Destination Unknown, page 12
It was all so weird and confusing, and the stakes felt pretty high.
When Rick said good night and closed the door behind him, my mother kissed me on the head and said, “Just wanting to make sure our guest felt at home. You’ll understand when you’re older.” And what I understood was that when I was older and in therapy for whatever aftermath of this magazine fiasco was, I’d understand that I was raised in a house with utterly bizarre boundaries that were based upon my anal-retentive mother’s whims.
I lay on the couch, staring directly at the door to my room, behind which Rick was possibly reading the Playgirl magazine I had left under his pillow, or maybe about to find it. I sat up, thinking I should quietly knock on the door. But it was no use. My bedroom was next to my parents’. Any knock would be heard by them.
So instead I went to sleep, dreaming of awkward things exploding at inopportune times.
* * *
I woke up at five to pee. My bedroom door was still closed, no sign of Rick having outed me to my parents. I looked in the bathroom mirror after and thought about how much I didn’t want my relationship with my parents to change, and how, even if it didn’t, even if Rick didn’t say anything, now the cat was slightly out of the bag, never to be put away again. I’d never fully know if Rick found the magazine.
I quietly left the bathroom and headed back to the couch for a couple more hours of sleep.
“Hey,” a voice said.
It was Rick, sitting on the opposite couch.
November 1987
“Mr. Micah,” Rick said by way of hello. He kept his voice down so as not to awaken my parents.
“Hey.”
“Is there anything you wish to tell me?”
My face must have been beet red, it felt so hot. “Um. Did you ever take advice from a friend and then realize it was terrible advice?”
He crooked his head slightly and raised an eyebrow. “What’s going on, Micah?”
I put my hand over my eyes. “I took some bad advice. I wanted you to know I was gay so that maybe you’d help me come out to my parents.”
“Humph,” he said, crossing his legs. “Yes, you took some very awkward-making advice, young man.”
“Sorry.”
“The pillow was quite crinkly, so I investigated. I thought your father was playing a strange joke on me, but then I concluded that, um. He wasn’t.”
The curiosity got the better of me. “How?”
“Two of the Greg Louganis pages were stuck together.”
I hid my face.
“I put it all together. You trying to get back into the room all night. I figured you were sending me a message, and in the name of being a good guy—and not allowing things to get utterly weird with my best friend’s son—I thought it best to just ask.”
“Operation Closet Extraction is off to a terrible start.” I pulled the blanket up to my neck.
He smiled ruefully. “It’s okay. No harm done, really. Just. Maybe don’t take advice from that friend anymore?”
“Way ahead of you.”
He sat up straight and lightly pounded his knees with his fists. “Okay. So how can I help you?”
“I want to come out to Dad. And Mom. Do you think it’ll be okay?”
He pursed his lips. “I mean, sure. In the long run, it’ll be fine. He might be a little surprised at first. He has mentioned thirty or forty times his dream of grandchildren. Which I suppose he could still have, but it will be more difficult.”
I cringed.
“Have you ever said anything to him? To your mother?”
“I’ve tried, but it’s like they’re totally blind to the possibility. Even though my best friends are a girl and a gay guy.”
“Humph. Denial, sounds like.”
“I guess. What do you think I should do?”
He reclined and put his hands behind his head in a stretch. “I think you should tell them. And, if you’d like, I can be there for support. It’s going to be something of an adjustment. I do think your parents have it in their heads that you’re straight.”
I wondered why that was. How, without me ever saying anything about girls, my liberal parents were sure I was interested in them.
“I’m scared,” I said.
He nodded and nodded. “I hate that you’re scared. We should be further along by now. But clearly we’re not. Just know, Micah. In the end it’s going to be okay. I think I can promise you that. They’ll come around. I’m sure of it.”
“Thanks. Your advice is ever so slightly better than that of my friend CJ.”
He laughed lightly. “That seems like a really low bar,” he said.
* * *
“I have never been more embarrassed,” I told CJ as we brunched at the Pot Belly Stove on Saturday. “He literally wanted to have the birds and the bees conversation with me. At six in the morning. In my living room with my parents asleep twenty feet away.”
“What was he wearing?” CJ said.
I shook my head in disgust. “You are the worst celibate person in the world.”
“Not celibate,” he said, forking some hash browns into his mouth. “Just awaiting … appropriate partners. You know. Under twenty-three, let’s say. Twenty-five or -six. Intelligent. Breathing.”
“I feel your parameters are getting better but may still be lacking in some areas.”
He smiled, but he seemed preoccupied.
I went on about Rick. “He was really nice about it and all. I mean, he had said the pillow seemed crinkly, and he investigated. At first he’d thought my dad was playing a joke on him. That made me laugh, trying to imagine my dad buying a Playgirl. But then he put it together, because, apparently, two of the pages of the Greg Louganis spread were stuck together.”
CJ hooted.
“He did the math. How I had been trying to get into the room. I’d explained I’d taken terrible advice from a terrible friend.”
CJ mugged for the camera.
“He thinks it’s really not gonna be a big deal, but he did agree that it will be news. My dad has it in his head that I’m straight.”
“Has he met you?”
I ignored him. “He has no idea, so Rick said it might take some adjustment but he will help, which is awesome. He actually gave me his business card so I can call him if I need to.”
CJ nodded, staring into space.
“What’s going on?” I took a sip of iced tea.
“Nothing. Just thinking about how it’s gonna be Christmas soon. Jack is going to Vail.”
“Seriously? Without you?”
He shrugged.
“I think that’s insane. That’s like child abuse.”
He grunted. “I’m eighteen. Last year, when I was seventeen, maybe. Anyway, I think you may have a very privileged understanding of child abuse.”
I got it, but I wondered if there was part of all of this he didn’t get, either. And that’s when I got an idea.
“Well, you have plans, too.”
“Nah. I’m serious. Older men are out of the picture, so the free-for-all of 1986 is a thing of the past.”
“Did you really … nope, doesn’t matter. I mean that you have plans. With me. You’re staying with me and my family.”
It was rare that CJ seemed surprised. This, however, stunned him silent. Mouth agape, he just stared at me.
Finally, he said, “Really?”
“Really.”
“You know I’m gay, right?”
“Yes. And my mom knows that, too.”
CJ looked impressed. “Okay, but. You’re gay, too.”
“I’m aware.”
“I’m not lying to your parents.”
That made me laugh. Hard. The idea of CJ chiding me about honesty was a little too much. I nearly collapsed under the table. He punched at my shoulder.
“I’m serious,” he said. “No lying. I’d love to stay with you and your family, if I’m really invited. And I’d even consider taking time off from dancing so that it would be more Christmassy, even. But you have to do something, too. Come out, Micah. For me?”
And finally I nodded. Yes. I’d come out. If not for me, then for CJ. And Dalia and Ira would have to stop living in their fantasy world that one day I’d marry a nice Jewish girl.
God have mercy on my soul.
* * *
I filled Felicia in on the details during the show. She was excited that CJ was gonna come stay with us. She seemed to have kind of a den mother thing about him, even though she’d never met him. Kids like him, she explained, were far more common than I’d think.
“Also, maybe you’ll finally figure out that you love him.”
Walter walked in. His eyes had sunk even deeper into their sockets, and his pallor was a bit gray.
“I don’t. Or I do, as a friend.”
“Sure, Micah.” She gave me side-eye.
Felicia was generally quite wise. But on this one, she was way off the mark.
“Whom? Whom do you love?” There was a little energy in Walter’s voice, energy that belied how he looked.
“No one,” I said, blushing.
“He loves a boy named CJ,” Felicia said.
“Ooh!” said Walter, rubbing his hands together.
“Stop,” I said, but I didn’t really mean it.
“CJ is a piece of work, apparently, but he’s age appropriate and he has a job.”
I didn’t want her to expound, and that made me realize I was still judging CJ. I wished I could stop.
“Condoms, every time,” Walter said. “You hear?”
“I hear.”
“Go fall in love. Have babies. God knows I need something to smile about.”
I nodded. So did Felicia, who put her hand on Walter’s bony shoulder. Unsaid was the fact that even if we did that, Walter most certainly wouldn’t be around to see it.
It was too unfair to even ponder. Too painful. Walter, not alive anymore. I stood, went up to him, and put my hand on his other shoulder. I felt bone. Skin and bone.
“For you,” I said, knowing it was untrue. “I’ll do it for you.”
November 1987
The boiling point of sugar was begging for my attention, but I just couldn’t get there.
I was sitting at my desk on Monday afternoon, trying to finish a lab report that was due Tuesday, but caring about the temperature at which sugar boils was a massive stretch.
I mean, things were happening in my life.
I threw my pen down, stood from my chair, and collapsed onto my bed. I let my thoughts go where they really wanted to go.
CJ was going to stay for Christmas break! My mom had agreed. And that meant tick tock, tick tock. I had a deadline. I would have to come out in the next month, or CJ would certainly do it for me.
CJ in my apartment! In my room!
In my bed? No. Stop. We’re just friends.
Would they have him sleep in another room, even though we were just friends? Would they even allow him to stay over once I came out? What would it feel like, to be out? I couldn’t quite imagine that, let alone three steps down the road.
And yeah. He was a friend, only. Felicia was way off. If I had a spark toward CJ, it was just that he was exciting. Life with CJ in it was simply electrifying. Love was something different.
Have babies? I thought about what Walter said and it made me laugh. I tried to imagine having CJ as a boyfriend and us with a kid …
Yeah, not quite.
I rolled onto my stomach and hugged my pillow to my body like it was a guy. A guy who made me feel electric inside. Like CJ, but different.
One of these days, I’d have that, too. And then I’d have everything.
* * *
When I told Deena on Tuesday morning about CJ spending the holiday with me and my family, she burst out laughing.
“Micah! How on earth is that going to work? You’re doing that oblivious thing again.”
“I am not.”
She closed her locker and turned to face me. “So, your thought is to put your anal-retentive mother at a dinner table with CJ the exotic dancer? What exactly are you expecting will happen?”
I stared at a poster for a holiday bake sale. “I don’t know, okay? I haven’t thought that far ahead. I’m going to come out first.”
“Good. That’s good, Micah. But you need to get your head out of the stars and stop making awful decisions. And I’m telling you: Introducing him to your family? You can’t do that.”
“Will you stop telling me what to do?” I stomped my foot. “It’s so annoying. I’m not a child.”
“Then stop acting like one.”
I looked Deena in the eye, and what I saw there wasn’t my longtime best friend; it was a scared stranger who didn’t understand me. Not in the least. I shook my head and walked away.
* * *
After school on Tuesday, I did my homework in the library and went straight to the Lortel to usher. I was thinking about telling my parents I was gay. I hadn’t figured out how quite yet. A small part of me thought drama. Like tell them to meet me in the hallway, and I’d have been hiding in the closet and I’d just come out. Psychodrama, sort of—
My thoughts were interrupted by a vision some twenty feet in front of me, on the corner of Sheridan Square, in front of the cigar shop. It was CJ, with his hand on the shoulder of a man my grandfather’s age—a man with wrinkly white skin and a bad gray toupee poorly balanced on his clearly bald head. CJ’s hand was rubbing, massaging that shoulder.
Speaking of sugar boiling over. Just two days ago, CJ had vowed to give up older guys. And here he was out on the street with someone my grandfather’s age, who wasn’t even attractive, and—to hell with all the things Felicia and Walter had said about me having feelings for CJ. I was done. Done.
I rushed toward them. “Are you kidding me with this?”
“Micah—!”
“CJ. I thought you were through with older guys?”
“What? No!”
“Seriously,” I said, and for some reason I turned and addressed the old guy. “Yes, my friend has the most intense daddy issues ever. But could you maybe find someone your own age? This is really pathetic. He’s eighteen. Are you sixty?”
“Excuse me?” the man asked, but CJ gently stopped him by squeezing his shoulder.
“I’ll get this, Winston,” CJ said. Then he turned to me, as angry as I’d ever seen him.
“Any other true feelings about me you wish to get off your chest? Inappropriately, I might add? This is not a date, Micah. It’s not anything you’re assuming it is.”
“Right,” I said, steaming, while just a sliver of doubt started to enter my brain. It felt ice-hot, painful. “You’re rubbing the shoulder of a guy on Sheridan Square who happens to be fifty years older than you—”
“Hey,” Winston said. His voice was sandy. “Enough with the age crap. I’m standing right here, and I’m a person, with feelings, who has been through more shit than your profoundly immature brain could even comprehend.”
“Sorry,” I said. Then, overwhelmed by how outmatched I was by the situation, I turned around and walked toward Christopher Street.
CJ called after me. “Micah! You mind if I tell you who this is?”
“I don’t care!” I called back.
As the show went on and I sat in my usher chair by the side curtain, my mood turned dark. The crowd was laughing at something Ouiser had said, and I just wanted them to shut up, because I was hurting. Someway, somehow, CJ had lurked his way into my heart. I cared about him, and caring about someone you couldn’t trust was the worst. My stomach hurt. My head buzzed. I was imagining him in bed with Winston. I couldn’t unsee the image in my head, of CJ massaging his shoulder on the street. I couldn’t stop thinking of who Winston thought CJ was, because he was always someone else, never himself, and I hated him for that.
Also I maybe loved him for that. Or I had, at one time. Okay, maybe. But I couldn’t now, because here he was again, choosing some old guy over me. Fine. I didn’t even care anymore. He could do what he wanted. But then I pictured CJ’s smile, and my heart hurt again, and I couldn’t wait for intermission so I’d have to do something and I could get my brain to stop spinning.
When I got home, in my room, the thoughts continued to jump around in my head. I wasn’t sure if I still needed to come out, as I’d promised that I would to a liar.
And …
What if I never saw him again? And what if he wasn’t lying for once?
I’d never had a CJ in my life before. I’d never had someone come into my life and totally rearrange it, and change me to the point that I wasn’t even talking to my best friend, and I didn’t care because I had CJ, CJ, who—
Shit. Maybe Felicia was right? I did love him, in a way?
Maybe I lost it not because he was lying, but because I was jealous? That made me laugh. Jealous of an old guy? But I was, wasn’t I? If I wasn’t jealous, why was I so angry about seeing him with someone else?
Sitting in my desk chair, I tried to put the entirety of CJ’s story out in front of me. All the things he’d told me about who he was, and how he’d said he’d stay at my house and seemed excited to do that, and the fierce denial, which was new; he’d never fiercely denied anything to me before.
Shit. Maybe somehow he wasn’t lying. And maybe I did sort of love him. Which wasn’t going to work. It just couldn’t. We were friends. And it sucked to maybe be in love with your first gay friend. I would have to put those feelings away forever.
Even though it was around ten, I picked up the phone and tentatively dialed.
“Connell/Gorman residence, kindly start speaking.”
“Hi, Jack. Um, this is CJ’s friend Micah.”
A loud sigh. “It’s late,” he said. “Just a sec.”
I tried to steady my breathing as I rehearsed what I was going to say, only to realize I hadn’t given myself time to figure it out.
