"Life Drawing" by Michael Grumley

This is how it feels like falling with someone.

Enjoy reading this excerpt from "Life Drawing" by Michael Grumley from Men on Men Best New Gay Fiction, edited by George Stambolian.

We slept next to the boiler that night, and nothing we said could be heard over its clanking, the repeated stanzas of iron grating against iron. I woke up once and saw James watching me—we weren't very far apart, one bunk space between us. He offered me a drink from a little silver flask he carried in his jacket, and I took it from him just so I could touch his skin. I couldn't go back to sleep then; we both were half-sitting up, with the early morning light slipping in, and as long as he was looking at me I was looking at him—like we were both laughing, but neither of us was even smiling. The boiler chugged on, leaving no room for words; I sat up all the way and leaned across to him to hand back the flask. He took it, and kept hold of my hand with it, and the current ran through both of us until we bounced toward each other, and that was that.

Choice

John Fox's "Choice" in Men on Men, a short story collection edited by George Stambolian, is one insightful story. Jimmy Arbooz, the main character, is gay, and the story focuses on the tension between him and his mother, Flo Arbooz. Jimmy and Flo do not give in to a messy confrontation at the end, but they are left (as well as the readers) with feelings of alienation and contempt.

Here is the part where Jimmy and Flo are having dinner together. I can see myself in the character because I feel like his experience is my very own, too. So, read on!

Choice
by John Fox
excerpt

They rehashed Barbara's divorce and her now-canceled second marriage plans. She told him about who on the block dropped dead and who got engaged and who's moving to Maryland and who had a second child but shouldn't have because they seem so unhappy. Jimmy inhaled cigarettes deeply and exhaled a lot of smoke expressively while he listened to some of what she said. His mother should know by now that he doesn't want his ear bent with this stuff when they go out, and he often suspects from her flat tone that she no longer cares about neighborhood gossip anyway, but the only aspect of his life either of them feels comfortable discussing with the other is his job, so she often has to hold up his end of the conversation once they've exhausted the details of Barbara's life. He smokes cigarettes in restaurants with her but never at his parents' house nor his sister's. He never addresses her (Mom, Ma, Mommy) when they're in public together. He sees no resemblance between them - he is hawk-faced like his father, she is all mouth and jaw - and he sometimes hopes people think he's a gigolo.

A minute later he had turned her out completely and the following speech was batting against the backs of his teeth: You expect me to have charitable feelings and get all involved in conversations about divorces and cancelled marriages and babies but my life is a total blank to you and Daddy. I've been through worse than her but you don't want to hear about it - the thought of it is too disgusting. I broke up with a man I lived with for four years, twice as long as her marriage, but it's unmentionable, the breakup, the whole relationship. For all I know I could have AIDS. I could be dead in year.

To the one who thought she lost me

Sunset

Sarah and I sat on a bed of dead elkhorn corals at the farthest end of the island. Josh, Sarah’s boyfriend, was watching her put sunblock on herself. When she was about to put some on her back, Josh offered to do it for her.

“No thanks, sweetie,” she said.

Sarah used to call me sweetie, too, when we were still living together in my apartment. Our college friends, even Josh, used to think that I was her boyfriend. Everyone who had seen Sarah hug me and kiss me on the cheek every time we saw each other in the campus thought she had special feelings for me. That could be true at some point, but she knew, I assumed, that I didn’t prefer girls. She was just silent about it, I suppose, just as she was when I braided her hair back when we were still trainees of the student military corps in third year high school.

On the first day of our training, we went to school early to fix ourselves in our classroom. Sarah knew I couldn’t fix my tie on my own, so she did it for me. I was about to leave her alone to give her time to fix her hair, but when I saw her try in front of her mirror to get her hair done, I thought she needed help. I stood behind her and began braiding her hair. She just watched me in her mirror until I finished. Back then, her silence did not really mean anything to me — she didn’t seem to care about what I did at all. Her calling me sweetie in front of our friends meant nothing, too. She was just friendly.

Sarah massaged her shoulders. She didn’t seem aware that Josh was watching her very intently; they didn’t seem to care that I was staring at both of them. Josh asked her again if she wanted his help, but she refused for the second time.
“I’m hungry,” Sarah said, looking at Josh finally.
“You know we only brought our snorkels, sunblock, and this tarp,” I said to her.
“No worries,” Sarah said, smiling at Josh. “Sweetie, can you go back to our tents to get some food?”
“What do you guys want?” He wiped his sweat off with his shirt.
“Why don’t we just all go back?” I said.
“And walk for another twenty minutes? We just got here!”
“Okay, you can stay here. Josh and I will go.”
Josh looked from his girlfriend to me. He had carried all of what we brought on our way to the shore, without paying much attention to me and Sarah. He seemed not to look at us, even when Sarah wrapped her arms around me. At that moment, I didn’t want him to have bad thoughts about me and Sarah because the last time that he had those thoughts about us, he was at my apartment.

It was their third anniversary. He banged on my door and as soon as I opened it, he grabbed my neck and pushed me to the sofa. His breath reeked of alcohol. He shouted curses at me, telling me to stay away from Sarah. He bit my lower lip, hard. I could taste both the gin and the blood. He was about to rip off my shirt when I pushed him away, knocking him down. I had to treat the wound on my lip first before I called Sarah.

“You’re leaving me alone?” Sarah asked me, watching me slip on my sandals.
“Josh, can stay with you.”
“Stay with her,” I said to Josh.
He didn’t move. He glanced at his girlfriend who threw a broken shell to the water.
“What do you want to eat?” Josh asked.
“Cornick.” It was her favorite snack.
“We only have chips,” he said.
“It’s in one of my bags,” I said to her. “That’s why I should go.”
She picked up another broken shell and hurled it to the water.
Josh asked me which bag it was and then left at once. I watched him leave and thought he was hardly the high school bully I used to know.

When everyone had found out that I did Sarah’s braids, Josh was one of those who called me “The Hairstylist.” He had a friend who was an officer of the student corps, and every morning when I got to school, that officer punished me for reasons like I ran like a woman in high heels, my voice was pitchy, my salute was feeble, or my stance was too weak. I took in all the insults and punishments, except when he tried to get to Sarah.
I was getting my things from my locker when I heard him say, “Do you think there’s a chance that you can take me to the girls’ bathroom like what you did to your hairstylist friend?”
Sarah ignored him, but Josh kept on.
He said, “Your friend is not good for you! You’re so stupid not to see that!”
I dropped my books on the floor and went for him. I pulled his collar from the back and punched him on the side. His curses were heard through the entire corridor. I would have kicked him between his legs, but his fist landed on my face first. I was down on the floor with him on top of me. He grabbed my uniform and hit me on the nose. Students stood around us. He was preparing for another blow when I saw a hand grab Josh and took him away. Someone helped me and brought me to the clinic.

When Josh left to get food, I went back to Sarah. She opened her bottle of sunblock and gave it to me. She asked if I could give her a rub. I only stared at her.
“Please,” she said.
She sprawled beside me and asked me to untie her bra. When I did what she said, I poured some of the sticky liquid on her back and let my hands knead her skin. I wished Josh wouldn’t see this. But Sarah is still my best friend, I thought. She hadn’t seen me much since she left our apartment to live with Josh.
When Josh came back, I knew he saw me tie the knot of Sarah’s bra and give her back the sunblock. He kept his eyes down. He tossed the pack of cornick to Sarah, and she tore it open and started eating. Josh opened the bag of chips and offered it to her. She shook her head no. Josh put the chips down and opened his handy thermos and gulped its contents. No one spoke until he took his snorkel and dived into the water. He asked if I wanted to go with him to see the corals and the fish.
“There are many rocks in this part of the sea. We have to wear life vests to keep afloat,” I told Josh.
“It looks pretty safe to me,” he said.
“Yes, from here. But if we swim farther, the waves could take us to…”
“Admit it. You’re just afraid,” he said again.
“I’m not. The water in this part is…”
Josh started to swim away.
“Can you please talk to Josh? It’s dangerous,” I told Sarah.
“Don’t worry. He can take care of himself,” she said.
“We have to follow him.”
“Believe me. He can take care of himself. Just stay here with me,” she said.
She scooped a handful of cornick and ate. She talked about the boys she had dated during our third year in high school. She mentioned my seatmate who wrote letters for her. Back then she made me read those letters, which were mostly words of admiration about how she looked. She replied through me. She dictated what she wanted to say, and I had to write them down for her. She always made sure that I would start the letter with “Dear Sweetie.” She made me her messenger for weeks. Then, she talked about the student who transferred to our school in the middle of the school year. She used to kiss him on the cheek in front of me.

As I listened, I realized that she hadn’t changed a bit.

Sarah had left out some details in her stories. My seatmate, to whom I wrote Sarah’s replies, had scribbled insults on my armrest and I told her about it. The transferee whom she always kissed in front of me had threatened me once to let him copy my assignment. I told Sarah that the boy cornered me at the bathroom and tried to force his lips on mine, but she didn’t believe me. She never talked about our training when an officer found out that I had braided her hair. She only watched from afar with the other trainees as I did my push-ups. She never sat with me again during lunch like she used to. Most of all, she never talked about the day when Josh and I fought. I wished she was there to help me get to the clinic, but she didn’t even come to the clinic after her classes to check me out. She only went to our house later that evening to tell me that the bully’s name was Josh and that he was her suitor at that time. I wish Sarah told our stories as they really were. I wonder what her reaction would be once she learns that Josh forced himself on me the night of their third anniversary. I didn’t tell her about it when she came to my apartment to pick him up.

We were back at our campsite before lunch. I lifted the pan off the grill and started to fill their plates with pasta.
“You made my favorite!” Sarah said. “This looks a lot better than what I order in the restaurant,” she said. Josh’s attention was on his food. He looked as if he hadn’t heard what Sarah had just said.
“Sarah, don’t fool me,” I said, as I worked on the crabs. “Josh has taken you to the finest seafood restaurants in Manila. You must hate my seafood pasta now.”
“You should know better,” Josh said to me. “Your best friend here, every time I take her to a seafood restaurant to celebrate our anniversary, she always orders the same thing: seafood pasta and grilled crabs. She would even tell the waiter to put only lobsters and shrimps on the pasta and not so much lemon on the crab, the way you used to cook them for her.”
Soon after Josh finished the food on his plate, he left the table and went to the shore.

I was at the water pump washing the dishes and pans. Josh was under the shade of a coconut tree with his thermos in one hand, and Sarah was on the hammock by herself, swinging it on her own. They looked good together, I thought.
When Sarah moved out of my apartment and found her own, we didn’t lose communication. She would talk to me over the phone every night about how great boyfriend Josh was. I would stay up until the next morning listening to her stories. One of her stories was about when Josh took her to a floating restaurant. He reserved the whole place for her and had an ensemble play her favorite songs all night. Everything was perfect, except for one thing. She did not find the grilled crab on the menu and her seafood pasta did not have lobster meat and shrimp.
“I am upset,” she said. “Josh thinks it’s because of him.”
I told her to tell Josh about it, but she only said she’d think about it. She said, “I think I want to get serious now with him.”
Before I said goodbye, I told her, “Happy third anniversary to you and Josh.”

I was arranging the things on the picnic table when Sarah screamed for help from the hammock. She was pointing at Josh who was at sea. Then, he disappeared from sight. I raced past Sarah to the shore and swam to where I saw him sink.
I took a couple of deep breaths and dived in. I could see the sunlight pierce through the water’s surface; the rays made the rocks underwater visible. There were dead striped-green sea snakes around. I panicked; I twisted and turned, hoping to see Josh. I found him lying beside a fiery red brain coral. I could see he had a cut on the forehead. I pulled him close and felt the back of his head. I was relieved that he didn’t seem to have more wounds. I held him tightly as I swam to the surface. I kept his head up above the water as I went for the shore.
Sarah helped me carry Josh to the dry part of the shore. She put her hand over Josh’s wound to stop the bleeding. I straightened up his legs and his arms and checked for a pulse. My hand close his nostrils and I blew in to his pale mouth. A faint tang of liquor was left on it. I pumped his chest. Nothing happened. I held his nose again. My mouth was about to go for another blow when his body jerked. Water spurted from his mouth and nose. I raised my head immediately when he coughed out water. Sarah’s hand rubbed his back. Her cheeks were already dry.

Josh was asleep in our tent. Sarah went in there a few minutes ago to check up on him. When she came back to the shore, I signaled her to be quiet. We watched a sea turtle pad toward the shade. As it started digging for its nest, we could see some sand being gently thrown back.
“Is it alone?”
I nodded.
“Are their kind always alone?”
“Most of the time.”
“Maybe she’ll get lucky to see one of her friends tonight.”
“I hope so,” I said.

The sea had receded. We could now see the rocks that were under it. Seaweeds were scattered on the shore; there were broken seashells too. Sarah threw a shell to the sea. I looked at the shells beside me and picked one that was neither broken nor chipped. I gave it to Sarah.
“Keep it this time.” I told her.
She rested her head on my shoulder as we watched the sun set.

Intimacy and Independence

Intimacy is key in a world of connection where individuals negotiate complex networks of friendship, minimize differences, try to reach concensus, and avoid the appearance of superiority, which would highlight differences. In a world of status, independence is key, because a primary means of establishing status is to tell others what to do, and taking orders is a marker of low status. Though all humans need both intimacy and independence, women tend to focus on the first and men on the second. It is as if their lifeblood ran in different directions.





- from You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation by Deborah Tannen, Ph.D.