Kissing Men

The idea hadn’t been to get beaten up. He wasn’t sure what it had been, but it sure wasn’t this. He felt the queer’s hand on his throat, pinning him to the ground. Felt the fingertips trail down his chest, slowing as they reached his stomach, then the palm pressing hard and firm to his groin.

“Who’s the fag now?” the queer whispered, leaning in nose to nose. The hand cupped him, caressed him below. Then it clenched, and Arnold screamed.

“Jesus, Kevin, I think that’s enough,” said another one of the queers who had circled in their own queer little fight throng.

“Is that right?” the queer on top of him asked. “Had enough?” Arnold nodded. He let go of Arnold’s balls, lifted his hand over his head and slapped, open-handed and flush to the mouth. Arnold felt fresh blood soaking his tongue. He curled to his side, airless and waiting. Soft lips brushed his ear. “My bitch,” he heard, and felt the gentle kiss and hands pushing him down as the queer stood up.

Their queer shoes crunched what he was sure was queer gravel as they headed back to the club. Blood and saliva drooled out of the side of his mouth. He heard them laughing, heard one of them say something about a fun night of straight-bashing, heard the queer that had pummeled him bitch about stretching his shirt out, and heard their voices cut off by the closing door.

His head rested on the ground. He wanted to sleep.

“Hey,” he heard from the direction of the club. “Hey, buddy, get up.” Three steps came his way and he raised his hand, rolled to his knees. “Seriously, man, go bleed somewhere else.”

He wanted to say something witty about queers. Or something about the bouncer’s sausage-tight t-shirt. Or fuck you, cocksucker. Something like that, but nothing about faggots. He would never, ever, call anyone faggot again.

As he staggered to his feet and off towards the bus stop, he could hear the queer’s question again and again. Had enough?

—

That was the fourth time, if you counted the first. And Arnold still wasn’t sure he counted the first. It was too unplanned, too spontaneous.

It was the day after Maureen left. She hadn’t moved out, just left. Said it wasn’t for sure, she just needed some time to think. Arnold was sure, though. He knew forever when he heard it — thought it sounded very much like the sound of the door latching behind her.

She’s what caused it. Not the traffic accident — that was caused by a different woman wrecking his life by not paying attention to the road ahead. The accident totaled his car, forced his use of mass transit, and brought the tow truck driver who gave Arnold the ride home. The rugged tow truck driver who didn’t care much about what the world thought, as long as he had his own towing business and a hot cup of coffee.

That’s when Maureen caused it. If she hadn’t left, he wouldn’t have been searching for connections and things that seemed like they mattered. He wouldn’t have noticed how the man’s lips pursed slightly when he focused on his grease-smudged clipboard. Wouldn’t have noticed the contrast in the salt-and-pepper stubble. The easy way he talked to Arnold and laughed about little things that weren’t hardly funny. Then he wouldn’t have had to watch the man drive off from the seat of his pants in his own driveway, holding his eye as the truck growled away with his broken car and his broken dignity.

It was later that he replayed the event, after he’d iced down his eye and gotten a handle on the humiliation. The fear — it was the fear in the man’s eyes that stayed with him. Arnold was the one who got knocked to the ground, but it was the driver who ran away scared. It didn’t make any sense. Over one little kiss.

Four days later and Maureen hadn’t come back. He wasn’t surprised, but he’d been hoping to be. The apartment felt emptier, lonelier by the day. When he got home from work, he packed a bag and hopped a bus for downtown. At 4th and Pike he got off and walked the block-and-a-half to the Grand Hyatt. Figured he’d treat himself, maybe get a room with a view of the Sound and the Market. It was almost ten by the time he checked in. His room was third floor from the top. Nearly three-hundred dollars.

He stopped at the bar first, set his overnight bag on the floor and ordered a martini. The barkeep was young. His muscles lurked under his shirt like a shark in the water. A thin girl with a Grand Hyatt apron went through a door behind the bar. The barkeep watched her go.

“You good for awhile?” he asked Arnold. Arnold glanced at the still-swinging door and nodded. “Drink’s on me,” he said, and winked before following her into the back.

There was only one other customer, an older man in a suit with his head on the bar. Looked like he might need helped to his room. The man lifted his head and looked at Arnold. He waved, and his wallet fell to the ground. His head went back on the bar and his eyes closed.

Arnold looked at the wallet. In the back, he heard giggling. He drank his free martini. It didn’t taste any different. He was tired, just wanted to go up to his room and fall into bed. Wanted to sleep diagonally. He had tried in his own bed, but always ended up lining Maureen’s half with pillows and curling in next to them. The night before he had gone to the closet, picked out one of her t-shirts, and draped it over the pillows. Left the TV on, like she always did. He just wanted to go to his room and sleep diagonally with the television off.

When he finished the drink, he picked up his bag and went to the man. Condensation rings saturated the front of the suit. Arnold picked up the wallet and laid it next to his head. He didn’t look peaceful. Arnold had always heard how peaceful people look while they sleep. The man looked haggard. Worn. Drunk. Arnold smoothed the man’s hair back and wiped the beading sweat from his forehead. He scanned the bar entrance and listened for giggling in back. Nothing.

He did it quickly, moved in and back out. The man didn’t move. He went back in, aiming, timing, and planted a wet one on the man’s semi-open mouth. He lingered. When he pulled away, there was no change in breathing, no fluttering eyelids, no impending fist. He caught his own reflection between the bottle of Crown and the Jaeger tap. Saw he was frowning. He turned and walked out, pictured how he looked leaving.

There was no point in staying, and he walked out the front of the Hyatt, toward the 4th and Pike bus stop. He chewed his lower lip. It felt wasted, the effort. It was all about the reaction, and with none it was wasted.

A man sat against a building, his legs stretched over the sidewalk. He was dirty. Maybe drunk, maybe doped up, but definitely panhandling and dirty. Arnold veered around him and angled towards his stop about a hundred feet up the street.

“Change, man?”

He never gave bums any money. He stopped and turned.

The man straightened to attention. “Maybe a dollar or two?”

Arnold reached in his pocket, pulled out a twenty. He stared at it, folded in his fingertips, then held it over the man. “You do something for it?”

The man tilted his head. “Something like what?”

“A kiss,” Arnold said. “Just a kiss.”

The man was quiet, and dropped his eyes to his ragged jeans. “How much?”

Arnold spread out the bill. “Twenty.”

There was a pause, then the man looked up. “I’ll suck your dick for twenty-five,” he said.

Arnold took four steps backwards before he turned and kept walking. Put the twenty back in his pocket. Even at his stop he could hear the man haggling. Lowering his price. The streets weren’t crowded, but he still got some looks. The bus showed up in five long minutes, shrieking hydraulics drowning the shouts. As he boarded, a final offer of ten dollars drifted through the doors. The driver arched an eyebrow. Arnold paid and headed for one of the many open seats, thinking he would probably sleep on the couch that night.

—

“Felix pitched a gem last night,” Chuck said. The copier copied and collated behind him, flashing like a tranquilized strobe light.

“Really?” Arnold said, but it didn’t matter because neither of them were paying attention to the other. Chuck rambled on about Felix and Junior and the Mariners’ middle relief, tapping his fingers on the machine as it spit out sheet after sheet. Arnold tokened in at appropriate pauses, but didn’t give two shits for Ichiro’s on-base percentage or Jakubauska’s ERA. He wondered if Chuck would hear if he said he’d kissed a man last weekend, or if it would get drowned in a list of batting averages. Thing was, Chuck was probably his best friend at work, but they had never once hung out or grabbed a drink after. Arnold knew he was into everything sports, but that was the extent of his personal knowledge.

But ever since the night in the hotel bar, he’d looked at men differently — sizing them up, trying to gauge their reactions. The bus driver this morning? Would have driven them into the Sound. The security guard that looked like Jim Brown without the African hat? Please. He gave Chuck a good once-over, measuring a predicted response. Chuck worked in shipping, but he was a pencil pusher, not one of the brawny lifters. Arnold looked at his tapping fingers. They looked soft and fleshy. Even if he could, Chuck wouldn’t hurt him.

The copies were done and Chuck was bouncing the edges smooth on the copier. “Chuck,” he said, and when Chuck looked his way he gave him a peck on the lips.

Paper flew, still warm from the machine, as if Chuck had thrown a flock of pigeons. He fell eyes wide against the far wall with his hands raking the air. Arnold smiled. That was a reaction. He watched Chuck close, saw the fear and panic ebb, replaced by confusion and anger. Chuck’s nostrils flared as he stood up and edged, back to the wall, all the way to the door.

“What the fuck, Arnold?” he said, and Arnold thought he’d never been happier. Or maybe just satisfied. He couldn’t remember feeling satisfied before, not without Maureen, who could do it by walking into the room. But here he’d done it all on his own. He stood in a pile of strewn papers, smiling. Chuck shook his head. “Faggot,” he said, and walked down the hall.

Like that it was over, good feeling gone. It surprised Arnold, the sting of the word. He was stunned by its power, how it made him feel dirty and guilty and more than a little ashamed. It was more than being called gay. He wouldn’t have cared, and besides, he would have understood the response. But faggot? There was a snarl to the word, and he imagined Chuck as a wild beast, spitting it at him.

He felt the blood in his cheeks, and his cheeks felt plastic. Like he wasn’t real. Like what happened couldn’t have happened. He ducked out of the copy room, to his cubicle and snatched his wallet and keys from his desk. It was two-thirty, but he was gone for the day. At least. Skipping the elevator, he hurtled downstairs, an image of Chuck and a shipping crew posse chasing behind.

Sitting in the bus on his way home, he tried to figure out why he was doing it. He wasn’t gay, at least he didn’t think so. But how do you know? He’d heard once that it was genetic, being gay. Might have been Oprah. Maybe Dr. Phil. Probably Ellen. Whatever. He loved Maureen — that counted for something. Of course, there were all kinds of stories about happily married men coming out of the closet. Was that him? Had a latent gay gene suddenly kicked in? After all, no one had a firm grip on genetics.

Maureen told him about the monkeys, chimps in captivity they made play games. Simon Says, the electronic one with light-up buttons. Chimps on one side, smart college kids on the other. And the monkeys beat the bejesus out of those future world leaders, every single time. Chimps, with a genome map differing from the human double helix by a miniscule amount, eat bananas and live in trees. Incredible short term, not so hot on the long term.

He wasn’t buying the whole gay thing, though, let alone faggot. He just missed Maureen, missed the connection, the satisfaction. Every time he’d kissed someone, it seemed he was following an impulse. He was a prisoner of the moment. But even that suggested something subconscious at work, some twisted defense mechanism that saved one horrible doom but led to another.

He rubbed his temples, ran his hands through his hair, shook his head. He was an armadillo. Raccoons stand, hands in the air like a Thai fighter. Jesus Lizards scamper on the water’s surface. Armadillos jump. Defense mechanisms. Ingrained behavior, no thought. Along comes the internal combustion engine.

Arnold saw his stop coming. He reached up and pulled the cord.

—

“I hate the word faggot,” he had said before slamming Arnold into the wall. “I prefer queer.”

Arnold had met him at the Double Header, a queer bar on 2nd and Yesler. After taking off early from work, he’d decided to stay at the Grand Hyatt again, or rather, try to stay there again, but saw the Double Header first, pulled the cord, and stopped in for a drink. No one talked to him. He sat at the bar, watching man-on-man dancing, man-on-man flirting, and man-on-man kissing. He didn’t see the big deal. A couple at a square table just off the dance floor sat across from each other, laughing, their heads nearly touching. He put himself in their place, with Maureen. He missed the connection.

A queer in a tight black t-shirt came to the bar. The shirt said “peculiar.” He ordered a Heineken and a Bloody Mary, and, as he waited, he crossed gazes with Arnold. Arnold attempted a smile, and the queer looked away. No connection. Arnold’s face was hot.

He slugged the martini and went towards the bathroom. There was a line down the hall. He fell in behind a tall blond, and felt immediately small, inadequate.

“First-timer?” asked the queer.

Arnold nodded, choked by his presence. He was young, ripped, and immaculately groomed. Even if they hadn’t been standing outside the Double Header john, he was too beautiful not to be gay. Arnold knew it was about that time.

“What’s your name?”

“Arnold.”

“Well, Arnold,” he said, squeezing Arnold’s shoulder, “you should try to relax. Have some fun.”

He smiled at Arnold, and Arnold was on him at once, amazed at how soft lips could be when they were clenched and retreating. Arnold felt the queer stiffen in shock, then he felt the lips part, then a tongue snaking into his mouth.

He pulled back, and the queer smiled at him. “Wow, aggressive are we?”

Arnold pressed tight to the wall, trying to shrink, disappear. The queer put his hands on the wall, one on either side of Arnold’s head, and said, “All you had to do was ask.”

The queer leaned his face, perfectly sculpted, perfectly smooth, down towards Arnold.

“Wait,” Arnold said, but the queer leaned closer.

“Stop,” he said, but the hands slipped down, cradling his head. The queer was smiling. The other queers in line were smiling.

“Faggot,” Arnold said, and every smile in the hall vanished. The queer flinched, and it was as much the hurt in his eyes as the beating that followed that changed Arnold’s vocabulary forever.

The whole walk to the bus stop, all Arnold could hear was the queer asking, “Had enough?” And he sure as hell had. It was time to go home. Time to sleep diagonally in bed. With the television off.

He paid the bus fare and dropped into a seat, heavily, with a thud that sounded like a door latching shut. He looked around with the eye that wasn’t swollen closed. An older black man sat in the back, holding a briefcase. His eyes locked with Arnold’s. Connected.

Arnold winked.

—

Jared Ward‘s work has appeared in West Branch, Evansville Review, New Delta Review, The Dos Passos Review, and Zone 3.