Thirteen Crucifixions, 60

2001

            Melissa was happy.  Not simply happy.  Overjoyed.  Breathless with delight. The digital clock-radio that peaked out on the floor between her black lace camisole and her dark green velvet cocktail dress declared in electric red digits that it was 9:34 a.m.  She was getting used to waking up early, which she had to do in order to get to work on time.  Sheila had just hired her to work three lunches per week at the Westwind, and Stefan, who lay curled up near her was softly snoring.  In as many days they had made vigorous, esctatic love five times or more.  Five times, six, seven, maybe even ten times. She felt renewed, remade, and reborn.  She felt like a well-fed Persian cat purring with contentment.  “A nice warm pussy for my buddy-boy”, she muttered in a sing-song voice, lightly stroking his freshly-shaved head.  He had a job now, bussing tables at the Steel Toe.  It was so easy, she had only to go down once on Ed, whose brother owned the establishment.  The rest happened like magic.  Of course she wasn’t going to tell Stefan.  Even though they had mutually declared their relationship to be an open one, still, silence at times was the best policy.  Stefan had a job that he liked.  He was happy.  Now he could be for her a proper lover.  Melissa was happy.  Stefan stirred gently.  But was clearly still fast asleep. She climbed out of bed to take her shower.

            “So, where would you like to have breakfast?” Bill said, smiling.

            “Oh, anywhere”, Persimmon replied lazily. “I’m easy.”

            “Sure you are, sure you are.”

            She smirked as they both relaxed over coffee at the kitchen table.  They were both wearing robes—hers was white terry cloth, his was deep blue velour.  In two weeks they had become lovers.  This would be the morning following their third night together.  Quite simply, he would be Persimmon’s first man since her ex-husband, Jake.  Much to her surprise, she was actually ready for love.  So far, Bill didn’t quite overwhelm her.   He seemed to know his place, letting her make the rules, set the boundaries.  He treated her like a queen.  Not that Persimmon was in love.  Somehow she seemed to know better.  And it seemed clear that he adored her, worshipped her, even.  She glowed with the silent satisfaction of a woman who is finally being properly loved. Had she really been missing this?  Certainly she’d been needing it.  Things had so far proceeded smoothly, seamlessly.  Flawlessly.  From when they met in that café following those two disastrous interviews two weeks ago it just seemed the natural thing for the two of them to be striking up a conversation.  She was feeling actually quite upset and agitated after first Leticia and then Stefan.  And Bill suddenly was there, to listen, to soothe, and to comfort.  Finally a man not so wrapped up in his own concerns that he could actually show her an interest that was not merely concerned with sex.  They were two damaged sensitive human beings whose recent lives had been fraught with tragedy.  Now they could be to each other a presence of comfort and healing.  Now they could help increase each other’s stability.

            But she wasn’t ready to say that she was in love with him.  He looked so dreadfully handsome right now that she thought he seemed rather comical, like an updated mix of Errol Flynn, Clark Gable and Cary Grant.  But naturally in his former career he would want to cultivate such an antiquated look of male glamour as to effectively conquer the hearts and chequing accounts of such lonely rich old women as would happily subsidize his services.  Her little secret of affectionate contempt was making her giggle like a thirteen year old contemplating her first date.

            “What’s the joke?”

            “Life, William dearest”.  She was loudly guffawing, “Life, it’s-own-fucking-self”.  He smiled broadly, warmly and adoringly.  Persimmon, knowing that she had just been recreated as a beautiful woman, said, “Dutch Pannekoek.  How about the Dutch Pannekoek House, the one on Robson?”

            He took her freshly manicured hand in his, kissing it reverently.  “Your wish is my command.”

            It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.  They leaned each against a pillow, less than five inches of counterpane between them.  Michael was right next to the wall, which made him feel rather like a hostage to Lazarus, who was near the bed’s outer edge.  They had both woken simultaneously.  They weren’t naked.  Michael, anyway, was wearing shorts and a t-shirt.  He wasn’t sure about Lazarus, who just might be naked.  They had not made love, though they mutually admitted that they might feel obligated to.  They had spent the evening together.  As usual Michael met Lazarus at work, when he was getting off around seven.  They went as usual to the Rose and Thorn for a couple of mugs, then they stood in line at a rather too popular Greek restaurant in the West End, where they also encountered a good number of Michael’s old friends, acquaintances and former sexual partners, every last one of whom seemed interested in Lazarus.  Michael was not known to associate with persons younger than himself.  From there they escaped to a café in Yaletown.  Then Lazarus suggested they take a cab to his place.  Michael still hadn’t seen it.  Not bad for a basement, small but not claustrophobic.  He shared facilities with the people upstairs.  Michael almost kissed Lazarus, but then drew back, as though knowing not to go there with him.  A few moments later Lazarus tried to kiss Michael, but realized that he wasn’t going to.  They spent the night chastely sleeping beside each other.

            “Sleep okay?” Lazarus said.

            “Profoundly.”

            “Me too.”

            “I don’t ordinarily sleep well with someone new.”

            “Same here.”

            “Was it good for you?” Michael said grinning.

            “You can wipe off the shit-eating smile if you want, but I had a wonderful time.”

            “Can I buy you breakfast?”

            “Honey, you can buy me breakfast any time.”

            “How gay of you.”

            “Oh, you bitch”, Lazarus said with a lisp.

            “You do that well.”

            “Unfortunately.”

            “So where do you want to eat?”

            “I dunno.  Where do you want to eat?”

            It was the cheekbones.  Lazarus had the most exquisitely sculpted cheekbones Michael had ever seen.  He was too beautiful to be made love to?  He only wanted to look at him, adoring this vision of human beauty.  He had never been more aesthetically than sexually attracted to another male before.

            “Anywhere but McDonald’s.”

            “Don’t you want an Egg McMuffin?”

            “Where is the coffee good around here?”

            “Where I work.”

            “We’re not going there.”

            “Oh, let’s.”

            “They’ll think we’re an item.”

            “They already do.  Russell is green with envy.”

            “What!”

            “He says I beat him to you.”

            “I didn’t know he was gay.”

            “Well, he has a thing for you.”

            “How do you feel about that?”

            “I’m not possessive.”

            “Me neither.  And we’re not really an item.  Are we?”

            “We haven’t made love.”

            “Only because we don’t need to.”

            They looked at each other, then away from each other.  Still looking straight ahead, his eyes half shut, Lazarus said. “I believe you’re right.”  He tossed of the covers to reveal the full extent of his nakedness.  “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a shower.”  He made no attempt at covering himself, as though his body was a fact for Michael to accept.  He was very slender, not quite but almost gaunt, moving with a dancer’s grace.

            Michael decided not to shower.  To his surprise, he just didn’t feel that he needed one.  He actually woke up next to Lazarus feeling clean.  Quite a new experience for him.  He wondered what he’d say to Glen, if anything at all needed to be said.  He’d probably take it in stride, though he really wasn’t certain.  They had a platonic romance going, Glen and Michael.  They never touched each other.  Not bodily.  But they were in love.  Oh, they were in love, truly, madly, deeply in love with each other.  There was no denying it.  It was too obvious.  Michael still suffered over whatever it was that Glen and Pierre shared together.  And he could tell that Glen would, however discreetly, however courteously, suffer over Lazarus, and there wasn’t any need for either of them to.  They should be together, all four of them for a visit together. Lazarus came forth from the shower and towelled his visibly naked body dry in front of Michael, who quite couldn’t make up his mind whether or not he found him desirable.

            “Where are we having breakfast?” Lazarus said, slipping into his black bikini briefs.

            “My place.”

            “You mean your mother’s.”

            “Yes.”

            “Do you think she’s ready for me?”

            “She’ll be at work.”

            “Let’s eat at her café.”

            “I’m not ready for her this morning.”

            “Afraid of what she’ll think?”

            “Well—yeah.  She’s my mother, after all.”

            “Sure”, he said, while pulling on a long-sleeve black t-shirt.  “What are you going to feed me?”

           

            The house was quiet.  But it usually was quiet.  On the floor behind the front door a single white envelope shone like a promise in the dark foyer.  Michael picked it up.  His name was on it in Matthew’s writing.

            “Bad news?” Lazarus said, as Michael paused with the letter in his hand.

            “Anticipated.”

            “Nice place”, Lazarus said, glancing at various doorways and rooms.

            “It’s big anyway.  I grew up in this house.”

            “Nice place to grow up.”

            In the kitchen they sat at the arborite table eating granola, toast, jam, cheese and fruit.  The clock of Michael’s childhood said that it was five past eleven.

            “What are your plans for the rest of the day?” Lazarus said.

            “It’s wide open.  Do you work?”

            “I’m off today.”

            “What would you like to do?”

            “I dunno.  Just hang, I guess.”

            “Where do you want to hang?’

            “Here?”

            Glen came in carrying a glass jar full of murky coloured water and paint brushes.

            “Glen, I would like you to meet Lazarus.”

            Glen smiled, nodded and proceeded to the kitchen sink.

            “Have you been painting?”

            “Yes.”  He was leaning over the running water.

            “Why don’t you join us?  The coffee’s still fresh.”

            “I will in a sec’”.  Glen appeared to be all right concerning Lazarus though for Michael it was often hard to tell.  He did seem to be holding himself in check, or reserve, as though withholding his judgement, or merely holding his tongue.  Or perhaps he was so preoccupied with his art that he wasn’t even on the same plane of existence as lesser mortals.  One never could tell with artists.  He also wasn’t sure how Lazarus would respond to Glen, who seemed quite indifferent towards him, actually, though friendly.  Glen seemed benign and equaniminous to almost everybody.  He found his perpetually calm state unsettling, though also consoling.

            “Were you out early this morning?” Glen said as he sat down with a mug of coffee.

            “I didn’t come home.”

            Glen said nothing.  Michael was trying to discern some indication or sign that this might somehow be troubling him.  Nothing.

            “He stayed at my place”, Lazarus said.

            Glen, appearing to be trying to force himself out of his apparent indifference, a big smile on his face, roared, “Where’s my rolling pin!  And who IS this shameless hussy you brought home with you?”

            Lazarus and Glen together laughed long, loud and hard, shaking off once and for all the tension Michael had unwittingly visited on them.  Michael, not laughing, but seeing that he was the odd man out, forced a wry, obligatory grin.

            “Well”, Glen said, copping the pose of a prim school marm.  “I just hope you both used some pro-TEC-tion?”

            “We didn’t have sex”, Lazarus deadpanned.

            “Though we did sleep together”, Michael added.

            “Too much information.  But it does sound rather cozy.”  Glen helped himself to a wedge of melon that he thoughtfully chewed on.  To Lazarus he said, “So you’re the guy who works at the café at the Library.”

            “Central Branch”, Lazarus said.

            “I was stalking him there”, Michael said.

            “Like hell, you were”, Lazarus said, authentically indignant.

            “Darling, our first fight.”

            “Oh, fuck the darling! Lazarus said, picking up his coffee.

            “And to think I almost did.”  Lazarus made as though he was going to hurl his coffee in Michael’s face.  Glen was laughing again.

            “Made for each other.”

            “I think not”, Lazarus said.

            “See, he admits that he doesn’t think”, Michael said.

            “Oh will you stop”, Lazarus said, showing annoyance.

            “Easy, big fellow.”

            “That’s it.  Show some respect.”

            “Yes-suh.  Yes massah.”

            “What did you put in that coffee, anyway?” Glen said, sniffing his mug.

            “You don’t want to know”, Lazarus said.

            “So, you’re not boyfriends?” Glen said to Lazarus.”

            “I don’t know what the fuck we are.”  He seemed visibly troubled about this.

            “Perhaps, brothers?”

            He looked to Michael, who said, “I’m at a loss for words.”

            “If my discernment is correct”, Glen said looking first at one, then at the other, “What you both have in each other is something very precious and extremely rare.  Nurture it.”

            Michael said, “But what is it?”  The resulting silence was becoming unbearable to him.  He was feeling enough pressure in his bladder to suggest that he might be justified in excusing himself to use the bathroom.  Glen’s equanimity, his robust goodwill, concerning Lazarus was troubling to him.  He couldn’t figure out why.  Matthew had never spared him some sense of guilt or vague embarrassment whenever he brought a new boyfriend or fuck buddy home for him to meet and “measure”.  There would be always some sense of reserve, of embarrassed and embarrassing disapproval.  Glen betrayed none of this.  But Glen and Michael were not lovers, whatever bond there might be between them.  Just as Michael and Lazarus were bonded.  So Matthew had finally written to him.  A proper letter.  And from the appearance of things, it would be a good fat and long letter.  He would have to find, he would have to make time, a good long bit of time, for reading it.  After a good long pee, he wiped the toilet rim with toilet paper, then flushed.  He couldn’t understand some of these morons who would spray and spatter their urine all over the place for someone else to have to clean up or step in.  Matthew had taught him very well.  He wondered how much of the day Lazarus and he could spare for each other, how long it would be before one or both of them would become antsy, feeling held-in, held hostage.  They were both fragile.  Lazarus would be grieving for his mother for quite a while yet.  He had already set him off once today.  Descending the stairs to the kitchen, to the table of his childhood, Michael couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before he misstepped and said or did one clumsy thing too many, and wrecked everything. 

            Glen could paint for only so long with Michael and Lazarus in the room.  He could paint only for so long with Lazarus looking on, oohing and aweing, and asking question after question about the way Glen painted.  Glen could paint only for so long.  Before he went completely stir-crazy.  That he had a good thing going was very obvious.  Hoping that he could stay in this house for a good long time he really didn’t know for how long it would be tenable.  It was a comfortable arrangement.  He had enough money to live on—Randall and Barbara were very generous when it came to remunerating his services.  They usually went on separate retreats.  Glen had long found their arrangements with each other to be quite interesting.  Whatever romance had been rekindled between them had ebbed away shortly after they re-married.  That they still loved and would likely always love each other, seemed obvious.  But not as husband and wife.  By her own admission Barbara was on a pilgrimage.  And Randall had followed suit.  They slept in separate rooms and their house had taken on very much the nature of a monastery or a convent.  It had long been confided to Glen, by whom he couldn't remember, that they’d each taken vows of celibacy, had become associates of an obscure, eccentric ecumenical religious order.  Personally, Glen could not understand why they’d have to eschew sex in order to do this sort of thing, but he felt prepared to allow for an exception to almost any rule.  By both their admission, sex between them had almost always been a mistake.  They had courted and married each other the first time around because that was what they’d assumed that mutually interested men and women should always do with each other.  Seven years later they came together again, after a fitful and sporadic fashion.  According to Randall they had only had enough sex with each other to produce both their children.  It was only a transcendent, mutual loyalty, heightened by the appearance of two children, one of whom was profoundly disabled, that kept them together.  He had yet to visit this community with which Randall and Barbara had become associated.  It was located somewhere near Victoria.

            He felt that he’d walked enough.  The weather wasn’t bad, if a little on the cool side for the middle of May.  Sheila was right—cool springs seemed always to bring on an unparalleled abundance of flowers.  Now in the full light he watched azaleas, rhododendrons and peonies dissolving into the gentle sunlight.  He often did faux-impressionism, mostly of woodland scenes with azaleas in sun-drenched clearings.  This particular series of work had brought on quite a variety of responses—from “derivative pablum” to “more Monet than Monet.”  For Glen it wasn’t the subject but the colour; and not simply the colour but the light—light emerging out of darkness and bringing to light the hidden treasures of darkness.  How could anyone miss something so simple, so elemental? 

            There was the West Wind, as though it was waiting for him.  He usually didn’t come in during the lunch rush, and as he expected there wasn’t an available seat in the place.  Sheila and Melissa were both frantically waiting on tables.  Just as he was on his way out the door Sheila signalled to him.

            “Wait a minute, Glen, I have an important message for you.”

            He was still heading out the door, feeling more bewildered than anything.

            “I said wait!”  Sheila was pointing wildly at the back of the café, like an old fashioned school teacher banishing a naughty pupil to go stand in the corner.

            “What?”

            “I said, go sit in the back.”  She was beginning to look frantic and exasperated.  Glen obediently went into the tiny back room where he sat down on the sofa. As he was browsing through a National Geographic Sheila came in brandishing a small red card in one hand and a cordless phone in the other.

            “Someone wants to buy one of your paintings. He left me his card.  He just stepped out before you came in, but he said he’s in the neighbourhood and would gladly come back and settle with you if you call him on his cell phone.”

            He had to listen and watch her closely to make sure that he was getting the correct information.  She looked actually like a traffic cop in Manhattan as she brandished the card and the phone in front of him, her face a contortion of stern enthusiasm.

            “Hey, cool”, he said receiving both items from her.  The card belonged to a Douglas P. Furnis, Clothing Designer.

            “Hello”, an anxious sounding male voice said on the first ring.

            “Yes, it’s Glen McIntyre calling, is this Douglas Furnis I’m speaking to?”

            “Yes it is.”

            “You were inquiring concerning one of my paintings at the West Wind Café?”

            “Oh, yes, yes”, he said, suddenly ecstatic.  “It’s the big blue and gold abstract.  What would you like for it?”

            “Six-fifty.”

            “Are you there now at the café?”

            “Yes, I am.”

            “Stay there, I’ll be right over.”

            It wasn’t supposed to happen this quickly.  There was bound to be some catch, some complication.  Murphy’s Law.  Every one of Glen’s art sales and commissions had been fraught with some sort of difficulty.  There were usually strings attached.  I wonder what fresh hell this can be he caught himself wondering.  It was a vintage issue of the National Geographic he was leafing through—May, 1968.  The article was on Czechoslovakia, during the Prague Spring, written just three months before the Russian tanks came rolling into Wenceslas Square.