There are those who rue the “commercialization” of Provincetown, who gripe that the place has become too geared to nightclubbing and resort tourism. And yet I remember, soon after arriving here, picking up
Time and the Town
by Mary Heaton Vorse, published in 1942. Vorse had made Provincetown her home since the days of Eugene O’Neill some three decades earlier, and she was lamenting, “A few people have been allowed to damage the beauty of Provincetown. The rowdy nightclubs, the wholesale selling of worthless knick-knacks, make it possible…to brand the place a ‘honky-tonk.’ Those few who cater to some unwholesome element for a little money rob themselves as well as the whole town.”
Yet Provincetown survived Vorse’s fears, going on to several more “golden ages” after the one she described. Elsewhere, she seemed more optimistic, writing: “The one certainty is that Provincetown is in history’s path as it has always been.” Every season someone new will discover Provincetown and find his or her own rhythm in the place. And so it will go on.
For the boy walking ahead of me—indeed, for all first-timers like him—Provincetown retains its power to bewitch. Here, anything goes. Here one can spot, as Luke and I do now, the fabulous Ellie, a seventy-two-year-young transvestite pulling a sound system in a red wagon down Commercial Street while she croons “My Way” by Frank Sinatra. Watching her, Luke is beaming, pointing her out to me as if I’ve never seen her before—as if Ellie is as new and as fresh as he is. And in that moment, in Luke’s smile, she is. We all are.
At Mojo’s we order fried clams and Diet Cokes and settle in at one of the picnic tables.
“So your novel,” I say.
“Do you really want to hear?”
I smile. “Sure, why not?”
“Well, it’s about this kid, who was homeless, who gets adopted by this really great family but then…”
Luke’s words trail off. He just sits there staring straight ahead.
“But then what?” I ask.
Still he doesn’t say anything. A little voice inside me tells me not to follow Luke’s gaze, not to turn my head and see what he’s seeing. But of course I look anyway.
It’s Jeff, scrutinizing Mojo’s menu a few feet away.
I can’t help but laugh. “Ah,” I say, “if it isn’t your literary idol.”
“Jeffrey O’Brien,” Luke says softly.
“In the flesh,” I say. “What d’ya think?”
“I thought he’d be taller,” Luke says.
I laugh out loud. That one little comment makes my day.
My laughter has drawn Jeff’s attention. He looks over at us.
“Henry,” he says, heading our way. Already I see him checking out Luke. God, do I know that look. It’s the look of a kid in a shopping cart as his mother pushes him down the toy aisle.
I want that
, his eyes say. But as soon as he’s passed his object of desire, he’s forgotten it and moved on to another.
“Jeff,” I say, accepting the inevitable, “this is Luke. Luke, Jeff.”
“Jeff O’Brien,” Jeff echoes, shaking the kid’s hand.
“I know,” Luke breathes in awe.
“He’s got your book under his bed,” I tell Jeff.
“Actually,” Luke says, unzipping his backpack, “I have it right here.”
Out comes not one book, but three—two in paper, one hardcover.
Jeff beams. “You’ve got the whole Jeffrey O’Brien collection right there. All three of my books.”
Luke spreads them out on the picnic table in front of us, careful to move the fried clams far away first, so they don’t stain his treasures. There’s the well-read, much-creased copy of
The Boys of Summer
that I saw under Luke’s bed, plus its sequel,
More Boys, More Summer
. The hardcover is Jeff’s latest, a more “literary” attempt—one without the prerequisite shirtless boy on the front.
Finding Home
, it’s called.
“I especially loved this one,” Luke says, tapping the cover of
Finding Home
. “I thought it was just…I don’t know. Just brilliant.”
Jeff sits down on the other side of the picnic table, facing us. “The critics weren’t so sure,” he says, eyes glued on Luke.
“That’s because they pigeon-holed you. They weren’t ready to let you try something different.”
They couldn’t be playing their parts any better if Jeff had written the goddamn script. I lean my head on my hand, watching this little drama unfold.
“Well, that’s what we like to believe,” Jeff says, in that slightly deeper-than-usual voice he uses around fans. “I’m glad
you
liked it, though.”
“Oh, man, I
loved
it.”
I wonder.
Finding Home
has none of the signs of being well read. Unlike
The Boys of Summer
, its pages aren’t dog-eared. Its binding isn’t even cracked.
Luke is still gushing. “And I loved the interview you gave to
The Advocate
about it. You know, where you revealed that you, like the protagonist, were also an old movie and TV fan.”
Jeff twinkles on cue. “You mean the interview where I came out of the closet as a secret geek.”
The boy’s smile threatens to close his eyes with his cheeks. “You are so
not
a geek.
I’m
a geek.”
“Well, if so,” Jeff says, “geeks are a lot cuter these days than they used to be.”
I feel my stomach roil, and it’s not the fried clams.
Luke is clearly smitten. He’s rummaging in his backpack again, and produces something I can’t at first identify. It’s flat, and wrapped in plastic.
“Take a look at this,” he’s telling Jeff.
It looks like a small movie poster. Slipped into a plastic bag and backed by a piece of a cardboard, it showcases a woman I don’t recognize. Jeff takes it from Luke’s hands and gazes at it with a kind of wonder.
“Holy shit,” he says. “A lobby card from
Becky Sharp
!”
“Yeah,” Luke replies, in the same breathless tone of awe.
“Excuse me,” I say, “I hate to interrupt, but who the fuck is
Becky Sharp
?”
Jeff glares at me. “
Becky Sharp
just so happens to be the very first feature film made in Technicolor.”
“Yeah,” Luke adds, though he doesn’t look at me, keeping his eyes squarely on Jeff. “And in 1935, starring the amazing Miriam Hopkins.”
“Miriam who?” I ask.
“You wouldn’t understand,” Jeff tells me. “Miriam Hopkins is very big for true film fans, one of the forgotten greats.”
“Well, in fact,” Luke says, reaching into his bag again, “look what else I have.” He pulls out a videotape in a battered cardboard slipcover. “I’ve got one of Miriam’s last appearances—on the TV show
The Outer Limits
.”
Jeff takes the videotape and inspects it. “
The Outer Limits
! That was a great show. Sometimes even better than
The Twilight Zone
.”
“I agree,” says Luke. “Do you know both Geraldine Brooks and Sally Kellerman appeared on it?”
I laugh. “Are they favorites of true film fans, too?”
Luke eyes me. “For true fans, Henry, the people on the screen can sometimes seem like your best friends.”
“But why,” Jeff asks, lifting his eyebrows at Luke, “are you carrying these around in your backpack? You don’t want that lobby card to get damaged.”
“I know,” the boy answers. “But I just don’t feel comfortable leaving it back in my hotel room. If the maid found it…”
Jeff hands the precious relics back to Luke. “You’re staying at an inn?”
Luke nods. “Until I can find a permanent place.”
I notice the smile creep across Jeff’s face. “You’re planning to move here?”
“Yes, so I can…” Luke’s voice trails off.
“So you can what?” Jeff asks.
“Oh, please,” I say to Luke, impatient with this little charade, “just
tell
him.”
“So I can write.” The boy blushes. “Like I have any business saying that to
you.”
Jeff beams. No one on the entire planet is more susceptible to flattery than Jeff O’Brien. It’s impossible to lay it on too thick with him. He just laps it up like a pig eating slops.
“A writer, huh?” Jeff smiles. “Well, Provincetown can be a wonderful muse…”
“So I’ve heard.” Luke carefully returns Becky Sharp to his backpack. “And your novels are a big reason why I’m here.”
“I’m flattered,” Jeff says.
“No, really, I mean it.” Luke returns his eyes to Jeff with a passion that exceeds anything I saw yesterday while we were having sex. “Your work has had such an influence on me. Your words…they’ve changed my life.”
That’s when I stand up, grip the sides of the table, and puke all over both of them. Diet Coke and bits of fried clams rain down on their heads.
Okay, so I imagine that part. But for the moment, anyway, the fantasy allows my stomach to stop lurching.
“That’s awfully sweet of you,” Jeff’s saying. There’s a moment of eye-holding silence that leaves me feeling utterly invisible. Finally Jeff asks, smiling warmly at Luke, “Would you like me to sign your books?”
“
Would
you?”
“Sure,” Jeff says.
What a guy. So magnanimous.
Luke produces a pen from his backpack. Is there anything he
doesn’t
keep in there? Jeff opens the first book to its title page, pausing to think before he writes. Then, suddenly, without warning, he reaches down and pulls his T-shirt up over his head, revealing his defined pecs and abs. “Damn,” he says, “it’s so hot out today.”
“It is so
not
hot out today,” I say, unable to keep quiet.
But I’m ignored. Luke is mesmerized as a shirtless Jeff O’Brien signs his books. What our esteemed author writes, I don’t know, and in truth, I don’t care to know. But Luke reads each inscription in turn, cooing appreciatively, and replacing each book in his backpack. When they’re done with their little playlet, they just sit there, two naked torsos grinning stupidly across the table at each other. The sexual energy between them is so strong it could power a small city.
My mind goes back to a night some five, six years before.
“But I thought he
loved
me,” the boy from Montreal was saying. What was his name again? Jean-Pierre? Jean-Michel? Something like that. There have been many boys from many different places, beautiful boys who fell in love with Jeff and were crushed to discover his affection for them barely lasted through the week. And most of those boys turned to Henry Weiner for counseling and consolation.
Will it be the same with Luke? Once Jeff is done with him, will he come running back to me? Will I let him?
But as I watch them, I feel the situation is a little different this time. Jeff, for all his smooth skin and still tight abs, is no longer the young buck that he was. He’s not out there in the scene in the way he used to be, partly because he doesn’t have the stamina to stay up all night the way he used to but also because he’s no longer quite the focus the way he was in years past. Back in the day, all eyes in the room would turn to look when Jeff O’Brien walked in. But now, as well preserved as he might be, Jeff has discovered the playing field can never be truly level for him again—not when he’s facing off against a new class of twentysomethings.
Like Luke.
And that’s the other reason this time is different. Luke is no wide eyed kid still green in the ways of gay life, like so many of Jeff’s previous boys have been. Jean-Michel—and Raphael and Eduardo and Anthony—were all refreshingly free of guile. But looking at Luke, I see very clearly that he’s been around the rodeo a couple of times. After all, he’d known to search me out and to sleep with me, all part of his nefarious plan to meet Jeff.
And how well that had worked out, all within a day. I wonder if Luke had spotted Jeff on his way into town? Was that why he’d insisted we leave the pier? Had he know somehow we’d run into Jeff? Even if he hadn’t maneuvered their meeting, the kid had known exactly what to do once his prey showed up. Out came the flattery in generous helpings, topped by that well-timed appearance of Supergirl in her carefully wrapped plastic bag. Luke was good. No question about that.
Shrewd.
Unlike Jeff’s other boys, this time both sides had their own games to play.
“You know what?” Jeff is asking, breaking the charged silence that pulses between him and Luke. “You ought to stop by my house when you have the time. I’ll show you my entire collection of movie posters.” He lowers his voice into a sexy whisper. “I’ve got one from
The Birth of a Nation
.”
“No way!” Luke gushes. “From 1915?”
Jeff nods. “Not quite near-mint, but pretty fine.”
“When can I come by and see it?”
“What are you doing right now?”
“Nothing,” Luke says. Then, as if remembering there’s another human being seated next to him, he turns to me. “Except that Henry and I were—”
“Go ahead,” I tell him. “Who am I to keep you from
The Birth of a Nation
?”
“You’ll come too?” Luke asks.
I make a face. “I’ve already seen Jeff’s movie posters.”
“You sure you guys weren’t doing anything?” Jeff asks me, standing up, apparently forgetting about the lunch he’d been about to order for himself. Or maybe he’s just decided he’s hungry for something other than a grilled chicken sandwich. It seems he might prefer his chicken raw.
“Not to worry,” I assure him. “Luke and I weren’t doing a thing. I’ve actually got to head into town. I’m meeting a friend.”
“Well, come on over around seven,” Jeff tells me, motioning to Luke to follow him. “Elliot and Oscar are in town, and they’re coming for dinner.”
“I’ll try to make it,” I say, staying seated as Luke zips up his bag and hurries around to follow Jeff. “But I can’t promise.”
“Who’re you meeting in town?” Jeff asks.
“Oh…no one you know.”
Luke stops suddenly and looks over his shoulder at me. “Want to hang out again tomorrow, Henry?”
“I’m going out of town,” I tell him.
“Well, I’ll call you.”