Robin and Ruby (4 page)

George claimed that the Stoopers, as they’d dubbed the boys outside, always said hello to him, but when Robin and George went in or out of the building together, he never heard any of them speak to George.

Usually Robin puts on his butchest demeanor when he sees them, adopting a toughness that doesn’t come naturally. But right now, he simply doesn’t have the energy. “You suck,” he says to Peter, slamming the door behind him. “And not in a good way.”

“Don’t leave angry.”

Robin throws his hands in the air. “I
am
angry,” he shouts, “and you don’t want to stay over, so I guess I’m going to leave. Angry.”

Peter hangs his head and mutters, “OK, then. Let’s talk tomorrow.”

Robin stares through the window at the dashboard. His gaze lands on the tape deck. Peter never listened to dance music before he met Robin. He pushes the eject button and the plastic cassette pops forth. He sees his own handwriting on the label. It reads, “Dance With Me.”

“I want it all back,” he tells Peter. “Everything I ever gave you.” The words are borrowed from somewhere, a book, a movie. He long ago learned the importance of an exit line.

He hears Peter pull away from the curb, and then there’s a swell of laughter among the Stoopers. He hears one of them use the word “punk,” which George recently explained to him has nothing to do with punk rock and everything to do with getting it up the ass.

He takes the two flights up to his apartment quickly, past the first floor, where their landlord’s daughter is raising a bunch of kids, where the cry of an infant is almost a constant. The old wooden stairs creak beneath him, and as he gets closer to his third-floor flat, he realizes there’s music coming from behind the door.

He enters, and there’s George: naked and dancing.

Robin gets an eyeful of the muscular triangle of George’s back and the high, hard curve of his ass, shaking with the music. Prince’s seductive falsetto rings out over an amplified beat,
I really get a dirty mind,
while George shakes his index finger at some invisible lover, his masculine body softened by his sassy pose.

Robin feels the first smile of the day breaking across his face. “Is this a free show, or are you looking for tips?”

George spins around, startled to be discovered. He lets out an embarrassed whoop, shields his crotch, and dashes by, near enough for Robin to reach out and slap his ass. Robin can feel the damp heat rising off George’s skin.

Through the bathroom door, George shouts, “I came out of the shower, and I heard this song, and I was, like—”

“Empty apartment, dance naked.”

“You know I love me some Prince.”

“I’ll come in more quietly next time.” Robin affects this kind of flirtation with George sometimes, a little steam valve meant to release whatever tension might naturally build between gay friends sharing an apartment but not a bed. This tension wasn’t something he’d expected going into the summer, since he and George did not, it seemed, have any unresolved questions about who they were to each other. But George isn’t the diminutive science geek he was in high school. He’s been building up his body, dropping to the floor of the apartment once a day for push-ups and sit-ups in a tank top that reveals the sweet dusting of hair at the center of his developing chest. Robin has imagined running his fingers over those newly tight muscles, and he imagines more than that in this moment. But then George reemerges from the bathroom in his ugly plaid robe. Its indigo and turquoise stripes seem designed to make its wearer look as unattractive as possible.

“I thought you’d still be at work,” Robin says.

“I asked to leave early. I thought you were out with Peter.”

“He ordered us Greek food and then broke up with me.”

“What?”

The phone rings, and Robin grabs it, wishing for Peter, but instead it’s someone named Matthias. “
Mah-TEE-uss,
” in some northern European accent, calling for “
Gay-org.
” George takes the phone without explanation and stretches the cord as far as it goes, which in this case means back into the bathroom.

Robin steps to the window, propped open because they have no air conditioning, just a ceiling fan that stirs up the heat.
Maybe Peter’s out there, maybe he came back and is waiting for you to notice him, ready to apologize and ask you for another chance.
But, no, just the neighborhood boys doing their thing. Above the trees on 41st Street, the sky is a haze of pastel twilight, a glimpse of a fading day.

At the far end of the living room is a waist-high countertop that opens to the kitchen. George walks from the bathroom to the fridge, pulling bottles of Old Latrobe from a six-pack he probably bought at the corner bar on his way home from work. He hands one across the counter to Robin, who drinks deeply, feeling the earthy, cold liquid move into the hollow center of his torso.

“So, what happened?” George asks him.

“You first. I want details.”

“About?”

Imitating the voice on the phone, Robin says, “
Matthias
.”

“Did you see him in the restaurant today?” George asks.

“One of the Germans?”

“He’s actually Danish. The tall guy, with the punky hair?”

“
That
guy? How’d you know he was gay?”

“He practically followed me into the kitchen. You should have seen Cesar’s reaction to that.” George looks down at the floor; he might be hiding a smile. “I gave him my number.”

“Wow. That’s superfast. Maybe some kind of record for you.”

“What was strange was how he was so sure
I
was gay,” George says. “That never happens. Especially with white boys.”

“Georgie, when you stare—”

“I know, I need to wear dark glasses.”

“Because
your eyes go up and down a man—
”

“
—like searchlights.
Thank you, Joan Crawford.”

“That was Rosalind Russell.”

George slugs from his beer until foam spills from his lips. Then he wipes his mouth and lets out a resonant belch.

“That’s right,” Robin says. “Wash down the gay movie reference with a brewski.”

“He’s leaving town tomorrow.”

“Ah,
that’s
why you left work early. You’re gonna see him tonight.”

“Maybe.” George steps around to Robin’s side of the counter and hops up onto one of their two barstools, his bare legs dangling below the robe. “Hey, I looked up something in the university catalog today. It’s not too late for me to apply for semester abroad programs. How slammin’ would that be, if I was in London at the same time?”

“That would be
major
.” In an instant, the entire picture of London seems to click into place: the two of them sharing a flat, Robin going off to rehearsal, George doing an internship at some kind of national health clinic, meeting up at night to go dancing at that world-famous club, Heaven…“But wait—don’t change the subject, Georgie. You need to
get
some.”

“OK, we both know it’s been a long time.” He arches his back and howls, “Matthias, have your way with me.” The robe slouches open. Robin finds himself staring again, staring at
George
. So weird.

George says, “I’ll call this guy back. I will. But first tell me what stupid Peter said to you.”

Robin frowns. He relocates to the couch, facing the window, looking out at the dimming sky. Where to start? How about this: “He thinks I’m going to give him the virus.”

“Don’t even joke.”

“I’m not.”

“You took the test, Robin.”

“They say it can hide for a while in your bloodstream. Undetected.”

“I know,” George says. “But you can’t make yourself crazy about every penis that’s been in your mouth.”

Robin doesn’t say what he’s thinking, what George is probably thinking, too. It’s not so much penises-in-mouth that worries him, it’s cocks-up-ass. In New York City. For years now. Only lately did anyone recommend using a condom, only lately did they even have a name for this: AIDS.

George follows him across the room. “What did he actually say to you?”

“Something about the last time, when I let him fuck me with no rubber.”

“You
what
?”

“Not for very long. He didn’t shoot.” Robin feels his face warm up; he knows how this must sound to George, can see him getting agitated.

“But that’s riskier for you than him. Why is he putting it all on you?”

“I’m the one with the history.”

“Fuck Peter,” George says, cresting. “Fuck that hairy white boy. He’s putting you at risk and laying blame on you. He’s the one breaking up with you. It’s not your fault.”

“You never liked him.”

“Now you know why. He’s a mind-fucker.”

“You might be right.” Now he might cry. Yeah, just cry yourself a river. George can handle it.

As Robin wipes moisture from his eyes, the phone rings again. Peter! But no, it’s George’s mother.

Mrs. Lincoln calls every few days to provide family updates, especially about George’s older sister’s upcoming marriage and the latest triumph his younger brother has scored on his way to the state track and field championships. While his mother talks, George cradles the phone at his neck, with little more to say than, “Uh-huh,” “Yeah,” “Really?” and so on. The joke around the apartment is to let the dishes pile up until the next call from Mrs. Lincoln, when George can get them done while she fills his ear with chatter. It’s a joke that hides a reservoir of uneasiness: His parents don’t ask him about anything but his school-work. He’s the brain in the family, as he’s been told since childhood, so as long as his grades stay high, they don’t need to know anything else. The Lincolns are all overachievers. Mr. Lincoln is a county administrator involved in local politics; Mrs. Lincoln has gone from school-teacher to secretary of the teacher’s union. Robin knows, though it’s rarely discussed, that George’s courses in premed are guided more by his parents’ deep desire for a doctor in the family than by any dream George ever held.

When at last he hangs up the phone, George wraps his fingers around his neck and gasps, “Help! I can’t breathe. My mama sucked the air outta the room. Right through the phone!”

Robin resists saying what he wants to say: Come out to them. You’re not going to have a real relationship until they know who you really are. The last time he tried to encourage this, George said, “You don’t know black folks, do you?” It was the first time, in all their years of friendship, that George ever said anything like that to him. Living here in this neighborhood, at this time, Robin thinks, no, maybe I don’t.

Now, George walks to the kitchen and stares into the fridge. “I’m gonna make a snack. Want some frogs’ legs?”

Robin grins and says, “Hold the formaldehyde.”

This joke goes back to high school, freshman year, when they were lab partners in biology. George had a knack for science, a natural aptitude and a lack of squeamishness when faced with the series of animal dissections—long worms, huge, crunchy grasshoppers, bulbous frogs—that made up the bulk of their lab work. Robin felt lucky to have George by his side at those scratched-up wooden lab tables, helping him cope with the sickly smell of preservatives that rose up from the puny, pickled organs. George could name the systems of the body, could explain what a recessive gene was, could tell a kingdom from a phylum. Robin did his best to keep up, though mostly he just cheated off George. But you don’t stay friends with someone for years simply because he lets you see his test answers.

In the middle of Robin’s freshman year, his younger brother, Jackson, was injured in a playground accident, and, after a couple months spent comatose, died in the hospital. For Robin, everything fell apart, and when he finally picked himself up and looked around at what seemed to be a changed world, the only one of his school friends he was drawn to was George Lincoln. It wasn’t that their friendship was especially deep; in fact, the opposite was true. He found that he and George had a lot to talk about, none of it in any way related to Jackson’s death. It started with the simple discovery that they each had subscriptions to
Time
magazine, and they would spend study hall in the library talking about the hostage crisis in Iran or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, talks that for Robin were a great distraction from the sadness and tension that had taken over his family, from the earnest-eyed teachers treating him like someone delicate and broken.

At Greenlawn High School, it wasn’t common for a black kid and a white kid to become close friends, after-school friends, unless you played sports together, which neither of them did. To make friends across the color line, you had to work against all these unspoken rules, like who sat where and with whom on the school bus or in the cafeteria. They never talked about it. It seemed to Robin it would be rude to do so; his parents had raised him not to “see color.” Talking about race, they insisted, was a kind of racism, and so, for years, he never raised the subject. This summer, things have shifted. Like George’s remark about him not knowing much about black folks. Like everyone at work calling him Blanco. Like all the little ways George has made it clear that the two of them are different, and have all along been living essentially different lives. It’s only now, being a white guy in a largely black world, that Robin has begun to understand that silence around race is its own kind of racism. Working at Rosellen’s, living in this apartment, in this neighborhood, it’s like he’s decided to sit on the black side of the cafeteria, and everybody, maybe even George, maybe even Robin himself, keeps wondering what he’s doing here.

The summer after Jackson died, Robin’s parents announced their divorce. When Robin told George he’d be leaving New Jersey with his mother and his sister and moving into an apartment on West 71st Street, George said, “That’s on the same subway line as my grandma’s.” She lived in Harlem, and George visited her every few weeks. In a city full of bad neighborhoods, Harlem was supposed to be one of the worst, though Robin couldn’t imagine it was much worse than 72nd and Broadway, around the corner from his new apartment, an intersection frequented by so many junkies it was known as “Needle Park.” There was even a movie about it, though he was too young to see it.