My Best Man (13 page)

“I’m perfectly willing to consider it. When are you two comin up? We can talk about it then.”

Fuck, I set myself up. If I bring the girl, I get the loan. If “Mo

I suffer. Why is everything with my mother a negotiation? Hm,

are you trying to blackmail me?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, I’m not blackmailing you. It’s just much easier to talk about these money things face to face. general and I are free two weekends from now. How about two?”

“I’m new at my job, you know. Sometimes it’s hard for me get the weekend off but I’ll try. And I’ll talk to Amity.”

“Good. Those BMWs are really very affordable when finances are in order.” Subtext: Those BMWs are really affordable when your fiancee is in order.

“Mother, how are you doing?” I ask tenderly. “I mean cancer.”

“The C-word is nowhere in sight. What I’m worded is the A-word, honey. This AIDS thing is looking more like homosexual-related disease every day. They just isolated the you know. It’s a virus, Harry. You can get it from other men. I’]

glad you’re with Amity now.”

I know she’s trying to manipulate me, and I could argue that viruses aren’t gender specific, but I do feel safer with Amity. “It’s scary, isn’t it?”

“Not a good phone topic. Sorry. Let’s end on an up note. I in for my new breasts next month. I’m ordering a perky little like Sally Field has.”

“Is there anything on Sally Field that isn’t perky?”

“No,” she answers, “and we should all strive to be just her.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re working on it,” I tell her. ‘

likes breasts that have a positive attitude.”

Amity’s out flying, and I’m feeling pent-up. Every time I dial JT’s private phone, I only dial half the numbers before I hang up. I’d just feel weird, sneaking around with some guy who has a wife. It’s not right. I decide to try the gay bars again. Maybe, with my new, improved gym body, it’ll be different. Of course a cold wind blows in from the north, and I have to cover up.

I try a different bar, one with a Country-Western kind of theme. The floor is wooden and worn and covered with sawdust or wood chips or maybe carcasses of dead insects I can’t tell because the lights are so dim. The bartender’s station sits in the middle of the place, and there’s a huge wooden bar with stools that sit in a rectangle all around it. From the jukebox, George Strait sings to the gays, an irony that goes unnoticed by the cowboys at this here homo hoedown, who are acting just as standoffish as the dudes in the S&M bar. Their boots are scuff less and their starched blue jeans and Western shirts have been creased by irons. I suspect their boxer shorts are starched and ironed as well. And they probably put a little dab of cologne on their dick heads.

I just can’t get into it. I’m not tall (even in cowboy boots) and handsome like these guys. Even though I’ve been building up my body at the gym, I’m still average in height and referred to as cute. And cute doesn’t compete with square jaw lines or massive biceps and hulking chests. Worst of all, there’s no starch in my jeans. Everyone continues not to talk to me, and I continue to feel stupid. Stupid because I doubt I’d genuinely be interested in anyone here anyway.

I find a pay phone and call JT. He answers, asks me what I want to do. “Anything,” I yell over the pain and heartache of George’s twang.

“I can’t pass that up, can I?” he answers. I can’t tell if he’s whispering into the phone or if it’s the music in the background that makes him difficult to hear. I hang up. Saddle up. Head out.

We rendezvous at a park off Lover’s Lane (how perfect), close

to Snider Plaza. I arrive first, shut off the engine. Wait. Headli appear. It’s an old green Ford. I think of the day I met Jacq Wonder if it’s her mother’s car. It pulls up beside me. Stops. head nods. It’s him. I wait for him to join me, but he nods for to come over there.

“Hi,” he says, more nervous, less confident than when he my hand at the dealership.

“Hi. You drive a Ford?”

“My wife’s. She’s using my car tonight.” He wastes no

“So what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. You want to trade blow jobs?”

He nods. Looks around to see if anyone is coming. Coast clear. He unzips his zipper, takes out his dick, which I can see in the dark, and reaches for my head. He shoves me down his already hard dick and fills my mouth with it instantly. It’s kind of salty, and I have a flashback to when I twelve years old and my father took me to watch the local baseb farm team, the Wichita Aeros, and I picked the sexiest player the biggest basket and used the binoculars to watch him the game, and when my dad got me a hot dog, I removed it from bun, and while watching my baseball fantasy, stuck the whole in my mouth at once. I got away with it for several innings, Winston, so astute to my desires, tattled on me. Though my took a hard swipe at Winston for his claim, causing him to cry, never did take me to a baseball game again.

I try to take a moment to catch my breath, but JT is me down, and pulling me up, working my head like a hand from the get-go. I press my hands against his thighs to brace

I feel the starch in his jeans. “Someone’s coming!” he warns, grabbing a handful of my hair and yanking my head up so hard get whiplash.

I sit up. We wait. A small compact car drives around the circle,

passes us, and drives out of the park. JT watches it in the rearview mirror. When it’s gone, he grabs my head again and says, “OK!”

Man, what’s the rush? He’s pumping my head like Helen Keller pumps the water well. My nose is running. My eyes are watering. Then all of a sudden he says, “Now!” and holds my head down until I swallow. Then he lets me loose.

“That was great,” he says, zipping up. Then he starts the engine of the green Ford and says, I’ll take care of you next time.” Then he puts out his hand to shake, as if we’ve clenched another car deal.

After he’s gone, I sit in my car and laugh. After wiping the water from my eyes and blowing my nose, I realize why straight women are obsessed with. waterproof mascara and those little pocket packs of tissues. And no wonder a lot of them would rather eat a good bar of chocolate and read a good book than fuck their three minute husbands.

At least I’m safe from AIDS. They say straight men don’t get it, so I guess JT is protected. But if he’s straight, what’s he doing with me? What a crock of shit. I’m an idiot. That guy didn’t connect with me any more than he connects with his wife or any of the hundreds of other people he’s probably done it with. Shit, I’ve yet to meet a guy who is willing to connect truly connect the way Amity and I do. Maybe I should marry Amity. Not only do I love her, but it may help me to stay alive.

he bills keep rolling in for the dinners I offer to charge, fancy cowboy boots Amity yearns for, concert tickets name it, I charge it. But along with the overdue notices, phone calls start. I’m amazed at the tenacity of these peol: collection agencies who call eight times a day. And though I like I’m sinking under it all, it’s worth it. Amity is so happy me that Hunt fades out of the picture. I’m satisfied to have gone because I’ve never liked having him around after hearing bar story of beating up fags. It’s weird, this competitiveness I with her boyfriends. I know I can’t satisfy her in the same they can, but for some reason I want to try. Before she goes on a date, I become wildly entertaining and make her laugh much as possible so her date seems substandard and boring comparison. I bring home little sugar cakes from her favorite can bakery and pick up her laundry from the cleaners, and that it’s warm enough, I wash her car once a week.

If actions speak louder than words, then Amity must know

I feel. But since I’ve made no verbal declaration, she takes another beau, Wade. Wade is a flight attendant who believes in power of green algae. He’s tall and has a good body, but he’s in the head, Amity says. “Dumber than a jar of hair.” He

make her laugh, because he’s always promoting the benefits of green algae. She laments, “I’ve tried to tell him I don’t need more oxygen. I need more clothes.” I can tell she’s bored with the whole thing, and it’s almost as if she’s daring me to tell her to get rid of him. I ask her what she sees in him, and she tells me his mother has an oceanfront house in Pebble Beach, and that’s what she sees in him. She’s planning a trip to Pebble Beach with Wade near the end of the month. “You must think I’m awful,” she tells me.

“Not at all,” I assure her. “You’re just with the wrong guy.”

“I hate this,” Amity says of her period. She’s lying on the sofa, a hot-water bottle on her abdomen. “Muffle is miserable, Harry.” Muffle is another name for her Virginia. Virginia, Muffle, Libby,

Lady. I really think she has a schizophrenic pussy.

“What can I do for you?” I ask.

“Will you drive me to Ben Franklin? I’m craving penny candy.” Pinny Caindee.

The five-and-dime is only blocks away in Snider Plaza. We both go into the store. If Amity’s getting penny candy, then I want some too. She loads up on all kinds of bite-size confections: saltwater taffy, caramels, Tootsie Rolls, Bit O’Honeys, candy corn, jelly beans, Dots, licorice you name it. I get some jawbreakers and Hot Tamales.

Back at home, we sit on the sofa, get stoned, and eat. And she eats it all. Everything. Then she wants to go to a movie. I drive us in her car to see Romancing the Stone, and we have to travel on Central Expressway to get to the theater.

Central Expressway, nicknamed Suicide Express by the locals, is an infamous freeway in Dallas on which people die horrible deaths. Every day. It has only two lanes in each direction, no shoulder (only walls), and insidious curves. There are no on ramps where you can build up speed to merge. The traffic hurls along at 70 mph, so anyone entering the expressway must go from a complete stop to 70 mph, while concentrating on the curve ahead, and trying

not to hit the side wall. Did I mention Texas allows open containers of alcohol while driving? …. “Here, Harry. Take another hit off the joint.”

“No!” I scream. “You’re trying to make me kill us both!” heart is thumping. I’m at the edge of Mockingbird Lane, ready turn on to Suicide Express. :

“It’ll make you drive better, I swear,” Amity pleads, laughing

She cranks up the stereo louder so that the Thompson Twins shouting “Doctor! Doctor!”

“You’re going to need a fucking doctor if you give me more of that pot!” I yell.

“OK, OK. Get ready!” she shouts, bracing herself,

against the dash

I put it in first gear and hold the clutch in. Then I step on the gas.

Amity whoops, “Go!”

I pop the clutch, the tires squeal, our heads snap back, and we jettison into the traffic, screaming like passengers in a crashin airplane. “We’re going to die! We’re going to die big time!” Big Tom.t

As we pass the brightly colored candy counter at the movie theater Amity makes an ugh sound and looks as if she’s going vomit. We sit in the back of the theater and watch the movie, and halfway through Amity whispers that she wants a diet drink. I her favorite, Diet Dr. Pepper, and return with popcorn too. pushes the popcorn into her mouth as if all these meetings is having with Gorbachov are just for show and the Soviets are going to drop the bomb at any moment. She washes it down with a huge gulp of Diet Dr. Pepper. After the salty popcorn is gone, Amity gets up and leaves. She returns with malted milk balls. Christ, two hours ago she ate enough candy to satisfy a busload of kindergartners. An hour later she was ready to puke at the sight of

the candy case in the lobby. And now she’s wolfing malted milk balls as if they’re a cure for cancer. I can’t figure her out.

At the end of the film, when Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner are reunited, Amity reaches over and takes my hand. I look sideways at her in the dark while the movie screen lights up her face. She’s not looking at me, but focusing on the movie. Yet she’s quietly holding my hand with no explanation.

It really is the strangest, most tender moment. Sometimes Mat thew and I held hands during movies, but it always seemed like a statement. A we’re-just-as-good-as-anyone-else gesture. We would sit there, clenched in unity, and when the lights went up after the picture ended, and all the straight couples had unclasped and were gathering their coats, we’d wait a few moments longer to ensure the effect of our statement. Of course, that took the romance out of it and made it a political gesture. And though political gestures are necessary, they’re seldom sexy. So this public act of hand holding with Amity is a provocative, new, free feeling. Straight people have it so easy.

Two days later, Amity is over her period but now has a raging yeast infection, something I’m not at all familiar with, but she assures me it’s true. I offer my services, and since she doesn’t want to poo up to go to the drug store (because women in Texas feel obligated to wear a ball gown to a 7-11, and even Amity suffers this burden), she sends me to the pharmacist for Monistat cream.

“Hep Yew?” the lady pharmacist who looks like Dolly Parton asks.

“I’m picking up a prescription for Amity Stone.” “What’s the prescription?” “Monistat.” “And you are?”

Not suffering from a yeast infection, Dolly. “Harry Ford, her roommate.”

She gets the stuff, has me sign the log, inspects my name as if hllUy

I’m a scam artist, and carefully hands me the pussy cream as if it’ kryptonite. I rip it from her hands and hustle to the register.

“

“

When I bring it home, Amity yips, Relief. She takes medicine and rushes into the bathroom, and for the first time

I met her, she closes the door. I start to head for the kitchen to a Diet Dr. Pepper, but she yells out, “You’re so good to me,

No guy would ever help a girl with this. Thank you, babe.” “You’re welcome,” I call.

“Do you know how hard it is to lie down on a cold floor and do this?” she asks.

“I know it sucks. Every time I get a yeast infection I vow it’ my last,” I answer. *

“It’s not a picnic in the park, is it?” she responds, as if I’ serious. “I mean, here I am, fixin’ to shoot Libby in the with chilly cream! It’s about as pleasant as a drive-by shooting.”