By Pfantazm
By Pfantazm
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When I got home the next day, I put the tape next to my stereo and
labelled it with a Post-it that said 'Frank's tape'. I'd listen to it
later. I had a column to write.
I'd spent some time a few days ago in an Internet cafe, chatting with customers (the old-fashioned way: without an IRC client) and having it explained to me why calling it "the information superhighway" was a Bad Thing.
I was computer literate enough to write up my column on a word processor,
and I could make my Commodore 64
I checked my bedroom. All over. The bookshelf, the bedclothes. I checked inside my CD collection fer cryin' out loud. I spent more time looking for my damn notebook than I would writing the article. You know how it is. After a while it stops being about finding the thing so you can use it and get on with what you were doing and it starts being about finding the expletive-deleted thing. It becomes an obsession. After a couple hours of tearing my room apart, I admitted to myself that perhaps this was unhealthy behavior, and checked my sock drawer once again. In the middle of all this, Jeff, my roommate, came home. "Okay. What did you lose this time?" "My notebook," I called back, while still armpit deep into my laundry hamper, checking pockets. "Did you check the computer desk?" "Yes, Jeff." "Did you leave it at Frank's place?" I looked up. I leaned out of the doorway to my bedroom. "Good question. I don't remember." "So call him and ask." Jeff has to be my best friend, after Frank. And before Frank, come to think of it. We've been roommates since I moved to Vancouver. I say "he has to be" because I don't know what else to call him. We're exact opposites. He's manager of a clothing store, and I have no fashion sense. He's got his everything pierced: ears, nipple, tongue. Okay, not everything, but you get the idea. He's got a goatee and his hair is dyed green on top. I'm completely clean cut and I say metal protruding from one's body is what horror movies are made of. About the only thing we have in common is that we're both gay. And even in that we're diametrically opposed. I had one person in my heart, and I didn't want any others. I wanted a long-term relationship with a man. Jeff clubbed, partied and boffed as many guys as he could. "Settling is for colonists," was his motto. We worried about each other. I was worried he was going to fuck the wrong guy and catch something. I didn't want him to get sick. He didn't want me to get hurt. He saw getting emotionally involved as a disaster waiting to happen. About the only thing we didn't do together was have sex, even in moments of desperation. Our goals just weren't compatible. Maybe that's why we could be such good friends despite everything. There was no pressure to perform there. We could just be ourselves. I gave the karaoke bar a call. I got the manager. "Hey, Mack. It's John. When Frank has a minute, could you have him give me a call?" "I would, John, but Frank's not in tonight. Jenn is." I blinked. "That's weird. I thought he said he was working tonight." "Nope. He was here this afternoon." "Huh. Okay, thanks." "Yeah. Bye." I stood there a second. I was positive Frank had said that he had a shift tonight. I could have gotten it wrong, but I didn't think so. Still, who was I to argue with Frank's boss over his schedule. I picked up the phone again. If Frank worked that afternoon, he'd be spending the evening in tonight. Frank had turned me into a nightowl like himself, and he hated "early" afternoon shifts. He'd be home. I thought about what Frank said about surprises. Why don't I be spontaneous for once and show up at his door? The recording of the operator was telling me to put up or hang up so I set the receiver back in place. "I'm going over to Frank's," I yelled out. "I thought he was working tonight," Jeff yelled back from the kitchen. "Me too, but his boss says it ain't so, so...." I shrugged, grabbed my coat and was out the door.
The pedestrian will, on average, spend just as long at the crosswalk waiting for the red hand to go away and the white man to appear, but it doesn't seem like as long because we're not moving as fast. We get to watch drivers peer into their rear view mirrors and honking their horns, and we can actually look around the city itself. Businesses, apartment buildings, movie houses, fellow pedestrians. Billboards can be studied at leisure. It also changes your mental map of the city, especially where there are one-way streets. Do not ask me how to get somewhere in the city, especially if you don't already know your way around. The directions I give will be severely out of whack. I will tell you exactly how many blocks away your destination is, and if a no-left-turns sign sends you three blocks off my route when you try to follow it, that's hardly my fault, is it? With all this in mind, know that the walk from my apartment to Frank's was about 20 minutes. (Closer to five for all you gasoline junkies out there.) It threatened rain. I hadn't thought to bring my umbrella. The sun had already set, meaning the featureless black sky had a texture, as opposed to the perfect flatness of a clear night. You don't ever see the stars. I passed by the parking lot. I let myself into Frank's complex with the key he'd given me. I trudged up to the second floor and went to knock on my love's door. Even though I have the key to get in, it's rude to break in on someone when they're not expecting it. Just ask any burglar. My fist was in the air, poised and prepared. There was a cry, as if of pain from inside the apartment. I fumbled into my coat pocket to get my key out. What was wrong in there? Then I heard, "Ohhh, Frank...." I stared at the door without seeing it. I stood dead still, fixated on what I could hear. Another moan. I leaned into the door to listen. I heard a very familiar noise. Bedsprings squeaking. Frank lived alone and the fucker was not watching a movie. Surprise. I ran. I ran back down the stairs and through the door. I ran into the parking lot. And stopped. One time, I borrowed Jeff's car to go and visit Frank. Afterwards I vowed never to drive in Vancouver traffic again. So I knew what space was assigned to Frank. There was a car in his space, which wasn't Frank's, since he doesn't have a car either. It was his. I did something very stupid and left. Twenty minutes. I wasn't going to cry, not in public, not on the street. I refused. Twenty minutes because I didn't know which fucking bus to take. Please just let me last twenty minutes. It had begun to rain. I have a naturally fast pace when walking, made faster when I'm nervous or excited. Call it fifteen. The wind blew the raindrops around. They dripped from my cap brim. They stung my nose. They chilled my ears. They soaked into my socks and froze my feet. Fifteen minutes. I used a short-cut method to go faster. I went with whichever light was on the WALK/DONT WALK sign that took me in the right direction toward home. It took me through some areas that were not strictly safe at this time of night. Call it twelve minutes. When I made it to the final intersection before home, I still had it together. I crossed with the light and waited on the other side for the light to change in the other direction.
The light changed and I ran through the downpour. My building was on the other end of the block, and I headed full tilt toward it. The wind pushed against me. The rain slapped at my face. Just one block, please. I was out of breath when I made it to the door. I convinced the lock to let me in. The elevator took forever to come down. On the ride up I took off my gloves and cap. I ended up locking our door trying to get in, delaying me even further. I don't even know what I was trying so hard to get to, I just wanted to be home. I got in finally and just stood in the front hall, dripping on the mat. Jeff came around the corner. "Hey, I found your notebook. You left it on the... What happened?" Did it show on my face? "There was someone in Frank's apartment... with him... and they were--" Why couldn't I make myself say it? "He was cheating on you?!" I nodded and hot tears rolled down my face. I started to just sink to the floor but Jeff was right there. "Oh, honey, come here." He set me on my feet again and pulled my coat off me. He steered me past the closet and hung it up, then ushered me into the living room onto the sofa. I curled up into a ball and cried some more. A blanket materialized from nowhere and wrapped itself around me. A couple of minutes later a mug of hot chocolate appeared in my hands from the same unseen source. Then Jeff arrived beside me and hugged me. "That's it, just let it all out. Oh, John, I thought he was gonna be the one for you." Most of the time, Jeff is a good friend. "Are you sure you saw what you saw? What happened?" I told him about my decision to surprise Frank and what I heard through the door, then what I saw in the parking lot. "John, did you do something to his car?" I thought a sec and nodded again. You could call it that. "What did you do? Key it? Slash the tires?" He picked up my head and looked me in the eye. "Smash the window?" Jeff has something of a vindictive streak. I had taken the little pad I keep with me all the time for ideas and my golf pencil and wrote a note. I stuck it under the windshield wiper. It said, "Hey stud, give me a call," and then my number. I signed it "J." "What??!" Jeff said. "I wasn't thinking straight. I...." Jeff was grinning. "You're going to sleep with the guy he was cheating on you with?" "No." I gave it a second thought. "No. Then I'd be as low as him, screwing around after last night - shit!" I was bolt upright. "What is it?" "We had unprotected sex last night! If Frank's been sleeping around... oh god." "Oh, John, you didn't. After all the times you've nagged me to be safe..." "I know, oh god...." I started crying again. So let's add feeling scared and stupid to angry, upset and deeply hurt. "We'll go tomorrow and we'll get you tested. You'll be alright for now." Jeff continued making soothing sounds at me until I'd finished my hot chocolate and had fallen asleep.
The next morning I woke up alone in the house. Jeff had already gone to work. I decided to try finishing my article on the Internet. I worked at it, but nothing I wrote really sang. I couldn't stop thinking about Frank. I cast about the apartment looking for something to distract me. I saw the tape. Foolish and self-destructive, I know, but I rewound it and played it. First came Frank's voice: "Hello,There was a break in the tape where he stopped it and later started recording again. I heard Frank walking around. The clack of the candle-holders on the table. The scratching of a lighter. Springs compressing in the couch. "Okay. What do you want to sing?" More of the conversation that I remembered. Someone took a loud breath in and out, then sang my favorite song. I could feel myself starting to cry again. Forget Frank for a moment. I was listening to me. I resisted the urge to sing along with myself. Then I wondered what that would sound like. I could hear why that song was my favorite. There was genuine feeling in that voice. You could hear the pain in it, except I'd never been in the situation described in the song, in love with someone who didn't love me back, or at least I hadn't when I'd sung this. That's why Frank reacted like he had. I touched him. The song ended. I heard movement and a kiss. More juicy noises. Heavy breathing. Whispers. Rustling clothes. "Do you believe that I love you?" "Yes. Yes, I do." I stopped the tape, took it out of the stereo, threw it into the depths of my closet and slammed the door. Then I crawled into bed, still dressed in the clothes I wore to go to Frank's last night, and cried myself to sleep.
The phone was ringing. I heard Jeff answer it through my open bedroom door. "Hello?... No, there's nobody here by that name.... Which one? There's two J.'s here.... Oh! Hang on a moment. I'll see if he's available." Jeff raced into my room. He whispered, "John, you awake?" "Yeah, what?" "Did you sign that note, or did you just put your initial?" "Initial." "Holy shit. It's him." "Him who?" "Him him. The other woman." "The note from the windshield. Oh shit. What am I going to say to him? Give me a minute to wake up." I'm not good at mornings, especially when the clock says it's 6:09 pm. Could I get from 0 to 100 IQ in only thirty seconds? I picked up the phone in my room. "Hello." "Hello, is this J.?" "John, actually, yes. You got my note?" "Yeah. What's up?" "Are you busy in...." I checked the clock again. "An hour? I'd like to talk to you." "Sure. Where do you want to meet?" I named a cafe nearby. "Do you know where that is?" "Yeah. Okay. I'll meet you there in an hour. My name's Alan, by the way. I'll be wearing a yellow jacket and I'll be on my bike." "Alright. I'll probably get there first. I'll be wearing a dark blue wool jacket." "Cool. See you at seven, John. Bye." He hung up. "That was easy," said I. "Well, how did he sound?" Jeff asked, zipping back into my room. "Okay, I guess." Jeff frowned. "What are you going to say to him?" "I don't know. Probably give him a piece of my mind." "John, don't make a scene." "Don't worry. I won't." "One more thing, buddy boy." "What's that?" I asked. "Shower. Please. And take those clothes off first, unless you've got some sort of attachment to them." I gave him a Bronx cheer and trundled off to the bathroom to prepare for my rendez-vous. | ||||||||
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say "Hello World!" over
and over on my screen, but not much more than that. For
this assignment I needed my notebook to make sure I got
the details right. Except I couldn't find the flaming thing. I tore
apart the special cabinet where the computer was looking for it, since
that would be the sensible place to keep it. No dice.
John. Tonight I am going to try to get you to
sing. I know. You don't think you're any good, but
hopefully this will convince you otherwise. You're
going to hear you the way everyone else hears you.