Toxic Bachelors (38 page)

“Hi, Charlie. What's up?” She looked tired. It had been a long day.

“I came to say good-bye,” he said as he walked in.

“When are you going?”

“Tomorrow.” She nodded. What else was there to say? She knew it would be over by the time he returned. For her anyway, if not for him. She felt as strongly about this as he had about her lying about her name. If you were in a relationship, as far as she was concerned, you spent the holidays together. He didn't see it that way. They didn't even exist for him. And maybe neither did she. She needed someone emotionally available, not someone who couldn't allow himself to feel anything, because it hurt too much. Life hurt too much, but was to be lived. Together, hopefully.

“Have a good trip,” she said, as she stuck a fat file into a drawer.

“You too,” he said quietly.

“Me too what?” She didn't get his drift. She was too tired to play games with him.

“You have a good trip too.”

“I'm not going anywhere.” She stood up straight and looked at him.

“Yes, you are, or at least I hope you are … or I hope you will.…” He stumbled over his own words as she stared at him. “If you're willing, I'd love you to come down with Adam and Maggie on the twenty-sixth. He's flying down then. And he's bringing her. We worked it out today.”

“And you want me to come too?” She looked stunned as she smiled at him. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, I am.” Perhaps even more so than he wanted to be. “I'd love you to come down, Carole. Will you?” he asked, looking at her. “I hope you can get away.”

“I'll try. And I hope you know I wasn't trying to shove my way into your trip. I just wanted you to be here over Christmas, and leave on the twenty-sixth with him.”

“I know. I can't do that. Not yet anyway. Maybe one day. But if you can do it, we can have two weeks together there.” It sounded fantastic to her, and even to him now. It was a great idea. He was glad Adam had called him.

“I don't think I can stay for more than a week. I'll see.”

“Whatever you can do,” he said, and then kissed her. She looked at him longingly and kissed him. And then they took a cab back to her place, and spent the night together before he left the next day. He even saw her tree.

When Adam got home that night, he handed Maggie a credit card. She was sitting over her law books and didn't look up when he came in. He dropped the credit card on the desk.

“What's that for?” she asked, without looking up. She was still angry at him over the trip. Their weekend with his kids had only been a brief respite from open warfare. Now they were back to the cold war.

“You need to go shopping,” he said, as he took off his tie and threw it on a chair.

“What for? I don't use your credit cards. You know that.” She threw it back at him, and he caught it, and stood holding it.

“You need to use it this time.” He set it down next to her again.

“Why?”

“Because you need a lot of stuff. You know, bathing suits, wraparounds, sandals, girl stuff, what do I know? You figure it out.”

“Figure what out?” She still didn't get it.

“What you need for the trip.”

“What trip? Where are we going?” She wondered if he was taking her to Vegas again, as a consolation prize.

“We're going to St. Barts on Charlie's boat.” He said it as though reminding her, and she stared at him.

“No,
you're
going to St. Barts on Charlie's boat.
I'm
not. Remember?”

“He called today and invited you too,” he said gently, and she stared at him and put her pen down.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, I am. So is he. I told him I didn't want to upset you, and I don't think he wants to upset Carole either. He's going to invite her too.”

“Oh my God! Oh my God! OH MY GOD!!” She kissed him and ran screaming around the room and then jumped into his arms, as he laughed at her.

“Does that do the trick?” He could see that it did. And then some.

“Are you kidding? Oh my God! I'm going on a yacht with you to the Caribbean! Yes yes yes YES!” And then she turned to him with a grateful look. “Adam, I love you. I'd have loved you anyway, but I was so hurt.”

“I know,” he said, kissing her again.

“I really love you,” she said, clinging to him. “I hope you know that.”

“Yeah, baby…me too.…” And then he kissed her. Come December 26, they'd be off to the Caribbean.

23

T
HE ARGUMENT BETWEEN
S
YLVIA AND
G
RAY, OVER HIS
seeing her children, continued until nearly Christmas. He was staying at his studio now nearly every night, and she wasn't pressing him to stay at her apartment. She was too angry at him. She understood that he had “issues,” but as far as she was concerned, he was taking it too far. He wasn't even trying to deal with them. Gilbert was arriving in two days. And Emily the day after. And Gray had dug his heels in. He was not going to meet them.

“If you're that upset about it, then go to counseling,” Sylvia had shouted at him in the course of their last fight. They were having them nearly daily. It was a hot topic, for both of them. “What's the point of reading all those goddamn self-help books, if you're not willing to help yourself?”

“I
am
helping myself. I'm respecting my boundaries, and so should you,” he said grimly. “I know my limitations. Families freak me out.”

“You don't even know mine.”

“And I don't want to!” he had shouted, and stormed out.

Sylvia was profoundly depressed over what had happened, and the position Gray had taken. It had been going on for nearly a month, and had taken a toll on the relationship. The joy that they had shared in discovering each other had all but disappeared. And when Gilbert arrived two days before Christmas, she hadn't seen Gray in two days. She tried to explain it to her son, when he asked about him, but it sounded nuts even to her. As she had pointed out to Gray, people their age were supposed to be saner than that, but apparently he wasn't, and was making no attempt whatsoever to get his neuroses in check. He was reveling in them. Like a pig in slop.

The only good thing about it, for him, was that he was so upset, it was driving him to paint more. He hadn't stopped painting in weeks, and had finished two paintings since Thanksgiving, which was fast for him. His dealer was thrilled. The new work was great. He had always said that he did his best work when he was unhappy. And he was proving it. He was miserable without her. He couldn't sleep. So he painted. Constantly. Day and night.

He was hard at work late one night, after their most recent argument, when his bell rang. He thought it was Sylvia, come to drive her point home one more time, and without asking who it was, he hit the buzzer and let her up. He left the door to his apartment open, and braced himself for another round as he stared at the canvas, frowning. It was almost becoming a game between them. She begged him to see her kids. He said no. Then she blew her top. And so did he. It had become a vicious cycle. She refused to let go, and he refused to give in.

He heard the door open, and looked up, expecting to see her, and saw a wraithlike young man looking at him instead. “I'm sorry… the door was open…I didn't mean to interrupt. You're Gray Hawk, aren't you?”

“Yes, I am.” Gray looked startled. Whoever the young man was, he looked sick. His hair was thin and short, his face looked like a cadaver's, and his eyes were sunk deep into his head. His skin was concrete colored. He looked like he had cancer, or something just as bad. Gray had no idea what he was doing there, or who he was. “Who are you?” He wanted to ask him what he was doing in his apartment, but he had left the door open so it was his own fault that there was a stranger standing there.

The man hesitated for a moment and stood where he was. “I'm Boy,” he said softly, as though he didn't have the strength to say more.

“Boy?” Gray said, looking blank. It took a moment to register, and then he looked like he'd been shot. He went almost as pale himself, as he stood rooted to the spot. “Boy? Oh my God.” He had thought about him, but not seen him in so long. He was the Navajo baby his parents had adopted twenty-five years before and named Boy. Gray walked slowly toward him and then stood in front of him, as tears rolled slowly down his cheeks. They had never been close. There were twenty-five years between them, but he was a ghost from a piece of history that had haunted Gray all his life, and still did. It was at the root of his battle with Sylvia now. He wondered for a moment if it was a hallucination. Boy looked like the Ghost of Christmas Past. Gray put his arms around him then and just held him as they cried. They were crying for what might have been, what had been, and all the insanity that they had experienced separately but in the same place and for the same reasons. “What are you doing here?” he finally managed to choke out. Gray had never even tried to see him, and probably wouldn't if he hadn't been standing there.

“I wanted to see you,” he said simply. “I'm sick.” Gray could see that. His whole being was almost translucent, as though he were disappearing and filled with light.

“What kind of sick?” Gray asked sadly. Just seeing him brought it all back.

“I have AIDS. I'm dying.” Gray didn't ask him how he had gotten it. It was none of his business.

“I'm sorry,” he said, and meant it. His heart went out to him as they looked at each other. “Do you live here? In New York? How did you find me?”

“I looked you up. You're in the phone book. I live in L.A.” He didn't waste time telling Gray about his life. “I just wanted to see you… once… you're the reason why I came here. I'm going back tomorrow.”

“On Christmas?” It seemed like a sad time to travel.

“I'm in treatment. I have to get back. I know this sounds stupid, but I just wanted to say good-bye.” The real tragedy was that they had never said hello. The last time he had seen Boy, he was a child. And then once at their parents' funeral. Gray had never seen him again, nor wanted to. Gray had spent a lifetime closing the door on the past, and now this man had put a foot in it, and was keeping the door open, and shoving it wider, with his deep sunken eyes.

“Are you all right? Do you need anything?” Maybe he needed money. Gray didn't have much. But the young man shook his head.

“No. I'm fine.”

“Are you hungry?” Gray felt as though he should do something for him, and then asked him if he wanted to go out.

“That would be nice. I'm staying at a hotel nearby. Maybe we could go out for a sandwich or something?”

Gray went to get his coat, and a few minutes later they were outside, walking toward a nearby deli. He bought him a pastrami sandwich and a Coke. It was all he wanted. Gray had a cup of coffee and a bagel, and slowly they began talking about the past, as they each knew it. It had been different for Boy, their parents had been older then, they didn't move around as much, but were just as crazy. He had gone back to live on the reservation after they died, then to Albuquerque, and finally L.A. He volunteered that he had been a prostitute at sixteen. His life had been a nightmare. And nothing their parents had done before that had helped. It amazed Gray that Boy was still alive. Looking at him, it was hard to make sense of any of it, and the memories came flooding back. They scarcely knew each other, but they cried for each other and held hands. Boy kissed his fingertips, and looked into his eyes.

“I don't know why, but I just had to see you. I think I wanted to know that one person on this earth will remember me when I'm gone.”

“I always did, even though you were only a kid the last time I saw you.” He had only been a name to him, and now he was a face, a soul, a heart, one more person to lose and to cry for. He didn't want it, but it had come to him, like a gift. This man had come three thousand miles to see him to say good-bye. “I'll remember you,” Gray said softly, engraving him on his memory as he looked at him, and as he did, he knew that one day he would paint him, and he said as much to Boy.

“I'd like that,” he said to Gray. “Then people will see me forever. I'm not afraid to die,” he added. “I don't want to, but I think it will be fine. Do you believe in Heaven?”

“I don't know what I believe in,” Gray said honestly. “Maybe nothing. Or God. But for me, it's kind of free-form.”

“I believe in Heaven, and in people meeting each other again.”

“I hope not.” Gray laughed. “There are a lot of people I've known that I don't want to meet again, like our parents.” If you could call them that.

“Are you happy?” Boy asked him. Everything about him was surreal and ethereal and transparent. Just being there with him was like being in a dream. He didn't know how to respond to Boy's question. He had been happy, until lately. He had been miserable for the past month, over all the bullshit with Sylvia. He told Boy about it.

“Why are you afraid to meet them?”

“What if they don't like me? What if I don't like them? Then she'll hate me. What if we like each other and I get attached to them, and then we break up? Then I never see them again, or I see them but I don't see her. What if they're a couple of spoiled little shits and they make trouble for us? It's all so fucking complicated, I don't need the headache.”

“What have you got without the headache? What would your life be like without her? You'll lose her if you don't see them. She loves them. And it sounds like she loves you.”

“I love her too. But I don't love her children, and I don't want to.”

“Do you love me?” he asked then, and Gray was suddenly reminded of the Little Prince in the Saint-Exupéry book, who dies at the end of the book. And not knowing why he said it, he answered him. He was honest, as though they had been friends and brothers for years.

“Yes, I do. I didn't love you until tonight. I didn't know you. I didn't want to know you,” he said honestly. “I was afraid to. But now I do. Love you, I mean.” He hadn't wanted to know him for all those years, or even see him. He had been afraid of the pain of caring about him, or having a family. All Gray knew was that families hurt, and disappointed you. But Boy wasn't disappointing, he had come to see Gray, as a gesture of pure love for him. It was the gift of love no one in his family had ever given him. It was both painful and beautiful, as only love could be.