A couple of Raggedy Andys

by A.E. Storm in The Climacteric | 0 comments

Jesse and I have an unusual friendship – one that requires a fiery tongue and a layer of hard shell. Our other friends and, sometimes, mere strangers look at us like we either hate each other or have it bad for each other. Neither is true … we simply find verbally bashing each other a relaxing pastime. Yes, sometimes it can turn a bit scathing, which in turn can become physical – usually a single dead-arm punch, sometimes two, which leaves the arm feeling like a rag doll’s.

Jesse is ten years my junior and like a little brother to me. He’s been what’s called an orphan for the last fifteen years, having lost his parents to “the big, blue sea.” That’s all he’s ever shared about their deaths.

The last three years he’s been sharing a mansion –  two wings, ten bedrooms and seven bathrooms — with six other gay guys on the East Bench. Obviously, even with that imaginable square footage, situations can sometimes build to Mommie Dearest-wire hanger proportions between roommates.

I once witnessed, during a Christmas party, a screeching fit between two of the roomies after one caught the other kissing his boyfriend on the house’s rooftop patio. The decibel was near glass-shattering, and I had assumed at the time, that such a feat could only be accomplished with a large mouth, like that of Chad Overstreet’s. After the screeching had peeled most of the paint from the walls, party guests were dodging objects that started, in a rash of violence, circumnavigating  the room.

So in an effort to actually be nice to Jesse, whenever I leave town to see JB and John in West Hollywood or to my brother’s place in San Antonio, I ask Jesse to house-sit my loft: water and talk to my philodendrons and spider plants, and look after the place. Not that I’m worried about leaving the loft empty for an extended period of time,  the house plants are hearty; I do it for Jesse as an escape from the beauty-pageant brawls that is often common among gay men who are confined like rabid squirrels.

Last week happened to require such a favor. Jesse was, of course, thrilled to flee his home for a few days. However, in my unexpected early return, I happened to find Jesse in, what can only be described as, a compromising position.

As the lock clicked gaining me entrance to my loft and then pushing the heavy double-iron door I had a clear view, as always, of the entire living space which includes the bedroom area – a 147-square foot area separated by only a single, free-standing, eight-foot wall of thick, beveled squares and circles of glass intermittently snuggled in cement; a partition I call a life-size tic-tac-toe game. Behind the glass-game pieces, human shadows were hopping and scurrying about, bumping into each other like ants on the job.

I gave a quiet laugh, slipped the key from the lock and said lightheartedly, “Jesse, you little slut! I hope you plan on buying me new sheets … actually, let’s just make that an entire new bed.”

Jesse emerged from behind the partition with a look of intense guilt, like he’d just killed a puppy. Following him, out stepped my current interest, Billy, who was earnestly slipping an arm through the sleeve of a t-shirt;  I immediately noticed a fresh hickey, bruising the milky skin a millimeter below his right nipple, just as it fell out of sight under the shirt being draped over his torso.

My mouth dropped open, not in shock, but more in a muted whimper, as if I was the slain puppy. My luggage slipped from my hand, thumping on the floor and breaking the awkward silence.

“I guess I really do need that new bed,” I accused.

“Tommy, I’m sor …,” Jesse began an apology and stopped when I motioned my head in a don’t-even-bother adjuration.

Before I even realized what I was doing I began screeching insults and expletives like a 12-year-old girl who needed her mouth washed out with soap.

Finally regaining a smidgen of composure, I decided to flee the situation before I found myself throwing objects at them in another bout of fury. I was shocked to find that my arm felt like a rag doll’s when I attempted to reopen the heavy door, and even more shocked when I slammed into it, giving myself a shiner. I stumbled backward, tripping over my bag and landing flat on my ass. Like I wasn’t already humiliated enough!

It felt like only mere seconds, but when I had shed the pained stupor I found myself lying on the couch with a Ziploc baggie of ice resting on my eye, my head propped on a pillow. Jesse was sitting in a chair across from me. When my good eye focused clearly on him, I thought it would make me sick to even look at him, but it didn’t in the least.

It occurred to me that in the few weeks that Billy and I had been going out, I learned very little about him. Before the day’s incident – I call it an incident, it’s somewhat less humiliating – I wasn’t sure how I felt about Billy or our relationship. At least now he made that easy for me.

“Where’s Billy?” The question scratched the back of my throat. I removed the ice from my eye.

“He left a few minutes ago,” Jesse replied. “He said bye to you, don’t you remember?”

I nodded my head, the bruise over my eye sweeping across the pillow. “Ow!” I began to laugh uncontrollably — it being as contagious as a yawn, Jesse also burst into laughter.

“Let’s go get a beer,” he managed to get out as the laughter reduced to intermittent chuckles.

“I can’t go out with a black eye.”

He removed the pair of sunglasses propped on his head, “Here, wear these.”

I hesitated for a moment, “What the hell, let’s do it. But you get the door.”