Angel, page 12
Their domestic life soon took on a comfortable routine. That was what Paul cherished the most—not the moments of excitement and sexual ecstasy, but the ordinary day-to-day stuff, the things that never make it into photo albums or journals. The monotonously recurring events were the very substance of life, and it was precious to Paul to be living them with his angel.
Paul would watch Ian bringing in the mail, add an item to the shopping list, or take out the trash. Paul did most of the cleaning, because Ian couldn’t be bothered. Ian put the dishes in the dishwasher, because he liked that, but he didn’t like putting them away. Paul did that. Ian liked throwing clothes in the laundry but not taking them out of the dryer and folding them. Ian never got near the toilet with a brush. He liked vacuuming, but the vacuum usually didn’t quite make it back into the closet when he’d finished. He seemed to have a general block about putting things away, and away was where Paul liked things to be.
But Ian had an unfair advantage. He could get out of just about any household task he didn’t want to do with a flirtatious glance or a pout. Paul could put up no resistance to that face, and God help him, Ian knew it. Paul was vaguely aware that he was setting a precedent he might regret when the initial infatuation wore off, but he was powerless to do anything about it. It was probably karma, anyway. When Paul married Sara, he left all of the household chores to her by default. She took them on without comment or complaint, and he never thought to question it.
Even though Paul disapproved of Ian’s smoking, he secretly enjoyed the cigarette smell—which permeated everything—and the saucers placed around the house to be used as ashtrays, even when they spilled and left gray ash on the tables and carpets. They were tangible, physical reminders of the presence of his lover and of how his life had changed.
Ian’s main job was household chef. While he cooked he would often listen to music through headphones and sing along. Paul didn’t know most of the songs, but he was fairly sure Ian sang them all off-key. It was an endearing flaw, like the small gap in his teeth. Ian liked to toss little scraps of meat into the fly-eating plant, which he kept on the kitchen windowsill.
He had an adventurous palate. He loved anything spicy and liked to experiment with flavors. If he ever encountered an unfamiliar fruit or vegetable at the store, he had to buy it to see how it tasted. Paul was the opposite. The only spices he liked were salt and pepper, and he didn’t have any interest in trying anything more foreign than French toast. Ian made it his mission to sneak a little variety into Paul’s diet.
“What is this?” Paul would say as he pushed something around on his plate with his fork.
“It’s couscous.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s fine. It’s wheat. Just try it.”
“What’s that on top if it?”
“They’re called vegetables.”
Paul picked the chick peas off with his fork and put them to one side of the plate.
“You’re not eating those?”
“I don’t like them.”
“Have you tried them?”
“I don’t know. Can I… make a peanut butter sandwich?”
“No. I made this for you.” Ian rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe you’re older than me.”
Paul had forgotten all the simple pleasures of being part of a “we:” sleeping like spoons, telling your dreams to someone when you wake up, being comfortable around someone before you’ve combed your hair, communicating completely with half sentences and facial expressions, the joy of not having to do or say anything.
He was constantly inspired by Ian—his spontaneity, his playfulness, and his unique outlook on life. Yet it was still his beauty that completely engaged his imagination. Paul loved Ian because he was beautiful, and Ian was beautiful to Paul because he loved him. He did not know which came first or where one stopped and the other began.
Sara had been beautiful to Paul, but not a true beauty. She would never have been confused for a runway model. Ian could be. (A “male model,” people always say, because beauty is a woman’s job and male beauty an aberration.) Paul felt like the popular kid in school for the first time. There was only one problem: he couldn’t tell anybody.
Sara had been his girlfriend, then his fiancée and his wife. Everyone knew about their status. To the world Ian was nothing more than his employee or a student. No one would have any reason not to go after him and steal him away. Paul had reacted so strongly to Ian’s beauty that he could not imagine anyone—male or female—feeling any differently. Paul still found it hard to believe that someone so attractive could possibly fall for someone like him. One day Ian would wake up and realize his error too. When he did, there would be fifty guys waiting. Paul saw predators everywhere.
Women of all ages instinctively flirted with Ian. Paul didn’t mind that. It wasn’t a threat. The real problem was the men. Whenever Ian smiled at a male church member or shook his hand, Paul watched for extended glances and meaningful laughter, and he saw them everywhere. It didn’t matter if Paul knew the man to be straight, happily married with five kids. A nod and a grin became a seduction, a mere prelude to a passionate embrace, an invitation to a bedroom or a dark corner.
During the week, the church was a predominantly female environment, and Paul was comfortable as Ian roamed around the building, doing his work. It created no anxiety. On Sundays, however, he found it hard to let Ian out of his sight. He stood in the doorways and around the corner from the rooms Ian cleaned. If a conversation with a man during coffee hour went on a bit too long, Paul would approach and tell Ian there was a bathroom somewhere that desperately needed immediate cleaning. He was a guard dog, circling, monitoring. He had never been so driven to distraction by jealous impulses before. It made him feel out of control, and he hated it.
The Lunchroom
One of the most famous mountain aphorisms is that “the only Zen you find at the tops of mountains is the Zen you take up there.” Another way to put it is, “That which you are seeking is causing you to seek.” It was the lesson Dorothy learned in Oz (at the top of an enchanted mountain where she melted the Wicked Witch). The corollary is that unless they are surprised out of their complacency, people generally see exactly what they expect to see and no more. A mountain could stand right in front of them, and they might never know it is there.
The spontaneity and lack of pretense that so inspired Paul also drove him crazy at times. Ian was social and talkative and a complete open book. He loved to chat with the girls in the office, especially with Julie. Paul had not hidden the fact that Ian had moved in with him. The staff, and eventually the entire congregation, knew. But Paul hoped he could preserve the illusion that Paul and Ian were a bit like a father and an adopted son.
But nothing could stop Ian from talking about his life with Paul and the things they did together. When Julie talked about her husband or Emily about her boyfriend, Ian would jump in with, “Paul does that too,” or “I can never get Paul to try anything new,” or “Paul snores like a steam engine.” Paul was just waiting for the day when he would casually mention which side of the bed he slept on.
Fortunately, he had one secret weapon—Ian’s face. The women in the office were all so infatuated with Ian that they were entirely blinded to the seemingly obvious fact that when talk turned to boyfriends, Ian immediately thought about the minister. They simply never made the connection.
One day in late December, as the staff was getting ready for lunch, Ian came in from shoveling the church walkways. His nose and cheeks were red. He sniffled and jumped up and down to get the circulation moving.
“It’s freezing out there,” he said.
“You poor thing!” Marlee said. “Do you want some hot chocolate? We have some mix in the religious education office closet.”
“Thank you,” he said.
As Marlee heated the hot chocolate in the microwave, Julie brought Ian a box of tissues.
“Be careful you don’t get sick. There’s a flu going around,” Julie said.
“Here,” said Emily, “I’ll hang up your coat.”
Paul stood at his regular place at the back of the table. He opened a paper sack and took out the pair of sandwiches Ian had packed for them that morning. He placed one at Ian’s regular spot then sat down to watch the privately amusing spectacle of the women flirting with and babying his lover.
Emily handed the mug of hot chocolate to Ian. He sat down, cradled it in his hands, and let the steam warm his face.
Paul unwrapped his sandwich, lifted the upper slice of bread, and eyed the ingredients with suspicion.
“Why do you put this stuff on my sandwich?” he asked Ian.
Ian rolled his eyes. “Take the avocados off, I’ll eat them.” To Julie he said, “It’s no fun cooking for him because he doesn’t like anything.”
“Are you saying I’m boring?” Paul asked.
“Yeah,” Ian said. “But in a good way.”
“There’s a good way?”
“It’s endearing. It’s cute.”
Julie and Marlee laughed. Paul smiled, but he hoped Ian could read his subtext, which was: “I might have to kill you if you call me cute in front of people again.”
Ian put the warm mug against his cheek.
“You’re still cold?” Emily asked. “Look at you, your ears are still bright red.”
Ian rubbed his ears to warm them. His hair flipped back behind his shoulders, uncovering the left side of his neck.
Emily squinted at the exposed skin.
“What is that on your neck?” she asked.
Paul felt the blood rush to his cheeks, and he hoped the women in the room would not notice his blushing.
“It’s a hickey!” Marlee said. “He has a hickey on his neck!”
Ian put his hand over the side of his neck and instinctively turned to Paul. “I do?” he asked. Paul nodded. (Subtext: “Yeah, sorry.”)
“I didn’t know that,” Ian said, still looking at Paul. (Subtext: “Why didn’t you tell me there was a hickey on my neck before I left the house?”)
“You have a new girlfriend?” Julie leaned forward, her eyes wide.
“What’s her name?” asked Emily. “You should bring her here so we can meet her.”
“Yes, we want to meet her!” Julie said.
“I… I don’t have a new girlfriend,” Ian said.
“We won’t tell anybody,” Emily said. “Is it somebody in the church?”
“It’s… it’s not like that,” he said. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“How’d you get the hickey, then?” Marlee asked.
Ian turned to Paul again, his face pleading for a rescue.
“Come on,” Paul said to the women. “He obviously doesn’t want to talk about it. It’s none of our business.”
Talk then turned to holiday plans, what relatives people were visiting, who was doing the cooking, how much everyone had to get done before Christmas and how unlikely any of them were to actually get it done in time.
“I still have no idea what I’m getting Jim,” Julie said. “He’s so hard to shop for. He doesn’t collect anything. He doesn’t have any hobbies. I have no idea what he wants.”
“I know what I want to get Paul,” Ian said. “I have it all picked out in my head. Is anyone going to the mall soon? Maybe someone could give me a ride?”
“I can take you,” Julie said. “I have to go anyway. What about tomorrow after work?”
“Great! I’ll buy you dinner,” Ian said. “Do you like Mexican? There’s a place near the mall that has the best margaritas anywhere.”
“Margaritas?” There was a little scold in Paul’s voice.
“Just because I can’t drink them doesn’t mean she can’t,” Ian said. “I have all this hard-earned knowledge. I need to put it to some use. I wish I could figure out how to make a living at it. It’s the only thing I’m an expert in.”
“That can’t be true,” Emily said.
“It’s not,” Paul said. “I’ve been trying to convince him to go back to school. I’d help you.”
“You should,” Julie said.
“I don’t know,” Ian said. “Maybe. I’d have to know what I want to do first.”
“Actually,” Julie said, “maybe you can help me with my New Year’s party. Maybe you know where the best prices are on wine and stuff.”
“Stuff? You mean booze?” Ian asked.
“Yeah,” Julie said with a laugh.
“I’m your man,” he said. “It’s good to be able to use my powers for good instead of evil.” He took a bite out of his sandwich. The surplus avocado slices tumbled out onto the table.
“If you happened to want to bring the new girlfriend that you don’t have, you’re both invited to the party,” Julie said.
“Um, thanks,” Ian said, picking up the avocado and trying to fit it back in the sandwich. “Since she doesn’t exist, I probably won’t bring her, though.”
After lunch, Julie stopped in Paul’s office. She looked back and forth as though someone might be listening.
“So, what does she look like?” she asked.
“What does who look like?” Paul asked.
“Ian’s new girlfriend.”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“You must have seen her. Ian’s living in your house and he doesn’t drive, so she must have to come to pick him up.”
“I haven’t seen her.”
“Men.” Julie shook her head. “You are so unobservant. You don’t notice anything.”
Paul pressed his lips together to avoid laughing.
Tinsel
In his 1858 discourse On Beauty, the Scottish man of letters John Stuart Blackie wrote about the sublime landscape of the mountain. “The silver thread of the wandering waterfall, the nodding plumes of the solitary birch tree, the gleam of light through the dark rocky chasm, the pleasant murmur of the lonely mountain river, the smoke upwreathing from the solitary shielding—all these are points of pure beauty, which calm and soothe the soul amid what is called the ‘savage grandeur’ of the scene. Were it purely savage, it would be pleasing only to a savage mind, and to a diseased imagination, to which mere horror and terror had become necessary stimulants…. Even the tempered sublime, in fact, cannot be the habitual atmosphere of a healthy human life. It is beauty that must be our daily food: sublimity only our occasional banquet. Therefore, when any object naturally sublime is constantly presented to our eye, it is so enrobed in beauty, that the feeling of awe, with which it might otherwise overwhelm us, is moderated into love.”
The following evening, Ian returned from his shopping excursion with Julie lugging three bags and a four-foot Christmas tree. He set the tree down in the middle of the living room floor and then dashed into the bedroom. Paul could hear him hiding something in his drawer. He came back out singing “Winter Wonderland”—off-key, of course.
Ian set the shopping bags down on the coffee table in front of the futon and removed the contents, throwing the plastic bags and receipts to the side as he went. He produced three holiday music CDs, two boxes of candy canes wrapped in plastic, an artificial pine Christmas wreath, a long holly garland, and two boxes of silver tinsel in strands.
“Here’s my favorite,” Ian said. He pulled out a sprig of mistletoe with white plastic berries attached to a piece of white cardboard with a twist tie. He held it over his head and waited for his kiss.
Paul complied. Still standing face to face, with his hand on Ian’s hip, he said, “I can’t believe you bought all this stuff.”
“Isn’t it great?” Ian picked up one of the CDs, unwrapped it, and dropped the plastic on the floor. He put it in the CD player and pressed play. Paul was surprised that he had chosen Bing Crosby and not some modern rock band. Ian hummed “White Christmas” with Bing and started moving furniture around to create just the right spot for his little Christmas tree.
Paul was looking at the pile of packaging. “You’re going to clean this up, right?” he asked.
“Yes, Mom,” Ian said. He had placed the tree on the end table in front of the window and was now opening a box of tinsel.
“I don’t really like tinsel,” Paul said. “It gets all over the house.”
Ian pulled a handful of tinsel from the package and tossed it into Paul’s hair. “Bah! Humbug!” he said.
“Stop that!” Paul said, brushing it off. “Are you planning to vacuum up the stray tinsel, or am I going to end up doing that?”
“This isn’t as fun as I was picturing it,” Ian said, pouting. “You’re not in the Christmas spirit.”
Paul sighed. “You’re making that face.”
“Yeah, I know,” Ian said, raising his eyebrows. “Is it working?”
“Yes.” He sighed again. “But I have a box of ornaments somewhere. In the garage, I think. If I can find them, can we use them instead of the tinsel?”
“Okay. You look for the ornaments, and I’ll put up the wreath.”
Paul went into the garage and dug through boxes of storage. He had essentially stopped celebrating Christmas when Sara died. They had never made that big a deal of the holidays at his house as a kid, and the marital merry-making had been all Sara’s. She couldn’t get enough of Christmas and started decorating around Halloween. While they were together, he had found her enthusiasm for the holiday infectious, but when he was on his own, the season became lonesome and melancholy.
Christmas was a work day for him, a busy time, and that made it bearable. He gave the services so other families could celebrate. He took what pleasure he could from their faces. Then he went home and watched TV. It seemed foolish to put up decorations for himself. He opened the presents that came in the mail when they arrived, and there was no need for holiday music for that.
