By Joshua Ryan

I was having a lot of strange thoughts and feelings. Right after Thanksgiving, Mr. Dietrich called me into his office and told me I’d be getting a promotion and a raise. Starting in December, I’d be an Associate Managerial Analyst, a big step up from Assistant Managerial Analyst, although it didn’t come near to getting me my own office. He said, “Congratulations, young man,” and I thanked him profusely for offering me the additional responsibility. When I looked at my pay stub a week later, I saw the change, but I didn’t feel anything about it anymore. On the one hand, it was more money. On the other hand, Joey would probably spend it. I didn’t care. He was welcome to the money. I just wanted out of it all.

And after Thanksgiving, of course, comes Christmas. I wasn’t paying much attention at first. I had too much else to think about, or try not to think about. Then one night I was in Berenson’s, looking for a new pair of slacks, and I noticed how crowded it was for a Tuesday night. That led me to notice all the evergreens hanging on the walls. The first thing I thought was, that’s the kind of stuff that Jake and the other cons are cutting out in the field. They’re cutting trees and brush. Finally I realized that I was looking at Christmas. It didn’t make much of an impression. What it meant to me, mainly, was that the days were getting shorter and colder. This part of the country usually doesn’t get a lot of winter, but we were getting a lot of it then. When the convicts went past in the morning they were wrapped up in their heavy coats, brown forms peering out of the white truck like reindeer on a Christmas card. And Jake was one of them. I looked at him every morning, but I hadn’t talked to him in over a week. And I needed to talk. The next day, I switched my schedule around at work, and I went out to meet him.

He wasn’t there. I tried on Thursday and Friday, but he never came. I saw him in the truck, and he looked the same — the same little glance, the same little nod that nobody else would notice — but somehow I knew that something was wrong. Then the weekend came. When the truck rolled by on Monday, I did everything I could to look like I wanted to see him, needed to see him, and to ask him if he was going to be at the fence. Finally he nodded in a special way, and I knew he’d be there. But something was wrong. Very wrong.

The cold wave was still in town. At 11 a.m. there was so much frost on the field that I was scared my tracks would give me away if anybody up in the park got nosy. Jake wasn’t at the fence, so I sat on a rock and waited, on the trail up above. I watched the convicts working. They were buttoned up tight inside their uniforms, and when they lined up to piss, the stuff steamed out of their dicks and cut through the frost in a yellow flood. It was like their dicks were the pipes on one of those trees that they tap in winter — you hammer in the pipe, and the life of the tree streams out, into the cold.

But fuck! Why wouldn’t Jake come? I got up and started stomping around to keep myself warm. Just when I was beginning to question his existence, there he was, by the fence. I hurried down the trail to meet him.

“Hey, Jake! I’m really glad to see you. How you doin?”

No answer — just a nod. He had his cap drawn so far down, I couldn’t see his eyes. I tried again. “How are you today?” Christ! I sounded like I was about 90 years old.

“I’m the same today that I am every day, dude. I’m here.” A long pause. “How are you?”

Jesus! He was mad at me. Why?

“I’m here too. I’m glad to see you.”

He lifted his head. “I’m glad to see you, too, Jason. But I gotta run.”

“Huh? You just got here, man.”

“Yeah, I know.” He took a step forward. He was frowning. I had never seen him really frown before. “I’m sorry about it, too. But listen, dude . . . Jason . . . What I mean is . . . There’s something that I decided . . . I mean, I gotta tell you . . . Look, I’m not asking you any questions. I’m not asking you why you’re here, man. Did I ever do that?”

“No, you never did.” God, I thought. Is this it? Is this the end? Or am I gonna have to tell him what I want? He’s gonna ask if I’m gay . . . and then I’ll answer, or not answer, and that will be it. He’ll tell me, sorry, dude, I’m not into guys. Or he’ll call me a faggot and tell me what he thinks of faggots. But wait! He must already know what’s going on with me. He has to! Otherwise . . . But this is bad, man. This is bad.

“And I’m not gonna do that now,” he said. Whew! “The only thing is . . . You know, you’re not supposed to be talking to me. Not that I care. I’m already doing life. They could put me in the box, but . . . Anyhow, the thing is, they might do things to you. As long as you’re on that side of the fence, they couldn’t do much. But . . . like, where we’re goin . . . Look. It’s your responsibility. It’s up to you to decide. Think about it, dude. Stay away for a while and think about it. Don’t come back.”

“What . . .”

“Come back some other time. After you’ve had time to think.”

“What other time? When are you talking about?”

“Come back in . . . two weeks. I know we’ll still be here two weeks from now. That’s what I heard from the guards. We’ve got at least two more weeks of work. Go away till then, Jason. That’ll give you time.”

“Wait! I don’t get it . . .”

“Or don’t come back. Just stay away. Maybe that’s better. I’d understand. Totally. Just go away, man.”

“Two weeks! That’s after Christmas!”

“After what? Oh. Oh yeah. Look man, I’m tellin you . . . Two weeks from now.” His chin came up. He was almost smiling. “I’ll still be here.” He was already walking off through the brush. “Or don’t. Just . . . think, Jason. Think.”

And that was the last I saw of him for two weeks.

So I was surer than ever that he wanted me, and I knew that I wanted him ten times more than I had before. At least I thought I knew. But how was it gonna happen? I didn’t know. It was driving me crazy. But there was nobody I could tell. Have you ever had a secret that you couldn’t tell anybody? Because nobody you know could possibly, conceivably, understand any part of it?   Because everybody would think it was totally insane and disgusting? OK. Then you understand what it’s like to be living in two worlds, like I was.

Joey was very excited about Christmas. He made a big deal out of sneaking into the hall closet and hiding his presents there, and he kept hinting about the stuff that he wanted me to get for him and hide someplace else. There were three or four things that he wanted that were pretty expensive, but I thought, what the hell — I guess I’ll have to do it. So I charged it all and hid it. Then there was the tree. He had a friend that had a pickup truck, so naturally I walked in one Friday night and there was this tree practically filling the living room. It seemed like he was always out shopping for little plastic Santas and velvet reindeer and holiday napkins and anything else that would “brighten things up for Christmas.” He’d said before that my apartment, decorated by me, looked really “drab.” Now everything was going to be exactly right for “our first Christmas together.” I hated that. It told me how fragile he was. He was like a little kid that cries when something spoils his perfect picture. It’s sad to be like that. I knew. I was like that myself.

Almost every day, Joey got an invitation to a party, and of course he had to bring me, because we were a couple. The parties were all pretty much the same. At the start, there’d be a lot of guys in nice clothes, talking solemnly about business or school or whatever, and at the end, there’d be the same guys dancing in their shorts with elf hats on their heads. On Christmas Eve, Joey and I exchanged most of our gifts; then we went to another one of those parties. At midnight, Joey pulled me into a bedroom and kissed me and dragged me down on the bed, and I fucked him in the ass. That was always fun, or it would have been if I hadn’t been so drunk

I didn’t wake up till 9 a.m. What the hell! Somebody was pounding on the door!   “Go get it, hon!” Joey shouted from the kitchen. “I’ve got my ham to take care of!” Then I remembered — he’d invited his friends for Christmas dinner. They all streamed in. Christmas had started for real.

They were all couples, so they all acted like they were all really, really enjoying the festive season together, but they all had a lot of mean little things stored up to hand each other whenever they got the chance. Mark kept calling Jimmy “my old man,” and putting the accent on “old,” and Jimmy kept bitching about how Mark didn’t have enough eggs to give up smoking like he’d promised at this time last year. Philip was pissed because he thought that John was drinking too much, and John was pissed because they couldn’t go to Yucatan BECAUSE Philip’s CREDIT card debts were STILL unpaid. At one point, William disappeared completely, and Todd had to track him to the bedroom, where he was pouting over something that Todd had said to him about his weight. Everybody tried to ignore the voices that were coming through the wall, but everybody heard Todd say, “Maybe your LAST lover put up with shit like that,” and everybody heard William say, “At least, back then, I HAD a lover!” Half an hour later, they both walked out of the bedroom and sat down as if nothing had happened. Joey was always in the kitchen, so it was my job to keep order. But I failed. It wasn’t long before John went into the bathroom and puked, and Philip started entertaining the rest of us with the complete story of their relationship. After that, Mark went out for a smoke (Jimmy wouldn’t allow him to smoke in anybody’s house), and I went out with him. We sat on the front steps, with the strings of Christmas lights tacked on up above us, and I got another complete story of a relationship. When he went back in, I just kept sitting on the steps.

I remembered that book I’d had to read in college, the one that starts by saying that every happy family is the same, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. That was true about all these people. They all wanted to do exactly what they wanted to do, in their own way, whenever they wanted to do it, and if they couldn’t, they thought it had to be somebody else’s fault. Joey talked about “not letting anybody take your power” and about “rewarding your inner child.” Maybe, I thought, you should punish your inner child. All these inner children were out of control. All of them wanted to be the boss, but none of them wanted to be bossed. That’s what they needed, though. They needed to be disciplined and punished. They needed to get their butts kicked. I looked down. My foot was pounding the concrete steps. I hadn’t noticed it. I was drunk. I was just another faggot that was out of control.

Finally, we ate, and they left, and Joey and I exchanged the gifts we’d kept in reserve for our “private time.” I gave him a bottle of cologne that he’d been hinting for weeks was his favorite kind, if only he could afford it. He gave me an expensive watch. I couldn’t tell him that I liked my cheap watch better.

Of course, he knew there was something wrong. When we woke up in the morning, he was on one side of the bed, and I was as far as possible on the other. On Saturday, he came into the bathroom after my shower and stood behind me while I put on my aftershave. I was getting ready to go for a haircut. “What you need, babe, is something new in your life.” Don’t I ever! I thought. He wrapped his arms around my waist and put his head on my shoulder. We were both looking at ourselves in the mirror. “So I’m going with you to the stylist today. You’re gonna be a new man, Jason Rossetti.”

What being a new man turned out to be was getting my hair slightly spiked and slightly bronzed at the tips — which, as Joey and the stylist agreed, made me look “younger” and “more daring.” The stylist said it made me look “more masculine,” too, but then he looked embarrassed and said that he’d actually meant “more assertive.” OK. I might have to hold off on the spiking when I went to work, but I began to think that they might be right. When I looked in the mirror, I did look “more daring.” I also thought, maybe Jake will like me better this way. The two weeks were up on Monday.

“So, how do you like it, dream boy?”

Joey was running his fingers through my hair.

“Oh . . . looks pretty good,” I said.

“Good? It looks great, and you know it. You’ll be the hit of our party.”

“Party?”

“Our New Years Eve party. Monday is New Years Eve! I’ve been arranging the party all week!”

“I’m sorry, babe. I forgot.”

“You FORGOT about New Years Eve?”

It was true. But I hadn’t forgotten about Monday. Joey spent the rest of the weekend talking about New Years Eve, and I spent the rest of the weekend thinking about Monday, which was the same day.

Maybe “thinking” isn’t the right word. I kept alternating between “Jake must be trying to get rid of me, or why else would he be doing this?” and “Jake must love me, or why else would he be doing this?” If he just wanted to have sex with me, why wouldn’t he say, “Come on over across that fence; I wanta have sex with you”? And why all that shit about my “deciding” and my taking “responsibility”? Did he mean taking responsibility for what would happen if we got caught? Or for what would happen if we finally made it together? “If you screw me in the ass, are you prepared to spend the rest of your life coming to visit me on weekends?” If that’s what he meant, he was right to be worried: it’s true, I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life going out to a prison to feel sorry for one of the inmates. So if he loved me, maybe he loved me a lot more than I loved him, after all. And that could be bad, very bad. Maybe he was right — maybe I shouldn’t see him again. But that was a decision I couldn’t bring myself to make. Then Monday came.

 

Click for next part

Click to start at Part 1