feminine. A flit. Nobody he could live with. A decorator, for Christ sake! One cut above a hairdresser . . . But Christmas Eve, lying naked and warm against Rod in that preposterous bed, both of them with the smell of paint in their hair that no amount of showering would take out, listening to the church bells off across the rainy midnight city, he understood he had been wrong. No, it hadn't gone on long yet. Only two weeks. But he knew, they both knew it was forever. . . .
Now, sitting lonely in the limp and faded blue corduroy bathrobe Rod had given him a dozen birthdays ago, sitting smoking a cigarette on the edge of one of the supersoft twin beds in the damp white room of the Pima Motor Inn, he reflected wryly that what they'd both been too young to know was the meaning of forever. It was what he'd tried to tell the girl in the car today.
How two people could wear on each other. In small ways. Little kid habits like Rod's of leaving things, clothes he'd taken off, magazines he'd read, pans he'd cooked in, right where he'd dropped them. Of "forgetting" chores, the dirty dishes, the greasy stove, when it was his tum to do them. The look of wide-eyed hurt when Dave lost his temper and bawled him out. As if, he thought now, they'd meant anything, done or undone.
Rod had adored the loud, shiny, successful Broadway musicals. In record shops, while Dave sweated out a choice between Messiaen's new Chronochromie and an E. Power Biggs Buxtehude organ recital, sure they couldn't afford either, Rod, with cries of glee, would gather armloads of glittering original-cast albums. And play them, morning, noon and night, until Dave threatened to smash them over his head. For every recital of Schonberg songs or Gesualdo madrigals Dave took him to, Rod dragged Dave to half a dozen brassy Pajama Games, Gypsys, Most Happy Fellas , where Dave sat in the dark with clenched teeth, groaning for the end. Rod's taste in films had been even worse. He'd worshiped a dim galaxy of minor screen queens, would sit up half the night in the blue glow of the television set enchanted by the tired wisecracks of Iris Adrian or Marie Windsor in forgotten RKO second features of the thirties....
The cigarette was burning his fingers. He mashed it out in the ashtray and sighed grimly. He was thinking wrong again. Regretting again. Sorry for his sourness at Rod's harmless games. Actually, he'd had fun out of them too because happiness with Rod splashed over. Less easy to understand was why Rod had put up with him. He had, after all, sat cheerfully through chamber music recitals Dave knew bored him, trudged amiably at Dave's heels through long galleries of paintings and sculptures that meant nothing to him, listened while Dave read aloud articles on science and war and politics he didn't grasp a tenth of, breathed quietly but awake through hours of static avantgarde films and ancient flickering Dreyer and Griffith classics, with never a murmur of protest. Murmur of protest, hell! With thanks, and with at least a try at talking about them sensibly.
And how good he'd been about his friends. The ones Dave had scattered. Because Rod's taste in people was appalling. Dave didn't need a second evening with any of them to know he couldn't stand it. The giddy mannerisms, the worn-out camp cliches that passed for wit, the shrill, empty chatter about women's clothes and Judy Garland. Not to mention the whimpering two-in-the-morning phone calls from Lincoln Heights jail for rescue from the detectives they'd made passes at. When Dave had slammed the door on some and hung up the phone on the rest, Rod had told him with a wan smile:
"They think you're an ogre."
"I am," Dave said. "I eat boys. But very selectively. Come here. Let me show you."
So there had been mostly only the two of them. It had been enough. After all, the musicals hadn't all been bad, nor the recitals all boring, and the Yvonne de Carlo costumes were funny, and Rod's eyes had shone at the
Now, sitting lonely in the limp and faded blue corduroy bathrobe Rod had given him a dozen birthdays ago, sitting smoking a cigarette on the edge of one of the supersoft twin beds in the damp white room of the Pima Motor Inn, he reflected wryly that what they'd both been too young to know was the meaning of forever. It was what he'd tried to tell the girl in the car today.
How two people could wear on each other. In small ways. Little kid habits like Rod's of leaving things, clothes he'd taken off, magazines he'd read, pans he'd cooked in, right where he'd dropped them. Of "forgetting" chores, the dirty dishes, the greasy stove, when it was his tum to do them. The look of wide-eyed hurt when Dave lost his temper and bawled him out. As if, he thought now, they'd meant anything, done or undone.
Rod had adored the loud, shiny, successful Broadway musicals. In record shops, while Dave sweated out a choice between Messiaen's new Chronochromie and an E. Power Biggs Buxtehude organ recital, sure they couldn't afford either, Rod, with cries of glee, would gather armloads of glittering original-cast albums. And play them, morning, noon and night, until Dave threatened to smash them over his head. For every recital of Schonberg songs or Gesualdo madrigals Dave took him to, Rod dragged Dave to half a dozen brassy Pajama Games, Gypsys, Most Happy Fellas , where Dave sat in the dark with clenched teeth, groaning for the end. Rod's taste in films had been even worse. He'd worshiped a dim galaxy of minor screen queens, would sit up half the night in the blue glow of the television set enchanted by the tired wisecracks of Iris Adrian or Marie Windsor in forgotten RKO second features of the thirties....
The cigarette was burning his fingers. He mashed it out in the ashtray and sighed grimly. He was thinking wrong again. Regretting again. Sorry for his sourness at Rod's harmless games. Actually, he'd had fun out of them too because happiness with Rod splashed over. Less easy to understand was why Rod had put up with him. He had, after all, sat cheerfully through chamber music recitals Dave knew bored him, trudged amiably at Dave's heels through long galleries of paintings and sculptures that meant nothing to him, listened while Dave read aloud articles on science and war and politics he didn't grasp a tenth of, breathed quietly but awake through hours of static avantgarde films and ancient flickering Dreyer and Griffith classics, with never a murmur of protest. Murmur of protest, hell! With thanks, and with at least a try at talking about them sensibly.
And how good he'd been about his friends. The ones Dave had scattered. Because Rod's taste in people was appalling. Dave didn't need a second evening with any of them to know he couldn't stand it. The giddy mannerisms, the worn-out camp cliches that passed for wit, the shrill, empty chatter about women's clothes and Judy Garland. Not to mention the whimpering two-in-the-morning phone calls from Lincoln Heights jail for rescue from the detectives they'd made passes at. When Dave had slammed the door on some and hung up the phone on the rest, Rod had told him with a wan smile:
"They think you're an ogre."
"I am," Dave said. "I eat boys. But very selectively. Come here. Let me show you."
So there had been mostly only the two of them. It had been enough. After all, the musicals hadn't all been bad, nor the recitals all boring, and the Yvonne de Carlo costumes were funny, and Rod's eyes had shone at the
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