The Night Listener

  “Gabriel is just naturally creative,” Mummie would tell her friends, when Pap wasn’t there to hear it. “One day he’ll write a scandalous book that will embarrass the whole family. Just the way Tom Wolfe did.” My mother had grown up in Asheville when Wolfe was wreaking havoc there with Look Homeward, Angel. She recalled the way the author’s family had dined out for years on their literary notoriety. Old Mrs. Wolfe had always been ready with a stock reply when asked how it felt to have her dirty laundry aired in public.

  Drawing herself up grandly, she would proclaim with a stoic sigh that “Caesar had Brutus, and Jesus had Judas, and we have our Tom.” But Wolfe was permitted his indiscretion, Mummie said, because he was a genius and a true bohemian; he had run off to the North, you see, and moved in with a Jewess who was much older than he was. You couldn’t get any more bohemian than that, she said with a knowing look, as if to suggest that there might be a Jewess or two in my own future.

  Though she played by the rules of Charleston society, my mother herself nursed private dreams of bohemianism. Her own mother had been an ardent suffragist in England and was still known to read palms and cite the theosophy of Madame Blavatsky. So Mummie would often make reference to karma and rosy circles and past lives, without fully knowing what those things were, and certainly without abandoning her weekly Episcopal prayer group. But I wanted her to be Auntie Mame as much as she did, so I egged her on at every turn. We went flea marketing together and bought exotic Indian cotton bedspreads for the house. Once, in a rare display of physicality, I completely rearranged the living room to showcase more dramatically her fine collection of blue Pisgah Mountain Pot-tery.

  There were, though, limits to my mother’s nonconformism, and I discovered them when I made friends with Rusty Ellis. Rusty, to my mind, was a perfectly prosaic kid from Minneapolis whose father had recently been transferred to an insurance company in Charleston. True, the Ellises were somewhat disrespectful of the South, and their living-room furniture was all Danish Modern, but I really like knowing someone who said davenport instead of sofa, and Rusty’s love of the movies was easily the equal of mine. Also like me, he had successfully made it to fourteen without learning the rules of a single sport. We spent our time together after school discussing the deeper meaning of Vertigo, or searching for the tomb of the real-life Annabel Lee, a local girl the young Edgar Allan Poe had once courted out on Sullivan’s Island.

  I was already jerking off at that point, but I felt nothing like lust for Rusty; I was just extremely comfortable around him. I had stumbled by chance upon a member of my own tribe, and Mummie must have realized this long before I did. She liked Rusty just fine—for the very reasons she liked me—but two fey little fantasists was one too many for her comfort. She pulled me aside one day and suggested gently that maybe I shouldn’t see so much of my friend.

  When I asked her why, she said that Rusty was a little effemin-ate—through no fault of his own, of course, but it might cause people to “think things.” And I realized then that my secret deficiency wasn’t just happening in my pants; it was part and parcel of my very being, a blazing scarlet H that could easily betray me at any moment.

  “So what did you do?” asked Pete.

  “About what?”

  “Rusty.”

  “Nothing, really. I mean, nothing dramatic. We were still friends for a while. I just didn’t talk about him at home. And then we just sort of…drifted apart naturally as we got older.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I guess he started to strike me as…kind of corny and Midwestern.”

  “Hey!”

  I laughed. “Sorry. Wrong word.”

  “Are you gonna do that to me?”

  “Do what?”

  “Dump me when you’re tired of me.”

  “C’mon. I didn’t dump him. And you’re not at all like him, anyway.” I knew Pete was just teasing, but he had struck a nerve nonetheless. “Besides,” I added defensively, “we had a really nice reunion back in the eighties. He and his lover came here for the Castro Street Fair, and we all went out to dinner. They’d been following my show for years.”

  “Was he still corny and Midwestern?”

  “He was very nice,” I said firmly, but in truth I had felt superior to the one true soul mate of my adolescence. Rusty and his lover were both court reporters in Atlanta, pleasant guys with shiny faces and careful hair who seemed to have acquired their personal style from the Shocking Gray catalog. They wore freedom rings and rhinestone-studded AIDS ribbons, and Rusty, poor soul, had one of those Tshirts that said Surrender, Dorothy. I found them both so middle-class and predictable that I cut short our evening with an excuse about an imminent deadline. The irony of that wasn’t lost on me when I later learned that they had both died within a year of their pilgrimage to San Francisco. Deadline, indeed. And I had not remembered to send them the autographed books they’d requested.

  Pete was still miffed. “The Midwest isn’t so bad, you know.”

  “Thought you said it was a suckhole.”

  “Well, yeah, but… you’re not allowed to say it.”

  “There’s only one way to settle this, you know.”

  “What?”

  “If you invite me out to see for myself.” The silence that followed was not attributable to anything. It was merely a silence.

  “Pete?”

  “You don’t mean that, do you?”

  “Why would I say it, if I didn’t mean it?”

  “Would you come like…right away?”

  “Absolutely. In a couple of days, if you’ll let me. I can stay at your local Ramada and we’ll just hang.”

  More silence.

  “Pete?”

  “Yeah, Dad, I’m here.”

  “What d’you say, then?”

  “That would be the coolest thing in the world.”

  “Good, then. We’ll do it.”

  “I gotta check with Mom, though.”

  “Tell her I won’t be in the way, okay? I can make myself scarce whenever you need to be alone.”

  “I’m sure it’s no sweat. She’s pretty cool about things.”

  “I know, Pete. You’re lucky in that regard.” There was a brief pause as he apparently read my mind. “You know,” he said eventually. “Your mom was just trying to protect you.”

  “Yeah…I know. But she passed her fear on to me. And that was the last thing in the world I needed.”

  “But you would have gotten that anyway. From somebody else if not from her.”

  “I know. I’m not blaming her.”

  “You shouldn’t. Things were a lot different back then.” It was a simple observation that could easily have been gleaned from almost any book or movie about the fifties. The mores of the midcentury are a well-established cliché in the culture, one that a clever boy of thirteen could certainly invoke without ever having lived through the era. But somehow the phrase seemed pregnant with personal experience. It stayed with me all afternoon and into the night, crowding out everything else, like some ghastly repetitive jingle you’re trying too hard to forget: Things were a lot different back then.

  THIRTEEN

  ROOM FOR DISILLUSIONMENT

  PETE CALLED BACK EXCITEDLY the next morning to say that Donna had approved my visit, so I spent the next few days in preparation.

  There was very little to do, actually—or un do, for that matter, since my calendar had become a wasteland after Jess had left. This little odyssey to Henzke Street would be a healthy act in every regard: something that would not only lift my morale but promote my self-sufficiency. I splurged on a first-class ticket to Milwaukee, then splurged again, reserving a big boat of a Buick for the long drive to Wysong.

  There was only the issue of Hugo. He had never been boarded in a kennel, and this was hardly the time to start, given his age and health. Jess and I had always relied on house-sitters, but the usual candidates were unreachable that day, and I didn’t want to unsettle the dog with strangers. The
logical choice was Jess. He would love spending time with Hugo, and I loved the idea of him being here, sleeping in our bed. So I called and asked if he might be available for a few days.

  “Sure. I guess. What’s up? Where are you going?” Was that worry in his voice? Did it disturb him that I might have plans of my own?

  “Pete has asked me to come visit,” I explained.

  A pause, and then: “When did this happen?”

  “A few days ago.” It felt awkward exploding Jess’s hoax theory in such a casual manner, but I’d already resolved not to make an issue of it.

  “Are you planning to stay with them?” he asked after a silence.

  There was a distinct note of re$$$icence in his voice.

  “No. Pete gave me the name of a motel.”

  “That’s good.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t know these people, babe.”

  “You’re right,” I said grimly. “They might make me into a lamp-shade.”

  Jess didn’t rise to my sarcasm. “Do what you want, then. I just think you’d better have an escape hatch if it turns out to be tedious.

  Don’t forget those dykes in Hermosa Beach!” His shorthand made me laugh. I remembered that nightmare all too well. At the bitter end of a thirty-city book tour we’d been virtually imprisoned by a women’s collective: forced to nap in their “guest room,” submit to a tedious tarot reading, sit in a bookstore for hours on end while a handful of women in pastel sweats straggled in from the beach. It drained every last ounce of charm from me, but even in my wretchedness I found comfort in the fact of Jess, that sharp, loving eye I could catch across the room.

  “Please,” I said. “Nothing could ever be that bad.” Jess chuckled at the memory with an affection that belied how apoplectic he’d been at the time. “Jesus, remember that huge one who rode on a mattress in the back of her lover’s minivan?”

  “Oh, hell. The channeller. She channelled a nineteenth-century slave!”

  “And I asked her lover if she’d ever channelled in bed and she said, ‘Oh, no, she doesn’t do it unless you pay her.’” Laughing, I dredged up the shamelessly un-PC catchphrase we’d invented for the occasion: “‘Inside every fat white woman there’s a fat black woman struggling to get out.’”

  “Hey,” Jess blurted. “Maybe that’s what’s happening on Henzke Street. Maybe she’s channelling that kid.” This was just a comic variation on Anna’s “multiple” theory, but I didn’t say so. It was time for this game to be over, and I suggested as much as nicely as I could.

  Jess was contrite. “I didn’t mean to make light of it. I’m glad you’re doing this, in fact. It’ll be good for you.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m a little nervous, actually.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, I just wonder what he’ll look like. How far gone he is. He sounds so cute and energetic on the phone, but he must be in pretty bad shape, considering all he’s been through.”

  “But he sent you a picture, right?”

  “Yeah, but that could be fairly old. Even a month or two can make a difference.”

  “You can handle it. You handled it with Wayne. He was beautiful at the end, remember?”

  “Yeah…he was.”

  “Just look into his eyes,” said Jess. “You’ll be all right.” The next order of business was to arrange accommodations in Wysong, so I called the place Pete had suggested—the Lake-Vue Motor Lodge—and reserved a single room for two nights. This was not their busy season, the desk clerk said, so I could easily extend my stay should I choose to do so. She was so chatty and cooperative (“Do you know about our antique auto barn?”) that she put me instantly at ease. I could almost see the place already, with its greasy-antlered snack bar and knotty pine office, the stack of old jigsaw puzzles they probably kept behind the desk. And all of it less than a mile from Pete’s house.

  It was snowing in Wysong, the desk clerk said, so I should keep that in mind when I packed for my stay. This shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did, a little, since Pete had never talked about the weather, presumably because he took it for granted; only Californians and Southerners see snow as something to make a fuss over. I read-justed my mental image, adding frost to the double-paned windows, a cornice of snow to the long row of rooms. As for that fabled Vue of the Lake, it was now enlivened by a random deer or two, or maybe even elk or moose, scribbling their signatures across the blue-white landscape. This was virgin territory for me, a place so unfamiliar that it was still susceptible to my imagination.

  I consulted the elegant little leather-bound atlas my friend James in New York had bought me at Barneys just after Jess took off. (This had been James’s way of saying that there was still a world out there.) Only a page was devoted to all the Midwestern states, so Wysong was nowhere to be found. I saw some wonderful names in Wisconsin, like Fond du Lac and Rhinelander and Chippewa Falls, but Pete’s hometown would have to wait for a much more inclusive map. I knew I could find one downtown, and the thought of an expedition for that purpose was curiously exhilarating.

  I was searching for my keys when the phone rang. Miffed that my mission had been delayed, I answered with a tart “Hello.”

  “Gabriel?”

  My ill will vanished on the spot. “Pete! Sweetie! Guess where I’m heading!”

  “No,” came the voice at the other end. “It’s Donna.”

  “Oh…of course…sorry.” Thank God she couldn’t see my face, which was traitorously aflame.

  “No problem,” she said. “We’re used to it. Pete hates it when it happens, but that’s boys for you. They don’t wanna sound like some dorky girl. So it’s better you did it with me.” Calming myself, I told Donna about my own mother and the way we’d sometimes been mistaken for each other on the phone.

  “Did you both grow up in the same neighborhood?” she asked.

  “Not really. Her parents were English, but she was born in western North Carolina. I grew up in Charleston.”

  “West Virginia?”

  “No. The one in South Carolina.”

  There, I thought. There’s your proof. Donna wouldn’t have asked that so casually if she and Pete were the same person. She would have known exactly which Charleston I meant, since I’d already talked to Pete about it at length…unless, of course, she had deliberately played dumb to throw me off track. She might have decided that such a ruse was necessary, since I’d just mistaken her voice for Pete’s. Then again, if she was a true multiple, she wouldn’t even know what I had told her other personality, so it was still possible that one person could be…

  Stop it, I ordered myself.

  “Oh, I love that Charleston,” Donna purred. “So pretty. I went there once for a conference on child abuse…Look, I’d love to shoot the breeze, but I’m afraid I’m the bearer of bad tidings.” Did I suspect then what was coming next? I didn’t, as I recall. But I knew that something was seriously out of whack.

  “I’m so sorry to do this, but we have to withdraw our invitation.

  I’m afraid it’s just not the right time.”

  “Oh…sure…other visitors or something?”

  “God, no. We’re bored silly out here. A little stimulation would be wonderful. Especially from you. But Pete’s immunity is zilch right now, and I just can’t take the risk of outside contamination. I hope you can understand. I’m as disappointed as Pete is.” Disturbed as I was, I didn’t put up a fight. I did let her know that my health was excellent, just in case it mattered.

  “That’s just the problem,” she said. “Your system can easily live with things that would kill Pete. You could pick up a simple flu bug on the plane that he wouldn’t be able to shake. One more strain on his system right now would be…all she wrote.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  She answered with a sigh. “I try to downplay it around him, so he doesn’t feel like a china doll. But it’s really precarious at the moment.”

  I didn’t know what to feel: renewe
d concern for Pete’s health or frustration over a clever excuse I could never refute. I certainly didn’t want to infect Pete, but, until now, he hadn’t exactly sounded like a boy in a bubble. And what about all those trips to the hospital? He must have encountered new people all the time. Why would one more be so threatening?

  “Even his buddies from the hospital have to keep their distance,” Donna went on. “They have to wear masks and wave at him from across the room. It cramps his style something awful. He loves being around people. Thank God he’s got the telephone.” Fine, I thought. But why did you even invite me in the first place?

  “I don’t expect this to be permanent,” she added, as if in response to my silent rebuttal. “I’d love for you to visit soon. But we got some new tests back yesterday that were pretty disappointing, and I would never forgive myself if he were to…”

  “I understand, Donna. Really.”

  “Oh, I hope so, Gabe. I really do.”

  There was something about the inflection of that phrase that sounded disturbingly like Pete.

  But Pete, of course, would have known not to call me Gabe.

  I called Jess to cancel his house-sitting duties, but there was no answer, so I left a message. He came by the house early that evening, obviously still uninformed, having spent the day on the run. I tried to ease into the news, but somehow he sniffed it out and jumped ahead of me: “She bailed on you, didn’t she?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t put it that way, but—”

  “I knew this would happen!” He wore a look of fiery triumph, as if some risky, far-flung investment was finally showing big di-vidends.

  “Of course you knew,” I said darkly. “You always do.” He regarded me through half-lidded eyes. “Meaning?”

  “You predict calamity, and calamity happens. It’s not that hard to do, you know. If you’re always suspecting the worst, every now and then you’re bound to be right.”