Read Online Tales of the City 07 - Michael Tolliver Lives by Armistead Maupin - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Armistead Maupin
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laugh at that and love him for it, whether it’s true or not, because, at the end of the day, I’ll have another eight hours of holding him in my arms.
At my suggestion Ben had a bathhouse afternoon just before we left for Orlando. I was paying penance-in-advance, I guess, for inflicting my family on him. (My biological family, that is—as opposed to my logical one—as Anna likes to put it.) So Ben took off for the Steamworks at noon, and I stayed at home to wash the truck and curl up in the window seat with a glass of chocolate soymilk and the latest issue of American Bungalow magazine. There was an article on Bisbee, Arizona, and its funky little bungalow neighborhoods, and I wondered if that would make a good destination for us; we’d loved our recent road trip through the Southwest and had talked of returning.
I laid down the magazine and glanced at the clock. It was almost one.
He’s bound to be there by now, already undressed and wrapped in a towel, already cruising the hallways. He’s searching for daddies, of course, preferably with fur, politely deflecting the young and the smooth, the ones who inevitably regard him as their natural birthright. But it won’t be long before he finds what he wants…
I picked up the magazine again, losing myself in the Southwest. In Monument Valley we hired a Navajo guide named Harley, a chummy twenty-seven-year-old in a Metallica sweatshirt who, for a few dollars more, drove us into sacred territory, a roadless landscape of bloodred monoliths reserved for tribal ceremonies and the occasional Toyota commercial. I don’t know if Harley knew we were a couple—he may well have mistaken us for father and son—but he gave a sweet little spiel about the Navajo nation’s reverence for androgyny and later played his flute for us and sang while we lay on our backs in a cave, goofy with peace, staring up through a hole at a perfect circle of sky.
By now he’s spotted someone—across the steam room, maybe, or loitering in a corner of the labyrinth. He’s a bearded history prof at Berkeley, Jewish possibly, or a black Amway salesman from Oakland with silver at his temples, or some beefy working-class Irish brute. Whoever he is, he’s reaching for my husband right now, cupping those clean-shaven balls in his hairy hand as he smiles with avuncular assurance.
The gutters, I realized, were in serious need of cleaning, so I dragged the extension ladder from the truck and propped it against the house. I have just the slightest touch of acrophobia, so the climb left me woozy. I steadied myself at the top, catching my breath for a moment as I gazed across the valley at the television tower on Mount Sutro. It’s a gangly War of the Worlds monstrosity, but sometimes—like that particular afternoon—the fog erases everything but the top three antennae, creating the ghostly effect of a galleon sailing above the clouds, the Castro’s own Flying Dutchman .
They’ve gone to the guy’s room, no doubt. Or maybe to Ben’s, if he rented one this time. The terrycloth has hit the deck by now, and somebody’s blowing somebody. Or maybe they’re even fucking already. Right. This. Very. Moment.
I began scooping handfuls of leaves out of the gutter. It’s a handsome gutter, as gutters go: copper beginning to show traces of green. I installed it ten years ago, right after Thack moved out, partly to reassert my dominion over the house. The downspouts were badly clogged with leaves last winter, inundating the terrace at one point and threatening to do the same to the house. This year I’d be ready for the rain.
When the gutters were clean, I climbed down from the ladder and returned it to the truck before raking the rotten leaves from the terrace. There was still space left in the green recycling bin, so I crammed in a few dead fronds from the tree fern at the end of the driveway. The rest of the garden looked okay, but I figured there were chores aplenty in the kitchen. Sure enough, the
At my suggestion Ben had a bathhouse afternoon just before we left for Orlando. I was paying penance-in-advance, I guess, for inflicting my family on him. (My biological family, that is—as opposed to my logical one—as Anna likes to put it.) So Ben took off for the Steamworks at noon, and I stayed at home to wash the truck and curl up in the window seat with a glass of chocolate soymilk and the latest issue of American Bungalow magazine. There was an article on Bisbee, Arizona, and its funky little bungalow neighborhoods, and I wondered if that would make a good destination for us; we’d loved our recent road trip through the Southwest and had talked of returning.
I laid down the magazine and glanced at the clock. It was almost one.
He’s bound to be there by now, already undressed and wrapped in a towel, already cruising the hallways. He’s searching for daddies, of course, preferably with fur, politely deflecting the young and the smooth, the ones who inevitably regard him as their natural birthright. But it won’t be long before he finds what he wants…
I picked up the magazine again, losing myself in the Southwest. In Monument Valley we hired a Navajo guide named Harley, a chummy twenty-seven-year-old in a Metallica sweatshirt who, for a few dollars more, drove us into sacred territory, a roadless landscape of bloodred monoliths reserved for tribal ceremonies and the occasional Toyota commercial. I don’t know if Harley knew we were a couple—he may well have mistaken us for father and son—but he gave a sweet little spiel about the Navajo nation’s reverence for androgyny and later played his flute for us and sang while we lay on our backs in a cave, goofy with peace, staring up through a hole at a perfect circle of sky.
By now he’s spotted someone—across the steam room, maybe, or loitering in a corner of the labyrinth. He’s a bearded history prof at Berkeley, Jewish possibly, or a black Amway salesman from Oakland with silver at his temples, or some beefy working-class Irish brute. Whoever he is, he’s reaching for my husband right now, cupping those clean-shaven balls in his hairy hand as he smiles with avuncular assurance.
The gutters, I realized, were in serious need of cleaning, so I dragged the extension ladder from the truck and propped it against the house. I have just the slightest touch of acrophobia, so the climb left me woozy. I steadied myself at the top, catching my breath for a moment as I gazed across the valley at the television tower on Mount Sutro. It’s a gangly War of the Worlds monstrosity, but sometimes—like that particular afternoon—the fog erases everything but the top three antennae, creating the ghostly effect of a galleon sailing above the clouds, the Castro’s own Flying Dutchman .
They’ve gone to the guy’s room, no doubt. Or maybe to Ben’s, if he rented one this time. The terrycloth has hit the deck by now, and somebody’s blowing somebody. Or maybe they’re even fucking already. Right. This. Very. Moment.
I began scooping handfuls of leaves out of the gutter. It’s a handsome gutter, as gutters go: copper beginning to show traces of green. I installed it ten years ago, right after Thack moved out, partly to reassert my dominion over the house. The downspouts were badly clogged with leaves last winter, inundating the terrace at one point and threatening to do the same to the house. This year I’d be ready for the rain.
When the gutters were clean, I climbed down from the ladder and returned it to the truck before raking the rotten leaves from the terrace. There was still space left in the green recycling bin, so I crammed in a few dead fronds from the tree fern at the end of the driveway. The rest of the garden looked okay, but I figured there were chores aplenty in the kitchen. Sure enough, the
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