I was a walking cliché that night: the Garbo of the over-forty crowd. I wanted to be alone. Not truly alone, just unattached amongst other people. I didn’t want to talk to any of them; I simply needed to know that I still existed, had a place in the world, was part of a community.

The club was a dive in old Hollywood. Had there been any kind of decent parking, it might have been popular and—who knows—in years past it may even have been so. But now, like so many old things in Hollywood, it was cast aside, forgotten, a place of little significance and even less relevance. The new gay millennium was built around mega-events, neon themes and circuit parties, and this club—sandwiched between a noodle shop and hotel of dubious room rates—was a railroad bar, long and thin. There was no dance floor to speak of and the stage was tiny. Here, though, impossibly buff go-go boys could show more than was legally allowed and were always more than happy to let you touch under their g-strings for a price just slightly more than most were willing to part with for the view. The music was droning, but punctuated with songs from a rock band that, according to the genial bartender, had gotten its start here a number of years ago. Innuendo. I’d never heard of them, but then again my exploration of the music world had shriveled away with my youth.

The place was murky, polluted with atrocious, spicy incense and full of smiling Buddhas of both the stone and the living variety: Gods and old white guys like me. Past their prime, with bellies slung over Gucci belts, they watched as pretty young Asian boys passed them over for a better Daddy, one who might last a year or more. Rice queens everywhere and that was fine. I wasn’t interested in any of them, the photocopies of me or their boys, as attractive as they were.

I didn’t have a thing for Asians. Oh, I’d dabbled once, with a lovely girl in Bangkok whom I’d befriended during a post-collegiate, lazy summer. But that was centuries ago, when I was still trying to corral my desires into the life I thought I was supposed to live. On the other side of the plate, I didn’t really find anything particularly appealing about the men of the East. This place was a just a refuge for me, the first place I could find where I could observe but not participate. A place that would make me feel as if I still mattered and a place I could drink the pain away, if even for one night.

Jesse had moved out two weeks ago. We’d been together for 24 years. He was the only man I’d ever loved; the only man I’d ever been with. I wish I knew why. I want to know why, but even Jesse couldn’t come up with anything more substantive than “a feeling that it’s time.” There was no other man to blame, he’d assured me of that, though I don’t know if I believe him. Or perhaps I needed there to be another man, someone else to blame. Otherwise, it meant that he just didn’t love me anymore, and that was unbearable.

My Jack rocks loved me, though. It treated me right, made me feel wanted as it burned down my throat.

“Can I get you another?” the bartender asked.

I looked up; the gray in my hair and the age of my eyes reflected in the mirror behind him. It was the face of my father. I’d seen that face before, countless times in the mirror at home, but until this night I’d never recognized him in me: the broken spirit, the resignation. They were the qualities that I’d always found depressing when he was alive, and the ones that had ultimately forced us apart. And now I understood, because I’d become him. How typical. I told you I was a walking cliché.

“Sure,” I said to the bartender. His name was Pat, he’d told me, and he was as thin as a stick. Sexy, if you liked that kind of guy. Before I let him take my glass, I sucked the last of the warmth from the bottom of it.

“I’ve never seen you here before,” said Pat as he provided a generous pour.

“No,” was all I said as I accepted the glass and turned my eyes to anywhere but the vicinity of his own. I’m sure he’d seen more than his share of sad sacks. He was a practiced barkeep. He knew to walk away.

That’s when I saw him. He sat across the bar, watching me. I tried to look away, but his face was so interesting—Oriental but mixed with something else. His nose was thinner than most of the boys in the bar, and his hair was just slightly darker than my own had been when I was his age, long before the snow had landed on the roof. But what struck me most were his eyes. Not the shape of them or the color—though they did seem more luminous than the requisite black of his people—but the look behind them. It was familiar, overflowing with an indefinable longing. They were almost a reflection of my own.

He smiled. Not broadly. It was that understanding smile, strained, pinched at the sides, as if it would shatter at any second. I looked away, stared deep into the caramel of my drink, the only companion I wanted.

“Hello,” he said, suddenly at my side. His voice was deep and strong for a boy of his age, retaining only a hint of an accent. “May I please sit here?”

“Sure,” I said, as curmudgeonly as possible. He accepted the invitation as sincere or merely ignored the tone, which I was never sure.

“Thank you.” He settled onto the ripped vinyl barstool.

We sat there for a few minutes, silently, each aware of the other’s presence. One of us not wanting to speak; the other not daring.

“You look sad.”

I turned and stared him down. I can be quite intimidating when I want, my glare having put many an opposing attorney in their place. My face said it all. Stay away. But he would not.

“Or is it lonely,” he asked.

He wasn’t conventionally pretty, his face more sharp angles than I expected of Asians, but there was something as warm as liquor about it. And his eyes were green. Not that bright, soulless hue so often seen in costume jewelry, but richly dark, like...like, I don’t know, the walls of a library in a home beyond your means. Soft. Kind. Inviting. I fought it, but I found myself drawn to them.

“It is O.K.,” he said, hitting the letters so hard I could hear the punctuation. “I understand. I am also sad and lonely. But you don’t have to talk.” He took a sip of whatever he was drinking. “We can be sad and lonely together.”

“Look, I appreciate it...”

“Kama,” he said quickly, almost hopefully. “My name is Kama.”

“I appreciate it, Kama. But I really want to be alone.”

“I don’t think so. Not really,” he said, smiling of knowing. “I thought I wanted to be alone as well, but here I am. And here you are. I think, we both want not to be alone.”

I sighed, rattled my glass to get Pat’s attention, and resigned myself to getting what I guess I really wanted, commiseration. “So, tell me Kama,” I asked, obligation surrendering oh so cautiously to relative kindness, “why are you sad and lonely?”

Yes, tell me, I thought, what could you, a boy of perhaps twenty, a boy with a whole lifetime of loves ahead of you, what could you possibly have to be sad about?

Kama looked into his drink, where all answers lie, and rolled the glass so that the ice cubes did their dance. “I think...I think I am trying to find someone and I haven’t,” he said, haltingly at first, but then his eyes met mine and they bored into me. “And I have been here a month and I don’t think I will find him. And then I must go home as I am almost out of money.”

And there it was. Who he was and what he was looking for were perfectly clear, remarkably predictable.

“I am not a Daddy,” I said, turning away and gulping down my drink.

“What?”

“Look, Kama, I’m sure you’re a swell guy but try your luck with someone else, okay?”

“I’m sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

I didn’t want to be nasty, but this guy was taking me for someone who just fell off the fucking turnip truck. That pissed me off. I am not some rube. No one plays me. No one except for Jesse.

“I am not desperate,” I said, keeping my voice from becoming a shout. “You’re very young, and very cute and I’m sure you’re a fantastic fuck, but I don’t need to pay to have a boyfriend.”

He slammed his glass down, a cube skittering out and across the bar. “I am not a prostitute!” When I wouldn’t look at him, he stood up, roughly pushing the stool away from the bar. “I am not a prostitute,” he repeated, firmly, as if he needed me to believe it. And then he walked away, returning to his lonely stool across the bar.

I could see the hurt in him even from across the room, the tears brimming in his eyes glistening in the dim light. Eyes not so different than my own.

God, I thought. When did I become such a hateful person, one of those who leave common decency behind because of the wounds inside? When had I forgotten that there were others in the world who mattered? I laughed to myself. When had I become such a lawyer?

“I’m sorry,” I said, as I slid onto the stool next to him. I put my hand on his, and he jerked it away from me. “I didn’t mean that, Kama. It’s just that I’m very sad and I’m very angry. I’m missing someone who meant a great deal to me.”

“And I am missing someone the same,” he said, angrily, his eyes staring at our reflections in the mirror. “But, I do not know him and he does not know me. And I am looking for him and because I cannot find him, I am lonely. I want to be with someone, a friend, a lover. I do not care. Just someone who can understand, if only for a while.”

And then he looked at me with those warm eyes and I did something I never expected. I kissed him.

I don’t know what made me do it. It just felt right, like it was what was needed for each of us. He shivered when I did it, pulled away, the look on his face not surprise, but something like...curiosity? Perhaps it was evaluation. Do I really want to be involved with this bitter old man?

Slowly he brought his hand to my cheek. His hands were those of a laborer, rough and aged beyond their years, and like a blind man, he studied my face, his fingers tracing slowly over sagging jowls, exploring every line my life had earned me. And then there was that moment, that exquisite, heartbeat of a moment, when the place and the time and the whys and wherefores spiral into the soft focus of insouciance. He leaned in and he kissed me.

It was soft and gentle that kiss; as sweet as any I’d ever gotten from Jesse. And when our lips came together again, 24 years seemed to fade just a little. I finally felt whole again. I knew that a part of me had been given back in those kisses. “That was nice,” I said when we broke. He still held my hand, but never did I feel that he was afraid to let go. I couldn’t help but feel young again, almost giddy.

“Why, me,” I had to ask.

“What do you mean?”

“I...how old are you? Twenty-two, twenty-three?”

“Twenty-six,” he replied, apparently unconcerned by the chasm between us.

“I’m almost double your age. What can you possibly see in me?”

The question seemed to puzzle him. Or perhaps it was the answer that caused his brow to furrow. His head cocked to the side as if waiting for an answer to be whispered in his ear. “I’m not sure,” he said, turning to examine my face. “I just saw you and needed to know you.”

“Needed?”

“You seemed...nice. Maybe a little lost. Like me. I knew you would understand. And you’re...” he searched for the word. “You’re hamsum.”

I laughed out loud. “Handsome,” I corrected. “Men are handsome.” It was a compliment seldom bestowed upon me, and one I was unwilling to shirk.

His brow furrowed again, in a charming way that made me smile. “Handsome,” he said. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small notebook and pencil. “Can you spell that for me?” I did so and he wrote it down and then declared with pride, “You are handsome.”

“And you are very handsome,” I returned. “And sweet.” We both smiled, forgetting the men in our lives that we were missing.

“I am living next door,” Kama said without embarrassment. “Come home with me?”

I don’t know what prompted me to accept. Perhaps I was as needy as those we’d left behind, those I’d condescended to, if not in word, then in thought. Perhaps Jesse’s departure had left me bereft of all common sense. Did I think this boy and I had a future together? No. I was not so naïve as to believe this was anything more than one night. Was I simply craving attention, any attention that made me feel attractive, wanted, more of what I had been than the less I had become in my lover’s absence? Possibly. I think, however, it was the sweetness, the honesty of this boy. He needed, but he was unwilling to look past another’s sorrows. Perhaps I saw in him a little bit of whom I had once been.

“Tell me who you are missing,” he said, as we walked hand in hand to his hotel. And I did so. Not the long stories of courtship and marriage, but the short of it, the abandonment, the emptiness. He nodded, held my hand tighter just when he needed to.

“So it all comes down to,” I said as he put the key in the lock of his door, “my boyfriend dumped me.”

“No, he said,” closing the door behind us. “You’re not missing your boyfriend. You are missing your husband,” he said, the weight of that word in his eyes.

“I am,” I said, surrendering every so briefly to malaise.

“It is hard when someone you love goes away and you don’t know why,” Kama said.

To think I had almost walked away from this remarkable boy, with his sweetness and sincerity. I took him in my arms, brushed an errant lock of hair from his eyes, and I kissed Kama in gratitude for what he knew, never thinking to question how he might know it. It didn’t matter.

As our kissing became more passionate and our hands roamed, he seemed not at all disappointed by a body gone lopsided with age. And he, he was beautiful, my boy Kama, with skin as pure as any I had seen and a touch that made my legs quiver. We held one another, our naked bodies pressed together as we swayed to the music playing in our heads. We could have been DaVinci studies, the two of us: a man of youth, a man of experience. But age didn’t matter. We were there for one another.

The room was plain, unadorned with accessories of a comfortable life, holding little more than a dilapidated dresser, an ancient television, and his suitcase, the clothes all neatly folded inside it. On the bedside table were the things that mattered most to this boy: a small Buddha, the remnants of prayers dusting its feet, and a small, framed photograph I couldn’t make out. As he led me to the bed, he turned the picture away out of modesty and lit a candle that painted the bare walls with beautiful light.

I kissed the firmness of his chest. He shivered. I tasted the brown of his nipples. His back arched. I explored the strength of his body with my tongue, traveling to all the secret, sweet places with an abandon that erased the years between us, and he sighed. I took him into my mouth, wanting nothing more than to make him feel all that he could. He held onto my hand. I could feel the loneliness in him drift away, if only for a night, and that made me feel more than I ever thought it could.

He returned the favors, kissing my body, tenderly at first and then passionately. Jesse faded away. He took me into his mouth. I felt a passion I had long since forgotten. I lifted my hips higher, thrusting deeper, wanting us to be a part of one another at that moment.

We were irresponsible, but we didn’t care. The trust was implicit and he entered me with ease and affection. He felt so right inside me, each thrust making him more a part of me, that the world outside with all its cares and fears and needs just didn’t matter anymore. And when we finished, we lay there, his cock still inside me, and felt such contentment and peace. We could have stayed like that forever and it would have been all right with me.

“Kama,” I said, whispering as light flickered on the ceiling. “You never told me about the someone you are missing.”

He stroked my arm, kissed my ear. “It isn’t important, now,” he said.

I turned to face him, sad that we were no longer a part of one another but needing to know this man, his pain. He had listened to mine and I deeply wanted to know his. I knew I could never erase it, but I wanted him to know that it mattered to someone else in the world. “It is important,” I said.

“I...” he faltered, the contented smile falling from his face. “No, you will think less of us if I tell you.”

“I won’t, I swear.”

“I came here from Thailand, looking for the man that was my father.”

I knew what he had meant with his caution...that our lovemaking was merely a stand-in for an absent father. But I never took it that way. Instead, my heart broke for him. Here I had been sniveling about a man I had known and loved for 24 years, and he was seeking one he had loved for just as long, yet never even known. I wanted desperately to make things right for him, the way he had for me, but all I could manage were the most pathetic of words: “I’m so sorry.”

He became lost in the mist of memory, his eyes focusing on the past as if it lay plastered against the ceiling above us. “My mother loved him and so she gave herself to him,” he said wistfully. “They were friends...onetime lovers.”

“And then he left her,” I asked as gently as I could. He nodded his head. “Did he know about you?”

“She wrote him many letters. Most of them came back, but she never forgot him, what they had shared. And when I was born, she named me Kama, for their love.”

“She sent you here to find him?”

“No.” He turned to me, and the tear slipping from his eye told me all I needed to know.

“It’s hard,” I said holding him tightly, “when someone you love goes away and you don’t know why.”

“She said he was a strong man, a good man,” he said with rancor. “I think she did not know him at all.”

“No,” I soothed. “No, if she loved him, he must have been those things at one time.”

He nodded hesitantly, needing to believe that this man, his father, was good at heart. “When I got here, I didn’t know where to start,” he said, “I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles, but they will not give me any information. I read every phone book I can find. I go to bars and I stand in front of office towers, just watching the people come and go, hoping one of them would match the photo I have, following those who seemed close to being him. Seeing their happy families.”

“So, you have a picture? A name?”

“Yes, my mother told me of him before she died. She gave me the only photo she’d ever had to remember him by.”

“Listen, Kama,” I said, invigorated by the possibility of being needed again. “I’m a lawyer. I can help you. I can help you find this man. I have access to legal databases that can lead us right to him.”

His face brightened and he caressed my face. “You will help me?”

“Of course, I will help you,” I said, sitting up and pulling him along with me.

I suddenly had a purpose again, a reason for being, a noble use for my repugnantly expensive education. Something beyond Jesse, beyond our coupledom. “Can I see the picture?”

From the nightstand, he retrieved the photograph in its cheap silver frame. It was worn and faded by the loving touch of a boy, but a beautiful Thai woman and her lover were still as clear as the day in which they stood. The man was tall and handsome, in the cocky way most young men were in that day and age, with wavy, brown hair and eyes as green as the sea behind them. They were familiar eyes.

My breath caught in my throat, my heart seemed to nearly stop beating. “What,” I asked cautiously, “is you father’s name?”

“Edward,” he said, his eyes never leaving my own.

I felt my face blanche and my skin grow bitter cold. I stood up. My legs shook and my throat grew dry.

“Are you, O.K.,” Kama asked, clearly alarmed by my appearance.

“Yeah,” I said, feigning indifference. “I just have to use the restroom,” I said, as I gathered my clothes and escaped to the bath.

I quietly closed the door, steadied myself against it for a moment, and then made my way to the john. I fell to the floor, pressed my back against the cooling porcelain of the bath and examined the picture closely, though there was really no need to do so. I sat there, my body shaking until all that we had done together—every kiss, every touch, every thrust—welled in my stomach and forced its way out, ruining the tile, traveling across highways of grout.

And when I was through, I looked at the photo again, at the eyes so like those of my father as they gazed upon a woman I had nearly forgotten. I remembered the day, the warmth of the sun on my face, the breeze blowing in the salty air, the touch of her hand in mine, the exotic silk of her skin. And yet, I could not remember her name.

Oh my God. What have I done?

I fumbled for my pants, rifling through the pockets in a blind panic until I found my cell phone. My fingers trembled as I pressed out the numbers.

Hello, his hearty, melodic voice said.

“Jesse, thank god...”

Ha, ha...I fooled you. I’m not home right now, so leave your name, number and any other vital statistics that might be of interest at the sound of the tone and I’ll get back to ya.

“Jess, are you there,” I whispered, hoping Kama didn’t have his ear pressed to the door. “If you’re there, please pick up....Jesse, please pick up. I’m in trouble and I don’t know what to do!”

There was nothing but silence. I was truly alone, wondering how to fix what was unfixable. And then I remembered who I was, what I was, and like every time when I found a puzzle unsolvable, steely determination took over.

Kama can never find his father, I thought. That is the bottom line. How do we get to the bottom line?

A myriad of possibilities ran through my mind: If luck is going my way, he’ll have fallen asleep by now and I can slip away, disappear from his life forever. I pressed my ear to the door, but heard nothing.

I can reiterate my desire to help. Give him a false phone number, fake address. A tinge of guilt pervaded me at the thought, but it was just a pang. I quickly brushed it aside.

I can do exactly what I told him I would do, I thought as I put my clothes back on. I can help him, let him watch as I search LexisNexis and social security records for his father. Run my own name through databases, all the while making little mistakes to rule myself out. How much can he possibly know about these things?

All of them were viable, I’d decided as I buttoned up my shirt. The moment waiting for me outside that door, however, would be the deciding factor. Could I walk away, seeing that face, knowing who the boy was? Could I lie to him, my own flesh and blood? I looked at myself in the mirror, my game-face on, and I knew I could. I’m a lawyer. I do what needs to be done to win.

I reached for the door, took a deep breath, and opened it as confidently as if I were entering a judge’s chambers.

Not even a whiff of the extinguished candle remained in the air when I entered. The Buddha no longer sat on the nightstand, the suitcase was gone, and the bed had been made. I looked around a moment, expecting Kama to surprise me, jump out from behind the door, but he never did. As I stood there, stunned, I noted for the first time, the little package sitting on the bed. I went over, picked it up.

Letters. There were dozens of letters, all addressed to me in a tentative script. On a few was the handwriting of my youth: Return To Sender. Addressee Moved. Most of them were simply stamped Undeliverable, having been written after I’d moved away from the address she had for me.

And nestled in between each of the letters his mother had written me were photographs.

Kama and his friends, bare-chested and grinning, on the prow of some boat on the Chao Praya.

His mother, face worn by hard years, hair brittle and thin, sitting on the porch of what must have been their modest home.

Kama, arms draped around his ailing mother’s shoulders. There was no smile upon his face, but she...she wore a thin smile.

Tears filled my eyes for what I had done. I swiped at them, and then continued on.

Me, coming out of my office building in Century City.

Me going into the Canyon Store.

Me filling up the Mercedes.

Jesse and me shopping on Melrose.

Jesse and me gardening in the front yard.

Jesse walking the dog.

Jesse getting the mail.

I sat on the bed, my legs feeling weak again, my heart skipping beats.

Jesse dancing in a club.

Jesse at a café.

Jesse grinning like a fool, his arms draped around...

Kama.

 

© 2006 Paul G. Bens, Jr. - Contributor's Bio