A Little Life (72 page)

Every morning he gets up and swims two miles, and then comes back upstairs and sits down and has breakfast and reads the papers. His friends make fun of him for this—for the fact that he actually prepares a meal instead of buying something on the way to work; for the fact that he actually still gets the papers delivered, in paper form—but the ritual of it has always calmed him: even in the home, it was the one time when the counselors were too mild, the other boys too sleepy to bother him. He would sit in the corner of the dining area and read and eat his breakfast, and for those minutes he would be left alone.

He is an efficient reader, and he skims first through
The Wall Street
Journal
, and then the
Financial Times
, before beginning with
The New York Times
, which he reads front to back, when he sees the headline in Obituaries: “Caleb Porter, 52, Fashion Executive.” Immediately, his mouthful of scrambled eggs and spinach turns to cardboard and glue, and he swallows hard, feeling sick, feeling every nerve ending thrumming alive. He has to read the article three times before he can make sense of any of the facts: pancreatic cancer. “Very fast,” said his colleague and longtime friend. Under his stewardship, emerging fashion label Rothko saw aggressive expansion into the Asian and Middle Eastern markets, as well as the opening of their first New York City boutique. Died at his home in Manhattan. Survived by his sister, Michaela Porter de Soto of Monte Carlo, six nieces and nephews, and his partner, Nicholas Lane, also a fashion executive.

He is still for a moment, staring at the page until the words rearrange themselves into an abstraction of gray before his eyes, and then he hobbles as fast as he can to the bathroom near the kitchen, where he vomits up everything he’s just eaten, gagging over the toilet until he’s coughing up long strands of saliva. He lowers the toilet seat and sits, resting his face in his hands, until he feels better. He wishes, desperately, for his razors, but he has always been careful not to cut himself during the day, partly because it feels wrong and partly because he knows he has to impose limits upon himself, however artificial, or he’d be cutting himself all day. Lately, he has been trying very hard not to cut himself at all. But tonight, he thinks, he will grant himself an exception. It is seven a.m. In around fifteen hours, he’ll be home again. All he has to do is make it through the day.

He puts his plate in the dishwasher and walks quietly through the bedroom and into the bathroom, where he showers and shaves and then gets dressed in the closet, first making sure that the door between the closet and the bedroom is completely closed. At this point, he has added a new step to his morning routine: now, if he were to do what he has been for the past month, he would open the door and walk over to the bed, where he’d perch on its left side and put his hand on Willem’s arm, and Willem would open his eyes and smile at him.

“I’m off,” he’d say, smiling back, and Willem would shake his head. “Don’t go,” Willem would say, and he’d say, “I have to,” and Willem would say, “Five minutes,” and he’d say, “Five.” And then Willem would lift his end of the blanket and he’d crawl beneath it, with Willem
pressed against his back, and he would close his eyes and wait for Willem to wrap his arms around him and wish he could stay forever. And then, ten or fifteen minutes later, he would at last, reluctantly, get up, and kiss Willem somewhere near, but not on, his mouth—he is still having trouble with this, even four months later—and leave for the day.

This morning, however, he skips this step. He instead pauses at the dining-room table to write Willem a note explaining that he had to leave early and didn’t want to wake him, and then, as he’s walking to the door, he comes back and grabs the
Times
off the table and takes it with him. He knows how irrational it is, but he doesn’t want Willem to see Caleb’s name, or picture, or any evidence of him. Willem still doesn’t know about what Caleb did to him, and he doesn’t want him to. He doesn’t even want him to be aware of Caleb’s very existence—or, he realizes, his once-existence, for Caleb no longer exists. Beneath his arm, the paper feels almost alive with heat, Caleb’s name a dark knot of poison cradled inside its pages.

He decides to drive to work so he’ll be able to be alone for a little while, but before he leaves the garage, he takes out the paper and reads the article one more time before folding it up again and shoving it into his briefcase. And then suddenly, he is crying, frantic, breathy sobs, the kind that come from his diaphragm, and as he leans his head on the steering wheel, trying to regain control, he is finally able to admit to himself how plainly, profoundly relieved he is, and how frightened he has been for the past three years, and how humiliated and ashamed he is still. He retrieves the paper, hating himself, and reads the obituary again, stopping at “and by his partner, Nicholas Lane, also a fashion executive.” He wonders: Did Caleb do to Nicholas Lane what he did to him, or is Nicholas—as he must be—someone undeserving of such treatment? He hopes that Nicholas never experienced what he had, but he’s also certain he hasn’t, and the knowledge of that makes him cry harder. That had been one of Harold’s arguments when he was trying to get him to report the attack; that Caleb was dangerous, and that by reporting him, by having him arrested, he would be protecting other people from him. But he had known that wasn’t true: Caleb wouldn’t do to other people what he did to him. He hadn’t hit and hated him because he hit and hated other people; he had hit and hated him because of who
he
was, not because of who Caleb was.

Finally, he’s able to compose himself, and he wipes his eyes and
blows his nose. The crying: another leftover from his time with Caleb. For years and years he was able to control it, and now—ever since that night—it seems he is always crying, or on the verge of it, or actively trying to stop himself from doing it. It’s as if all his progress from the past few decades has been erased, and he is again that boy in Brother Luke’s care, so teary and helpless and vulnerable.

He’s about to start the car when his hands begin shaking. Now he knows he can do nothing but wait, and he folds them in his lap and tries to make his breaths deep and regular, which sometimes helps. By the time his phone rings a few minutes later, they’ve slowed somewhat, and he hopes he sounds normal as he answers. “Hi, Harold,” he says.

“Jude,” says Harold. His voice is flattened, somehow. “Have you read the
Times
today?”

Immediately, the shaking intensifies. “Yes,” he says.

“Pancreatic cancer is a terrible way to go,” says Harold. He sounds grimly satisfied. “Good. I’m glad.” There’s a pause. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he says, “yes, I’m fine.”

“The connection keeps cutting out,” says Harold, but he knows it’s not: it’s because he’s shaking so badly that he can’t hold the phone steady.

“Sorry,” he says. “I’m in the garage. Look, Harold, I’d better get up to work. Thanks for calling.”

“Okay.” Harold sighs. “You’ll call me if you want to talk, right?”

“Yes,” he says. “Thanks.”

It’s a busy day, for which he’s grateful, and he tries to give himself no time to think about anything but work. Late in the morning, he gets a text from Andy—
Assume you’ve seen that the asshole is dead. Pancreatic cancer = major suffering. You okay?
—and writes back to assure him he’s fine, and over lunch he reads the obituary one last time before stuffing the entire paper into the shredder and turning back to his computer.

In the afternoon he gets a text from Willem saying that the director he’s meeting with about his next project has pushed back their dinner, so he doesn’t think he’ll be home before eleven, and he is relieved. At nine, he tells his associates he’s leaving early, and then drives home and goes directly to the bathroom, shucking his jacket and rolling up his sleeves and unstrapping his watch as he goes; he’s almost hyperventilating with desire by the time he makes the first cut. It has been nearly two months since he’s made more than two cuts in a single sitting, but now
he abandons his self-discipline and cuts and cuts and cuts, until finally his breathing slows and he feels the old, comforting emptiness settle inside him. After he’s done, he cleans up and washes his face and goes to the kitchen, where he reheats some soup he’d made the weekend before and has his first real meal of the day, and then brushes his teeth and collapses into bed. He is weak from the cutting, but he knows if he rests for a few minutes, he’ll be fine. The goal is to be normal by the time Willem comes home, to not give him anything to worry about, to not do anything else to upset this impossible and delirious dream he’s been living in for the past eighteen weeks.

When Willem had told him of his feelings, he had been so discomfited, so disbelieving, that it was only the fact that it was Willem saying it that convinced him it wasn’t some terrible joke: his faith in Willem was more powerful than the absurdity of what Willem was suggesting.

But only barely. “What are you saying?” he asked Willem for the tenth time.

“I’m saying I’m attracted to you,” Willem said, patiently. And then, when he didn’t say anything, “Judy—I don’t think it’s all that odd, really. Haven’t you ever felt that way about me, in all these years?”

“No,” he said instantly, and Willem had laughed. But he hadn’t been joking. He would never, ever have been so presumptuous as to even picture himself with Willem. Besides, he wasn’t what he had ever imagined for Willem: he had imagined someone beautiful (and female) and intelligent for Willem, someone who would know how fortunate she was, someone who would make him feel fortunate as well. He knew this was—like so many of his imaginings about adult relationships—somewhat gauzy and naïve, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen.
He
was certainly not the kind of person Willem should be with; for Willem to be with him over the theoretical fantasy woman he’d conjured for him was an unbelievable tumble.

The next day, he presented Willem with a list of twenty reasons why he shouldn’t want to be with him. As he handed it to him, he could see that Willem was amused, slightly, but then he started to read it and his expression changed, and he retreated to his study so he wouldn’t have to watch him.

After a while, Willem knocked. “Can I come in?” he asked, and he told him he could.

“I’m looking at point number two,” said Willem, seriously. “I hate
to tell you this, Jude, but we have the same body.” He looked at him. “You’re an inch taller, but can I remind you that we can wear each other’s clothes?”

He sighed. “Willem,” he said, “you know what I mean.”

“Jude,” Willem said, “I understand that this is strange for you, and unexpected. If you really don’t want this, I’ll back off and leave you alone and I promise things won’t change between us.” He stopped. “But if you’re trying to convince me not to be with you because you’re scared and self-conscious—well, I understand that. But I don’t think it’s a good enough reason not to try. We’ll go as slowly as you want, I promise.”

He was quiet. “Can I think about it?” he asked, and Willem nodded. “Of course,” he said, and left him alone, sliding the door shut behind him.

He sat in his office in silence for a long time, thinking. After Caleb, he had sworn he would never again do this to himself. He knew Willem would never do anything bad to him, and yet his imagination was limited: he was incapable of conceiving of a relationship that wouldn’t end with his being hit, with his being kicked down the stairs, with his being made to do things he had told himself he would never have to do again. Wasn’t it possible, he asked himself, that he could push even someone as good as Willem to that inevitability? Wasn’t it foregone that he would inspire a kind of hatred from even Willem? Was he so greedy for companionship that he would ignore the lessons that history—his own history—had taught him?

But then there was another voice inside him, arguing back.
You’re crazy if you turn this opportunity down
, said the voice.
This is the one person you have always trusted. Willem isn’t Caleb; he would never do that, not ever
.

And so, finally, he had gone to the kitchen, where Willem was making dinner. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

Willem had looked at him and smiled. “Come here,” he said, and he did, and Willem kissed him. He had been scared, and panicky, and once again he had thought of Brother Luke, and he had opened his eyes to remind himself that this was Willem after all, not someone to fear. But just as he was relaxing into it, he had seen Caleb’s face flashing through his mind like a pulse, and he pulled away from Willem, choking, rubbing his hand across his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he said, pivoting away from him. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this, Willem.”

“What do you mean?” Willem had asked, turning him back around. “You’re great at it,” and he had felt himself sag with relief that Willem wasn’t angry at him.

Since then, he has been constantly pitting what he knows of Willem against what he expects of someone—anyone—who has any physical desire for him. It is as if he somehow expects that the Willem he has known will be replaced by another; as if there will be a different Willem for what is a different relationship. In the first few weeks, he was terrified that he might upset or disappoint Willem in some way, that he might drive him toward anger. He had waited for days, summoning his courage, to tell Willem that he couldn’t tolerate the taste of coffee in his mouth (although he didn’t explain to him why: Brother Luke, his awful, muscular tongue, the grain of coffee grounds that had permanently furred his gumline. This had been one of the things he had appreciated about Caleb: that he hadn’t drunk coffee). He apologized and apologized until Willem told him to stop. “Jude, it’s fine,” he said. “I should’ve realized: really. I just won’t drink it.”

“But you love coffee,” he said.

Willem had smiled. “I enjoy it, yes,” he said, “but I don’t
need
it.” He smiled again. “My dentist will be thrilled.”

Also in that first month, he had talked to Willem about sex. They had these conversations at night, in bed, when it was easier to say things. He had always associated night with cutting, but now it was becoming about something else—those talks with Willem in a darkened room, when he was less self-conscious about touching him, and where he could see every one of Willem’s features and yet was also able to pretend that Willem couldn’t see his.