MIDNIGHT BUTTERFLIES

            Here in Tucson, the weather seldom gets truly cold as cold as in, oh, say, Boston. But if your blood’s been thinned by enough summers of 104 degree temperatures, even just freezing is . . . well, freezing. Tonight, my ears feel brittle enough to snap off. My nose is runny, and as I amble down the sidewalk at what must be close to midnight, the cold makes my chest ache whenever I draw breath.

            I came downtown tonight for the opening of a new play. It was a good production for a store-front theater, and I enjoyed the evening. But now, as I make my way back to the lot where I parked my car, I pass the alley beside Rampulian’s restaurant. Back there, deep in the shadows, I hear hoots of laughter and a dull thwack like a baseball bat hitting flesh. I peer into the darkness toward the sounds.    

            Some young hooligans are dancing around the restaurant’s dumpster, waving their arms and stomping their feet. When it dawns on me that they’re beating up someone, what do I do? I yell and start running toward them, that's what. Stupid, no?

            But these are just Anglo high school kids off their turf; it’s late on a Saturday night, and some lunatic is charging down the alley at them, yelling. My ice-hockey physique tends to intimidate people, and even though that can strain close relationships, I’ve learned over the years to take any advantage of the fact I can. When I wade into the punks and fling off a couple, all five or six snap and bolt, hightailing it, cursing me and flipping me the finger.

            I look down at their victim, expecting the lump on the ground to be a wino, but when I crouch beside him to see how bad the damage is, he turns out to be a young guy, though at first glance he looks old-man enough. He’s huddled on the brick pavement, his arms and legs drawn in, his body odor thick and heavy. A red trickle leaks out of a split in his lower lip. A bruise high on his cheekbone shades toward a shiner; when I touch the dark spot, he flinches and sucks in his breath sharply. I apologize and ask if it feels like anything’s broken anywhere.

            He shakes his head.

            I ask if he can stand up. If he can walk.

            He nods. A corner of his mouth turns up in a lop-sided, goofy grin. Though cracked lips, he says, “Thanks, man. They were killing me.” His Southern drawl is thick.

            I tell him to hang on to me, that I’ll get him to a hospital.

            But he shakes his head. “No, man. No hospital. A hospital killed my dad.”

            What if he has a broken rib or worse?

            Still he shakes his head.

            If he were drunk, I would drop him and walk away, but his eyes are clear and focused. His breath stinks, but not with wine. “Pain and me are old friends,” he says. “It lets me know I’m alive. If the hurt ever stops, then I’ll know I’m really in trouble.”

            I shrug. Whatever.

            I drape his arm around my neck and ease him to his feet. The thought flits through my head that he’d look nice enough if not for the stubble, foul breath, and dirt. Get rid of the grizzle on his chin, trim his mustache, wash and comb his hair, brush his teeth, and he might even be cute. Stray pups always tug at my heart, and with a mental shrug, I decide I may as well try. Food first, I think. Then a bath. Then who knows?     

            I start to lead the kid out of the alley, but he says, “Wait a minute, okay?” He points at a pile of rags in the back doorway of Fred’s Exercise Equipment store across the ally from the restaurant. From under a tattered sleeping bag, he pulls a guitar. Its veneer is worn and peeling, a couple of frets don’t match, but the neck seems fairly true, and the instrument as a whole looks salvageable.

            We stumble around to the front door of Rampulian’s, still open for the theater crowds and other downtown denizens. Inside, the place feels hot as a sauna. My pal Magritte is hostess tonight. When she sees the kid, she blanches and asks, “What happened, Mike? You need an ambulance?”

            I tell her that’s not necessary, but we would like to eat if she doesn’t mind.

            She leads us to my usual table by the north window where she sits the kid in a chair and leans over him. The bell above the door rings again, and she glances up at the people standing there in evening clothes, watching us, looking as if they might reconsider their choice for late night fare. “Sorry,” she says to me. “I’ve got to go.”

            I nod, and as she maneuvers her way across the room, I take the jonquils out of the vase sitting at the edge of our table. I dip my napkin in the water and touch off the blood at the side of the kid’s mouth.     

            A waiter comes over, a new one with a dubious look on his face. I order plain fare; maybe next time we’ll have Magritte’s killer chili con carne -- right now, though, the kid gets poached egg on toast, boiled potatoes, and water. The waiter turns away and draws a deep breath as he leaves.

            The kid holds out his hand to me. “My name’s Pony.” Each fingernail is packed with dirt.

            I tell him my name is Richard, but that everyone calls me Mike. I shake his gritty hand.

            He says he’s just gotten into town. We talk about different parts of the country, and the different receptions a person can expect. When the food comes, the kid hesitates. He looks at the waiter. Then at me. Then at the plate. Then at me again. A quirk twists his mouth. He asks, “What do you want for this?”

            I assure him I want nothing he doesn’t want to give.

            The kid still dithers. He looks at the waiter the same way he looks at everybody: as if wanting to be told what to do. The waiter asks, “Anything else?”     

            I shake my head, and he walks away. The kid picks up his fork and toys with it. He takes a tiny bite of egg, then starts scooping in the rest like a steam shovel in a kid’s cartoon. After he finishes the egg and potatoes, he throws back his head and pours his water down his throat, draining the whole glassful, his Adam’s apple bobbing. I ask if he wants more.

            He grins that goofy grin and nods.

            I order him pasta with white sauce. It comes. He eats. The waiter asks the kid if he wants dessert. When I tell him no, he leaves muttering. The kid says to me, “I wish I had some way to show you how much I appreciate this.” The gleam in his eye and the smirk on his lips tell me he knows exactly what I’m thinking.

            I nod at his guitar and ask if it isn’t a Martin.

            “Not many people recognize it,” he says. Despite his thin frame, his voice is rich, a dark baritone like my father’s.

            I tell him I learned to play on my dad’s Martin, but it’s been years since I’ve strummed one. I suggest we try a few licks together at my place.

            He looks me up. He looks me down. Then he hits me with that grin again. “Sure,” he agrees.

            So I take him home. His reek fills my car. As we head up into the foothills, I roll all the windows down all the way. At my house, he stands on the threshold, looking unsure. I smile and step aside, holding the door open for him. As he walks past me, I tell him the guest bath is upstairs, first door on the right, and that if he’d like to clean up, he should feel free to use the shower. He nods, and that grin sizzles.     

            While he’s in the bathroom, I tidy up the room, dim the lights, and put soft jazz on the player. In the kitchen, I slice and set cheese on a platter. I select a red wine. Back in the living room, I fluff pillows on the sofa, then at a sound on the stairs, I turn and watch him trot down the steps. He looks clean, though bruised in a couple of places. His cheek doesn’t look as banged up as I thought. The stubble on his chin is gone; his hair hangs long and thick. He still has on his dirty fatigues and shirt, but around him wafts the forest-scent of my aftershave.

            Over a glass of wine, he tells me he’s passing through Tucson, heading from Vermont to California. He keeps me laughing with his stories of cross-country road travel. We finish the wine. The silence grows. At last, I steel myself and say that if he wants to see my guitar, it’s in the bedroom. As we walk down the hallway, Pony runs his fingers along the unfinished Mexican brick.

            At the door of the bedroom, he stops and gaps. “I’ve never seen a bed that big,” he says.

            I ask if he feels up to giving it a try.     

            He falls backward on the cover spread-eagle. I sit beside him and rub the inside of his thigh. My mouth feels as if it’s packed with flour. He kneads my upper arm, and I flex my muscle. He grins. I unbutton his shirt and push it away from his thin torso. Curly hair spreads in a dense mat across his chest. On a chain around his neck hangs a gold cross. I finger it. He says, “From Mom.”

            I arch one eyebrow. Yeah. Right. Mom.

            “No,” he protests. “No, really, man. How can you doubt my mother?”

            I tell him I don’t usually get mixed up with younger men.

            “How old do you think I am?” He props his head on his palm, and peers at me. His irises shine a startling blue.

            I study his face: Eighteen. A lie, but I want to flatter him.

            “I’m twenty-two.” He sounds boastful, as if the credit should be his alone. He fingers his moustache smugly, as if to establish credentials.

            Something I don’t tell him is that in Marrakech, I was once seduced by a boy half that age and every bit as beautiful who afterwards pulled a knife on me and took every dirham I had.

            “How old are you?” he asks.

            I tell him that I’m the same age my mother was when I was born, and twice as young as she was when she died a couple of months ago.

            He frowns. “I hate riddles. Just tell me how old you are or tell me to fuck off.”

            Forty.     

            He stretches out again, speaking to the ceiling. “And you think that’s old?”

            I shake my head. No. It isn’t.

            “You’re right.” He nods. “It’s not that old.” He raises himself, bends toward me, and kisses my forehead. It’s a gesture I dislike, reminding me of the kiss one might give an uncle. When the boy leans back, though, a frown has settled onto his face.

            I ask why.     

            “I grew up in a small town in Arkansas,” he says. His accent grows stronger once he owns up to that fact. “Our front yard was as big as a field and covered with clover. When I was little,” he goes on, “my dad showed me a trick. He scooped up a bumblebee. Snatch! And he had it in his fist. He let me listen to it buzz.” He holds his closed hand to his ear as if he can hear something inside it. “Then he told me the secret of catching bees barehanded. ‘Look for the ones with the white dot on their face,’ he said. ‘Like this.’ He opened his hand and showed me the bee in his palm. It had a big spot of white on its head. ‘They don’t have stingers.’ He shook his hand, and the bee flew off.” Pony opens his hand and watches the memory-bee fly away. “Of course,” he says, “I started hunting right away, but the first bee I grabbed, stung the shit out of me. I screamed and threw it as far as I could. Dad laughed and laughed. It took me a long time to realize he hadn’t done it to me on purpose, that it was my own fault. I just hadn’t really looked to see whether or not the bee I was after had a white spot. Now I look close before I grab anything.”

            I nod. Smart.

            “So,” he says. “Before we go any further, I want to know about your money.”

            Money?

            “Come on. A place like this in this part of town. You must be loaded. I don’t want to get mixed up with a pusher or scam artist or anything.”

            I tell him not to worry; it isn’t anything like that. I won’t tell him what it is, though. He has to trust me. Not every mystery in life gets explained.

            The truth I shy away from telling him is that I have an annuity set up by my grandfather. I’m embarrassed by it because he made his fortune by supplying the U.S. Army with rations during the war in Vietnam. It would have been bad enough if he had sold arms or munitions, napalm or land mines, but that way at least I would have had something to protest. How can you criticize a guy for selling beans to hungry men?

            Pony’s nod and curt grin seal the compact between us, and I pull him toward me by the curly hairs of his chest.     

            The next day I take him shopping and buy him a haircut, shirts, slacks, and Italian shoes. That weekend we go to a production of Shakespeare’s Henry IV at the Community Center. Pony jokes about Henry’s I. V.

            I buy him new strings and have his guitar refurbished and tuned, and one night we drive out into the frosty desert where we play duets by the light of the stars, serenading the giant saguaros with their halos of thorn. Even the coyotes stop yodeling to listen.

            One night at a fund-raiser for one of the local AIDS groups, I introduce Pony to Philip, a friend half again as old as me with twice as much money and a quarter the brains. Phil pokes Pony in the ribs and says, “What a scrumptious child.”

            Pony titters. I look the other way and try to unclench my jaw.

            At the gym, I introduce the boy to my personal trainer. Hugh pinches his arm. “It’ll take half a year or so,” Hugh says, “but we’ll get this young thing thickened up and looking good.”

            Later, Pony and I stand in front of the gym’s pool, and he lets out a long whistle. “Man, this is sweet. I’ve never seen a pool like this.”

            To me it seems like just a pool.      

            “I swam on my high school team,” he tells me. “I practically lived in the water. I was butterfly champion of the state.” He has no swimsuit now, though, so the next day we set out to get him one. At Franklin’s Men's Store, I buy him a bright floral square cut, a lime-green fishnet tank top, and a pair of canvas espadrilles. Through the rest of the soft desert winter we glide in warm water.

*

            One day in early spring, a woman I’ve known as long as I’ve been in town, calls me. Kacey is the real estate agent who found me my house when I first moved to Tucson, and we stayed friends even after the deal closed. “I haven’t seen you in a while,” she says. “I thought we should have lunch.”

            The next day, we meet at The Cup in the Hotel Congress downtown. The weather is in the 80’s – passably warm – so we sit on the patio, eating at one of the tiny tables. Seated in the wrought-iron chairs at the grillwork table, Kacey brings me up to date on her son and daughter, and her ex-husband who has retired from his job as a sergeant on the police force – he now works as a stock broker.

            I try not to gloat too much when I tell her I’m living with one of the most beautiful men in the world.     

            “I heard rumors to that effect,” she says quietly. “And more. Ask him about Philip.” She won’t tell me anything else, though, and deflects my questions with a salesperson’s natural ease.

            That night, I take Pony to Rampulian’s, and over dessert ask if he’s seen Phil lately.

            He takes a bite of pie. He toys with the whipped cream. So casually it takes me by surprise, he says, “Define lately.”

            That’s easy for him to do. Surprise me, I mean. Maybe if we’d been together a few years, we would know each other better, but now I have no clue. Such a flip response, though, is enough for me. I stand up, walk out of the restaurant, and drive home. He can call a taxi for all I care. He can catch a bus, though few run this late. Walking would do him good.

            But he doesn’t come home at all that night, and I sprawl out over the whole bed. The next day I round up stray socks and renegade underwear, run them through the wash, and put them away, folded and neat. His shirts I retrieve from the heaps in which he has dropped them, and hang them on his side of the closet. I tidy his sink in the bathroom, put away his toothpaste and razor, and rinse the basin of the stubble of his hair.     

            That night he fails to appear again, and although I still enjoy the space and peace, a twinge of melancholy nags at me. The next morning I fulfill a pledge to do some volunteer work at KXCI, the community radio station, and as the day goes on, my feeling of sweet release returns.

            About eight o’clock that night, the doorbell rings, and there stands Pony. I lean against the jamb and cross my arms.

            “Can I come in?” he says.

            I shrug and ask why.

            His eyes dart to one side then back again. He coughs. He looks down at my shoes, then up at me. “I want to apologize.” He looks around. “And I’d rather do it inside.”

            I step aside and let him in.

*

            The next few days, his affection shows in small ways. I discover him wearing my shirts – just to have the feeling of me around him all day, he explains. As unimportant as I’ve convinced myself it is to have anyone eat meals with me, go to the gym with me, or sit beside me at a play, I have to admit I might have been wrong. While Pony butterflies the length of the gym pool, I watch, amused by his energy. He splashes and dives, hoots and hollers, setting the heights of the gym to ringing. He frolics. I lounge by the side of the pool and laugh.     

            As he strokes his way back and forth through the water, a thermometer floating on the other side of the pool bobs up and down. Each great splash of his arms translates eventually into movement of the thermometer. I watch this relationship, and something settles deep in my brain. I realize the answer to a problem that’s bothered me a long time.

            All my life, even at the most intimate times, I’ve felt myself an observer rather than a participant. I feel detached, watching, never involved, never taking part. I’ve always considered the world out there, out of reach. Instead of feeling myself a part of it – moving about and involved within the world – it’s always been as if everything were on a flat screen. Even when my fingertips were being scorched by the skin of some lover, it was a motion picture flashing past just out of my reach.

            Suddenly, something clicks in my brain; it comes to me that it isn’t like that in the least. The world is all around us; we’re submerged in the world. Even when we’re walking, we’re swimming. Through air. Through light. Through sound. All around us. On every side of us. Everything we do has a consequence, and like the old saw about the butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil eventually causing a typhoon in Japan, all things are connected. Everything, everyone is intimately connected. Past, present, and future are all the same -- we swim through history.     

            I swell with this insight. I must tell someone or burst. I call to Pony. He strokes over to me and rises half out of the water, hanging by his folded arms on the edge of the pool. He listens. He nods and seems interested. When I pause to find another metaphor, however, he says, “Yeah. That's really cool,” pushes off, and begins doing butterflies again. When I try to explain over dinner, he signals for the check. Later in bed, he listens to me with a half-smile. Frustrated, I utter a mild oath and say that this is important, that the least he could do would be to treat me and my ideas with a little respect.

            “But I do.” He stretches out, talking to the ceiling. “I respect you immensely. You’re so much smarter than me. You’re so much better educated, have so much more experience. How could I not respect you and every fucking thing you try to cram down my throat?”

            I gape at him. He turns over and goes to sleep.

            A couple of evenings later, we’re invited to a get-together at a friend’s house. Not Phil’s; we don’t talk to or about Philip anymore. I don’t have a lot of jewelry -- I dislike flashy rings, or bracelets that dangle and clatter, or necklaces and chokers of turquoise or pale seashells. Tonight, though, feeling nostalgic, I want to wear a ring that had been my father’s, his Masonic ring. I stir around in my jewelry box, and when I can’t find the ring, I casually ask Pony if he’s seen it.     

            He seems startled. “No,” he says. “I haven’t.”

            I pick up my college graduation ring instead and slip it on my finger. I muse aloud about how little value that particular piece had; if someone took it, anything else would have been worth more.

            He loops his tie around his neck. I not only bought him the tie, I taught him how to tie it.

            “What are you saying?” he asks. “What do you mean? I haven’t seen it in weeks.”

            I feel as if the blood is draining out of my body, leaking from the soles of my feet. As it goes, it takes with it any warmth I have left, any sensation, leaving me cold and numb. I keep my voice modulated and well-balanced as I wonder how much he got for it.

            “You’re crazy,” he says. “It would be stupid for me to do anything like that.” He slices a glance at me in the mirror, then concentrates on his hands again. “You’re crazy.”

            We go to the party. We do the usual party things, but from different sides of the room. We go home. We feign sleep on different sides of the bed. Then the next morning, he breaks his leg.

*

            It isn’t my fault. Really. When it happens, I’m all the way on the other side of the living room, standing by the sliding glass door to the back yard, looking out over the brown grass with its hint of spring green. I hear Pony behind me. Since I still enjoy watching the way he moves, I turn. He stands at the top of the stairs, the white of his jockey shorts stark against his tan, a look of astonishment on his face. He has just that instant lost his balance. He tips forward, his arms coming up – as if pushing against the air will help – and he topples without grace, with no sense of decorum. At the end of his tumble, he lies sprawled at the bottom of the stairs, his left leg cocked at an angle. I manage to stifle my laughter. Not at his pain, of course, but at the look of utter surprise on his face.

            This time, I won’t be dissuaded from the hospital. Maybe the shock keeps him from thinking like himself, but he finally agrees that there might be a time and place for everything. Even hospitals.

            After some struggle, we manage to get a pair of walking shorts pulled up over his leg, and he shrugs into an Hawaiian shirt, grimacing all the while. As we race in the Jaguar down Skyline, Pony looks at me, then back out at the traffic.     

            In the emergency room, the doctor pokes at Pony’s leg. I hover in the background, stepping forward occasionally to offer some trite comment. Everyone ignores me. Finally, the doctor says to no one in particular, “Yep, that leg’s broken,” and tells the intern to put a cast on it.

            All the rest of the day Pony clunks around the house, heaving the plaster cast with each step, awkward and noisy. That night, as he lies on his side of the bed and I on mine with the weight of his cast between us, I tell him that as soon as his leg heals, he ought to move.

            “Move?” He hesitates. “What do you mean? Where?”

            Out.

            “Oh.” After a long time, he says, “Is this about Phil?”

            I say nothing.

            “I didn’t take your father’s ring.”

            I tell him it isn’t about Phil or the ring. It’s about him. And me. No one else. Nothing else.

            In the dark, a hard rain – the sort we get in the spring – suddenly begins to tattoo the roof. The ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall sounds through the house in counterpoint. After a while, Pony slips out from under the covers. He pulls on a shirt, some shorts, and the jacket I bought him at Goldwater’s. He picks up his guitar and stumps out of the bedroom.     

            Deep in my stomach, something squirms, then flutters. I think about calling out to him, saying he doesn’t have to go that instant, in the dark, in the rain, but I don’t.

            I listen to him clunk down the stairs. A few seconds later, the front door opens, then closes again. Through the darkness of that empty house, the chimes of the clock reverberate. I count twelve strokes.

            Pain, he said, lets me know I’m alive.

            Pain, though, terrifies me, and this relationship is nothing but a world of hurt. What could possibly be worth that?

            Pony. Pony would be worth it.

            Suddenly, I’m clawing my way from beneath the blanket and sheets, ripping away impediments. I stop a moment, lying on the bed, panting, my heart slamming around the hollow cavern of my chest. I wonder if I really know what I’m doing and if I really want to do it. Of course I know. Of course I do. How often does a person find his one true love? Does it matter if it’s while he’s being beaten up in an alley?

            I leap out of bed, bound down the stairs, throw open the door, and run out into the dark rain, calling his name over and over, again and again.

* * *