Nightswimmer Read Free Page B

pegged you for one of those really cute but ultimately boring out-of-town boys, ones who have come to the city to reinvent themselves, who can’t stop reveling in all the heathen pleasures: late-night discos, jack-off clubs, designer drugs. Had you learned to commit all the sins of the eye? Perhaps you were just shy—I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt—not the sort of man to effuse conversation.
    Suddenly the phone rang and Peter grinned maniacally over his shoulder as he went to answer it. Overhearing his frantic chatter, I knew he was speaking to Sebastian, the pompadour. You were now sitting slightly hunched over, staring rhapsodically into the cut crystal glass of good Scotch. Slowly, however, you shifted your vulpine gaze and caught mine. And I think that must’ve been the first time I ever saw you straight on. I was singed by that split-second glance before you looked away.
    “Were you at the Morning Party?” you said.
    Suddenly nervous about meeting that eerie gaze again, I was barely able to explain that I’d decided not to go, that I have difficulty with crowds. What was wrong with me? I now ventured to look at you, and this time your stare forcibly struck. Then I knew who you were. I knew why you’d changed your mind. I knew why you had to come back.
    “Is he heading over now?” I asked when Peter returned from his telephone call.
    “I explained that the two of you were here and told him I’d call back later.”
    “You sure he’s not going to just show up like he did last time?”
    “Why should he? He doesn’t like you.”
    “And who could blame him?” I laughed.
    “He thinks Will is keeping us apart,” Peter explained to you.
    “Certainly it’s easier for him than facing the fact that Peter is keeping the two of them apart,” I quipped. Turning to Peter, I said something like “I don’t know why you put yourself through all of this nonsense. Either marry him or move on,” when behind me you said, “Leave him alone, Will!”
    I spun back around, but was paralyzed by your dimpled, mischievous grin. And by something else, too; something that you gave off—a loaded calm. A midwinter feeling, like standing in a pine forest, watching the snowflakes fall, hearing their soundless bedlam.
    “Part of the reason why Sebastian wants to come over is that we were supposed to meet out on the Island,” Peter went on, “but he could never get there. Apparently, all the trains got screwed up.”
    “That’s because somebody jumped in front of one of them.”
    Then I explained how I’d come by the news.
    I distinctly remember that you looked perturbed for a moment and then the placid look resurfaced. Suddenly you were standing. “Well, guys, got to go.”
    “Me too,” I chimed in, standing also. Peter cast me a baffled glance and I claimed that I was tired.
    Finally alone as we stood together in front of Peter’s building, you and I were making up our minds. It’s amazing to think how the outcome of a single conversation can break open a whole new territory.
    “So which way are you headed?” you said.
    “I can head your way.”
    “Come on, then.”
    And somehow I knew that fourteen stories above us, Peter was watching to see if I’d accompany you. At one point, halfway down the block, I even swerved to look back; and Peter saw that, too, the guilty gesture, the futile wish to cover my tracks. Later on, Peter would tell me that that image of me walking away with you, then swiveling around in a moment of hesitation, would be the one summer memory that would stay with him. Not the rooftop barbecues on Twenty-third Street, not the pickups at Splash and Fire Island, not even the Morning Party. No, the remembrance of two dark figures walking away, and then one turning around like Lot’s wife looking back at the cities of the plain.

THREE
    W E WERE STROLLING WEST toward your neighborhood of crooked brownstones with chipping paint and quiet, in some cases neglected, gardens. We were