Ron Schafrick
[mks_dropcap style=”letter” size=”52″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]I[/mks_dropcap]tâs June again, which means another Pride, only this year itâs raining, and Iâm glad.
Iâm with my friend Glace and weâre sitting in a restaurant on Church Street. Itâs Saturday night, and ordinarily on Pride weekend you can forget about finding an eatery with a free table, that is unless youâre willing on that most hallowed of weekends in the queer community to wait an hour or so in the gruelling UV of the sun. But given the current weather conditions, we thought weâd take a chance and, luckily, we snagged a table right away.
Donât get me wrong, though. The place is still packed and we just happened to be seated in the restaurantâs solarium where the rain is tap-tap-tapping on the glass above us, then sluicing down the side in long runnels.
Glace is âbig-boned,â as he likes to say, a gentle way of putting it, and whenever we get together he does most of the talking, mostly about himself, which is fine by me. Heâs a good storyteller, plus heâs all snaps and campy badinage (although itâd be nice if he asked me how I was doing every now and then). Sometimes I think of the hours we spend together as âThe Glace McDermott Showâ: Glace as some kind of flaming version of Don Cherry while Iâm the more restrained Ron MacLeanâthough neither of us, letâs be clear, is even remotely a hockey fan. Right now Glace is rattling on about the beefy trainer heâs hired at the gym he just joined.
âSo I say to him, âTake this superfluousness off me and transform me into your mirrored image and maybe we can talk about turning this into ninety-six hours instead of the seventy-two Iâm currently booked with you.ââ
âHow much?â I ask.
âThirty-three hundred,â he says.
My mouth forms an astonished little O.
I shouldnât be surprised, but I am. Glace has got a good job, sure (he works with homeless and at-risk gay youth), but heâs a slave to the credit card and the false miracle of being catapulted into a stratospheric income bracket.
âGotta pay your dues, honey,â he says, as if reading my thoughts, âif you wanna look good.â
It would be easy for me to insert a word or two here, to tell him to just eat healthy, exercise regularly. You donât need a trainer, I want to say. Have a shred of self-control. But thatâs territory I donât dare venture into. If I value this friendshipâand I doâI keep my mouth shut. There are things we donât talk about and his weight problem and prodigal spending habits are just two of them.
âHowâs everything, gentlemen?â says our waiter, a red-haired Australian in shorts and tank top and whose nose and shoulders are peppered with a fine spray of freckles.
âGood, thanks!â Glace and I say in happy unison, though neither meal is especially outstanding. Iâm having a ho-hum butter chicken, and Glace is having an overpriced veggie wrap with a garden salad, and whatâs dubious about this picture is that in public Glace makes as if heâs a dainty and health-conscious eater. The truth is that there has been more than one occasion when Iâve moseyed by his place for an evening of pizza and Netflix and witnessed him scarf down slice after slice with greedy abandon while balancing a paper plate that lies on a near-horizontal plane on his chest. His kitchen is also spotlessâhe doesnât cookâand once, while ferreting around for a fork, I discovered drawer after drawer jammed with delivery and take-out menus. And then thereâs the mishmash of contradiction that constitutes his fridge: frozen Jenny Craig alongside boxes of Klondike bars, jars of low-fat salad dressing wedged between full-flavored mayo and viscous leftover Chinese, not to mention all those family-sized bottles of Coke and Sprite standing in readiness, like an arsenal of high-caloric, thirst-quenching warheads: Glaceâs not-so-secret secret, his shame.
âAnother pint?â the waiter asks, noting my nearly drained glass.
âWhy not,â I say, and quaff down the rest. âHeâs cute,â I add as soon as heâs out of earshot.
Glace smiles at my predictability. âYou like everybody,â he says, and siphons up a draught of Diet Coke through the straw.
Itâs true. Not a day goes by when I donât fall in love with a stranger or two. Take the four guys at a nearby table. I canât stop checking them out: they must be half my age, all in their early twenties, all with similarly shorn hair, all terrifically cute. Americans, Iâm guessing for some reason. Students likely. Here in Toronto for the weekend. And something about them tells me that no matter how much itâll rain, nothingâs going to stop them from having a good time.
âCanât believe this weather,â Glace says, and we both stare out the window where the street is a steady stream of umbrellas. Ordinarily at Pride âthat is to say when itâs not rainingâChurch Street is teeming with so many shirtless and chiselled bodies itâs enough to send most peopleâs self-esteem spiraling earthbound. Mercifully, itâs too wet and cold out for any such sultry displays tonight. Unlike Glace, Iâve got the opposite problem. Iâm a slight five-four, arms of twig-like frangibility, and shoulders that are boyishly narrow. Iâm also one of those people who can eat and eat and never put on a pound. And going to the gym only furnishes my muscles with a ropey look, giving me an even more emaciated mien. But like Glace, I also wear baggy clothes, only for opposite reasons: he in an attempt to conceal his mass, me to offer the illusion that I have some. âBelieve me, honey,â he once said, âIâd happily go around wearing a fucking muumuu all day if I could.â
Truth be told, I hate Pride. I hate all the half-naked prancing and preening, the sunglass-shielded eyes that you know arenât looking at you but airily gazing into the middle-distance. Oftentimes I feel like an outsider to this community of which Iâm a member by default, for not only do I lack the bod but also the looks, the clothes, the campiness, the cattiness, the money, or whatever else it takes to belong. Instead of feeling at ease, Iâm all too alert to the notion that I donât fit in any of the ready-made boxes that this community tends to produce and into which people are readily slotted. When you see pictures of Pride on the news and it looks like weâre all one big happy family, donât believe it. Thatâs the furthest thing from the truth.
âSixteen years in this city,â Glace says, âand itâs the first time Iâve seen it rain like this on Pride.â He leans in to whisper, âI was hoping it would rain.â
I wince, surprised. âSo was I.â Just the other day I was wishing for showers, wishing for a big Biblical downpour to send all those muscle Marys and pretty boys, the colourful floats and tents, the drag queensâall of it floating down Church Street and straight into the lake.
âOh, I canât stand the humidity,â Glace says, fanning his face with his hand, and I clue in that our reasons are very different. âAnd with the pollution my asthma starts kicking in.â
Because of his extra pounds, thereâs a lot that Glace canât or wonât do. He hates the heat, isnât especially fond of walking, and although heâs never directly stated as much I know he deems the concept of mounting a bicycle unthinkably humiliating. Heâs also got a herniated disk and often needs to sit down and take a breather. And any suggestion of doing something outside the Villageâeven cruising by my bachelor padâis a no-go. His condo, his job, his doctor, his shopping and entertainment: all of itâs here, within a five-block radius, as if the world beyond it is too threatening an undertaking. Unlike me, heâs very much at home here, even if its habituĂ©s stare down their noses at him.
âSo howâs the dating game going?â I ask.
âYâknow, you just canât trust anyone anymore,â Glace says, extracting the latest-version iPhone from his pocket, an enormous paperback-sized thing that costâincluding the fee to break his preceding contractâa whopping twelve hundred. âWait till you see this,â he says, swiping and poking at the thing.
Nearly two months ago Glace broke up with his partner of five years, a good-looking Persian named Reza he met online and who had come to Canada as a refugee. Before that, when Reza was still in Iran studying hair design, the eldest of his two brothers happened upon him in a tight lip-lock with another male undergraduate. Over the course of the next thirty seconds Rezaâs nose was flattened, jaw dislocated, front teeth shattered, and an hour later his eyes were transformed into grossly swollen and empurpled slits. His father said he had brought shame upon the family and tossed him into an institution for the mentally ill. There, under the muzzy haze of antipsychotics, he was subjected to electroshock therapy in a fruitless attempt to heterosexualize him. When the doctors then tried presenting him with pictures of a beach scene composed of body builders posing adjacent to bikinied girls, he was asked which he favoured. Neither, he wanted to say, because he wasnât into muscle, and pointed instead at a German shepherd nosing a tuft of grass in the background. Not a minute later he was marched off for another jolt of electrical current to flood his already beleaguered brain.
Rezaâs other brother, the more sensible middle one, took pity on him and eventually got him discharged. Reza then hightailed it out of Iran and straight for Turkey where he stayed for two years until his refugee application to Canada was approved. A week after landing he hooked up with Glace online. When I first met Reza, it was hard to believe that these events constituted his personal history. He looked like someone untouched by brutality, like some callow twenty-five-year-old whose only aspirations in life were to shop and go clubbing. Once, when I asked him if he thought Iran would ever sign a nuclear non-proliferation agreement with the US, he looked at me as if Iâd mistaken him for a political insider, or a fortuneteller.
âHow should I know?â he said. âNo oneâs interested in that sort of thing there.â
You might wonder, as did I, what he and Glace were doing together. After allâno offence to GlaceâReza is young, slim, and attractive. He dresses stylishly, can drink you under the table, and likes to snort, smoke, or otherwise ingest whatever hallucinogenic substance sails his way: things that Glace is categorically not into. But the answer to that question involves knowing a few things about Glace: that heâs a nice guy; that heâll never stab you in the back or otherwise fool around behind it; and if youâre in his good books, he can be generous to a T (and believe me Iâve seen the wrath thatâs inspired when youâre not). It helps too that Glace makes good coin.
Then, three months ago, the big fall-out. Screaming matches, thrown and smashed gewgaws, startling admissions and revelations. The short of it: Reza moved out of Glaceâs condo and straight into the digs of some twenty-one-year-old named Kyle, someone heâd apparently been riding for months.
Now Glace is on the rebound, eager to fill the absence with that special someone and settle down again.
âSorry for the wait,â announces the waiter, swapping my empty pilsner glass for a full one, its frothy foam spilling down the side.
âNo worries!â I say, but heâs already bustling off to another table before our eyes have a chance to meet.
âSo check this out,â Glace says, holding up his iPhone to show me a selfie of some young Asian guy: large architectural black-framed glasses, short spiky hair, mouth parted and eyebrows raised in an expression of mock surprise. Late twenties, early thirties, is my guess.
âCute,â I say.
âAnd this.â More swiping, another picture. Itâs pretty much the same thing: same guy, same open-mouthed expression, only now heâs wearing a blue-and-white striped button-down and tie.
âOkay.â
âNow take a look at who I met.â Glace has got this crazy smile, like heâs about to spring a joke on me, and this time in his open palm is a shot of a much older, broad-faced Asian man, close-mouthed and grim-faced, in what appears to be a trendy coffee shop. He looks to be in his mid-to-late forties and the only connection to the previous two photos is the heavy-duty glasses.
âSame guy?â
âSame guy,â Glace says, nodding solemnly. âSo I walked into Starbucks and I thought, okay, heâs not here. Then this, thisââhe mentally jounces around for the right wordââthis man Iâve never seen before starts waving me over. So Iâm like, âDo I know you?â And heâs like, âFrom Grindr.â I made sure to sneak a picture before I left.â
âSerious Photoshop job.â
âSeriously,â he says. âWhatâd I tell you? You canât trust anyone anymore.â
Among the four young guys at the other table, one keeps catching me eyeing him. Heâs wearing a white V-neck tee, has those moist, pool-like eyes, and is especially fetching. He whispers something to his friends and all three crank heads in my direction. I feel the heat rise to my face, and I quickly sink back in my seat, allowing Glaceâs girth to shield me from their line of vision. I always forget that when I was their age I wouldnât have deigned to cast my eyes on a man inching ever closer to forty. Someone of such advancing years would have been filed into the troll box and jettisoned from view.
âYouâre all red,â Glace says. âWhatâs the matter?â
âMust be the beer,â I say.
Glace does a quick shoulder check, leans in, then lowers his voice. âSo I talked to Reza the other day.â
Itâs another thing I donât understand about Glace, why he continues to torment himself by keeping the lines of communication open with his ex. In spite of the lies and indiscretions, the obvious chicanery and philandering, he wonât let Reza go, as if hoping that things will return to the way they were when Reza first debarked in Canada and all he had was Glace.
âYou know what he said to me? He said, âKyle can do things.â I said, âWhatâd you mean? I can do things.â âNo, I mean Kyle doesnât have a herniated back. He can go out and do stuff.â âSo could I when I was twenty-one,â I said. I said, âPut that bitch on the phone when she turns forty, then weâll talk.ââ
With theatrical flourish Glace sweeps long, imaginary hair over his shoulders. Itâs something I love about Glace because I can see it as if it were real: Glace as a longhaired blond, Glaceâs female doppelgĂ€nger.
âShall we head?â he says.
âSplash?â
âYou know it, girl.â Then, eyes wide with surprise, utters: âOh my!â
I turn around and in the rain-soaked alley I see a creature slinking past in top-to-bottom leatherâeven the head is concealed, but in a black jackal mask, complete with snout and floppy ears.
Glace emits a derisive little snort. âThe things people will do.â
â â â
Itâs still light out and raining when weâre back out on the street amid the ebb and flow of umbrellas and plastic rain ponchos. We do a cursory walkabout inspecting the various kiosks, tents, and food stalls set up all along Church Street. Glaceâs umbrellaâin rainbow colours no lessâis positively enormous, a big-top circus tent that easily shelters us both as the rain makes its unremitting drumroll above our heads. He lays a heavy, protective paw around my shoulder, pulling me toward him and out of the rain. Itâs the kind of thing he does sometimes: a warm, friendly gesture we both know is just that, nothing more, that two friends can share.
The usually busy tents and kiosks are, no surprise, mostly deserted. And the familiar information booths and pamphleteers, the hot dog and ice cream vendors, the hunky TD boys in their bank-sponsored green Speedos either have packed up for the day or are in the process of doing so. From one of the beer gardens music is thumping, but only a few bearded and rain-soaked leather daddies are milling about outside, bottles of beer in hand. And I feel horribly guilty, as if I alone am responsible for this deluge and sabotaging everybodyâs idea of a good time.
When we get to Splash thereâs a line-up outside, and who should be at the end of the queue but the quartet of shorn-haired boys.
âTheyâre so cute,â I say as we make our approach. âIâd happily spend the night with any one of themââunsure why I keep the one I find most prepossessing a secret.
âOne?â Glace says, feigning bewilderment. âHoney, donât limit yourself, take them all.â
White Tee eyeballs me as we draw near but this time he doesnât whisper to his companions. We line up behind them and I openly gaze at the nape of his neck and the knuckle of bone demarcating the top of his spine.
I wouldnât mind having someone myself too but itâs not easy, believe me. Sure, thereâve been a few guys in the pastâa week or two here, a couple months thereâbut never anything serious. Itâs easy to hook up, but thatâs about it. Everyoneâs too guarded, too unwilling to trust and open up. And people are mean too; I could tell stories. I also do the online thing on occasion, but Iâve never had much luck in that department; most guys want one thing and one thing only. Personally, I prefer face-to-face action. I live for the spark, the chase, the bashful downward glances. So when Iâm in the moodâeven if it doesnât lead to anything moreâI head to the tubs, or to the labyrinthine trails down by the Port Lands, or to the nude beach at Hanlanâs. Once, on my day off from the car rental agency where I work, I was sunbathing on a half-hidden strip of lakeshore when Reza materialized from behind a sandy hillock. âHey,â he said. He was also alone, and I was a tad sheepish because I donât usually find myself naked with friends and acquaintances. âHowâs it going?â he said, laying a beach towel next to mine. He was wearing ersatz Versace sunglasses, an A/X T-shirt, black cut-off jeans and, as was soon revealed to me, a black pair of Calvin Kleinâs underneath. I watched him peel off then fold his clothes with effete delicacy and fastidiousness. His body, I discovered, was miraculously unremarkable, much thinner than I expected. Plain, like mine. His legs were wildly hairy, but from crotch up, everything was either meticulously trimmed or shaved. Even his forearms were shorn, even his hands. He also had a tattoo, the word Blessed inked across his lower abdomen in a parabola of large cursive letters.
Now, Glace is my best friendâmy only friend, reallyâand Iâve never done anything to hurt him; but that afternoon when Reza lay down next to me, I did something that, if Glace ever got wind of it, would permanently sever all ties between us.
âI didnât know you had a tattoo,â I said, brazenly tracing each letter with the tip of my finger.
I was just as surprised as he was by this impromptu move, and his stomach juddered with the in-breath.
âI got it after I came to Canada,â he said.
As my finger descended the long vertical slope of the d, I looked in his face. âYou ever talk to your family since coming here?â
âOnly my brother sometimesâthe good one. My parents tell people Iâm dead. That I drowned. Body never recovered.â
For the first time I noticed the subtle starboard tilt of his nose, the incisors unmistakably whiter than the bookending canines, and I felt a welling-up of something. Pity? Love? Affection? Who knows. I waited, and when I found what I was looking for I leaned in, squaring my mouth with his while my hand headed south.
âDonât tell Glace,â he said when it was overâlike an idiot.
âAs if Iâm going to tell Glace,â I said.
But what was surprising was how un-awkward things were afterwards, that the three of us could still get together for dinner and drinks and talk and laugh as if nothing more than a handshake had transpired between me and Reza. And sometimes, when I think too much about that frosty indifference, I have to tamp down the urge to forcibly realign that nose of his.
The four boys are admitted into the bar; then the big burly doorman lowers his arm like at a railroad crossing and tells us to wait. But not a minute later the arm goes up again and Glace and I make our ingress where we each fork over a fiver in exchange for a stamp on our wrists.
Itâs a peeler bar where weâre at, an establishment we only sporadically patronized prior to Glace and Rezaâs split-up (Reza pronounced the place tacky), but in recent months itâs become our usual Saturday night haunt. The bar is crowded, but not as full to bursting as youâd expect for Pride. Coming toward me through the throng is one of the dancers, a good-looking blond-haired fellow that I at first assume is only shirtless; but itâs when heâs about to brush past that I see heâs buck naked. I try to catch his eye, but he makes a beeline for some grey-haired daddy sitting at the bar with a drink in one hand and a surfeit of cash in the other.
Glace orders a Diet Coke and I another beer. Porn is playing on all the screens. For a while we station ourselves on the edge of the dance-floor-slash-stage where one of the peelers, presently down to his aussieBumâs, shinnies up a pole, then twirls his way back down like some circus act. With legs still hooked around the pole, he leans back and spreads his arms out wide. The audience responds with a smattering of applause.
âTonightâs performance,â Glace shouts above the music, âhas been brought to you by the letter Y.â
On the opposite side of the stage are the shorn-haired boys. Theyâre in the midst of appraising the on-stage acrobat, but then White Tee notices me noticing him, and for an instant our eyes meet. He takes a slug of his beer, and I know then that a door has cracked open. I resolve to wait until he repairs to the can, at which point Iâll discreetly follow. âHappy Pride,â Iâll say, sidling next to him at the urinal, then see if heâd be receptive to the offer of joining us at our table.
âLetâs give a big round of applause for François,â the DJâs voice issues from the speakers in a voice so deeply resonant I can feel its oscillation in my ribcage.
âLook, theyâre leaving,â Glace says, indicating a table thatâs not too mortifyingly close to the stage and from which two bear-types are in the process of vacating. Glace and I shuffle over and stake our glasses down on the sweat-ringed tabletop.
Iâm barely seated when JT appears through the crowd, floating his way toward me in a nimbus of handsomeness. âKnew it,â he says, offering his usual scintillating smile.
JT is my favourite dancer, a pantherish black man of striking appearance yet similarly modest stature as myself. Over the past couple months Iâve likely spent hundreds on private dances with himâand as a customer service rep, thatâs money I simply canât afford.
âKnew Iâd see you tonight,â he says, nudging his way into the V of my lap. All heâs wearing is a pair of loose-fitting ripped-up jeans that hang precariously low on his hips. I wrap my arms around himâhis body slick with sweatâand pull him in tight. I must be a little drunk because without even thinking my lips head straight for his. But heâs quick, leans back, wags a finger. âUh, uh, uh. No can do.â Then he brushes his lips against my ear. âBut if you wanna go in one of the backroomsâŠâ
âMaybe in a little while,â I say, running a hand across the hilly topography of his pearly brown chest. âHow you been? Busy tonight?â
Iâm awful at this sort of thing, making that kitteny kind of chitchat with a dancer. Whatâs a beautiful guy like you doing in a place like this? is the thing I really want to say. Forget this dump and come home with me.
âGetting there,â he says, already bored with the conversation, and avidly starts scoping the room for clients to line up for the rest of the night. Suddenly remembering me again, he cups my head in his hands and presses his forehead against mine in the tender gesture of a man achingly in love.
âYou gonna watch my show later?â he asks, and I canât help but feel an overflow of all the emotions I shouldnât be having for a man in his position. Funny how we most want the thing we can never have.
âYou bet,â I say, like a hopeless peabrain. Then off he goes, working his way through the bar, spreading the magic of what heâs got to whoeverâs willing to pay.
Glace is lip-syncing to the song pumping out of the speakers while doing a shoulder-swinging dance motion on the barstool. âMerry Gay Christmas!â he says, tilting his glass in my direction. I do likewise and together we clink.
âI think I just met my future ex-husband,â he adds, chin-jutting in the direction of the stage.
But instead of looking up, I happen to spot Reza between the high-stepping legs of the on-stage peeler, snaking his way through the ruck of carousers.
âJesus,â Glace says, still gazing admirably up at the dancer, âI think the basement just flooded.â
Reza slides up beside White Tee and slips an arm around him. The boy starts with surprise, sees who it is, and the two of them commence a flurry of happy embraces and hello kisses.
âWhat theâ?â I say, a little flummoxed myself.
Reza sees us, and his smile instantly vanishes, replaced instead with that hand-in-the-cookie-jar look, as if forgetting that Glace is officially his ex now.
âWhat?â Glace shouts.
âI said Rezâs here.â
âWhere?â His bar stool jig comes to a sudden halt. âOh God, there he is.â
Reza untangles himself from the boy and circumnavigates the stage in our direction.
âHello, Glace,â he says, then smiles at me. âHey,â he says in the same lazy way he did that day on the beach.
I havenât seen Reza in months and, I have to admit, heâs looking good post-breakup, as the instigator of these things usually does. His hair is much shorter now, parted smartly to the side, and heâs wearing sharp, angular glasses that give him something of an all-grown-up, corporate airâexcept for the FCUK T-shirt heâs wearing, which is ridiculously small and barely reaches his navel.
âThat must be Kyle, I presume,â Glace says magisterially.
âThe one and only.â
The dancer on stage is leaning his back onto the pole, doing the standard self-caress routine over the furrowed washboard of his abdomen with one hand while clutching a Jaysâ cap over his package with the other. Heâs making slow pelvic thrusts that are supposed to be sexy but for some reason seem hopelessly mechanical.
âSheâs nice-looking,â Glace says in the tone of one admitting defeat.
Reza takes a swig of his beer, says nothing.
âThought you didnât like coming here.â
âKyle wanted to come.â
Rezaâs eyes have that unfocussed, red-rimmed look that tells me heâs already soused. âYou going to the parade tomorrow?â
âNot if itâs raining.â
âDidnât think so,â Reza sneers. âWeâre going. Weâre marchingâall 2 K of it.â
âGreat,â Glace says.
âPart of the Iranian contingent.â
âWonderful. Have a good time.â Glace rises from the stool. âWell, I donât want to keep you. You probably want to scurry back to your boy toy.â
âNo need for that kind of language,â Reza says.
âLanguage?â Glace says, inflamed suddenly. âWhat language? You hear me use a four-letter word?â
âWe should get going,â I say.
âDid you hear me utter something untoward? Something likeâoh, I donât knowââtwo-timing whoreâ or âgold-diggingâââ
âGoodbye, Reza,â I say.
âNow thatâs language for you,â Glace says.
Reza bristles. He sucks in his breath, revealing the top half of a baroque swirl of arabesques constituting the B, l and d poking over the edge of his shorts.
âGive it up for Lance, everyone,â the DJ muffles, and applause erupts all around.
âLetâs go,â I say, and we head out the door.
â â â
Weâre in Loblawsâopen till eleven!âand itâs freezing in here. Our night suddenly cut short, Glace has decided to pick up a few things for the morning: a bag of skim milk, a pint of blueberries, and a box of pricey and certified-organic low-fat breakfast cereal.
âItâs over,â he says, as we trundle from aisle to aisle. âAnd I mean over-over. Like completely. Finished. Done!â
He snatches up a bunch of bananas so flawlessly yellow they look manufactured rather than clipped from a tree.
âNo more texting. No more phone calls. Thatâs it,â he declares with the same self-deceiving conviction as a New Yearâs celebrant. âAnd did I tell you? That kid? Kyle? His familyâs loaded.â
Weâre making our way down the frozen foods aisle where the temperature plummets palpably.
âLast year for his birthday his parents got him a white BMW 5-Series. And this yearâget thisâhis present was a one-bedroom condo down by the lake. A place of his own for while heâs going to school,â he says in that nasally jeering tone one adopts when mimicking an enemy. âHow can I compete with that?â
Iâm hugging my arms and pressing my knees together to keep warm as we stand opposite a long row of freezers dedicated solely to ice cream.
âCan you believe it? A condo! Damn it, where is it?â
âWhat?â
âItâs usually right here,â he says. âIce cream. The healthy kind.â
I keep my trap shut and contemplate instead the mighty hams of Glaceâs bare calves, each hair follicle a clearly defined dot. I donât have the heart to tell him that, like me, heâll never have the body he so desperately wants, no matter how much cash heâs willing to proffer.
âIâm a weak-willed emotional eater,â he says as he pulls open the glass door, unleashing a loud, tornadic blast. He extracts a tub of HĂ€agen-Dazsâbrownies and cookie doughâand adds it to his hand basket, the door bouncing shut before the sound once again returns to a steady whirr.
âYâknow, I was talking to Reza on the phone the other night,â he says when weâre at the checkout. âAnd he said something interesting.â
One by one his comestibles emit their heart-monitor-style beep as the cashier passes them over her scanner.
âHe said you and he once fooled around on the beach.â
My stomach seesaws. Iâm no longer cold and for the second time that evening I feel the heat rise to my face.
âThereâs no truth to that, is there,â he says with the falling inflection of certainty, though it clearly is a question.
âNo,â I say, putting on my best performance at appearing dumbfounded.
Glace then does that thing you see in the movies when an actor gazes into the face of another while the eyes do their darting to-and-fro scrutiny. And I know he doesnât believe me, even when he says, âI didnât think so.â
He thumps down the tub of HĂ€agen-Dazs onto the moving belt and slaps his credit card on top. âTomorrow,â he says, âIâll throw this shit out. Whateverâs left of it.â
â â â
Back outside we discover the rain has granted us a temporary reprieve on this pluvial day. Awkwardly, we embrace in front of the sliding motion-triggered glass doors and say our goodbyes. Glace apologizes for calling it an early night and promises to make up for it. âNext Saturday for sure,â he says, âweâll have a fun night.â Then he climbs into one of the cityâs orange-and-aquamarine cabs idling along the curbside.
âGood night,â he calls through the open window as the taxi pulls away, offering a wave emblematic of the Queen. I laughâa relieved sort of laughâand do the same.
For a long time I wait for a streetcar to convey me home, but when none comes I decide to walk instead, ambling down quiet residential streets far away from the clubs and bars and the drunken revellers, streets that offer no indication of the festal specialness this night ought to have for someone such as myself. And I think about JT, who is undoubtedly still at Splash, maybe even doing his number this very minute for some codger in one of the toilet stall-sized backrooms, one client after another. I think about the countless hands that will have traversed his body, no part of it left unexplored, and the fat wads of twenties handed over at the end of each set, the whole thing going on until late into the night.
And I think about Reza and Kyleâthe boy not an American tourist after allâand that theyâve likely moved on to Sky by now, the two of them dancing shirtless and pressed up against each other in the packed and sweaty club. Tomorrow theyâll be out in the rain again, marching amid a flag-bearing assembly of refugees and their supporters, undeterred by the inclement weather. Theyâll be blowing whistles and waving to the umbrellaâd crowd on the sidewalks, proud of who they are and thankful for how lucky they were to find each other.
But most of all I think about Glace, no doubt home by now and curled up on the couch, the TV on but unwatched, alternating between eating straight out of the tub of ice cream and texting long messages to Reza that will likely go unanswered until the morning. I see him not going to bed until late, staring wide-eyed at the unlit ceiling while the hamster wheel of his brain continues to whirl until the sky begins its wan early-morning paling. There will be the arguments that will ensue the following day, either by text or by phone, and to which Iâll be privy next weekend, puerile squabbling that Iâll hear all about when we next sit down to dinner before once again heading off to Splash, both he and I pretending that nothing has changed between us, though of course something has, if only slightly.
Everything could have come crashing down tonight, I think as I near my building, the darkened windows of my apartment part of a random sequence of yellow-and-black checkered squares. But then where would we be? Both of us alone? Neither one talking to the other? But in that crucial split second Glace must have weighed his options and determined it wasnât worth it. Not any more at any rate. And I think I was lucky at that moment. You might even say weâre both lucky. Lucky to have each other. We are, after all, two old friends and probably always will be. Although I know if Reza had asked me that day on the beach to be his, I wouldnât have thought twice before saying yes.
Without warning the clouds open up again, producing a sudden and clamorous rainfall. I snap open my umbrella and listen to the soothing racket as I turn down my street where the storm drains are blocked and the parked cars have been transformed into dark and uninhabited islands. But instead of making a circuitous bypass, I wade straight through the cool muck of rainwater, dead leaves and other flotsam, deliberately inundating my sneakers and turning them into heavy, spongy ballasts. Water, it occurs to me, thatâs just deep enough for a man to drown in. And I think: Such a trifling thing for which to disown a son.
Ron Schafrickâs short fiction has appeared in The Journey Prize Stories 27, Best Gay Stories 2015, The New Quarterly, The Antigonish Review, Asia Literary Review, FreeFall, and elsewhere. He is the author of Interpreters (Oberon Press, 2013) and is at work on a second collection of stories. For nine years he taught ESL in South Korea but currently lives in Toronto. Why donât you visit him at www.ronschafrick.com?