Long Way Out, page 20
“No,” Russell replied. “I know you. We’ve met.”
“Really? Are you sure?” As a flight attendant, the man couldn’t possibly be expected to remember every individual passenger. Still, he had made an indelible impression on at least one of the travelers he’d served.
“Your name... let me think...” Russell recalled, “is Jamal. Right?”
“Correct,” Jamal confirmed. “You look vaguely familiar. Where did we meet?”
“Wakey, wakey,” hinted Russell.
“Well...” Jamal seemed even more baffled. “I hope you’re not suggesting that we slept together. Because I’d remember that if...”
“No, no, no!” Russell interrupted.
“Oh!” Jamal exclaimed. “I remember now. Austin to Nashville. You were sacked out. You were so adorable. I hated to wake you up.”
“I thought you were adorable, too.” As Russell offered his hand for shaking, he reminded Jamal of his name: “Russell.”
Rather than grasping the outstretched hand, Jamal opened his soft, powerful arms and pulled the smaller man against his ample torso. “Russell. Yes,” he said, as if the circumstance of their meeting was coming back to him in vivid detail. The chemistry was palpable. Both men felt it.
“So, you’re on the team,” Russell assumed.
“When my flight schedule permits.”
“You look like a slugger,” Russell observed. “Are you... a slugger?” With this question, the conversation had crossed the line into overt flirtation.
“Well...” A shy smile blossomed across Jamal’s full lips. “I’ve been known to hit a home run... or two... in a game.”
“How about off the diamond?” Russell could scarcely believe he’d grown bold enough to go here. “Are you hitting any homers in your love life?”
“Oh, I do alright,” Jamal said, with a wink. “But, lately, I’ve been in a bit of a slump.”
“Hmmm,” purred Russell, placing his hand on Jamal’s chest, licking his lips, and sending him a heavy-lidded look. “I’ve got a lot of coaching experience. So, if you ever need some help... with your stance, or your grip, or your swing, I’m open to giving you some pointers.” The pause in conversation that followed was thick and heavy enough to slice with a knife.
“Who are you here with?” inquired Jamal.
“Oh,” Russell answered, “a friend. In fact, he was my assistant Little League coach last summer. Come to think of it, he’d be a great addition to the team as well.”
Jamal was following Russell through the crowd when Bryan saw them approaching. “Jimmeeeee!” he rasped. Russell observed Jamal and Bryan’s easy embrace and kiss on the lips with a twinge of jealousy. Of course, charming, gregarious Bryan would know tender, irresistible Jamal. How well they knew one another was another question.
“I’m so glad you met Jimmy, Coach!” exclaimed Bryan.
“Actually,” Russell said, “we met back in October. I was out cold after a flight. And, Jamal was the handsome prince who awakened me.”
“With a kiss, I hope,” one of the others quipped.
“Unfortunately, no,” Russell responded. “But, when I opened my eyes and saw that gorgeous face, I had to stop myself from grabbing those cheeks and laying a wet one on his luscious lips.”
“Sounds like you’ve got some housekeeping to do, Russell,” another man offered.
“Sorry?” The subtext of this remark had gone over Russell’s head. Then he noticed the man’s eyes, directed toward the pale circle of skin around his ring finger. “Oh.” Russell’s vocal tone flattened out, as a shadow fell over his lightened heart. “I getcha.” It was acceptable to still be married and living with his wife and kids. Less acceptable, apparently, was a married man actively courting someone committed completely and wholeheartedly to a gay life.
Russell found himself visited by fresh qualms. Was the acceptance he’d been feeling amongst this bunch no more than an illusion? Feeling a sudden urge to distance himself from scrutiny, he abruptly begged off with a couple of tentative hugs — still no kisses on the lips. A few minutes earlier, he’d felt like he belonged. Now, the still-married, still-closeted, bisexual man was once again feeling alienated, lonely in a crowd.
TWENTY-TWO
“What’s this?” Tess was showing Russell a business card. “Is this important?” Next to the photo of a smiling, gap-toothed Black man was the contact information for Jamal Abdoulaye Diallo, Senior Flight Attendant, Delta Airlines.
Russell, his heart skipping every other beat, made his best attempt at appearing nonchalant. “Where’d you find it?”
“In the pocket of your grey sport coat.”
In the insurance game, the daily exchange of business cards is as common as breathing in and breathing out. Still, as Russell received this palm-sized paper rectangle from his wife, he was blushing and his fingers trembled. Jamal, he assumed, must have slipped his contact information into that jacket pocket prior to Russell’s exit from Ynonah’s Saloon. “Thanks, I’ve been looking for this.” This was a lie. He couldn’t have been looking for something he hadn’t even known was in his possession.
“Potential client?” Tess inquired.
“Delta Airlines,” he said, raising his eyebrows and tilting his head for emphasis. “Could be huge.”
“No wonder you’re so excited.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, your cheeks are all flushed, and you’re all fidgety.”
“Well, the guy’s just a flight attendant. But... he claims to know some of the big, mucky-muck decision makers.”
Ever the supportive spouse, Tess gave Russell a peck on the cheek. “Go get ’em, Tiger,” she said, before traipsing back into their shared walk-in closet.
Of course, Russell’s involuntary emotional response upon seeing Jamal’s card had nothing whatsoever to do with selling insurance. This, he had to believe, was an explicit invitation. From the moment his sleepy eyes first beheld Jamal’s face, he’d felt undeniable attraction. The card appearing in his jacket pocket provided solid evidence that Jamal would be receptive to further contact. This unspoken message was as clear and enticing as a certain game of footsie initiated by Guy Gallo beneath the bubbling waters of an Austin jacuzzi. The ball was in Russell’s court. All he had to do was pick up the phone and dial.
Russell’s overactive imagination immediately began painting erotic scenarios. However, as exhilarating as those mental pictures were, the possibility of hooking up with Jamal also came fraught with complications. The what-ifs were myriad. What if they started having deeper feelings for one another? What if one had deeper feelings than the other? What if they failed to click physically? Worse yet... what if Jamal turned out to be HIV positive?
Still, for Russell, reason never held much sway in circumstances where the real potential for male-on-male sexual contact was within reach. He knew that, in short order, he would be dialing the number on this card. Actually, he figured, it would be impolite if he didn’t call. Now that Jamal had put his cards on the table — by slipping his card into Russell’s pocket — it was not a matter of whether but, rather, a question of how soon.
≈ ≈ ≈
Russell sat at his office desk in a stupor. Monday mornings were typically dedicated to the weekly staff meeting, after which he would sort out and prioritize his leads, in preparation for a marathon afternoon of cold calls. During this morning’s company confab, he’d found concentration impossible. His only victory was that he’d somehow avoided dozing off for more than a few seconds. Now, with a printed list of prospects’ names and phone numbers swimming in front of his bleary eyes, he could think of nothing else other than a certain large, ebony-skinned man. He pulled Jamal’s business card from his shirt pocket and placed it next to the tip sheet. He’d already made his pitch to Jamal. The card told him that he’d made the sale. His next logical move was to close the deal.
He dialed the number. Five rings seemed like a hundred. “Hello, this is Jimmy,” the outgoing message began. “I’m probably thirty-thousand feet above Terra Firma right now. Please be so kind as to leave me a detailed message after the beep, and I’ll call you back as soon as I get my feet on the ground. Thanks for calling. And have yourself a blessed day!” At the sound of the beep, Russell felt a sudden jolt of panic. He hastily slammed the receiver down on its dock and yanked his hand away, as if the phone had transformed into a slavering Gila Monster.
Have yourself a blessed day! That’s Christian talk! Hearing Jamal speak this phrase had tossed yet another random ingredient into a simmering pot of anxiety soup. Imagining getting to know this hunk of a man better had become Russell’s primary obsession. But he’d had his fill of Bible-thumping — albeit well-meaning — acquaintances intent on saving his immortal soul.
Russell — a lapsed Episcopalian since middle school — had sampled three local churches over the previous 10 years, all at the behest of friends or neighbors determined to spread the good news about Jesus. However, his motivation for attendance was less about finding religion than about meeting and cultivating potential new clients, engendering good will, and procuring referrals. So, once he’d squeezed the lowest hanging business benefits out of a congregation, he found it challenging to muster up sufficient faith to return to those same pews Sunday after Sunday. Russell would have considered it a blessing if all the residents of Middle Tennessee took a permanent break from instructing him to have a blessed day.
Russell emitted a breathy “whoof!” in relief. This spanner in the works gave him an ideal excuse for not making the call. He felt charged with a shot of adrenalin, as if he’d dodged a bullet. Five words in an outgoing answering-machine message had made the immediate future far less fraught with confusion, uncertainty, and potential guilt. He chuckled cynically to himself, spun Jamal’s business card into his trash can, and returned to perusing his list of leads. However, that smiling, gap-toothed photo kept looking up at him, as if Jamal was still insistent on distracting him from his normal routine. Russell pushed his chair back, rose to his feet, and headed toward the breakroom for yet another cup of coffee.
“Oh, good!” the woman on the stepladder exclaimed. “A man!” By Russell’s guesstimation, Ruby, from Admin, was closing in on 60. Barely five-feet in height, and round as a boulder, she was one of the few employees who’d been with the office longer than Russell. Ruby frisbeed a package of pushpins in Russell’s direction, which he managed to snag in flight. “Can you open that for me?” Ruby asked. As she did every December, Ruby had taken it upon herself to adorn the lobby and common areas of the office with festive Christmas décor. This morning, she was hanging a strand of gold-tinsel garland the length of the hallway.
Russell found that the clear, vinyl box was resistant to any and all efforts to break its seal. “Harder than it looks,” he noted.
Ed popped out of his office. “Here, let me do that,” he demanded smugly, grabbing for the uncooperative container. Russell impulsively decided to engage in a game of keep-away. Swiveling deceptively, he extended his arm to keep the pushpins out of Ed’s reach.
“I’ve got this, Ruby,” Russell said. “I will go to my grave to prevent Ed Stengel’s grubby paws from soiling your precious Yuletide tacks.”
“I said, ‘Oh, good, a man!’” Ruby remarked, as her chubby arm grew heavier from holding up the garland at the desired height. “You’re not men. You’re a couple of little babies.”
“Gimme that, asshole!” Ed growled, finally getting a grip on the contested package. Ed yanked. Russell held on. The recalcitrant seal cracked open, sending hundreds of push pins scattering onto the hallway floor.
“God damn it!” shouted Ed, as if genuine tragedy had befallen the office. “Now, look what you did, you dick!”
Russell, however, was finding hilarity in this absurd outcome. “See, Ruby...” he said, between guffaws. “You sure picked the right guys for the job.”
“Yeah, right,” Ruby responded. “You two can both go fuck yourselves.” By now she, too, was tittering at these sophomoric, boys-will-be-boys shenanigans.
Russell picked up several push pins from the floor and handed them up to her. “Honored to be of service, M’Lady.”
“Grab a broom, Dickwad!” Ed ordered Russell. “You’re cleaning up this mess.” By the time Russell had returned from the supply closet, Ed’s face and hairless pate had flushed redder than Santa’s coat, from stooping down to gather errant pushpins. “Ouch! Damn!” he exclaimed. “Those little buggers are sharp!”
“Here,” Russell offered, extending the dust pan. Ed opened his fist with evident disdain, and dropped a dozen pins noisily into the trash can in his other hand. At this point, Russell noticed Jamal’s card at the bottom. Suddenly the situation wasn’t so funny anymore. “Did you go into my office, Ed?” queried Russell.
“What about it?” Ed snapped back. “A trash can is a trash can.”
“You were trying to poach my leads, weren’t you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“What’s this, then?” Russell reached into the trash can and fished out Jamal’s card.
“Is that how you file your leads these days, Rusty Boy?”
“Stay the fuck out of my office, Ed!”
“Sorrrrreeeeey!” mocked Ed. He looked up at Ruby, still busy with her decorating. “He’s afraid I’m gonna steal one of his boyfriends.”
“What did you say?” Russell demanded.
“Well, I wouldn’t put it past ya,” Ed teased. “Looks like the kinda guy you’d fall on your knees for.”
“Because why?” Russell fumed. “Why, Ed? Because he’s Black. Is that what you’re saying?”
“I bet that boy’s got an impressive Johnson,” Ed jabbed. “You know what they say... once you taste dark meat, you never go back.”
“What if he was my boyfriend, Ed?” By now, Russell was delirious in his fury. “What would you say then? Huh?”
“Look,” Ed stammered. “I was just kidding. You know me, Russ. I’m a lover, not a hater. I love everybody.”
“Everybody... except Black people and faggots!”
“Hey!” The abrasive, high-pitched holler came from the far end of the corridor. Russell turned to see Mary Ann standing, hands on hips, her squinted eyes shooting lasers the length of the hallway. “You guys wanna keep it down? Some folks ‘round here are trying to get some work done.” Russell and Mary Ann locked eyes for a full five seconds until she surrendered the staring contest and strutted back into her office.
“So,” Ed inquired, “why would you toss your boyfriend’s card into the trash can?” He was only half joking.
Russell held the card up six inches from Ed’s eyes. “Did you bother to read the card, Ed? Delta Airlines. Ring a bell?”
“So sweet,” Ed teased. “Rusty Boy fell in love at thirty-thousand feet.”
“You got it, Ed! I joined the queer mile-high club on the way back from the company convention. Ask Mary Ann about it. She was there. She’ll recap the whole story...” Once again, Russell had bated Ed with an irresistible set-up line. Then, with pristine timing, he popped the balloon. “... about how I slept the whole way back from Austin.” Russell seldom displayed this side of his personality, so vehement and uncompromising.
“Look, Russ,” Ed explained, “you know I was just giving you a hard time.”
“Sure you were,” retorted Russell. “And, next, you’re gonna tell me you were just giving gays and Blacks a hard time, too.”
“Come on,” Ed protested. “You know I didn’t mean it that way.”
“No, I don’t. And I don’t appreciate your racist, homophobic horse shit. It’s not clever, or remotely funny. And, I won’t stand for it. Capeesh?” As Russell waited for Ed’s response, he felt a rush of pride for having spoken out, standing up against his co-worker’s micro aggressive bigotry. “Capeesh?” he repeated, demanding a response.
“I hear ya.” While it was clear that Russell was sincere, Ed’s reptilian brain was incapable of understanding how this accusation specifically applied to him. Thus, this was less an admission of his own intolerance and more an effort to affect a temporary ceasefire. As Ruby continued draping the garland, Russell and Ed finished picking up the remaining push pins in silence.
≈ ≈ ≈
Immediately following the rowdy Secret Santa gift exchange, Tess’s rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” accompanied by roly-poly Ruby on the Casio keyboard, had become an annual office Christmas-party tradition. Tess thrived in social situations. The more attention she drew to herself, the more comfortable and alive she felt. Although she exuded a natural allure, she was never content to depend solely on her personal magnetism to draw the attention she craved. As soon as she entered a room full of people, she would immediately crank up her vocal decibel level, while punctuating her every statement with overly dramatic gestures.
Russell had long ago grown weary of this. Secretly, he disdained the over-the-top manner with which Tess gushed over another woman’s outfit, her haircut, or her chic glasses frames. Even more irksome was the way she would touch another man’s hand or forearm and laugh boisterously at his lame jokes. Russell had suffered this conduct for years without comment, in part, because everyone else seemed to find Tess so charming. Still, he wondered if any of them could see through his wife’s pretense or if they ever found her social persona overwrought or irritating.
As Tess took her bow, Russell stood at the back of the room, a glass of punch in hand, while the office staff, their partners and spouses clapped, whistled, and hooted their appreciation. Bill Gates could have delivered a brilliantly insightful 20-minute keynote address. But, if Tess sang one song, that’s all anyone would be talking about for the remainder of the evening and her cameo cabaret act would be mentioned with gushing admiration for months afterwards.
“She’s incredible!” raved Martha from the underwriting department. “You’re one lucky guy.”
“Yep,” Russell agreed, through gritted teeth, “she’s incredible alright.”
