be happy.”
“Sounds good,” he said. “Goodbye.”
“Wait!” I said.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Forget it. Goodnight. Talk to you soon. Tomorrow, maybe? Okay?”
34
ONE OF THE CLERKS AT THE ARCADE STARTED FLIRTING with me, and though he was not at all my type, I got a kick out of him liking me. It seemed like a compliment since he had so many men to choose from. He was an attractive Hispanic guy, short like me. I always felt glad when I showed up and he was there. He was friendly, and we’d chat for a few minutes before I took my tokens to the hallways. The flirtation began when he would give me my tokens and drag his hand against mine as he withdrew. That always made me roll my eyes. Eventually, though, I’d curl my fingers to meet his.
Once or twice I went into a booth and got hard watching the kinds of movies I watched out there. Something, for instance, in which construction workers were instructed to strip and masturbate by the disembodied voice of the cameraman. I’d get myself all wound up and excited. Then I’d arrange my erection so that it stuck up above the waistband of my pants, beneath my t-shirt. I’d walk into the main store, and, when no one was looking except Bruno, I’d lift my shirt to show him my dick sticking out of my pants. He’d look and widen his eyes. He’d smile and laugh and shake his head.
Then Bruno showed me his dick, which would get hard after I showed him mine. It was always fast, just a glimpse. It was a brand new way of using the arcade. I liked that he was stuck behind the desk. It felt as if all that sexual energy and momentum could encircle us both and then be expressed in other parts of our lives, like a Newton’s Cradle.
After seeing my dick one day, he said, “Pretty big. Not as big as my boyfriend, but nobody is.”
He knew my taste in men. I’d walk in the door, and he’d say, “Man, you might as well turn around and go home. You should have called first. There’s nothing out here for you. Just a bunch of pretty boys.”
Or he’d say, “Oh, shit. Look who just showed up. You’re gonna be in hog heaven with this bunch of bruisers.”
Sometimes I would stand by the counter and chat with him.
He’d say, “Why don’t you go fuck that one right there? The guy in the running shorts.”
And I’d say, “I’d never do it with that guy.”
Then we’d watch on the TV screen behind the counter as someone pulled up in a plumbing truck wearing jeans and boots, his gut pressed against his work shirt. “Here’s my guy,” I’d say. He’d come in and buy his tokens from Bruno while I pretended to browse DVDs. A few minutes later, I’d find the plumber, and we’d go into a booth together.
Bruno never believed me when I told him I didn’t really do anything in the booths. I’d tell him I was there to watch, that I didn’t let the guys go down on me, and that I didn’t go down on them. “Hands only,” I’d say. “If that.”
“Yeah, right,” he’d say. Or, “Please.”
I felt safer knowing he was watching me on the cameras to see where I was going and with whom. There were times I let things go further than just watching or just touching. Bruno acted like he knew, but I’d lie and say nothing happened.
Late one night I found him working the counter, blasting Tejano music on the store’s sound system. I bought some tokens, tipped him his buck, and spoke with him for a minute or two before someone else came in and I moved along.