“Wait a fucking minute. You what?”
“I’m canned. I’m out.”
“You got fired?”
Brian finished his beer, setting the bottle down lightly on the table.
“Aw, shit, Bri. What are you gonna do?” Ritchie looked genuinely concerned. The look on his sweaty dopey face almost brought Brian to tears. He wanted so bad to tell him, but knew he couldn’t say a word.
“I guess I’ll take a little break.” He turned his gaze to the window.
“Do you need money? Do you have anything else you can do?”
Brian stared out the kitchen window. “I’ll think of something. Don’t worry about me.”
Ritchie stood, walked around to Brian, and put his arms over his shoulders. “I have to get up early. So, g’night. We’ll talk.”
“Yeah, we’ll talk.”
Ed found Brian sitting in bed, scribbling into a notebook.
After yet another edited explanation, and a patient amount of time listening to Ed’s disagreements and amazement at the events, Brian pushed aside his plots and calculations, wrapped Ed in his arms and made slow love to him with a passionate insistence Ed had not felt from Brian in weeks. Ed did not know the reason, perhaps the excitement of the protest, but enjoyed it. Brian did not admit that the surge of passion came from a knowing sense that this time would probably be their last.
Brian jolted awake to a biting metallic roar. Pulling back the blinds, he spotted a construction crew’s jackhammer ripping up asphalt on the street below. Rubbing his eyes, he fell back to bed, but the insistent noise preventing him from dozing again. He got up, glancing at the clock. Eight a.m., on the nose.
Ed had gone to one of his classes, or yoga. Peeking into the kitchen and Ritchie’s room, Brian realized he was alone. In shorts, he padded barefoot to Ritchie’s corner of the loft, looking through the shelves for the vases. He thought of playing with the clay again, just to make himself feel better, but realized it wouldn’t help.
His stomach dropped. He noticed a few pieces missing from the shelves. Ritchie must have taken them to the kiln.
“Shit.” He’d said something about selling a few pieces to a rich friend. Was it too late to run for him?
No. Let it go,
he told himself.
Just let it disappear.
But he had to do something. The last time he’d withdrawn money from a bank machine, his account was barely over nine hundred dollars.
He paced around the loft, fighting the treachery of his last option. There was a reason why he took the necklace. He’d been on target by accidentally picking a Fuller, but it was the wrong one.
There was another way.
After a quick shower, he looked around the kitchen for something to eat. Instead, he gulped down the tepid remains of Ritchie’s morning batch of coffee, then searched through the Manhattan phone book for the editorial offices of
The American Republic
. He knew he’d never get past any secretaries, so he dialed a number slightly higher than the main reception line.
“Glen Faber’s office,” a voice said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I was looking for editorial.”
“I’ll transfer you.” He lit a cigarette, paced, and after a few deft bluffs, reached a private office line.
“Is this Winston Fuller?” Brian imagined the man reclining in a black leather executive chair in a dark wood-paneled office. His imagination was not incorrect.
“Yes.”
“Mr. Fuller, my name is Chip. We met a while ago under unusual circumstances.”
“How did you get this number?” The familiar New England drawl grew irritated.
“Never mind.” Brian’s hands quivered. His heart was racing. The sudden surge of power seemed to be coursing through the phone line into his veins. Actually, it was just the coffee. “I’m sure you remember me.”
“From where? What is your point?”
“Well, I have something very personal to discuss with you.”
“I’m sorry I don’t remember. You’ll have to-”
“Does a silk blindfold and a blood cocktail in Room 1220 of the Helmsley Palace ring a bell?”
35
Behind a secluded shrub in the Central Park Ramble, a young man on
his knees masturbated while fellating a vice cop, who had momentarily decided that an afternoon blow job would be more amusing than making another arrest.
Less than a few hundred yards south, in a less predatory area of the park, Winston Fuller and Brian Burns’ meeting involved nothing nearly as pleasurable.
They met at a quiet walkway under a canopy of blossoming trees. Bronze statues of Robert Burns and Walter Scott sat solemnly nearby, facing each other in silence.
Even after Fuller handed him a thick business-size envelope filled with hundred dollar bills, they waited to speak until a jogger passed.
“There’s five thousand. I trust that’ll keep you quiet.”
“Oh, yes.” Brian nodded, turning away, then back. “Look, I ...”
Their eyes met for a long moment, the first ever, actually. Brian suddenly felt sorry for the man. He wanted to return the necklace, as a gesture, to embarrass Fuller with his dual proximity to the supposed scion of power.
“I really don’t do this, you know. I mean I’m against this, but I’m really poor.”
“Yes, that’s a common problem.” Fuller’s eyes squinted. “Didn’t I see you elsewhere?”
“I served you dinner.”
“Oh yes.” Confused a moment, he put it aside. It didn’t matter how the boy had found him out. What mattered was shutting him up. It was one of many times Winston regretted having never taken advantage of less legal associations that made people disappear. “Well, what’s the matter with that kind of work? I hear the pay there is rather good.”
“Oh, spare me.” Brian pointed to his pocket where the cash lay. “Do you know how long it would take me to make this much? Have you ever been poor?”
“Well ...”
“This is just a dent for you, just a little bump in your bank account.”
“Don’t be such an ungrateful little snot,” Fuller huffed. “I’ll see to it that pimp of yours gets put in jail.”
“I don’t give a shit what you do to him.”
“If you try to take this any further, I guarantee you that I’ll ...” Fuller hesitated.
“What? Call the cops? Have me jailed? I hardly think that Mister ‘Tattoo the Queers’ is ready to come out of his musty closet just yet.”
“You know, if you’d merely played your hand a little better, I could have gotten you a decent job, set you up somewhere.”
“I don’t want to be set up. I don’t want a decent job. I come from decent, I kissed the ass of decent. I’m sick of New York and the decent people like you that run it.”
Brian halted a moment, his face flushed from his sudden outburst. A stout Black woman strolled a baby carriage past them. The white infant’s face resembled a marshmallow with eyes.
Brian lowered his voice. “You don’t have to worry. I won’t be making any noise after this. I won’t even be here.”
“You know, Tony lied to me about the character of a few boys like you. I wonder if he lied about their health as well?”
“You’re gonna keep wondering, old man. Better hope you die of a heart attack so nobody finds out you suck dick.”
“How dare you–”
“Save it, Winston. I’m outta here.”
He walked off, patting the thick envelope in his coat pocket.
Winston Fuller turned away in the other direction to get a cab.
36
Edward, my love,
i know you’re thinking i did a lot of bad things, or else you’re going to hear about some bad things, but i never really got away with it. always seem to mess things up for myself even with you around to fix it for me. i would tell you where i’m going, but it might get you in trouble, maybe. you probly know, but just to be sure, keep it to yourself. don’t worry. i’ll be back, probably with a new hair color & a pimp daddy named Jean-Claude.
have always loved you, never enough, i guess. take care & keep healing. the world needs more like you.
XOXOXOXO Bri
Ed sat on the bed silently. He looked around the room and into the open closet.
Must have left a few hours ago,
Ed thought. Some of Brian’s clothes still hung in the closet. Nothing much else was missing; a suitcase, some sweaters, his leather coat.
Ed lay back, thinking on the past years like circles, an astrological chart that had warned him about the crazy times with Brian. He turned his face into the rumpled white sheets that smelled of them both. More than sad, he felt emptied, eaten away. Perhaps there was something he could have done.
No, it wasn’t his fault. Brian was bothered by something worse than Ed’s health, or just losing his job, but he wouldn’t talk about it. It was as if he saw what he could become and it terrified him. For once, it was something Ed could not fix. Something in Brian had clicked.
Ed stood and went to the kitchen phone. He dialed and got a message machine. “Hi, this is Lee. I’m not in, but then again, I never really was
in.”
Beeeep
.
He paused, unsure whether to confide so soon.
“Lee, this is Ed. Listen, Brian left. We should talk. I know you mentioned you wanted to get out of Jersey and, well, if you wanna, we could fix up the storage room we have. You know it used to be a bedroom. Wouldn’t take much work. I’m sure Ritchie’d be happy to have you, and we know you, and, well, you know the space and we kinda need a third to cover the rent ... Anyway, call me.”
He hung up and walked out to the open loft, which seemed very big and lonely. The sun was caught at that moment where the light bled straight across the skyline, a rusty orange under the dark curls of incoming clouds that approached Manhattan and Brooklyn. Ed watched it for a few moments.
He didn’t think of Lee as a replacement for Brian. That would be impossible. They could share stories and wounds. Lee could support him in ways Ritchie would never understand. What stood between them as becoming friends had run away, and in a way, Ed wanted to thank Brian for that. He didn’t think he’d get a chance.
Anticipating Lee’s answer to his call, he went into the storage room and began cleaning.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we ask that you remain seated until we have completed our takeoff.” The stewardess’s voice mixed in with the music that poured into Brian’s ears.
One of the uniformed women had asked him to remove his earplugs until after takeoff. He’d complied momentarily, but as she disappeared up the aisle, he scrunched down in his seat and plugged them back in. The music pounded into his head. He gazed at the gritty gray cluster of Manhattan bordered by the cluttered flatlands of New Jersey and on the other side, Brooklyn.
Another voice crackled over the speakers, a sturdy male voice that Brian tried to ignore. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain. We’ll be arriving in Paris in about seven hours and twenty minutes. Sky’s are clear and we’ve got a long journey, so sit back and enjoy the ride.”
Brian wanted a drink. He pulled out his wallet and glanced at the small stack of bills packed neatly in a plastic currency exchange pouch.
Francs are so colorful,
he thought as he flipped through the crisp paper. In his hand was more cash than he’d made in four months of catering. Winston Fuller had proven himself a generous, if not nervous and involuntary, benefactor.