BEING HERE, BEING QUEER
He grabs my hand so tightly that it hurts. My instinct is to jerk free of his grip, but I resist when he says, "I need you to be here for me, Kinney! Really be here."
I stare at him. I start to say something pithy but the words die in my throat. I wrap my aching fingers over his as I say, quietly, "I'm here." Outside the coffee shop, pellets of ice hit the glass like machine gun fire. Rat-a-tat-tat. Snow is pretty even when it's annoying. Ice is just annoying. Brog looks like he's going to implode. It's four o' clock in the afternoon on the first day of a new year and I'm sitting here holding hands in a booth in a "straight" coffee shop with my best friend. Surreal. He hasn't been this freaked since that whole nightmare with Kate began.
He leans across the formica table and says, "I'm scared."
"Of what?"
"That's just it. I don't know."
He releases his death grip on my hand and leans back in his chair, running both palms over his face. Outside, pedestrians caught in the ice duck and cover, seeking refuge from the stinging pellets. I wonder if we'll be trapped. It was snowing when we arrived and now this. I stir my coffee. I haven't been up for very long and I still have a ghost of a hangover. Damn champagne. "Focus," I tell him and he sighs.
"Parker and I....we...."
I wince. "Spare me the gruesome details. I already deciphered the code. I know the signs."
"It's not what I thought it would be."
"I know the differences, Brog. I've walked both sides of the street." I really want no details. Please, God, no details. No mental pictures. Not up to it.
"I don't mean that it's physically different. It is, of course, but what struck me is how some things transcend gender."
I smile and shake my head. The linguistic stranglehold of fresh lust. "What are you, thirteen?"
"Don't get snarky, Brian. Don't."
I give him the okay, okay hand signal and he continues. "Fundamentally, if you care for someone, the emotions and feelings are just about identical, whether it's a man or a woman you care about."
"I'll take your word for it. I never cared that way for a woman."
"He's a wonderful person. I don't want to hurt him. He's been so hurt before."
"He survived."
"I don't want to cause him any pain."
"So don't."
He stares at me and then says, "I don't want him to hurt me, either."
"Christ, Brog, life is a gamble. Roll with it."
"You're not going to lecture me about falling too hard too fast?"
"What good would that do? You have no pause button, never had. Since Mary Jean Simmons got to you in the third grade with her red pigtails and knobby knees, you still operate almost exclusively on impulse. You always will."
He smiles a little, his tension cracking. "Do I?"
"Duh."
"I didn't think I'd like it so much," he says with a shrug and I roll my eyes.
"Then why did you do it? To punish yourself?"
"I had to know. I'm attracted to him. More than that."
"It's always more with you, Brog. Sometimes attraction is enough."
"Kinney," the hand becomes a vise again, around my wrist, this time. "You have to help me understand this."
"I'm not Yoda Homo, Brog. I'm not the Jedi master of the gay. It's different for everyone. You have to figure this out for yourself."
"I don't know where to start."
"I think you already have."
"That was just sex. The difficult part comes now. I really care for this guy."
I glance around the cafe with a weary scowl. Where's a weapon when you really need one? The waiter comes over and refills our cups with a cautious glance at each of us, as if afraid we may jump up and erupt into a musical comedy number in the middle of his homo-free coffee shop. "Can I get you gentlemen anything else?" he asks, reaching for his check pad. I ask him,
"What are the chances that you could get me a gun?"
He scurries away with a horrified look. I watch him go and think there goes his tip. He left me here with a mad dog and no method of destruction. Brog begins to laugh, but I'm not fooled. That's what madmen always do just before they go ape shit on your ass.
"You crack me up, Kinney," he says and I nod, wishing I were able to find my funny place in our current situation.