Anything Could Happen (26 page)

Everyone had already agreed the stall walls should include the famous “man from Nantucket” limerick, and of course, the almost-as-crude “only farted” ditty. But Austin had been googling bathroom graffiti online and found some hilarious additions he wanted to include. His favorite was “My boyfriend is 13 inches,” under which had been scrawled, “That’s great! How big is his penis?”

And though he knew few people would see it¸ and far fewer even get it—he was going to write something over one of the urinals: “I’ll Be Right Back—Wait Here ~ Godot.”

And he was also determined to write “Austin + Guy” inside a big red heart.

Because he
did
love Guy. Oh yes, indeed he did.

As Austin approached the front door of the Pegasus, he marveled over how almost all the snow they’d shoveled, shoveled again, and then shoveled some more was pretty much gone. A week ago—the first day of the year—a hell of a storm had come through—at least as far as Kansas City was concerned. Eight inches, and then about six more the next day, followed by a good dusting on top of all that. Looking at the sidewalks and gutters, you’d never know it today. That was Kansas City weather. Don’t like it? Wait a day. It would change.

Austin pressed the doorbell by the front door and a moment later was buzzed in.

“Hey, Austin,” said the stunning black woman behind the glassed-in ticket counter.

“Hey, Iyanha! You gonna join us in the graffiti party tonight?” he asked, holding up his canvas bag.

Iyanha shuddered. “God, no.” She held out her hands in front of her and shook them as if they were dirty. “Grosses me out.”

He stopped in his tracks, surprised. “Iyanha! This is
theater
.”

She dropped her hands. “I know that. It’s not the subject matter. It’s dirty public restrooms, which you all have fabricated quite realistically,
thank you
.” She shuddered again. “Grosses me out. I try
never
to go potty except at home.”

Austin nodded solemnly.

“Your lover boy is on Main Stage,” she said and gave him a big, exaggerated wink.

“Thanks,” Austin replied and then sighed contentedly.

“Oh, go on,” she cried. “All this young love is just
too
sweet for
my
coffee.”

Austin laughed happily and headed back through the lobby, past the Wagner Stage, back past the Donors’ Wall—dozens and dozens of company names, plus individuals had theirs there as well. This included two names under the thousand-dollar sponsorship level—Wilda & Frawley Chandler.

Could life get any better? People who didn’t even blink (although they winked) over the fact that he had a boyfriend—
I’ve got a boyfriend!
—were the grandparents who loved and supported him, literally. And of course, there was the boyfriend himself.

Austin entered the main theater, and there was Guy onstage, looking gorgeous—if not studious—in his oversized hoodie. He had one hand on his hip, a big black marker in the other hand, and was examining one of the toilet stall walls. As Austin quietly approached, not wanting to startle his lover—
my lover!
—Guy dropped to one knee and began to draw a circle around the pop-can-sized hole cut in the wood partition. Guy stopped and studied his handiwork, and then seemed to go into a trance, not moving, just kneeling there.

“I thought we were supposed to wait until the graffiti party for that,” Austin said.

“Shit!” Guy fell back on his ass and looked up, eyes huge. “
Dammit
, Austin. You scared the crap out of me.”

“At least you’re in the right place for it,” Austin replied.

Guy climbed to his feet and yanked his hoodie down in front, but not before Austin thought he’d glimpsed something. Did Guy have a hard-on? When Austin looked up, he saw—was that guilt on his face?

Austin stepped up onto the stage and went to his lover. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

“It’s okay,” Guy said, pulling Austin into his arms and giving him a quick kiss—first to the forehead and then the lips.

“You okay, Guy?”

Guy took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I’m glad you’re here, believe me.” He turned and looked around him. “This isn’t easy. I thought I could handle it. You know, I’m the director. Stand back from it all. That’s my job. But….”

It hit Austin then. God. Of course this would be difficult. Guy must be having all kinds of flashbacks on this set. He didn’t even like to use public restrooms, and not for the same reason as Iyanha. And this set was designed to radiate the sleazy underworld of bathroom sex.

Austin stepped in front of Guy, smiled, and gave him another long kiss. “I love you,” he said.

“Me too.” Guy hugged Austin tight. “I’m so glad you’ve been here every evening. So glad
you
helped build this fucking thing. It makes it all safer somehow.”

“I’m glad. And I’ll be here whenever you need me.”

O
NSTAGE
, something unexpected was happening. Two of the characters, The Loner and The Romantic, had made a connection. They’d introduced themselves. By their real names. They’d actually kissed and had decided to leave together. “It’s getting late,” said The Loner. “We better get going.”

Just then The Kid burst onto the stage. He was wearing The Cop’s jacket—the jacket belonging to the man who had kissed him passionately moments before and taken The Kid away. It had been so sexy. And scary. Because it looked like The Cop might have an ugly ulterior motive for taking The Kid with him. Now the Kid was back, already, and he brushed by The Loner on his way to the opposite corner of the room. He was shaking, trying not to look at the two men who had been leaving. He spared them a glance. “Sorry,” he said.

He’s so damned good,
Austin thought.
That could have been me!

The Loner and The Romantic headed for the door, but The Loner turned back, considering The Kid for a moment as The Romantic kept going. But then he stopped, came back, gently took The Loner’s arm, and they left the stage.

Alone now, The Kid looked around frantically, then rushed to the sink, pulled a bloody knife out of his jacket. Sobbing, he began to wash the blood off the knife and his hands. He returned the knife to the sheath hanging from his belt. He threw off The Cop’s jacket and pulled off his shirt, the bloodstains shocking even though Austin knew it was coming. This was the first time they were going for full realism, what the audience would see. The Kid buried the shirt in the trash can, picked up the jacket, and put it back on.

There was a beat. Then he checked the pockets of the jacket, found a wallet, opened it, and discovered The Cop’s badge. His eyes went wide. He’d killed a cop. He ran offstage.

Silence.

Blackout.

Austin sat in his seat, tears on his face, hardly able to breathe.

Jeez
, he thought. He’d seen it dozens of times, from simple reading, to actors standing on an empty stage, through blocking. But now, with them all on set? Off-book? In costume? Something magical happened. It was transformed.

The play was amazing. Completely and totally amazing. The characters, the power of their words, the desperation of their lives…. And within, a message for all.

Finally, he gained control of himself and leapt to his feet and applauded until his hands hurt. “Bravo,” he shouted. “Bravo!”

The actors, looking immensely relieved and pleased at the same time, all bowed—those who had walked back onstage and those whose scenes were done and had joined him in the seats.

I could have been
in
this play. If I hadn’t been so crapping chicken. So damned naïve.
It was a powerful show—but it made him sad. This had been Guy’s past. This was how he had discovered sex.
I had a beautiful man hold me and make love to me, cherish me. He had countless faceless men who treated him like he was nothing but a cock
.

It was that thought that made Austin determined he would do all he could to make up for the love Guy had not been given when he was Austin’s age. He knew already Guy had never really been in a serious, long-term relationship.

“I’m damaged goods,” Guy had said on more than one occasion. “When I tell a guy about my past, I’ve been pretty much dropped like I’m diseased or something. And I’m not!”

“It’s not fair for them to judge you by your past anyway,” Austin had said, taking his lover in his arms.

“You don’t, do you?” Guy asked, eyes wet with tears. “Judge me for what I once did?”

“Of course not. How could I expect you not to judge me for things I’ve done if I judge you?”

“God, I love you, Austin.”

“Love you too, Guy.”

How could anyone
not
love Guy? Well, their foolishness was his fortune.

“You liked it?” Guy said tonight, coming down the aisle from the back of the auditorium where he had been watching his actors—pacing—observing them from different angles.

“It is incredible, Guy. It blew me away.”

“I love you, Mr. Shelbourne,” said Guy. “Did you know that?”

Austin smiled. “I did know that, Mr. Campbell. Did you know that I love you too?”

“Thank God,” Guy said, kissing him.

After that, the graffiti party lasted an hour or two. Beers were opened—Guy waggled his eyes and handed Austin a Double-Wide I.P.A. Someone passed a flask of good ol’ Kentucky whiskey—Austin passed after the first swallow. And there was a joint. He only took a single hit of that as well. Both whiskey and pot had a tendency to make him way too uninhibited, and he didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of professionals—even marijuana-smoking ones.

They had a lot of fun adding art and graffiti to the walls of the stalls. A friend of one of the actors who’d been watching the rehearsal—a young man a few years older than Austin with the unlikely moniker “Hound Dog” and amazing dark-blond dreadlocks—turned out to be most proficient with his additions to the walls. He’d soon drawn quite a few penises, breasts, vaginas, and characters performing all kinds of sexual acts. It was apparently the reason he’d been invited.

And of course, there was the graffiti itself. Such literary masterpieces as: “Why are you looking up here? The joke’s in your hand.” “I love your Crocs—signed Nobody EVER.” “Now shake it off.” “Only faggots drink here.” And finally, Austin’s favorite: “What would Jesus do?” followed by “He wouldn’t vandalize bathroom walls.”

At last, everyone began to filter out, one by one, until only Austin and Guy were left.

“Might as well lock up and go home,” Guy said. He was suddenly acting a little jittery, and Austin began to suspect why—he’d been watching for it, as a matter of fact.

“You okay?” he asked.

Guy shrugged. “Getting nervous again. Especially now.”

“Why now, lover?”

Guy shifted his weight back and forth a couple of times, looked around him. “It’s so
real
now, Austin. If I turn my back on the theater, I’m
there
. And the lighting the way it is now?
Just
like
that
rest stop….”

Austin didn’t need to ask which rest stop. It was obvious.

“What do you do, baby? When the memories of those days come back to haunt you? When something like this brings them back?”

Guy trembled. Gritted his teeth. “I turn my back on them,” he said, turning away from the set and looking out at the rows of seats. “Like that. I block them. Think of puppies and fields of daisies and my favorite Calvin and Hobbes cartoons.”

Austin nodded. “How well does that work?”

Guy sighed. “Not well.”

Not well at all, Austin supposed.

“For all kinds of reasons.”

And how well did thinking of Calvin and Hobbes work when he was confronted daily by this set? Austin wondered.

“Sometimes it works for a little while. Maybe. Or maybe not so good. It always comes back, and then I feel ashamed. There was a while back there where I even thought about killing myself.”

“Oh, baby,” Austin said and stepped closer.

“Especially after my parents excommunicated me.”

Excommunicated him? Guy really is a writer
. He took another step into his lover’s space.
Help him. Find some way to help him.

“The worst is when I start craving it. Wanting to go back. Dammit, Austin. You don’t want to hear this….”

“I do. Tell me. It’s okay. No judgments, remember?” And he meant it.

Guy closed his eyes. Shuddered. “I get the shakes. I see those bathrooms in my head. I think about those blowjobs. How simple it all was. I hardly ever saw their faces, hardly ever saw the men at all. Just mouths. It was so easy after a while not even to think of them as people. Sometimes I think about those days and I get so hard and horny and I want to
scream!
And I think how easy it would be to find a cruisey john and just get off. And
maybe
—
finally
—be the one to suck a cock. I wouldn’t even have to see his face. Just do what I love to do.”

Then the idea that had been forming for days in Austin’s mind finally became concrete. He knew what he wanted to do.

“
Maybe
,” he said, drawing the word out. “Maybe you should try something different.”

“L-Like what?” Guy asked and rubbed his hands through his short hair.

“Confront it. Go there….”

“Oh my God, no,” Guy said, clearly horrified, eyes wide.

Austin gave him an encouraging smile. “Not there
specifically
.”

“W-What do you mean?” Guy was shifting again.

“Do you remember what you said to me when I asked you why you were doing this play? You said it was because you wanted to confront and exorcise your demons. Maybe that’s what you’re supposed to be doing. Exorcising your demons instead of ignoring them. Pretending they’re not there doesn’t help if they’re real. You need a safe place and a safe way to confront them.”

“I-I don’t….”

“Do you feel safe with me?” Austin asked.

“I-I…. Yes, I do.”

“And this place? It’s safe, Guy. It’s not
really
real. And there is no one around….”