Friday, March 16, 2001

Happy, really

It's a lazy afternoon, a stark respite in the middle of the glorious, exhausting go-go-go I've committed since arriving Friday. But here we are poolside, smoking and soaking up sun, gazing at the distant hills in a place where fifteen minutes takes about a day and a half to pass. I'm thankful for whatever anti-entropic force has wrapped us up in time and made us the beneficiaries of forever.

Patrick is sitting on the tile poolside, Indian-fashion with his head between my knees, so he has to reach up and behind him to pass me the pipe. I toussle his hair and take a deep drag, then lean back and slowly, slowly exhale into the endless, impossibly blue Texas sky.

"You could move here," he says.

"No," I say. "I couldn't."

"No," he agrees, "I guess you couldn't. It'd take a damn crowbar to pry you out of your safe little happy life, wouldn't it?"

"My life isn't all that safe."

"But is it --"

"Yes," I say. "It's very happy, thank you."

Patrick shifts and wraps his arms around my left leg, resting his face against his clasped palms and staring out on the rippling water. "I love you, you know," he says. "Can you believe that?"

I take another long pull on the pipe, feeling it now, willing myself to relax and pleased to find myself complying. "I do. I believe that," I say. "Of course, I believe in a lot of things that may or may not be real. Unicorns. Santa Claus. Bisexuals."

He turns his face toward me.

"I love you too, Patrick." I touch his face with the back of my hand, feel the warmth of his cheek and wonder how things might have been different had he decided to stay, had I not been gunshy of crossing another line.

We have a complicated relationship, this man and I. A complicated relationship, as if there were any other kind. A long history between us that's really little more than an eyeblink, and a deep, abiding affection that, distilled to its essence, is equal parts longing, need and complementary neuroses, with a soupçon of sex.

Matt returns from the house where he's been involved in a long phone conversation. He takes the pipe when I offer it. He tilts his head toward Patrick. "Is he proposing marriage again?" he asks.

"Yeah," I say. "Crazy Mormons."

"No one's living in the guest house right now," Matt says. "You could move here."

"Don't you start," I say. "No. I couldn't." And, plucking the pipe -- now down to the dregs -- from his hand, I push him into the pool.