Once he had graduated and everyone went their separate ways, Ted Mooney was relieved he would never have to see any of his college friends again. He didn’t go to any reunions. He threw out the invitation to the first one after reading it with contempt. The invitation to the tenth he glanced at indifferently. Last year, the fifteenth, he didn’t even open.
Sitting at his desk in his home office, Ted flipped through the glossy pages of the annual university magazine, the Georgetown, that had arrived in the mail that morning. Ordinarily, it sat on his desk with other unread mail. Insurance company offers, merchant discount coupons, pleas for donations from charitable organizations. Doris, his wife, would ask him if she could throw it all out while she straightened up before the cleaning lady made her bi-monthly rounds. Opposite the stack of junk mail, eight term papers from his seminar nagged at him to be read. Enough to bore him for the next two days.
As unwelcome as it is, it could be a diversion, the voice in his head said.
He turned to the back of the magazine, the Class Notes, mildly curious about who was doing what.
You can handle this. Small doses. It’s not like going to a reunion and having to put up with an entire evening of small-talk with dead-beats you didn’t even know, care about or didn’t like. And you still don’t.
Class of 1987 ~
Leslie Drake ~ in residency, specializing in cardiac—
“Blah-blah-blah,” he said out loud. “Next.”
Phillip Monaco ~ Ph.D. (2002) in Mathematics from MIT—
“Took you long enough. And good luck with that degree.”
Arnold Nolan ~ junior partner at—
“Who gives a shit?”
As he shifted his weight, his desk chair squealed like rusty brakes, mimicking his own discomfort, and he rapidly shuffled through the rest of the magazine.
On the last pages, he stopped. In Memoriam. Arranged alphabetically according to their year of graduation and set off by artistically designed ornate scrolls, were the names of the recently deceased.
His finger slid down the list of scrolls, as efficiently as trying to find a stock in the financial pages or the time and place of a movie in the entertainment section of The Post.
Nah. Nobody. Yet.
He tossed the magazine onto the pile of discarded mail and peeled off the top term paper, placing it squarely on the blotter in front of him: “The Melodramatic Structure of Plato’s The Republic”
Ted grimaced.
His computer pinged and announced, “You’ve got mail.”
From: St.Turner@aol.
Jesus Christ! Email from a fuckin’ saint?
Annoyed, he clicked on the window announcing the message:
Hi, Ted! I don’t know for sure if you’re the Ted Mooney from Georgetown University or not. If you are, please contact me?
Sincerely,
Steve Turner
Steve Turner. My God! What in the hell…? What does he want? Maybe it’s not Steve. Lots of Steve Turners in the world. But no, he says he’s from Georgetown. It’s gotta be him.
He read the message again.
This was like opening an old suitcase filled with memorabilia. Long forgotten or repressed sights and sounds surfaced. Hanging out in the college cafeteria or the student lounge between classes. Lying in the grass on the Quad late spring, cramming last-minute notes for a final exam. Listening in the Music Room to Lotte Lenya’s husky contralto in The Threepenny Opera, or the angelic high-pitched humming of Vittoria de los Ángeles’ Bachianas Brasileiras Number 5 with Carl and Steve. Drunkenly urinating on a wall of the Administration Building late one night.
Ted sat back and closed his eyes.
Carl and Steve.
Carl wasn’t tall. Darker than either Steve or Ted, his thick, bushy black hair and beard accentuated his rugged almost outdoorsy manliness. His deep, masculine baritone voice rumbled when he spoke. Steve was light skinned and light haired, thin, almost frail. His slight appearance didn’t contradict his otherwise lithe and graceful movements, nor his high-pitched voice that broke into bursts of falsetto when he became excited.
They had started listening to music together in high school. He, Steve, and Carl. Carl’s father renovated the attic over his garage, making it into a studio, thinking that music might be a career path for his son. It was a perfect place to listen to Bach, Penderecki, The Police, and smoke pot. It all made mathematical and musical sense. At Georgetown, they became members of the Music Club. No, more accurately, the three of them were the Georgetown University Music Club.
A couple of other students had signed up during Orientation Week, but they never bothered to show up. The school almost denied them status as a campus organization. Six students minimum was required.
“If we wanna have a music club, and we are going to have a music club, we’re going to have to make this work,” Carl announced. “Fill out an extra card. Here.” He handed Ted and Steve blank club registration cards, keeping one for himself. “Put down one of these names.” He showed them the signup sheet he had gotten from the office of the Dean of Student Activities. “Be sure and sign it. They’re not gonna check. Just so long as they get a total of six cards that look legit.”
The administration approved the club charter.
Student Activities Hour was every Wednesday, noon to one o’clock, on campus. The three met in the club’s office on the third floor of the student center—it couldn’t have been farther away from everyone and everything. Down the hall, there were the Foreign Language Club and the Key Club.
“Whatever that is,” Carl quipped, “I thought Hugh Hefner was dead.”
Neither of those clubs met more than a few times. Several of the rooms, the ones nearest the Music Club, remained unoccupied.
Carl arrived early that first morning and arranged the industrial furniture so they could begin to listen to music right away. A table stood in front of a wall of windows opening onto a loading dock of the School of Business. He lined three metal chairs to face the window and two tall Panasonic studio speakers that were hung in the corners on either side. No one had bothered to hide the connecting wires and cables.
A turntable, amplifier, and a repurposed book shelf lined one wall. Faded ninety-nine cent copies of Offenbach’s Gaîté Parisienne and Dvorák’s New World Symphony occupied one shelf of the cabinet, the bottom one. Several party records Carl randomly pulled out on the top shelf featured Olivia Newton-John, Fleetwood Mac, and Van Halen. Carl picked through a few more albums that stood torn and dusty on the shelf, sighing in disappointment.
Ted and Steve arrived together, having met in the stairwell going up to the Music Room.
“Be it ever so humble,” Carl exclaimed with open arms as the two entered the room. He motioned for them to sit down.
“I hereby call the meeting of the Georgetown University Music Club to order. We’ll have to do something with that name later. But, for now, gentlemen, luckily I had the forethought to bring with me a recent acquisition from my home library. A thoughtful graduation present from my dear old dad. Actually, a hundred bucks was the graduation present. I’m providing the thoughtful part, having purchased an enigmatic and elusive masterpiece for our listening pleasure. The University’s collection over there,” he nodded at the shelves, “leaves a lot to be desired. Allow me to introduce you to,” he picked up an album from the table, “Alexander Scriabin’s Mysterium.”
He held it up like a Eucharist, making a Sign of the Cross in front of Ted and Steve.
“And now … Scriabin.” Carl bowed slightly. “A little background, though. Despite its being incomplete, it is three hours long.”
The other two men moaned, shifting uncomfortably in their metal chairs.
“But!” he quickly added, “The three completed movements are one hour each. We can listen to one during each of our next three activities periods.”
“Are you sure we shouldn’t start off with something maybe shorter?” Ted asked.
“What’s wrong with a little boom-chuck-chuck Verdi to start off the semester?” Steve muttered, pumping his arms like he was in some kind of country dance.
“Be still, peasants,” Carl intoned, “and prepare yourself for a musical banquet the likes of which—”
“Yeah, the likes of which!” Ted interrupted. “Come on, get on with it before I have to go pee.”
Carl squeezed the album cover against his stomach, gently sliding the disk out. He put the cover on top of the record cabinet. With two fingers he coaxed the vinyl disk from its paper sleeve. He put the wrapper on top of the cabinet and grabbed the other end of the recording disk without touching any of its surface. With both hands he rested the record on the turntable.
Carl bent down, carefully lowering the tonearm of the record player. “Shhh!” he whispered.
The speakers overhead in the corners of the room hissed, crackled slightly, and the opening dissonant chord of Mysterium blasted out loudly, startling Ted and Steve. It rose as the entire orchestra joined in a deafening cacophony. Then, slowly, only a chorus of horns remained, their solitary note diminishing on a melancholy note.
Suddenly someone pounded on the door. Carl gently lifted the tonearm off the record. His jaw jutted out in disgust.
Steve bolted up to answer the door. He started to open it, but a student from one of the other rooms shoved his way in.
“What the fuck!” the intruder shouted. He stood there, defiant in the doorway, and folded his arms across his chest. “Are you guys deaf? If you’re gonna play that shit that loud, you better find another room.”
“Sorry! Sorry!” Steve apologized quickly. “We’ll turn it down.”
The student smirked at Steve, and mumbling “You better,” he left, slamming the door behind him.
Steve turned. With his head slightly raised, he spat out, “Peasant!”
Neither the rude neighbors nor the Spartan environment discouraged Carl. He permanently turned off the Music Room’s fluorescent lights a couple of days after they settled in. A piece of electrical tape over the light switch disabled the on/off sensor and incapacitated the electric eye that rudely assumed that movement meant “Let there be light.” They chipped in to buy a fake Tiffany table lamp with multicolored plastic cabochons surrounding the rim of the lampshade. It was on sale at Woodie’s. Carl said it reminded him of a Victorian bordello.
“Not that I’ve ever been in one,” he remarked. “But the ambiance will suffice.”
He coaxed the Drama Club folks to lend them a sofa and an overstuffed arm chair from the props department. At least for the semester. The Music Club reciprocated with four metal folding chairs for the 1983 fall production of Our Town.
“I don’t want to listen to Chopin on a cold ass,” Carl said, patting one of the overstuffed cushions on the recently installed sofa. And gently lifting the seams of his pants, he sat down like a hen nesting on some eggs.
#
And now, here was this email.
This suitcase! No. This Pandora’s Box. Regrets. Denial. Damn it, Ted! The past is past. What are you so reluctant to face? What are you afraid of? Ted ran his fingers through his hair. There’s nothing you can do about it now. You made your choices.
For Ted, things past were no longer personal. They were flickering images in someone else’s life, scenes in a movie that he was watching, sitting alone in a darkened theater.
Okay, so this email from Saint Turner is a friggin’ nuisance. Deal with it.
The stack of students’ term papers came back into focus. He grunted and picked up the one glaring at him from the middle of his blotter. He made a sour face at it and turned to the first page.
“From the opening scene in which Socrates and Glaucon establish tension regarding their differing ages to the dramatic conclusion of The Republic …”
Ted flipped the title page over and tossed the term paper aside. He stared at his computer screen.
Steve is the only person from Georgetown I’d ever want to see again. Well, no. That’s not quite true.
#
A week later, Ted was surprised with himself as he sat opposite Steve in the Round Robin Bar at The Willard Hotel. In a few terse email replies, he had agreed to meet with St. Stephen at AOL. On his way to meet Steve, the voice in Ted’s head sang Lotte Lenya’s “Prolog” from The Seven Deadly Sins that he, Steve, and Carl had listened to several times.
In somber funeral cadence, Lotte Lenya sang to her sister about their home in Louisiana on the banks of the moonlit Mississippi.
“Meine Schwester und ich stammen aus Louisiana, / Wo die Wasser des Mississippi unter’m Monde fliessen….”
Her rough-edged voice droned dolefully about their going off to make their fortune. But through a series of adventures, they discover that the only way to succeed is to succumb to the seven deadly sins. In the end, their refusal to do so leads to their final lament, confirming their defeat.
“‘Nicht wahr, Anna?’
“‘Ja, Anna.’”
Ted remembered Carl walking over to the record player after listening to it the first time. He seemed to study the tonearm as it looped back and forth in the center of the disk.
“Ain’t that the truth, Anna?” he said.
Steve responded, “Yeah, Anna.”
Carl lifted the arm and set it on its rest.
“So. Do you think there are two women? Two Annas?” Ted asked. “Or are they different personas of the same woman?”
“Oh, please, let’s not destroy it by analyzing it,” Carl complained, closing his eyes.
#
“I’m surprised you didn’t sit at the famous Round Robin oval bar,” Ted said, nodding over his shoulder at the dark reddish oak bar. A row of cocktail tables with an accompanying chair lined a leather banquette soldier-like along one wall. Steve was seated on the brown leather banquette with a half-drunk cocktail sweating in a puddle in front of him.
“Didn’t you see the sign as you came in?” Steve asked. “Seating at the bar is reserved strictly for tourists.” He rose and stretched his arms out to greet Ted. “My God! Come ’ere.”
Ted reached over and embraced Steve, whom he hadn’t seen in over fifteen years. They hugged. Steve’s cheek nestled slightly on Ted’s neck. He patted and rubbed Ted’s back, but Ted gently pulled away.
“Well, come on,” Steve said, sitting down. “Plop it. Let’s get you a drink and catch up on a century of censure.” He motioned for the bartender several times.
“Poor guy,” Steve confided. “They’ve only got him tending bar. Down time in the afternoon, you know. So he’s doubling,” Steve explained. “Ergo, service is a bit slow.”
“So how did you get my address?” Ted asked Steve, sitting down.
He hasn’t changed. Much. Dirty blond, messed-up hair as usual. Thinning but not bald. Blue eyes. Yes, those glacier–blue eyes. Wire-rimmed glasses. Older. But he still looks good.
The bartender came over. He was a tall, twenty-something. Ted noted how the man’s squarish face ended with a cleft chin under thin but firm lips. And his sculpted pecs flexed under a tight black t-shirt.
Ted ordered a dirty vodka martini on the rocks.
“What kind of vodka?” he asked Ted.
Ted thought for a moment. “Smirnoff,” he said.
The young man shook his head. “Sorry. We have Grey Goose, Absolut —”
“Tito?” Ted asked. The bartender nodded.
“No olive,” Ted added.
“Hit me again,” Steve said, picking up his almost-finished cocktail. He downed it and handed the young man his glass.
“You know, you’re as bad as me when it comes to updating your life with the university,” Steve said to Ted, sitting back. “I paged through several issues of the school rag online. Class of ’87. There you were. BA in Classical Studies, of course. But I saw that in 1995 you got a PhD, and that same year you were teaching. On the faculty, same department. That’s what gave me the idea you had a university email address. Bingo. And congratulations, by the way.”
Ted nodded. “Thank you.”
“Guess you fell in love with the place. You never left.”
“Go, Hoyas.” Ted mocked a school cheer, raising his right hand in a fist. “And what did you fall in love with?”
“The Library of Congress. I’m a cataloguer. I work in the music collection.”
Ted smiled. “So you never got away from music?”
“No,” Steve replied, hesitating for a moment. “That’s sort of why I suggested we get together.”
The bartender arrived with their cocktails. Placing one in front of Steve, he announced, “One gimlet,” and smiled.
He placed Ted’s drink down. “One dirty vodka martini. No olive.” He smiled at Ted, waiting for a moment. They nodded to each other, and he walked off.
“Well, I see someone still makes heads turn,” Steve said, “and someone else is hustlin’ for a big tip.” He raised his glass for a toast. “If you’ll pardon the expression.”
They clinked glasses, and sipping on their drinks, the ice cubes tinkled.
“Such a refreshing sound,” Steve sighed. “Tinker Bell just flew by.”
Neither man spoke.
Steve set his gimlet down, punctuating the silence. “Do you remember us listening to music late at night in the club room and how we used to sneak in a bottle of gin?”
“Classical music and classic hooch. Beethoven’s Fifth priceless. The other fifth? Five bucks. And then we’d go out and water the bushes outside the Admin building.” Ted shrugged in amusement. “I can’t drink gin to this day,” he admitted.
“Well, here we do have to act civilized and use the Men’s Room,” Steve added.
They clinked glasses and took another sip.
“Or we’d light up and burn that god-awful incense, patchouli, to cover up the weed,” Steve said. “It smelt like a bunch of lesbians were having a convention.”
They both drifted off momentarily into their own private memories.
Steve roused himself, took a drink, and studied Ted. “You look different. Do I?”
“No, not really,” Ted replied. “You still have that sort of undergraduate je-ne-sais-quoi about you.”
Steve craned his neck. “Yes, since my thirties—and I will deny it if you ever mention any of this to anyone—I do have a je-ne-sais-quoi makeover every year.”
“That messed-up hair. Still Sting with wire-rimmed glasses.”
“Ah, yes. Discovered. I’m flattered,” Steve responded.
“It’s befitting Steve Turner, Librarian. Or maybe it’s Saint Turner?” He grinned, and raised his glass, offering Steve a fake toast.
“Ah!” Steve snorted. “A double-edged compliment! Typical Ted Mooney.” He took a longer drink. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to come up with a user name for someone with a name like mine?”
“Don’t ask,” Ted replied. “TM at AOL was already taken by a transcendental meditation group in LA.”
They chuckled. The alcohol was getting to Ted, warming him, calming him, and he felt closer to Steve.
“And what about me?” Ted asked. “How do I look? You said … ‘different’?”
Steve tilted his head to one side, pretending to examine Ted. His eyes traced Ted’s face and scanned his hairline. “You’ve—now don’t get me wrong—I’m being kind. It’s a personality trait I’m working on.”
They both raised their glasses, a joke to Steve’s remark.
The suggestion of a smile spread across Steve’s face. “You’ve aged.”
Ted almost gagged. “Thank you,” he said in mocked politeness. “I think you need a little more practice on that one.”
“‘Kill ’em with kindness’ as the Bard would say. No, I meant it as a compliment. You’ve aged. Gracefully. You look … mature. In command. That …” He pointed to Ted’s hair. “That wispy gray hair. Imperceptible at first, but then it highlights your temples like they’ve been drybrushed.” Steve paused. He lowered his head and feigned a look of wanting to get a true confession. “Have they?”
“Thank you. And fuck you,” Ted said, not offended, appreciative of Steve’s attempt at humor.
“Just kidding, Teddy-bear.” Steve smiled.
Ted’s expression changed, and he breathed a little harder.
“Remember how Carl used to tease you and call you that?” Steve said.
“I haven’t been called that in a very long time.” Ted’s eyes narrowed.
“Now. Now. Don’t be angry.” Steve continued, “You look very … professorial.”
Ted felt uneasy, unsure of how to take Steve’s comment. He bit his lower lip.
“And you used to do that whenever Carl teased you.”
“Do what?”
“Bite your lip.”
Ted stopped. “And are you teasing me now?”
Steve shifted back in his seat, clasping his hands in front of his mouth. His smile broadened. “Funny how we were in college,” he said, lowering his hands slightly. “Music was our link. We at least had that in common.”
“And you used to do that,” Ted said. He waited for a response.
Steve’s gesture indicated, Like what?
“You used to change the subject when you felt you were cornered.”
Steve burst out laughing. “Oh, please. Let’s not go down that path. Okay, we’ve both detected the other person’s coping mechanisms. I left you with my compliment for the day. I said you looked professorial. And you think I look like an aging rock star.”
“That’s not what I—” Ted started to say. But Steve broke in.
“I read that you’re in the Classical Studies Department. So, tell me. What do you teach? And don’t tell me you teach classical studies.”
Ted picked up his cocktail and took a swig. “Without boring you to death, I teach a course in Plato as literature and a survey course in the Greek playwrights. I have a senior seminar with topics ranging from—”
Steve broke in again. “So much for Doctor Mooney. And what about Mister Mooney?”
“Well, both Doctor and Mister Mooney started at Georgetown the same year they got married. Doris, my—”
“You’re married?” Steve interrupted.
“Yes,” Ted said. “Doris, my wife, used to work in the Registrar’s office. That was before Ted Junior was born.”
“Married? And you have a son.”
Ted paused. He had to think of a way of responding. Finally, and instead of trying to explain himself or dig deeper into what Steve was thinking, he said, “Things change. Or, rather, things make people change. I … uh … Yes. I got married.”
“You’re married,” Steve repeated.
Ted nodded, somewhat annoyed.
He reached for his wallet and pulled out a photo. He offered it to Steve. “That’s Doris. Me. And Ted junior. Disney World last year.” Ted studied Steve studying the snapshot.
“Married,” Steve said absently, still looking at the photo. He handed it to Ted, who put the photo back in his wallet.
Ted wanted to move on. “I recently applied for tenure at the university,” he said.
“Ooo, the big T,” Steve said, making a cross with his fingers, as if to ward off vampires. “Entombed at last in the hallowed halls of academe forever.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. Students studying the classics are becoming as rare as hen’s teeth. I submitted my application, but given the marauding hordes of Liberal Arts majors storming the university for admission, I may be looking for a new position elsewhere. But, then again, who’s knocking on the doors at Podunk U? Maybe a career change is in store for me.”
“Into what?”
“Administration. A lot of classicists wind up in a dean’s office eventually.”
Steve took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “All of which somehow didn’t seem to make it into the annual university rag.”
Ted sat back.
All right! I’ll go there. “You married?”
Steve raised an eyebrow. “Ah! Riposte. Touché. No, I never … married. I …”
“I see,” Ted said, sounding almost clinical. “Footloose and fancy-free. Must be nice being a bachelor and not having to worry about family and the future.”
Steve shifted uneasily in his chair. Ted squirmed too. He felt they were straining. Nothing was connecting. He sensed that Steve felt it too.
So say something about The Music Club. That’s common ground. Ask him about Carl.
“So!” Ted blurted, “You ever hear from Carl?”
Steve took a deep breath. “Yes. In fact—”
“So, what’s he up to?”
Steve sat up slightly. “I uh …”
Steve’s expression changed.
“Remember that god-awful Scriabin thing he made us listen to?”
The smile that had punctuated much of Steve’s discussion up until then disappeared. His eyelids drooped. His lips lowered to a flat line.
“That’s why I contacted you.” Steve lowered his head momentarily, taking a moment before saying, “Carl died a year ago. This coming November.”
“Oh, my God! That’s awful!” Ted felt numb. The space where Carl had existed in his mind was suddenly empty. “I can’t believe it.” Carl. No. He raised his hands to his face, looking like he was praying. “Give me a second.”
Steve didn’t move.
Ted shook his head, his face saddened. “What did he die of?”
“He had a heart attack.”
“Oh, my God. We were all the same … He wasn’t that old.”
Steve nodded.
“But you kept in touch?” Ted asked.
“We lived together.”
No one spoke.
“We were lovers.” Steve’s voice was almost a whisper. “I found him in the shower.”
Ted envisioned Carl lying dead. He blinked several times, trying to remove the image from his brain. The man, the body, he had wanted years ago was now cold, wet, lifeless.
“Oh, my …” Ted mouthed, but only “God” was audible.
“He had the heart attack sometime before I got home and—”
“My God, I can’t believe he’s—”
“I tried to do something,” Steve said, not paying attention to Ted. “But it was too late.” Steve stopped, waiting for a reaction. Ted nodded and waved his hand for Steve to continue. “He didn’t go to work. He said he wanted to take a mental-health day. He was taking a shower and that’s when it happened. The water was still running, and he … he …” Steve stammered trying to think of something else to say.
“Steve, I want to—” He wanted to tell Steve the truth. Instead, he decided to stop, not say anything more.
“We started seeing each other right around graduation.” Steve said, sounding as if he was reporting the facts on the evening news. “And you drifted away. The only thing we could think was that you somehow sensed it. Carl thought that maybe you couldn’t … handle us. You know. But we didn’t want you to reject us. Just because he and I were together.”
Ted almost laughed. He finished the last of his martini. “I think we need another.” He twisted in his chair, motioning for the bartender to refill both their drinks.
“We didn’t want you to hate us,” Steve said. “or to exclude you.”
Ted turned around to face Steve again.
“We both loved you so dearly as a friend.” Steve’s voice was soft. “We had such good times together. Our relationship was something special, beyond everything. It was ours. All three of us.” Steve rubbed his forehead. “I’m feeling kind of dizzy. Maybe it’s the alcohol. But I need to get this straight. I need to clarify what I mean. More for my own benefit. More than for yours. Or for Carl’s for that matter. Not that that’s possible anymore.”
Ted focused on Steve, but he was listening to the voice in his head, re-examining things that had lain dormant. Memories, years of them, disconnected flashes in a rapid-fire movie trailer, flashed through his mind, separating Ted-then from Ted-now.
Pandora’s box reopened.
“… and after graduation, you seemed to drop out of sight,” Steve was saying. “We lost touch. We tried. But something changed in you. It was Carl and me being together. Wasn’t it?”
Ted blinked himself into the present.
“You don’t hate us. Do you?” Steve asked.
“No … no, no. I never hated you. I was … There were questions. Doubts.”
“Questions? Doubts? About what … me and Carl?”
“No! Look! I’m really upset about Carl. I’m sad. Sad that he’s gone.” Ted shrugged. This all sounds so phony. Yes, there was more.
“I hope you mean that, Ted,” Steve said.
Ted shot Steve an angry look. “Well, of course I mean it. What kind of an insensitive prick do you think I am?”
Steve reached across the table, letting his hand rest on top of Ted’s. It was warm and gentle.
Steve started to say something, but the bartender came with their refills. Ted withdrew his hand.
“It was inevitable,” Ted said. “I was kind of annoyed when you contacted me. I … I had cut myself off. From you. From Carl. From everyone. I was trying to figure out who I was. I wanted to accept myself, whoever or whatever I was. But it was hard. I don’t know if I have, even now. I don’t know if anyone ever does.” He snorted. “So, here we are.”
Steve smiled and reached across the table, stopping short of touching Ted again. “We always loved you.”
It’s too late.
Steve shifted in his seat. “We never got married of course,” he said, sounding like he was beginning a new topic. “We had toyed around with going to Vermont and applying for a civil union. That sounds funny, doesn’t it? Makes it sound like a real marriage is an uncivil one?” He spoke sadly, but rapid-fire. His eyes were tearful.
Ted smiled faintly.
“We exchanged rings, though.”
Steve blinked several times and held out his hand to show Ted. It was a gold band with two round-cut diamonds resting in a white gold recess.
“That’s really beautiful,” Ted said in a polite monotone.
Steve smiled, becoming calmer. “We went to Paris for a month. It was May. Very romantic. We waited until we were on top of the Eiffel Tower. Carl joked about our doing it on the top of a phallic symbol.”
“Should have picked the Washington Monument,” Ted mumbled.
“What’s that?” Steve asked.
“Nothing. Just being a smart ass. Go on. You were saying.”
“Carl’s buried outside Philadelphia, a family plot near where his parents moved. Bryn Athyn. I’m thinking of moving there. To the city, I mean. I couldn’t live in the suburbs. Christ! I couldn’t stand it out there, alone in the sticks.”
Steve finished his drink. “There’s not much keeping me here. I wouldn’t mind working for the library at Penn, or even the public library for that matter. They have an incredible collection at the main library. Logan Circle. But it’s pretty hard to break in, even with my background at the El Cee. The Library of Congress.”
Ted didn’t say anything.
“So, tell me about you, Ted. I want to know.”
Softly, from hidden speakers in the ceiling, music began to play over the PA system. It was the beginning of the cocktail hour. It was a piano-reduction of “’Til There Was You” from The Music Man.
“Doris and I met when I was in grad school.”
“Where?” Steve asked.
“In Georgetown.”
“At the university?”
“Well, sorta. We were both at the university. But we met at a bar in Georgetown.”
“You’re kidding me!” Steve laughed. “At a singles bar? My God. You two must be the only two people in creation who ever met at a singles bar, hit it off, and then got married.”
Ted wanted to confess to Steve how he felt his life had uncoiled itself like a steel chain, link by link, willfully, on its own. He had tried to control it, force it to conform to the shape and size that he wanted. But as it grew longer and heavier, it became harder and harder to manage. He had to let it go, let it run itself out to its own predestined end.
“Ted junior’s in pre-school,” Ted said.
“It must be great having kids.”
“It changes things.”
Steve raised his eyebrows. “I’m sorry. You don’t sound all that happy about it.”
“No? I am. I love my son. Dearly.” Don’t sound desperate. “But having a child …. You’re not … free anymore.”
“So I’ve heard,” Steve said.
“You’re not you,” Ted continued. “It’s all him, her, them. No more you. You don’t see yourself on a path going toward something, your goal—whatever it might be. They’re on that path. Leading you. Forcing you.” He closed his eyes, but quickly blinked to reconnect. “So for you, there’s no movement. Only stasis. Until something, someone, tugs at you … hard. And you have to move on. To go in that direction. Even though the direction’s changed.”
Steve leaned in toward Ted, seeing the worn and troubled expression on Ted’s face. “Ted, you can be honest with me.”
Ted sniffled sarcastically. “There was another way,” Ted said, almost to himself.
“Another way?”
The two sat quietly for a moment, Steve waiting for an answer.
Steve picked up his glass and downed the rest of his gimlet. He motioned to the bartender behind the oval bar for another round. Steve watched as the young man mixed their drinks. He wanted Ted to continue, but Ted shook his head slightly.
A waiter, starting the cocktail hour shift, came with their order, and removed their used glasses. Steve mimed wanting the check.
Steve fidgeted in his seat, his fingers tapping the sides of his cocktail nervously. “The doctor kept telling Carl to watch his cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Exercise. Eat right. We did! There weren’t two more health-conscious fags in the world.”
He looked disappointed, tired.
“We were monogamous,” he said and sniggered. “Not the kind of homosexuals they write books or make movies about.” His voice changed, sounding matter-of-fact. “You know? You can tell when somebody’s cheating on you. You can just tell.”
Steve listened to the canned piano music. “Amazing, isn’t it?” He didn’t wait for Ted to respond, to ask what he meant. “I never once thought of cheating on Carl.”
Ted did not react. He thought that the best thing to do now was to listen.
“I go home and expect to hear him, to see him. Wanting things not to have changed.” He looked at Ted anxiously. “I can’t bring myself to throw any of his things out. His cologne. His clothes. It’s as if he still lives there. Christ, I turn around, and I see him standing there.”
Steve mimicked Carl’s voice, sounding playfully gruff, “‘What’s fer dinner? You wanna go out to a bar tonight or just stay home and fuck?’”
Ted suddenly felt a strange connection again with Steve. One that had existed for a time, had vanished, and now returned.
“Yeah,” Ted said, “And there were the three of us. The Music Club.” He started to sing softly off-key, “Meine Schwester und ich stammen aus Louisiana …” He stopped and reached across to Steve.
“Ain’t that the truth?” he whispered.
“Yeah,” Steve breathed back.