Anyhow, PART II ("This is heaven") resumes the thread where Part I dropped it, in the dunes of the gay beach of Georgia Beach. "I'm ticklish," Albert the beach bear had said in the last line of Part I, and the consequence is an unprintable chapter of yet another triangle in the dunes. So we repeat the trick of Part I, replace the first chapter by a short prologue, and find ourselves in our habitual, post-coital position: we are trying to go home. "We," that's Alex and John, of course, and one thing you need to know about Alex: he labored under a clinical depression in his former life. There was a suicide attempt (on Thursday last week). Alex recovered, but with serious amnesia. He lost the memory of his depression, but also the memory of his sexual orientation (the left column provides an introduction to the main characters of the GREEN EYES)...
Let me think. ‘The happy ending is over now,’ I think. I look askance at Alex’s rippled abs (he’s still holding the T-shirt in his hand, it’s sizzling hot already, we’re oiled in sweat), let my eyes travel to his pelvis region, then back up along the lithe, sleekly muscled torso, the strong neck, the clear, boyish profile. He has grown an inch or two since his failed suicide. He feels my eyes on his Latino skin, I know.
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| The gay beach of Rehoboth Beach, DE, the model for Georgia Beach |
“The happy ending is over now,” I say after a while.
“Don’t say that,” he replies, “Happy endings can’t
end.”
“I wish it were true.”
“It is true. It’s true for the best of all possibly
reasons.”
“I’d settle for any reason at this moment.”
“The power of subsumption.”
“Huh?”
“Happy endings can’t end since endings ended already.
They are part and parcel of endings in general.”
“Sheer semantics,” I say.
“Exactly,” he says, “sheer semantics. Rooted in
meaning of the word ‘end’.”
“Well, you know what I mean.”
“Okay,” he says and puts his arm around my shoulder. He’s
conceding the point. For once.
Well, no. “The power of subsumption,” he regroups, rolls his head, and gives me this new look with his emerald eyes, the bad-boy-post-felo-de-se-look that signals the defeat of his depression.
Well, perhaps he’s right. His arm is still on my shoulder. “For as long as your arm is still on my shoulder,” I say.
“My argument stands regardless,” he says.
“Regardless?”
“Regardless whether my arm is on your shoulder or not.”
We walk in lockstep. It’s already getting busy on the path along the beach, this is Sunday with all the weekend folks added to the holiday tourists. People look at us. He whistles again.
“Don Henley?” I ask.
“Don’t look back, you can never look back,” he hums.
“You brown skin is shining in the sun.” I say.
He laughs like he’s been told an old joke. “This is heaven,” he says.
“You mean it.”
“Yes, I mean it.”
“There’s something in you that seems to remember your depression, something that feels relief.”
“That would be my brain, wouldn’t it, or what’s left thereof. The anoxia, tell me, I have been dead for how long?”
“Anoxia?”
“The lack of oxygen. How long?”
“Almost four minutes.”
“I’m lucky I can still think. You are lucky I can still think.” He double-checks with his grip on my shoulder. “Well, no, let me retract.”
“Well, I am lucky,” I say.
“Let me retract nonetheless.”
“Why?”
“Sounds arrogant. What I’m saying.”
“It’s true, though.”
“Okay, we don’t retract, but we apologize. Let me apologize.”
“My argument stands regardless,” he says.
“Regardless?”
“Regardless whether my arm is on your shoulder or not.”
We walk in lockstep. It’s already getting busy on the path along the beach, this is Sunday with all the weekend folks added to the holiday tourists. People look at us. He whistles again.
“Don Henley?” I ask.
“Don’t look back, you can never look back,” he hums.
“You brown skin is shining in the sun.” I say.
He laughs like he’s been told an old joke. “This is heaven,” he says.
“You mean it.”
“Yes, I mean it.”
“There’s something in you that seems to remember your depression, something that feels relief.”
“That would be my brain, wouldn’t it, or what’s left thereof. The anoxia, tell me, I have been dead for how long?”
“Anoxia?”
“The lack of oxygen. How long?”
“Almost four minutes.”
“I’m lucky I can still think. You are lucky I can still think.” He double-checks with his grip on my shoulder. “Well, no, let me retract.”
“Well, I am lucky,” I say.
“Let me retract nonetheless.”
“Why?”
“Sounds arrogant. What I’m saying.”
“It’s true, though.”
“Okay, we don’t retract, but we apologize. Let me apologize.”
 |
| Perry and Glenn in Rehoboth. Perry taught us American, Glenn brought us to Rehoboth. |
He slows his steps, hesitates briefly on an introspective note like a TV-chef with an involved sauce. “There’s something in me that knows this won’t be my last apology today,” he says.
“This sounds even more arrogant.”
“See, I was right...so let me apologize again.”
He pulls me closer. He’s about to give me a kiss. People take notice. A lonely lady vises his crotch. We resume walking.
“Albert was his name, right?” he asks.
There is a silence.
“You weren’t happy, I could tell,” he says. “At one point you looked like you were being force-fed, or something. Even though it was more the other way round.”
“Stop it,” I say.
“Is this normal? Morning triangles in the dunes? Is this the thing I do?”
I could tell him that our first encounter involved a morning triangle in the dunes. Well, I told him on Friday already but wisely skipped Maurice’s part.
“You know we met in the dunes, I told you, right?”
“So I do this all the time?”
“You do it sometimes, you told me.”
“Sometimes…” he muses.
“Did you like it?” I ask.
“It was a success, at least at the physiological level.”
“We came.”
“We came.” He hesitates. “Perhaps I should apologize again, but, you know, life at the moment, for me, it’s like entering an alien restaurant. On Mars. Or in San Francisco. You read the menu, you don’t understand. You ask the waiter. ‘You’d love it,’ she says, so you order Padrón and Shishito peppers, purslane, harissa, cilantro and dandelion greens. Along those lines. Albert orders Shishito peppers. Sure, you think, let’s serve Shishito peppers.”
“Huh?”
“I got somehow mixed up here. You get the gist.” He pauses again. “I still don’t know what Shishito peppers are.”
“Look it up on the internet.”
“Sure, let’s look it up on the internet. What are my preferences? Let’s look it up.” He pauses, fumbles for his cell, and googles ‘What are Alexander Iglesias’s preferences?’
“Only ten point one million results,” he reads. “I’m not the only Alexander Iglesias, apparently. I need your help.”
“You’ll ditch me once I helped you enough.”
“No-no,” he says, “don’t say that. This is heaven.”
My cell rings.
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