These Things Happen. Richard Kramer
but I am also, to be quite frank, a gay guy."
There were a couple gasps, but people seemed okay with it, pretty much, except for Jake Krantz, who has a rage coach, and shouted, "I never would have voted for you!" And Shannon had some doubts. "You're sure that wasn't just to get the gay vote?" she asked Theo, when it was over. "You're actually, truly gay?"
"Well, in the interests of clarity," he told her, "you're looking at the gay vote. Me. Which I did get, because I voted for myself. And let me add I did what I did after I won, which you might be aware is unusual in politics. I'm just saying. So keep that in mind."
"Oh, I will," she said. "Don't worry." She laughed in a way that I think was meant to sound chilling and sophisticated but wasn't, really. Then she turned to me. "So, are you?"
"Am I what?" I asked.
"Gay," she said. "Bi. Anything."
I didn't know what to say. No one had ever asked me anything like that. I mostly get asked things like have I finished The Bluest Eye, or am I really planning to wear that shirt, or would I like to go to the Frick on Sunday. But to have a person ask me what I am? I dealt with the question as best I could.
"Fuck you," I said, which is more or less where we left it.
"More later," said Shannon, going into a cupcake place.
So now here we are, and all that's behind us.
"I completely want to get into all that," Theo says, "about what I did and what happened. But first I have to ask you some things, if that's cool. They're really important."
I can pretty much guess what his questions might be and, of course, I know what mine are. Why didn't he tell me ahead of time that he was going to come out in his speech today? That's one. Or, for that matter, that he was gay? But enough. He should go first. The big day is really his.
"So," I say, "you want to ask me something."
"It's easy," he says. "What are old gay guys like?"
My guess was right.
"Seeing as how I'm surrounded by them," I say then. "And by old gay guys I take it you refer, obviously, to my dad and George."
My dad's gay, but wasn't always, and George is his partner. George was an actor once, but gave that up and now owns and runs a restaurant in the theater district, in a brownstone. He and my dad own the building, and we live on the top floor. I've been there the past two months, for this school term, so my dad and I can get to know each other as men, since the belief is I might soon become one.
"Like what do they talk about, for example?" Theo asks. "What kind of things come up in gay settings?"
I think of things. It's easy. I'm a magnet, it seems, for a hundred gay paper clips, flying at me and sticking. "There's so much."
"For example?"
"Well," I say, "benefits are a big topic."
"Like in health care, you mean?"
It's nice, for once, to be the Expert Guy on a subject, as we're usually Expert Guy on the same things. "Benefit concerts," I say, "to raise money, for various gay things. Like marriage, say, or suicide, or trannies. They like to talk about who's going to sit at whose table. George makes a lot of charts. And there's awards dinners, too. They talk about that."
"Awards for what?"
" Their courage, pretty much," I say. "And compassion."
"Is there cash involved?"
"Just plaques, usually. There's these plastic shapes, too, that are like symbolic of something. My dad has dozens." He probably has a hundred, but I don't want to brag. I'm proud of him. He's given his life to the general gay good, and he had a late start.
"Huh," Theo says. "Interesting. What else comes to mind?"
I realize, in this time with my dad and George, that I've been listening pretty closely. " Costa Rica has been big lately," I say.
"What about it?"
"Old gay guys go there. In groups, it seems. They talk about houses, and maids. George keeps a list on the refrigerator. They do that, old gay guys. They make lists on paper. They don't put things in their phones."
Theo grabs hold of this, like a CSI guy staring at a carpet fiber. " Costa Rica," he says. "What makes it gay and Nicaragua not? That's rhetorical. I'm interested, but it can wait. So what are some other subjects?"
"Well, there's food, obviously, with George's restaurant. Old or dead actresses. And they talk about Dutch things, like how streets got their names. It seems that to be an old gay guy in New York you have to really love it and know some Dutch facts. George is big on that, anyway."
"I'm more interested in gay things than Dutch ones, though," he says. "Today, anyway. No offense."
"None taken. And marriage is a major thing they talk about, obviously," I say. That's my dad's big cause, or one of them, anyway. He's always on tv talking about it, because not only is he an impressive and persuasive guy, he's articulate and handsome, too, all the things I'm not. When marriage equality passed in New York Governor Cuomo specifically thanked my dad for all his work. The next day, people left flowers for him at the restaurant. One guy knitted him a scarf.
I think of one more thing. "And there's something called Merman."
"Merman? What is that?"
I'm not really sure, but I don't let on, as I like Theo thinking I might know things he doesn't.
"That's more a subject of George's than it is my dad's," I say. "He gets into that a lot with Lenny." Lenny is George's oldest friend. They met at theater camp, when they were eleven. He runs the restaurant with George.
" Lenny the gay guy, you mean," says Theo.
"Well, they're all gay guys," I tell him. "But to varying degrees, which you'll find out about. Same with Merman."
He looks a little worried. "It's probably a sex thing, right?"
"Gross," I say.
"What is?"
"Gay sex. Obviously."
"Like you know so much about it," he says.
"How much do you know?" I ask. "Have you even had sex? Like where you actually hook up with a real person and have it?"
"I really think that's my personal business." He chuckles, with a tinge of sadness that is obviously meant for me.
"So you haven't, then."
"Well," he says, "I did meet this one guy online. We chatted and stuff. He goes to NYU, to Tisch. He wanted to trade pictures? So he sent me one of him, sort of nude, but not showing his junk."
I didn't know any of this, but I try not to seem surprised. "Did you send one? Do you have pictures of your junk?"
"Well," he says, "no. I sent a picture of me as Tevye." Last year, at our school, Theo played Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. He was excellent. "I didn't hear back from him."
"But he was the only one?"
He chuckles again, in that sad-for-me style. "Oh, no."
"Anyone from our school?" I try to picture who it might be.
"I must say, Wesley," Theo says, sounding just a little bit English, "that I do think that's private."
"So you've never had sex, then."
"I didn't say that."
"You've done things? Like let guys fuck you in the ass and stuff ?"
He looks worried again for a moment, looks down and lowers his voice. "The thing is?" he says. "I'm sort of a top." He sneezes. "I think. I could be wrong, though. I've never actually hooked up. Maybe I never