Halfway Home Page 2

  Then Mona is standing in the doorway, giving a hopeless impersonation of demure. Gray spots her and instantly wilts. "Oh I'm sorry," he murmurs fretfully, unable to meet our eyes, gazing with dismay at all the groceries he's unpacked, as if he's come to the wrong place.

  "Listen, I was just leaving, you guys go ahead," declares Mona magnanimously.

  "Don't be silly, there's plenty," I say, perversely enjoying their twin discomfort. They don't exactly dislike each other, but they're like in-laws from different marriages, unrelated except by bad shit. "You make the margaritas," I command Mona with a bony finger.

  And because I am the sick boy, what can they do? Guilt has gotten more dinners on the table than hunger ever dreamed of. Mona goes right to the liquor cabinet, and Gray is already peeling the avocadoes. Like a veritable matchmaker I decide to give them some time alone and run up to my room for a sweater.

  First thing I do, I check my cheek in the mirror. Maybe he's right, one edge is faintly lighter, but nothing to write home about. It's not like I could cruise a boy at the Malibu Safeway. I move to shut the balcony doors, catching a glimpse of the gibbous moon as it flings its pearls on the water. Then I grab my red-checked crew-neck from the dresser and shrug it on.

  Though I only brought a single duffel bag with me here when I came just after New Year's, right away this place felt more like home than my own place ever did. My bleak one-bedroom in West Hollywood, with a view out over four dumpsters, looks like a garage sale driven indoors by rain. Nothing nice or comfortable, not a nesting person's space by any stretch. Whereas here I have a lovely overstuffed chaise across from the bed, swathed in a faded Arcadian chintz, and a blue-painted wicker table by the window with shelves underneath for books. The ancient curtains are swagged and fringed and look like they would crumble at the touch. If it sounds a bit Miss Havisham, don't forget the sea breeze blowing through clean as sunlight every day.

  Above the mahogany bed is a poster of Miss Jesus. The cross is propped against the wall at AGORA, and I'm leaning against it in full drag, pulling up my caftan to show a little leg. The expression on my face can only be called abandoned. My crown of thorns is cocked at a rakish angle. In the lower right-hand corner, in Gothic script, it says "Oh Mary!"

  This is only the third time I've managed to put Mona and Gray together, and I find myself excited by the prospect of spending an evening, just us three. The two of them have come to be my most immediate family, somewhat by elimination, my friends all having died, but I couldn't have chosen better. I realize I want them to know each other as well as I know them, for when it gets bad. When I'm curled in a ball and can't play anymore, sucking on a respirator, and then of course when it's over. They'll be good for each other, so opposite in every way.

  I've forgiven Mona already for bringing up Brian. It clearly won't happen again; she's not that dumb. The memory overload has passed, and once again my brother has faded into the septic murk of the past. What surprises me is this: as I trot down the spiral stair and hear my two friends laughing in the kitchen, I am so happy that some part of my heart kicks in and takes back the curse. I hope you're not dead and your kids are great. That's all. Good-bye. Fini.

  Gray is regaling Mona with the tale of his three Baldwin aunts—Cora, Nonny, and Foo. Mona is riveted. These three estimable ladies, maiden sisters of Gray's grandfather, the old rancher tycoon himself, had the beach house built for themselves and resided here every summer for sixty years. I who have heard this all before never tire of the least detail.

  We bear the steaks and our margaritas out the kitchen door to the side terrace, where Gray lights the gas barbecue. At the other end of the arbor we can hear the fountain playing. The moon is all the light we need. It's too cold to actually eat outside, but for now there's something delicious about being together around the fire, knocking down tequila and imagining the aunts.

  "They used to put on plays and musicales, right here," says Gray, gesturing down the arbor, then to the gentle slope of lawn beside it. "We'd all sit out there. I don't remember the plays, except Foo wrote them. They were very peculiar."

  "And none of these women ever married?" Mona stares over the rim of her drink into the shadows of the arbor, willfully trying to conjure them. "Were they ugly?"

  "Oh no, they were all very striking. Wonderful masses of hair, even when they were old ladies. And they wore these flowing gowns like Greek statues."

  "They sound like Isadora Duncan," I say.

  "They sound like dykes," Mona declares emphatically, then turns to Gray. "Weren't they?"

  I feel this sudden protective urge toward Gray, as he lays the steaks sizzling on the grill. He has barely ever admitted to me that he's gay himself. There's not a whole lot to admit, I gather. He seems to carry on his rounded shoulders centuries of repression. But now he shrugs easily as he slathers on the barbecue sauce. "You'd have to ask them," he declares. "I never really gave it a thought. Something tells me they never really did either."

  Mona is very quiet, but the answer seems to satisfy her. I have a bit of a brood myself, thinking how much the history of my tribe lies behind veils of ambiguity. Ever since I've been at the beach I've had this romantic longing, wishing I'd lived here during the aunts' heyday. But now I wonder, were they happy? Or were they trapped, making the best of it, away from the rigid straightness of the ranch? They seem more real to me tonight than half the people I know in L.A., who can't take my illness and talk to me funny, as if I'm a ghost.

  "Isn't it curious, Tom," Mona says softly. "They ran a little art space, just like us."

  Gray laughs. "Not quite. You guys are much more over the edge." He says this proudly. "Their stuff was more like a school play. Historical pageants, that kind of thing."

  He bends and studies the meat, poking it with a finger. And yet, amateur though the aunts may have been, they were obviously the core influence on their oddball great-nephew. Gray Baldwin was subsidizing beat poets and jazz players in Venice—a hundred here, a hundred there, covering rents and bad habits—when he was still in high school. If you were way-out enough, dancing barefoot on broken glass, painting the sand by the Venice pier, Gray was your biggest fan. All the while, of course, he was having a sort of extended breakdown, growing more and more dysfunctional, estranged from the Baldwin throne. And no one pretends that Gray put his money on names that lasted or broke through to greatness. Marginal they stayed, like Gray himself.

  "Still," Mona says puckishly, "I wish I'd had women like that around. In my house the drift was very home ec."

  "I don't want to overcook it," Gray murmurs gravely, "but I can't really see."

  "I'll go get the flashlight," pipes in Mona, darting for the kitchen.

  "And I'll set the table." I hurry in after her. We are both laughing, at nothing really. Not drunk at all, just glad to be here together. Mona doesn't have to say she finally gets Gray Baldwin; I know it already. She grabs the flashlight from the shelf above the stove, while I fetch plates and three not-too-bent forks. We will have to share the steak knife. Minimal, everything's minimal here—that's the way the beach house works.

  Mona is lurching toward the screen door, I am making for the dining room, when suddenly she turns. "I love you, Tom," she says, blinking behind her tortoise rims, half blushing at the overdose of sentiment.

  "Yeah," I reply laconically, but she knows what I mean.

  In the dining room I set us up at the big round pedestal table, the base of which is as thick as the mast of a schooner. In the center of the table is a bowl of white-flecked red camellias, three full blooms floating in water. These I picked days ago from the bushes behind the garage. They last a week in water, which is why I like them. Most cut flowers are dead by morning, just like all my friends. I move to the sideboard and pull a drawer. Laid inside are heaps of mismatched napkins, from damask to burlap. I take out three that are vaguely the same shade of green, and caper around the table setting them under the forks.

  Through the window from the courtyard
Gray and Mona call in unison: "It's ready!"

  "Great!" I bellow back at them, tucking the last napkin, and then I look up—

  And Brian is there.

  For a second I think I've died. He's standing in the archway into the parlor, the dwindling firelight flickering over him. He can't be real, and for the moment neither am I. But he is more stunned than I am. He gapes at me, and his mouth quivers, speechless. He wears a dark suit and tie as if he's going to a funeral. Still it's more like a dream—I want it to be a dream. Somehow I've summoned him up by too much invoking his name.

  Then he says, "Tommy, I should've called. But I didn't know how."

  The beach house has no phone. Brian is apologizing. I'm very slow, like I'm still dreaming. Finally I say, "Mom died?"

  "No, she's the same."

  But then why has he come, and how? Nobody knows I'm here. Merrily through the kitchen the others come parading in, Gray with the steaks on a platter, Mona bearing the salad. They stop laughing as soon as they see the pair of us standing frozen. I turn helplessly to make the introductions, and suddenly I understand. Gray is completely bewildered, but Mona gives a brief shy nod in Brian's direction. It's Mona who's betrayed me! All that bullshit about the stranger at the theater, the faux-innocent speculations about my long-lost brother. Without being tortured even a little she gave out the full particulars of my whereabouts.

  "Gray Baldwin, this is my brother, Brian," I say with chill formality. And as Gray steps forward to shake his hand I add with acid tongue, not looking at Mona, "I gather you know Ms. Aronson."

  "I was out on business, Tommy," Brian says. His face is thicker and slightly doughy, the dazzle gone. "I just decided to wing it and come say hello. But then I couldn't find you, and then"—he makes a fruitless gesture, vaguely in Mona's direction—"I couldn't leave till I saw you."

  I am so unbelievably calm, considering. "Well, you've seen me," I retort, giving no quarter.

  Gray's super-WASP manners can't stand it. "We're just about to eat. Will you join us?"

  "No no, I ate already, you go ahead."

  There's a general fluster of embarrassment, everyone clucking apologetically. Gray and Mona hurry to take their seats. Gray beckons insistently to Brian, indicating that he should sit, even if he's not eating. I stand stonily, and Brian makes no move.

  Gray and Mona are serving the dinner so fast it's like Keystone Kops, a blur of slapstick. Finally, because even I don't have it in me to just say get out, I relent and nod curtly to Brian, and he follows my lead and sits. Instantly a plate of sliced steak and salad is plunked in front of me. Gray and Mona are already eating, as fast as they can, smiling gelidly at my brother.

  I stare across at Brian. "So. What've you been doing the last nine years?"

  He doesn't know if the question is real, or just a caustic put-down. Neither do I. "Oh, same old grind," he replies, studying his hands. His hair is still like fire. "I got married," he adds almost sheepishly.

  I say nothing. Mona, downing the dregs of her margarita, gives it another go. "And he has a son. Seven, right?" She beams encouragement.

  "Right. Daniel," Brian responds, and then shifts the weight of his big shoulders forward, almost yearning across the table toward me. "What about you, huh? She showed me around the theater. That's great."

  "I've got AIDS."

  Brian looks down. "Yeah, she said."

  I turn to Mona. "I don't know why we're bothering. I believe you've covered the major points."

  "Tom, give it a break." It's Gray, who never makes the slightest ripple of protest, so it must be bad. "Eat," he says.

  And so I do. Anything to stop this racing panic of rage. I cut my meat into little pieces, tasting the char on my tongue like the ashes of all I've lost. I listen with genuine curiosity to the surreal conversation they have without me. As it's Brian's first trip to L.A., they speak of the weather, the smog, how it all looks like a movie set. I am already looking anxiously at Gray's and Mona's plates, realizing they are nearly done, and they aren't about to stick around for ice cream.

  Brian is telling about his own house, on a marshy shore in Connecticut, 1710 and picture perfect. Again I hear the old chatter from Gray, the aunts and the ranch and the musicales, twenty-two miles of beachfront free as Eden. But now it isn't charming anymore. I feel threatened and helpless, not wanting Brian to know so much. It's as if my desert island is being stolen, right in front of my nose.

  But the story fascinates Brian, who explains that he works for a builder, same job he's had for fifteen years. "Tommy knows him," he says, glancing a small remark in my direction, but nobody really looks at me. We are all just getting through this. Nevertheless, the last thing I will do is acknowledge Jerry Curran, the pigfuck who rode shotgun through my brother's arrogant youth.

  Mona lays her fork and knife side by side on her empty plate. I give her a pleading look as she announces she has to leave for the theater. When Gray takes the cue, siding the dishes, drawling that he'll be heading back to the ranch, Brian looks as desperate as I do. Either of them might have stayed, I realize, if I hadn't been acting so truculent. Clearly I have bought this meeting one on one with Brian with my own special hoard of bitter pennies.

  I have no choice but to follow Mona and Gray through the kitchen and out to the yard, chattering as if nothing's wrong. What's so unusual, after all? A guy's brother drops by to surprise him. It's the most natural thing in the world that they'd want to be alone. I lean my elbows on the windowsill of Mona's Toyota as she starts the car. She turns and plants a kiss on my nose. "God, he must've been beautiful," she sighs. "Now take it easy, okay? Fratricide is very hard to clean up."

  "Don't worry, this is going to be short and sweet."

  "And remember, I need forty-five minutes tomorrow night."

  I laugh heartily, pulling back as she swings the car around. I haven't performed in fifteen months, since the week the first lesion appeared on my arm. I move to the pickup as it pulls out of the garage. I shove my hands in my pockets and grin at Gray in the truck. We never touch good-bye or any other time. "Thanks for dinner."

  "I'll be down Monday to fix that screen," he says. "Remind me to check the fuses." Endlessly polite, Gray wouldn't dream of saying too much about my brother. Family is something you talk about at a distance of three generations.

  "I thought I had run away far enough that no one would ever find me."

  Gray chuckles. "Foo always said we never should've let 'em build that coast road."

  "I'm with Foo," I declare, waving as he drives away, crunching over the gravel. At the end of the drive he doesn't turn and follow Mona down the infamous Highway 1, but shoots across all three lanes and heads straight up the mountain road through the moonlit chaparral. I turn and head back to the torments of Chester, Connecticut.

  Brian is standing in the parlor by the fire. He's taken off his jacket and loosened his tie, and he's paging through an old scrapbook, yellowing photos of picnics out on the bluff, aunts in costume, miles of open space. "This is quite a place," he says cheerfully. "You rent it by the month?"

  "It's free," I reply flatly. "Was there something specific you wanted?"

  He closes the album and sets it down, wearily shaking his head. Just in that second, sullen and heavy, he reminds me of my father. "Tommy, we shouldn't be strangers. We never should've let all this time go by."

  "Really? I was for giving it a couple of millennia—you know, like they do for toxic waste." He turns to me full-face, his arms beginning to reach toward me, and I have this flash that he's going to drag me down. I scuttle back a pace and hurl my next volley. "I believe where we left it was that I caused Dad's stroke because I was queer. Jerry Curran and Father whatsis were holding you back, remember? So you wouldn't kill the little fag. Am I forgetting the nice part?"

  I can see the zing of pain across his furrowed brow. It excites me that I've made my brother wince—a first. "So I was wrong," says Brian, weirdly meek and powerless. He also seems to have a set speech
he needs to get through. "I treated you terrible. I hated my own brother, just because he was gay. I don't want it to be that way anymore."

  If it's meant to disarm me, it succeeds. Suddenly I feel drained and almost weepy, but not for Brian's sake. I step past him and slump down heavily on the sofa, the afghan curling instinctively over my legs. The whole drama of coming out—the wrongheaded yammer, the hard acceptance—seems quaint and irrelevant now. Perhaps I prefer my brother to stay a pig, because it's simpler. And even though he's not the Greek god he used to be, fleshier now and slightly ruined, I feel more sick and frail in his presence. Not just because of AIDS, but like I'm the nerd from before, too.

  "You can't understand," I say, almost a whisper. "All my friends have died."

  There is a long, long silence before he speaks again. He sits on the arm of a battered easy chair, and I feel how uncomfortable he is in this room. The dowdiness unnerves him. Our sainted mother kept her house tidy enough for brain surgery. But it's more than that: he can't stand not being on his own turf. He's always been a neighborhood tough, the same as Jerry Curran, their territory staked, pissing the borders like a dog.

  "I didn't have any idea," says Brian, "that all this was happening. I'd read about it and push it out of my mind. Nobody we know—" He stops, thinking he's said the wrong thing. But I don't care. His ignorance is oddly comforting, proving I don't have to like him. "It just hasn't touched our world. Is there anything I can do?"

  "Sure," I say. "Find a cure. And then we'll sprinkle it all over Mike Manihan's grave, and Ronnie's and Bruce's and Tim's, and we'll all be as good as new."