here’'s a love story. not mine. i hardly have any to tell lately.
this is that of a friend, one i only thought of then as someone given to bruising bouts of cynicism with this world.
and it all started, perhaps, with a sleep, one of those loathsome slices of death, as longfellow described it.
this friend, a veteran of really screwy relationships, has understandably given up on finding the beloved. no trolling on the net, no saturday parties, no cruising. one of the straightest fags i’'ve ever known.
then on a gathering of mostly married couples two months ago, he and another faggot were there, lost and confused. both of them ended up quite sanely in his apartment. his bed in his apartment.
now, he knew of this guy’'s reputation beforehand. a gay lothario. and yet he insisted on taking a chance again, taking a chance at being hurt, i suppose. and he knew very well what most of us felt about his latest foray into heartbreakville.
but i'’ve seen him quite differently, he told me once. in his sleep, he is this honest.
i was too yellow to tell him then this was only a myth, a new age pablum that one can have access to another man’'s soul through this vaunted transparency during sleep.
and in the end, there was not much story, love story, to tell between the two. the ill fated couple has decided to break up last weekend. i only knew of it today after another friend, tingling with unalloyed schadenfreude, called.
at first, i deemed it was bad taste for me to call my still grieving friend. but i was never one beyond the pale of things. and so i did.
what were you thinking of anyway? my very impolitic question to him.
well, i thought he had changed, he answered. after all the bad relationships he, too, had, i thought he was ready for a change himself.
faggots, arguably, are the most optimistic species of this universe. despite the odds against us finding the beloved, we, by some quirky chromosomal design, insist on this prize like a royal birthright.
i once went out with him. not as in a date but went out as in mandate, i mean, a date between two fairy friends. we went to this japanese restaurant and, brushing off the bitchy maitre, seated ourselves at this fabulous window table.
as soon as we sat down, we noticed a little red box left, perhaps, by the previous patrons, on the edge of the table. i quickly hailed one of the waiters to inform him somebody left something in our table. this friend stopped me.
there could be a gorgeous diamond ring in there, he said. are you crazy? i told him.
a waiter came and i told him about the red box. my friend pleaded with the waiter to open it first in front of us before he takes it to the manager. there were shredded paper inside it.
see, i told him, nothing precious there.he shrugged and said nothing. feeling victorious, i needled him as to his apparent poor judgment.
why would you even think there was a ring in there? i asked him.
i don’'t know, he said as he pored over the menu. i just couldn’t imagine that was just a plain red box with nothing in it. there has got to be some diamond ring in it.
that was not a love story. it's a story of someone who truly knows how to love.