Thirteen Crucifixions, 51

“You got here.”

            “I’m not late am I?”

            “No, not at all.  But you arrived.  A lot of guys don’t.”

            “Well, I do.”

            “Women are a lot better that way, don’t you think?

            “Maybe.  I don’t know that many.”

            “My best friends are women.”

            “Lucky you.  My best friends are all dead.”

            “No, are they?”

            “And my partner just dumped me.  Sold the townhouse, changed the locks and left town.  Didn’t tell me squat.”

            “And that’s why you’re at your mom’s?”

            “Among other reasons.”

            “Like?”

            “It seems to be where I should be for now.”

            “How can you tell?’

            “I can’t.  This is pure guess-work.”

            “Would you say that that’s how you live your life?”

            “Just lately.  I blame it on Matthew.”

            “Matthew?”

            “My former partner.”

            “That’s an interesting word to use.  ‘Partner.”  It almost suggests you were running a law firm together.”

            “It’s a euphemism.  And that’s all it is.”

            “You mentioned that all your friends are dead.  What from?”

            “You have three guesses.  The first two don’t count.”

            “AIDS?”

            “Now what ever gave you that idea?”

            “Have you always been sarcastic?

            “Yes.  Does it bother you?”

            “It does, actually.”

            Michael sang, “’Please be careful with me—I’m sen-si-tive and I’d like to stay that way.’”

            “I don’t think that’s funny.  And if you don’t stop it I’ll leave.”

            “Sorry.”

            “That’s okay.”  The pub was filling up with the happy hour crowd.  They had been lucky to get a table.  “I’m probably going to be like this for a while.  My mother just died.”

            “When.”

            “Last week.”

            “Shit! Man, you should have told me.”

            “Well, you know now.  It wasn’t exactly a surprise.  It was cancer. She had it for quite a while.  Fortunately, she wasn’t in a lot of pain.”

            “So it’s just you and your father now?”

            “He’s been dead for years.  I’m an orphan, I guess.”

            “How old were you?”

            “I was still a baby.  He was lynched.”

            “Lynchings don’t happen here”.

            “They do in Louisiana.  That’s where I was born.  I don’t remember it at all.  Mom took me up here to live with her parents before I was a year old.”

            “So how did he get lynched?”

            “A bunch of white supremacists hanged him from a tree.  He was doing a lot of advocacy work with poor black families.  He was branded a “nigger lover” by the local KKK, then one night they got him.”

            “You said your father was a Christian minister?”

            “That’s right.  They got him just days after I was born.  They’re all still running around free.”

            “So you never knew your father?”

            “Looks that way.”

            “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

            “No.  Just me.  Mom never remarried.  She had a couple of boyfriends, though.  One at a time I mean.”

            “Yes, of course.”

            “What about your grandparents?”

            “I see them quite a bit.  They’re doing okay.  They’re not seventy yet.”

            “It must be hard for them, losing their daughter.”

            “It’s hard for all of us.”

            “Yes, of course.”  Neither Michael nor Lazarus had cared to meet together in a gay establishment, making the Cambie a suitable alternative.

            “Why did you approach me like that?” Lazarus said.

            “Last night?”

            “At the book store.”

            “Because I’m a nervy bastard who likes taking risks.  And it did seem like an open invitation.  I’ll bet it was.”

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lazarus’ face was colouring.

            “You look great in red, you should wear it more often.”

            “What’re you talking about?”

            “The colour of your face right now.”

            “I guess I didn’t have to help you with your crossword puzzle.  But you were being so remote and hard to reach—“

            --“And you didn’t have to be sitting in my usual armchair in Chapters with my favourite photo book of naked guy pictures now, did you?”

            “That was a complete accident.”  He was getting defensive.

            “Entrapment is the word that comes to mind.”

            Lazarus looked at his beer.

            “Last week I noticed you noticing me.”

            “In Chapters?”

            “In Chapters.   And I noticed you noticing the book I was looking at.”

            “I’m not going to admit I was following you.”

            “You already have.  How old are you?”

            “Twenty.  How old are you?”

            “Guess.”

            “I dunno—thirty-seven?”

            “Fuck you”, Michael said, showing his middle finger.  Lazarus started laughing.

            “Hey, I like older guys.”

            “I’m very flattered, I suppose.  So, you’re a preacher’s kid?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Would you call yourself a Christian?”

            “I don’t know what to call myself.  I don’t even know if I’m gay.”

            “Have you bothered to find out?”

            “I’ve had sex with guys.  I’ve had sex with girls.  But I don‘t know which I prefer.”

            “Maybe both?”

            “Maybe neither.”

            “Why be both when you can be neither.  Have you ever had a satisfying sexual experience in your life?”

            “No.  You?”

            “Plenty.  But I’m off sex these days.”

            “Yeah, we’re alike that way, I guess.”

            “No.  You’re not like me that way.  Not in the least.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “I’m exclusively gay, you’re not.  I have already had a satisfying sex life.  You haven’t.  Therefore, if we can both be called celibate then it’s for very different reasons.”

            “So, why are you celibate?” Lazarus asked

            “I don’t know.  I haven’t figured it out yet.  It could be that I’m pining for Matthew. You see, we were together for nearly twenty years.  But only six months ago or so did I really fall in love with him.  Then he got himself religion and fucked off to a monastery or some place like it.”

            “You miss him?”

            “Tragically.  He just e-mailed me his address—on the island somewhere. 

            “Any chance of getting back together with him?”

            “That is never going to happen.”

            “Never say never.”

            “In this case I can.  This has a feeling of finality.”

            “So you’re a writer?”

            “Was a writer.  Journalist, actually.”

            “And you were free-lancing?”

            “Among other things.  Hey, can we talk about something else?”

            “Sorry.”

            “The fact is, I don’t know if I’ll ever write again.  I don’t know what I’m supposed to do right now.  All I can do is wait.

            “Do you know what you’re waiting for?”

            “I wish—I wish.”

            But Michael did know that he was waiting.  He could not recall any time in his life that he had been this inactive.  He had, literally, nothing to do, or nothing constructive to do with his time.   He wasn’t even interested in sex.  Glen had suggested that he keep a journal.  But he couldn’t write, he was too depressed to write.  Matthew, his partner of twenty years, had just abandoned him, he had been blackballed from ever writing again, or at least in the foreseeable future.  The same corporate interests that ran the major daily newspapers across the land had not taken kindly to his revelations about APEC and it’s corporate-rich agendas.  Matthew was gone.  He could no longer write even if he wanted to.  Sex seemed out of the question.  Till recently Michael had always assumed that he was highly sexed—now he was beginning to wonder if sex, for him, had merely been a by-product of the fission between his relationship with Matthew and his craft as a writer.  He had to think of something to do besides live at his mother’s, sit in cafes and bars and read.  Perhaps acquire a sympathetic relationship with this very young man sitting with him?  Thirty-seven and twenty—Matthew’s and his own respective ages when they first got together.  But the sexual passion was robust, immediate and sustained on both sides.  If nothing else, sex between them, when it happened, was often wonderful.  That Matthew had loved Michael, who was too self-preoccupied to reciprocate, seemed only to enhance and intensify the sexual pleasure for them both.

            It was too early for Michael to tell just what he felt toward this boy, or young man, with whom he was drinking beer.  That Lazarus, the strangely named, was good looking was not a moot point.  That Michael was particularly interested in his looks—he didn’t know really.  He hadn’t felt particularly sexual when he held the weeping youth in his arms in the book store.  Nurturing, yes.  Protective, yes.  And most certainly embarrassed.  Younger men, no matter how physically desirable had seldom been for him much of a turn-on.  Perhaps he had never welcomed the challenge of mentoring, especially since he had had an apparently inexhaustible need for being mentored himself.  A role which Matthew had filled in his life perfectly.  And now this boy, Lazarus, was seeking him out. A mentor.  But Michael, not liking children, certainly cared not for playing the mentor.  Especially toward someone with whom he would not likely be having sex.  He felt reliably certain that sex would not, or ought not to be occurring between them.  Still, he felt that it must be said, and that it must be said by him, since Lazarus seemed already to expect him to set the boundaries, to make an agenda, that he, Michael, be the one to define their relationship.  Still, he was not pleased, since if there ever was a time in his life where he felt that he had nothing to offer anyone, then this would be it.  He could always tell him that this wasn’t the time, and that he wasn’t the one.  There was still time, surely there must still be time for him to back out, to save his ass, to recover his precious autonomy.  With Matthew he had his autonomy.  Or a feeling of autonomy.  But now Matthew was gone, and Michael was just beginning to understand that whatever it was that Matthew had given him, it had nothing to do with autonomy.

            He also knew that it was too late now to back out.  They were in it—whatever “it” would be—together.  He was also instinctively aware that now he couldn’t back out without somehow doing them both grievous injury.  Lazarus was wearing black again, a colour he appeared to favour, and which seemed to favour him.  With his dark short hair, brown eyes and slightly aquiline features he could be French, Italian, Spanish or Algerian.  His face was set with an unsettling effect of emotion and restless intellect.  His lips were a little on the thin side, and tightly pressed together.  He thought that his cheekbones were exquisite.

            “So, what are we going to do?” Lazarus asked.

            “I don’t know.  What do you want us to do?”

            “Are you hungry?”

            “Kind of.”

            “Where do you want to eat?”

            “I don’t care.”

            “What don’t you like to eat?”

            “I’ll eat anything except Japanese.”

            “Too bad.  I was going to suggest sushi.”

            “I don’t eat raw fish.”

            “I could have guessed that.”

            “Oh, you’re too funny.”

            “Why don’t we just walk around for a while and see if anything looks good?”

            “Might as well.”

            Michael was not ready for Officer Crawley, now out of uniform as they were heading toward the door.  He was at a table alone with that look of a man waiting for his date to appear.  He looked away as he saw them coming, as Michael tried to give his attention to Lazarus walking ahead of him.  He felt the stark pressure of a firm strong hand groping his right buttock, and Michael knew better than to turn around and face his assailant, just as he knew not to mention any of this to Lazarus.