Stories of a life

Dean shows up two hours early, not unexpected since he hinted on the phone he had more than dinner on his mind. I greet him at the door in my boxers, towel across my shoulder, on my way to the shower when he rings the bell and sends Joey into a rare paroxysm of barking and tail chasing.

He's not much older than I, but Dean has packed what seems like a lifetime of stories into the seven or eight years that separate us. We come from the same place, more or less. We bonded years ago over drinks and tales of rural childhoods, his in Shelby County, mine in Ralls. He hitched west when he was 17, spent four summers in San Francisco before winding up back in St. Louis, my cross-town neighbor. I left home but cut out the middle bit, settling here prematurely, vicariously wondering if I should have made the 80s my 70s.

The story tonight is about a humid afternoon at the Liberty Baths, among his last days in The City. In a few months, the White Night riots would sour his affection for the place, he'd pack the same rucksack he hauled out there in the first place, and head for home.

He's telling me this while we fool around. More than fool around, really. We're just a funk guitar pedal-bowed soundtrack away from an action-adventure-comedy here, my Starsky in his Hutch, you know. His brow relaxes and his eyes close and he enthuses about the slim Latino with chestnut eyes and soft skin, the touch of a stranger, the warmth of a friend and brother. Dean talks and we move together and story spins around in a sort of spiritual mystery until finally I'm imagining that we are there or, at least, through the haze of this humid day, that we are characters in a documentary about a very specific place and time and feeling.

The story etcetera ended, Dean rolls over and lights a healthy one, inhales deeply and passes it to me. Not for the first time, we look into each other's faces and share the unspoken assertion that by all rights, we should be dead by now. That we are not has, over the course of our friendship, gone from a topic of astonishment to guilt to simply relief.

"I'm glad we make room for joy, now and then," Dean says, and places his head on my chest. Just then, I feel unaccountably old, but Dean pulls my arm across him and the feeling passes. I wonder if I have the reverse of Rose's dilemma, if I was born too late and started too soon. I wonder if I would have been able to leave Polk Street once I found it, riots and plague and uncertainty be damned. I wonder if Dean is stronger than I, or weaker, or if we are ably matched in our collisions and collusions.

I can’t cheer up

When the third Abercrombie-clad clone told me to "cheer up", I knew it was time to call it a night. I swallowed the last few molecules of vodka in the drink I'd been nursing for half an hour and hit the stairs.

The truth is, I hadn't been in a bad mood at all. I was thoroughly enjoying the scenery, scouting the packed dance floor, nodding to friends, appreciating the occasional cruisy gaze, all from an unusually choice vantage point alongside the bar. But three men -- strangers, mind -- had gone out their way to tell me I should smile and it was pissing me off.

Apparently there is something about my default mien that erroneously communicates sadness or dissatisfaction when, in fact, nothing could be farther from the truth. Most of the time, I'm an exceedingly happy person, cheery to the point of schmaltz, as upbeat as they come. My aspect, though, seldom betrays this and so, well-meaning though they may be, strangers and friends alike feel compelled to make me grin.

I am not prone to great displays of emotion, one way or the other. You must work very hard, indeed, to make me laugh and, if you see me crying or explicitly frowning, you can be assured of the feeling behind either extreme.

But my face at rest (and I have confirmed this with mirrors and the review of several years worth of photographs) is non-committal, neither elated nor blue. If anything, I can probably be described as appearing "pensive," although in truth I am likely thinking of nothing in particular.

I have usually answered requests to "cheer up" with a genial reassurance that I'm in quite a good mood, thank you, and on occasion have even invoked an awfully fake grin solely to put others at their ease. It's happening far too often, though, and I'm afraid I'm leaning more toward answering them with malediction rather than manners.

Which probably won't help matters at all.

Three Things People Are Often Surprised to Discover I Don’t Own More Of

• Belts
• Watches
• Anti-depressant medications

A soap opera

"We've got a few minutes, don't we?" Jeff asks. "Pull into Schnuck's. I need to get a card."

We're on our way to have dinner at Yen Ching with my funny friend Jill, the lip-schtick lesbian, and her partner Jackie. (Yes, "Jack" and Jill. It's all very nursery rhyme campy; wisecracks about rolling down hills and breaking crowns were exhausted years ago.) Our Chinese repast is to be a belated birthday fete for Jill, 35 this year.

Executing the turn into the parking lot requires crossing two lanes of traffic at the last moment and, because this particular grocery is situated amidst no fewer than five "retirement communities", weaving through a slow crosswalk stampede of seniors. Inside, Jeff heads for a long aisle lined with racks of greeting cards.

"While you're doing that," I say, "I want to get some shampoo."

"You buy shampoo here?!" Jeff spins around and regards me dubiously.

"Yes."

"Oh, right," he says. "I forgot you work in the non-profit sector."

This I ignore and step one aisle over to confront a hundred cremes, conditioners and chemicals.

I grab a bottle of my usual and stand examining what must be three dozen different styling gels, trying to ascertain which likely comes closer to the consistency of concrete: Extra hold, extreme hold, or mega-hold? There should be some sort of chart, I think, or a relative scale like SPF numbers on tanning oils. "Gel Factor 95," it might advise, "will maintain your style in winds of up to 12 on the Beaufort scale, through having an iron anvil dropped upon your head, or a three-hour foam party."

Jeff rounds the corner and thrusts his selection into my hand. "How about this one?"

His shopping acumen never ceases to amaze me. Fewer than five minutes have passed and he's managed to find among thousands the one Shoebox birthday card that vaguely alludes to Sapphic love. "It's fine," I say.

He doesn't hear. "Johnson's Baby Shampoo?! You're buying Johnson's Baby Shampoo?"

Jeff is a shampoo snob. He orders his by mail, some sort of concoction with a name that sounds like an '80s arcade game and a list of ingredients that may or may not be Colonel Sanders' original blend of eleven secret herbs and spices. His grooming regimen seems to be balanced between blends of "organic" treatments and frightening brews that sound like SuperFund eligibility lists.

Once, when I was showering at his place after a workout, I picked up a tube of pricey skin scrub and scanned the label. From the contents, I couldn't be sure if it was a facial treatment or a flan. It sounded delicious. The rest of his collection looked like a salad bar, an assortment of vegetable extracts and fruity pomades.

"You really should use something that gives you more control over your hair," he says. "Herbal Essence, at the very least."

I point to the 1/8 inch crop on my head. "This," I say, "hardly needs control. Besides, it's just soap. It gets my hair clean. That's all I require."

"Sometimes I wonder how you survive on the circuit," Jeff says. "I really, really do." He sighs heavily. "Come on, I want to get a Twinkie to tide me over until we eat."

I follow, wondering idly if he means a snack cake or a bag boy.

Take a letter

Dear Jason,

Yes, I think I'd be inclined to agree with you: being robbed, kicked in the stomach and called a faggot is not the best way to end an evening. Of course, you know what my idea of a delightful night is, because often you were there.

If it's any comfort, from your description you were very much in my thoughts at almost the exact moment you were lying on the sidewalk clutching your gut. We were at Freddie's (it's a new bar) and The Giant Queen had just turned to me and asked if I'd heard from you recently. I said I hadn't and he said, "I wonder what mischief the little fucker is up to these days."

So I was thinking about you and wondering the same thing myself.

Anyhow, it's a relief to know that you weren't badly hurt and, too, to know that you've found a job -- yes, I almost wrote "a real job", because I continue to become more and more like my mother -- and a place that you like to live. Jeff, I'm sure, will get many laughs knowing that you're selling underwear at Marshall Field's. My prediction of his response when I tell him: "He should be especially good during clearance sales. That boy had his own briefs half-off most of the time anyway."

Hey, how often the truth is spoken in jest, right?

The Chicago grapevine passed word to me that you and Karl were on the outs and I assume that's so, given the mention of your new apartment. It's funny how I've been able to keep track of you -- not in the scary, stalker sense, mind -- even though we haven't talked in over a year. Ever since The Actor moved to England, though, my most reliable (and there's a word I never thought I'd use to describe him!) source dried up.

I get up that way a lot, you know, and I want to see you, to hold you and to remind you that I love you very, very much.

Now that I know you have access to e-mail, I'll write often and keep you posted on all the Sturm und Drang down here. (You're rolling your eyes, aren't you? "Why can't you just say 'drama' like a normal person?!" you're saying.)

Well, you can't imagine how much has changed! But I'll save my stories until you divulge at least one of yours. Reciprocity, of one fashion or another, has always been the cornerstone of our relationship, after all. You could call, too, you know. I'm just saying. I miss you.

Take care of yourself, Jason, and hey, watch your back, OK? I'll leave you with the wisdom Grandma Graham gave to me when I ran to her house in tears after being bullied on the church lawn one day after school when I was in the third grade.

"Sometimes it's OK to fight, you know, especially when you're being picked on by somebody just for being you. God don't mind, and I sure as hell don't either. And don't be scared to fight a little dirty. Nobody's gonna think you're less of a man because you kick a bully in the nuts.

"Besides," she said, with that little sarcastic smile that, on more than one occasion, reaffirmed my faith in genetics, "if you kick 'im hard enough, he's the one who'll wind up with less."

Love from where you've been,

Brad

Tim

It's always the nights when I least feel like hitting the circuit which seem to wind up holding the most promise, and this is no exception. Almost as soon as I mount the stairs at The Complex, I see Adorable Dave tipping a longneck at the bar and pass a pleasant half hour chatting before he departs with his date. It is a testament, I think, to my personal growth over the past decade that I spend only five minutes or so imagining them rushing to one or the other's home, ripping off their clothes and going at it.

OK, perhaps ten minutes.

Rob, who I haven't seen in ages, encircles my waist from behind and pulls me into a hug. There's some good-natured, bad-boy badinage; it's flirting that will never go anywhere, because I'm a godless tax-and-spender and he wears his Log Cabin credentials across his chest like the Fitch Bitches on the dance floor wear their tight mass-produced t-shirts.

And there's Tim in the corner. It's been a good year since I gave this the old college try and he smiles when he spots me approaching. We share a beer and a cigarette and I listen as he ticks off the ones who got away. No sex in ages, he says, which must be particularly frustrating for a social worker specializing in sex worker outreach.

We've danced around each other for a half-dozen years or more, Tim and I. In the small hours, I turn to him and ask when we're finally going to fool around. The looks and touching and the four more rounds of drinks have fortified my belief that it might just be tonight.

"I don't want to fool around," he says. "I want a commitment."

"I'm not the marrying kind," I say.

"I don't know that about you."

I do, and it's only just recently that I -- what, discovered? -- no, accepted that about myself. I'm no good in relationships, never have been, really, likely because my concept of monogamy has more to do with emotional loyalty than physical exclusivity and, at some point in the last decade, this view began to diverge wildly from that of my peers.

I liked it much better when I was fighting for my freedom to be a sexual outsider and I bridled when the goal became a "marriage initiative".

I drained my beer and kissed Tim hard on the lips and squeezed his ass and said goodnight. I glanced at the dance floor on my way out, just half past one and still promise left in the night and the sight of a hundred perspiring torsos shimmying to Cher.

A song for lonely, indeed. No, not lonely, not by a considerable margin. Just alone.

Matthew

I can't stop crying about it.

On October 12, 1998, I stood alone in the backyard and gazed through wispy clouds at the stars in the autumn sky and hugged my arms tightly around my shoulders, occasionally bringing the cuff of my sweater across my eyes to wipe at the tears.

On June 15, 2000, I staggered along 17th Street in New York, not knowing where to go and unable to think clearly and sobbing so hard that a stranger stopped me and asked me if I was okay -- in New York City! -- and offered to just stand with me for a minute until I pulled myself together.

On January 11, 2002, I believed that words on a page couldn't make the tears come but they did. I closed the door and sat in my office and cried like the first time. Like the second time. Like I did last night.

It was third time I've seen or read The Laramie Project, the play by Moisés Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Company about the events in Wyoming following the murder of Matt Shepard.

I have stood face to face with Rev. Phelps. I have held the hand of Judy Shepard. I have said eulogies and I have written elegies and I have taken punches and I have never cried about those things. I have never given myself to permission to cry. I have a more urgent need to act.

Sometimes, though, words, time, distance...these things give us permission, whether we ask for it or not.

It's been four years and I can't stop crying about it.

Unexpected

The second one is tall, taller than I anyway, with black, curly hair and green eyes and a radiant smile. He has the look of a man at home modeling seafoam green loose-knit cotton sweaters in a J. Crew catalog and is possessed of an easy laugh that comes often while we talk. It's hard to hear, with the disco music throbbing, but we chat for a while and then stand side by side in an amiable head-bobbing silence.

The first one is short, shorter than I anyway, shirtless and ten pounds heavy, with a goatee and brown eyes and a lopsided grin that flashes once and disappears. He doesn't want to dance. He doesn't, it seems, really want to be here at all. The conversation is ten words, maybe twelve, exchanged along with lusty looks and sips of weak draft beer.

Certain offers are made, mental tallies are adjusted, drinks are purchased, watches are looked at, a choice is made.

Perfection is enticing, imperfection utterly intoxicating.

You may think you know how this story ends, but you don't. You never do, really.

Thoughts and comments on the occasion of preparing my federal income tax return for the year 2001

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck.

No fault

Here's a sobering and, ultimately, utterly self-evident fact I somehow wasn't able to grasp before tonight: I have spent the past ten years or so, through a hundred retellings of the story -- from my perspective, mind -- hoping for and expecting someone to affirm my assertion that it was all his fault. When, in fact, there is plenty of blame to go around.

Or, more probably, no one is to "blame" at all.

Why did I wait a decade to tell the story to the one person I knew would understand best and, more importantly, tell me the truth I didn't particularly want to hear. Self-sabotage sucks.

Sorry lady

On Saturday, completing a three-year search, I finally found a table lamp that I liked for a particular spot in my house. Admittedly, I had not dedicated much energy to the search, since I found it in, of all places, K-Mart. I bought the lamp and a bottle of soda.

Once home, I decided I liked the lamp so much, I resolved to get another for an adjacent table, so I went back to K-Mart today, picked up the last one they had in stock and, as an afterthought, a soda to enjoy on the drive home. By happenstance, I had the same clerk who'd checked me through on Saturday. We exchanged pleasantries and, as she took my money, she regarded me with a curious expression.

It was an expression that said, "I'm having deja vu."

If I could keep this up every two days for a month or so, I believe I could drive the woman mad.

Better late?

You've got to give a man credit, I suppose, when he says "I'll call you" and then he actually does.

Of course, after seven years, I'd pretty much stopped waiting by the phone, but with spring just around the corner, I'm in a forgiving mood.

Predictable

It doesn't matter how early I get to bed. I always seem to pop wide awake around noon, and I just can't get back to sleep.

In which I am a reluctant computer consultant

If it weren't for Steve's hardwood floors, I probably wouldn't be here at CompUSA at the wholly unreasonable hour of 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning.

I was awakened by a buzzing that sounds like locusts fighting inside an aluminum can. It takes a moment or so of sleep-fogged concentration to realize that my cell phone has vibrated its way from the bedside table where I scattered the contents of my pockets last night and landed on the floor, where it is now skittering across the slats toward the closet door. I shake my head and force my eyes to focus on the clock. It's just after 8.

Extracting myself from the tangled duvet, taking care not to wake Steve, I take a couple of steps from the bed and retrieve the animated phone. When I see the incoming number on the tiny display, I briefly consider resigning the call to voicemail. Instead, I stumble back to bed and flip open the phone, croaking a groggy hello.

On the other end of the line, Jeff sounds frantic. "Where are you?" he asks. "I need your help!"

There is an urgency in his voice, a tone that implies he's either suffered a mortal wound or just heard the announcement of a white sale at Famous and Barr. I am instantly fully awake.

"What's the matter?" I ask. "Are you all right?"

"My computer is dead. I need you to help me pick out a new one. Can you come right away?"

I hang up on him.

I know this is a short-term solution. I am not likely to be getting further sleep. Sure enough, the phone vibrates half a minute later and I answer immediately.

"For this, you interrupt the Lord's day?" I ask.

"Get real," Jeff says. "You are a godless man."

"As it happens," I reply, "I am in bed with one right now."

Steve is stirring now. "What happened?" I ask.

"I was IMing with this really hot guy last night -- well, this morning actually -- a totally rich number. You should see his GIF. We're talking a major packer."

"Jeff --"

"Anyway, he sends me his number. We're gonna hook up. And then another window opens up and the whole fucking thing just crashes. I try to start it up again and...nothing."

"Your computer died because you had two instant message windows open?"

Silence.

"Jeff?"

"Sixteen."

Steve rolls over and runs his hand along my stomach. "Sixteen," I repeat. "And a lot of pictures, too, right?"

"Yes," Jeff says, adding sadly, "They were on the hard drive."

"Call me back at a decent hour," I say, glancing down at Steve's head resting on my chest. "Two, maybe three."

"Wait, why aren't you at home?" Jeff asks, then answers his own question. "That guy from Clem's?"

"No comment."

"Meet me at the store at 10 sharp, sweetie. I want the dish and your electronic expertise. I'll buy you brunch after. Ta!"

I refold the phone and replace it on the nightstand, taking care to reactivate the ringer so the little critter doesn't scurry away again.

"What was that all about?" Steve asks.

"My friend Jeff," I say. "He was mutually messaging himself into a frenzy with some e-trick last night and fried his computer. He spends half of happy hour last week eschewing the bar scene and then goes home every night and cruises AOL for hours. Like that's any healthier."

Our eyes meet and Steve's mouth bends into the little grin that made me melt in the first place.

"What was your screenname again?" Steve asks.

"Shut up."

Liaisons

While I am by no means an expert in the finer points of arranging liaisons with similarly inclined young men in public spaces, I think it is fair to say that discretion and common sense have a role to play.

For example, should you be browsing in the appliance department of a major American department store and find yourself suddenly, potently attracted to the gentleman demonstrating the features and benefits of a dishwasher, you must first ascertain whether the clerk in question shares both your affectional and/or sexual orientation and also clearly establish whether a mutual interest exists.

Assuming, further, that neither of you is particularly charmed by the notion of allowing any time to pass before acting on this information, you must choose the locale of your assignation carefully. Public restrooms are to be avoided, really. That they are cliché and fundamentally tacky we shall leave aside for the moment, since the practical reality is far more daunting: now equipped with baby changing stations, they are likely to be frequented by young fathers swaddling infants and nothing kills tumescence like the proximity of a squawling, stinky suburban spawn.

So too should you steer clear of fitting rooms on the upper floors. While these may seem perfectly logical destinations for a retail quickie, the combination of half-height doors with often inoperable latches on the changing cubicles and the area's generally high traffic of shoppers laden with several pairs of trousers in waist sizes ranging from 28 to 36 ("It depends on the cut," they will disclaim emphatically, although they clearly need the 38) make them unsuitable for any twosome seeking even a modicum of privacy.

You might think that the small space inside the round racks of hanging coats, marked 40 percent off in light of the unseasonably warm winter we've been having, would provide suitable shelter but here also you'd be mistaken. As sure as Meg Ryan was horribly miscast as Jim Morrison's smack-addicted girlfriend in The Doors, you'll adjourn to these cramped, dim confines only to discover mid-maneuver that your boy's a moaner and, brother, discount leather does nothing in the way of acoustic muffling.

No, friend, I'm afraid there really is no suitable locale within the walls of the modern major retailer that affords both seclusion and comfort for purposes of a few minutes' passion. Caveat fellator, as they say. You are best advised to temper your ardor, exchange telephone numbers with the lad and agree to meet another time anywhere but his place of employ.

On a wholly unrelated note, over French fries and Coke at the food court yesterday afternoon, Erik informed me that he is, apparently, officially no longer welcome Where America Shops. "So much," he snorted, "for their 'softer side'."

The name game

It's nearly 2 a.m. on Saturday night and I'm standing by the railing overlooking the dance floor at The Complex, fervently hoping that the roof will collapse, a beam from the support structure will strike me on the head and kill me instantly.

I do not ordinarily have a death wish, but it's simply that when you've been forced to stand in more or less the same position for three and a half hours listening to Jeff recite his recent sexual résumé and offer a detailed dossier on every dancer who removes his shirt, you begin to pray for a swift release.

I decide that I am not even particularly picky about the afterlife, since I believe that heaven is, as Libby Gelman-Waxner said, a place where everything fits perfectly without alterations, and that hell is very likely the only place left where it is socially permissible to smoke.

I haven't really been listening to Jeff for the past half hour or so, though. I've been too busy watching this guy on the dance floor — his name is "Paul", Jeff says -- the most recent to shuck his shirt. It wasn't even a shirt in the way we mortals are accustomed to thinking about club wear. No, this was merely a diaphanous, swirling suggestion of a shirt, containing just enough material to muck up my view of his chest, comprising pecs the size of a sectional sofa and a stomach you could use to slow down runaway trucks on mountainous roads.

So, yes, I'm glad the shirt is gone. I don't even see or much care where it has disappeared to; unlike most of the guys who go topless on the dance floor, "Paul" has not tucked his top into a belt or back pocket. It has vanished or, perhaps, evaporated like the mist it appeared to be.

I consider briefly suggesting to Jeff that he might want such a garment for himself since, based on his recitation of his latest conquests, he seems to go for things that are small, white and insubstantial.

Just then I notice that the DJ is playing what sounds very much like a dance mix of the theme song from The Price is Right and this realization, combined with the diverting dichotomy of hearing a woman's voice sing "Come on down" through a nearly visible miasma of inhalant stimulants, detaches me from my awareness of Jeff altogether.

I am now focused almost entirely on watching "Paul", mesmerized by his movement, graceful for his size. His name is not "Paul", I know, or at least it wasn't. When we were introduced five years ago at a friend's pool party, his name was "John" and he was a shy but charming conversationalist, the boyfriend of a local doctor and on his way to a nursing degree.

Sometime later, when the relationship ended and he — obviously — hit the gym, I happened across his personal ad on a local website where the attached photographs indicated he had shed both most of his inhibitions and the name "John". He was "David" by then.

Jeff is aware that I have tuned him out and touches my arm to gain my attention. He's leaving and I say I'll be sticking around, probably until closing time. "Paul" has captured my attention, and I want to study him a bit longer. Jeff makes a wiseacre remark about the man's body, the same one I would have made were I not contemplating very seriously whether he is playacting, lying or actually reinventing himself.

For the next half hour or so, "Paul" has my full attention and seems to know it, although our eyes never meet and I make no effort to attract his. I stand there and wonder if I am capable of doing what he has done, of changing my life so radically, of altering my appearance, personality, behavior — my very perceptions and others' perceptions of me — in the way that he has.

I wonder, too, what my name would be if I did.

Regarding Davey…

Julie dropped back into my life last Tuesday, quite unexpectedly as is her way. (I once came home from work to find her asleep on my couch with her boyfriend. In my locked apartment. In a secure, doorman building. I still have no idea how she managed it.)

As deadlines hovered menacingly over my head, we sat for two hours reliving college days and catching up on news of old friends. We're coming up on what our alma mater calls a "landmark reunion," which is a euphemism for a period ending in either zero or five seen as an excuse to ask for a larger alumni fund contribution. Anyway, it's been a few years since our last rundown of the old gang and, surprisingly, there were few surprises. The constant seems to be that none of us is using our degree in the way it was originally intended. Good for us.

Eventually, we got around to talking about Dave, sweet little Davey who everybody loved. Davey died a couple of years after we graduated although, in fact, none of us can remember if he actually did graduate. It doesn't matter, though. I'm not sure I ever met anyone who learned more eagerly from what life offered to him, in a classroom or not. Davey was never without a friend or a smile or a good word for anyone, even the burnouts and cheaters and assholes everyone else despised.

Davey never said "no" because, deep down, Davey was afraid if he did, he might not be asked again.

He admitted that, once, and then denied it -- when pressed on rare occasions -- with the same vigor with which he consumed all the rest of his days.

Well, those were the 80s, kids. I could have been Davey, easily. We shared more or less parallel paths for a while anyway. But I turned at the fork in the road marked "guardedly optimistic" and Davey continued blithely down the stretch labelled "sunny and cynicism-free".

Davey believed in romance, in adventure, in doing a thing simply because he hadn't done it before. Davey took spontaneous road trips, sampled all manner of food and drink and held my head over a toilet once or twice. I often gave him a hard time and kidded him and got as close to him as anyone was allowed. I never took the leap of faith it would have required for me to try to get closer. Well, those were the 80s, kids.

I wish I could say I thought of Davey often but the truth is, until Julie materialized in my office and dragged me down memory lane, his stubbly face and sweet smile and sparkling eyes and dry laughter hadn't crossed my mind in two years or more.

We promise to do it, to keep in touch. We say we'll write and get together after graduation, and we seldom do. At the wake or the funeral, we vow to remember, to make the lost a permanent part of us, but that's harder still and they go out of sight, out of mind, deep in heart.

Davey and I went to The Upside, a lot. To Faces and City Center and Angles. We never went together, but he was always there, and we'd fall upon each other and laugh and drink and dance until the sun came up.

I thought about that Saturday night, when I was introduced to Davey again. It wasn't him, of course, but an astonishingly faithful facsimile. A new friend, of a friend. Young and lean and with a smile that seems to make up about half his body, although the other half has merits of its own. He's bright and funny and so very optimistic but a little scared too.

He and Davey have something else in common but, fortunately, these aren't the 80s anymore.

I remember…

A day or two ago.

It was very good Scotch whiskey, old and smooth and finely blended. But I don't drink Scotch any longer.

He poured out the double shots anyway, and we toasted and drank them together and he laughed and I flirted and he tipped the bottle again and I remembered.

Eight years ago.

A southside barroom, and a moment of perfect clarity. I was emboldened by the burn in my belly and the sweetness on my tongue, but even without, I was confident of my mind and my heart.

I made a call. We met at ten. I put my thoughts in order, my cards on the table and my hand on the back of his neck. Our lips met, my heart soared, the moment passed. And the only man I've ever really, truly loved walked away.

Still, it was very good Scotch whiskey. And I will love again. But I don't drink Scotch any longer.

Falling in love with a poor man

I have been given only one piece of advice about love, but it has been repeated often enough to become a mantra: "It is just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is to fall in love with a poor man."

This philosophy has been variously ascribed to a Jewish mother, a Methodist grandmother and a truckstop waitress. It has always been imparted to me by someone of my own age and, on one occasion, with the belief that it was so ancient as to have been the key phrase on the Rosetta Stone.

Or was it that Rosetta Stone was a Jewish grandmother? Honestly, I was probably drinking each time this "advice" tumbled from someone's lips and I am therefore hazy on both the dogma and the details. The source of this wisdom was lost in the cosmic game of telephone that had brought it to me, and didn't matter anyway.

For all that it meant in flip philosophy, it omitted an essential, relative truth (a corollary, an exception proving the rule): Falling in love isn't easy at all.

Another excerpt from the discarded first-draft of The Novel

I am essentially an optimist and a romantic, and I am gay. It therefore probably goes without saying that my record collection is heavily weighted with original Broadway cast albums, collections of torchy ballads and the obligatory chart hits and disco. It is music predisposed toward cheerfulness, sunny attitudes about love, moon, June and boys with bodacious pecs.

But I also own a small assortment of compact discs which I loosely categorize as "Music I Play to Torture Myself."

You probably know the sort of song I'm talking about. You may have a similar shelf next to your stereo. The way the world is going, it is likely only a matter of time before this genre joins album rock and adult contemporary as a hot radio format.

It is the music I play when an affair reaches its inevitable end, and I find myself burrowed beneath the bed sheets, a variety of comfort food and tissue boxes arrayed at my side. It is my-man-done-done-me-wrong ditties. It is here-I-go-making-the-same-mistake-again harmony.

It is music to mope by.

"The Man Who Got Away". "The Man I Love". "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning".

"I thought I'd found the man of my dreams, now it seems this is how the story ends, he's gonna turn me down and say 'can't we be friends?'."

But when it comes to love, and love unrequited, and love-just-not-quite-quited, nobody but nobody beats Rodgers and Hart:

If they asked me, I could write a book
About the way you walk and whisper and look.
I could write a preface on how we met
So the world would never forget.
And the simple secret of the plot
Is just to tell you that I love you a lot.
And the world discovers, as my book ends,
How to make two lovers of friends.

Nobody asked me, but this is the book I wrote.

Ten More Actual Titles of Gay Adult Videos

Be careful when wandering into unfamiliar sections of the video store, or you may end up coming home with something altogether different than you intended. As a helpful consumer guide, here are Ten More Actual Titles of Gay Adult Videos:

• Raiders of the Lost Arse: The Mummy's Hand


• Do Me, Ray! and A Few of His Favorite Things


• Dawson's Crack


• Going Down and Putting Out in Beverly Hills


• I Dream of Weenie


• Star Track: Voyeur


• Star Track: Deep Nine Inches


• The Best Little Whorehouse in TEX-ASS


• Terms of Endowment


• I Know Who You Did Last Summer

The first night

The clock on the wall of my bedroom ticks.

There is very little water pressure in the shower.

In the twilight, shadows fall on the vase on the top shelf along the dining room wall, making it look very much like a face with an evil rictus for a mouth and two enormous eyes.

These are three things I forget but almost instantly recall every time I come here, one hundred miles and 16 years away from the place I now call home, to a place I am from but no longer of.

This is the first night I have spent alone in this house in 33 years.

Eight miles away, resting as comfortably as is possible under the circumstances, she is spending the night alone in a hospital for the first time in 33 years.

The clock on the wall of my bedroom ticks.

Leftovers

It has been said that most of the 60s actually happened in the 70s. I can only hope that's a temporal principle on which we can rely, as it neatly explains the past 10 hours or so as a leftover from the fundamentally shitty 2001 and not part of the much better year I had optimistically expected — and so far experienced — 2002 to be.

All will be much better in another day, when I am beside the ones I love and can hold them tight and assure them — and myself — that we are not replaying 2001 or, worse, 1999. For the moment, however, I'm feeling a little scared and although surrounded by friends, very weak and alone.

Earworm

I have the song "The Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music stuck in my head. It has been there since Tuesday, playing over and over. Another 24 hours and it will drive me mad. If Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were not already conveniently dead, I would be favorably inclined to find them and kill them with my bare hands just now.

New Year’s Eve, Covent Garden, London

Sometimes the universe sends us signs. And, sometimes, the universe sends us to them.